Motive(s) of Lechmere-Cross

[GUT]

I believe Tumblety's name was only mentioned by one British police officer (Littlechild) as being a Ripper suspect ('a very likely one') some 25 years after the events without him giving any explanation why or how he came to that conclusion. The American press tried to link him with the murders but had nothing else in termes of evidence but the fact that he was arrested and charged with gross indecency during that period.

Which is more than can be said for Cross.

[Hercule Poirot]

Which is more than can be said for Cross.

I agree, 4 words more: 'a very likely one'. LOL

[Fisherman]

Not much to say that hasn't already been said, so just a quick correction.

>>... we do know that handling meat would have been what he did to some extent at Pickfords.<<

Of course we don't know anything of the sort. It is extremely doubtful, if not completely untrue that he "handled meat" in the physical sense.

I guess it would depend on the definition of "handled" for any other, rather misleading sense of the word. It is true, after the "ripper" murders, around 1890 Broad Street Station became increasingly involved meat transportation. Such meat was wrapped in muslin and contained in large wicker hampers.

Carmen did not load or unload their carts, that work was done by porters.

To date their is no evidence that Xmere had any contact with meat hampers up to and including the "ripper crimes. Or after, for that matter, although the odds of him doing so would have increased.

Iīm afraid that we have Arthur Ingram, a Pickfords historian, saying that the Pickfords men of Broad Street handled meat, plus we know that meat was a commodity that was of huge importance to the Broad Street depot. The context we are discussing is desensitizing on account of being involved in the butchery business. Unless Lechmere was blind, he would have been subjected to the sight of cut up or whole animal carcasses. And that is all that is needed to make my point.

You really need to be a bit more perceptive.

[Fisherman]

At least police at the time mentioned (what was probably) Tumblety

Sources within the same police force also said that the police were nowhere nearer catching the killer fifteen years after the deeds than in 1888. And that nobody ever saw the killer. Different sources kicked each others behinds for having suggested various suspects. And they knew quite well that Tumblety was homosexual - what they did NOT know was that homosexual serialists will choose male victims.

All of this, you know too. But you still make the point that the police named Tumblety, as if it somehow mattered.

It doesnīt.

[GUT]

Sources within the same police force also said that the police were nowhere nearer catching the killer fifteen years after the deeds than in 1888. And that nobody ever saw the killer. Different sources kicked each others behinds for having suggested various suspects. And they knew quite well that Tumblety was homosexual - what they did NOT know was that homosexual serialists will choose male victims.

All of this, you know too. But you still make the point that the police named Tumblety, as if it somehow mattered.

It doesnīt.

To some it matters a great deal that of various men known to the police, some were considered to be suspects others (who the police knew about) weren't.

That simple really.

[GUT]

Iīm afraid that we have Arthur Ingram, a Pickfords historian, saying that the Pickfords men of Broad Street handled meat, plus we know that meat was a commodity that was of huge importance to the Broad Street depot. The context we are discussing is desensitizing on account of being involved in the butchery business. Unless Lechmere was blind, he would have been subjected to the sight of cut up or whole animal carcasses. And that is all that is needed to make my point.

You really need to be a bit more perceptive.

But Ingram doesn't say that everyone at Pickford's handled meat.

[Hercule Poirot]

To some it matters a great deal that of various men known to the police, some were considered to be suspects others (who the police knew about) weren't.

That simple really.

I think that Santa Claus was also known by the police back then, hence he must have been a suspect too. Come on! There has to be something more serious than just what you've just said.

Cheers,
Hercule Poirot

[GUT]

I think that Santa Claus was also known by the police back then, hence he must have been a suspect too. Come on! There has to be something more serious than just what you've just said.

Cheers,
Hercule Poirot

I think you are misunderstanding me.

Some were known to the police and considered serious suspects, Kos, Montie Francis etc. (Even if it was shortly after the event)

Others were known to the police but not considered suspects such a Joe, Charles, Jack McCarthy et al.

[drstrange169]

>Iīm afraid that we have Arthur Ingram ..<<

Yes I'm afraid we have Arthur Ingram too, I don't hold his claims with any value whatsoever.

[Trevor Marriott]

I think you are misunderstanding me.

Some were known to the police and considered serious suspects, Kos, Montie Francis etc. (Even if it was shortly after the event)

Others were known to the police but not considered suspects such a Joe, Charles, Jack McCarthy et al.

I beg to differ and suggest that based on what is known all were nothing more than persons of interest.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[GUT]

I beg to differ and suggest that based on what is known all were nothing more than persons of interest.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Ok I can accept that term' though I suggest the officers in question used a stronger term.

However even as PsOI that was still a lot more than Cross ever was, at the time.

[Fisherman]

I think that Santa Claus was also known by the police back then, hence he must have been a suspect too. Come on! There has to be something more serious than just what you've just said.

Cheers,
Hercule Poirot

Iīm not sure that you should ask for a serious treatment of the case, as long as we are discussing Lechmere. Not from all parts involved, at least.

In fact, the whole Ripper case has turned into one where it has long since been accepted that there was never any suspect available among the persons who are described as being in geographical proximity to the murder spots at the relevant hours. People like Louis Diemschitz, Sarah Lewis, William Marshall, PC Watson, George Morris, Isaac Kozebrodsky, Patrick Mulshaw...any of these many actors in more or less peripheral roles in the Ripper saga.

The case has therefore wawed goodbye to logical, so called "police solutions" and turned to people of (more or less) interest instead of suspects. Any mad or violent man will do, and the closer you can put him to the East End, the likelier a Ripper he will be. If there is something that is reminiscent of the Rippers deeds (like strangulation, neck-cutting and evisceration) involved, the candidate rises to the very top of the list.
That is why Bury is so popular - he was a proven killer (of his wife, admittedly, which is very different to killing prostitutes), he strangled his wife (not with his hands but with a rope, but nevertheless) and he cut her in the abdomen when she was dead (without procuring any organs, although there was time a plenty, but nevertheless!)
So Bury ticks a number of the boxes Ripperologists like to have ticked when looking for the Ripper - they search for a man who have as many traits in common as possible with the killer, and since they do not know what the real killer was about, they settle for violent knife deeds.

It is all very understandable. But the fact of the matter is that it would never elevate a man like Bury to a suspect in the eyes of the police until Bury could be placed on the killing grounds, either by observation or by having left something behind that could be knit to his person. Until such time, Bury would - at best - be a person of interest.

And thatīs where Ripperology stands - it is divided into those who have a suspect who really is nothing more than a person of (possible) interest, and those who spend their time asserting us that the killer can never be found. It is a Status Quo that has not been disturbed for 127 years.

But now it seems the police, the historians, the researchers and the ripperologists may have missed out totally. There is now evidence showing us that among the many discarded people who WERE on the grounds, there is a man who:
- was found alone with one of the victims, at a stage where she would still go on bleeding for at least five or six minutes after she was cut.
- who we know used a name that he otherwise did not use in contacts with the authorities, and that was not the name he was registered by.
- disagreed with the police about what had been said on the murder night, and was claimed to have presented a story that would have been tailormade to take him past the police.
- has a large number of anomalies attaching to his person.

Now, THAT is more than enough to turn him into a REAL suspect. And that in itīs turn means that the investigation into the murder of Polly Nichols is thrown back to day one again, before deperate police bigwigs tried to impress the public with ridiculous suspects like Ostrog (and a few more), and before we needed to turn to the gallery of B- and C-actors to fill the killers role.

Once more, Andy Griffiths looked at it the way any policeman would look upon it: Lechmere had a LOT of explaining to do, and until he had done it and satified the police that he was kosher, no other people needed to be looked at.
Thatīs proper police work! It asks:

Who were there?

Was anybody at any stage alone with the victim, at a remove in time when the victim could have been killed?

Who has alibis and who has not?

Only after this stage is the question asked: Out of the people who had opportunity, does anybody have a history of violence or crime?

Ripperologists skip the first questions since they think that is an already cleared department, and head directly for the violence/crime department. It brushes the toilsome demand for opportunity to the side, and then the field is open for any suggestion, hundreds of them.

After 127 years of ridiculous excitement over having found that there were violent people in the kingdom of Britain, so many have invested so heavily in their chosen champions that any suggestion that does not involve a person where we have a solid criminal record is sneered at.As if the violent man who was NOT there could be a better bid than a man we KNOW was there, and of whom we know nothing at all when it comes to the psychological disposition! Itīs outright ridiculous.

And where does this lead us? I will tell you, Hercule: it leads us to a position where a post like this will result in scorn and statements like "Oh, but YOU claim to know the psychological disposition of the carman, dont you Fisherman? He is a pesky psychopath, donīt you remember?"

Is it moronic?
Yes.
Is it a lie?
Yes.
Do they care?
No.
They feed of distorting, and they make it a point to claim that I am the distorter.

And all we have to do is to ask ourselves: Is a man found alone on the scene of a murder, with a freshly slain victim, and who seemingly repeatedly lied to the police, a better suspect than any violent man who can not be placed at a murder site?

There never was but one answer to that question.

[Fisherman]

I beg to differ and suggest that based on what is known all were nothing more than persons of interest.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Not entirely true. You should not have used the word "were", Trevor. We donīt know if one or more of them WERE regular suspects.
Today, however, none of them IS a suspect; they are instead, just as you say, persons of interest only.

The only exception is Charles Allen Lechmere, who must be regarded as real suspect, based on very good grounds.

It hurts, I know, but as a former policeman you know that I am correct. Much as there may have been innocent explanations to the anomalies surrounding him, he remains a suspect until such innocent explanations are proven.

[belinda]

Or maybe we all need to read Freud to understand 19th century thinking about sexuality.

Regards Pierre

I do not think Freuds views on sexuality are an accurate representation of the way the majority of people thought.

[Patrick S]

I'll go a step further and say that Broad Street continued to handle a huge range of general freight.

Those who support Cross as a suspect decry anyone who says he may have been known as Cross at work as speculation and then rely on the same sort of speculation to say he handled meat.

Can't have it both ways.

It's important to remember that, like most things that supposedly "recommend" ( ) Lechmere as a "suspect" ( ), the idea that Lechmere handled meat comes from Christer and the producers of his "internationally send documentary" (who had a vested interest in presenting the material convincingly - a point Christer seems to have blocked from his conscious mind). Just as this ridiculous "revelation" ( ) that Lechmere's 66 year old mother selling cats-meat somehow "de-sensitized" the 40+ year old Lechmere (in 1891, no less...but Christer supposes (as he does in all things) that Mom the Ripper sold cats-meat as far back as she needs to have sold cats-meat in order to have turned her son into a serial killer). Of course, he has no actual evidence to support this supposition. It's just that: supposition. Wild and unfounded supposition conceived of soley because he's convinced himself that Lechmere was Jack the Ripper, the Torso Killer, Atilla the Hun, and, juuuust maybe....Hitler.