What happened to Lechmere......

[Clark]

I am glad you agree with me, Clark. Because that is exactly what you do by pointing to the importance of proximity...

Don't mistake my genuine confusion regarding your argument as agreement. I mentioned those who were known to have been in proximity because they appear to me to qualify as likely suspects under your rules, not because they are of any importance to me.

There you go! Yes, he IS the likeliest person on earth to have killed Nichols that we know about, if we work from a geographical angle.

You left out the bit about "meeting your rather arbitrary criteria." So no, we are not in agreement here. From a solely geographical point of view, anyone who was within about a 20 minutes' walk from Nichols body at the time Neil came upon it were possible suspects. And that's assuming the killer had no access to a carriage or other means of transportation.

Wait a second - have I postulated that Whitechapel was empty apart from Nichols and Lechmere...? I donīt think so.

You appear to be postulating, and please correct me if I'm wrong here, that Cross (let's face it, "Cross" is easier to type on an iPad than "Lechmere", and we both know who we're talking about) is the most likely suspect on a purely geographical basis. The point of my thought experiment was to suggest that this might have been an important observation if no one else was within 20 minutes' walking distance of Nichols' body, but we know that is not true.

However, if you scroll back over hundreds of threads, you will find that I am constantly saying that there COULD have been another killer. I find it less credible than Lechmere being the killer, for reasons mentioned, but I am not excluding it. So you seemingly misunderstood the whole matter from beginning to end.

Which brings us back to my observation in post #214:

...yes, Lechmere could have been the Ripper, to the same extent that practically anyone in Whitechapel at the time could have been the Ripper.

So what is it exactly that I've misunderstood about the matter?

I don't know if anyone else has suggested this to you, but here's a question that I've yet to see you answer (and remember that I'm a cadet, so I haven't been party to this conversation from the beginning). But if Cross was the Ripper, how is it that he let Paul live?

You have Cross telling a transparent lie to Mizen that would have been refuted if overheard by Paul, and it was only pure luck that Neil had arrived on the scene prior to Mizen turning towards Bucks Row, otherwise Cross's supposed lie would have immediately been exposed.

All of that could have been avoided if Cross had simply stuck his knife into Paul.

If Cross was the Ripper, he had a knife, he knew how to kill someone quickly and quietly, he was alone with Paul in the dark, and Paul was distracted by pulling at Nichols' dress. So why didn't Cross simply stick his knife into Paul, eliminate the only possible witness against him, and walk off calmly into the pre-dawn night?

So why was Paul allowed to live? Perhaps because Cross wasn't the Ripper?

Just a thought.

[Robert]

Hi Fish

Well, on the street v enclosed room or yard....I suspect that one or the other might seem safer/more dangerous according to individual psychology.

The trouble is, we don't know that he chose the spots. It's quite possible that the victims did - e.g. Nichols and Eddowes both killed by gates, with both gates locked IIRC.

[Harry D]

Nor does it in any way help your argument, poor as it is - that theory could not suffer any "downfall" ā la Harry D either as a result of people discussing it in great detail - it is only when the evidence goes against it it can suffer a downfall. As I have repeatedly pointed out to you by now.

I'm afraid it does, Fish. You argued that because people are discussing Lechmere it validates him as a suspect, when all they seem to be focusing on is a glorified case of 'he said, she said'.

Fine - then you should not be too disappointed when I tell you that he is a lousy suspect. Not only that, he is also a suspect the police took a real good look at, only to decide that there was nothing in it. Nothing, nada, inget, zilch, rien, keines.

Ah, but according to you the police were so incompetent they couldn't find their ass from their elbow, let alone check out Lechmere, so why should I care what they think about Bury?

One of the most renowned forensic pathologists say that we should not expect Nichols to bleed for more than five minutes or so - seven would be unexpected.

Patricia Cornwell & Trevor Marriott had 'experts' too. It didn't lend anymore credibility to their theories, either. If there was time for someone to kill Nichols before Lechmere arrived on the scene (and there was) this is entirely a moot point.

Now bow.

Should I bow to your ignorance?

Whereīs the typical profile of a serialist I asked for? John Eric Armstrong was a family man, who was gainfully employed and didn't have a criminal record. There was nothing in his make-up to suggest that he was capable of any murders or explain why he one day decided to start a string of atrocious murders that shocked the nation.

As ever, Fish, you've been a little economical with the truth. Says here that John Eric Armstrong had a troubled past. He attempted suicide at a young age, was a victim of child abuse, had abandonment issues, and was committed to a psychiatric hospital aged 15. Not quite the well-adjusted and balanced individual that you were initially trying to paint.

And like most serial killers, he was the architect of his own demise. He "found" one of his victims in a river after he claimed to have pulled over because he felt sick. The police weren't buying it and DNA extracted from the victim was able to link him to the murder. Serial killers have self-destructive tendencies, they either end up overplaying their hand through a sense of invincibility or because deep down they long to be caught. You still haven't adequately explained what happened to Lechmere after the C5. All of a sudden in the Autumn of 1888, something snaps inside Charles Allen Lechmere for him to commit the most infamous series of murders in history, and within a few months the killings died off, but good old Charlie boy continued living in the East End until the ripe old age of 71. Hmmm... something isn't adding up here, m'fraid.

Bing-bang-bong! Oh, what was that? Ah, it was the bell tolling for when I have no further time to invest in any discussion with you.

I wish I could believe that. You're a glutton for punishment.

[Fisherman]

Hi harry

I agree with you the evidence for Cross being the Ripper is just not there.

Cheers John

Well, I disagree very much - there are heaps of it. Itīs conclusive proof that is lacking.

By the bye - for which suspect IS the evidence "there"? And which suspect has the most evidence going for him, after Lechmere...?

[Fisherman]

"I would say yes to that question. Maybe it was not pre-planned, and then he experienced a great rush from killing out in the open street and decided to turn it into a habit. I havenīt given that option much thought, but it is of course fully viable."

Not much of a habit - his next one was in a back yard.

... which was also a public space. And the next was in the entrance to a yard adjacent to a rather busy street, and after that came one in an open square.

If he found a thrill by killing in public spaces, and found that Bucks Row was a wee bit TOO public, then I can see a lot of sense in carrying on the exact way he did.

Can you see what I mean, Robert?

PS. As an aside, I often think that if the killer was not a Trenton Chase kind of nutter (and there is little reason to think he was), then the choice of murder spots from Nichols on, seems to me to tell a story of earlier experiences of killing, coupled with the kind of feeling of superiority that often goes with that territory; brazen, careless, narcissistic...

[John Wheat]

You can add as many' As far as we know' as you care to,it makes no difference.Cross is no more a suspect today,than he was in 1888,The evidence is just not there.

Hi harry

I agree with you the evidence for Cross being the Ripper is just not there.

Cheers John

[Robert]

"I would say yes to that question. Maybe it was not pre-planned, and then he experienced a great rush from killing out in the open street and decided to turn it into a habit. I havenīt given that option much thought, but it is of course fully viable."

Not much of a habit - his next one was in a back yard.

[Fisherman]

John G: Hi Fisherman,

Yes, it certainly does appear that Lechmere was with the body very close to time of death. Of course, it's difficult to accept that he would murder Nichols on his way to work, particularly if he was intending to remove organs, i.e. the uterus.

First of all, John, look at the expected schedule of a carman on the 31 of August:

-early rise/dark
-walk to work/dark
-work/daylight
-return home in the evening/daylight
-eat your supper/daylight-dusk
-sleep/dark

These are the pure basics. Going on them, it the killer wanted to be able to kill in darkness and seclusion, when was his best opportunity?

As for organ evisceration and getting bloodied, it will all boil down to what opportunitites stood open to him to hide whatever blood and gore he may have had on his person, or wash up and stash it.
Do we know how these opportunitites looked? No. Well, we do know that there were extensive cleaning-up facilities as per Arthur Ingram.

And that is as far as we are going to get until more evidence and knowledge surfaces.

However, serial killers can appear to be completely stupid sometimes. For instance, Peter Manuel murdered three members of the same family. But he then remained in the house for almost a week-he even fed the cat! He also
stole the family car, eventually dumping it nearby.

Incredibly, he gave a lift in this car to a police officer who was investigating the disappearance of Isabelle Cook-Manuel had murdered her as well-and even informed him that the police weren't looking in the right places!

Flushing people down, piece by piece, in your own loo is not that smart either... However, I think the killer we are looking for was both smart and meticulous. But thatīs just my five cents, of course.

And, is it possible that he didn't intend to kill that morning, but he acted impulsively as he encountered an intoxicated, and therefore clearly vulnerable, potential victim?

I would say yes to that question. Maybe it was not pre-planned, and then he experienced a great rush from killing out in the open street and decided to turn it into a habit. I havenīt given that option much thought, but it is of course fully viable.

[Fisherman]

harry: Yes,but Cross did come to the notice of the police,did attend at an inquest..He was there to ans wer questions.

But was there anybody who realized that questions needed to be asked? I donīt see any sign of that.

His home address was known as was his place of work.

Very true, the police had both these pieces, and I have explained at length why I think he readily gave them.

He did nothing to avoid an investigation...

Not one leveled at him by the police, no. He was a man who had been found next to a murder victim, and if I am correct, he was trying to bluff his way ut of having been with the victim for much longer than he admitted to. This he did by inventing the 30-40 yard distance to Paul. After that, it was a question of whether the police would believe him or check him out. So if he had given the police faulty information, he wuld immediately turn into the prime suspect when it was discovered. Consequentially, he was not in a position in which to avoid an investigation.
On a separate note ANYBODY who tries to avoid an investigation will buy themselves trouble, since it will always have the opposite effect.

,and no suspicion of wrongdoing was levelled against him.

Depends on how you look upon it - a juror asked whetherhe had really told Mizen that another PC was in place in Bucks Row, but I donīt think we should take that as a suspicion. The reasonable conclusion is that the juror - just like a hundred years and more of ripperology - was genuinely confused by it. So in essence you will be right - there was no accusation against him.
How does that prove or disprove that there SHOULD have been, thatīs what I wanna know!

He did what the law required him to, he found a body,he communicated that information to Paul,the first person on the scene after himself, and later to Mizen.

Yes Sir - and if he as a bluffing killer, he would try as best as he could to SEEM to be law obedient and innocent. The thing to keep in mind is that you can do this AND be the killer anyway. A dishonest killer, yes, who wpuld not freely admit that he dunī it, but thereīs society for you.

If Mizen failed to obtain his particulars at that time,the fault is with Mizen,not Cross.

They can as such never be with Lechmere, can they? As for Mizen, he was - according to Monty, I seem to remember - not obliged to take the names. And you know as well as I do that he seems to have been fooled, meaning that he was relying on hos fellow PC to take the names.
Arenīt you venturing into VERY, VERY, VERY old and well-trodden ground here, Harry? Are you not repeating yourself? Have you not asked for and had my answer dozens of times before?

It needed less than fifty seconds for Cross to have arrived at the body,after the killer had left,for the blood factor to have nil effect.

Lechmere said he would hear anybody stirring up at the murder scene, so you are going to need around two minutes, methinks. Regardless of which, it means that another killer is LESS LIKELY, because he would have pushed an already strained time even further, be that one or one thousand seconds.

If any lies were told,I suggest that Mizen told them.

You donīt say...? I am sorry, but the develompent of the errand disagrees with you.

There is no indication that the authorities believed Cross lied.

Can you see how that dovetails with other cases where the authorities were initially mistaken?

You can add as many' As far as we know' as you care to,it makes no difference.

It has so far made a difference of hundreds of threads, the difference of a barrister saying that we have a trial on our hands, the difference of people who have seen the docu confessing to think that Lechmere must be the killer, etcetera, etcetera. And it has had you on edge for years now that too is a difference.

Cross is no more a suspect today,than he was in 1888,The evidence is just not there.

Look at these boards, especially the suspects section. Guess who has been added?

The world turns all the time, Harry, and everything changes. It is just us people who sometimes remain unable to chage the form that we have been given by moulds that are no longer relevant. Today, Charles Lechmere is one of the hottest and most debated suspects in the Ripper saga, whereas others - no names mentioned - are sinking to join the bottom sediments of the Great Sea of Oblivion.

When you wake up tomorrow, the carman will still be there, trust me.

[John G]

Dr Phillips said at the inquest Alice was killed within the half hour but probably much sooner. He arrived about 1:10/12. That puts the murder at the earliest at 12:40, but probably much sooner. Sgt. Herwin arrived on the scene about 12:55ish. He said she was killed a few minutes before his arrival.

John, my theory is partly based on the whistle, yes. A lot of it is also based on Isaac Jacobs testimony and what he claimed to see. The majority of it is based on Walter Andrews testimony and where he says he was at the relevant times. I think he was fibbing, as the testimony of ALL the witnesses proves different than what he says.

Hi Jerry,

Thanks for this. I must admit that I haven't looked at your theory on detail, but it's certainly interesting that Andrew's evidence seems to conflict with other witnesses. However, I do have some difficulty with a suspect who was in police uniform. I mean, his uniform could easily have been covered in blood and gore, particularly if he intended to more extensively mutilate Mackenzie. And that he would be difficult to explain once a murder victim was discovered on his beat!

[John G]

Well, John, you are now making the assumption that Lechmere arrived at the body seconds before Paul.

I donīt think he did, since neither man heard the other.

Even if the two HAD arrived in the street only seconds apart, it would not point to a timetable where carmen passed every seven seconds, Iīm afraid. Nobody entered or left the street as far as the PC.s and watchmen knew, and there was a total scarcity of people in the surroundings, as witnessed about by many people, Neil, Lechmere and Paul included.

If it had been the other way around, Baxter would not have said that it was nothing less than astonishing that somebody should have crept in and done the deed. There was nobody else there, quite simply, and if there was, then it seems it was a phantom with a propensity to creep in and out with nobody noticing him, in spite of the relative wealth of pc:s and watchmen surrounding the street.

And to boot, Lechmere fits the blood evidence like a glove! The blood was still running and looking fresh five, six or seven minutes after Lechmere left the body, and it was partly coagulated at that same stage, making all the sense in the world schedulewise.

So the man FITS, John. And we know that there are anomalies aplenty apart from that in his case. To me that means that although we do not have conclusive evidence, we DO at least have a clear indication in his direction. Why so many people object to his potential culpability is a conundrum to me.

Hi Fisherman,

Yes, it certainly does appear that Lechmere was with the body very close to time of death. Of course, it's difficult to accept that he would murder Nichols on his way to work, particularly if he was intending to remove organs, i.e. the uterus.

However, serial killers can appear to be completely stupid sometimes. For instance, Peter Manuel murdered three members of the same family. But he then remained in the house for almost a week-he even fed the cat! He also
stole the family car, eventually dumping it nearby.

Incredibly, he gave a lift in this car to a police officer who was investigating the disappearance of Isabelle Cook-Manuel had murdered her as well-and even informed him that the police weren't looking in the right places!

And, is it possible that he didn't intend to kill that morning, but he acted impulsively as he encountered an intoxicated, and therefore clearly vulnerable, potential victim?

[harry]

Yes,but Cross did come to the notice of the police,did attend at an inquest..He was there to ans wer questions.His home address was known as was his place of work.He did nothing to avoid an investigation,and no suspicion of wrongdoing was levelled against him.He did what the law required him to,he found a body,he communicated that information to Paul,the first person on the scene after himself, and later to Mizen.If Mizen failed to obtain his particulars at that time,the fault is with Mizen,not Cross.
It needed less than fifty seconds for Cross to have arrived at the body,after the killer had left,for the blood factor to have nil effect.
If any lies were told,I suggest that Mizen told them.There is no indication that the authorities believed Cross lied.
You can add as many' As far as we know' as you care to,it makes no difference.Cross is no more a suspect today,than he was in 1888,The evidence is just not there.

[Fisherman]

harry: If Nichols,like a phantom, could creep into Bucks Row without being noticed,so then could her killer creep out.

Yes indeed - but it would take TWO succesfull creepings as opposed to the one and only by Nichols.

I have yet to hear of any police force in England ,under the rules they operated ,accepting a person to be suspect on the sole condition that they were at the scene of a crime,w hether they be the first there or at any other time.

Me too. And if you read the thread a bit careful you will see that nobody has said that Lechmere is a suspect on account of having been found by the body. What being found by the body carries with it, is that you become a likelier killer than those who were not found by the body. It is not a suspicion, it is a raised likelihood we are talking about.
What any police force would be required to do, Harry, would be to investigate this person and see if he needed to be added to the list of suspects or if they could let him go. Before he could explain his presence at the site in a credible manner, they would do well not to loose sight of him, I can say that much.

They would be of interest,untill such time as other evidence of a incriminating ,or honest nature could be established.

Yes, exactly!

No incriminating evidence was or has been established,to suggest Cross was or is suspect of the Nichols murder.

He gave a name to the police that was not the one he was registered by and which he is not known to have otherwise used in any exchange with the authorities.

Paul never corroborated that he walked just behind Lechmere down Bucks Row, as far as we can tell.

The police (Mizen) disagreed with Lechmere about what was said on the murder morning. It seems Lechmere may have lied on three different points.

According to Jason Payne-James, Lechmere fits the expected pattern of bleeding and coagulating.

Lechmere did not come forward until after Pauls interview. And when he did, he said things that pointed to how he may have read that interview.

His logical working routes seems to fit with four murder sites and -times.

He had logical ties to two more murder sites.

There are signs that he omitted to give his home address before the inquest.

If we pluck any of these matters out - like how he had a mother who stayed in Mary Ann Street at the time Stride was killed - it is very easy to say that many others had relatives and friends there. It is not until you put things together (an OH so hard discipline, eh?) that the full picture emerges. And that picture was what made Scobie say that "when the coincidences mount up - AND THEY DO IN HIS CASE - it becomes one coincidence too many" and "he acted in a manner that seemed suspicious, and a jury would not like that". So much as a Hutchinson zealot with a crumbling agenda will not swallow this pill, an unbiased barrister actually did - and savoured the taste.

[Fisherman]

Clark: Sorry, you lost me there. The slaughtermen were close enough to the murder scene to have committed the crime, as were Paul, Mizen, Neil, Thain, Green, Purkiss, his wife, and who knows how many other people in the area.

I am glad you agree with me, Clark. Because that is exactly what you do by pointing to the importance of proximity. Just like you say, it takes that we know that a person had that proximity before we with certainty can point to them from a geographical point of view. And it is those we can place closest to the murder site that are the more likely ones to have committed the crime, from that same geographical point of view.

It is a bit ironic that you should try to argue that I am not right by bolstering my take, but there you are. You see, I am not saying that being close to a murder site is suspicious per se - I am saying that the ones who are close to a murder site are more likely to be the killer than those who are not. And that the ones who are closest, are the likeliest. Nothing more than so.

The only reasonable outcome from this fact - for it is a fact - is that Lechmere and Paul are the likeliest killers working from a geographical perspective only.

Once we add our knowledge that Paul arrived after Lechmere, that moves Charles to the top of the list.

Like it or not, this is so.



No, he is the likeliest person on earth to have killed her that we know about and who fits your rather arbitrary criteria. Not the same thing at all.

There you go! Yes, he IS the likeliest person on earth to have killed Nichols that we know about, if we work from a geographical angle. That, and nothing else is what I am saying. After that, you can add any other ingredients and the picture will change in either direction, but that is another thing. You can also add that you think that there was somebody else in place BEFORE Lechmere who was even closer to Nichols, which is not impossible, and then that other person will be an even likelier killer - but the crux of that matter is that he/she will be the likeliest person on earth to have killed Nichils that we do NOT know about.

Let me ask you a question, and try to be honest here.

Try to be decent yourself, Clark. You will never get anything but honesty from me.

If there was only one person, other than Nichols, in Whitechapel on the night of the murder (let's call him "L"), but the police had no idea of where he was within Whitechapel at the time of the killing, who would be the most likely suspect?

Thatīs easy enough: L.

The most likely suspect would be the only person other than Nichols who was in Whitechapel at the time, that is, "L".

Actually, he would not just be the most likely killer, he would be the only possible killer if it was established that there was noone else in Whitechapel at the time of the murder.

The only problem is that "L" wasn't the only person in Whitechapel on the night of the killings, so this type of thought experiment gets us absolutely no where.

Not sure where you are headed; didnīt you just postulate that he WAS the only other person in Whitechapel apart from Nichols...?

Much like your overly restrictive prescription for likely suspects.

Wait a second - have I postulated that Whitechapel was empty apart from Nichols and Lechmere...? I donīt think so.

Jack the Ripper need not have been one of the people known to have been in the vicinity at the time of the crime.

No, of course not.

That's your imposed limitation, not reality's.

But I have not limited anything in this context, Clark. I am saying that Lechmere fits all the signs, and that it would be odd if somebody unknown succeeded to creep in and out unseen, and managed to kill Nichols in a fashion that made her blood run longer than expected and coagulate slower than expected.

However, if you scroll back over hundreds of threads, you will find that I am constantly saying that there COULD have been another killer. I find it less credible than Lechmere being the killer, for reasons mentioned, but I am not excluding it. So you seemingly misunderstood the whole matter from beginning to end.

[harry]

If Nichols,like a phantom, could creep into Bucks Row without being noticed,so then could her killer creep out.
I have yet to hear of any police force in England ,under the rules they operated ,accepting a person to be suspect on the sole condition that they were at the scene of a crime,w hether they be the first there or at any other time.
They would be of interest,untill such time as other evidence of a incriminating ,or honest nature could be established.
No incriminating evidence was or has been established,to suggest Cross was or is suspect of the Nichols murder.