So Cross the Ripper got involved in the investigation. Why did he stop?

[Varqm]

To answer the thread Cross was a normal witness.Why would Cross spend more time with the authorities, away from work and money, for a complete stranger - add to that Cross could not have added more as to who was the killer and the stranger is most likely dead.

[Fisherman]

Azarna:

Maybe, just maybe, he actually used the surname of Cross quite often.. just not usually on written documents, which is why we have no record, and it would be hard to know if this were the case.

Just want to highlight this once again, Azarna!

There are a 110, or thereabouts, records with the carmans name on them. In all of the other 109 cases, that name is Lechmere.

This tells us that officially, he regarded himself as Charles Allen Lechmere.

You say that these are written documents, and that is true. You say that he may have called himself Cross outside of the world of written documents, and that too is true.

But the reocurring name on the documents is divided into two categories - they are sometimes the result of the carman writing it himself, but in other instances the signature is a reaction to how a question has been asked: "What is your name, please?", and then the name has been written down by functionaries in the official world after the carman - over and over again - said the same thing: "Charles Allen Lechmere".

So we effectively know that whenever Charles Lechmere dealt with authorities and was asked for his name, he said that his name was Charles Allen Lechmere.

But when the police asked him the exact same question, he suddenly had a change of mind and said that his name was Charles Allen Cross.

So no matter how we look upon things, we can see here that there is a large anomaly involved. And that anomaly requires an explanation!

That is not to say that there could not be an innocent explanation. But the truth of the matter is that when the police have a murder case on their hands and no killer, they will go on the hunt for details that can point them in the direction of the perpetrator. And one such detail is anomalies.

There are a number of anomalies when it comes to the carman. Plus he is in place alone with the victim at what must be a point in time that is extremely close to her death.

Not all people like to hear it, but Charles Lechmere is not only an excellent suspect - going on the case evidence, he is in practicality the only worthy suspect.

And no, that does not automatically turn him into the killer. But it DOES turn him into the PROBABLE killer until a more worthy suspect can be identified.

PS. Varqm! This post is useful for you to read too... DS

[Fisherman]

Hi Fisherman,

Again this is a very good point you bring up. We just won't know since we can't question anyone, unless there are relatives of the lechmeres still living and know a great deal about their family history.

I take it Edward might know something?

Columbo

Edward knows a lot! But there is no way we are ever going to be able to decisively prove that the carman did not call himself Cross occasionally, in non-official surroundings.

All that can be done has been done: We know that he called himself Lechmere whenever contacting the authoritites or being contacted by them (apart from in combination with the inquest...), and we know that none of the Lechmere relatives living today has ever heard of anybody in the family ever having used the name Cross. There are old Lechmeres, with very deep knowledge of the family history, but none of them have ever heard that the name Cross has been used amongst their relatives. There are no existing records of his employment at Pickfords. And there is nothing at all pointing to him having used the name Cross at any remove in time, but for the inquest.

The suggestion that he used the name Cross in unofficial circumstances is completely baseless. It is grounded on an assumption that his work would have been secured for him by Thomas Cross and that Charles was called Cross at work for this reason, something that can be suggested and that can be true. But so much can be true!
The collected facts, however, speak a different language.

[GUT]

Edward knows a lot! But there is no way we are ever going to be able to decisively prove that the carman did not call himself Cross occasionally, in non-official surroundings.

All that can be done has been done: We know that he called himself Lechmere whenever contacting the authoritites or being contacted by them (apart from in combination with the inquest...), and we know that none of the Lechmere relatives living today has ever heard of anybody in the family ever having used the name Cross. There are old Lechmeres, with very deep knowledge of the family history, but none of them have ever heard that the name Cross has been used amongst their relatives. There are no existing records of his employment at Pickfords. And there is nothing at all pointing to him having used the name Cross at any remove in time, but for the inquest.

The suggestion that he used the name Cross in unofficial circumstances is completely baseless. It is grounded on an assumption that his work would have been secured for him by Thomas Cross and that Charles was called Cross at work for this reason, something that can be suggested and that can be true. But so much can be true!
The collected facts, however, speak a different language.

Funny if his family never heard of the use of the name cross among the relatives, since his mum was married to Cross.

[Fisherman]

Funny if his family never heard of the use of the name cross among the relatives, since his mum was married to Cross.

You may have misunderstood (Naaaah - not YOU...?). What I am saying is that the Lechmereīs living today have no recollection of the name Cross being tied to their family.
We all know about the marriage to Thomas Cross.

Subtle points like these are sometimes lost.

[GUT]

You may have misunderstood (Naaaah - not YOU...?). What I am saying is that the Lechmereīs living today have no recollection of the name Cross being tied to their family.
We all know about the marriage to Thomas Cross.

Subtle points like these are sometimes lost.

Lechmer's family, living today, have no recollection of the name Cross being tied to their family, if they've told you that they know very little about their family, really that simple, no misunderstanding, if they told you something else well I'll listen.

Let's say it's his Grandkids telling you that, then that means they told you they have no knowledge of their great grandmother being married to a Cross.

[Fisherman]

Lechmer's family, living today, have no recollection of the name Cross being tied to their family, if they've told you that they know very little about their family, really that simple, no misunderstanding, if they told you something else well I'll listen.

Let's say it's his Grandkids telling you that, then that means they told you they have no knowledge of their great grandmother being married to a Cross.

They told me absolutely nothing - it was Edward Stow who talked to them. And none of them had any idea about the name Cross being knit to their history.

There are no grandchildren alive, but there are great grandchildren. So far, none of these have provided any knowledge about the name Cross being used.

I know that the argument "he could have called himself Cross" is watertight. Thatīs why it can only be truly sustained by evidence supporting the view. No such evidence exists.

He could have called himself Flowerpot too, therefore. It is almost an equally good argument.

Give it some afterthought and you will see what I mean. I can be of no further assistance for some time: it is sunny here in Sweden, and thatīs a rare treat, so Iīm off.

[GUT]

But you miss the point Fish, it's a fact that his mum used the name cross, if they don't know about that the fact that they never heard about him using it means nothing. Zero, zip, zilch and nada.

Now if they said we know granny used it but never heard of Charlie using it, that may help your case.

[harry]

Cross presented himself at the inquest on the Monday morning.Whether he approached police before that,is not known,but it is possible.In any case he had much time in which to decide what name he would use,and he must surely have known an inquest was an official occasion,and that telling a lie at that inquest could result in himself suffering punishment.Yet he went ahead and used the name Cross.Seems odd.

[Trevor Marriott]

Cross presented himself at the inquest on the Monday morning.Whether he approached police before that,is not known,but it is possible.In any case he had much time in which to decide what name he would use,and he must surely have known an inquest was an official occasion,and that telling a lie at that inquest could result in himself suffering punishment.Yet he went ahead and used the name Cross.Seems odd.

I think this whole issue of Cross/Lechmere being a suspect should be put to bed once and for all.

Forgetting all the ifs and buts raised by all those for and against, let’s look at it sensibly and without blinkers, and put all the real facts into perspective.
Firstly, it is accepted that Cross/Lechmere was legally entitled to use either or both of his names.

He did just that in this case, but was it to deliberately mislead the police, and in turn the coroner? Or was there an explanation for his actions? Well there is no mention of anything to suggest the police or the coroner had grounds to suspect they were being misled. Clearly we don’t have the full details of the police investigation or the details of the inquest where this ambiguity would have been raised, but clearly whatever explanation was given by him was accepted by both the police and the coroner. So why is this still being discussed? If they were all happy then why shouldn’t we be, they were there we were not.

As to him being looked upon as a suspect at the time, or anytime thereafter there is no written record to suggest he was ever regarded as a suspect by anyone. When we look at other named suspects, named by police officers of the day, in most cases there is nothing more than those officers opinions as to the naming those suspects, so again if he were suspected I would have expected to see a comment or quote from a police officer appearing somewhere, but there is nothing!

If he ever was ever regarded as a suspect then I would have expected the police to have watched him, and his movements, and again such an operation would have been recorded, or someone would have spoken about it, especially with the double event happening a week later. There is nothing, so what does that tell us?

It tells us that the question of him being the killer of Nicholls and others has been blown up out of all proportion by Christer and Ed. The term being found with a freshly killed body is used to suggest he was the killer; well firstly someone has to find a body. In this case it was Cross/Lechmere and I would guess that anyone finding a body in these circumstances, it would be a traumatic experience and would certainly unnerve most people.

Secondly, the time of death cannot be firmly established, and all the disputed conversations that followed, coupled with the discovery. and the attendance of the police are in my opinion nothing more than a smokescreen in the grand scheme of things, clearly lies were told and it would seem the main culprits were the police at the scene, and we have to ask why? I would suggest that it could have been that one or more of them, was not where they should have been or had deliberately left their beat for a time. If that be the case clearly they are not going to admit to that, and that is why we have these ambiguities regarding the conversations that took place and the evidence given at the inquest. But did any of this cause the coroner concern? No it didn’t.

Finally as to the checking of Cross story by the police if they suspected him, then the likelihood is that they did check his story and his movements with his wife and the timings appertaining to both and seemingly if they did they were happy with it.

The suggestion that a simple carman was able to outfox the police not only on one occasion with the Nicholls murder but he then went onto commit other murders in and around the same location all within a short space of time of each murder, without drawing further attention to himself is incomprehensible.

So I for one now will delete Cross from the suspect list and would urge everyone else to do the same, for to keep arguing with Christer and Ed on this issue is pointless. Neither are going to relent despite all that is put before them, which shatters their theory and they are never going to accept that Cross/Lechmere is an innocent man

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Fisherman]

GUT: But you miss the point Fish, it's a fact that his mum used the name cross, if they don't know about that the fact that they never heard about him using it means nothing. Zero, zip, zilch and nada.

Ah, but then thereīs MY chance to argue YOUR way:

How do we know that Maria Louisa used the name Cross other than officially? Maybe she called herself Lechmere otherwise? Eh? Howīs that?

You missed THAT point, did you not?

What I am saying is that the fact that nobody remembers the name Cross points to it having been used sparsely in the family. If Charles, Elizabeth, his kids and their kids intheir turn had used the Cross name, it would have been in full swing today.

But it is stone dead. For whatever reason.

THAT is the point I am making.

[Fisherman]

Trevor Marriott: I think this whole issue of Cross/Lechmere being a suspect should be put to bed once and for all.

I know.

You canīt.

It wonīt happen.

You would do better to try and read up on the case. It would be time better spent.

[Ben]

Hi Fisherman,

Yes , it is reasonable to think that Elizabeth Lechmere would have heard about the killings.

But was she ever told about the witness "Charles Cross"? Did somebody read it out loud to her? Who, in such a case?
Thatīs another question altogether.

To which the answer is a) yes, very obviously, b) not necessarily, as it could easily have come up in casual conversation, and c) someone who spotted that the Cross from the papers matched Lechmere from Pickfords and Dovestone Street. And even in the epically unlikely event that this didn't happen, what about all his carman colleagues? Did not a single one of them register the fact that they were one and the same? And more importantly, was Crossmere the ripper seriously banking on nobody making the connection - or making the connection but not saying anything about it?

If he was known as Lechmere at work, it would definitely have come to the attention of the police.

Regards,
Ben

[Fisherman]

Hi Fisherman,



To which the answer is a) yes, very obviously, b) not necessarily, as it could easily have come up in casual conversation, and c) someone who spotted that the Cross from the papers matched Lechmere from Pickfords and Dovestone Street. And even in the epically unlikely event that this didn't happen, what about all his carman colleagues? Did not a single one of them register the fact that they were one and the same? And more importantly, was Crossmere the ripper seriously banking on nobody making the connection - or making the connection but not saying anything about it?

If he was known as Lechmere at work, it would definitely have come to the attention of the police.

Regards,
Ben

Hi Ben.

Youīve claimed this before.

It is as interesting and informative now as it was then.

It īs nice to have you participating, but it would have been even nicer if you admitted that you are just guessin.

All these "near certainties" of yours and "epically unlikelies" and whatnot is getting a bit tedious. Sorry.

By the way, itīs Doveton Street, not Dovestone.

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=Fisherman;379139]

Pierre:

I do not agree with you on that last sentence; "It is not a fact that Elizabeth Lechmere was acquainted with the Cross name". It is an established fact supported by sources, I think, that Elizabeth Lechmere was acquainted with her husbandīs mother.[/B] [B]Are there not sources supporting this, Fisherman?

To elevate what we think is a would have into a must have is not a very intelligent thing to do.

Charles Lechmere married Elizabeth Bostock seven months after the death of Thomas Cross. He married her as Charles Lechmere. To which extent the couple - especially Elizabeth - associated with the rest of the Lechmere family, we donīt know.

It is therefore a very good suggestion that she may have heard about the Cross name, but it is in no way whatsoever any established fact.

Furthermore, if the name was not used, and drifted into oblivion over the nineteen years that passed between the death of the stepfather and the 1888 atrocities, then just how much of a done deal is it that Elizabeth would make the connection?

Hi Fisherman,

I understand your thinking. But the problem is the gap between the sources at hand and the hypotheses. Donīt you agree with me on that point?

Firstly, you hypothesize that Elizabeth Lechmere did not know the name, when we have no sources for her knowledge about the name.

The consequence of this thinking is that you seem (!) to think it is accepted to hypothesize without sources and, furthermore, to build a theory on that hypothesis.

Is that correct?

Because then you work by a certain, specific principle when you are constructing your history. The principle is:

A (historical source about Lechmere using the name Cross demands an explanation) > C (explanation) based on B (hypothesis without source).

So you find A, make explanation C for it but without B.

Would it not have been better for you if you had finished the work with researching Lechmere before you presented Lechmere as "Jack the Ripper", given that the evidence is not sufficient?

Also, why is there no evidence from the other murder sites that Lechmere was there? I know it is not Christmas now, but wouldnīt it have been better if you had found at least something in the sources indicating that he was on more than one of the other murder sites?

I very honestly wish that you were right about Lechmere, but there is no historical reason for saying that you are. As an historian, I analyse the sources from historical perspectives and with historical methods. So the use of a police investigator and a barrister in a documentary does not mean anything to me. You could put forth all the "experts" you like and let them all say that Lechmere could have been a killer, but since they are not historians, they can not research the past with a valid result.

When you research the past, you must do sources criticism, use text analysis, go through the work of interpreting the value of the sources from the perspective of validity and reliability, establish facts on a wide range - since you research a serial killer! - and find that the facts together make history with coherence.

I can tell you that I have a hard time with my historical sources. They are difficult since they point to one thing, but at the same time they have a variation in their reliability like all sources from the past, and I would never put forth a person from the past and try to persuade people that he was a serial killer if I did not have very good historical reasons.

Therefore, the sources must indicate that the killer can be connected to all the murders, the sources must show us that there was an explicit motive, that there was sufficient knowledge and skill to perform the murders, that the type of methods the killer used was a behaviour known by the person you think is the killer, and that there was a reason both to start and stop the killings. Also, you must be able to connect your "suspect" to the murders on a micro level. And the sources from the past must be explained by your theory. And finally, you need an item that is personal and can only be connected to one single person and that item must be from 1888. All this, Fisherman, is what I define as "very good historical reasons".

But you are a journalist, so why do you do this? Is it some journalistic attention seeking? Because I can tell you as an historian that your sources are far from sufficient for the theory of Lechmere being a serial killer called Jack the Ripper.

Your sources are sufficient for the theory that Lechmere killed Polly Nichols. And still, there are problems with the sources, which makes the theory weak. You do not have the original inquest sources and you have nothing to support the hypothesis discussed above.

I would be happy if you did. So what can you do to improve your source material?

Kind regards, Pierre