Who was the first clothes-puller?

[Rubyretro]

I've long suspected Fisherman and Lechmere of being one and the same person.

Otherwise Caz..the idea that the killer pulled down Polly's skirts and stepped into the shadows hoping that both Cross and Paul would pass by is the one
put forward by Bob Hinton.

[caz]

Hi Bridewell,

Just as well it wasn't Mrs Cross who found the body. She would have been very cross to be suspected of being the fiend. I know I would be.

Love,

Caz
X

[Bridewell]

That's the reason I use the name Cross to distinguish between poster and fiend.

Or between poster and bloke who found body

To Ben,

You're welcome.

Regards, Bridewell

[Abby Normal]

Just visiting this thread. Obviously I've missed some good stuff. But I thought I saw Ben refer to Fisherman as 'Lechmere'. Are the posters Lechmere and Fisherman one and the same?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Busted!

[Abby Normal]

Hi All,

Apologies if the following observations have already been covered, but this has been a very long thread and I don't have the time these days to absorb every word.

Firstly, Paul was in the very best position to judge if there was anything remotely suspect or intimidating about Cross's behaviour, attitude or body language when approaching him and alerting him to Nichols's body. A quiet word with a policeman would have been all it took to get Cross questioned a bit more fully about his role in the affair. If it didn't happen, we are left to presume that Paul believed Cross was as uninvolved as he was himself, and merely a bit put out about the interruption to his journery to work.

Secondly, to quote from one of Lechmere's posts: "Cross said he saw no one while walking to Bucks Row until he found Polly’s body". Well he certainly missed a trick if he was the killer. Easiest thing in the world to claim to have seen a man - any man - running away, or at least to have heard retreating footsteps. Why not add a description, for good measure, as some believe Hutchinson did, to send the cops haring off in the wrong direction?

Thirdly, for those who believe Stride's killer was possibly Cross/BS man, he had no problem manhandling her in front of not one but two witnesses, then sent them both packing with "Lipski!" before finishing her off and fleeing into the night. So why not send Paul packing in the same way, before he had the chance to witness anything at all?

I imagine the killer's adrenaline levels would have been through the roof immediately before, during and after each encounter, so I do wonder how he could have managed to go straight on to a hard day's work when he was back down to earth with a bang. Wouldn't most violent serial killers prefer several hours of private 'down' time, to sleep, collect their thoughts, mentally relive what they had just done, admire their trophies, or at least stash them somewhere safe and clean up?

The evidence suggests that the killer would already have been fantasising about taking body parts and would have done so if he'd had more time or felt more secure in the location. What was he planning to do with them when he arrived at work? Suggest a name change to Pickfords Organ Removals?

Here's a bit of conjecture for you, which should be quite at home on a thread overflowing with it: what if the killer hears Cross coming before he's done all he wants to do, so he pulls the skirts down roughly and ducks into the shadows to observe what happens next. He hopes that Cross will simply pass on by (like Paul would arguably have done), assuming she is just drunk or asleep, or possibly not even noticing her. Will he get a chance to go back and inflict more damage? If her skirts had been left right up and any initial attempts at mutilation on show, he'd almost certainly have been forced to call it a night at that point. Do we know he couldn't have returned for another quick slash or two once Cross and Paul had pushed off?

Love,

Caz
X

nice!

[caz]

Hi Tom,

It's made all the more confusing by having a poster called Lechmere arguing for Lechmere as the killer. That's the reason I use the name Cross to distinguish between poster and fiend.

Love,

Caz
X

[Ben]

Good points, Abby and Caz. That last "bit of conjecture" seems very reasonable to me, Caz, and I agree also that a guilty Cross would have been wise to "encounter" a convenient other suspect en route to Buck's Row

Hi Bridewell,

Just wanted to say thanks for the kind words of support these last few posts. Appreciated muchly.

Cheers,
Ben

[Tom_Wescott]

Just visiting this thread. Obviously I've missed some good stuff. But I thought I saw Ben refer to Fisherman as 'Lechmere'. Are the posters Lechmere and Fisherman one and the same?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[caz]

Hi All,

Apologies if the following observations have already been covered, but this has been a very long thread and I don't have the time these days to absorb every word.

Firstly, Paul was in the very best position to judge if there was anything remotely suspect or intimidating about Cross's behaviour, attitude or body language when approaching him and alerting him to Nichols's body. A quiet word with a policeman would have been all it took to get Cross questioned a bit more fully about his role in the affair. If it didn't happen, we are left to presume that Paul believed Cross was as uninvolved as he was himself, and merely a bit put out about the interruption to his journery to work.

Secondly, to quote from one of Lechmere's posts: "Cross said he saw no one while walking to Bucks Row until he found Polly’s body". Well he certainly missed a trick if he was the killer. Easiest thing in the world to claim to have seen a man - any man - running away, or at least to have heard retreating footsteps. Why not add a description, for good measure, as some believe Hutchinson did, to send the cops haring off in the wrong direction?

Thirdly, for those who believe Stride's killer was possibly Cross/BS man, he had no problem manhandling her in front of not one but two witnesses, then sent them both packing with "Lipski!" before finishing her off and fleeing into the night. So why not send Paul packing in the same way, before he had the chance to witness anything at all?

I imagine the killer's adrenaline levels would have been through the roof immediately before, during and after each encounter, so I do wonder how he could have managed to go straight on to a hard day's work when he was back down to earth with a bang. Wouldn't most violent serial killers prefer several hours of private 'down' time, to sleep, collect their thoughts, mentally relive what they had just done, admire their trophies, or at least stash them somewhere safe and clean up?

The evidence suggests that the killer would already have been fantasising about taking body parts and would have done so if he'd had more time or felt more secure in the location. What was he planning to do with them when he arrived at work? Suggest a name change to Pickfords Organ Removals?

Here's a bit of conjecture for you, which should be quite at home on a thread overflowing with it: what if the killer hears Cross coming before he's done all he wants to do, so he pulls the skirts down roughly and ducks into the shadows to observe what happens next. He hopes that Cross will simply pass on by (like Paul would arguably have done), assuming she is just drunk or asleep, or possibly not even noticing her. Will he get a chance to go back and inflict more damage? If her skirts had been left right up and any initial attempts at mutilation on show, he'd almost certainly have been forced to call it a night at that point. Do we know he couldn't have returned for another quick slash or two once Cross and Paul had pushed off?

Love,

Caz
X

[Abby Normal]

Just because the murder sites are not on Lechs direct route to work, does not mean he had to alter his path to work to look for victims-he could have gone the same way everytime and met the victims on his regular path and then been led by them to the spots where there bodies were found.


That being said-its highly unlikely JtR would be hunting/killing on his way to work:
1. He had a tight deadline to get to work and would be sacked for showing up late, which surely would have happened if he was losing time hunting/killing.
2. After his murders, it more than likely he would want to get back to somewhere private to do whatever he wanted with his goodies, not somewhere public, like work.
3. Highly unlikely JtR would be showing up to work with bloodstains, knife and organs without ever being suspected or caught.

He has only one red flag of possibly suspicious behavior(whereas a suspect like Hutch has 3), and thats using his other name, but even that could have a reasonable explanation.

Whereas I like the type of suspect lech is, namely: He is local, he is an average Joe, he is NOT a jew, he is NOT "crazy", he is a suspect that is actually close to/tied to the case (Unlike the after-the-facters like Kos, Druitt, Chapman, Bury etc.), the circumstances of being on his way to work when the murders are being committed pretty much rule him out IMHO.

[Ben]

That would depend, would it not? He could have started work later that day - more than twenty years of working for Pickfordīs may have meant that he had some advantages.

You're replying on very improbable "maybes" to make Cross work as the killer of Chapman, but in all very strong likelihood, he was due at work at the same time every day, and would have been at work when Chapman was killed. As I've observed, carmern are noted for their very early work hours, and any employee not due at work until after 5.00am would have been a very rare creature indeed.

"and that may lay behind why Chapman was killed a mere hundred yards from Paulīs working place at Corbettīs court. Have you given that any thought?"

Yes, I think that's not very likely. Cross knew full well that Paul was the second person on the scene, i.e. after him, and that any attempt at implicating him was therefore both illogical and doomed to failure. It also remains very unlikely for a killer who had received such exposure as a witness to go on to commit a similar murder a mere week later, and just a few hundred yards away from where he was "found" with his first victim.

Old Montague Street was the closest way to work for him. And I fail to see why he would avoid it

There is no evidence that he took that route...ever. If you have evidence to the contrary, I'm all ears, but until then, Cross has absolutely no "ties" to Mitre Square, Goulston Street or George Yard. The fact that he used Hanbury Street is an excellent indication that he was in the habit of using that particular route, and no, it wasn't appreciably slower than the alternative. The streets were wider, less dodgy, and there was no higglety pigglety alleyways to negotiate, or get mugged in, after Wentworth Street.

What Canter says is the exact same thing as most people say: most serialists will work in a chosen comfort zone.

Yes, but he elaborated on that and observed that the majority of serial killers will murder and/or dispose of their victims in an area that surrounds their base. They will live in an area circumscribed by their crimes, which Cross did not. He lived east of the easternmost crime scene, making him a commuter-type offender, and thus a "very rare" according to Canter's studies.

If he had lived in 22 Doveton Street for many a year, it would be a better suggestion to say that one would expect a concentric spreading of the killings with the home in the epicenter.

No, I'm afraid I don't buy that either. Cross had lived where he did for enough time for anyone to feel sufficiently "comfortable" in the immediate environment, and he doubtless built up a familiarity with the area very quickly as a result of his work commitments. At no point did Canter explain away the "very rare commuters" on the grounds of unfamiliarity with their own living area.

Once again, Canterīs research works from the assumption that the killers he describes have comfort zones around their homes. Once again, when they move, the comfort zone does not move with them until later in the process, and only gradually.

According to who - you? Great. That's based on nothing but your own inexpert assumption, and certainly doesn't support anything you've quoted from Canter. Where did he live before Doveton Street incidentally?

And please - PLEASE! - donīt forget that he needed to move to find the epicenter of prostitution. That MUST be weighed in!

There were opportunities to find prostitutes all over London, and he had a greater chance of procuring them in Stepney, which was just as close to his home. The idea that that Spitalfields was some sort of mecca for all prostitutes has mutated into an annoying factoid, and seemingly very difficult to shift.

Therefore, we should expect ALL killing sites to be situated to the west of his home - which is exactly what we find.

Absolutely no way. This is the opposite of what we ought to expect, based on our knowledge of serial killers and their behaviour in relation to geography. I don't know of a single expert on the subject who believes in a commuter-type of offender in the Whitechapel case. If you're going to quote an expert at length, at least heed what they're actually saying. Doveton Street was NOT an "alien" environment to Cross.

See, this is what happens when we argue academic efforts over reality.

But you're the one who introduced "academic efforts" to this topic. The only reason you're eschewing them now is because you realise they don't remotely support any of the suggestions you've been making with regard to Cross. You can say "end of story" as long as you like, but you haven't remotely demonstrated your point.

Oh! You are THAT desperate now? Thatīs just a laugh, Ben. The things you are ready to lower yourself to ...

So...because I made a statement which accurately represents your position, I'm "desperate"? Wow. Was I wrong to state that you don't believe Stride was a ripper victim? If not, Berner Street is probably irrelevant to the case against Cross. That is only logical. Please let me know which part of that you disagree with.

Will you try and forbid me to do reason like this, since I used to believe there could not be a connection?

The trick is to assess whether a victim was murdered by the ripper according to actual crime scene evidence. If the evidence points away from it, she probably wasn't a ripper victim. Since the emergence of a suspect who you latched onto a few months ago doesn't change the crime scene evidence, it shouldn't really alter your perspective as to the ripper-authorship, or otherwise, of that murder.

"Will you always believe in Hutchinson being Fleming and the Ripper, no matter what evidence surfaces? Surely not, Ben! Nobody in their right minds would be that stubborn and locked onto a useless idea, would they?"

It's not a useless idea. You did a terribly bad and unconvincing job of trying to make it appear useless, which isn't quite the same thing.

[Fisherman]

Bridewell:

"I agree that, with the addition of the word 'approximate', you make a much more realistic claim."

How else could we treat it? We know of one trek and one trek only, and that went via Hanbury Street. But hey, Bridewell, you are an ex-copper, it would seem? I know that the fewest are murder investigation involved, but you would still be able to answer this question, I believe:

Say that seven murders were committed in your precinct. Say that you know that a lone guy was found at the first murder site, stating that he was just helping. Say that it later surfaces that this guy has not given you the name he normally uses and goes by officially. Say that you discover that all the murders were committed along routes that you know that he had good reason to travel each day. Say that the murders occurred at times when you know that this guy would be in the vicinity.

What would you do, as a responsible policeman, Bridewell?

"I haven't accused you of dishonesty."

Fair enough - thanks for that!

"I have suggested that, in the heat of an argument, you were accusing Ben of being dishonest when he wasn't."

Wrong, Iīm afraid. I accused noone of dishonesty. I merely pointed to the usefulness of observing that the long time span allowed for when assessing TOD for Chapman means that - taken together with a flexible thinking about Lechmere and his working conditions - we have no reason to rule him out at all.

But letīs leave it at that, shall we?

The best,
Fisherman

[Bridewell]

I donīt HAVE to make an assumption. I KNOW that Lechmere - if he was not into twenty-mile treks of the wide variety - DID pass through the approximate territory.
So no assumption, Bridewell.

I agree that, with the addition of the word 'approximate', you make a much more realistic claim.

"How do you read "the likely time of Chapman's murder" as a claim of knowledge? Ben is making an honest statement which, in the heat of an argument, you are seeking to twist into a dishonest one. "

Please donīt accuse me of dishonesty, Bridewell. It could get ugly.

I haven't accused you of dishonesty. I have suggested that, in the heat of an argument, you were accusing Ben of being dishonest when he wasn't.

For the record, though, I don't think you were being dishonest, just unfair to Ben.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Fisherman]

Bridewell:

"In your argument you tie Cross's route to work to various murder sites, with an assumption that he varied his route to take in these locations. It is a little 'inconsistent', is it not, to take a swipe at Ben for what you call an assumption that he may well not have varied his route at all? You are the one making an assumption here, not Ben."

I donīt HAVE to make an assumption. I KNOW that Lechmere - if he was not into twenty-mile treks of the wide variety - DID pass through the approximate territory where the murders occurred. Buckīs Row is a given. Hanbury Street too. George Yard was a VERY short distance from Old Montague Street. Millerīs Court was a totally feasible address to pass by or close to - and Kelly would not have solicited only outside her door, would she?

So no assumption, Bridewell. I instead find it much more of an assumption to suggest that Lechmere may not have used the closest route to his work.

"The actions taken by Cross, after discovering a body, (as confirmed by Paul) are exactly those I would have taken in the same circumstances."

Including leaving a possibly dying woman in the street? Okay.

"Yes, they might also be the actions that an audacious killer would take, but that is a matter of pure speculation."

BOTH things are. If he did not kill, then the killing suggestion is speculation. If he DID kill, then the samaritan suggestion is speculation.

"There is nothing inherently suspicious in what Cross did, much as you may wish it were otherwise."

... and there we are again with two different interpretations. But each to his own!

"How do you read "the likely time of Chapman's murder" as a claim of knowledge? Ben is making an honest statement which, in the heat of an argument, you are seeking to twist into a dishonest one. "

Please donīt accuse me of dishonesty, Bridewell. It could get ugly. What I do is to point to the fact that the possible time-frame for Chapmans demise is a VERY broad one, allowing very much for Lechmere being the killer, either on his way to work or after having started that work. He WAS a carman, and may well have returned eastwards via a common thoroughfare like Hanbury street.

So, no dishonesty intended, and no dishonesty involved, which I kindly ask you to accept.

The best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

However the length and number of threads devoted to him is not much of an indication of his popularity as a suspect - more of the dogged enthusiasm (some mught use a word like mania) displayed by (ahem) a small number posters.

No, Lechmere. Relative to the number of active posters on the message board, the number of people enthusiastic about Hutchinson as a person of interest, whether "doggedly" "manically" or otherwise, is certainly not small. There are more books written about him than any other suspect, and the writers of the recent Whitechapel series both favour him as a suspect (see the DVD extras) and used him as a the suspect of choice for the detective lead. This was as a result of researching the case for the drama and reading the message boards. You can dismiss him as a suspect all you want (and in so doing, make a nonsense of your attempt to champion a local witness-type suspect), but his "popularity" is something you'll just have to put up with.

"to re-iterate very quickly he was firmly in the police's vision and any unravelling of his story would by that stage of the investigation have excited police interest where there any grounds for suspicion at the time."

He was no more of less in the police's "vision" than Cross was, and the above applies to Cross entirely. There is no evidence that Hutchinson was ever investigated as a suspect, and even if they did, the police would have been powerless to shore up any suspicions they may have had. He most emphatically could have entered the Victoria Home late at night provided he had a daily or weekly pass (it is you who misinterprets primary sources), and the identification as Hutchinson as the wideawake man may not be set in stone, but any alternative would have to rely on astonishingly unlikely "coincidence".

But please, if you wish to make the "case" against Cross appear even weaker, keep having a go at Hutchinson.

Meanwhile, back on topic:

The actions taken by Cross, after discovering a body, (as confirmed by Paul) are exactly those I would have taken in the same circumstances. They are the actions that a reasonable and responsible person might have taken in those circumstances. Yes, they might also be the actions that an audacious killer would take, but that is a matter of pure speculation.

Absolutely, Bridewell. The fact that he could have done it counts for very little in the total absence of any reason to think that he did.

Regards,
Ben