Who was the first clothes-puller?

[harry]

Fisherman,
Is it on record that the wife couldn't talk?
Sally,
Yes you are correct.Very weak reasons for suspicion.He sometimes used another name,and was first on the scene.Mind you there is always going to be questions asked of the first to find,but in the case of Cross,the answers seemed to satisfy.If he was at all a good planner,all he had to say to Paul was,'This womans bleeding,I'm going to find help',and rush off to work,leaving Paul in the hot seat.As to the clothing,perhaps it was partially up as she lay or was laid down

[harry]

I should have said write.Second mistake.

[Monty]

Absolutely. Thank you Abby, for a sensible, down to earth approach.

Right, this Cross business - ok, so he called himself Cross to avoid being identified as Lechmere - fair enough, I'll buy that. However, it takes a truly outstanding game of mental leapfrog to turn him into the Ripper just because of that - so far, what else is there?

Solid evidence, I mean, not speculative fun. Let's see it if we're going to have Cross as a serious object of suspicion.

Indeed Sally,

Cross kills, notes a person approaching from one direction and rather than flee the other, approaches that person, engages them, takes them to the murder scene and goes of with them to find a policeman.

Then, on top of that, gives his contact details and attends inquest.

This as opposed to the far simpler act of fleeing the scene.

There is theory, and there is out and out speculation.

This is the latter.

Monty

[Sally]

Fisherman,
Is it on record that the wife couldn't talk?
Sally,
Yes you are correct.Very weak reasons for suspicion.He sometimes used another name,and was first on the scene.Mind you there is always going to be questions asked of the first to find,but in the case of Cross,the answers seemed to satisfy.If he was at all a good planner,all he had to say to Paul was,'This womans bleeding,I'm going to find help',and rush off to work,leaving Paul in the hot seat.As to the clothing,perhaps it was partially up as she lay or was laid down

Harry - I believe the wife didn't sign the marriage certificate - thus, illiterate. Of course, that's not an absolutely ironclad assumption is it, because the skills of reading and writing are separate skills - i.e. it's possible to have some ability at one without the other.

The notion that Lechmere deliberately deceived his wife by calling himself Cross also makes some huge assumptions; not least of which is that his wife didn't know of the existence of his stepfather; or that he had used the name Cross as a child.

In fact, assumptions all round.

Monty - agreed.

Lechmere (or Lechmere's spokesperson Fisherman)

I will reserve judgement until such time as the evidence for Cross/Lechmere is presented.

It is not enough to say (paraphrase) - Oh, there's circumstantial evidence, or Oh, he might have had an acquaintance in the area and lived in Pinchin Street when he was a kid - not enough by far if you want to be taken seriously (let's leave the ludicrously improbable Organs at Pickfords thing out of the equation shall we - unless of course it's pivotal to the whole thing working..)

Quite apart from the fact that if you're pulling Pinchin Street into it you're presumably implying that Cross was also the Torso Killer? - there is nothing of any substance here as yet.

Facts and Figures please, or run the risk of being consigned to the ever growing dustbin of time-wasting crackpot theories.

[Jon Guy]

Cross kills, notes a person approaching from one direction and rather than flee the other, approaches that person, engages them, takes them to the murder scene and goes of with them to find a policeman.

Presumably, still with bloodied hands and knife on him.

[Robert]

The theory reminds me of the dreaded Mr B theory, in that there is some background info - local residence, etc - which kind of ticks the right boxes but would apply to thousands of people, and then there is a personal element (Mr B lived with deceased, Cross discovered a body) which makes the suspect worth a closer look. I am not familiar with the Cross theory, but I would ask, when did he assume the name "Lechmere"? I was just thinking that if he'd worked for Pickford's for 20 years, maybe he gave his name as "Cross" when he started, and felt he had to keep to that as far as Pickford's were concerned. When he got involved in the Hichols enquiry he again gave his name as "Cross" in case the police wanted to contact him at work. Any mileage in that?

[Bridewell]

Reasonable Enough

The theory reminds me of the dreaded Mr B theory, in that there is some background info - local residence, etc - which kind of ticks the right boxes but would apply to thousands of people, and then there is a personal element (Mr B lived with deceased, Cross discovered a body) which makes the suspect worth a closer look. I am not familiar with the Cross theory, but I would ask, when did he assume the name "Lechmere"? I was just thinking that if he'd worked for Pickford's for 20 years, maybe he gave his name as "Cross" when he started, and felt he had to keep to that as far as Pickford's were concerned. When he got involved in the Hichols enquiry he again gave his name as "Cross" in case the police wanted to contact him at work. Any mileage in that?

Hi Robert.

That seems perfectly plausible. The notion that the use of more than one name is confined to criminals - let alone serial killers - seems just plain daft.

Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie = the vicious past of homicidal Lulu?!
Reg Dwight - The Dark Side of Sinister Elton John etc.

It seems that the police kept a watchful eye on Cross for a while & found nothing to justify arrest.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Robert]

I don't know - hasn't Lulu murdered a few songs?

[Lechmere]

Actually there is no evidence whatsoever that the police took any interest in cross.
The interesting thing about the comments being made here is that none address the issues raised by fisherman regarding suspicious aspects relating to cross - which do not involve his name. His name change is merely the first issue that provoked interest in him. His name change alone would not be much but in conjunction with everything else it becomes suspicious as well.

[lynn cates]

easy

Hello Robert.

"When he got involved in the Nichols enquiry he again gave his name as "Cross" in case the police wanted to contact him at work. Any mileage in that?"

Could be. Could also be that it's simpler. After I married, my wife thanked me for a short, easy to spell last name. Before, she had an impossible to spell, unpronounceable Prussian cognomen.

So when dealing with police, etc., Cross may have just been the easy way out.

Cheers.
LC

[Fisherman]

Sally:

" it takes a truly outstanding game of mental leapfrog to turn him into the Ripper just because of that - so far, what else is there? "

There is, to begin with, the fact that three of the victims fell prey along his way to work. And another of them was killed on a street leading to his motherīs house. Thatīs four out of five victims that can be geographically positioned along routes that Cross would have used.
There is also the timing, where we have him walking to work at the times - roughly - when the deeeds were done.
There is also the strange fact that he used the name Cross when talking to the police.
There is the fact that he was in place together with Nichols in Buckīs Row - and with no other persons present until Paul turned up.

Can you think of any other suspect that we can place at the exact same spot where a victim was found dead, and in a window of time that would allow for him to be the killer. The closest we get is BS man, who was found a few yards from Strides murder spot.
Can you think of any other suspect that we have good reason to place geographically at four out of five murder sites? Three of them on his way to work, and number four en route to his motherīs house.

Thse two parameters ALONE makes Cross a very viable candidate. And if we couple it with the knowledge that he escaped being identified by his real name until rather recently, since he gave the police a name he apparently did not use otherwise, we have even more that is of interest - or should be, at the very least.

Finally, we also have the strange fact that somebody seemingly pulled the clothes down over Nicholsībody, apparently to hide the wounds, and we know that Cross heard Paul approaching the site. This too, is a compelling thing. As for Cross not hiding the wound to the throat - how could he? But that does not mean that he would have considered it useless to hide the much more prominent gash to the abdomen.

All in all, Sally, I think that when it comes to tangible evidence, Charles Lechmere is the number one contender for the Ripper title, and by a fair margin too. If you disagree, you are welcome to point to any contender that may be a better bid. Cross/Lechmere does not have any memoranda pointing him out, and he is not mentioned as a suspect contemporarily, but that is only consistent with the fact that the killer was never caught.

Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Harry:

"Fisherman,
Is it on record that the wife couldn't talk?"

She was illiterate, Harry. I take that to mean the same as the Swedish "illiterat" - not able to read and write.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Just saw that you are of the same meaning, Harry! Agreed, thus. And yes, we know that she did not sign with her name on censuses and such, but instead used a sign.

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Monty:

"Cross kills, notes a person approaching from one direction and rather than flee the other, approaches that person, engages them, takes them to the murder scene and goes of with them to find a policeman.

Then, on top of that, gives his contact details and attends inquest.

This as opposed to the far simpler act of fleeing the scene."

The alternative, Monty, may have been to dash for Bakerīs Row, something Paul would have heard, perhaps following it up by finding the corpse and shouting for help. And there he would be, running away from a murder site, weapon in pocket, quickly approaching PC Mizen and whatever colleagues he may have mustered.

Maybe running away was not such a good option after all?

Next: I think that he - if he was the killer - stepped out into the street in order to find out how much Paul had seen, and to take him out if needed. If Paul had seen nothing, then there would be no need to run for it. Then he could put on a charade and deflect any suspicions away from himself. After that, he could walk out of Buckīs Row with no immediate suspicions attaching to him. Surely, Monty, that would be a better solution to the dilemma with Paul than to run off, potentially into the arms of a policeman? You call fleeing the simpler solution, but fleeing a murder site and ending up in the arms of a PC would be quite a complication.

If Cross did it, then he surely found himself the best solution possible to the problem of exiting Buckīs Row!

The best,
Fisherman

[Robert]

Hi Lynn

That sounds possible - avoided "Take the book in your right hand, Mr Lunchbox."