Disregarded evidence

[Tom_Wescott]

The Lilley incident

Speaking as someone interested in a suspect who, for a fact, had criminal accomplices, I've in the past looked at the Lilley evidence to consider if it constituted evidence of two killers. Such a thing would clearly support my thesis. But what I came away with was that Lilley was an auditory witness to three events - a train, choking noises, and two people whispering...in that order. The train is clearly an unrelated event, whereas the choking and whispering were linked (in her mind) as related, and I don't think anyone of us would disagree with that, in so far as the choking sounds would have been Nichols, and the whispering would have been about her. The only reason that the train event comes in to play is that she would have been asked what time she heard the other events, and she didn't know the time, but could recall that she had heard a train go by. But the train came at least 15 minutes prior to the discovery of her fresh murder, the implications of which must be one of the following:

1) Lilley was mistaken about the time lapse between the train and the choking/whispering.
2) The source(s) for the time the train actually ran (versus was scheduled to run) is incorrect.
3) Cross and Paul were in on the murder together and waiting 15 minutes from the time they rendered Nichols unconscious to the time they mutilated her.
4) The medical evidence is incorrect about the time of death and Nichols had been killed 15-20 minutes prior to her discovery.
4b) A further implication, arising from 4, would be that two people were involved in the murder of Nichols at 3:30, and these people were not Cross and Paul.

Based on this, it seemed to me that option 1 was far and away the most likely conclusion. I'm also at a loss as to what Lechmere and Fisherman are going for with their take on Lilley, since both believe that Cross was a lone killer.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Lechmere]

The following news story (already referred to by Jon Guy) shows that the coffee stall suspect seen by John Morgan was swiftly discounted. Indeed on the same evening that The Echo reported the story, The Star gave an update that shot The Echo story (which was relied upon in the new Cutbush book) down in flames!

The Star, 1 SEPTEMBER, 1888.

While the medical examination was in progress, an officer arrived from the Bethnal-green Station with two men, who were regarded as possibly able to throw some light on the case. The first was a man who keeps the coffee-stall at the corner of Whitechapel-road and Cambridge-road. He said that at three o'clock yesterday morning a woman answering the description of the deceased came to his stall in company with a man five feet three or four inches high, dressed in a dark coat and black Derby hat, apparently about thirty-five years old. He had a black moustache and whiskers, and was fidgety and uneasy. He refused to have anything to eat, but paid for the woman's coffee. He grumbled and kept telling her to hurry, as he wished to get home. The other man was a Mr. Scorer, an assistant salesman in the Smithfield Market. He had been attracted by the report in The Star that the dead woman's name might be Scorer, and said that his wife, from whom he separated 11 years ago, had been an inmate of Lambeth Workhouse. He said she had a friend named Polly Nicholls, and that he knew the latter by sight. He did not know the colour of his wife's eyes, but said she had two scars on her body - one on the right thigh and the other on the right forearm.
Both men were allowed to view the remains, but nothing came of it.
The coffee-stall keeper said he did not think it was the same woman, but was not sure. The woman, if it was the same, had grown thinner in the face. Scorer said that deceased was neither his wife nor her friend Nicholls, so far as he could remember.

One strange thing is that Mr Scorer, who supposedly knew Polly Nichols, did not identify the body. Or was it someone else called Polly Nichols?
Or did Scorer and Morgan just want to get a voyeuristic close up of the corpse?

[Debra A]

Edward,

Yes, Debs is correct. I was being a very naughty boy....its not THE Cutbush.

Albert Cutbush, in the 1881 or 71 census. Lodger to an elderly chap at No7 Bucks Row.

Sorry, I couldnt resist.

Monty

oops, sorry, Neil.
Blame David Bullock for stretching one too many Cutbush related details...i couldn't stick another one!

[Monty]

Oh dear - this serious thread was almost derailed by an attempted joke

Serious thread?

Most humorous.

Monty

[curious]

Hi Tom!

A luggage train went by as Lilley heard the sounds. That luggage train went by at 3.30.
At 3.45-3.50 somewhere, PC Neil found Nichols´body. At that stage, the blood was still oozing from the neck wound.
A woman that has all of the neck vessels severed and - to boot - has her stomach ripper open, will bleed out in the fewest of minutes. I find it hard in the extreme to believe that Nichols would still have bled a full fifteen to twenty minutes after she was cut. Blood oozing three or four minutes after the cut, would however be forensically correct - and in total line with Nichols being cut by Lechmere.

All the best,
Fisherman

Hi, Fisherman,
I, too, have attempted to research this, but the amount of time I found was anywhere from 2 to 4 minutes for the heart to stop beating, then 3 to 15 minutes for the blood to clot.

doing the math, at the short end, you would have 5 minutes and at the long end you would have 19 minutes for death to occur and for the oozing to stop.

curious

[Lechmere]

Oh dear - this serious thread was almost derailed by an attempted joke

[Monty]

Cutbush

Edward,

Yes, Debs is correct. I was being a very naughty boy....its not THE Cutbush.

Albert Cutbush, in the 1881 or 71 census. Lodger to an elderly chap at No7 Bucks Row.

Sorry, I couldnt resist.

Monty

[Phil H]

Could well be, Phil. But she IS adamant that the sounds and the train were heard simultaneously. Still, she could have been drowsy and gotten it wrong. In which case much could be muddled!

Exactly. She may well have been adamant about what she believed had happened. That does not mean she remembered correctly. She may not have realised she dozed off in between - but I believe that can explain practically any differences.

Phil H

[Debra A]

Monty
That's interesting about cutbush - what is the source?

Not the Cutbush or any of his relations, as far as I'm aware.

[DVV]

Plus the train timing does STILL does not tally with the oozing blood at 3.45-3.50...
The best,
Fisherman

Fish, we don't know precisely when she heard the train (could have been at 3.35, 3.32, 3.25, whatever...), but more importantly, we don't know how many minutes have passed by before she heard the two voices.

Mrs Green, it's true, lived closer to the spot and heard nothing.

But then again, did Mrs Green, that world-famous light sleeper, hear the train ?

Spratling (3 Sept) said Mrs Green "was up until 4.30", but his assertion is flatly contradicted by Mrs Green's own testimony (17 Sept) : "Witness did not remember waking up until she heard a knock at the front door about 4 o'clock in the morning."

She was therefore sleeping and did not hear the train. No wonder she did not hear the voices either.

[Lechmere]

Monty
That's interesting about cutbush - what is the source?

[Jon Guy]

Note to myself :-)

Actually, we do know when her throat was cut. It was within half an hour of Dr Llewellyn arriving and inspecting the body, 3.30am at the earliest.

[Jon Guy]

Unfortunately, Christer, as you know, we do not know how the killer subdued his victim. He may have punched her in the stomach and face to stun her on her feet before pulling her a few yards to the gates and away from the house windows. He could have been walking with his arm around her neck (remember how Marshall`s man was walking with Stride and his arm around her neck) and on approaching the gates tightened his grip.

Regarding blood flow and train times, we do not know when her throat was cut. It could have been a few minutes after the train that Lilley heard had passed.

[Monty]

The number ran on one side.

Courtesy of Robert Clack.

Incidently, Cutbush lived at No7 prior to the Lilleys.

Monty

[Fisherman]

I guess, Jon. But why would she stay silent as she left the space underneath Lilley´s window? And if she was subdued there, badly drunk, why would the killer bother to drag her to Brown´s? Why not cut away there and then? It makes little sense.
But of course it could have happened that way.

But that STILL has the train and the bloodflow out of sync.

Phil h:

"If Mrs Lilley dozed off after hearing the train, there is no reason why it should tally."

Could well be, Phil. But she IS adamant that the sounds and the train were heard simultaneously. Still, she could have been drowsy and gotten it wrong. In which case much could be muddled!

The best,
Fisherman