Mary Jane and Blotchy

[Chava]

well, Its a possibility, but remote IMHO. I think he was there, per Sarah Lewis. The BGB has always intrigued me as a possible suspect, so I agree with Wick to that extent.

Unfortunately Sarah Lewis gives her inquest testimony before Hutchinson turns up with his statement. Which means Sarah Less saw a man. But that man may be someone else. And Hutchinson is taking advantage of what she said to talk to the police & possibly to the press where he can make a good thing out of being the last person to see Kelly alive. I haven't seen any account that suggests Lewis was shown Hutchinson to see if she recognized him.

[etenguy]

Unfortunately Sarah Lewis gives her inquest testimony before Hutchinson turns up with his statement. Which means Sarah Less saw a man. But that man may be someone else. And Hutchinson is taking advantage of what she said to talk to the police & possibly to the press where he can make a good thing out of being the last person to see Kelly alive. I haven't seen any account that suggests Lewis was shown Hutchinson to see if she recognized him.

Hi Chava

You may very well be correct. Hutchinson's evidence has long been questioned. Why did he wait to come forward? Why did he follow Kelly and the man? How did he take in such a detailed description?

I speculate that there is an explanation for the seemingly strange behaviour and that is based on Hutchinson's statement to the police and Abberline's statement that he believed Hutchinson's evidence. As part of his statement, Hutchinson stated 'he was surprised to see a man so well dressed in her company which caused him to watch them' - he also stated that he had spent his money in Romford and had none to share with Kelly.

A possible explanation for Hutchinson's behaviour is that he was taken to see such a well dressed man with Kelly. One who looked like he had money. Hutchinson might well look hard at this man to see what else might be stolen. He possibly followed kelly and companion and then waited for him to finish with her and leave. He may well have planned to mug him once he had left Kelly. However, it seems the man was taking his time and so Hutchinson left.

His reluctance to come forward initially may have been that he had no reasonable explanation for his behaviour - he is unlikely to tell the police he was going to set upon the man. It might have taken him a couple of days to pull together an explanation for his behaviour (which was weak nonetheless) before providing the police with what he knew to help catch the killer of his friend.

[Wickerman]

To be fair, Hutchinson only became a suspect after it was noticed in the Star (15 Nov) that the paper had claimed his story had been discredited, though the paper never offered a reason or justification, not even an official source for their claim.
Subsequently, theorists all jumped on the bandwagon to accuse him of lying, but there has never been a consensus among those theorists as to what he is supposed to have lied about, or what his role in the crime actually was. As a result, and lacking any true evidence, none of the accusations against him find any credibility.

[c.d.]

And Hutchinson is taking advantage of what she said to talk to the police & possibly to the press where he can make a good thing out of being the last person to see Kelly alive.

Maybe so but unless he was a complete idiot or extremely naive about police matters he would also have realized that it immediately made him a person of interest and possibly a suspect.

c.d.

[Observer]

Indeed, you can understand his reluctance to come forward. Perhaps this is one of the reasons it took three days for him to approach the police

[Abby Normal]

hutch probably waited to come forward because he didnt want to be a part of the inquest. As hutch seemed to try as hard as he could to convince the police he saw the ripper, seems like he was trying to gain some kind of fortune and or fame from it.

Hes a sketchy "witness" any way you cut it.

[Aethelwulf]

hutch probably waited to come forward because he didnt want to be a part of the inquest. As hutch seemed to try as hard as he could to convince the police he saw the ripper, seems like he was trying to gain some kind of fortune and or fame from it.

Hes a sketchy "witness" any way you cut it.

Assuming Aman is who the police are referring to below there is an interesting addition to Hutch that seems like the police belived him:

• Scotland Yard felt that “his description was very like that of the man who had been speaking to the young woman Kelly on the night of the crime”
• Scotland Yard “had established the fact that he was missing from his lodgings on the night that Marie Kelly was done to death in her home in Dorset Street”

[Wickerman]

Indeed, you can understand his reluctance to come forward. Perhaps this is one of the reasons it took three days for him to approach the police

But did it though?
It only looks that way if we think Hutchinson knew Kelly had been murdered in the early morning, and this is what theorists assume he knew. Yet neither the press, police or public believed this, in fact as I've pointed out a number of times, everyone was under the impression Kelly had been murdered after 9:00am Friday morning.
This fact puts a different face on the problem.

The situation on Friday & Saturday was that witnesses had seen Kelly alive late Friday morning, so this is what Hutchinson would also have known.
She was (apparently) killed after 9:00 am, and he had only seen her between 2-3:00 am, so there's no need for him to feel the need to make an issue of it.

It was only on the Sunday when doctors finally determined she had been killed about 3:00am, and as we read, it was Sunday when he finally approached a policeman to tell him what he knew.
So the sequence of events fits the facts as we know them, once he realized what he had seen could be of significance, he came forward. Then following a discussion with another resident of the home on Monday he went to the police station.

He wasn't holding out, he simply had no reason to think the man he saw Kelly with at 2:00 am could have had anything to do with her death (apparently) after 9:00 am, once that situation changed (on Sunday), he came forward.

[Wickerman]

Assuming Aman is who the police are referring to below there is an interesting addition to Hutch that seems like the police belived him:

• Scotland Yard felt that “his description was very like that of the man who had been speaking to the young woman Kelly on the night of the crime”
• Scotland Yard “had established the fact that he was missing from his lodgings on the night that Marie Kelly was done to death in her home in Dorset Street”

Those points do fit Joseph Isaacs, he was known to dress up 'above his station', he was a 'middle-aged Jew', he did live in the area (just off Dorset St.), he was known to have worn a gold watch chain, but missing the actual watch. It was reported that when the police finally laid their hands on him they thought they had collard Jack the Ripper. Sadly though, Joseph Isaacs had spent that Thursday night in a jail in Barnet. So it was not possible that he was the man described by Hutchinson.

[Aethelwulf]

Those comments are from Hastings' research on bury.

[Abby Normal]

Assuming Aman is who the police are referring to below there is an interesting addition to Hutch that seems like the police belived him:

• Scotland Yard felt that “his description was very like that of the man who had been speaking to the young woman Kelly on the night of the crime”
• Scotland Yard “had established the fact that he was missing from his lodgings on the night that Marie Kelly was done to death in her home in Dorset Street”

theres more of a chance that hutch was bury using a false name than aman was a real person. besides, aman was jewish, and bury was not.

actually, coming up with a false name and faking aman sounds like something bury would do.

[New Waterloo]

Please don't switch off when I mention PC Spicer, who as you may recall spoke to the press during the 1930's suggesting that he had arrested a man on the night of the double event and who was released after it was discovered he was a respectable Doctor. The reason I mention this is that Spicer describes the man as having 'rosy cheeks' and interestingly that he wore a gold watch and chain. Apparently he was arrested very close to James Hardiman (13 Heneage Street) who has also been suggested as a suspect. Often witnesses are debated at length. some are believed some are not but why is PC Spicer always considered as unreliable. He is no more unreliable than many. Rosy cheeks (blotchy) possible similarities with descriptions. Sacked from the Police and went to live in Woodford Green as a gardener. I know I am not helping much but just thought it worth a mention.

[Aethelwulf]

theres more of a chance that hutch was bury using a false name than aman was a real person. besides, aman was jewish, and bury was not.

actually, coming up with a false name and faking aman sounds like something bury would do.

Intersting but I find that a bit unlikely. Although Bury went to the police of his own accord, that was in the context of killing someone where he would be the only suspect, short of concocting some cast iron false alibi. I can't see hutch being Bury and going to the police of his own accord when there is nothing to connect him directly to the murder.

If we don't know who Aman was, how do we know he was Jewish? The dundee press said bury had a jewish look when viewed from the side (perhaps the most likely view that any witness got). He was observed in Dundee to wear a tweed suite outfit during the day and change into dark smart eveing clothes; he owned some curious clothes (tall silk hat, silk sash, balck kid gloves, long black fur lined cloak); and the amount of jewellry he wore was noticed by his neighbours in Dundee. I don't doubt hutch's story (after all it is just a man in smart clothes) and wickerman has provided a decent explanation of the delay reporting what he saw IMO. I sort of think it was a confident ruse to get up smart under the pretence of going to the LM's show the next day, or he was just coming back from one his 'smoking concerts'.

I would say the police at the time had a better idea that who looked like who, and Bury was out that night.

[Abby Normal]

Intersting but I find that a bit unlikely. Although Bury went to the police of his own accord, that was in the context of killing someone where he would be the only suspect, short of concocting some cast iron false alibi. I can't see hutch being Bury and going to the police of his own accord when there is nothing to connect him directly to the murder.

If we don't know who Aman was, how do we know he was Jewish? The dundee press said bury had a jewish look when viewed from the side (perhaps the most likely view that any witness got). He was observed in Dundee to wear a tweed suite outfit during the day and change into dark smart eveing clothes; he owned some curious clothes (tall silk hat, silk sash, balck kid gloves, long black fur lined cloak); and the amount of jewellry he wore was noticed by his neighbours in Dundee. I don't doubt hutch's story (after all it is just a man in smart clothes) and wickerman has provided a decent explanation of the delay reporting what he saw IMO. I sort of think it was a confident ruse to get up smart under the pretence of going to the LM's show the next day, or he was just coming back from one his 'smoking concerts'.

I would say the police at the time had a better idea that who looked like who, and Bury was out that night.

thanks wulf
refresh my memory please... did abberline go to dundee to question bury?

[Aethelwulf]

thanks wulf
refresh my memory please... did abberline go to dundee to question bury?

Not as far as I know. He took statements from James Martin and Elizabeth Haynes. Steve Earp did have transcipts of these with Abberline's marginalia on his website, which appears to be knackered and no longer works. The police statements indicate that detectives were sent to Bury's execuation and were ordered to make nothing public. I tend to think it must have been abberline in charge of the investiagtion into Bury.

Really though, the witness descriptions/clothing etc are small fry when discussing Bury. Not only did Bury stab and cut areas the ripper liked (some of the things Bury did must surely be classed as extremely rare and found also on Eddowes), prior to this he seems to have fluked a near identical way of strangling his wife with a cord leaving a mark all the way around the neck apart from a couple of inches to the left of the spine - same as found on Mylett. I find the combination of these things extraodinary sus - Bury has the same sig as the ripper AND the same strangulation MO as some bloke that took a prostitute into a dark corner and throttled her. Surely Dr Brownfield was made aware of the latter. Shame the file on Bury is no more.