Lechmere Continuation Thread

[David Orsam]

So what is the evidence that this "evidence", i.e. the statement by Mizen that he was told he was wanted by a policeman in Buck´s Row, is corresponding to such a statement made by Lechmere?

As a matter of historical fact, we do not have that statement. It is nowhere in any source.

The report from the Times gives Mizen's evidence as being: "Cross simply said he was wanted by a policeman".

So that statement was attributed to Lechmere and corresponded to a statement made by Lechmere (to use your words).

[David Orsam]

And I would say that a lie would just make things complicated and increase the risk of a non suspect becoming a suspect.

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, you need to consider that if Lechmere was the murderer he must have been carrying the murder weapon, a bloody knife, and probably had blood on his hands and clothes so he might well have felt it was essential to get away from Bucks Row as fast as possible and not speak to any police officers for longer than he needed to. If he was stopped and searched he was a dead man. So his life would have depended on getting away, an escape which would have been facilitated by the lie.

[David Orsam]

That is not correct. A lot of reporters reporting the same thing does not mean they are correct. It is just a phenomenon of copying each other. One paper may be correct when all else are wrong. You have to analyse the articles and look for the provenience of statements.

Do you have any evidence of reporters copying each other when reporting on the Nichols inquest? Given that the reports are largely different there is no reason to believe they all copied each other. Given the number of different reporters involved we can have high confidence that Mizen's evidence was accurately reported.

In fact, we know it must be otherwise there would have been no reason for Cross to have been asked if he did tell Mizen he was wanted by a policeman (and I note that you have relied upon Cross's answer, that he did not see a policeman, yourself).

The key with analysing any evidence Pierre is to consider how it fits in with all the other known evidence and to use one's judgment about whether it is accurate. If it does not fit with all the other evidence then one has to consider the possibility of error (as with the Telegraph report about Cross and Paul hearing a policeman coming towards them). To reject all newspaper evidence simply because of the theoretical possibility that reporters might have copied each other is absolutely ridiculous but no more than I would expect from you.

[David Orsam]

Oh, dear. So we should "believe" the newspapers because "authorities" in 1888 did so? That is really a naive and incorrect statement, David. Do you understand the differences between their society and ours? They hardly had any relevant education at all.

Oh dear. That is an extraordinary thing to say Pierre. And yet with all your education all you've done is tell us that GOGMAGOG predicted the name and address of MJK as the next murder victim and the date of her murder before it occurred. That turned out to be complete rubbish didn't it?

In any case, I'm not saying we should believe the newspapers simply because the authorities in 1888 did so but because when it comes to reporting of judicial proceedings the court reporters were pretty good at their jobs and reported to a relatively high standard of accuracy. And, for the Nichols inquest, the newspaper reports are the evidence in the case and that's it.

The odd thing is that for certain facts you are very happy to rely on the newspaper reports of the inquests but then reject other facts you don't like simply because they are derived from the newspaper reports of the inquests!

[Bridewell]

If, on the other hand, Cross's evidence is correct (and Mizen's is not) then Cross never said there was a policeman in Bucks Row. So Mizen either lied about what Cross said or he misheard him or he misunderstood him or he heard him correctly at the time but later recalled it wrong.

This is the nub of it. Those who think Cross/Lechmere was the killer will conclude that he was lying. Those who think he wasn't will conclude otherwise.
What we do know is that Mizen continued knocking up after his encounter with Cross & Paul (although we don't know for how long exactly). The duties of a police officer then (as now) were, in order of importance:-

The Protection of Life and Property
The Maintenance of Order
The Prevention and Detection of Crime
The Prosecution of Offenders Against the Peace.

Number One Priority - Protect Life. 'Knocking Up' is nowhere.

Having been told that there was a woman lying either dead or drunk in Bucks Row, Mizen's over-riding priority should have been to go to Bucks Row and check the exact situation. This is beyond argument. I'd be interested to get Trevor Marriott's view on the matter (also SPE's if he was still posting) but to my mind by far the more likely scenario is that Mizen invented the presence of an officer already at the scene in an attempt to justify what was clearly neglect of duty on his part (potentially, in these circumstances, a sacking offence). Whoever lied did so for reasons of self-preservation. I think it more likely than not that this was Mizen. He dragged his feet to ensure that a 'J' Division officer got there before he did. It happens today; it would be naive to suppose that it didn't happen then too.

[Errata]

I don't think you mean to say "meaningless lie". I think you mean "pointless lie". You are trying to say that the lie could not reasonably have had any benefit to Lechmere and there was only a downside in him being caught out.

Where I think you are going wrong is that you are not sufficiently factoring in the fact that if he was the murderer he must have carrying a knife and he might have had blood on his hands and his clothes. He had to act normally with Paul but his clear motive would have been to get as far away as possible from Bucks Row and from any police officers.

His very life was at stake.

So if you put yourself into the mind of Lechmere as the murderer, the lie did have a possible benefit for him and I would say the outcome (i.e. being allowed on his way) was one he could reasonably have anticipated.

Fair enough. Pointless lie.

But what on earth would have made him think that saying there was another cop summoning Mizen to the scene of a murder was going to make Mizen let him go unexamined? Wouldn't the assumption be that Mizen was going to drag them back to the scene because they were still presumably necessary to the investigation other cop or no, and then ask where this other cop was?

And if the argument was that he was not acting rationally, then doesn't that rather strengthen my point that he did not tell some cunning lie, but in fact got ridiculously lucky in the dumb lie he did tell? A lie that had no reason to benefit him, yet through freak chance it did.

[Columbo]

The fact that the possibility that Lechmere lied exists is reason for suspicion to be cast against Lechmere.

In other words, because we can't discount the possibility that he did lie, we have to regard Lechmere with suspicion. Any other attitude in a criminal investigation would be perverse.

True but you really can't prove which, if either one, was lying. You could also argue that the police were incompetent because they apparently didn't regard this whole lie situation as anything important.

Unless there's files missing (which of course there are!) showing otherwise, the police didn't show any indication they were even concerned about it. That can only mean one thing, that Mizen lied and they wanted it to quietly go away. It also indicates Lechmere said no such thing to Mizen. All theoretical of course.

Columbo

[Columbo]

Newspapers do sometimes make mistakes when reporting court proceedings but on the whole they are correct, especially when there are a number of different reporters all reporting the same thing.

To dispute a newspaper report of an inquest simply because it is a newspaper report is absurd. Unless there is some kind of reason to believe part of a report is wrong, it is perfectly acceptable to rely on it as true. The authorities themselves relied on newspaper reporting of inquests in 1888. Reports from the Times and Telegraph were pretty much accepted as official inquest reports.

You really are way on the wrong lines here.

I actually dispute news reports when there are fundamental differences. As I've pointed out I still believe several newspapers used a news agency, which of course means only one reporter had to get it wrong. I can't prove it but it's possible.

I can't really agree with the authorities part of your post. Why would they depend on the newspaper when they could check the official record in the course of their job? I would consider them lazy if they were relying on the press for their information on a highly publicized murder

Columbo

[harry]

If he (Cross)lied. Nothing speaks of certainty.Cannot see where that helps in determining whether Cross cut Nichols throat sometime earlier.Cross did testify under oath,and nothing I have read indicates he was disbelieved by the coroner.Both he and Mizen were witnesses,rank or status meant nothing.

[curious]

[QUOTE=Pierre;388485]

That is not correct. A lot of reporters reporting the same thing does not mean they are correct. It is just a phenomenon of copying each other. One paper may be correct when all else are wrong. You have to analyse the articles and look for the provenience of statements.

No, Pierre, they were not copying each other. They attended the same event -- a court trial, then each reporter raced back to his newspaper office and wrote his story as quickly as possible for the next edition.

Therefore, when numerous newspapers report the same thing, it means that is what happened. Or as someone stated earlier, some of the stories, especially in outlying areas, could have been supplied by a news agency such as America's Associated Press today. The local paper and the agency would have sent their own reporters who produced stories for their own papers.

Sometimes, they may choose to include different tidbits, depending upon what each reporter considered the most telling and important information, so you may see some variation from one story to the next.

[Columbo]

If he (Cross)lied. Nothing speaks of certainty.Cannot see where that helps in determining whether Cross cut Nichols throat sometime earlier.Cross did testify under oath,and nothing I have read indicates he was disbelieved by the coroner.Both he and Mizen were witnesses,rank or status meant nothing.

you're absolutely right. But Pro-Lechmere people use that as a big + for their suspicions. I'm not sure they realize they don't need it with the other bits of evidence against him.

Columbo

[John G]

This is the nub of it. Those who think Cross/Lechmere was the killer will conclude that he was lying. Those who think he wasn't will conclude otherwise.
What we do know is that Mizen continued knocking up after his encounter with Cross & Paul (although we don't know for how long exactly). The duties of a police officer then (as now) were, in order of importance:-

The Protection of Life and Property
The Maintenance of Order
The Prevention and Detection of Crime
The Prosecution of Offenders Against the Peace.

Number One Priority - Protect Life. 'Knocking Up' is nowhere.

Having been told that there was a woman lying either dead or drunk in Bucks Row, Mizen's over-riding priority should have been to go to Bucks Row and check the exact situation. This is beyond argument. I'd be interested to get Trevor Marriott's view on the matter (also SPE's if he was still posting) but to my mind by far the more likely scenario is that Mizen invented the presence of an officer already at the scene in an attempt to justify what was clearly neglect of duty on his part (potentially, in these circumstances, a sacking offence). Whoever lied did so for reasons of self-preservation. I think it more likely than not that this was Mizen. He dragged his feet to ensure that a 'J' Division officer got there before he did. It happens today; it would be naive to suppose that it didn't happen then too.

Was he told that there was a woman "lying either dead or drunk?"I thought in his evidence he stated in his evidence that he was only told that he was wanted by another constable in Bucks Row, "where a woman was lying". Now he probably interpreted this as the woman was simply drunk, a common enough occurrence I would have thought, and not an incident that would have merited his immediate attention. And the fact that he wasn't disciplined implies his superiors didn't disbelieve him.

Of course, Lechmere gives a different account, however, as I have pointed out, if he was the killer became every read on to downplay the incident, as implied by PC Mizen's account. And there's no proof at all that Paul corroborated Lechmere's version of the conversation. In fact, it would be my guess that Paul was out of earshot for at least part of the conversation, otherwise it would have been a dangerous lie for either Lechmere or PC Mizen to have told.

We are therefore left with the same issue: the word of a police officer with an unblemished record as against that of a man found with a dead body.

[John G]

If he (Cross)lied. Nothing speaks of certainty.Cannot see where that helps in determining whether Cross cut Nichols throat sometime earlier.Cross did testify under oath,and nothing I have read indicates he was disbelieved by the coroner.Both he and Mizen were witnesses,rank or status meant nothing.

I wouldn't accept that they were witnesses of equal rank. PC Mizen was a police officer with an unblemished record, whereas Lechmere is someone we know very little about, apart from the fact he was discovered with a dead body.

However, I accept that none of this means Lechmere was a murderer, and the case against him is, in my opinion, far from conclusive. But, then again, the same could be said of Kosminski, Druitt, Tumblety, Sickert...

[GUT]

Was he told that there was a woman "lying either dead or drunk?"I thought in his evidence he stated in his evidence that he was only told that he was wanted by another constable in Bucks Row, "where a woman was lying". Now he probably interpreted this as the woman was simply drunk, a common enough occurrence I would have thought, and not an incident that would have merited his immediate attention. And the fact that he wasn't disciplined implies his superiors didn't disbelieve him.

Of course, Lechmere gives a different account, however, as I have pointed out, if he was the killer became every read on to downplay the incident, as implied by PC Mizen's account. And there's no proof at all that Paul corroborated Lechmere's version of the conversation.

We are therefore left with the same issue: the word of a police officer with an unblemished record as against that of a man found with a dead body.

"Against that if a man who also had an unblemished record".

[drstrange169]

>>... if he was the killer became every read on to downplay the incident, as implied by PC Mizen's account.<<

And, of course, if he was the killer he had every reason not to wait for Paul and even more reason not to accompany him on the mission to find a policeman. The latter being a course of action any innocent person might undertake.


>> ... there's no proof at all that Paul corroborated Lechmere's version of the conversation.<<

You keep repeating this as if repetition will make it less inaccurate.

"... He continued calling the people up, which I thought was a great shame, after I had told him the woman was dead."
Robert Paul

"... the other man stated he believed her to be dead."
Xmere

Two men, one story.


>>We are therefore left with the same issue: the word of a police officer with an unblemished record as against that of a man found with a dead body.<<

And the man who found the dead body was believed by the people, who had access to more information than us, over the supposed spot free policeman.