Romford

[Ally]

No, no, no, no, bloody no First he tells us (or rather Kelly herself) that he has no money, but when speaking to the press, he divulges the detail that the place where he usually slept had closed. But why mention the closure of a home if he has no money to get in anyway? It's irrelevant. Why didn't he say, "I walked about all night because I had no money to get into where I usually sleep?".

I think I'll file this post away under "To be used again if ever challenged on this issue".

Because some people have some sense of pride and he wouldn't want it posted in the paper for all the world to see that despite having legged all day for work, he was without a coin to his name to buy a bed for the night? Much less injurious to the ego to simply state the place was closed.

[caz]

...All at once am I
Several stories high...

And there was I thinking Hutchinson was King of the tall stories.

The problem with making a case for Hutchinson being a vicious killer, by speculating that he lied to the police or the papers, is that you can't then rely on any part of his story being true, unless it is backed up to the hilt by some pretty sound independent evidence. In short you have to throw out every word he uttered and start from there - but with what evidence?

It’s a paradox: you have to argue for a killer who came forward and volunteered the God’s honest truthful information that he was pretty much at the crime scene at the right time to commit the murder, but then had to lie through his teeth about pretty much everything else to explain away his presence, which only he was seeking to establish. And some of his lies were apparently so blatant that a backward earwig should have cottoned on to something being seriously wrong.

Hutchinson's story was believed initially, remember, but apparently not in the long run.

How could I forget?

The fact that the police believed him initially, in the immediate wake of this latest unsolved horror, rather gives the lie to the broken record argument that it was such an obviously tall story right from the word go. Why would it only start whiffing more than a century later, and to just a few highly sensitive modern noses, if he was dishing out what he knew to be rotten cod back in 1888?

“I see, George. So you walked all the way from Romford, knowing you wouldn’t get a bed at the Victoria Home. Then you waited nearly an hour outside the murdered woman’s miserable hovel in miserable weather because you were naturally curious about the Delboy - er, sorry, the unusually upmarket punter she had attracted. Then you gave up and left them to it and spent the rest of the night walking about. I think that’s all I need to know, George. Pull the door to on the way out, there’s a good chap. Bit nippy outside today. Oh - hang on just a second. Might I just check the state of your bare feet and the soles of your boots, and feel the bumps on your head?”

Some of the modern stories implying Hutchinson’s guilt and Abberline’s moronic incompetence already smell well past their sell-by date. And telling them over and over and over again will not make them come up one day smelling of roses.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Undertaking such a journey at that time, in those conditions, and with no chance of getting in the Victoria Home is obviously implausible, because it would mean that he endured all that sleep deprivation, exposure and energy expenditure for no reason. As the police's failure to raise any eyebrow over the issue, I'm not remotely confident that they didn't. Crucially, the police statement included no reference to walking all the way back from Romford; only that he'd spent all his money there. The walking bit was only included in press versions of his testimony, i.e. very shortly before the Star's announcement that his statement was "now discredited". I've suggested in the past that some of Hutchinson press disclosures may well have prompted the belief to distrust him, and this may have been a case in point.

Hi Ben,

Do you not think that when Hutch told the police he had spent all his money down in Romford, they would have instantly asked him what transport he used to get back to Whitechapel and how he had intended to spend the night when he finally arrived?

Love,

Caz
X

[Rubyretro]

The problem with making a case for Hutchinson being a vicious killer, by speculating that he lied to the police or the papers, is that you can't then rely on any part of his story being true, unless it is backed up to the hilt by some pretty sound independent evidence. In short you have to throw out every word he uttered and start from there - but with what evidence?

That would be a very silly thing to do.

I am sure that you are about the same age as me, Caz...so you must also have met some pathalogical liars in your time. So you will know that they always mix fact and fiction, and they sit cool as clichéd cucumbers and look you straight in the eye as they recount a load of bollocks. They're very good at it, and that's how they get away with it.

I'm just going to tell you a 'case history' (or personal story, if you prefer)
that is uppermost in my mind as I type this.
An old friend of mine was once married to a man who had 'a thing' about the army and he collected uniforms. He was a chef, who had a private pilot's license, and he was therefore invited to join the Terratorial Army -in the catering corps. He had to go away on manoeuvres at intervals to places like Canada (I remember as one). When the first Gulf war broke out, he was called up and offered a course of drugs against chemical warfare, which he
never took because the war was over before he got to go.
Years later this man turned up in Avignon, and, having got my number from
his ex, he took me out for dinner. He turned up in an army type jumper and combats and over some flashy lobster dish, looking me limpidly in the eyes, recounted to me his derring-dos as an SAS member out in Bosnia and Iraq.
He was so believable (having no doubt recounted these stories to a host of gullible people) that I would certainly have believed all the army jargon and
authentique details if I didn't know that he was actually a chef who had once been in the Terras and had since been catering on boats.

It was a lesson for me on how good liars are at constructing a story out of a mixture of salient facts, embroidered details and total fabrication, and how convincing they are with body language (a bit over the top).

I don't even think that people with this 'gift' for lying are so rare -if you look at the number of people 'taken in' by dates they meet over the internet, or
investors taken in by false business men..and yes, criminals gulling the Police.

I repeat: it's because these tricksters can mix 'truths' with their lies that they are so convincing. So in no way can we say that we have to either believe everything a liar says , or chuck the lot out as prevarication.

It’s a paradox: you have to argue for a killer who came forward and volunteered the God’s honest truthful information that he was pretty much at the crime scene at the right time to commit the murder, but then had to lie through his teeth about pretty much everything else to explain away his presence, which only he was seeking to establish. And some of his lies were apparently so blatant that a backward earwig should have cottoned on to something being seriously wrong.

It's not a paradox at all:
I don't want to bore you all with bringing up Danilo Restivo once again...but I will anyway.
He blatently put himself in the Police 'hotseat' by becoming the first adult
at the murder site of Heather Barnett (of whose murder he was eventually convicted). Infact he even tried to contaminate himself with DNA from the crimescene by cuddling the child who had found the body. He made sure that he was one one of the first 'witnesses' interviewed by Police, and he lied about "pretty much everything else" -but the Police wrote him off as a "bumbling local idiot" and believed him.
This is because he was a habile liar like my "friend" who mixed fact with fiction. That's despite the superior knowledge that Police have today on how
killers do involve themselves in their own cases.

"lies so blatent that a backward earwig should have cottoned on to something being seriously wrong" ? Let's go back to Restivo : Police found him soaking his trainers (the same make and size as prints found at the crimescene) in bleach. Restivo said that he just wanted to wash his trainers and had no idea that he was using bleach since he had impaired sense of smell and no idea that bleach destroyed DNA evidence. The Police still needed to make the connection with a previous crime in Italy thanks to internet) and use cameras, bugging, and advanced forensic techniques to
corner the bloke.

Restivo wasn't even very bright intellectually.

I think that Hutchinson's story and actions stink, and whether Abberline initially believed him (and he apparently didn't for long) or not, is not proof of anything at all. I also think that Hutchinson's story is bound to contain some checkable truths..and that doesn't mean that he wasn't a liar.

At the end of the day, the fact that there are no more canonicals after Hutchinson became known to Police, Press and People (via the Press) makes me think that he was indeed the Ripper (and Restivo was able to go years between killings).

[Rubyretro]

Some of the modern stories implying Hutchinson’s guilt and Abberline’s moronic incompetence already smell well past their sell-by date. And telling them over and over and over again will not make them come up one day smelling of roses.

Love,

I don't think that anyone has ever implied that Abberline was moronically incompetent. Certainly not Me. Abberline didn't appear to believe in Hutchinson's story for very long anyway..

If, despite all the counter arguments to Hutchinson's guilt, he still remains one of the most popular candidates (and the number of posts on Casebook
about him attest to that), it's surely because his story does not add up but his profile fits modern assessments of the Ripper very well.

And he was (according to himself -and apparently you think he told the truth) hanging about outside the crime scene just prior to Kelly's murder.

[The Good Michael]

Ruby,

A pathological liar is one who makes up his lies on the spot and there is nothing pre-planned. Yet, he can create the lie so quickly and with such believability that he's hard to figure out. It is also known as compulsive lying. These things don't sound like what has been suggested of George William Topping Hutchinson. If he lied, he made some kind of plan, don;t you think?

Mike

[Ben]

A couple of “spot-on” posts there, Lesley.

Hi Caz,

“The problem with making a case for Hutchinson being a vicious killer, by speculating that he lied to the police or the papers, is that you can't then rely on any part of his story being true, unless it is backed up to the hilt by some pretty sound independent evidence.”

Absolutely, but I believe this “pretty sound independent evidence” comes from Sarah Lewis, who described a man loitering opposite Miller’s Court at 2:30am on the night of the murder, apparently watching and waiting for some to come out, tying in precisely with Hutchinson’s post-inquest claims of his own actions and movements that night. In other words, there can be very little doubt, in my opinion, that Hutchinson was the man seen by Lewis. This would mean that at the very least, he told the truth about where he was that night. Unfortunately, all the rest remains unverified, including the question of why he was loitering outside the entrance to Miller’s Court that night.

“It’s a paradox: you have to argue for a killer who came forward and volunteered the God’s honest truthful information that he was pretty much at the crime scene at the right time to commit the murder, but then had to lie through his teeth about pretty much everything else to explain away his presence, which only he was seeking to establish.”

Where’s the paradox?

The contention is that Hutchinson realised he’d been seen at the crime scene by another witness, and consequently came forward with a false excuse to explain why he’d been there. Other serial killers have behaved in a similar fashion before, so we needn’t consider it an unrealistic proposal with regard to Hutchinson. This is what tends to get overlooked in some of these Hutchinson debates. Very rarely does anyone set out to present a case for Hutchinson being the killer. What you see more often is people challenging some of the arguments that seek to depict such a case as unlikely, which it really isn’t.

“Why would it only start whiffing more than a century later?”

I don’t believe that’s the case at all.

I believe it started “whiffing” on 13th November 1888 when it was first reported in the press that a “very reduced importance” had been attached to Hutchinson’s evidence. The strongest indications suggest that the account was discredited very shortly after it appeared, and was most probably lumped into the same category as Emanuel Violenia and Matthew Packer, i.e. money/publicity seekers and timewasters. In making this connection, it is possible that the police may have overlooked the question of his potential culpability in the crime, and the possibility that he lied for that reason rather than attention-seeking.

But it wouldn’t have anything to do with “moronic incompetence” on the part of the police if that were the case. Policing in general was in its infancy in 1888, let alone investigations into serial crime.

“Do you not think that when Hutch told the police he had spent all his money down in Romford, they would have instantly asked him what transport he used to get back to Whitechapel and how he had intended to spend the night when he finally arrived?"

No, I don’t.

I think their focus was understandably sustained, at that time, on the description of the possible perpetrator, and the Romford detail was a relatively minor issue to them.

All the best,
Ben

[Ben]

Because some people have some sense of pride and he wouldn't want it posted in the paper for all the world to see that despite having legged all day for work

But Hutchinson did tell the press that he was "spent out" going to Romford, so he can't have been too concerned about this "no money" detail being accessed by the general public. Later, in the same press interview, he claimed to have "walked about all night" because the place where he usually slept had closed. Obviously, the closure of the home is irrelevant if he had no money to sleep there, and vice versa. I simply wonder why he made reference to the closure of the home at all.

[Wickerman]

Context is essential.

Knowing why he went to Romford is essential, before you talk about context..

Undertaking such a journey at that time, in those conditions, and with no chance of getting in the Victoria Home is obviously implausible, because it would mean that he endured all that sleep deprivation, exposure and energy expenditure for no reason.

You are in no position to judge, when you know nothing of the circumstances. It's that simple.

The walking bit was only included in press versions of his testimony

And as I explained to you previously, the police statement is only concerned with details pertinent to his sighting at the time & location in question. Not how he got there, nor what he did afterwards.

Regards, Jon S.

[harry]

Mike,Fisherman,
Not one example that you give can be verified.they are just claims.These claims usually start in school,with each schoolmaster and pupil trying to outdo others.It was favourite when I was a lad.I can do better than you,my dad can do better than your dad,my pupils can do better than your pupils etc.The city man claiming to be more intelligent than the country bumpkins,and the country man claiming feats of strength and endurance over the city weaklins.In example I have provided sources of evidence that anyone can see.The tv screening of distance walks.Up to date and real,with commentators impartial.I have also accessed computor sites dealing in fitness,and without exception,they stress the need in distance walking,not only of fitness but of gradual build up..You show me proof that Hutchinson was both fit and had trained himself in distance walking,and I'll accept he went to Romford.Till then I will stick with the probability that he didn't.

[Fisherman]

Harry:

"Not one example that you give can be verified.they are just claims."

Aha. So this one, for example, stating in detail the facts surrounding William Conways everyday-25-mile walk, is just an "unverifiable claim"?

Interesting.

The best,
Fisherman
+++

"This is William Conway of Crab Tree Row, Bethnal Green, who walked twenty-five miles every day, calling, “Hard metal spoons to sell or change.” Born in 1752 in Worship St, Spitalfields, he is pictured here forty-seven years into his profession, following in the footsteps of his father, also an itinerant trader. Conway had eleven walks around London which he took in turn, wore out a pair of boots every six weeks and claimed that he never knew a day’s illness."

[The Good Michael]

Mike,Fisherman,
Not one example that you give can be verified.they are just claims.

Harry,

Are you calling me a liar when I say that most assuredly I could walk to Romford? In fact, I could do it every day.

This weekend, I will take my camera and take photos aabout every 13 minutes and call it the kilometer mark, though I actually walk faster than that, and I will send them all to you and a google map showing the distance. Would that help you take the mighty sequoia out of you rear end?

Mike

[Fisherman]

Mike:

"This weekend, I will take my camera and take photos aabout every 13 minutes and call it the kilometer mark, though I actually walk faster than that, and I will send them all to you and a google map showing the distance."

How do we know you donīt fake it?

The best,
Fisherman

[caz]

I repeat: it's because these tricksters can mix 'truths' with their lies that they are so convincing. So in no way can we say that we have to either believe everything a liar says , or chuck the lot out as prevarication.

Hi Rubyretro,

But I didn't suggest we had to 'believe everything a liar says' or chuck the lot out (the first part being a logical absurdity that makes me look a twat when you imply I did suggest anything of the sort - so apology assumed and accepted).

I didn't even suggest we had to believe 'everything' or nothing that Hutch said. I merely said that if one's case against Hutch depends on him being a rotten liar, one can't at the same time depend on something he said being the truth, without sound independence evidence that it was. That's all.

I don't want to bore you all with bringing up Danilo Restivo once again...

snip

...but the Police wrote him off as a "bumbling local idiot" and believed him.

Hang on, he was the main suspect for years and the police never stopped watching him and waiting for the evidence to charge him! Clearly they did not write him off and did not believe him or you would not be able to use his name today as a shining modern equivalent of Hutch - not. Now that is a paradox. There is no evidence that the police ever suspected or kept an eye on Hutch after his 15 minutes of infamy, nor any evidence that there was ever any evidence against him to find.

Let's go back to Restivo...

Let's not. No point. See above.

Restivo wasn't even very bright intellectually.

Oh, okay then. Well Hutch is regularly painted here as a master criminal who outwitted the cops with monstrous lies and went straight back to the obscurity from whence he came, a free man. At least he'd merit an O level in getting away with murder, something Restivo clearly failed.

Love,

Caz
X

[Ben]

“Knowing why he went to Romford is essential”

No it isn’t.

The reason for going to Romford (whatever that may be, and assuming he ever provided one) has never been a particularly contentious issue. The implausible element is his claim to have walked all the way back, despite the time and weather conditions, despite having no money to access the place where he usually slept, and despite the lodging house being closed. When you say I know “nothing” of the circumstances, you are factually in error. Of course we know the circumstances – a miserable November night (fact), the small hours of the morning (fact), a 14 mile walk or thereabouts (fact). Hutchinson’s claim to have embarked upon such a journey with no money, and with the home closed by that stage, may be treated with extreme scepticism in light of those facts.

“And as I explained to you previously, the police statement is only concerned with details pertinent to his sighting at the time & location in question.”

You didn’t explain that to me. Bob Hinton explained it to you after you queried the absence of any policeman on beat from the Kelly inquest. It’s pretty poor from to keep pretending that I was responsible for a mistake that you know full well you made yourself.