Hutch's Man

[Wickerman]

No I don't, and no it isn't.I'm thinking things through.

In fact, I've thought things through, and have nothing more to say, other than - you're wrong.

There's another assumption.


Face it, you cannot justify dismissing this couple passing up the court.
There's nothing in Lewis's testimony to suggest they went anywhere else. You simply do not like it, so you refuse to accept it.

[Wickerman]

Just a figure of speech Jon? Why use it?It was just as easy to nominate a reasonable distance.Your one to two minutes was a claim,now when you realise even a minute would equate to about 80 yards and make your reasonings false,you want to discard it.
You continually use Hutchinson as being honest and precise.Now you are trying to turn his three minutes into just seconds.Why could he be so wrong about that,but so accurate abought everything else he claimed?

How did he measure three minutes?

[Curious Cat]

The inquest record is incomplete, for the reason's I already gave.



Which is the same as saying no-one could follow anyone down Dorset street, at any time for any reason. It's just impossible.
Really?




I don't see why you think he was out of eyeline with what he claims. No-one has mentioned anything like this before.

I have stood outside the Queen's Head pub on Commercial Street and looked south. He would not have been able to see Mary Kelly and Astrachan until they were at the southern corner of Fashion Street. How could he have seen what they were doing before they reached that point?

[Cogidubnus]

It's one of the Tenement Houses as marked just above

Dave

[Busy Beaver]

a foot from the street?

Well not that far, where the Ripper could run out the door, through the court and into Oblivion. (as always). By the way Leeann, what is the vacant box behind the back shop with the gas lamp outside?

[Leanne]

maybe he was using the privy. I really don't think the ripper did go down passage ways, where he would easily have been cornered. Mjk's room was what- a foot from the street?, so he probably decided it was an ok place to go, do a murder and take off without being noticed. Which does still lead me to think the killer was local and knew where and where not to go, although the stride murder was almost his downfall (if he was the killer). So, if he did not go up the court on his own accord that leaves three men who could have been the killer- blotchy, astrachan man and aman/bgb. The ripper as i see him, would not allow himself to be seen, hence why most witnesses only saw the back of him and these three men were noticed, two with pretty good descriptions. And going back around the round about, perhaps that was why the murders suddenly stopped? i'm done with the brick walls and brick perverbials. Busy beaver

a foot from the street?

[Sam Flynn]

You do realize that what you argue is straw-man argument?

No I don't, and no it isn't.

You are making it important in order to dismiss it, when no-one at the time treated it as important.

I'm thinking things through.

In fact, I've thought things through, and have nothing more to say, other than - you're wrong.

[harry]

Just a figure of speech Jon? Why use it?It was just as easy to nominate a reasonable distance.Your one to two minutes was a claim,now when you realise even a minute would equate to about 80 yards and make your reasonings false,you want to discard it.
You continually use Hutchinson as being honest and precise.Now you are trying to turn his three minutes into just seconds.Why could he be so wrong about that,but so accurate abought everything else he claimed?

[Wickerman]

That is not the sequence of events we have - at least it's not explicit, so we can only suppose one way or the other. And we also have "further on", remember? Call me old fashioned, but I usually see foreground objects first. Besides, if Lewis saw the "loiterer" take up his position afterwards, why didn't she say so explicitly?

But isn't that what I said?
Her testimony, taken in sequence has Lewis noticing this couple who were ahead of her (in her foreground), before they reached the court.

Anyhow, the couple simply did not enter the court or it would have been unambiguously reported in most if not all sources, including her official testimony,....

Why, what could possibly cause you to think this was important?
It's just two locals out at night.

You do realize that what you argue is straw-man argument?
You are making it important in order to dismiss it, when no-one at the time treated it as important.

[Wickerman]

Whatever the order of the events in her account were given, she still doesn't say the couple entered the passage.

The inquest record is incomplete, for the reason's I already gave.

It's a 20-30 second walk from the corner of Dorset Street - by the doors of The Britannia - to the entrance of the passage.

Which is the same as saying no-one could follow anyone down Dorset street, at any time for any reason. It's just impossible.
Really?

Yes, as I said, there is a separate issue with Hutchinson's statement before we get to him possibly being the loiterer Sarah Lewis saw. How can he witness what's going on between Mary Kelly and Astrachan when he's places himself at a location that takes them out of his eyeline?

I don't see why you think he was out of eyeline with what he claims. No-one has mentioned anything like this before.

[Wickerman]

Indeed, and this is almost certainly another error on the DN's part. The general drift of all the other sources suggest that what Lewis actually said was something like "[as I entered] the doorway of the deceased's house I saw a man [opposite] in a wideawake hat". In compressing the text, the DN gives the erroneous impression that Wideawake Man was actually standing at the entrance of Number 13! Again, there's no way on earth that all the other papers, or Lewis's official testimony, is going to miss out as significant a detail as that. The only conclusion is that the DN account of the entire Lewis episode is too garbled to be trusted.

The Times failed to mention the couple seen by Lewis at all.
That's how important they were at the time.

[Wickerman]

The DN account doesn't actually say that the loiterer was in Dorset St, but "In the doorway of the deceased's house I saw a man in a wideawake hat standing"

Yes, and the Times wrote:
"...and saw a man standing at the lodging-house door by himself."

Yet, the Echo wrote:
"...She saw a man at the entrance to the court."

One of the reasons to justify collating all the sources, odd mistakes appear on various topics throughout the inquest. No one version can be relied on.
Today, there is still debate on where he was standing.

[c.d.]

"To use this argument in another Canonical murder, why would Liz Stride solicit on a street that is deserted when much busier nighttime thoroughfares were available?"

Hello Michael,

I would say because while busier thoroughfares meant more potential customers they also would attract more competition from other women soliciting as well.

c.d.

[Wickerman]

This is what I believe to be the origin of the error in the Daily News. LEWIS says that she entered the court - we know that she did from all the other sources - and shortly before doing so she saw "Hutch" and the couple in Dorset Street. My contention is that the DN journalist/editor, in creating their précis version of events, conflated and confused LEWIS's entry into the court with the couple's entering the court.

What I find odd is, there is not the slightest hint of the existence of a second couple in Dorset street at the time.
They need to be invented, and they have been invented in order to justify one interpretation of what "further on" might mean.
Instead of just accepting that a couple walking some distance in front of Lewis could be described as "further on" from Lewis.

Yet what we do have as a fact is the existence of testimony describing a couple walking up the court. This is being rejected because in order for it to be true it must be written down more than once?
Yet "further on" was written only once, but it is accepted.

On top of this, you question the fact that Hutch did not mention Lewis, yet no-one mentioned this other couple, yet you accept them?

This doesn't look like bias?

How does any of this make sense?

[Wickerman]

If Hutch was speaking the truth, the couple he saw had already entered Miller's Court by the time he started his vigil,....

Which is consistent with Lewis seeing them enter the passage, but not seeing anyone standing opposite - he had not started his vigil.
In fact, he could have been on the other side of the street walking in the same direction as Lewis, just a bit ahead of her.
Only when she reached the passage did she notice this man on the opposite side of the road, standing.

and he reports seeing nobody else enter the Court during that vigil - not Sarah Lewis, even, and certainly not another couple.

Compare how brief in detail ALL the witness statements to police were, with what came out under questioning at the inquest.
You tend to forget, Hutch's statement was his initial story, it was not what he told Abberline. Which had to be a more complete version.
Besides, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.