George William Topping Hutchinson: Witness

[The Good Michael]

Jon,

Thanks for posting that. I overlooked that article, but it supports the somewhat obvious conclusion I made long ago that these were both Kelly, at least according to the reporter's conclusion. It makes me proud of my social studies and historical inquiry (enquiry for those who are... unamerican) training! Alas, I am teaching geography to a pack of idiots in Tajikistan who cannot be expelled because many are related to the president. At least my detective work is still ...er... working?


Mike

[Malcolm X]

i need and it has to me this time :-

to get those signatures checked and this time by about 6 pros, i'll do it via email

because i'm sensing that Toppy was indeed GH, but that he's totally lieing and was never even there....... his son is a liar too, especially with regards to this Randolf Churchill rubbish.

i'm on the fence too much over this, so i have to get those signatures looked at, this Kelly murder is terribly confusing

[Wickerman]

Jon,

I assume you are referring to this from the Daily News:

Hi Mike.
Actually two days before the Daily News we have an interesting report from the Evening News on Saturday 10th Nov.
I find the choice of wording of interest because the reporter does not credit Mrs Kennedy with naming Kelly as the hatless woman. The reporter makes the connection as if drawn from an alternate source which has not come down to us.

Quote:
"...Mrs. Kennedy is confident that the man whom she noticed speaking to the woman Kelly at three o'clock on Friday morning is identical with the person who accosted her on the previous Wednesday..."

The Evening News reporter appears to know that the elsewhere described hatless woman was actually Mary Kelly. We cannot be certain over this interpretation but nowhere in any other press reports does Mrs Kennedy call the hatless woman by name.

Also, the alternate witness to events in Dorset St. that night, Sarah Lewis, actually stated to police that she did not know the deceased (Kelly). Therefore if the police witness Lewis was the same as the press witness named Kennedy, consistency lies in the fact that neither of them identified the hatless woman as Kelly.
The Evening News reporter must have determined this from another source.

I think it quite reasonable to take the statements of both Lewis & Kennedy in the same context, whether they were the same person or not. What they have to say about activities that night have an impact on how we should interpret Hutchinson's statement.

As for the embellishment, there are several possible reasons including wishful thinking as one of the simplest. Horrific murder seems to be the least possible reason to create a story and then come forward to be interrogated for. Making money ultimately must be what GWTH had in mind overall.

Tentatively I think we might also include the possibility that Hutchinson just might have overdone his suspects 'Jewish appearance', to the extent that the police detected an anti-Semitic attitude. Anti-semiticism was very prevalent in the East End, and Hutchinson was an out-of-work labourer. Many of those who cannot find work today also blame the incoming foreigners for their loss.

It's only a suggestion, and could be completely wide of the mark. Suffice to say I think it necessary to add this to the list of possibilities as to why the police were eventually "induced" to follow a different line of inquiry.

Overall, I take Hutchinson's statement as essentially true, or at least based on an actual occurance, and supported to a degree by the witnesses named above.

Regard, Jon S.

[The Good Michael]

Malcolm,

The problem with all the testimony is that it comes from a fairly standard set of questioning (my belief) that doesn't allow for much creativity. The question of a woman being hatless seems to have some importance in general, if not specifically about this case. I refer to the legal concept wherein lawyers never ask questions of witnesses that they don;t already know the answers to, and I presume this idea applies to magistrates and coroners at inquests as depostions and questioning have already been done. This may be...,No, this IS why we have no surviving examples of creative questioning that could help us in the 21st century. This is all my opinion, of course, and perhaps a 19th century inquest expert could bear this out.

Mike

[Malcolm X]

Jon,

.

I would agree that this could be the very same man and that the hatless woman was Kelly. It seems that being hatless is remarked upon in the case as being somewhat noteworthy. The night of Kelly's death the man didn't have an overcoat on, though that doesn't mean he didn't have one nearby, or had laced it about one of the women's shoulders he was talking with as perhaps you or I would have done.

.
Mike

dont forget that this hatless woman could be anyone, i think it all depends on how drunk Kelly still was, because if she was starting to feel better then maybe she went out again, BLOTCHY FACE seems like an earlier client that maybe left close to 1am

i'm suspicious of Kelly stopping singing, with regards to JTR lurking around outside.... she stopped singing too early for my liking.

this is so so complicated !

[Malcolm X]

Toppy's description is nothing like the description of this other smart looking guy, this one seems accurate, but might not be related to JTR

Toppy's is more of a Stereotypical description based on a suspicious looking Jewish diamond dealer......or a pimp etc.

his description of events is farcical and feels totally wrong, i'm saying that he did not see Kelly/ LA DE DA that night, at all......because if he did see something, why not tell the truth !!!!..... but no he's lieing, now why?

Lechmere points to Toppy maybe having family problems, moving around alot, unsettled and unable to find permanent work, this could be somebody that is prepared to lie like crazy simply to get a cash reward from the police..... if you carry on and did up much more dirt on this Toppy, then the pendulum swings towards him as a JTR suspect.

quite a few serial killers dont have a life that's as bad as his, so it can be argued that he is already a suspect and maybe he's resentful of the Jews that he sees as getting all the best jobs etc etc..... maybe!

because it's very suspicious that he didn't come forward till 2 days later etc etc...... but made damned sure that he went to the inquest first....crafty sod!

now i'm not sure about the signatures...... and we must not discuss this here.

i'm in one of my reflective moods today, so here goes

1...... forget Toppy being there, he lied for the cash reward
2...... nobody called GH killed her
3...... Toppy could indeed be JTR
4...... no more murders whilst he's still around... big negative
5......Kelly stopped singing soon after 1am...... bloody hell !

[The Good Michael]

Lynn,

No worries. I've done my share of culpas.


Mike

[lynn cates]

sorry

Hello Michael. Oops! Mea culpa.

Cheers.
LC

[The Good Michael]

Everyone, please let us not get into any debates over signatures and such here. As I explained in the beginning, this thread begins at the conclusion that GWTH is the witness and is for forward thinking posters who want to explain the hows and whys of GWTH's sighting, testimony, and his future in the LVP, and not for contentious arguments that will most certainly derail this objective.

I look at this as a companion thread to Lechmere's and hope that it can contribute enough thought to generate knowledge and also can bring aboard any of the living relatives of GWTH who might want to add something here; those who may have been afraid to do so on the contentious threads of which I was sometimes a part and sometimes to blame for the argumentative states they were often in.

Mike

[lynn cates]

upon my word(s)

Hello Mac.

"They're a far closer match than many of my own signatures"

Those are the EXACT words I used when I first saw them.

Cheers.
LC

[Fleetwood Mac]

Last night, for the first time, I had a look at the signatures.

They're a far closer match than many of my own signatures and I can guarantee you that I alone pen those signatures.

I suppose there's nothing much that you can be certain about in this world, and there's even less in this case, but if there's one thing you can be 99.9% sure about it's this: those two signatures were written by the same man.

[The Good Michael]

I
We already know a 'well-dressed' man was seen by another witness(s) at approximately the same time, at the same end of the street and according to one, also talking with Kelly.

Jon,

I assume you are referring to this from the Daily News: A woman named Kennedy was on the night of the murder staying with her parents at a house in the court immediately opposite the room in which the body of Mary Kelly was found. This woman's statement, if true - and there seems little reason for doubting its veracity - establishes the time at which the murder was committed. Her statement is as follows:

About three o'clock on Friday morning she entered Dorset street on her way to her parents' house, which is situate immediately opposite that in which the murder was committed. She noticed three persons at the corner of the street near the Britannia public house. There was a young man, respectably dressed, and with a dark moustache, talking to a woman whom she did not know, and also a woman poorly clad, without any headgear. The man and woman appeared to be the worse for liquor, and she heard the man ask, "Are you coming?" whereupon the woman, who appeared to be obstinate, turned in an opposite direction to which the man apparently wished her to go. Kennedy went on her way, and nothing unusual occurred until about half an hour later. She states that she did not retire immediately she reached her parents' house, and that between half past three and a quarter to four she heard a cry of "Murder!" in a woman's voice proceed from the direction in which Mary Kelly's room was situated. As the cry was not repeated she took no further notice of the circumstance until the morning, when she found the police in possession of the place, preventing all egress to the occupants of the small houses in this court.

Kennedy has been questioned by the police as to what she had heard during the night, and she has repeated substantially that statement as follows:-

On Wednesday evening about eight o'clock she and her sister were in the neighbourhood of Bethnal green road, when they were accosted by a very suspicious looking man, about forty years of age. He wore a short jacket, over which he had a long top coat. He had a black moustache and wore a billycock hat...


I would agree that this could be the very same man and that the hatless woman was Kelly. It seems that being hatless is remarked upon in the case as being somewhat noteworthy. The night of Kelly's death the man didn't have an overcoat on, though that doesn't mean he didn't have one nearby, or had laced it about one of the women's shoulders he was talking with as perhaps you or I would have done.

As for the embellishment, there are several possible reasons including wishful thinking as one of the simplest. Horrific murder seems to be the least possible reason to create a story and then come forward to be interrogated for. Making money ultimately must be what GWTH had in mind overall.

Mike

[Wickerman]

....So first, was there a man with Kelly who was seen by GWTH, and second, was teh description accurate, embellished, or fancied.

I don't think we can take Hutchinson's statement in isolation.
We already know a 'well-dressed' man was seen by another witness(s) at approximately the same time, at the same end of the street and according to one, also talking with Kelly.

Therefore, we either have to assume there were two such men, or these men were one and the same. Given a well established caveat that no two witnesses ever see precisely the same thing, we must allow for differences in the two descriptions. This is just human nature.

I prefer to think the two descriptions refer to one individual, that such a man existed should be the most likely conclusion, but that Hutchinson embellished his statement to some degree. The reason why can only be guessed at, like so much else in this case.

Regards, Jon S.

[lynn cates]

Jerusalem, Ireland?

Hello Ruby. Quite right. But given that Toppy THOUGHT him Jewish, it does not follow that he was. I have posted elsewhere a photograph and description of A Man--down to his pin. Turns out he was Irish--not Jewish.

Cheers.
LC

[The Good Michael]

But Malcolm says GWTH lied about everything. He must have lied about A man being a Jew and about there even being a man with Kelly.


Mike