Choosing which witnesses to believe

[Mr Lucky]

I wonder if this is of any interest to anyone -

'Opposite the court is a very large lodginghouse, of a somewhat inferior character this house is well-lighted and people hang about it nearly all night' - Freeman's Journal (Dublin), 10 November 1888.

[Fisherman]

Ruby:

"Fisherman, you are clever and slippery"

I would much prefer "clever and straight-forward", Ruby. What do you lean the "slippery" against? Surely something?

"Sally and Ben have the logical argument based on the stated facts of the case surrounding Mrs Lewis."

How clever and slippery of you!

The best,
Fisherman

[Sally]

What do you lean the "slippery" against? Surely something?

The sides of the barrel?

[Cogidubnus]

Sorry Dave, I guess I wasnt clear so I believe you misunderstood me. What I intended by naming some examples is that they fit roughly into the qualifiers I mentioned, not the murders themselves;

Hi Mike...ah...gotcha...I see what you meant now!

(Yes please do exclude Richardson!)

Sorry mate

Dave

[Bridewell]

Choosing Between Witnesses

In assessing the credibility of any witness from the reading of a witness statement, it is important to know how such statements are obtained. The statement-taking officer elicits a story from the witness by means of a series of questions and answers. Having done so, he or she, writes out the account in narrative form, before checking with the witness that the content is correct.
When we read a witness statement, we get to see the answers, but we don't know exactly what the questions were. It is (in my view) risky to pick up on a minor detail in the wording of a witness statement and attribute great weight to it, because the wording of the statement is determined by the statement taker, not by the witness.

I don't post the above as an argument for or against the credibility of any particular witness, but think it relevant to the discussion. This will probably come back to bite me on the bum at some future date, but I'll worry about that later.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Wickerman]

Is it likely that Hutchinson was secretly a private investigator with OCD, or is it more reasonable to assume that he lied in his contemporaneously discredited account?

People, just ordinary people like you and I, can and do have natural abilities which enable them pay extra attention to detail, which is not at all so strange. It is also commonly understood that anyone feeling anxiety, stress or annoyed will take in considerably more detail than they normally would when in a relaxed state, and thats a medical fact, look it up.

Standing outside her own home, which she could have retreated into at any time, quite unlike Hutchinson at Crossingham's.

Its the "standing" and "watching" that is important, not "where they do it".

I call your bluff.
Where do "we read about" such things?

You need an example?
Well, this took all of ninety seconds to find.... and here on Casebook too.

"The street is oppressively dark, though at present the gloom is relieved somewhat by feebly lighted shopfronts. Men are lounging at the doors of the shops, smoking evil-smelling pipes. Women with bare heads and with arms under their aprons are sauntering about in twos and threes, or are seated gossiping on steps leading into passages dark as Erebus."

http://www.casebook.org/victorian_london/autumnev.html

What did I say?
"Standing around was a common pastime among people who have nothing better to do in the East end.."

Hutchinson apparently had nothing better to do, he only called it quits when it began to rain. Why make a criminal case out of something so mundane?



I specifically said:
"...."Jack" was never associated with a "black bag" by witnesses...."

To which you (predictably) responded with..

Yes he was.

Before it was discovered that he was Leon Goldstein, the black bag man from Berner Street was every inch a "ripper" suspect.

The man seen by Mrs Mortimer was never used as a prototype for "Jack". We have all the descriptions provided to the police, and by the police, Leon Goldstein's never was among them, ergo, his appearance was never adopted as a caricature for Jack the Ripper.

The black bag, as part of his make-up, only came later, after Mary Kelly's murder. Goldstein and his "black bag" as a suspect first(?) appeared in the 20th century, I'd have to look who's book it was.
Goldstein hot footed it over to Leman-street police station as soon as he heard about it, heading off any genuine gossip about him being the Ripper.


If, Hutchinson had described a man in a sailor's cap, wearing a cutaway coat then I would agree with you, but he did not, which proves the deficiency of your argument.

Hutchinson was not therefore, trying to invent the "typical" caricature of JtR, because the caricature was consistent with a Sailor at this stage of the game.
Astrakhan, by no stretch of the imagination, was a sailor.

Also, remember all those nonsensical press "witness" accounts that you occasionally attempt to revive as gospel? Sarah Roney and chums from the 10th November press reports?

Its remarks like that which only weaken your argument, no-one has ever contested what those women saw. Nothing has ever surfaced to prove anything they said was false, which shows your attitude against them is baseless.

What was to prevent Hutchinson from reading these and deciding to incorporate them into his own, equally bogus, and equally discredited account?

Not a problem, if you are saying he may have, then yes, if he truely intended to deceive the police then yes he could have.
So long as you are not insisting that obviously and irrefutably that he did.
We can all have our theories, but it is your insistence that I object to.

So, if you have Hutch intending to deceive the police we need a reason why. We also need to know why his version differs from the Paumier/Lewis version, I would also like to know if you are admitting that there may indeed have been this "other man" outside the Britannia at that time?
Maybe you are seeing the light?

We know a genuine witness described a suspect with a "parcel", so Hutchinson had inspiration aplenty for his black bag/parcel/package.

Yes a parcel and a deerstalker hat. Why change such a significant detail?
If you remember the man seen by Mrs Long also described a deerstalker hat, so surely if Hutchinson really wanted to make a convincing story he would include the same hat, not exclude it?
Nice try Ben.

Hutchinson claimed to have walked all the way from Romford, which was around 13 miles in miserable conditions in the small hours, despite being well aware that he couldn't access his usual lodgings when he returned home at 2.00am. I'd love to hear anything that supports the contention that this sort of behaviour constituted a "common pastime".

You have no argument with this, nobody does. Not until you can establish why he went to Romford and why he returned at that time. Only then can we judge his story one way or the other.
Dozens of potential reasons come to mind which have nothing to do with him being a liar.
Is it the walk you have a problem with?, hundreds walked to Kent in hopping season.

Sarah Lewis, on the other hand, is considered a genuine inquest-attending witness. We had rather pointless discussion last year in which a number of posters adopted a brand-new "anti-Lewis" stance, which predictably proved to be a car-crash of an argument in terms of how well in went down with the readers.....

I've never had an issue with Sarah Lewis, perhaps you confuse me with someone else?

Best Wishes, Jon S.

[Ben]

Hi Jon,

People, just ordinary people like you and I, can and do have natural abilities which enable them pay extra attention to detail

But surely I've explained enough times now that you have to actually see something in order to pay any attention to it, let alone "extra" attention. Many of the items that Hutchinson claimed to have "paid attention" to could not even be seen in those conditions. The other problem is that it isn't possible to pay particular attention to several details simultaneously if the window of opportunity in which to notice them is so small, as it was in Hutchinson's case. If you want to focus on one particular detail during the fleeting second you have at your disposal to view the thing or person as a whole, it will be at the expense of noticing other details. Hutchinson, however, claimed he both noticed and memorized the tiniest details of the man's upper body and lower body simultaneously. The only opportunity he had to notice anything occurred as the couple walked pass the gas lamp, and yet at that time, Hutchinson was allegedly preoccupied with trying to peer into the man's face. He'd need an extra pair of eyes for the horseshoe tie pin, linen collar, "light buttons over button boots" and all the rest.

Its the "standing" and "watching" that is important, not "where they do it".

No.

If you're standing and watching in the small hours of the morning for no good reason, it is doubly strange if you're doing so in the absence of any opportunity to pass indoors as soon as the joy of loitering wore thin. Hutchinson had considerably "better to do" than walk 13 miles with no money, in the certainty that he would be refused entry to his usual lodgings. But perhaps the prospect of "standing and watching" was the pot of gold at the end of his Romford rainbow? Perhaps he endured all what walking in miserable conditions on the small hours because he knew there was some "loitering" to do had at the end of it?

Or perhaps not? (hintedy hint-hint)

The man seen by Mrs Mortimer was never used as a prototype for "Jack".

Yes, he was.

Ever since rumours began to circulate that the ripper may have been a doctor, the black bag became a popular ripper accessory, and the Mortimer sighting helped that image along very nicely, unintentional though it may have been on her part. It became particularly popular in the wake of the Kelly murder, when several bogus "witnesses" came forward with tales of spooky-looking men with black bags. So no, the image of the ripper as a black bag carrier is most emphatically not just a product of the 20th century. It was every inch an 1888 theory too.

If, Hutchinson had described a man in a sailor's cap, wearing a cutaway coat then I would agree with you, but he did not, which proves the deficiency of your argument.

It simply irritates me when people claim to have found a "deficiency" in my argument when it is clear they've found nothing of the sort, and perhaps don't even understand what the argument is. I have contended all along that Hutchinson wished to deflect suspicion away from himself and his own loitering antics that night. If he himself was the murderer and realised he'd been seen by Sarah Lewis, he had an added incentive for doing so. His fictional suspect could not have been Lawende's sailor-like suspect, in this scenario, because he was Lawende's actual sailor-like suspect himself. It would have utterly defeated the purpose of deflecting suspicion away from himself; away from the idea of the ripper looking and dressing like a local man. Hence, it was necessary to describe his essential polar opposite - the wealthy, conspicuous Jew.

Its remarks like that which only weaken your argument, no-one has ever contested what those women saw.

Are you serious? You're about the only person I know who doesn't contest what they claim to have seen. For starters, I suggest you heed the advice of Philip Sugden and dispense with the tittle-tattle that appeared in the press around the Kelly murder, and focus instead on the genuine inquest witnesses. Not too many well-dressed, black bag-wielding suspects there, you'll be annoyed to hear, but they're your first and only port of call if you wish to construct a legitimate sequence events for the night of the Kelly murder.

I would also like to know if you are admitting that there may indeed have been this "other man" outside the Britannia at that time?

We know there was a man outside the Britannia because the detail appeared in Lewis' evidence. There is not the slightest reason to think that he had anything to do with the Paumier/Roney discredited nonsense.

If you remember the man seen by Mrs Long also described a deerstalker hat, so surely if Hutchinson really wanted to make a convincing story he would include the same hat, not exclude it?

That would depend on his motivation for lying in the first place. If he was a mere publicity seeker, I'd agree with you, but if he wanted to divert suspicion away from himself for whatever reason (for instance, if he was the man with the deerstalker seen by Long), there was a very strong reason for excluding that particular detail.

All the best,
Ben

[Garry Wroe]

Women with bare heads and with arms under their aprons are sauntering about in twos and threes ...

Which severely weakens the argument that the hatless woman seen close to the Britannia must have been Mary Kelly.

[Rubyretro]

.

It is also commonly understood that anyone feeling anxiety, stress or annoyed will take in considerably more detail than they normally would when in a relaxed state, and thats a medical fact, look it up.

I have always thought that Sarah Lewis, as a woman, would have felt stress and anxiety walking down a dark street with an unknown loitering man lurking about the entrance to the passage which she had to walk down -and especially since there had been a spate of murders in the area, the victims being women like herself. So that is why she would take in the body language of the loiterer, although it was too dark to make out anything more than generic details about him.

On the otherhand, as Ben points out, it was an impossibility for Hutch to take in all the details about A Man that he claimed to have done.

Besides, why would Hutch have felt stress or anxiety or annoyance? See my reply to Richard's story -it was Hutch who was being aggressive towards A Man (had he existed), and not the other way around.

Its the "standing" and "watching" that is important, not "where they do it"

.
Except if it's opposite a future crime scene.

"The street is oppressively dark, though at present the gloom is relieved somewhat by feebly lighted shopfronts. Men are lounging at the doors of the shops, smoking evil-smelling pipes. Women with bare heads and with arms under their aprons are sauntering about in twos and threes, or are seated gossiping on steps leading into passages dark as Erebus."

http://www.casebook.org/victorian_london/autumnev.html

What did I say?
"Standing around was a common pastime among people who have nothing better to do in the East end.."

Except, as it was raining on the night of MJK's death, anyone that could be was indoors sheltering.

Hutchinson apparently had nothing better to do

Is that your excuse for 'stalking' ? (that's what he was doing). There must have been far more interesting places to loiter than outside MJK's room.

So, if you have Hutch intending to deceive the police we need a reason why.

Common sense would tell you 'why'. There is actually more than one possible reason 'why' -but one of them is inescapably that he was the murderer (the other is that he was never there...but he heard Mrs Lewis's testimony alright, and he grafted himself upon it, which would still point to him fitting her description ).

I am actually torn between Hutch and Lechmere/Cross now, as the culprit, but either way I think that Hutch was lying about A Man in his story to the police.

Yes a parcel and a deerstalker hat. Why change such a significant detail?
If you remember the man seen by Mrs Long also described a deerstalker hat, so surely if Hutchinson really wanted to make a convincing story he would include the same hat, not exclude it?
Nice try Ben.

Ben is right.

[Michael W Richards]

Hello all,

For context it should be remembered that George Hutchinson, a man who claimed friendship with Mary Jane, waited all day Friday....all day Saturday, all day Sunday and until after the closure of her Inquest Monday evening to make a statement that surely, if true, was a critical piece of evidence. The detail of the suspect is nothing short of spectacular, in the middle of night, albeit at a short distance but on a poorly lit street.

Although it is often difficult to prove via the press reports, I believe it is likely that the man identifying himself Monday as George Hutchinson had knowledge that a woman saw a man watching the court the night in question.

The taint of ulterior motives is there. And in fact we know the police discarded his suspect account within 72 hrs of supporting it.

Hard to have faith in the integrity of this witness.

Cheers,

Mike R

[Rubyretro]

Hard to have faith in the integrity of this witness.

Exactly, Michael.

[Sally]

For context it should be remembered that George Hutchinson, a man who claimed friendship with Mary Jane, waited all day Friday....all day Saturday, all day Sunday and until after the closure of her Inquest Monday evening to make a statement that surely, if true, was a critical piece of evidence. The detail of the suspect is nothing short of spectacular, in the middle of night, albeit at a short distance but on a poorly lit street.

Yep, it's been mentioned before. I don't think that its tenable to seriously entertain the possibility that aka George Hutchinson really saw and remembered all that glittering detail. I would hope that most people would accept that he didn't.

That's the point of departure though - from there all we can be reasonably certain of is that the story and the circumstances don't add up. The motivations of the travelling groom must remain a mystery pending further evidence.

In the context of the present discussion, no, not a relaible witness. Not really.

[Wickerman]

Hi Ben.

Many of the items that Hutchinson claimed to have "paid attention" to could not even be seen in those conditions.

I think we can safely accept that because Hutch was interviewed by a man like Abberline who regularly spent nights on the streets looking for the killer, if Hutch had said he saw anything which could not possibly be seen by contemporary street lighting, objections would have been raised.
As none were, we can safely accept that your "guesswork-guidance" approach once again falls short of conviction.
What Hutchinson claimed to see was quite possible in Abberline's eyes.

The other problem is that it isn't possible to pay particular attention to several details simultaneously....

Simultaneously?
Where did you get this idea from?

if the window of opportunity in which to notice them is so small, as it was in Hutchinson's case. If you want to focus on one particular detail during the fleeting second you have at your disposal ....

Are you making this up as you go along Ben?

Hutchinson walked passed Astrakhan as he was standing on the corner of Thrawl St.

As Hutch walked on and approached Flower & Dean St. he met up with MJK.

MJK walked on south towards Thrawl where she was stopped by Astrakhan, Hutch watched them both meet up.

The distance between Flower & Dean St. and Thrawl St. was roughly 175 feet.
Hutchinson watched them walk towards him, so he turned and walked ahead of them to stand under the lamp outside the Queens Head PH to get a clearer view as they walked passed.

They were not visible for a "fleeting second", more like a minute or two.

You're not trying to shorten the time to suit your argument are you Ben?

MJK & Astrakhan were on a slow casual walk, sauntering along, she was tipsy & Astrakhan was trying to chat her up. So suggesting this was a fleeting glimpse just won't do Ben.

The only opportunity he had to notice anything occurred as the couple walked pass the gas lamp,

Wrong again!

The first time Hutchinson saw him was as he walked passed Astrakhan standing on the corner of Thrawl St.

The second time was as both Astrakhan & MJK walk slowly towards Hutchinson as he stood just about 100-150 ft away almost near to Flower & Dean St.

The third time was as he stood under the lamp at the Queens Head while they both walked passed.

Not forgetting that Hutchinson followed them at a casual walk for the next 300 feet (Flower & Dean St to Dorset St.) , then stood at the corner of Dorset St. and observed them for 3 minutes some 150 feet away outside Millers Court.

The fourth time was on Sunday morning at the market.

I understand that you need to shorten the "sighting" as much as possible, but you need to be aware that others on this forum are very familiar with Hutchinson's statement(s), so thankfully do not need to trust in the opinion of others who might be trying pull the wool over "our" eyes.

Hutchinson had considerably "better to do" than walk 13 miles with no money, in the certainty that he would be refused entry to his usual lodgings.

If he had a legitimate reason for going to Romford, how do you expect he was to get there? We don't know if he walked there, but obviously he could not afford transportation for the return journey.

There is no mystery, unless, for instance, one of his buddy's at the Victoria Home was to point out to a reporter that Hutchinson was here on Thursday night! (bombshell)
Now you would have a case!

But, until or unless we find some sound evidence against his story about a trip to Romford then you are doing nothing but conducting a Witch-hunt. The intent being to convict him of wrong-doing based "soley" on your own made-up stories, which is ironically precisely what you are accusing him of doing in the first place.

Do I detect the Mask of Janus at work here?

I have contended all along that Hutchinson wished to deflect suspicion away from himself and his own loitering antics that night.

Ben, it is 5 weeks since the "sailor" suspect was seen. It is also 5 weeks since the "deerstalker" suspect was seen, so for goodness sakes Hutchinson is free & clear (if it was him).
No-one at the Victoria Home, surely his main concern?, has connected him with the "sailor" or the "deerstalker" suspects. Clearly then, Hutchinson was not under suspicion in those cases.
Likewise, Lewis's description of the "loiterer" is not complete enough to single out anyone, so (assuming the loiterer was him) there is no need to even come forward at all.

If he himself was the murderer and realised he'd been seen by Sarah Lewis, he had an added incentive for doing so.

The sighting by Lawende was far more detailed than that given by Sarah Lewis, so apparently this did not concern Hutchinson when he was seen 5 weeks ago in Duke St.
No need to come forward with a bogus "suspect-Jew" story then, so even less reason now.
The basis for your argument is worthless.

Are you serious? You're about the only person I know who doesn't contest what they claim to have seen.

No Ben, you misunderstand.
I said no-one contested their statements, meaning "at the time". Questions we pose today are purely the result of our lack of information. People at the time, either press, public or police, did not lack information. If anyone questioned their stories all they had to do was ask for clarification or confirmation.
We have no-one to ask, so "we" question their viability, those living at the time apparently did not.

And no, don't bother repeating your "chinese whisper" stories, they don't apply to these witnesses for the simple reason the "chinese whisperers" claims were never published, the press didn't bother wasting space.
These witnesses were named, which means it did not apply to them.

Best wishes, Jon S.

[Cogidubnus]

I'm sorry Jon...for all your worthy reasoning, I simply can't credit Hutch with seeing that much...remembering is one thing...seeing in the first place is another...

All the best

Dave

[Rubyretro]

]

I'm sorry Jon...for all your worthy reasoning, I simply can't credit Hutch with seeing that much...remembering is one thing...seeing in the first place is another...

All the best

Dave

Oh, c'mon , Dave...Jon is arguing for Hutch as Superman/Batman, with X-Ray vision and everything...he wouldn't have just got a fleeting glimpse of a passing stranger in the dark, would he now ?