Choosing which witnesses to believe

[Wickerman]

Hi Richard.

Many of us have disputed the elaborate description which included the infamous ''red hanky'' and remarked on how he managed to describe such detail in the dark?

All the while we know it was customary for a man to wear a handky protruding from a top pocket. Whether top waistcoat pocket or top coat pocket, it does not matter. Which would have been previously visible as he walked past under the lamp.

We have comments surrounding the opening of Mr A top coat, suggesting that it would have been unlikely in damp conditions,

Here in Canada we can have the worst of winters, never, repeat - never, do I ever fasten my outer coat. I cannot tollerate that trust-up feeling regardless of the weather.

and the sighting of fine jewellery, was that a fabrication , or a deliberate ploy by the mystery man to display his assets to the approaching female.?

There are any number of contemporary street scene's of the East end showing ordinary working(?) class men sporting a chain across their jacket/waistcoat. Whether this particular watch/chain was as fancy as described is a debatable point, but not the fact that such common items were worn and worn openly.

Yet despite all of this, we find it all so dodgy....why?
Regards Richard.

Not everyone Richard, not everyone.

Regards, Jon S.

[Michael W Richards]

Hi Richard,

Nice to be talking with you again.

Here are 10 reasons why we should and must question him and the story;

1) No-one has positively identified this man historically. The name could have been assumed by the man who identified himself as GH.
2) No-one corroborates his alleged knowledge of who Mary Kelly is, let alone a friendly relationship. This is likely due to the fact he avoided all those witness with his report timing.
3) His detail in the description is almost certainly embellishment.
4) He does not, or is not identified as Wideawake man. He may not have been there at all.
5) No-one sees Mary leave her room after arriving home very drunk before midnight.
6) He was likely aware that a witness stated she had seen a man watching the courtyard long before Monday.
7) His story paints a portrait of a stalker, not a concerned friend, and one wonders if this portrait was preferable to one that suggests the man watching the court is the killer or accomplice.
8) We do not know if he identified Kelly in the morgue.
9) We cannot confirm at this time his stated address.
10) His delay in coming forward, if a true story, almost guarantees that the killer would then be impossible to find. In fact, he does nothing to help a so called friend by coming forward.

Ive always admired the consistency Richard, but for many like me, a witness we know for a fact is discredited is not a good horse to back.

Best regards,

Mike R

[Fisherman]

Michael:

"a witness we know for a fact is discredited is not a good horse to back."

Aha, Michael - but why would we accept that George Hutchinson WAS discredited? I don´t see that in any way proven, you see. The only discredited object I can see is his story itself, or, to be more exact - something IN that story.

All the papers have him down as an unshakable man, and Dew, in his memoirs, asserts that he would not reflect on Hutchinson, speaking instead about people with "the best of intentions".

Does that sound to you like Dew was describing a man whom the police had discredited? It does not to me, not by any strech of the imagination. To me, it sounds very much like he is describing a man who was honestly mistaken.

Dew also tells us that he is of the opinion that George Hutchinson simply misremembered the time; he mistook the day. And if you look upon it from that angle, then it all comes together logically:

His story was true, but it belonged to the night before. This means that the police would not couple his sighting with the killing, but they would still be interested in speaking to Astrakhan man. And we have a report that tells us that Hutchinson´s sighting was still followed up on AFTER the police would have found out about the mistaken date; some men were still looking for Astrakhan man after that, which only makes sense if the police had accepted his exstance.

We can also explain why Hutchinson describes a scenario that seemingly is played out in nice enough weather, with the couple stopping leisurely outside Millers Court to make small talk for a number of minutes - the night before the murder night was a good one, weatherwise.

We realize why Hutchinson never mentions Lewis, who he MUST have seen, keeping watch over the entrance to the court.

There are a good deal of other small details that are answered too by accepting that Hutchinson had mistaken the day, just like Dew suggests. And when you suggest such a thing, what do you base it on? A hunch? No you base it on some detail not tallying with the date it is supposed to represent - but instead with ANOTHER date.

Ergo, Michael we do NOT know for a fact that Hutchinson was discredited. The notion that he was has been a common one for far too long.

The best,
Fisherman

[Bridewell]

Agreed

Thanks. On your last bit here, being certain in one's mind does not make a statement reliable, but it isn't a lie either. I do believe that many people misremember. I have a family full of such people, or at least a brother or two, that recall things incorrectly, but believe it's gospel until I show proof.
I look at Hutchinson in that same category, and so, somewhat unreliable, but not a fraud except by memory.

Mike

Hi Mike,

That's pretty much where I stand with GH.

I find it strange when he's dismissed as a liar, by some, because he claimed to recall such great detail. The irony is that if he'd said that the man was well-dressed and his coat trimmed with what looked like astrakhan, but that he couldn't really remember more than that, he'd be hailed as a vital witness. I wonder if people would then express frustration that he hadn't been able to remember more than he did?!

Regards, Bridewell.

[Lechmere]

To be fair, his story being discounted because he got his days mixed up means that Hutchinson's story was discredited.
I am unsure whether he genuinely got his days mixed up or whether he did it with deliberation in order to get some petty fame and a bit of a pay out from the police as a roving witness and maybe from the press for interviews.
Dew's memoir is an invaluable source- even if he quite understandably gets little detals slightly wromg - in fact, ironically, those little eroneous details give his account authenticity.
For example he thinks Robert Paul was searched for but not traced which is a memory of the hoo-ha over tracking Paul down.
Paul incidentally is a very interesting witness and one who we can split away which bits of his various statements are believable and which aren't quite easily, and which in turn gives us an insight into his mentality.

[Lechmere]

It also has to be said that George Hutchinson was almost certainly identical with George William Topping Hutchinson - as identified by his son and as shown by his known movements to almost exactly fit into the George Hutchinson story as known from the Ripper tale.

[Sally]

Hi Jon

Apologies for the late response, the weekend got in the way

The Falklands War occured in a time (today) when it is common to have person's "act" roles in order to get a point across. That is what advertising is, put a script together and have someone read it, or ask a legitimate question and provide a false name for the responder.

I accept it may be asking too much but a correct (IMO) response would have been for you to offer a near contemporary (1860-1900) criminal case where it is known that the press invented witnesses.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here, or how what you say supports your argument. If what you mean is that advertising is responsible for the creation of false witnesses in the media today in contrast to 'yesterday' then I'm not sure I follow. That isn't a reason for inventing bogus witnesses. There is one reason for that - its to sell papers. Why do you think that reason would be any less valid in the past than it is today?

As for a 'correct' response; I'm not sure that's the right term. An
ideal response might be to provide a 'near contemporary' example of witness-fixing, yes - but given the context, how likely is that? It's not as though the press would've been upfront about the practice, now is it?

Such a response would at least legitimise your proposal. However, all that means is that any one of the Whitechapel murder cases could have included witnesses which never really existed. You would still be left to rationalize, why Paumier?

Well yes, and no. 'My proposal' is supported by a lack of evidence for some of these 'witnesses'. That leads me in turn to conclude that they were probably invented to sell papers; a practice which I know occurs in the press today and which I see no reason to doubt occurred in the past as well. Its a reasonable conclusion based on the available evidence. That doesn't mean that it is a fact that they never existed; nor would I suggest such - but it does lend weight to the theory that they didn't. It represents the current state of knowledge, which is not definite, and may alter. If and when it does - if further evidence which tends either to confirm or negate their existence emerges - then I will revise my view accordingly.

I readily admit to not looking for a "Paumier" when I last went through the 1891 census for the area, so I couldn't say whether the name exists or not.
If she was invented, the purpose for her "appearance" lacks justification, her story is not headline grabbing.

Once again, if it wasn't newsworthy it wouldn't be in the paper to begin with. You say her invention 'lacks justification' - but it doesn't, because it appears in the press and so was deemed to be newsworthy. I was wondering with regard to this discussion how journalists were paid - many of them must have operated on a freelance basis, even if allied to a specific paper; which would mean that they were paid for copy. I should think that would represent a good personal motive for coming up with the goods, real or invented.

Let me just remind you, this line from The Echo:
"As many as fifty-three persons have, in all, made statements as to "suspicious men," each of whom was thought to be Mary Janet Kelly's assassin."

No doubt the handfull who appeared at the Inquest are among the 53 person's. So who else did this 53 include, Kennedy, Paumier, Ronay?, they all told stories about a "suspicious man". For all we/you know the best of the bunch, or at least the only ones the press were able to locate, were these three, Kennedy, Paumier & Ronay.

If the '53' is an accurate tally, we have no way of knowing who was included, since the names of the witnesses are not given. It has absolutely no bearing at all on whether Kennedy, Paumier or Ronay were invented witnesses. I concede that you may be correct, giving the press the benefit of the doubt; but there still ought to be some independent evidence for their existence - as I said to you a few posts back, perhaps in the case of 'Kennedy' there is, but that remains only a possibility which of course cannot be substantiated. What I do not think incidentally is that Kennedy was Sarah Lewis in disguise; it would be entirely out of character.

In all fairness the article does admit that none of the descriptions given in these fifty-three witness stories tally with that given by Hutchinson, but thats a whole other subject.

It is. I'm a bit bored with repetitive, cyclical Hutchinson discussions to be honest, Jon; but kudos to you for your fairness

So, there were 53 witnesses who describe a "suspicious man", why invent more?

Because the '53 witnesses' are not named witnesses. An anonymous group of witnesses giving accounts of suspicious men does not represent a story - it's an aside. A named witness, real or invented, is much more use to a newspaper, which exists to make a profit.

These "well-dressed men" have been sidelined for decades. Some of them we have known about since the late 90's but have been flippantly overlooked.
Are they different men, or the same man? - I don't claim to know one way or the other. What I do think though is, that if anyone in this series of murders is to be considered a "Person of Interest", it is him/them.

Fair enough, you favour 'well-dressed' man. That shouldn't prevent you from discriminating between the accounts of witnesses though. When you can show me who these press 'witnesses' were, I'll be inclined to take their accounts more seriously.

I don't regard dismissing witnesses as good scholarship without some acknowledged reason to do so.
I mean a reason, not an idea. The suggestion on Casebook is an "idea" nothing more. There is no reason behind it, except that some find it a convenient argument to try to dismiss the statement of this witness.

I have given you reasons, more than once. My reasoning is sound, and is not an unsupported 'idea'. I'm afraid that if anybody has a 'convenient argument' here, it appears to be you, in suggesting that these unsubstantiated 'witnesses' are only subject to doubt because of some private agenda held by your fellow posters. It is not the case.

If you believe that they existed, then by all means, demonstrate their existence. I am quite happy to be wrong.

[The Good Michael]

It also has to be said that George Hutchinson was almost certainly identical with George William Topping Hutchinson - as identified by his son and as shown by his known movements to almost exactly fit into the George Hutchinson story as known from the Ripper tale.

Uh, what Lechmere is trying to say is, er, some people believe this and others don't. No need for Hutchinsonian response here. (Whew! I think I nipped that one in the bud.)

Mike

[Bridewell]

Mrs Paumier

With regard to Mrs Paumier, whether or not her account was a journalist's invention, there were people of that name living in both St Lukes & Mile End at the relevant time. It's not an obvious surname to invent which suggests, to me anyway, that whoever wrote the piece at least knew of someone who went by that name.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Bridewell]

Further to my last, in the 1901 census there is an Emily Paumier, aged 31 living in Bethnal Green and born in Aldgate. She would have been about 18 in 1888. Young? Certainly. Chestnut vendor? Who knows?

Regards, Bridewell.

[Ben]

“Whew! I think I nipped that one in the bud.”

Nah, ‘fraid not, Mike. It’s a good effort, but given the sheer amount of nonsense that’s accumulated over the weekend on this thread, there will have to be a number of “Hutchinsonian posts” to redress the balance, and in common with all Hutchinson threads, they’ll only stop when IT stops (and it is deeply regrettable that it had to start again in the first place).

First off, it seems necessary once again to reiterate that the police at the time were absolutely not compelled to accept medical testimony over eyewitness evidence. They most assuredly DID NOT DO SO with regard to Bond’s evidence on the Kelly murder, because the extract from the article I provided earlier demonstrates as much. The fact that they supported the evidence of Dr. Phillips in the Chapman case is absolutely not an indication that the preference for medical opinion over conflicting testimony was common practice. It definitely wasn’t. The only reason some people are arguing that Bond's evidence was prioritized over the mutually corroborative evidence of Lewis and Prater is because they want a Hutchinson-friendly reason for the discrediting of his account; i.e. a reason that doesn't involve doubts as to his motivation and honesty. Unfortunately for them, this unfriendly is precisely why Hutchinson was discredited as we learn from the Echo, who extracted the information directly from the police.

What other arguments have been dredged up for no reason? Oh yes. “Mrs. Paumier” and "Sarah Roney". These women were among the bogus witnesses who were discredited before the inquest and sank blissfully without trace well in advance of it - no later than the 10th November in most cases. It is most emphatically not a modern Casebook speculation that these witness sightings were false and not worth endorsing as genuine ripper-sightings. This was established very quickly at the time, as recognised by practically everyone apart from those hell-bent on promoting the image of the killer as a well-dressed toff. Philip Sugden’s advice to those who seek an accurate sequence of events in relation to the Kelly murder was that they “must discount” the tittle-tattle of the Victorian press, especially the nonsense that appeared around the 10th November. I've little doubt that they were real woman, just not genuine witnesses. It even was reported in the Star that genuine accounts were being plagiarized by several women.

“What I do think though is, that if anyone in this series of murders is to be considered a "Person of Interest", it is him/them.”

Really, Jon? So you’re not too bothered about Lawende’s description then, despite the strong evidence that it was taken perhaps the most seriously of all by the police. Too “rough and shabby” to be your sort of “person of interest”, I suppose.

The way the memorization of detail is constantly brought up is also a total of obfuscation of the more important issue, which is that he couldn’t even have seen many of the minute, fiddly items he mentioned. If people are prepared to accept he invented details that weren’t there, they shouldn’t be as illogically resistant as they are to the possibility that the rest of it might be fabrication too, especially if the account as a whole was discredited by the police at the time owing to doubts over its credibility.

Remember that he only came forward once it transpired publicly that Sarah Lewis had seen someone loitering opposite the court at 2:30, which means that unless extraordinary coincidence is an acceptable explanation, he only came forward because he realised he’d been seen at a crime scene. Who, then, is to say that Hutchinson’s professed reason for loitering there was an innocent one? Why Hutchinson himself of course, in his swiftly discredited account that contains a bogeyman pantomime villain suspect that conveniently deflects suspicion away from himself. If some people were less obstinate and more criminologically curious, they too would find the above somewhat problematic, and they certainly wouldn’t perpetuate the ludicrous fallacy that we can accept “embellishments” on Hutchinson’s part whilst resisting at all costs the possibility that other aspects of his account might also be fabrication.

“All the while we know it was customary for a man to wear a handky protruding from a top pocket. Whether top waistcoat pocket or top coat pocket, it does not matter.”

It was not customary for men to wear hankies protruding from coat pockets, not remotely. From waistcoats, vests and inner garments where they would NOT have been visible, yes. Coats, very rarely.

“Here in Canada we can have the worst of winters, never, repeat - never, do I ever fasten my outer coat. I cannot tollerate that trust-up feeling regardless of the weather”

Well then you’re a bit weird. Sorry. And you shouldn’t really use your own eccentric habits as some sort of indication that it constitutes normal behaviour. It is also incredibly unlikely that anyone would parade their shiny looking watch chains in what was widely alluded to as one of the worst areas of London, for the simple reason that it would have attracted attention from the many muggers in the “vicious, semi-criminal” district, to say nothing of the wannabe vigilantes all prowling the street for anyone out of place and potentially ripper-ish.

All the best,
Ben

[Bridewell]

What other arguments have been dredged up for no reason? Oh yes. “Mrs. Paumier” and Sarah Roney.

Hi Ben,

No problem with the rest of your post, but describing Mrs Paumier as "dredged up for no reason" on a thread which concerns itself with the credibility (or otherwise) of witnesses is a bit much. It's surely fair enough to dredge her up, if only to demonstrate - as you have done - that she is discredited, and why. That's what the thread's about isn't it?

Regards, Bridewell.

[Fisherman]

Lechmere:

"To be fair, his story being discounted because he got his days mixed up means that Hutchinson's story was discredited."

Only in relation to the murder, though! Otherwise, the story as such would NOT have been discredited, but instead accepted as correct - but belonging to the night before the murder night. All the bits and pieces of the testimony were thus correct (if we accept that Dew was on the money) and remained valuable information - but for the timing.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

Point taken, Bridewell. Apologies for that. They are indeed perfectly relevant to the thread. My prickliness on the matter was probably due to the fact that I spent considerable time and posts engaging with that particular topic a mere month or two ago, and was a little surprised to see the same points raised as though they were never addressed. But since it isn't against the rules, I suppose I'll have to grin and bear it...again!

[Bridewell]

Point taken, Bridewell. Apologies for that. They are indeed perfectly relevant to the thread. My prickliness on the matter was probably due to the fact that I spent considerable time and posts engaging with that particular topic a mere month or two ago, and was a little surprised to see the same points raised as though they were never addressed. But since it isn't against the rules, I suppose I'll have to grin and bear it...again!

Hi Ben,

No apology needed, but thank-you for taking the point with such good grace.

Best Wishes, Bridewell.