Choosing which witnesses to believe

[Wickerman]

from the Nov. 19th edition of the Echo, page 3:

"...Some of the authorities are inclined to place most reliance upon the statement made by Hutchinson as to his having seen the latest victim with a gentlemanly man of dark complexion and with a dark moustache. Others are dispersed to think that the shabby man with a blotchy face and a carrotty moustache, described by the witness Mary Ann Cox, is more likely to be the murderer..."

Thankyou Chris.
Quite so, and the quote serves to emphasize the fact that there was division within the force, or likely between the two forces. Just as The Echo had reported on the 13th, the Met. had been persuaded to defer to the Cox witness, while the City disagreed. The Met. however, had not abandoned Hutcinson altogether.
Clearly, the belief in both witness descriptions continued from the 13th through to the 19th, and beyond.

More evidence that support for Hutchinson's credibility continued.

If this article is to be relied upon in the same vein that others are relied upon by some, then it is obvious that certain individuals within the investigation still thought that Hutchinson was a reliable witness.

And, the apparent fact that The Star never repeated, and was never copied by any of their contemporaries, in their inaccurate interpretation of the division which occured within both police forces.

The answer was therefore not one of a discredited witness, that can be safely dispenced with.

The beautiful irony is, the "discredited" arguement offered by The Star is proven to be firmly discredited by its contemporary, The Echo.

How sweet it is!

All the best, Jon S.

[Michael W Richards]

Hi folks,

Jon, Ben, David...(Ben and David nice to be speaking with you again), Hunter, Fisherman, Dave, Errata,...I believe thats the list in the latest posts I should address.

Guys, ...we are having to post extremely sizable rebuttals here to continue on this vein, I suggest that we take another road.

I think in the true nature of the thread, the question we should be addressing is do we believe George Hutchinson's statement or not? Cumulatively, we are split on this point...obviously.

Like Israel Schwartz this witness is not included in any formal public Inquiry, in GH's case its due to a bizarre 1 Day Inquest and his 4 day delay coming forward. So despite any internal memos, or press reports, or Fred Abberline's personal OK, neither of these guys can be considered properly "vetted" witnesses. This isnt about finding competing "opinions" in the press, its about whether we should be looking for GH's Astrakan Man or not as MJ's killer. I say no.

I personally believe that George Hutchinson is not to be trusted because:

A) He clearly embellished what he says he saw.
B) No-one identifies the man in the Wideawake Hat
C) No-one verifies he knew the deceased
D) No courtyard witness identifies George Hutchinson
E) Only George Hutchinson and Caroline Maxwell say they saw Mary Kelly out of her room after midnight.
F) Mary Ann Cox is the witness of record for her statement concerning the arrival home of Mary Kelly and her companion, the last probable sighting of Mary recorded at the Inquest.

I can see many possibilities on why someone would come forward and fabricate a story, including public mischief,...and I can see few reasons to rely on George Hutchinson's story in its entirety. I do not trust that he spoke the truth. Why he gave it is another matter altogether.

Weigh the witness and evidence for yourself, no-one on either side has proven a case. Much of this relies on logic, reason, interpretation of data, and instincts. Not on press clippings or internal notes of support. Unless someone has the definitive answer here in the form of new evidence, Ill bow out and accept that the opinions differ in this matter.

Best regards all,

Mike R

[Sally]

I would like to know if Hutchinson could reasonably have read about the inquest before he walked into Commercial Street Station.

Does anybody know when the first papers came out? And which ones they were?

[Fleetwood Mac]

Hi folks,

I personally believe that George Hutchinson is not to be trusted because:

A) He clearly embellished what he says he saw.
B) No-one identifies the man in the Wideawake Hat
C) No-one verifies he knew the deceased
D) No courtyard witness identifies George Hutchinson
E) Only George Hutchinson and Caroline Maxwell say they saw Mary Kelly out of her room after midnight.
F) Mary Ann Cox is the witness of record for her statement concerning the arrival home of Mary Kelly and her companion, the last probable sighting of Mary recorded at the Inquest.

In my view, B to F do not render Hutchinson untrustworthy, and A is open to debate.

In the end, when push comes to shove, you're left with the details of his statement, and it follows thus a personal view of its veracity.

Too much emphasis is placed on police opinion; again, it was simply their opinion as far as we know, i.e. nothing proven conclusively one way or the other.

I personally would go 70/30 in favour of it being a crock and H having been nowhere near Miller's Court on the night of the murder, but that's a result of the details of his statement more than anything.

Unless someone comes forward with hitherto unseen evidence, you're left with this:

a) Does his statement appear to have been an unlikely version of events? Yes.
b) Are most people who inject themselves into cases cranks or killers? Cranks.
c) H was a probably a crank.

[Wickerman]

I would like to know if Hutchinson could reasonably have read about the inquest before he walked into Commercial Street Station.

Does anybody know when the first papers came out? And which ones they were?

Hi Sally.
Not their actual time of publication, no.

The Evening papers were;
Echo.
Evening News.
Evening Post.
Evening Standard.
Globe.
Pall Mall Gazette.
Star.
St. James' Gazette.

Because the press room needed their evening stories by mid afternoon (2:00-4:00 pm?), those evening papers which choose to include anything from the Inquest could only provide incomplete coverage.
The only complete coverage was the next day, in the daily papers.

Hutchinson had no way of assessing all the witness testimony before he appeared at the station by 6:00 pm.

If (because this has been suggested in the past) he decided to invent a story based on Inquest testimony, he would need to know what every witness saw because he is in no position to know in advance how many people may have seen him (assuming he was the loiterer), or may have seen something else that would invalidate his story, and all this in a hour or so?
In other words, another rather impractical suggestion.

Anyone ever waited outside a courthouse in an attempt to gain sufficient information from all those leaving?
Of course not, I think all would agree, a worthless suggestion.

Regards, Jon S.

[Sally]

Jon -

Thank you; just what I wanted to know - that's very interesting and helpful

[Wickerman]

Too much emphasis is placed on police opinion; again, it was simply their opinion as far as we know, i.e. nothing proven conclusively one way or the other.

Briefly (I promise), police opinion only matters if some suggests it was the police who accused him of lying. Obviously they did not, as a consequence this distracting, unhelpful and misleading line of inquiry should be dropped.

I personally would go 70/30 in favour of it being a crock and H having been nowhere near Miller's Court on the night of the murder, but that's a result of the details of his statement more than anything.

Unless someone comes forward with hitherto unseen evidence, you're left with this:

a) Does his statement appear to have been an unlikely version of events? Yes.
b) Are most people who inject themselves into cases cranks or killers? Cranks.
c) H was a probably a crank.

Whether WE think he made up his story, or embellished a real event (ie; was he there?), and whether he intended to pursue criminal activity that night, and ultimately, was he the killer, is a far more interesting line of inquiry.

As always, we can come up with details which speak in support of some of these possibilities, and some which speak against them.
Either way, debates should be more productive.

Regards, Jon S.

[Michael W Richards]

Hi again,

As an afterthought to my last post I checked old Hutchinson threads.

For the folks who insist that one press report dismissed the statement of Hutchinson, here is a post from Garry Wroe here in 2009;

"Hello All.

Way back in the Eighties and Nineties when I was conducting research into Hutchinson for my book, I always found it puzzling that, despite Abberline’s stated belief in Hutchinson’s veracity as an important eyewitness, the police nevertheless continued with their local sweeps on common lodging houses. It just didn’t make sense given the affluent appearance of the Jewish-looking suspect.

Recently, having been away from the Casebook for some five years or so, it became apparent that someone had succeeded where I’d failed and had managed to uncover a repudiation of Hutchinson’s account carried by The Star on 15 November. On checking the newspaper sources here on site, however, I discovered the following reference contained in the London Echo dated 13 November:-

"From latest inquiries it appears that a very reduced importance seems to be now - in the light of later investigation - attached to a statement made by a person last night that he saw a man with the deceased on the night of the murder. Of course, such a statement should have been made at the inquest, where the evidence, taken on oath, could have been compared with the supposed description of the murderer given by the witnesses. Why, ask the authorities, did not the informant come forward before? 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. The most remarkable thing in regard to the latest statement is, that no one else can be found to say that a man of that description given was seen with the deceased, while, of course, there is the direct testimony of the witnesses at the inquest, that the person seen with the deceased at midnight was of quite a different appearance.

This revelation, of course,was published the day after Hutchinson’s police interview and pre-empted The Star by fully two days. And if factual, one can only surmise that it came about as a consequence of a police tip-off, and that Hutchinson had given himself away whilst searching the Whitechapel district with his police escort on the Monday evening."

This was for the records, Im now returning to my opt out of this thread.

Cheers all,
Mike R

[Wickerman]

Jon -

Thank you; just what I wanted to know - that's very interesting and helpful

You are very welcome.



Mike.
The connection Garry did not make is, that the 13th was also the day Bond's report was released by Anderson. Hence, I suspect, the reason for the "very reduced importance" being now attached to Hutchinson's statement.
The Star was often slow on the uptake.

We are all familiar with that extract, unless you see something else?

Regards, Jon S.

[DVV]

David:

"We KNOW Hutch was discredited"

I KNOW you are factually wrong.

Make that work, if you can.

Please note that I am not saying that Hutchinson could not have been discredited. What I am saying is that you don´t know it.

The best,
Fisherman

Hi Fish,

yes I know. Just a matter of deduction.