Witness/Killer?

[MrBarnett]

Perhaps I should dust off my Tomkins theory.

[Scott Nelson]

Bruce Paley did one on Barnett but something’s telling me that there might have been another book.

Paul Harrison's "Jack the Ripper: The Mystery Solved" (1991)

Leanne Perry's "Catch Me When You Can" (2007)

[Herlock Sholmes]

Paul Harrison's "Jack the Ripper: The Mystery Solved" (1991)

Leanne Perry's "Catch Me When You Can" (2007)

Cheers Scott, Harrison was the one that was in the back of my mind but I'd completely forgotten about the Perry book.

[Michael W Richards]

Oh, and before Fish leaps in to point out that Lechmere did keep his name well out of it, the Pickfords carman made himself perfectly identifiable to the authorities, had they wanted to question him again. That's not something I could see the killer doing.

Just to play Devils Advocate, the same might be said about Schwartz, or Hutchinson, or Richardson. If they were the killers of course. At the murder scene at around the time of the murders....could be some hiding in plain sight in any of these instances.

[The Rookie Detective]

Just to play Devils Advocate, the same might be said about Schwartz, or Hutchinson, or Richardson. If they were the killers of course. At the murder scene at around the time of the murders....could be some hiding in plain sight in any of these instances.

Well said sir, but the key difference between Richardson, Hutchinson and Schwartz compared to Lechmere is that the latter is the only witness who was seen by another witness (Paul) at any of the murder scenes.

without Robert Paul, Lechmere would fall under the same bracket as every other witness.


TRD

[The Rookie Detective]

And with Lechmere of course, it all comes down to the timing.

if there was time for the ripper to be CLEAR of Bucks Row BEFORE Lechmere enters Bucks Row from the East, then Lechmere is just another witness.
Bearing in mind that Lechmere never mentioned he heard anyone in Bucks Row, then the killer must have been over a hundred yards away for Lechmere not to have heard him.

The timing must have been really tight.

it seems quite likely that whomever the real killer was, they most likely would have heard Lechmere entering Buck Row from the East.

was it Lechmere who disturbed the real killer?


TRD

[caz]

Bearing in mind that Lechmere never mentioned he heard anyone in Bucks Row, then the killer must have been over a hundred yards away for Lechmere not to have heard him.

Not necessarily. If your senses are all concentrated on what's going on in your immediate vicinity - in this case, Lechmere finding a woman lying in the street shortly before he becomes aware of Robert Paul approaching - you may not pick up on indistinct sounds from further away, getting fainter by the second. He didn't know at that early stage how long Nichols may have been lying there, nor whether she was drunk or had been molested, so he may not have thought to listen out for retreating footsteps.

Of course, if Lechmere was the killer, the obvious thing would have been to lie, and say he did hear something that sounded like footsteps. In the unlikely event that a policeman had been near enough at the time to flatly contradict him, he could simply have said: "Then it may have been you I heard, officer".

Love,

Caz
X

[The Rookie Detective]

Not necessarily. If your senses are all concentrated on what's going on in your immediate vicinity - in this case, Lechmere finding a woman lying in the street shortly before he becomes aware of Robert Paul approaching - you may not pick up on indistinct sounds from further away, getting fainter by the second. He didn't know at that early stage how long Nichols may have been lying there, nor whether she was drunk or had been molested, so he may not have thought to listen out for retreating footsteps.

Of course, if Lechmere was the killer, the obvious thing would have been to lie, and say he did hear something that sounded like footsteps. In the unlikely event that a policeman had been near enough at the time to flatly contradict him, he could simply have said: "Then it may have been you I heard, officer".

Love,

Caz
X

I agree with you in terms of Lechmere not necessarily being able to hear anyone as his attention wouldn’t have been focused on it and what you say makes perfect sense.

the only area that I am not so sure about is the latter part of your message regarding if Lechmere was the killer.

As you say, if he was the killer then the obvious thing to have done would have been to said he heard footsteps. This I do concur with but I also believe that the opposite applies.

I say this because the kind of man who killed Nichols would have needed to have kept control. A calculated serial killer wouldn’t feel in control if they chose to state that they’d heard footsteps, ergo, they would be psychologically transferring responsibility onto a fictitious person rather than claim their prize.
Real control would come from him saying he heard nothing.
This then teases anyone trying to investigate the crime. It’s beautifully obvious that Lechmere is highly likely to have killed Nichols.
How thrilling would it be to observe Paul’s reaction to his work.
Much more thrilling for a psychopath to tease and taunt the obvious instead of saying “I heard footsteps it wasn’t me!”

Ironically, I feel that it makes Lechmere even more suspicious in that he didn’t hear anything. Because it then statistically reduces the likelihood it was someone else. If Lechmere was innocent I still think there was scope for him having heard someone ahead of him, but overall I agree with your viewpoint


TRD

[Herlock Sholmes]

.
Of course, if Lechmere was the killer, the obvious thing would have been to lie, and say he did hear something that sounded like footsteps. In the unlikely event that a policeman had been near enough at the time to flatly contradict him, he could simply have said: "Then it may have been you I heard, officer

I agree Caz. A guilty Lechmere had an ideal chance of saying that he'd heard someone walking away. I think that he could even have said that when he was 30 or 40 yards away someone stepped out of the shadows near the gates and ran along the street. By the time that he'd checked on Polly "he was too far gone for me to have gone after him."

[Fisherman]

Of course, if Lechmere was the killer, the obvious thing would have been to lie, and say he did hear something that sounded like footsteps. In the unlikely event that a policeman had been near enough at the time to flatly contradict him, he could simply have said: "Then it may have been you I heard, officer".

Love,

Caz
X

Then again, he would not risk any such discussions/suspicions/disagreements if he simply said that he heard or saw nothing. Which, come to think of it, was exactly what he said.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Then again, he would not risk any such discussions/suspicions/disagreements if he simply said that he heard or saw nothing. Which, come to think of it, was exactly what he said.

Fish, I tried to pm you a few days ago but your box was full. Do you know anything about this book? And could you translate please?

Jack Upsprätaren: Återutgivning av världens första book on Jack The Ripper fran 1888 by Ansgarius Scensen and Mikael Jägerbrand.

I'm guessing that 'första' means first?

Cheers

[Fisherman]

Fish, I tried to pm you a few days ago but your box was full. Do you know anything about this book? And could you translate please?

Jack Upsprätaren: Återutgivning av världens första book on Jack The Ripper fran 1888 by Ansgarius Scensen and Mikael Jägerbrand.

I'm guessing that 'första' means first?

Cheers

Correct, "första" means first. The translation of the sentence is "Jack the Ripper: re-publication of the worlds first book on Jack the Ripper from 1888 by Ansgarius Scensen and Mikael Jägerbrand".

Scensen should be Svensen, by the way. I found the book on Bokus (https://www.bokus.com/bok/9789187363...ck-the-ripper/), where it says:

Under hösten 1888 härjade seriemördaren Jack the Ripper i storstaden London.
De här blodiga händelserna uppmärksammades över hela världen. Eftersom ett av offren kom från Sverige skrevs det också mycket i de svenska tidningarna.
Det är rätt fantastiskt att världens allra första bok om jakten på Jack faktiskt gavs ut här i Sverige. Den här boken gavs ut redan 1889 - bara några månader efter morden.

Vi har valt att göra en återutgivning av den här boken eftersom författaren Ansgarius Svensen skriver så detaljerat om morden och mördaren att han kanske har haft källor inom den engelska polisen.

Anledningen till att det finns en del stav- och syftningsfel i texten beror troligen på att man hade bråttom vid publiceringen år 1889.

Eftersom den här texten skrevs på 1800-talet så innehåller den ord och namn på personer som inte är så bekanta i dag. Därför har vi kompletterat originaltexten med en kortfattad ordlista.

And translating that, we get:

In the autumn of 1888, serial killer Jack the Ripper ravaged the metropolis of London.
These bloody events were noticed throughout the entire world. Since there was a Swedish victim, much was written about it in Swedish papers.
It is rather remarkable that the worlds first book on the hunt for Jack was published here in Sweden. This book was published in 1889 - a few months only after the murders.

We have chosen to republish this book since the author Ansgarius Svensen writes in so much detail about the murders and the killer that he may have had sources within the British police.

The reason for the spelling and other errors are probably due to a haste at the time of publishing the book in 1889.

Since the text was written in the nineteenth century it carries words and names on persons that are not very known today. We have therefore added a word list to the original text.

PS.I´ll try to make space for personal PM:s - thanks for telling me!

[Herlock Sholmes]

Correct, "första" means first. The translation of the sentence is "Jack the Ripper: re-publication of the worlds first book on Jack the Ripper from 1888 by Ansgarius Scensen and Mikael Jägerbrand".

Scensen should be Svensen, by the way. I found the book on Bokus (https://www.bokus.com/bok/9789187363...ck-the-ripper/), where it says:

Under hösten 1888 härjade seriemördaren Jack the Ripper i storstaden London.
De här blodiga händelserna uppmärksammades över hela världen. Eftersom ett av offren kom från Sverige skrevs det också mycket i de svenska tidningarna.
Det är rätt fantastiskt att världens allra första bok om jakten på Jack faktiskt gavs ut här i Sverige. Den här boken gavs ut redan 1889 - bara några månader efter morden.

Vi har valt att göra en återutgivning av den här boken eftersom författaren Ansgarius Svensen skriver så detaljerat om morden och mördaren att han kanske har haft källor inom den engelska polisen.

Anledningen till att det finns en del stav- och syftningsfel i texten beror troligen på att man hade bråttom vid publiceringen år 1889.

Eftersom den här texten skrevs på 1800-talet så innehåller den ord och namn på personer som inte är så bekanta i dag. Därför har vi kompletterat originaltexten med en kortfattad ordlista.

And translating that, we get:

In the autumn of 1888, serial killer Jack the Ripper ravaged the metropolis of London.
These bloody events were noticed throughout the entire world. Since there was a Swedish victim, much was written about it in Swedish papers.
It is rather remarkable that the worlds first book on the hunt for Jack was published here in Sweden. This book was published in 1889 - a few months only after the murders.

We have chosen to republish this book since the author Ansgarius Svensen writes in so much detail about the murders and the killer that he may have had sources within the British police.

The reason for the spelling and other errors are probably due to a haste at the time of publishing the book in 1889.

Since the text was written in the nineteenth century it carries words and names on persons that are not very known today. We have therefore added a word list to the original text.

PS.I´ll try to make space for personal PM:s - thanks for telling me!

Thanks for that Fish.

One more question: do you have this one and is it of interest?

Ok, that's two questions.

[Fisherman]

Thanks for that Fish.

One more question: do you have this one and is it of interest?

Ok, that's two questions.

No, I haven't got it. Guess I should have, being a Swede. And aware of it´s existence. I seem to remember, though, having read less favourable things about it (along the line of it being mostly free phantasies), and so I have never gotten around to getting it. The info on Bokus was kind of mouthwatering ...

[The Rookie Detective]

With regards to Hutchinson


what the general consensus with him as a reliable witness?


considering he gave a belated over exaggerated statement in which he gives a ridiculously detailed description and states he waited for 45 minutes before randomly deciding to walk away; he is one peculiar fellow to say the least.

if we were to continue complete omit his statement with the view of him not having been there at all and take his entire statement as fabrication, how would that affect the course of events on the night of the MJK murder?

what if we were to consider that none of the “eye” witness testimonies were correct and that the only statistically viable witness evidence was the audible “oh murder” heard by MULTIPLE witnesses on the night.

hutchinson acts more strangely than any other witness.

was he a complete liar
was he mistaken
was he a fantasist
was he an odd ball

or did he actually see the killer and is totally reliable as a key witness?

or was he the killer?

I believe he made the whole thing up and the murder of MJK should be considered with his entire statement omitted.

what if Kelly didn’t leave her room to speak with Hutchinson at all?

what if Kelly was in her room being murdered at the same time Hutchinson says he was speaking with her?

what if Kelly was asleep for a while in her room and was awoken by the murderer sneaking into her room shortly before the “oh murder” cry?

TRD