Charles Cross (Lechmere)

[MrBarnett]

Hi Jeff,

I’m lost - how do we have evidence that leans in favour of his having an alibi? He was a cart driver, delivering who knows what to who knows where or when. In a twelve-hour shift, say, do we imagine he never had the opportunity to leave his cart to answer a call of nature or to get a bite to eat or a drink?

Gary

[harry]

How many persons could produce an alibi for the murders.How many needed to?
If this is another attempt,since all others have failed,to show Cross as suspect,it's a dismal faiure.He didn't need an alibi.He was never advised by the police he was suspect.

[JeffHamm]

Hi Jeff,

I’m lost - how do we have evidence that leans in favour of his having an alibi? He was a cart driver, delivering who knows what to who knows where or when. In a twelve-hour shift, say, do we imagine he never had the opportunity to leave his cart to answer a call of nature or to get a bite to eat or a drink?

Gary

Hi Gary,

We know he had to be at work by 4:00. Chapman, based upon eye/ear witnesses, is killed well after that, around 5:25-5:30 type thing. Therefore, he's at work at the time she most likely was killed. That, by definition, is evidence leaning towards him being excluded, in part because his work can take him all over the place in London and most places would put him out of the area. We don't know where he was, of course, but that just means we have to give each possible location equal probability that it might be where he was, and Hanbury street is only one stacked up against all of his possible destinations to drop off goods, which must have numbered in the dozens. So, knowing he's at work favours an alibi more than it favours guilt, which is described as leaning in favour of an alibi. But, for the alibi to be confirmed as rock solid would require we had more actual details about his movements rather than rely on chance probability models, so while the evidence we have leans towards an alibi it does not conclusively lock that alibi down. That is why if we were investigating this today we would want to further follow up on his duties and locations and work schedule, etc. And who knows, maybe the police of the time did that and we just don't know about it.

Simply because our investigation could uncover information that makes the alibi fall apart doesn't mean the current evidence isn't leaning in his favour; our investigation has not yet produced any evidence one way or the other - it's only generated speculations about how that evidence might possibly look.

- Jeff

[Fiver]

I'm lost - how do we have evidence that leans in favour of his having an alibi? He was a cart driver, delivering who knows what to who knows where or when. In a twelve-hour shift, say, do we imagine he never had the opportunity to leave his cart to answer a call of nature or to get a bite to eat or a drink?

It's a 14 to 18 hour shift. Pickford's vans typically had a van boy or van guard to prevent pilferage. Grabbing a bite or answering a call of nature takes a lot less time than finding a victim, going somewhere with them, mutilating the body, finding somewhere to clean up privately, cleaning up, and then heading back to the cart.And returning with obvious fresh blood on him would raise questions for every remaining customer and his coworkers when he returned to the Broad Street Station.

[MrBarnett]

Hi Gary,

We know he had to be at work by 4:00. Chapman, based upon eye/ear witnesses, is killed well after that, around 5:25-5:30 type thing. Therefore, he's at work at the time she most likely was killed. That, by definition, is evidence leaning towards him being excluded, in part because his work can take him all over the place in London and most places would put him out of the area. We don't know where he was, of course, but that just means we have to give each possible location equal probability that it might be where he was, and Hanbury street is only one stacked up against all of his possible destinations to drop off goods, which must have numbered in the dozens. So, knowing he's at work favours an alibi more than it favours guilt, which is described as leaning in favour of an alibi. But, for the alibi to be confirmed as rock solid would require we had more actual details about his movements rather than rely on chance probability models, so while the evidence we have leans towards an alibi it does not conclusively lock that alibi down. That is why if we were investigating this today we would want to further follow up on his duties and locations and work schedule, etc. And who knows, maybe the police of the time did that and we just don't know about it.

Simply because our investigation could uncover information that makes the alibi fall apart doesn't mean the current evidence isn't leaning in his favour; our investigation has not yet produced any evidence one way or the other - it's only generated speculations about how that evidence might possibly look.

- Jeff

So, Jeff, he was as likely to have been in Hanbury Street as anywhere else in a London? I’m sure Christer will be happy to hear that.

The fact is, that we don’t even know what his start time was on 8th September. The 4.00 start on 31st August is suggestive of a delivery to early morning markets. Perhaps he had a regular route or routes, perhaps not. Perhaps the goods he carried were sufficiently valuable to warrant a van guard, perhaps not. Perhaps his daily routine involved numerous trips back and forth from Broad Street with a loaded/unloaded van and afforded the opportunity of a brief stop off somewhere, perhaps not.

Any talk of an alibi for Chapman is pretty meaningless unless it’s based on evidence that makes it highly improbable that Lechmere could have been in the vicinity of Hanbury Street around 5/5.30.

[MrBarnett]

There is a certain amount of evidence that leans towards Lechmere carrying horseflesh on his cart and making deliveries to Harrison, Barber in Bethnal Green. That’s not a great distance from Broad Street and could have entailed a route along Hanbury Street.

[MrBarnett]

It's a 14 to 18 hour shift. Pickford's vans typically had a van boy or van guard to prevent pilferage. Grabbing a bite or answering a call of nature takes a lot less time than finding a victim, going somewhere with them, mutilating the body, finding somewhere to clean up privately, cleaning up, and then heading back to the cart.And returning with obvious fresh blood on him would raise questions for every remaining customer and his coworkers when he returned to the Broad Street Station.

You’ve seen it mentioned that some Pickfords drivers worked 14hrs + shifts and have assumed that must have applied to all of them?

You’ve seen it mentioned (possibly by me on numerous occasions) that Pickfords employed van guards to protect valuable and easily portable goods and have assumed they did so on every journey of every cart in their fleet, irrespective of what the load was?

Picture the scene: Lechmere rocks up at Harrison, Barber’s railway arch with a van load of fresh horse flesh and HB’s men look askance at him because he has what appears to be a blood smear on his apron. He in turn has his suspicions about them because they have incriminating-looking stains on their clothes.

[MrBarnett]

There is a certain amount of evidence that leans towards Lechmere carrying horseflesh on his cart and making deliveries to Harrison, Barber in Bethnal Green. That’s not a great distance from Broad Street and could have entailed a route along Hanbury Street.

In a nutshell:



The head of Pickford’s Horse Department was on the Board of Directors of Harrison, Barber and Harrison, Barber had the contract to process Pickford’s superannuated nags.

HB imported provincial horseflesh into London and there is evidence of Pickford’s vans laden with provincial horseflesh standing outside Broad Street Station. Tons of the stuff arrived into the capital every week.

The Lechmere family had a long-standing connection to the horseflesh trade. Maria (Lechmere/Cross?/Forsdike?) ran a cat’s meat shop in the Highway, and one of Charles’s sons is on record as having been a cats meat carter/salesman. At one stage that son lived in Winthrop Street a few doors away from HB’s yard. I believe the address - 4, Winthrop Street - had housed HB men previously.*

*I’ll check that out.

[Fiver]

There is a certain amount of evidence that leans towards Lechmere carrying horseflesh on his cart and making deliveries to Harrison, Barber in Bethnal Green.

Feel free to provide any evidence that Charles Lechmere typically carried horseflesh as a cargo. Pickords was a general goods service, not a meatpacking plant.

And Harrison, Barber did not take deliveries of horse meat. They were horse slaughterers who bought horses, killed them, and processed the bodies. Harrison, Barber produced about 70 tones of horsemeat a week. Bones were processed to produce oil for candlemaking, lubrication, and leather treatment. Powdered bones were processed into fertilizer. Skin and hooves were sold to glue makers or button makers. Horsehair was sold to upholsterers or became fishing lines. Hides became leather goods. Even the horseshoes were recycled.

[Fiver]

You've seen it mentioned that some Pickfords drivers worked 14hrs + shifts and have assumed that must have applied to all of them?

Nope. Pickfords drivers said it applied to all of them. I've read the 29 July 1891 Standard. where cartmen from Pickfords and other delivery companies said that they "had to work from fourteen to eighteen hours per day with no allowance for overtime". They were planning on demanding overtime for shifts longer than 12 hours.

[JeffHamm]

So, Jeff, he was as likely to have been in Hanbury Street as anywhere else in a London? I’m sure Christer will be happy to hear that.

The fact is, that we don’t even know what his start time was on 8th September. The 4.00 start on 31st August is suggestive of a delivery to early morning markets. Perhaps he had a regular route or routes, perhaps not. Perhaps the goods he carried were sufficiently valuable to warrant a van guard, perhaps not. Perhaps his daily routine involved numerous trips back and forth from Broad Street with a loaded/unloaded van and afforded the opportunity of a brief stop off somewhere, perhaps not.

Any talk of an alibi for Chapman is pretty meaningless unless it’s based on evidence that makes it highly improbable that Lechmere could have been in the vicinity of Hanbury Street around 5/5.30.

Hi MrBarnett,

I may have not phrases it very well. His odds of being in Hanbury street is 1 in how ever many places there are in London he would go to. Meaning, unlikely.

Also, to apply the same arguments, all talk of him being in Hanbury Street is pretty meaningless unless it is based on evidence that makes it more probable than not that he was there. And as the evidence suggests it is more unlikely than likely he was there, it means in favour of his innocence.

Basically, everything you note is weak about his alibi applies double to the claim he was in Hanbury Street.

And as I've said all along, the alibi would need further confirmation, but there's more on the side of innocent than guilt.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

Hi MrBarnett,

Any talk of an alibi for Chapman is pretty meaningless unless it’s based on evidence that makes it highly improbable that Lechmere could have been in the vicinity of Hanbury Street around 5/5.30.

Hi MrBarnett,

I've been thinking a bit more about this and it's really just struck me that you're presenting a modified version of Fisherman's theory, which I hadn't fully appreciated earlier, so some of the implications change. Fisherman insists Chapman was murdered before Cross/Lechmere gets to work, that she was murdered well before 4:00 and that the eye/ear witness statements are wrong (either mistaken or deliberate falsehoods, wouldn't matter which). There are a number of threads and posts by him where this is absolutely clear. I could be wrong, and maybe he's changed his mind on this, but I've not seen him say that he now believes Chapman was murdered at the time indicated by the eye/ear witnesses and have only seen him argue strongly that the doctor's estimate of the ToD by touching the body is accurate, placing her murder at a time that Cross/Lechmere is still going to work, not after he started.

But you are suggesting that Cross/Lechmere murders Chapman while doing his job, not while walking to work (references to his cart being parked up around the market, etc, all mean we're talking of him committing murder while doing his deliveries, or on his return trips). While Fisherman will not agree with you on that, and has made it very clear that in his theory Chapman is long dead by the time Cross/Lechmere starts his days work, we can still work with that modified idea.

Also, I've seen you question whether or not Cross/Lechmere's start time was always 4:00 am. Again, that's a key aspect of the whole theory, that he's killing on his walk to work, at least to cover Tabram, Nichols, and Chapman. Stride and Eddowes are during a day off, while he's at his mothers (something like that), and Kelly I'm not sure of, I think, but could be mistaken, that she's supposed to be killed while he walks to work as well, although there's the Lord Mayor's Day and some have suggested that he might have had a day off? Others that it would be work as per normal.

Anyway, again, by arguing for a variable start time you are again modifying Fisherman's theory, which I believe he argues for a standard start time. And, what I've noticed is that both of these modifications (kills on way to work or during work; variable start time for work) are creating a less specific theory than Fisherman's original theory (kills on way to work; starts work at 4:00 am). The more specific a theory's statements are, the more testable it becomes. It "risks" being falsified because by being specific it creates situations that just should not happen. If the theory is true, of course, those risks will never result in evidence that falsifies the theory because while the disconfirming evidence won't be found.

However, in order to account for the Chapman murder you've had to modify the original theory presented and create a more relaxed, less specific, explanation than Fisherman does. Effectively, by doing so, you have rejected Fisherman's original account and are agreeing that the theory's predictions are not upheld by the evidence we have and so requires modification to take into account the "alibi evidence" (for lack of a better description). You are effectively agreeing that such information poses a sufficient challenge to the theory, as originally presented, that something must give.

In short, we agree, you've presented a new, modified, less specific theory than the original, which indicates you agree the "alibi evidence" is not accounted for by the original explanation - it provided evidence against it. Your modification, simply demonstrates how the "alibi evidence" we have is not sufficient to completely shut down the whole thing (which I've agreed with in my previous posts).

- Jeff

[drstrange169]

Over on the Ripperologist Magazine #169 - July 2021 thread

(https://forum.casebook.org/forum/rip...-169-july-2021)

Christer made some claims that Steve Blomer’s review of his book “Cutting Point” in that issue, were factually in correct. Rather than dominate yet another thread with all things Lechmere, I've brought my reply over here.

In said review, Steve wrote,

“Some of it is pure imagination, such as his claim that Robert Paul was a hundred yards or more from Lechmere when he first became aware of him.”

Christer countered,

“You (Steve Blomer) write that I state "pure imagination" as fact when saying that Robert Paul was a hundred yards or more away from Lechmere when the latter first became aware of his presence. What I say is that this is a possibility, but I also point out how there are of course other possibilities. I do not claim any of them as a factually proven distance, so I am a bit flummoxed when you say that I do.”

So is Christer complaint correct?

On page 63 of “Cutting Point” with regards to Paul meeting Cross he wrote,

“Here is the corroborated version …”

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the word "corroborate" thus,

Corroborate - to support with evidence or authority : make more certain.

So when Christer claimed (page 64 Cutting Point),

“When he (Paul) had walked about a hundred years down Buck’s Row”

He was NOT “say(ing) is that this is a possibility” nor was he “also point(ing) out how there are of course other possibilities”. It is therefore legitimate for a reader to believe meant it as a “factually proven distance”.

Who corroborated this distance? Not Lechmere, he couldn’t possibly know. Not Paul, as nowhere, in either his Lloyds interview nor his reported witness testimony, does he say where he was when he first saw Cross.

Conclusion one: Steve Blomer was justified in using the term “pure imagination" in regards to Christer’s allegedly corroborated claim.

Conclusion two: Christer has no justification in claiming it.

Conclusion three: There is no claim by Paul of where he was when he first saw Cross and there is not and cannot be any corroboration of a false claim.


Is there anything else in this passage on page 64 that could be described as “pure imagination”?
Two thirds of the way down page 64 of "Cutting Point" and still within Christer's defined category of corroborated evidence is this sentence,

“ In order to try and resuscitate her, Robert Paul now suggested that they should prop her up”

Nowhere in anybody’s testimony is the claim of resuscitating her made let alone corroborated.

In fact, even the claim that Paul wanted to sit her up is not corroborated, as only Cross made that claim.

Conclusion four: the use of the word resuscitation can jus=tifibly described as "pure imagination".

Conclusion five: The story of Paul wanting to move Mrs. Nichols is not corroborated
The above are, but two examples which justify Steve Blomer’s review.

I think the point is made but, I’m happy to supply more.

[drstrange169]

Moving another post over from the same thread ...

>> i agree with fish that els past history with fish and his theory, the well known contentiousness and disagreements theyve had over the years, really should have precluded him for being the one to have written the review<<

Steve has written, to date, the definitive book on Buck's Row. That, I would have thought, made him eminently qualified to review Christer's book. He had a duty to be fair and honest in his review and as far as I can see he was.

"Cutting Edge is a necessary book. We have needed a clear and ordered presentation of the Lechmere theory, and Christer Holmgren is the very best person to have given it to us. There is no question in my mind that it’s a book every serious student of the case should have on their bookshelf."
Steven Blomer Rippoerlogist 169

What author would not want a review that wrote that?

As to Christer's complaints about the review, they have been shown to be incorrect. Rule of thumb with reviews is, controversy sells more books, I can't see a problem.

[drstrange169]

>>I’m lost - how do we have evidence that leans in favour of his having an alibi? He was a cart driver, delivering who knows what to who knows where or when. In a twelve-hour shift, say, do we imagine he never had the opportunity to leave his cart to answer a call of nature or to get a bite to eat or a drink?<<

So his modus operandi wasn't to kill on the way to work after all?