Prater/Lewis/Hutchinson/Cox

[Sam Flynn]

So once again, Ben, I’m asking you for just one example of a serial killer coming forward to deflect or prevent suspicion

Hi Caz - and Ben too,

I think people get too hung up on this "serial killer" thing, as if they are a different species, based on the dubious premise that - apart from the obvious - their behaviour must somehow be different from everyone else's. I can't see why it should, for the life of me.

Perhaps the right question to ask is whether anybody in potential hot water has "got their revenge in first" by attempting to throw the putative threatening party off-track.

The answer has surely to be "yes", simply by dint of the fact that deflection of blame is a very common human skin-saving strategy. Serial murderers are human, all-too human, whether we like it or not; ditto one-off killers, for that matter, and other criminals and non-criminals alike. We should not be surprised if they all resort to similar strategies as the rest of us on occasion - the entire arsenal of human deceit lies at their disposal, after all, and we are the most resourceful animals from a young age.

Take little Johnny, who smashes the wing-mirror of his dad's new car and blames it on a passing "bad boy" whose name he doesn't know... is he not exhibiting precisely the same sort of behaviour as that being discussed here?

[Celesta]

Hi David,

I wonder if he hadn't already spent some time in one of those places!

Best,

Cel

[Ben]

Now what are you whining about?

because the tactic of withholding witness descriptions most certainly didn’t make the killer alter his tactics if he was the one who gave Lewis enough of an eyeful to pass on even more information about him for the police to withhold as they saw fit

Are you at all familiar with the East End, or London in general? The chances of anyone pulling off a murder without being seen or noticed at any point in so dense and nocturnal a population was effectively zero, which meant that the killer, whoever he was, was compelled to kill in spite of those risks.

And that's precisely what he appears to have done.

That does not mean that he couldn't have altered the way in which he dealt with the prospect of subsequent witness sightings as the police altered their own tactics. It also doesn't mean that he had the emotional wherewithal to abort a murder having come so close purely because of a possible near miss with a witness. He may well have passed the point of no-return by then. We don't know. We cannot pronounce. We can only observe and learn from experience, rather than making idiotic declarations as to who has lost the plot (not that you've ever had one of those).

Your argument relies on the ripper not worrying about being seen with his victims while in murder mode, but becoming so anxious in the wake of Miller’s Court that a witness could place him there, not with the victim, but merely hanging around an hour and a half before Prater heard the cry of “Murder”,

Yep, because we know that the police were only suppressing witness sightings after the Eddowes inquest. We know that other serial killers came forward under false guises in the wake of one of their murders, not all of them, and we know that the earlier witness resided outside of the murder district (Dalston) where they were less likely to encounter the killer again.

The police would only have needed a few points of similarity between the full unedited accounts of Lewis and Lawende to form the opinion that if they could find Lewis’s lurker they would have Lawende’s suspect and Jack the Ripper himself

How on earth do you work that one out? By positing the existence of a distinctive scar or birthmark on Hutchinson's face? Lawende described the man's physical features in very scant detail, as we know from his full description that appeared on 19th October in the Police Gazzette, besides which they were dressed completely differently.

That doesn't mean that neither witness could recognise the man again, for it is quite possible to provide a poor description and yet still acquire a good sighting and commit it to memory. Your objection seems to center around this bizarre assumption that Hutchinson must have had a distinctive appearance that was easy to describe! If Hutchinson was approximately 30 years old, say, with a fair moustache and slightly stout, how vividly could those physical particulars have been be described in order for them to match only one person? They couldn't. But that does not mean that that the witness who saw him couldn't recognise again.

A descrption is different from a sighting.

The word I used was ‘reckless’, so I’ll thank you not to tinker with it before wrapping it in quote marks and making it look as though I’m the one who can’t spell. Were you being dishonest, or are you really that thick?

Gee, I can't really remember. It could have been some light-hearted banter on my part, or it could have been a typo made in haste. Were you being ludicrously hypersensitive, or are you really that much of an aggressive, supercilious, vacuous, diary-touting, saggy piece of mutton?

You don’t appear to know what it means either, because if the ripper’s inner compulsions made him temporarily heedless of the consequences of potential close shaves with witnesses, that is the definition of being ‘reckless’.

Although, for those who have taken time to study the case will instantly recognise the compatibility between a killer who mutilates on the streets in the certainty that a potential witness was piddling over the adjoining fence in Hanbury Street, and one who would seek to manipulate the investigation in a brazen and proactive manner characteristic of other known serial killers.

And now we get to the bit where you always do the work for me and put the final nail in the coffin of your ‘self-preservation’ theory.

And now we get to the bit when keyboard warmongering hobbyists with obvious agendas and perceived "rival" suspects attempt to sure up their futile "objections" by spouting some predictable triumphalist rhetoric, claiming that they've won the argument because they say so.

Assuming his physical appearance didn’t undergo any radical changes between his encounters with Kate and Mary, it’s more than likely that the police would have cottoned on to the fact if Lewis’s lurker and Lawende’s man were one and the same.

How?

Again, what unique features are you pinning on Hutchinson? Tell you what, let's assume that Lawende and Lewis both gave amazing descriptions. How would they have helped narrow down the field of viable candidates if, just like Hutchinson, neither "Red neckerchief" nor "Wideawake man" had specific features that stood out? If they didn't, no description could have helped, however detailed it was. A good description would hinted at an increased likelihood of a subsequent identification - and would thus have perturbed Hutchinson if he was the killer - but there was no question of descriptions alone being anywhere near sufficient to pinpoint a particular individual.

“Mr Hutchinson, I put it to you that you are the chap Mrs Lewis has been describing to us. What have you to say to that?”

"Yeah, probably. And?"

“In that case, George, perhaps you can explain why your Flash Harry doesn’t sound remotely like the man Mr Lawende saw with the woman butchered in Mitre Square, while you could be his twin brother.”

"Could I? Wow. Not sure how you could have made that connection, considering that the Police Gazzette said the man at Church Passage was 30, fair complexioned, and wore a fair moustache. I know you suppressed it at the inquest, but I'm talking about the full description. How could I possibly be his twin brother if we both have an appearance that couldn't possibly be described in so much detail that it could be narrowed down to one person? Oh, and as for Astrakhan man, I'm sure he was was the bloke at Mitre Square, but he dressed down, you see. Devlish Jewish toff - yes, let's milk that cow!"

I’m asking you for just one example of a serial killer coming forward to deflect or prevent suspicion, with all the personal baggage of knowing he was seen near at least two of his murder scenes, in the company of at least one of his victims, and aware of police tactics that could result in him being identified by withheld information from the witnesses in question.

Perhaps if you re-read this sentence, you'll engage with its idiocy. The level of specificity you're angling for here is impossible, as no two serials can possibly mirror one another to extent you're demanding, so I'm afraid that's just desperation on your part. Fortunately, all the serial killers I've mentioned fit the broad outline of your laboured criteria.

If he went because he was the ripper, the baggage from each of his crimes went with him, and you must deal with the plain fact that nobody got so much as a whiff of it, even when his cover story went down the pan.

Who says nobody got so much of a whiff of it? They may have done. We don't know. If they didn't, the ploy worked. If they did, there was nothing with which to snare him anyway, leaving discreet surveillance as the police's only option. Previous baggage from previous murders didn't deter other serial killers from coming forward in the aftermath of one of them, so on that score - again - experience wins over hobbyist hypothesizing.

A guilty Hutch would have come forward in the certain knowledge that the police had witnesses with the potential to connect him to more than one of his murders. That’s excess baggage by any serial killer’s standards, and the reason why you can’t cite any examples.

Except the examples I provided, and which you ignored, presumably because you don't know anything about them and couldn't be arsed to research them. Yes, serial killers have come forward out of self-preservation, and yes, they were also seen by previous witnesses at previous murders, presumably because they were flesh and blood, and thus not invisible.

Sorry about the long post, everyone! Just skip past it if you already recognise the weaknesses in Ben's arguments.

Yeah, sorry about the long reply everyone! Just skip past if you can't stomach the patently desperate and insecure refusing to educate themselves but chosing instead to convolute a perfectly basic premise!

Stephen - I doubt very much that you understood or even read Caz's post. No offence, bud.

[Celesta]

Hi Chava,

You know the police traipsed around with Hutchinson for a time, looking for Mr. A. Maybe his behavior in this period led them, in part, to doubt his truthfulness. Or least some of the details of his story.

Best,

Cel

[Stephen Thomas]

The problem is that Wideawake Hat has to be Hutchinson.
If Hutch was there, wasn't the murderer and finally came forward without having seen Mary at all... then he was certainly ripe for Broadmoor!

David,

Well, Colney Hatch or Bethnal Green's Barmy Park more like.

Caz,

A superb last post.

Ben,

'Reckless' to 'Wreckless'? What's all that about?

[Chava]

What I would really like to know is why the police discounted Hutchinson's account so quickly. He came forward. Gave his story. Abberline appears to believe him...And then nothing! They go back to looking for Blotchy Face.

Hutchinson says he bent down to look Mr A in the face, and that suggests to me that he was fairly tall. Eye witnesses at the other crimes don't seem to describe anyone over 5'8", so that in itself might suggest he wasn't involved If they weren't considering that he was the killer--and there's no suggestion that they did--there has to be a reason why they discount his evidence so quickly while maintaining everyone else's in the other murders. There was a reward in place, so maybe Hutchinson was hoping to get his hands on that. If the police find the killer--who does seem to resemble remotely the generic flashy foreigner he's describing--then he says 'Yes, guv! That's him! Nah you can give me the bunce...'

It seems likely to me that under close questioning Hutchinson's account breaks down in some vital way that suggests he was lying from the get-go. He may have been asked to describe Kelly's clothing. They knew what she wore from the clothes folded neatly on the chair. He may not have been able to describe this stuff correctly, and that coupled with the overly-acute description of Mr A may have been enough to show his complete unreliability.

Hi Caz,

I feel like I dodged a bullet seeing you make a point that didnt involve trying to make mine kaka. In truth I do have issues with the overall "look" of your suggestion Ben when it comes to trying to see him as Sailor Hat man....who almost certainly is Kates killer, or Broadshouldered Man, who is the prime on paper candidate for Liz's killer, or even Mr Shabby Genteel.

I think Hutchinsons story is somehow self serving, and I think the Wideawake Hat Man seen by Sarah, if Hutchinson or if not, cannot be excluded as a possible conspirator at least,.....so the elements for his involvement in some capacity to that nights events are still there......where you will lose the argument is when you make him "Jack", and make all the suspected cases assuredly Jack's victims. You wont see him as all those other men who have the proximity and timing on the side of their guilt or involvement. Because as its somewhat clear to some,...the 5 deaths themselves were not all caused by a single man.

Unless GH is a better actor than Mansfield, more versatile in his appearance than Dr Lao, and prone to kills ranging from de-engineering human anatomy to just slitting a throat, he is not the killer of all 5 women.........he might be in on Mary's kill, but that doesnt then make him Sailor Hat Man. Or Broadshoulderd Man,....or the only man we know went into the room that night. Blotchy.

Best regards Ben, Caz.

[caz]

Excess Baggage

Take the man seen by Lawende, for example; observed at relatively close quarters by three witnessses in the company of his victim, and yet he was almost certainly responsible for Eddowes' brutal murder a few minutes thereafter. The same was evidently true of the individual seen by Elizabeth Long, to say nothing of Schwartz' broadshouldered man who was actually seen physically manhandling the victim.

I accept your point, but can't see how it's Hutch-specific.

Hi Ben,

You are funny. I agree that the killer was not one to be put off ‘purely on the grounds that he'd been seen by a witness’. It only becomes Hutch-specific when you talk of this same man altering his tactics ‘as the police altered theirs’ and presenting himself at the cop shop in this ‘heightened’ state of anxiety over what the latest witness may have told them about him.

At this point you rapidly lose the plot, because the tactic of withholding witness descriptions most certainly didn’t make the killer alter his tactics if he was the one who gave Lewis enough of an eyeful to pass on even more information about him for the police to withhold as they saw fit.

Your argument relies on the ripper not worrying about being seen with his victims while in murder mode, but becoming so anxious in the wake of Miller’s Court that a witness could place him there, not with the victim, but merely hanging around an hour and a half before Prater heard the cry of “Murder”, that he felt compelled, for the first time, to go public with a damage limitation exercise that defies all logic. The police would only have needed a few points of similarity between the full unedited accounts of Lewis and Lawende to form the opinion that if they could find Lewis’s lurker they would have Lawende’s suspect and Jack the Ripper himself.

If Hutchinson went to Miller's Court with the intention of murdering Mary Kelly after a period of prior surveillance, it can't be argued that he was "wreckless" to continue after the potential close-shave with Lewis. Not without knowing the extent of his inner compulsion at that stage.

The word I used was ‘reckless’, so I’ll thank you not to tinker with it before wrapping it in quote marks and making it look as though I’m the one who can’t spell. Were you being dishonest, or are you really that thick?

You don’t appear to know what it means either, because if the ripper’s inner compulsions made him temporarily heedless of the consequences of potential close shaves with witnesses, that is the definition of being ‘reckless’.

In any case, I thought your theory rather depended on the ripper believing he had been so reckless this time that he had to face the consequences with one final reckless act in person at the police station, even though it meant controlling his inner compulsions if he wanted to stay in Whitechapel.

Given the concentrated nature of the locality, however, the possibility of a subsequent encounter with Lewis was a perilous one if an identification led to additional IDs with other witnesses.

And now we get to the bit where you always do the work for me and put the final nail in the coffin of your ‘self-preservation’ theory.

If the ripper went to the police in case they were holding back details that could identify him as Lewis’s lurker, he could only have been putting himself in a very perilous position. He would have been the man seen talking to Kate just before she was found horribly mutilated, and now he would be freely admitting that he talked to Mary on the night she was even more horribly mutilated.

The police would only be holding back details about Lewis’s lurker if they considered him to be a potential suspect, in which case they would have homed in on anything that suggested this was the same man who was seen with previous victims. Assuming his physical appearance didn’t undergo any radical changes between his encounters with Kate and Mary, it’s more than likely that the police would have cottoned on to the fact if Lewis’s lurker and Lawende’s man were one and the same.

In short, by identifying himself with Lewis’s lurker (even if he didn’t admit to any knowledge of her) Hutch - if he had been the ripper - may as well have identified himself with Lawende’s man while he was at it. Imagine your favourite dialogue, but extended to allow for Hutch having been seen by Mitre Sq and Hanbury witnesses:

“Mr Hutchinson, I put it to you that you are the chap Mrs Lewis has been describing to us. What have you to say to that?”

“What if I am? I came here to help, remember? I told you I was waiting to see that Flash Harry again. He’s the one you should be looking for.” [This is where you conveniently bring your dialogue to a premature climax.]

“In that case, George, perhaps you can explain why your Flash Harry doesn’t sound remotely like the man Mr Lawende saw with the woman butchered in Mitre Square, while you could be his twin brother.”

“Simple. I’ve just remembered that I met the murdered woman Eddowes and she put her hand on my chest and asked me for sixpence. I said I had spent all my money going down to Barking and wished her a good night. As I went on my way I heard approaching footsteps, and now I come to think of it they sounded uncannily like Flash Harry’s. Anything else I can help you with, officer?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. Any sign of Flash Harry after you met the woman murdered in Hanbury St? Mrs Long only apparently saw her talking to you, according to this detailed description we have been craftily holding back.”

“Yeah but no but yeah but… that is just sooooo unfair. I can’t believe you’re asking me to remember back two whole months without even a cup of tea or a biscuit.”

So once again, Ben, I’m asking you for just one example of a serial killer coming forward to deflect or prevent suspicion, with all the personal baggage of knowing he was seen near at least two of his murder scenes, in the company of at least one of his victims, and aware of police tactics that could result in him being identified by withheld information from the witnesses in question.

Please don’t tell me for the umpteenth time that no suspect was ever linked to more than one murder, or that Hutch was only ever associated with Miller’s Court. That can only support the case for Hutch having no guilty baggage when he went down the nick because he hadn’t murdered anyone. If he went because he was the ripper, the baggage from each of his crimes went with him, and you must deal with the plain fact that nobody got so much as a whiff of it, even when his cover story went down the pan.

You can’t keep dodging the implications of your own arguments. A guilty Hutch would have come forward in the certain knowledge that the police had witnesses with the potential to connect him to more than one of his murders. That’s excess baggage by any serial killer’s standards, and the reason why you can’t cite any examples. If you are going to weigh Hutch down with the knowledge that he was clocked by Lawende and co and Lewis, and possibly Long, Schwartz and Pipe Man too, then the fact that he finished up as light as a feather doesn’t make the slightest difference. You still have to compare like with like, and like it or not that means finding a killer who came forward with the kind of excess baggage that you loaded Hutch with yourself.

Love,

Caz
X

PS Sorry about the long post, everyone! Just skip past it if you already recognise the weaknesses in Ben's arguments.

[Chava]

I'm not arguing with you. I've long thought Hutchinson was a liar. And I do think, and have said, that BF is a very viable suspect. Especially since one of the Eddowes witnesses (at least I think it was an Eddowes witness) saw a man about 5'5" with a black mustache and sandy eyelashes. And if he had sandy eyelashes, he could have had red hair. But I doubt he'd have a black mustache, so the 'tache was probably a disguise. Said witness also said this man had a billycock hat. I'm not discounting the possibility at all that BF killed Kelly. But I am saying that, even if the time of death is wrong, I don't think it's wrong enough. And if BF was the Ripper, he let Kelly sing for a hellova long time before he silenced her.

Hi Ms C,

Well, the ashes were warm to the touch at 1:30pm on the 9th according to Inspector Abberline, and that fire may not have been tended by anyone since as early as 1:30am. 12 hours and still warm means that body was environmentally affected dramatically in terms of heat and dry air, the fire sucking much of the cooler oxygen out. Her natural rigor mortis would occur between 8-12 hours after she dies, and she is showing signs that has begun when they enter the room at 1:30pm. But again, onset would be delayed somewhat due to the ambient heat.

I would suggest that BF must first be eliminated before anyone can step in to take his place as Marys killer, and until he is eliminated, Mary has no trip outside that room again in life after 11:45pm November 8th,....and in the case of the trip out suggested as occuring by Hutchinsons account of a woman returning with a man,...... when no-one heard or saw her leave with the last man seen in her company by a witness that was and still is believed, nor was there anyone other than Hutchinson that saw or heard her return in the company of another man,.... its best to do with the sighting of Mary and Fancy Pants just what the officials did less than 3 full days later.

You save yourself the embarassing position of having to defend a story that was obviously disregarded...and sort out what parts were maybe true, and what parts likely werent. The rule of thumb should be that if you are of the opinion that he did lie during a sworn statement, about any detail he provided, then any remaining details must be suspect until proven to your satisfaction that they are true.

So....how is it that anything he said can be proven accurate and legitimate without any corroberation..and if it can be, then why hasnt it been already?

All the best.

[Chava]

What I've read suggests that active muscles go into rigor mortis faster than inactive muscles. So if Kelly had been doing her jumping jacks before she got killed, she would be in rigor faster. If she was asleep, and therefore totally inactive, her muscles would take longer to harden. But not hours longer. The PM says she was starting to go into full rigor at the time the PM was done, which was around 2.30 pm. The forensics therefore suggested a death around 2-3.0 am. Forensic science was nowhere near as advanced then as later, so there could be some leeway here. But people have been observing rigor for centuries, and there were no local unusual conditions that might have made much of a difference. If anything, they might have underestimated the time of death (Hallo Mrs Maxwell!!) But I don't think they could have overestimated it by much. Even if they're an hour out, we're still left with BF coming in at 11.45, and Kelly being dead not before 1.00-1.30.

According to Cox, Kelly was very drunk when she went in with BF. She sang for a long time. However she could have sobered up, counted her money, and decided to go back out one more time. The fact she wasn't seen leaving doesn't surprise me. But she wasn't seen anywhere until Hutchinson saw her, and that does surprise me.

The evidence as it stands does tend to point to my old pal and favourite suspect John McCarthy. He was on site. He would have had a key to Kelly's room as he was her landlord. He would have known she was on her own. He could have waited until she went to sleep and then crept in and killed her. Small, easily-subdued struggle as she wakes, and we have evidence of that. I still think that he's the best bet for her murderer. And I suppose it's entirely possible that he was the Ripper as well. Given the time-frame, it's a theory that at least makes sense.

[DVV]

Hi Cel,
certainly BF has to be a suspect.
The problem is that Wideawake Hat has to be Hutchinson.
If Hutch was there, wasn't the murderer and finally came forward without having seen Mary at all... then he was certainly ripe for Broadmoor!
Or rather for Claybury...

Affectueusement,
David

[Celesta]

According to Cox's testimony, as recorded on p. 417 of Evans' & Skinner's Ripper Companion: "I remained a quarter of an hour in my room, then went out. She was still singing, I returned about one o'clock she was singing then. I warmed my hands and went out again she was still singing."

Prater went up to bed sometime around or just after 1:30 and there was no sound.

So sometime shortly after this, or even before Prater went upstairs Mary was killed? Possibly no later than Chava's 2:00 to 3:00 time frame. I just don't think that the room could have been all that warm, even with a fire, and I don't think the estimates of the number of hours she'd been dead based on body temperature or rigor could be all that accurate in this case.

[Ben]

I'd agree that there's no major obstacle to the possibility of Kelly venturing out afterwards, and I'm not averse to the possibility of Hutchinson encountering Kelly after 1.00am. I just don't believe for a moment that events transpired as he described; events that we only have his word for. If Blotchy wasn't the killer, another suspicious character was the man loitering opposite Miller's Court an hour before the "Oh Murder" cry, and he needn't have been a "trick" whatever his identity.

Best regards,
Ben

Theres nothing wrong with exploring the possibilities Chava, so no need to sound apologetic about it.

The problem here is that it is "possible" still needs some evidentiary support of some kind, be it muddied bootprints on her floor and wet clothing by the fire, or someone seeing her besides Hutchinson....(and Mrs Maxwell, well meaning and all, really didnt count then nor does she now).

Within "possibilities" are... two men,...one watching out, or helping after, ... that her killer came into the court and her room by himself, that she picked up Jack after leaving her room with Blotchy Face before 1:30, that Blotchy Face killed her, that Wideawake Hat kills her, that she let her killer in her room, that he entered on his own, that she knew him, that she didnt.....ad infinitum. The issue is the evidence that is the basis for the supposition.

The evidence says her room was quiet and dark by 1:30am, after we know she entered very drunk with a man at approx 11:45pm and sang off and on until shortly after 1am. Her room remains dark and quiet for the balance of the reportable witness passes, and no-one hears anything specifically from her room after 1:30am, nor is she seen or heard departing.

Thats really the meat and potatoes here.

Best regards.