Prater/Lewis/Hutchinson/Cox

[Sam Flynn]

it was said to be of some volume by Sarah.

If I have a smidgeon of doubt about Sarah Lewis's absolute reliability as a witness, Mike, you can imagine my opinions of her being an accurate sound-level meter

We have no idea how "loud" was "loud" - and we certainly can't take Lewis's subjective report as an indicator that Kelly's door was open when the scream was heard

[Chava]

I'm not sure about anything in this case. But I convinced that the cry of 'oh murder!' had nothing whatsoever to do with the Kelly killing. She would have been blitz-attacked and shocked. I'd be amazed if she had the breath or presence of mind to say or shout anything.

[perrymason]

I'm not sure about anything in this case. But I convinced that the cry of 'oh murder!' had nothing whatsoever to do with the Kelly killing. She would have been blitz-attacked and shocked. I'd be amazed if she had the breath or presence of mind to say or shout anything.

I think all thats required is to know the context of her cry...her emphasis syllabically. The phrase is known to not be associated in every circumstance with danger or imminent threat at that period....its referred to as common by I believe one of the Nichols witnesses and by Elizabeth Prater. Both witnesses heard it yet neither mentioned moving to see or hear more at all.

My contention is that it was her, her door was open at the time, and the person in the doorway was an unwelcome visitor at around 3:45am...as she was sleeping off a drunk.

The voice was female and heard by both residents in the immediate area as having its origins from the court...if not Mary then who is this and why did she not come forward to clear the matter up.....Mary Ann basically confesses she is a street whore who couldnt get a single client, on record...what would some uninvolved woman have to hide worse than that?

Cheers Chava

[Celesta]

Other than soldiers or police officers, very few people maintain absolute situational awareness. Lewis was distracted because she'd had trouble with her husband and because she saw a man who had frightened her earlier. I'm surprised she even took as much note of the man outside Crossingham's as she claims to have done. Cox was distracted by the cold and rain. Prater? Who knows what was in her mind. That they were able to give any details is somewhat surprising.

As for the 'Oh murder' cry, we know how enclosed the area was and how close together the houses were. It might not have had to be too loud.

[perrymason]

Other than soldiers or police officers, very few people maintain absolute situational awareness. Lewis was distracted because she'd had trouble with her husband and because she saw a man who had frightened her earlier. I'm surprised she even took as much note of the man outside Crossingham's as she claims to have done. Cox was distracted by the cold and rain. Prater? Who knows what was in her mind. That they were able to give any details is somewhat surprising.

As for the 'Oh murder' cry, we know how enclosed the area was and how close together the houses were. It might not have had to be too loud.

Hi Ms C,

The point is Sarah did think it was loud....and if the voice was "as from the court"..Elizabeth...or "as if at the door"...Sarah....then we are looking at the possible source of the cry as being within a virtual sound amplification chamber...that courtyard.

My contention is that Sarah could not have heard the voice loudly if from Mary... unless Marys door was open. She has 2 small broken panes within a window frame that I believe held 15 such smaller panes...there is little chance a cry out those 2 small openings would impress Sarah as being from outside her door.

All the best Celesta.

[caz]

Hi All,

I think Blotchy's role may well hinge on whether Mary would naturally have taken the opportunity to ask him for money, whether she was hoping for a bit of breakfast in the morning, or to secure the roof over her head for another week, or for some Lord Mayor's Day pocket money.

If she did ask, can we assume she didn't get? And does that mean we could be looking for a man with a blotchy complexion, ginger moustache, short arms and deep pockets, who may have fed and watered Mary with no intention of leaving her able to spend a penny (in any sense)?

We have not the slightest trace of evidence that Hutchinson was ever viewed in a suspicious light (at least beyond that of a bogus witness), let alone being discreetly monitered a la Kosminski.

I know, Ben. It's an observation I have to make myself whenever you say there is nothing to suggest he wasn't suspected once he had blotted his witness copybook, and go on to insist that all they could have done was to 'discreetly monitor' his comings and goings.

I don't believe for a moment that surveillance would have been their only option, had they begun to suspect his motives for giving Mary her flashy last customer. Nor do I believe they would simply have shrugged when his account was so quickly discredited, unless they had satisfied themselves that nothing sinister lay behind his own stated behaviour that night, lurking so close to the murder scene and for so long, merely out of curiosity. Once the police decided that no such man entered the room with Mary after Blotchy, would they simply have forgotten Hutch's given reason for loitering: to get another look at a man who wasn't there?

Whether they were right to be satisfied is another matter. But we can't even go there if you keep playing push-me pull-you, allowing him to have been suspected when it suits your argument, and not when it doesn't.

If it requires a frightening leap of speculation to have Hutchinson placed under surveillance, despite the total absence of evidence for suspicion, then it takes an even greater one to wheel Lawende onto the scene, despite the fact that he was not known to have been used in such identity attempts until years later. And even in that highly unlikely eventuality, Lawende was more than likely to reinforce his doubt about his ability to recognise that suspect again. All of which means that if Hutchinson had really murdered anyone, and the police really took the steps you wanted them to have taken (as above), Hutchinson would still have remained in the clear.

Because if he did risk it, and he was dragged in as a suspect and then identified by Lawende and Lewis, he'd be in more of a spot of bother, and that's just the self-preserving measure.

And now it’s the old push-me pull-you with Lawende.

You call it the ‘highly unlikely eventuality’ of Lawende being called in to look Hutch over, even if his discredited account had led to serious questions about his motives, and you argue that he would still have been in the clear when Lawende failed to positively identify him.

Fair enough. But again, Hutch could not have been sure of any of that when he came forward to give his initial statement, and even less sure after feeding a different one to the papers and getting the whole lot discredited for his trouble. If his thinking went that he’d be in a ‘spot of bother’ if dragged in as a suspect and put in front of Lawende and Lewis, did he not imagine he’d be in precisely the same, if not a worse ‘spot of bother’ if his bogus story came unglued and he was then put in front of Lawende and Lewis? I say worse, because in the former scenario they would have had to find him first before they could drag him in.

You are the one who puts odd limits on what a man could expect if the police in 1888 suspected he was lying through his teeth to save himself a trip to the hangman. You claimed that surveillance would have been their only option. If you are still saying that I just don’t buy it. I’m quite sure the police would have had other options, and would have used them, if the ripper had actually materialised in front of them and they had reason to believe the man was not being straight with them.

You also pointed out that the police could only have given Hutch a right royal ticking off if they thought he had lied about loitering at the crime scene, and that it would have been a great result if he had been there to commit murder. Well yes. But what reason can you suggest for them concluding that he was never there, if he was? You insist that Lewis saw him loitering and described him to the police. You also tend to do a push-me pull-you over whether or not they made any connection between their star witness and Lewis’s lurker. So for the purpose of your ‘right royal’ argument, let’s assume they didn’t, and were finally persuaded that he wasn’t even there that night, even though he was. Now how would that work? What on earth could have satisfied them that he must have lied about even being there?

Love,

Caz
X

[Ben]

Hi Caz,

“I don't believe for a moment that surveillance would have been their only option”

It would have been their only effective option if they wanted to rule him either in or out as the Whitechapel murderer. What you must understand is that suspecting someone isn’t tantamount to determining for certain whether they are guilty or innocent. It is quite possible to suspect someone – perhaps even someone who turns out to be the real killer – without having the goods to prove it. It happened with Gary Ridgway. They suspected him, they couldn’t prove it, and he turned out to be the killer.

If it takes a big leap of logic to believe that Hutchinson was suspected, it requires an even more unacceptably huge one to believe he was suspected and ruled out as a consequence. It would mean using a zero-evidence assumption to support a zero-evidence conclusion. Even in the unlikely event that they suspected him, the chances are effectively zero that they could translate that suspicion into a firm conclusion either way.

“Nor do I believe they would simply have shrugged when his account was so quickly discredited, unless they had satisfied themselves that nothing sinister lay behind his own stated behaviour that night, lurking so close to the murder scene and for so long, merely out of curiosity.”

But if they believed that that he lied in his account as a consequence, is it not reasonable to assume that they may have dismissed his entire account as fantasy, including the claim that he loitered near the crime scene? Of the lying “witnesses” that usually hamper a police investigation, the vast majority are simply publicity seekers with no connection to the crime or crime scene. Given that publicity-seekers were no strangers to this particular police investigation, it is entirely possible that Hutchinson was lumped into this category. They may have been mistaken in assigning him the status of a publicity-seeking false witness, but it would certainly have been understandable.

If a witness account looks dodgy, the next logical conclusion is most emphatically not “Maybe he’s a serial killer”, but rather “He’s probably one of the hoards of time-wasting liars who bombard a high-profile police investigation."

“allowing him to have been suspected when it suits your argument, and not when it doesn't.”

Um, excuse me; I’ve always argued that both possibilities have merit. They may have suspected him, or they may not have done. We have no evidence, but either way, no acceptance of either one of those possibilities would permit us to conclude that he was eliminated as a suspect. That is just nonsense.

“If his thinking went that he’d be in a ‘spot of bother’ if dragged in as a suspect and put in front of Lawende and Lewis, did he not imagine he’d be in precisely the same, if not a worse ‘spot of bother’ if his bogus story came unglued and he was then put in front of Lawende and Lewis?”

No.

Chiefly because anyone operating in that period was in an ideal position to take advantage of the incredulity that the most wanted man would introduce himself as a witness to the police; that Jack the Ripper would waltz into a police station requesting an interview. He would have been taking advantage of that ignorance, while appreciating that coming forward as a witness was infinitely preferable to being dragged in as a suspect without having first nailed his colours to the “I’m a helpful witness and wish to be co-operative” mast. But even if you reject that premise, which you certainly shouldn’t, it really doesn’t matter what you consider to be prudent behaviour.

Other serial killers have come forward under similarly false guises, despite the risk of what such pre-emptive action might entail, and despite the fact that it might not conform to your own set of prudent guidelines for serial killers. To put it bluntly, you need to get a new rule back, read up on what serial killers have actually done, and allow your own subjective opinions as to what constitutes prudent serial killer behaviour to take a back seat.

“I’m quite sure the police would have had other options”

Where’s the justification for being so sure, when we KNOW that modern serial killer investigators have interviewed suspects, believed in their guilt, but were forced to let them go due to insufficient efforts? If this can happen in today’s investigative world, I don’t know what miracles you seriously believe occurred in 1888.

“But what reason can you suggest for them concluding that he was never there, if he was?”

The natural inference that a person who lied in his account must also have lied about the whole thing. Hardly illogical.

Best regards,
Ben

[Ben]

get a new rule back

book.

due to insufficient efforts

evidence.

[caz]

Hi Ben,

I'm back - finally! Sorry for the tardy response. I do get there in the end, but I got stuck in the Pub earlier, catching up with everyone there first.

Now then, since we would expect there to be some record of it if Hutch had been right up there with the ripper suspects who couldn't be eliminated, the alternative would seem to be that when his story was discredited and they went back to concentrating on Blotchy as the last man who could reliably be placed in Mary's room, they saw no reason to go back and question Hutch's motives, despite the fact that he had put - according to you - a veritable pantomime Jack the Ripper plus knife-shaped parcel in the room with his unfortunate pal for a heck of a long session, well after Blotchy's innings, then said he had no worries at the time for her safety while waiting for his panto villain to emerge.

The only way the cops would emerge from this with a shred of credibility would be if they had information that has not come down to us, that enabled them to conclude that he was indeed one of the 'vast majority' of lying witnesses who were merely publicity seekers.

I just don't see the police at the time, who were under terrific pressure to come up with the last man in that room, making the mistake of presuming, on the balance of probability, that Hutch was a mere time-waster. Understandable for today's theorists, perhaps, when they make assumptions about the ripper’s status on the basis of probability alone. But if the police had worked that way in 1888, they'd have had to let every potential suspect walk away from them on the basis that they were 'probably' among the vast majority who were not murderers.

If a witness account looks dodgy, the next logical conclusion is most emphatically not “Maybe he’s a serial killer”, but rather “He’s probably one of the hoards of time-wasting liars who bombard a high-profile police investigation."

Which kind of begs the question why your conclusion is not the 'logical' one based on probability: "He's probably one of the hoards of time-wasting liars", but most emphatically: "It's so stinkingly obvious that he is a very strong suspect that anyone who can't see it must be nuts, stupid, obsessed with me or working to a different agenda".

Unsurprisingly, you flip the reasoning on its head whenever you argue that the ripper was probably among the vast majority - "one of the hoards" - of criminals who always offend close to their home. That's your 'logical conclusion' and you're sticking to it. No chance of a "Maybe this one wasn't" slipping through without you pouncing on it as a complete non-starter.

Incidentally, does your rule book say anything about the first known example of a serial killer who came forward to explain their presence near a crime scene and when that was? It would be interesting to know if it was before the days when a certain individual could be proved after the event to have been in a certain place at a certain time, without having to rely on witness accounts. Obviously Hutch would have had no need to admit he was near a crime scene unless he thought someone might actually be able to prove it was him beyond reasonable doubt.

...we KNOW that modern serial killer investigators have interviewed suspects, believed in their guilt, but were forced to let them go due to insufficient efforts? If this can happen in today’s investigative world, I don’t know what miracles you seriously believe occurred in 1888.

It would be one thing to have to let a potential suspect go due to insufficient evidence to take it any further, but quite another if they believed in his guilt but made insufficient efforts (did you mean to write that??) to find the evidence needed to charge their prime suspect, then let him go without recording his details or bothering to keep tabs on him. In today’s world, where you need two forms of id before you can sneeze in public, the police have it easy by comparison if they need to find a particular suspect again in a hurry. Not so back in 1888, when it would indeed have taken a miracle to keep tabs on any man once they’d let him go for lack of proof. So they’d have been less likely to loosen their grip on anyone they seriously thought could have had a hand in these murders.

Claiming to be on the spot, while Panto Villain is cackling, twirling his moustache and taking an awfully long time to show an East End prossie what he's made of (or finding out what she's made of, more like), then claiming not to have had the slightest suspicions about the man, would be right up there in 'possible hand in the murders' territory. So why wouldn't they have given him the grilling of his life and recorded the fact, even if they couldn't make toast out of him?

Love,

Caz
X

[DVV]

I do get there in the end, but I got stuck in the Pub earlier, catching up with everyone there first.

Hello Caz,
you're lucky.
I had to go out for a drink tonight, but Fisherman just advised me to go to bed.

Amitiés,
David

[Ben]

Hi Caz,

The only way the cops would emerge from this with a shred of credibility would be if they had information that has not come down to us, that enabled them to conclude that he was indeed one of the 'vast majority' of lying witnesses who were merely publicity seekers

Actually, there are numerous scenarios that would tally very nicely with both the cops emerging with their credibility intact, and Hutchinson not being conclusively identified as a mere publicity seeker. The first is that they never entertained the possibility of guilt. That isn't remotely surprising. There was little to no precedent back then for serial killers introducing themselves voluntarily to police under false guises, and there's obviously a very limited chance indeed that the police could have predicted that their wanted man would suddenly waltz into a police station, especially if he didn't conform to the mad and/or foreign and/or anatomically skilled model.

So in that scenario, their credibility is retained.

The other scenario is that they did suspect Hutchinson at some stage, but were not in a position to rule him conclusively in or out. This is something that really ought to be taken on board when contemplating police suspicion, but rarely is. It is quite possible to entertain very real suspicions against a suspect but lack the evidence to convict him, especially in late Victorian London, well in advance of DNA identification. Gary Ridgeway was interviewed as a suspect after he introduced himself to police under a false guise in 1984. They suspected him of being the killer, but they lacked the evidence to proceed with those suspicions, so were compelled to release him.

Neither scenario can be used to eliminate Hutchinson as a potential murderer.

If they didn't suspect him, he could still be the killer.

If they did suspect him, he could still be the killer.

In neither scenario, do the police come away with their "credibility" in tatters.

The fact that he claimed to be precisely where Lewis claimed she saw someone loitering at the same time on the same night, and without an alibi, naturally lends weight to the premise that he was the individual seen by Lewis, which would militate very strongly against the "publicity-seeker" premise, especially when we know that he made himself known to the police hot on the heels of Lewis' evidence becoming public knowledge.

Unsurprisingly, you flip the reasoning on its head whenever you argue that the ripper was probably among the vast majority - "one of the hoards" - of criminals who always offend close to their home. That's your 'logical conclusion' and you're sticking to it. No chance of a "Maybe this one wasn't"

There's always a chance of "Maybe this one wasn't" (a criminal who offended close to home). I just haven't seen any compelling reason to think that he wasn't one such offender, assuming close to home means within relatively easy walking distance of all the murder locations.

It would be one thing to have to let a potential suspect go due to insufficient evidence to take it any further, but quite another if they believed in his guilt but made insufficient efforts (did you mean to write that??) to find the evidence needed to charge their prime suspect, then let him go without recording his details or bothering to keep tabs on him

I meant "evidence", and no, I should clarify that I don't believe the police were remotely deficient in their attempts to confirm or deflate their suspicions. I'm sure they did the best they could, but if they were in position to confirm or deny Hutchinson's involvement, they were powerless to do a great deal about it, much like the Green River Task force 100 years later. They may well have given him the "grilling of his life" and possibly recorded it, but as to whether such records have survived, well, that's a little more optimistic, I'm afraid.

All the best,
Ben

[Roy Corduroy]

Gary Ridgeway was interviewed as a suspect after he introduced himself to police under a false guise in 1984. They suspected him of being the killer, but they lacked the evidence to proceed with those suspicions, so were compelled to release him.

Hi Ben,

That is not correct. Here was Gary Ridgway's initial contact with police, as described in http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/s...routine_2.html
Between September 1982 and April 1983, approximately 14 girls disappeared. …
The Green River Task Force's attention was temporarily drawn to one possible suspect, allegedly involved in the disappearance of the last girl to go missing, Marie Malvar. On April 30, 1983, Malvar's boyfriend saw her talking with a potential customer in a dark-colored truck as she was soliciting on the strip. The boyfriend claimed that he saw Malvar get into the truck before it sped away. According to Smith and Guillen, Malvar's boyfriend stated that Malvar and the unknown man seemed to be engaged in an argument.
Suspicious of the driver of the truck, the boyfriend followed them. Before long, the truck with his girlfriend in it gave chase and eventually disappeared when the boyfriend was held up by a stoplight. It was the last time he ever saw his girlfriend. He later notified the police of Malvar's disappearance.
Less than a week after the incident, he, along with Malvar's father and brother, spotted the suspicious truck near the place where he initially lost sight of it days earlier. They followed the truck to a house located on South 348th Street and called the police. The police eventually arrived at the house and spoke with the owner, Gary Ridgway, who denied having ever seen Malvar. Satisfied, the police left the residence and failed to pursue the matter any further.

-----------------------

Yes John Douglas did predict the UNSUB would contact police but John Douglas also acknowledged that there had been prior contact. Quote Douglas from his newsletter. http://www.johndouglasmindhunter.com...ter/031124.php

Despite not catching him at any of the dump sites, investigators had a fair amount of contact with Ridgway. As mentioned above, we indicated the UNSUB would inject himself into the investigation. Ridgway did so by providing information about one of the victims, whom he knew. That victim was killed differently than the others. A bag was placed over her head, an empty wine bottle and a pair of dead fish placed on her body. My analysis to police was that the killer knew this victim due to how the killer posed her after death. Ridgway came forward to “volunteer” information on this one because I'm sure he was afraid police would come across his name during the investigation.

----------------------------------

Huh? Come across his name? They had already been to his house and questioned him!

This 'volunteering' was well AFTER the police going to Ridgway's house. And again, I stress this is important and completly and forever precludes any comparison of Ridgway volunteering and a possibly guilty George Hutchinson volunteering.

In order for this to be a good comparison, George Hutchinson would have had to been seen with one of the previous Whitechapel victims, any of them before Mary Kelly. The police would have gotten a tip on him and gone to his lodging and questioned him. THEN, after the Kelly murder he would come forward.

Otherwise, Gary Ridgway, is, as I have pointed out before, the worst possible example of this you could use. Because of the prior, police initiated contact.

We don't know if the prior, police initiated contact had any bearing whatsoever on Ridgway coming forward. That doesn't matter. The fact that it happened completely rules him out as a comparison to Hutch the volunteer.

Roy

[Ben]

Hi Roy,

I was making a rather different point to the one you're challenging here.

Despite the fact that I personally believe, as you know, that Gary Ridgway offers us a potential comparison with Hutchinson as far as volunteering his services as a witness or informer goes, I was actually drawing attention to a very different aspect of the Green River case; the fact that Ridgway was interviewed as a suspect, but released on account of the police having no evidence that would conclusively rule him in or out. The same could well have been true of Hutchinson if he was suspected.

As I've stated before, however, I don't believe that prior police contact should invalidate the previous comparison I've highlighted; that Ridgeway contacted the police, unsolicited and without being arrested. We can only invalidate the comparison if we had compelling reason to think that he would not have come forward had he not been investigated briefly a year earlier, and I see no such reason.

If anything, Ridgway's pre-emptive move in 1984 puts him in an unsual minority amongst serialists who come forward, since many of them do so to create a misleading preconceptions as to their motivation and character before any suspicions have a chance to be levelled their way. In Ridgway's case, his slate was already tarnished.

In the Whitechapel investigation, the house-to-house searches would have encompassed thousands of lodgers in a great many lodging houses, and the chances of the police unwittingly coming across the real killer in the process were far from slim. Hutchinson, for example, could easily have been questioned around this time.

But I was chiefly highlighting the fact that Ridgway was released though lack of evidence.

Best regards,
Ben

[Fleetwood Mac]

Sam, no one ever found out who murdered Kitty Ronan in Prater's old room in 1909. Someone stuffed a rag in her mouth to quiet her and then cut her throat. She was evidently killed while she was sleeping. The case is described on this board. She'd even been eating fish and chips! Personally I'd like to look at McCarthy for that one as well. He was the landlord then as before.

By the way Paul, 'Jack' and 'John' were pretty much interchangeable. The stuff discovered by Cap'n Jack suggests a very venal man indeed. Runs tarts, organizes thieves. Imagine if someone knew something or tried something on with someone like that. I doubt he'd hesitate to have this 'someone' killed. In fact, given the organization apparent in what's described, it's possible that McCarthy didn't kill Kelly but had her killed by someone or some people else. That might have been the source of the wideawake hatted man Lewis saw. Keeping watch to make sure no one stumbles in on the dirty work. If you've got a serial killer operating in the area, it's horribly easy to kill someone and blame it on him...

Just a thought!

The flaw in this is that if these women were used as bait for muggings and an extra source of income - then there's a fair chance you're not going to break your toys - and effectively bite the hand that feeds you. It's perhaps more likely that this was a rival gang or a couple of blokes who'd been mugged on sort of revenge mission and sending a message to McCarthy (if Kelly had been used as bait in the past).

Though I feel Blotchy is the best bet. And if MJK is singing til 1ish then why on earth did Blotchy go in the room with her? Assuming he wanted sex - which surely is the only possible reason outside of him being the murderer then why on earth would he listen to her singing for a good hour? All roads lead to Blotchy.

[Celesta]

Hi Fleetwood,

I can see him getting pleasure out of her doing this, knowing all the time he's going to kill her.