Prater/Lewis/Hutchinson/Cox

[perrymason]

Richard,
Try to answer this question.Why would she ask an aquaintance to lend her sixpence,then only a few seconds later, after just a few seconds of talk,take a complete stranger to her room?

Excellent point Harry, the best one Ive heard to address this particular question. Why indeed would she attempt to borrow sixpence when, according to the story, she is soon taking what is likely a paying client to her room. That astrakan trimmed outfit almost screams "client" in that neck of the woods.

Best regards Harry.

[Chava]

If this meeting ever took place, I assume that the 'loan' was in fact an announcement of the cost of her services for a quick moment behind the stables or whatever. 6d would be about the going rate. He politely declines and she shoves off to find another punter.

[FrankO]

I too find Hutch’s reason for waiting there for nearly an hour ‘very thin’. But why did he claim to have waited so long out of no more than idle curiosity? That would do more to invite suspicion than deflect it.

Hi Caz,

If he would have claimed he suspected Mr A. to be a murderer, or even Jack the Ripper, his story wouldn't have added up. Then Hutchinson would have risked immediately being asked why he didn't do anything to try and prevent the murder, just like he risked having the police make the connection between him and Lewis if he would have mentioned seeing a woman go into the court some time after he'd arrived there.

If GH decided, for whatever reason, to come forward and tell a story, while in reality he hadn’t anything other than stand there and wait, the best thing to do was what he did: keep his reason for being interested as‘thin’ as possible, while presenting the police with a sausage that was so big and looked so juicy and tasty that they would overlook his ‘thin’ reason. Coming forward as a witness before the police would go looking for 'Lewis' man' would add to the impression of just an innocent witness.

Furthermore, we don’t know how GH behaved during the interview. I can imagine that his behaviour and response to questions during the interview would directly influence the police’s inclination to believe or disbelieve him. And I believe that the public pressure and the pressure from superiors also had his influence on Abberline & Co to initially believe rather than distrust such a lead.

Therefore, it's indeed a great pitty that, with regards to Hutchinson, we know nothing of whatever (exactly) happened afterwards and why.

If he was worried that a witness could have seen him there all that time, what about his claim to have pushed off at 3, if he knows he did nothing of the sort?

I don't quite understand what you're saying here. Are you saying he didn't leave Dorset Street at 3?

I do wonder if he worked casually for McCarthy, helping to find paying customers who would enable the unfortunate residents to catch up with any rent arrears. If Hutch found Flash Harry for Mary, he could have hung around to learn how much she had made - perhaps even hoping to collect some back rent and save Bowyer a job a few hours later. If Abberline guessed that something of the sort may account for the vigil, but no way of proving it (and maybe he enjoyed the kind of symbiotic relationship with McCarthy that was suggested by Fiona Kendall-Lane at the WS1888) it would not have been to anyone’s advantage to push it while this promising lead was being investigated.

Although basically a very feasible notion, the problem I see with it is that at some point Abberline must have thought that Hutchinson wasn't telling the (whole) truth then. And if that's what he thought, it's a small step to wondering why they should believe him at all. Certainly at that stage of the whole case, it seems that the best tactic would then be to suspect him first and go from there. If Hutchinson turned out to be innocent (of any involvement in Kelly's murder), no harm would have been done.

All the best,
Frank

[caz]

Hi Frank,

I wasn’t saying that Hutch didn’t leave Dorset Street at 3, just as he claimed. That’s what others are suggesting. I’m saying that if he didn’t leave, and waited there another half an hour or more before entering the room and killing Mary, he was lucky that nobody saw him during the time when he was no longer supposed to be there, by his own account. It was a long time to lurk, meaning that anyone could have spotted him earlier and been as curious about how long this chap was going to be hanging around in the same spot in the inclement weather, as Hutch claimed to be about the man in the room with Mary. That would have made a very good witness account for the police to keep back!

I think Hutch probably did know Mary, knew she had recently been left to scrape her own living, liked a drink but was also behind with her rent, and therefore knew she would have been doing her best to beg, borrow or work for as many sixpences as she could. Winter was fast approaching and she was arguably in her most precarious situation to date just prior to her appointment with the ripper.

I can’t get over the feeling that Hutch and Mary, both broke, may have worked out a way of helping each other, by Hutch sending paying customers her way and hoping for a bit of commission. Maybe he knew Blotchy as a bit of a regular, trusted him completely and introduced him to Mary in Commercial Street, to provide her with her sixpence and a bit left over for his own trouble.

Then, when all hell breaks loose, Hutch comes up with Flash Harry because he believes Blotchy to be in real danger of being wrongly accused of the murders, and he wouldn’t come out of that smelling of roses himself.

I agree with you Frank, that if Hutch had claimed to have suspicions about the man he described, it would not have added up. But things start falling into place if he knew that Blotchy had gone back with Mary earlier that night and genuinely had no suspicions about him. If Hutch gave the couple some space before arriving in the court himself, only to find signs that she still had company, he could have waited until 3am, not knowing for certain who was now in there with Mary, but without the slightest suspicion that she was in any danger. After all, why would he? Wasn’t the killer infamous for striking outside, and coming and going with lightning speed?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Hi Ben,

You wrote:

‘It's like the kid who was seen near the sweet shop after it was robbed who came forward and tried to blame it on the local fat kid with chocolate smears round his mouth.’

I naturally assumed you had Hutch down as the kid seen after the robbery and Flash Harry down as the local fat kid Hutch tried to blame. So I wrote:

‘Except that Hutch wasn’t seen near the room after the murder was committed there.’

And you came back with:

Nor was the hypothetical kid who robbed the street-job, if you look back at the analogy.

Explain?

Ivan Milat quickly started blabbling to others about his knowledge of the murders and what he had seen at the time ("I told a lodger about it"), and it later came to the attention of the police that he'd acquired a very detailed eyewitness sighting, so detailed in fact that it was initially chalked up to "photographic memory", a defence often accorded to Hutchinson. Your argument seems to be that because he was dodgy already, he had no choice but to pretend to be a brilliant witness, which is obviously untrue. I've never suggested that offenders come forward because they feel they have no other choice. More often that, they identity a potential problem, and perceive a potential advantage in being proactive.

Didn’t understand a word of that, sorry. I thought your self-preservation theory involved Hutch coming forward precisely because he had no option if he wanted to prevent the cops seeing him as a suspect, thanks to Lewis.

And whatever advantage Milat perceived he might gain from giving an impressively detailed eyewitness sighting, it could only have been putting off the inevitable in his case. He’d have gained a sight more advantage if he had identified the little problem of keeping all those murder trophies, and been proactive about destroying them.

In my scenario, he was advertising as well as concealing: Yes, I was there, it was me, I was there for innocent reasons. What innocent reason? I was watching the REALLY suspicious character, who looked like this. Go find him. He would have been legitimizing his presence, AND creating a false lead, AND getting one over on the police, AND getting an insight into police knowledge. Even if it wasn't blind terror that prompted him into action, he may well have recognised the additional benefits besides mere self-preservation.

Until you know that it was the ripper who came forward, you don’t know that he would have recognised any benefits in doing so, self-preserving or otherwise.

You are still working backwards from the fact that the ripper wasn’t caught or identified, and arguing that this was the end result - the ultimate benefit - of Hutch’s ploy. If the ripper was anyone other than Hutch, he got the same end result - the ultimate benefit - from recognising the dangers of going into the lions’ den uninvited, and wisely keeping his head down. In this case, had he done a Hutch, he could have come horribly unstuck and you wouldn’t be here now, enjoying my posts.

A more alarming example of blowing something out of all proportion is surely difficult to encounter. A made a couple of typos - big whoop. You know full well that I take considerable care over my posts and certainly don't convey the impression that I am in a tearing hurry. You immediately assumed that I was deliberately misquoting you to make you look silly, and you responded with a personal attack. I found that objectionable, which is why I responded in kind. The fact that you're still arguing about it now is frankly eccentric.

Sorry, I thought you said that your mistakes were down to clumsiness, haste, tiredness or a lack of respect for the poster you are addressing. That doesn’t add up to ‘considerable care’. I ‘assumed’ nothing - I did wonder if you had deliberately misquoted me because, for what it’s worth, I always thought your own spelling was well above average for the boards. Do you really consider it to be a response ‘in kind’ to take an incredibly personal swipe at me, using the fact that I’m a female past my prime? I can’t do anything about not being a spring lamb any more - I’m nearly 55 for God’s sake. But that has sod all to do with my posts and didn’t stop you running a spellchecker over yours. I do take it as a compliment, though, to be called eccentric, even if that now makes me an ‘eccentric saggy piece of mutton’.

And no, any subsequent interview would not have resulted in the following, just in case you're wondering; "Ah so you lied, because you're story changed! I now suspect you! Quick boys, retrieve the magic formula for determining guilt or innocence". See that's the problem I have with assumptions that "they must have satisfied themselves that he wasn't the killer". How? Not by positing the existence of imaginary alibis and odd bods conveniently stationed about the district in the small hours.

How? You routinely provide ‘the magic formula’ yourself, by claiming that Lawende and Lewis saw the killer. All they had to do, if they suspected Hutch of lying to cover up his own involvement, was to do what you want him to have come forward initially to prevent - stick him in front of the various witnesses. If they all said “Nope, nothing like him”, the police would have been satisfied unless they had some other evidence or could obtain a confession.

Just as I predicted, you trotted out your set response to my suggestion that Abberline may have guessed, but not been able to prove, that Hutch’s vigil was motivated by something other than idle curiosity, with:

....Then it was absolutely essential to make reference to it in the report he penned to his colleagues and superiors. The fact that no such reference appears suggests very strongly that Abberline had no such suspicions…

But oddly, when I put the same thing a slightly different way: ‘Ben will tell you until he's blue in the face that we’d have a surviving record if Abberline had entertained the slightest suspicion about Hutch's motives for hanging around’, your response was:

No, he wouldn't.

And yet you just did.

My point about the surviving record is that there isn’t one to suggest that any police officer ever suspected Hutch at any stage of the investigation. Either it was ‘absolutely essential’ for officers to put any suspicions in writing or it wasn’t.

Unless he knew that she was ensconced in the room with a client, in which case Hutchinson could easily have been waiting for that client to leave. We don't know when Blotchy left the room, so it's entirely possible that Hutchinson was waiting for HIM to leave.

But in that case, Hutch could simply have described this client to the police as the man he saw entering the room, knowing that it would be true, and with the added bonus that the client might be found later and would be forced to lie about his own movements.

Love,

Caz
X

[Ben]

Hi Caz,

he was lucky that nobody saw him during the time when he was no longer supposed to be there, by his own account.

Without wishing to answer for Frank, I'd just point out that it depends how many potential witnesses and passer-bys there were. If there were only a handful, then he would have been fairly lucky, but then the street itself was very unlikely to be a particularly busy thoroughfare. If he was concerned that people would wonder why he was there, that's where "I was just watching the scary man who looked like the popular image of Jack the Ripper" served to legtimize his presence and activity.

Then, when all hell breaks loose, Hutch comes up with Flash Harry because he believes Blotchy to be in real danger of being wrongly accused of the murders, and he wouldn’t come out of that smelling of roses himself.

I can't really picture him going to such extremes of self-sacrifice if he wasn't seeking to protect himself. Placing onesself at a crime scene with no alibi and no good reason for being there seems an ulikely measure if he was looking out for someone else. If he was worried about Blotchy being implicated, he need only have told the police that he left the building at such and such a time. I also don't really see the compatibility between someone eager to see justice upheld (i.e. Blotchy not being wrong accused) on the one hand, and misleading the entire investigation with a false description on the other.

I've always been a bit wary of any explanation that relies on Hutchinson having some sort of "arrangement" with another well-known character from the Miller's Court saga, be it McCarthy, Abberline, or Kelly herself. It occures to me that others would have known about such an arrangement and made it very public.

If Hutch gave the couple some space before arriving in the court himself, only to find signs that she still had company, he could have waited until 3am, not knowing for certain who was now in there with Mary, but without the slightest suspicion that she was in any danger

...Possibly because he was the danger, and was waiting and watching outside a crime scene for reasons that were directly opposed to the hypothetical role as a minder and protector. Let's face it, if we disavow any knowledge of the identity of the wideawake man, he is a suspicious individual. Preoccupied loitering outside the home of a single woman who is murdered on that very night is suspicious behaviour (as reinforced by the latest solved case), and it doesn't become any less so just because a possible candidate for a loiterer in question comes forward with a bad excuse for being there.

Best regards,
Ben

[Ben]

Hi again,

‘It's like the kid who was seen near the sweet shop after it was robbed who came forward and tried to blame it on the local fat kid with chocolate smears round his mouth.’

I meant "before".

I thought your self-preservation theory involved Hutch coming forward precisely because he had no option if he wanted to prevent the cops seeing him as a suspect, thanks to Lewis.

No, not really. I don't think it was a case of having no other option. I think it was more a case of weighing up the existing options and deciding which one he liked best, and the act of coming forward may have seemed particularly appealing because it enabled him to do several things at once; vindicate his presence as seen by Lewis, create a false lead, and become appraised of police progress to date.

And whatever advantage Milat perceived he might gain from giving an impressively detailed eyewitness sighting, it could only have been putting off the inevitable in his case.

Not by that stage, he wouldn't have been. He came to the attention of the police because he was blabbing to people about the amazing witness sighting he'd acquired (reminiscent, perhaps, of Hutchinson telling a lodger about his own star-witness account); a witness sighting that was initially chalked up to a "photographic memory". That's until it was theorized that anyone who can remember something as well as Milat alleged must have had a close involvement in the events he claimed to have merely "witnessed".

Until you know that it was the ripper who came forward, you don’t know that he would have recognised any benefits in doing so, self-preserving or otherwise.

Of course, but a theory wouldn't be a theory if I knew for certain I was right beforehand. I've explained previously why I believe Hutchinson to be a strong candidate for the ripper, and we're now discussing the ramifications of how things might have panned out if he was. And if he was, it's quite possible that he would have been able to continue unscathed and unsuspected had he "wisely kept his head down", but he wasn't to know that.

Do you really consider it to be a response ‘in kind’ to take an incredibly personal swipe at me, using the fact that I’m a female past my prime?

No, and I apologise and retract that remark. I over-reacted. From what I've seen, you're very attractive and not in the slightest bit "saggy", but I tend to get a little cranky when unfairly provoked, as you've seen, and there are acrimonious consequences to calling the easily provocable "thick". You experienced some of them. Was my reaction really that surprising? Still, hoping we can put that behind us now.

You routinely provide ‘the magic formula’ yourself, by claiming that Lawende and Lewis saw the killer. All they had to do, if they suspected Hutch of lying to cover up his own involvement, was to do what you want him to have come forward initially to prevent - stick him in front of the various witnesses.

But if Hutchinson was the murderer, that's what he feared could happen. But the chances that it actually did happen were incredibly remote. We don't know of any witness ID parades occuring at the time of the murders, except the attempts to identify Piggot and Isenschmidt using Mrs. Fiddymont and assorted chums. If Joseph Barnett - who we know was unquestionably considered a suspect, unlike Hutchinson - wasn't paraded before earlier witnesses, there's no reason to suppose that Hutchinson would have been either. In any case, despite the disconcerting amount of clothing detail in Lawende's description, there's no reason NOW to think that either would recognise him.

But Hutchinson didn't know that, and couldn't have known that.

My point about the surviving record is that there isn’t one to suggest that any police officer ever suspected Hutch at any stage of the investigation. Either it was ‘absolutely essential’ for officers to put any suspicions in writing or it wasn’t.

I can't rule out the possibility of later "progress" reports being penned on Hutchinson which might have introduced the question of suspicions toward him, but what we can say with reasonable certainty is that Abberline didn't harbour any when he penned the initial 12th November report or else he'd have taken the opportunity to say so there and then.

But in that case, Hutch could simply have described this client to the police as the man he saw entering the room, knowing that it would be true, and with the added bonus that the client might be found later and would be forced to lie about his own movements.

The trouble with using Blotchy as a suspect was that a) he could come forward and contradict Hutchinson using genuine alibis and b) he was probably too close to Hutchinson's own physical description to take the form of an effective scapegoat, unlike Mr. Astrakhan who had the potential to send the easily duped back on the hunt for wealthy Jewish toffs. There's even a third possible obstacle to using Blotchy; that Hutchinson WAS the Blotchy man.

Best regards,
Ben

[Chava]

There's even a third possible obstacle to using Blotchy; that Hutchinson WAS the Blotchy man.

I don't think so, Ben. Blotchy-Face was acutely described by Cox, and had several very specific markings. He had a red moustache, red marks or 'blotches' on his face and was short and stout. Hutchinson could have shaved his moustache or dyed it. But unless he came up with 21st-Century makeup techniques, those blotches would have been there to stay. And they already had Cox's evidence and were looking for BF. So I think they would have challenged Hutchinson on that.

I think the problem we're having with Hutchinson--or at least the problem I have--is that the police dropped him so quickly that something had to have alerted them that his evidence was suspect. But we don't know what that something was. If he was a familiar of McCarthy's, I suspect the local cops would know that. McCarthy appears to have been the power of the whole street and undoubtedly had a lot of extremely unsavoury people working for him. I'm sure he and the local plod had an excellent and mutually agreeable system going. But it doesn't buy him anything to protect a murderer.

That having been said, a long time ago I thought the following little scene was entirely possible if McCarthy was the murderer, or even if he wasn't:

'The filth are all over the Court, and it's a problem. I've got enough going on that they don't need to know about. Suppose you come forward with a nice description of a punter with a few bob? Make him a Jew maybe. I don't like having them all over #26 with their bloody big boots and their prying ways. Mary Jane's beyond our help now, poor bitch. And we've got to think of the living! Help me out now and I'll help you out as well...'

However they weren't dealing with the locals, but the Met. And those officers may have been a little more acute and a little less easy to deceive. If Hutchinson made a mistake or two on a re-interview, they might have challenged him and so discovered he wasn't too sure of his story. Unfortunately, we'll never know.

[Ben]

Hi Chava,

I'm not hugely sold on the idea myself, but there are a number of interesting points of comparison between Blotchy and Wideawake; the height, weight, and headgear are a match, and interestingly, both descriptions recall that of Ada Wilson, who mentioned a man of 30 years old, 5'6, wearing a wideawake and sporting a "sunburnt complexion".

Yes, I tend to agree that the coppers were bound to smell a rat if Hutchinson appeared to have a poor skin condition, but I guess that would depend how common they were in the district. Either that or they did notice it, but couldn't find any more incriminating evidence on him beyond that.

Best regards,
Ben

[Chava]

Hi Chava,

I'm not hugely sold on the idea myself, but there are a number of interesting points of comparison between Blotchy and Wideawake; the height, weight, and headgear are a match, and interestingly, both descriptions recall that of Ada Wilson, who mentioned a man of 30 years old, 5'6, wearing a wideawake and sporting a "sunburnt complexion".

Yes, I tend to agree that the coppers were bound to smell a rat if Hutchinson appeared to have a poor skin condition, but I guess that would depend how common they were in the district. Either that or they did notice it, but couldn't find any more incriminating evidence on him beyond that.

Best regards,
Ben

But Blotchy-Face wore a billycock rather than a wideawake hat. And those are two very different styles of headgear.

In fact, Blotchy-Face, apart from the colour of his moustache, echoes the description of one of the men seen around the Eddowes killing wlthough I can't at this moment find it. Somewhere, someone saw a man with a dark moustache and sandy hair. And I do think that's an unlikely combination!

[perrymason]

Hi Guys,

I think Blotchy was seen by another witness, although a few days later. Was it Gallway or Galloway Ben, the man that took his Blotchy sighting to a constable?

Cheers mates.

[Ben]

But Blotchy-Face wore a billycock rather than a wideawake hat. And those are two very different styles of headgear.

Not at all, Chava.

It refers to exactly the same type of headgear.

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?p=29627&highlight=billycock#post29627

The description you're thinking of from the double event originates from Best and Gardner, and referred to a man observed in the company of Liz Stride in the Bricklayers Arms on Settles Street.

Hi Mike - Yes, it's quite possible that Galloway saw THE Blotchy Face.

Best regards,
Ben

[Chava]

Somewhere on these boards--and I can't find it right now and I wish someone would--is Cox's testimony in full. Where she says 'I can't sleep if I owe any money' or words to that effect. She uses that as a reason why she didn't sleep at all on the night of the murder. (I'll bet she slept like a log!) But I'm interested to know why her owing money comes into the story at all.

A couple of other small details. Cox has Kelly saying 'Good night!' as she slams into her room and starts singing. I'm not going to posit any hard and fast rules about usage here, but generally I think you say 'good night' when you're turning in. She didn't say 'good evening', which is what you'd generally say when you are planning on making a night of it. Now you could argue that this is semantics, and Kelly could say whatever she chooses, and you'd be right. But Kudzu there has Kelly say 'good morning' as she takes her leave of him. And I do think that's as unusual as saying 'good night' when she sees Cox. 'Good morning' suggests someone who is planning to stay up. And it's very, very early in the day to say that. It's one of the small things that make me think Hutchinson did encounter Kelly at some point around that time. But later on and on another day.

[Ben]

Hi Chava,

Yes, it's quite possible that Hutchinson may have woven elements of a genuine past encounter (between himself and Kelly) into his "witness" account.

Regards,
Ben

[FrankO]

Somewhere on these boards--and I can't find it right now and I wish someone would--is Cox's testimony in full. Where she says 'I can't sleep if I owe any money' or words to that effect. She uses that as a reason why she didn't sleep at all on the night of the murder. (I'll bet she slept like a log!) But I'm interested to know why her owing money comes into the story at all.

Hi Chava,

The quote you tried to find wasn't in her official statements (police & inquest), but I've found it in the Morning Advertiser of November 13:

"She said, "Good night. I'm going to have a song." Then the door was shut, and she sang, "The violet I plucked from my mother's grave." I remained a quarter of an hour in my room. She was singing all the time. I went out, returned about one o'clock, and she was singing then. I went to my room to warm my hands a bit. It was raining hard; then I went out again and returned at 3.10 a.m. Then the light was out, and there was no noise. I went in, but I could not sleep, and did not go to bed. I can't sleep when I owe anything."

Maybe she used it to make her story seem more credible, maybe she used it to make it seem more interesting, maybe a bit of both. But it does make sense to me if we'd try and paint the whole story. She knows the rent is due the next morning, she doesn't have enough money, so, despite the bad weather, she she sort of desperately keeps on going out until late to try and earn some. When she finally returns at around 3 a.m. she still doens't have enough money, so the nagging problem keeps her awake.

Merry Christmas!
Frank