Originally posted by curious4
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Yes, as far as the differences in timings are concerned I think it is possible to give Packers the benefit of the doubt, particularly as other witnesses had timing issues as well (although revising the 11:30 time he gave to Sergeant White for the closing of his shop to 12:30 in his Scotland Yard account, meant that his timings accorded much more closely with those of Schwartz and PC Smith and, of course, their evidence had been published in the newspapers by the time he visited Scotland Yard on the 2nd October.) Moreover, I would even accept the possibility that Grand and Batchelor were acting in good faith.
Nonetheless, that still leaves major problems. Thus, Swanson is incorrect when he states that Packer was asked if he'd seen anything suspicious. What Sergeant White actually asked him was whether he'd seen anyone "standing about the street about the time he was closing his shop", or any man or woman going up Dutfield's Yard. His reply was emphatic: "No, I saw no one standing about neither did I see anyone go up the yard." This is completely irreconcilable with his second police statement, where he claims to have observed a man and woman for over half an hour-first standing and talking by the Board School, and then near to the club-up until the time when he "shut up [his] shutters."
And, of course, he also told the press that he hadn't been spoken to by a police officer prior to his interview with the two private detectives, which is quite wrong as Sergeant White had taken his statement just two days earlier.
And, as I stated in my previous post, I also think it suspicious that he continued to involve himself in the investigation:firstly, claiming to have seen the suspect again, and subsequently when he claimed to have sold rabbits to Jack the Ripper's cousin (in fact,the gives quite a detailed, and somewhat graphic, account of the conversation he had with the man.)
So what could Packer's motives be for lying? Well, Philip Sugden suggests that he may have been influenced by the fact that the reward money greatly increased- in the intervening period from the time of the Sergeant White interview, to when he was spoken to by the private detectives: see Sugrden, 2002. And he certainly complained that he had failed to receive the remuneration he was promised. Another possibility, suggested by Sugden, is that it was a fantasy "designed to increase his modest grocer's status amongst his neighbours."
The issue of the grapes also impacts on Packer's credibility. Thus, on 1 October, one day before he spoke to the private detectives, resulting in the the revised Scotland Yard statement, the Daily News carried statements from Louis Diemshutz, Issac Kozebrodski and Fanny Mortimer, claiming that Stride was found holding a bunch of grapes in her hand (Packer of course, would have had the opportunity to read these accounts, as would Grand and Batchelor).
However, as Sugden also points out, the "details about the grapes appears to have been a baseless fiction." Both Dr Phillips and Dr Blackwell emphatically denied that they'd seen any grapes, and even Louis changed his account, whilst under oath at the inquest, telling Baxter, "I did not notice what position her [Stride's] hands were in."
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