Ripper documentary on UK Channel 5

[Montague]

This documentary concerns a(nother) new suspect. One who apparently was able to slip passed the police and gave evidence at the inquest of the murder of Polly Nichols. His name was Charles Allen Letchmere. (Not sure about spelling.)

[GUT]

This documentary concerns a(nother) new suspect. One who apparently was able to slip passed the police and gave evidence at the inquest of the murder of Polly Nichols. His name was Charles Allen Letchmere. (Not sure about spelling.)

Nothing terribly new there.

[Herlock Sholmes]

This documentary concerns a(nother) new suspect. One who apparently was able to slip passed the police and gave evidence at the inquest of the murder of Polly Nichols. His name was Charles Allen Letchmere. (Not sure about spelling.)

Hi Montague,

Charles Allen Lechmere was the real name of Charles Cross who discovered Polly’s body. You will have seen the name Christer Holmgren on the documentary. Christer proposes Lechmere as Jack the Ripper. If you jump over to the thread, same motive=same killer, you will see a poster called Fisherman. This is Christer. There are also threads on here debating Lechmere’s candidature but no one is posting on there at the moment. Enjoy the documentary and welcome to the forum

[Montague]

Indeed. I've just discovered this having had a look on this site and google. It's not a theory I had heard of before. Interestingly, most of the credit for the research goes to Christer Holmgren, leaving out the other people who contributed accoring to online sources. I expect this is editing licence on the part of the docu film makers. There are other names attached to the research online.

[Montague]

Thank you. I joined a good while ago but haven't gotten round to posting until now.

[GUT]

Indeed. I've just discovered this having had a look on this site and google. It's not a theory I had heard of before. Interestingly, most of the credit for the research goes to Christer Holmgren, leaving out the other people who contributed accoring to online sources. I expect this is editing licence on the part of the docu film makers. There are other names attached to the research online.

Christer posts here as Fisherman

[Montague]

I'll acquaint myself with his posts and others of the forum now my interest has been piqued .

[MrBarnett]

Of course it's an interesting documentary to those of us who are fascinated by the subject. But it's clearly a classic example of 'suspectology', where conjecture is presented as fact. For instance:

The narrator tells us, 'Historian Arthur Ingram is an expert on Pickfords, the company Lechmere worked for as a horse-drawn delivery driver. His research has uncovered that Charles Lechmere's job was to deliver meat to butchers around East London.'

Ingram then says, 'The men of Pickfords working out of Broad Street were handling huge chunks of meat, but there'd be oddments around any carcase, whether it be liver, heart and tongue. It is a dirty job and his clothes would be dirty and he may be soiled with his hands or his face.'

The narrator continues, 'Arriving at Broad Street depot in an apron smeared with blood would barely have raised an eyebrow'.

So either unbutchered carcases were the only goods received into Broad Street or Ingrams, the Pickfords 'expert', had access to Lechmere's employment records?

I know the former wasn't the case and I very much doubt the latter was. I would add that, although Ingram was very knowledgable about Pickfords' 20th century motorised activities, by his own admission he knew little about their earlier history.

[GUT]

Thank you. I joined a good while ago but haven't gotten round to posting until now.

You may find that much that the documentary resents as “Fact” is hotly contested by those who have studied the case closely.

[MrBarnett]

You may find that much that the documentary resents as “Fact” is hotly contested by those who have studied the case closely.

GUT,

Was 'resents' a typo? 🤔

Gary

[MrBarnett]

When an animal is slaughtered for butcher's meat its internal organs are immediately removed. The idea the you might simply kill a cow and then send it to your local railway station 'guts and all' to be transported to a city in another part of the country to be butchered is absurd.

So Ingrams, nice old boy that he seems to have been, and unquestionably an expert on Pickford's lorry fleet, was talking out of his bum in the documentary.

If the production company's researchers missed that, what else passed them by?

[Montague]

It's usually if not always the case, documentary makers are as bad as film makers for twisting and ignoring facts. Especially on channel 5.