The Missing Evidence - New Ripper Documentary

[moonbegger]

Moonbeggar
If you accept Lechmere’s testimony, he says he saw the ‘tarpaulin’ from his position on the northern pavement and moved to the middle of the road where he recognised it as a woman’s body and then he heard Paul coming behind him. (incidentally his seeing that the tarpaulin was a woman is another indicator that it was not inky black and things – eg blood - could have been seen).

Either it was not as dark as we are informed , or he did take a closer look .. " If we accept his testimony " Are you suggesting he was not prone to the odd porky ?

[GUT]

Well, you fill your boots

Had to go and look up what that one meant.

[Ben]

Well, you fill your boots as far as Crossmere is concerned. But if you wish to address the perceived "rubbishness" of other suspects, there are plenty of other threads for that.

[GUT]

But your particular objections to Hutchinson's potential culpability have always been so dreadfully weak and lacking in criminological insight, GUT.

Just like they apparently are in Cross, but that's OK battle on I must, I keep promising myself to keep out of these threads but sometimes the rubbish just draws me back in.

[Ben]

But your particular objections to Hutchinson's potential culpability have always been so dreadfully weak and lacking in criminological insight, GUT.

[GUT]

Hi Tom,



Indeed, and without the original suggestion of Hutchinson's possible involvement (dating back to the mid 1990s), it's very unlikely that any of these subsequent witness-turned-suspects would have garnered much talk-time. The suspicions levelled against Mann, Crossmere, Richardson etc all amount essentially to doing a bad Hutchinson. It's as though Hutchinson set the precedent for considering the possibility of witnesses as suspects, and the others just rode the coat-tails. It's worth nothing, though, that Crossmere lost out very badly indeed to Hutchinson on a recent popularity/plausibility poll, with 20 out of 29 voters coming down in favour of Hutchinson as the better suspect.

And that's without Channel 5!

Dan Norder made an excellent Cross-Hutchinson comparison in 2008, which may be worth revisiting.

Boy an Hutch makes a bad enough Hutch type suspect without copycats.

[Ben]

Hi Tom,

Hi Jonathan. I don't think you notice most of what gets discussed, but for the record, multiple books have been published naming Hutch as the Ripper and a number of posters believe that

Indeed, and without the original suggestion of Hutchinson's possible involvement (dating back to the mid 1990s), it's very unlikely that any of these subsequent witness-turned-suspects would have garnered much talk-time. The suspicions levelled against Mann, Crossmere, Richardson etc all amount essentially to doing a bad Hutchinson. It's as though Hutchinson set the precedent for considering the possibility of witnesses as suspects, and the others just rode the coat-tails. It's worth nothing, though, that Crossmere lost out very badly indeed to Hutchinson on a recent popularity/plausibility poll, with 20 out of 29 voters coming down in favour of Hutchinson as the better suspect.

And that's without Channel 5!

Dan Norder made an excellent Cross-Hutchinson comparison in 2008, which may be worth revisiting.

[Lechmere]

You could always watch it again Pinkmoon

[pinkmoon]

pinkmoon
Don't tell me you are another of those commenting without seeing it?
The documentary ends with a question over whether this man did it, not an emphatic statement.

I've watched it twice once on my own and once with my mother who apart from commenting on the gentleman's large moustache thought it was very unlikely indeed that cross was jack the ripper but I came away from both viewings with the impression that we were asked to believe it was case closed.

[Lechmere]

Just to redress the balance - one thing about Casebook is that it is an invaluable on line resource in the non message board pages. And in some of the message board pages as well to be fair.

[Chris]

Come to think of it, did Edward Stow ever explain how he come to assure us that Mr Scobie's opinions were based on sight of all the documentation, rather just these bullet points?

I see this has (finally) been answered on jtrforums.
I had presumed that Scobie had also got the same file - but he got a case summary prepared by Blink as he was too busy apparently to go through too much material.

[Trevor Marriott]

Anyhow, I've now finished watching the documentary, and on the basis of "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything", I'll say as others have that it was very well produced and quite entertaining.

And I'll make a suggestion that will be constructive if the arguments in the documentary hold water (but not if they don't). Two alternative routes from Doveton Street to Broad Street were shown, and one route from James Street to Broad Street (which I think actually ran through Mitre Square).

I'm not sure how these were chosen, but obviously they would be most persuasive if they could be demonstrated to be objectively optimal routes. I presume navigation software exists which could calculate the optimal routes between these points.

And as James Scobie stated and I quote "Not to be taken seriously just a bit of fun"

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00KNRE4NY

[Chris]

Anyhow, I've now finished watching the documentary, and on the basis of "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything", I'll say as others have that it was very well produced and quite entertaining.

And I'll make a suggestion that will be constructive if the arguments in the documentary hold water (but not if they don't). Two alternative routes from Doveton Street to Broad Street were shown, and one route from James Street to Broad Street (which I think actually ran through Mitre Square).

I'm not sure how these were chosen, but obviously they would be most persuasive if they could be demonstrated to be objectively optimal routes. I presume navigation software exists which could calculate the optimal routes between these points.

[Lechmere]

pinkmoon
Don't tell me you are another of those commenting without seeing it?
The documentary ends with a question over whether this man did it, not an emphatic statement.

[Chris]

The arrogance shown over the shawl was the immediate expectation that the author or his main scientific helper were answerable to people on casebook and should respond to e-mails or the posted comments on this forum, and the fact that they did not meant that they were in the wrong.

It wasn't their failure to respond that meant they were in the wrong. Rather, once the error had been pointed out it was clear that they were in the wrong, and their failure to respond to the error having been pointed out - in all the circumstances that we've discussed before - was, and continues to be, very damaging to their credibility.

But apparently you agree now that they were in the wrong. Certainly the makers of the documentary accept what we pointed out about the commonness of the sequence variation in question. And even though this is mentioned in the documentary, it's more suitable to another thread.