The Missing Evidence - New Ripper Documentary

[Robert]

Hi Mike

It's silly, isn't it. We're told his neck's at stake, and he comes forward as his best hope of survival. He has a big lie to explain - but he can't resist telling a daft 'lie' about his surname.

[Ben]

Hi Fisherman,

I'm afraid you've allowed highly speculative "ifs" to mutate into facts. You concede there is no evidence that Crossmere ever went to work via Old Montague Street, but observe that IF he went that way, he would have passed George Yard. Undermining this observation, however, is your claim that Crossmere was either the murderer or very "unlucky" for murders to keep happening when he "would have" been "passing".

One wonders slightly if Scobie and chums weren't supplied with "facts" which were nothing of the kind. Was it explained to them that no evidence exists to place Crossmere walking along Old Montague Street, or was it offered as an "alternative" route (which could create the misleading impression that he was accustomed to using both)?

Was it adequately explained to them that it is not factually established that Cross lied his way past Mizen, and that the vast majority of students of the case reject the notion?

I'm fine with being "out-ranked" providing my "out-rankers" are working from the same knowledge base.

And no, Crossmere has no "ties" to Berner Street, unless having a mother living fairly close and maybe going to pubs near there once upon a time qualifies as a tie. How is that remotely a connection, when there are other suggested "persons of interest" who lived right in and amongst where most of the murders were committed? Criminologically speaking, that makes no sense.

All the best,
Ben

[Rob Clack]

And now I intend to leave this thread for a period of time. I have better things to do than to answer the sort of criticism that bubbles up to the swamp surface here ...

All the best.
Fisherman

Getting a bit hot in the kitchen?

[Stewart P Evans]

Found

Lechmere was found alone with the victim in Bucks Row...
Fisherman

No, Cross found the victim in Buck's Row. Wording it as 'Lechmere was found alone' is tendentious, misleading, and intended to put a suspicious slant on the incident upon which you have fixed your own interpretation.

From one of the more lengthy reports of his evidence, Cross stated, 'On Friday morning I left home at half-past three. I went down Parson-street, crossed Brady-street, and through Buck's-row. I saw something lying on the north side [sic] in the gateway to a wool warehouse [sic]. It looked to me like a man's tarpaulin, but on going to the centre of the road I saw it was the figure of a woman. At the same time I heard a man coming up the street in the same direction as I had done, so I waited for him to come up. When he came up I said, "Come and look over here; there is a woman." We then both went over to the body. I bent over her head and touched her hand, which was cold. I said, "She is dead." The other man, after he had felt her heart, said, "Yes, she is." He then suggested that we should shift her, but I said, "No, let us go and tell a policeman." When I found her clothes were up above her knees we tried to pull them over her, but they did not seem as if they would come down. I did not notice any blood.'
The Coroner: Did you not see that her throat was cut?
Witness: No, it was very dark at the time. We left together, and went up Baker's-row, where we met a constable. I said to him, "There is a woman in Buck's-row on the broad of her back. She is dead or else drunk." The constable said he would go, and I left him and went on to work.

[Chris]

Fisherman

So when you posted "You could reach Cannon Street via Berner Street, coming from Lechmere´s lodgings", what you meant was something like "When going from Lechmere's lodgings to Cable Street, you could take a long detour to the west via Berner Street".

And how many attempts has it taken to get you to admit that, even after I'd posted the map here for everyone to see?

People wonder why there is hostility to your theory on the discussion boards. I'd suggest there would be very little if it had been presented in a reasonable manner. But this kind of blatantly misleading stuff isn't going to win you any friends.

[The Good Michael]

Hi Mike

It's silly, isn't it. We're told his neck's at stake, and he comes forward as his best hope of survival. He has a big lie to explain - but he can't resist telling a daft 'lie' about his surname.

Yeah. If he were a madman, in a state of confusion, he may have made this error, but even then, it still wouldn't be a lie. Really, I wish they'd drop this thing as it's untenable.

Mike

[Chris]

It's silly, isn't it. We're told his neck's at stake, and he comes forward as his best hope of survival. He has a big lie to explain - but he can't resist telling a daft 'lie' about his surname.

But so much of the Lechmere theory is based on the idea that he was telling lies that would be of no identifiable benefit to him, and would have been as obviously untrue to his contemporaries as they are to present-day theorists.

Take the new idea about being able to hear Paul coming along the whole length of Buck's Row. We're told that, based on other information, it must have been possible for Cross/Lechmere to hear Paul coming down the street, so he must have been lying when he said he became aware of him only 40 yards away.

But if it were really obvious to us in 2014 that he was lying, by the same token it would have been obvious to everyone else at the time - particularly to Paul, who equally should have heard Cross/Lechmere walking ahead of him and (on the Lechmerian theory) wouldn't have.

And what would it have achieved? It's been suggested Cross/Lechmere would have wanted to minimise the apparent time he spent with the body. But it would have been unnecessary to lie in order to do that. All he would have needed to say was that he had heard Paul behind him all the way, and that Paul was about 40 yards behind him when he found the body.

But the silliest thing about the idea is that it has Cross standing by the body of the woman he has just killed for about 60 seconds listening to Paul coming up the road towards him, and for at least 40 seconds of that time he would have been invisible to Paul. Why would he have stayed there? Why wouldn't he just have walked on and round the corner into Whitechapel Road? The idea would practically amount to proof that he didn't commit the murder.

[Sally]

Run Rabbit Run?

There have been lengthy discussions regarding the question of whether Crossmere would have run when he heard Paul approaching.

The premise appears to be that - assuming him to be a murderer of course - he would have been a psychopath and therefore would not have run or tried to elude Paul, prefering instead to involve him in the scene.

It sounds a bit convoluted to me.

[Chris]

There have been lengthy discussions regarding the question of whether Crossmere would have run when he heard Paul approaching.

The premise appears to be that - assuming him to be a murderer of course - he would have been a psychopath and therefore would not have run or tried to elude Paul, prefering instead to involve him in the scene.

On that basis psychopaths must be very easy to catch.

But then again, another characteristic of the Lechmere theorists seems to be their ability to come up with endless reasons to conclude the exact opposite of what common sense dictates.

[Robert]

I'm sure that I asked them, a long time ago, why didn't he just do a bunk and they answered that he needed to find out how much Paul had seen.

[Chris]

I'm sure that I asked them, a long time ago, why didn't he just do a bunk and they answered that he needed to find out how much Paul had seen.

Well, on the Lechmerian hypothesis - if Cross/Lechmere heard Paul as soon as he came into Buck's Row, about 120 yards away, and if Cross/Lechmere crouching evilly over the body could barely see his own hand in front of his face, it would be a fair bet that Paul wouldn't have seen very much. Obviously not enough to identify him if he just headed off into Whitechapel Road.

[Robert]

The police apparently took another look at the slaughtermen, before finally clearing them. That being so, I don't see why they would have given Crossmere a free pass, unless he was the David Niven of Doveton Street.

[Hercule Poirot]

Correct me if I'm wrong but what I seem to have been reading on the past recent pages is basically applying to the other victims an extrapolation made of Lechmere's 'proximity (time and space)/opportunity' allowing him in theory to murder Nichols. If one speculates that he could have a similar time and space proximity with them, we must necessarily conclude that Lechmere killed them.

I have a have a hard time accepting it as hard and direct evidence.

Respectfully
H.P. (not the sauce)

[Tom_Wescott]

But then again, another characteristic of the Lechmere theorists seems to be their ability to come up with endless reasons to conclude the exact opposite of what common sense dictates.

Oh boy, did you ever just say a mouthful.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[GUT]

But the silliest thing about the idea is that it has Cross standing by the body of the woman he has just killed for about 60 seconds listening to Paul coming up the road towards him, and for at least 40 seconds of that time he would have been invisible to Paul. Why would he have stayed there? Why wouldn't he just have walked on and round the corner into Whitechapel Road? The idea would practically amount to proof that he didn't commit the murder.

But don't you know he had to find out what Paul had seen, the fact that he couldn't see Paul, and thus it is all but imposible that Paul saw him, has nothing to do with it