Review of Bob Mills article in Ripperologist 170

[Doctored Whatsit]

Judge for yourself, Tom. The entire paragraph, direct from page 12...

"For Lechmere's statement to be true it would require two men, walking about 40-50 yards apart, to be unaware of each other while they walked down a silent and deserted back street. Sensing the movements of the world and the objects within it appears to be a fundamental job for our visual system. It's just not credible that Paul could be walking up Bucks Row and not have sight of Lechmere. Even if there was poor the light, the visual system would pick up movement ahead. Our brain is hardwired to detect movement, like somebody walking ahead. And the weather that morning was 'bright and fine' with around 30% cloud cover."

The entire article is riddled with misleading inaccuracies, which all just happen to help to frame the innocent Charles Cross.

Did either Cross or Paul actually ever claim to have been entirely unaware of each other that morning? I can't find a statement from either of them that says this. Cross appears to have deliberately waited for Paul.

[chubbs]

Did either Cross or Paul actually ever claim to have been entirely unaware of each other that morning? I can't find a statement from either of them that says this. Cross appears to have deliberately waited for Paul.

What a coincidence.
This morning I've been looking for an answer to exactly the same question. The simple answer seems to be 'No', but both the Lloyds Weekly article and the Daily Telegraph report of Robert Paul's inquest testimony seem to infer that he was scuttling along and suddenly noticed a man standing in the distance.

It's very sad that we have no hard & fast evidence of Robert Paul being asked (and replying to) what has turned out to be a very important question regarding that sequence of events, "When were you first aware of Charles Cross?". Maybe a relevant letter or document will come to light one day? I could start working on one now, but I'm a bit busy refurbishing my rotary washing line.

[FrankO]

We have no evidence either way as to whether the police investigated Cross, but given Paul did not come forward to corroborate his story and a policeman (Mizen) disputed one element of Cross’s story, it is truly incredible to think police didn’t run some kind of check on Cross.

Hi Dusty,

The police would, at least, have good reason to clear a thing (or two) up with Cross. Whilst the mentioning/not mentioning of the policeman in Buck's Row was Cross's word against Mizen's, this wouldn't go for the fact that Cross didn't mention to Mizen that he & Paul had examined the woman.

Ignoring the fact that the wound to the neck was not covered, to drop the skirt would take, literally, one second, how can anyone describe this as “time and effort”?

What he's also ignoring is the notion that Nichols' dress got stuck under her body. After all, Neil found the dress a little above her knees and Cross stated that Paul pulled it down, but that it didn't seem to come down much. And if it didn't come down much, it might have been possible to move it much.

Another bit of evidence might suggest that the hem of the dress was on Nichols' chest. How else could he have felt a slight movement of the chest while pulling the dress down. Would the hem have been on the chest, if the murderer had tried to cover the abdominal wounds?

Cheers,
Frank

[Lewis C]

Did either Cross or Paul actually ever claim to have been entirely unaware of each other that morning? I can't find a statement from either of them that says this. Cross appears to have deliberately waited for Paul.

Hi DW,

Cross does seem to have waited for Paul, but it could be that he was unaware of Paul until after he spotted the body.

[Tom_Wescott]

Is it okay, on this board to post rebuttals of Ripperologist articles? If so I'd love to address some issues with one in the latest edition regarding Mr Paul.

Yes, of course it's allowed to rebut articles (as well as books) so long as you do so on the appropriate threads (or create one, if needed) and restrain from personal attacks.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott