Casebook Examiner No. 2 (June 2010)

[The Grave Maurice]

...Stride's clothes were NOT wet 'from the rain'...they're cut and dried....

That, I must admit, is a nice turn of phrase. And, if you aren't weary, Maria, then best be wary. (This thread is starting to sound like a Sondheim lyric.)

[Phil Carter]

Confusion and unreliability.

Hi Phil. Packer's pre-Le Grand statement is clear. No couples standing about. Packer's subsequent stories were lies. I hope that makes things very clear for you and Stephen Thomas.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Hello Tom,

So if I understand you correctly, you say that Packer's 1st statement is the truth, and any subsequent statement he made is a lie?

Now I don't know about you Tom, but if faced with that in a court of law, the words "dubious" "unreliable" and "inconsistent" would, I offer, be afforded such a man with such testimony by any judge summing up before a jury. A judge would cast doubt upon this man's testimony.

I am just pointing out that Packer's comments provide ample example that raises huge questions about witness statements, witness timing of events, police statements (especially where the ORIGINAL statement about time, written down by PC White is actually queried by A.N.Other policeman in the margin of White's notes, changing the times, twice) and by the clearly two different statements by the attending doctors.(Re.the inquest).

So if we are sticking to facts, it really does all depend on what, or who, you believe was telling the truth at any given moment...if at all.

It has been said before... there are way too many inconsistencies to have defining provable fact. Even the documented statement of the police (White) contradicts itself with the times queried at some point after 4th October.

Like I said, I believe any judge would cast doubt upon such evidence in a court of law. I am not saying you are wrong Tom...you could well be right.. but in my personal view there is much too much confusion because of unreliability of statements to form a definitive conclusion as to what is the truth and what isn't. That's all round Berner Street, not just Packer.

best wishes

Phil

[mariab]

To the Grave Maurice:
I think Tom was trying to differentiate between Stride's clothes getting wet from the rain when she was alive and running around vs. her clothes getting muddy and wet (obviously from the same rain, only a bit later!) while she was lying around dying/dead. The turning of the phrase was a bit unfortunate! And by the way I'm both very weary and very wet from the Western Cape South African rain currently falling...

To Phil Carter:
Without yet having managed to read Examiner 2 or the Ripper Notes #26, I've been thinking and repeating the exact same things as you said about the very dubious value of such inconsistent testimonies by different unreliable witnesses on this case, and not just all around Berner Street. Mary Kelly's time of death poses a very similar problem. It's true that in a court of law a judge would have had a complete nightmare with such contrasting pieces of evidence, but then again, today the investigation would have been conducted quite a bit differently, so very obviously the evidence would have been much richer and clearer.
Off in the rain to a dressmaker shop in town, having stepped out of the plane yesterday with my pants torn in two. No witnesses and no clue when or how it happened, and covering up with my jacket didn't quite fool the Arab workers at the Cape Town Airport, but at least they didn't act impolitely, and the ragged garments totally kept muggers at bay...

[Tom_Wescott]

I am not saying you are wrong Tom...you could well be right.. but in my personal view there is much too much confusion because of unreliability of statements to form a definitive conclusion as to what is the truth and what isn't. That's all round Berner Street, not just Packer.

As I've said before, we tend to create more confusion than necessary, often where there is none. We have two stories from Packer, one where he saw no couple standing about which he told to PS White within hours of the murder; the second that he watched a couple standing in the rain for 30 minutes after selling them grapes, a story which emerged only after he was taken under the wing of a known criminal. Besides, there's more than Packer at work here, such as the two sisters and the grapestalk 'discovered' by Le Grand. There was no grapestalk on the night of the murder, seen either near the victim or in the gutter, but Le Grand finds one? And the story told by the sisters happens to fit with the story he fed Packer?

To any rational mind there should be nothing at all confusing about this. It certainly didn't confuse Swanson and Anderson, who decided Packer's statement was valueless as evidence. The fact that other witness evidence is somewhat confusing has no bearing on Packer's blatant and obvious lie.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Simon Wood]

Hi Tom,

It's an extremely brave or foolhardy man who, after being cautioned by the Evening News, publicly condemns the Metropolitan Police for what can only be described as a dereliction of duty.

If Packer's story was the pile of old horse-feathers you would have us believe, why was he whisked off for a meeting with the top echelons of Scotland Yard when a simple reading of Sergeant White's notebook would have told them that he was telling porkies [porky pies=lies]?

Regards,

Simon

[Tom_Wescott]

If Packer's story was the pile of old horse-feathers you would have us believe, why was he whisked off for a meeting with the top echelons of Scotland Yard when a simple reading of Sergeant White's notebook would have told them that he was telling porkies [porky pies=lies]?

Because he never was. He was taken to Scotland Yard where he was interviewed by (likely) Abberline. Some think it was Ruggles-Brise. He never met Warren. That's merely what Le Grand told White.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Supe]

Simon,

why was he whisked off for a meeting with the top echelons of Scotland Yard when a simple reading of Sergeant White's notebook would have told them that he was telling porkies

Even a professional contraire like yourself knows the answer to your question prior to posing it. A highly publicised newspaper report is at almost total variance with the report of a sergeant and thus Packer was telling lies OR Sergeant White was guilty of nonfeasance. Of course the Yard wanted to find out that answer and whisked Packer of for a meeting with the top echelons.

Don.

[Stewart P Evans]

Accuracy

It is important to try and maintain accuracy in analysing these reports.

Packer was not 'whisked off for a meeting with the top echelons of Scotland Yard' and it is news to me that 'some think it was Ruggles-Brise' as he was private secretary to the Home Secretary at the Home Office. I guess the phrase 'whisked off' imbues it with some sort of imagined urgency. But it was not even police officers who took him to Scotland Yard.

Packer was taken to Scotland Yard on Thursday 4 October 1888 just after 4.00 pm by the two men claiming to be detectives (Le Grand & Co.). They said they were taking Packer to Scotland Yard to see Warren.

There is no evidence to suggest that they ever saw Warren, they were probably seen by a detective inspector who took a statement from Packer as he claimed to have seen a suspect. Prima facie the report of Packer's evidence in the paper suggested police negligence as they had missed an important witness.

The notes of Packer's statement [MEPO 3/140 ff. 215-216] dated the same day, 4.10.88, were incorrectly identified, for many years, as written in Warren's hand until I examined the original and identified it as the handwriting and initials of Alexander Carmichael Bruce, the senior Assistant Commissioner. It is highly unlikely that even such a senior officer as Bruce would have seen Packer and the two private detectives. However, as neglect of duty by police was, in effect, being alleged, Bruce no doubt investigated it thus making notes from Packer's statement.

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Stewart,

Thanks. I was thinking Bruce not Brise, you're of course correct. I still feel it was Abberline who interviewed Packer. He handled all potentially important witness interviews in the Stride case and I think features of the written report harken back to Abberline.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Simon Wood]

Hi Stewart,

There's something wrong with this picture.

Apples and oranges aside, when you were a police sergeant would you have meekly allowed two "private detectives" whose only authority was a letter addressed to themselves to spirit away a key witness in the murder case of the century?

Regards,

Simon

[Tom_Wescott]

And what was he supposed to do, Simon? Pull out the gun that he's not allowed to carry and threaten them with it? Chase their hansom cab down with his super-speed? And I must say it would be the first time that I heard of a Policeman keeping three innocent citizens from going to the police station to help them solve a mystery. What would have been White's cause?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Simon Wood]

Hi Tom,

Assert his authority.

Regards,

Simon

[Tom_Wescott]

His authority over what? Keeping people from going to the police station to speak with his superiors? He had no authority to assert in this case. And Le Grand had the cab. Also, there's the fact that Le Grand was big and scary and intimidating to consider.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Simon Wood]

Hi Tom,

Spare me.

Regards,

Simon

[Tom_Wescott]

Spare what? I'm the one making sense here.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott