What happened to Lechmere......

[Mirandola]

Hate to butt into what seems to have become a long-running private conversation, but I'd like to thank Patrick S for his intervention. The Cross theory (I won't call him Lechmere, since the man had a perfect legal right in English Law to call himself anything at all, as he still would, and 'Cross' is the name he used) runs round the same circles and gets nowhere. All the evidence we have is, at best, second-hand - newspaper reports of what witnesses at an inquest said had happened several nights before. It honestly won't bear the kind of in-depth parsing it is being subjected to.
If Cross did indeed lie to PC Mizen (as is possible but not proven) he could have had a number of reasons that don't amount to proof that he was the murderer; he may, for example, simply not have wanted to get involved when he was already late for work; Paul didn't hang around either. Mizen may have been covering his own back, or he may simply have misremembered the exact words Cross said (it's not a comment he would have taken down verbatim). We have no way of knowing for certain.
It always comes down in the end to the statement that 'Cross is the only man we know for certain was near Nichols at or close to the moment of her death'. Well, I can think of at least one more - PC John Neil. On what sketchy evidence we have, it is as likely that he was the killer as that Cross was - which is to say, not very.

[Fisherman]

Here is what Dew had to say about the carmen:

Bucks Row was just a few yards outside the boundary of " H " Division to which I was attached. The district was squalid. The spot for such a crime was ideal. Close by were a number of slaughterhouses.

No better illustration of East-End conditions at the time could be afforded than by the behaviour of Charles ______ , a middle-aged carman, who was the first to see the body.

The carman was on his way through Bucks Row to his day's work when he saw a huddled mass in the gateway of Essex Wharf. He crossed from one side of the street to the other to investigate.

The light was just sufficient to show him that the form was that of a woman and that she had been mishandled. Her clothing had been disarranged and her bonnet had fallen from her head. There was something strange too about the position of the woman's head.

In any other district of London such a discovery would have sent the man dashing for a policeman. But this was Whitechapel, where crimes of violence and outrage were of everyday occurrence.

The carman shook the woman. She did not stir. He decided it was a case of a woman who had fainted following assault, and, making a mental note to report the matter to the first police constable he saw, he went on his way.

A curious thing then happened. The carman had gone but a short distance when he saw another man on the opposite side of the street whose behaviour was certainly suspicious. The other man seemed to seek to avoid the carman, who went over to him, and said:

"Come and look here. Here's a woman been knocked about."

Together the two men went to the gateway where the poor woman was lying. The newcomer felt her heart. His verdict was not reassuring.

"I think she's breathing," he told his companion, "but it's very little if she is."

The couple parted, ________ promising, as he walked away, to call a policeman.

All this was afterwards told in evidence by the carman. It never had the corroboration of the other man. The police made repeated appeals for him to come forward, but he never did so.

Why did he remain silent? Was it guilty knowledge that caused him to ignore the appeals of the police?

In any other district and in any other circumstances this would have been a natural inference, but in the East End of London at this time the man might have had a dozen reasons for avoiding the publicity which would have followed. He might have been a criminal; or he might have been afraid, as so many were, to risk the linking of his name with a Ripper-crime.

The carman reported his early-morning discovery to a policeman, but in the meantime, P.C. Neal, making his regular beat along Bucks Row, had en the huddled form lying in the gateway.

No mentioning at all of any investigation into Lechmere.

[Fisherman]

Hate to butt into what seems to have become a long-running private conversation, but I'd like to thank Patrick S for his intervention. The Cross theory (I won't call him Lechmere, since the man had a perfect legal right in English Law to call himself anything at all, as he still would, and 'Cross' is the name he used) runs round the same circles and gets nowhere. All the evidence we have is, at best, second-hand - newspaper reports of what witnesses at an inquest said had happened several nights before. It honestly won't bear the kind of in-depth parsing it is being subjected to.
If Cross did indeed lie to PC Mizen (as is possible but not proven) he could have had a number of reasons that don't amount to proof that he was the murderer; he may, for example, simply not have wanted to get involved when he was already late for work; Paul didn't hang around either. Mizen may have been covering his own back, or he may simply have misremembered the exact words Cross said (it's not a comment he would have taken down verbatim). We have no way of knowing for certain.
It always comes down in the end to the statement that 'Cross is the only man we know for certain was near Nichols at or close to the moment of her death'. Well, I can think of at least one more - PC John Neil. On what sketchy evidence we have, it is as likely that he was the killer as that Cross was - which is to say, not very.

No, it does not come down to the one point that Lechmere (his real name) was found alone by the body. This is a total misunderstanding that is often repeated. As such, finding a dead body does not implicate any fould play on the finders behalf. Other factors must be added before this matter can turn into an inclusion if the evidence pointing to guilt.

Here are 31 points that were listed some time ago. If you read it, you will notice that there is a large number of reasons for the suspicions against Charles Lechmere.
Butt in, by all means - but get it right, please. It does not help the often inflamed discussions about Lechmere to repeat - intentionally or unwittingly - false statements.

Number 1: Charles Lechmere happens to stumble over the dead body of Polly Nichols.

Number 2: The wounds to the abdomen were covered, whereas this does not apply in the other Ripper cases. Was that a coincidence, or did it serve the practical purpose of hiding from Paul what had really happened? If Paul had discovered that it was a murder, then Lechmere would not have been able to leave the premises without suspicion.

Number 3: As Lechmere approaches the body, he has Robert Paul walking right behind him, thirty to forty yards away, so they are on the same, absolutely silent street. In spite of this, neither man professes to have seen or heard the other. And we know that John Neil heard his colleague Thain walk past the Buckīs Row/Brady Street crossing – 130 yards away! Was it a coincidence that Paul did not hear Lechmere? Or was that due to Lechmere not having walked in front of Paul, but instead having been engaged in cutting away at Nichols as Paul entered the street?
Note how a remark from Paul that he saw and heard Lechmere in front of him, ”There was this man walking right in front of me who suddenly halted outside Browns...”, would have meant that there could be no viable case for Lechmere as the killer.

Number 4: Lechmere must have passed up at the Bath Street/Foster Street crossing at the more or less exact moment Paul exited his lodgings, thirty, forty yards down on Foster Street. There were large lamps outside the brewery situated in the crossing. In spite of this, Paul did not see Lechmere passing.
Had Lechmere already passed the crossing, a second or two before Paul stepped out into Foster Street? If so, why did not Paul at least hear Lechmere, perhaps only thirty yards away? John Neil heard John Thain one hundred and thirty yards off.

Number 5: Nichols bled from the wounds in the neck as Mizen saw her, around five, six minutes after Lechmere had left the body. A pathologist has told me that stretching the bleeding time beyond five minutes is not to be expected. If that is correct, then we are left with very little or no time for an alternative killer. It remains that there can always be deviations in bleeding time, but overall, it must be accepted that the longer time we must accept that the neck bled, the less credible the suggestion is.

Number 6: The blood in the pool under her neck was ”somewhat congealed” according to Mizen. Normally, blood congeals fully around minute seven whereas the congealing starts to show after three or four minutes.
A logical timing suggests that Mizen reached the body some six minutes after Lechmere had left it. This means that if the normal coagulation scheme applied, then it is very hard to see that anybody else than Lechmere could have been the killer.
Of course, deviations may apply here too, but we know that the blood had turned into a congealed mass, a clot, at the time it was washed away, so the blood had no problems to coagulate. We also know tgat much as alcohol can prolong the coagulation time, a more excessive intake of alchol, such as in alcoholism, will instead make the blood coagulate more easily.

Number 7: Lechmere called Paul to the body, as if he wanted to see what they could do for the woman. But when Paul proposed that they should prop her up, Lechmere suddenly refused to do so.
It can be argued that much as Lechmere wanted to look as a helpful man trying to do what he could for the woman, he also knew that propping her up would immediately give away that she had had her neck cut to the bone.

Number 8: Lechmere arrived to the inquest in working clothes, thereby deviating from all other witnesses.
Our suggestion is that he used a false name and avoided to give his adress before the inquest in order to avoid having it known amongst his family and aquaintances that he had been a witness in the Nichols case. If this emerged, then he may have reasoned that there was a risk that his family and aquaintances would be more wary of any future connections to the coming murders. For example, as long as his family and aquaintances did not know about his involvement in the Nichols case, they would not react very much about the Chapman case a week later. But if they had been alerted to his role in the Nichols murder, then it may have seemed odd to them that the next victim should fall along his working route.
In light of this, he may have decided to go to the inquest in working clothes, so that he could give his wife the impression that he was instead headed for work.

Number 9: Lechmereīs fastest routes to work were Old Montague Street and Hanbury Street. The former was arguably a minute or two faster than the latter. Four of the murders happened along these routes or on a short-cut trailing off from one of them (Dorset Street).
There are thousands and thousands of streets in the East End. Lechmere could have had logical routes that excluded one or more of the killings. Instead he seemingly matches them all. Coincidence or not?

Number 10: All of these four murders may well have taken place at removes in time when Lechmere was heading for Pickfords, as far as the medicos given TOD:s are concerned. Coincidence?

Number 11: The Stride and Eddowes murders did not take place along his working routes, ruling out that he committed these murders en route to Pickfords. Instead, they are the only murders to take place on his night off, Saturday night. Coincidence?
If any one of these murders were to change places, Lechmere would be more or less ruled out. If Stride had died on September 8 at 1 AM, it would destroy the pattern pointing to Lechmere. If Kelly had been killed at 1 AM, the same would apply. If Eddowes had been killed at around 2 AM in Hanbury Street on a working day, the theory would be disrupted. Etcetera, etcetera – the fact that the locations, times and victims are all in line with the theory is a strong pointer towards Lechmere.

Number 12: The Stride murder is perpetrated in St Georges in the East, in the midst of the many houses where Lechmere grew up. Once the killings shifted from the Hanbury Street/Old Montague Street area, they could go north, west or east. They did not. They went south. And as they did, they could have gone into any of the areas south of the earlier killing zone. But they didnīt. They went into the exact area where Lechmere grew up and stayed for decades, before moving to Doveton Street. Coincidence?

Number 13: Lechmereīs mother was at the time of the double event living in 1 Mary Anne Street, a stoneīs throw away from Berner Street and directly to the south of the murder spot, meaning that if he had visited his mother, he would have to head north past the murder spot to get home.
It was earlier thought that she had lived in 147 Cable Street on this occasion, but she actually lived very much closer to the Stride murder site than so. We are dealing with less than a hundred yards, if I read the maps correctly.

Number 14: These two murders took place much earlier than the others, dovetailing well with the suggestion that he either visited his mother or searched out pubs in his old quarters – he had moved out a few weeks later only.

Number 15: The murders started in combination with how Lechmere moved away from the close proximity to his mother that had been a factor in all his life.
It can be argued that his mother was a dominant force in his life – she managed to bring her two children up singlehandedly until Lechmere was around ten year old (her husband, Charlesī father, had left the family), and then she married a ten year younger man. After his premature death, she remarried again,with a ten year older man. Both these marriages were bigamous. She also changed occupations on different occasions, all pointing to a strong and resourceful character.
It can be reasoned that the move to Doveton Street released dammed urges within Lechmere.

Number 16: Charles Lechmere gave the name Cross to the police, instead of using his real name. There are around 110 instances where we can follow the carmanīs contacts with different authorities. In all of them but one, he used the name Lechmere.
Is it another coincidence that he should swop to Cross when contacting the police in a murder errand?

Number 17: Charles Lechmereīs family came to be involved in the horse flesh business. His mother was a catīs meat woman, and his children opened a catīs meat business in Broadway market, where Lechmere himself had a stand.
This means that Lechmere would have had a proximity to the butchery business for many a year. And we know that handling dead carcasses can desensitise people.

Number 18: During the time Lechmere had a stand in Broadway Market, two dead women were found floating in Regents canal, passing through the market. Neither death was fully explained and the causes of death were not established.

Number 19: Charles Lechmere did not raise any alarm at the Nichols murder site. He waited until Paul tried to pass him, and only then placed his hand on his fellow carmans shoulder, saying ”Come and look over here ...”
He did not call out to Paul as the latter approached, and neither man contacted any of the dwellers in Bucks Row. They instead left Nichols lying and set out to work, professing to wanting to find a PC on their way.

Number 20: Charles Lechmere was stated to have told PC Mizen that another policeman awaited Mizen in Bucks Row, whereas he himself denied having said this at the inquest.
It is apparent from Mizens actions that he was under the belief that another PC did wait for him in Bucks Row. If he had not been told about the waiting PC in Bucks Row, he would have accepted that the carmen had found the body. It would therefore have sounded odd to him when Neil stated that he had found the body himself.

Number 21: The things Lechmere say at the inquest mirrors the wordings Paul used in his newspaper report to a considerable extent, implying that having read the article was what made him come forward. Coincidence?

Number 22: Lechmere only came forward after Paul had outed him in the newspaper article. Coincidence?

Number 23: Paul saw no blood under Nicholsī neck in spite of kneeling by her side and checking for breath. He saw her clothes and her hat, though.
Could it be that the cuts were so fresh that the stream of blood towards the gutter had not yet formed?

Number 24: In spite of Old Montague street being the shorter route, Lechmere took the Hanbury Street route after having spoken to Mizen, perhaps implicating that he wanted to avoid the Smith/Tabram murder route when the PC watched.

Number 25: Serialists regularly lack a father figure growing up. That fits Lechmereīs life. Coincidence?

Number 26: Lechmere seems not to have given his address in open court during the inquest. Coincidence?

Number 27: The quickest road from Berner Street to Mitre Square is Lechmereīs logical old working route from James Street to Broad Street. Coincidence?

Number 28: The Pinchin Street torso was discovered in a street where Lechmere has lived earlier with his family, and a very short route from 147 Cable Street where his mother, who became a catīs meat woman, had her lodgings. The body had been dismembered with a sharp knife and a fine-toothed bone saw, tools that were used by catīs meat people to cut up horses. Coincidence?

Number 29: The implications are that the Pinchin Street torso was carried manually to the dumping site.

Number 30: Charles Lechmere stated that he had left home at 3.20 or 3.30 on the murder morning. It takes seven minutes to walk to Browns in Bucks Row. He was found by Paul at around 3.46, standing close to the body.
He should have been outside Browns Stable Yard at 3.37, not 3.46, especially since he professed to being late for work. The probable thing is that he normally walked off at 3.20 (the trek to Broad Street is an approximate 40 minute trek and he started work at 4 AM), but that he said that he was ten minutes later that morning, starting out at 3.30.
Why was he outside Browns Stable Yard at 3.46? Was that also a coincidence?

Number 31: Lechmere said that he and Paul both spoke to Mizen, but Mizen is clear in saying that ”a carman”, not ”two carmen”, contacted him on the murder morning.

[Fisherman]

This passage from Mirandolas post needs looking at too:

It always comes down in the end to the statement that 'Cross is the only man we know for certain was near Nichols at or close to the moment of her death'. Well, I can think of at least one more - PC John Neil. On what sketchy evidence we have, it is as likely that he was the killer as that Cross was - which is to say, not very.


So here the deduction is made that John Neil is as likely a killer as Lechmere was.

But according to corroborated witness testimony, the carmen were in place before John Neil arrived at the murder spot. And at that stage, Polly Nichols was lying flat on her back in the street.

The resonable suggestion is that she was dead or dying as the carmen were with her.

In light of that knowledge, claiming that John Neil is as likely a killer as Lechmere is demonstrably and totally wrong. It is painfully often par for the course, but wrong nevertheless.

[Michael W Richards]

What your argument does Fisherman is provide evidence that Lechmere has access to 1 and was available for others....thats hardly a smoking gun, since we can find other examples that also fit those parameters.

[Fisherman]

What your argument does Fisherman is provide evidence that Lechmere has access to 1 and was available for others....thats hardly a smoking gun, since we can find other examples that also fit those parameters.

Try post 468, Michael!
And then explain to me who is a better suspect or as good a suspect - and why.

You have all night (itīs night here) to compile your answer. Iīm off to bed.

[Mirandola]

Sorry, Fisherman, I am aware of all your arguments of coincidence. Only the first seven actually refer to the Nichols murder, which is all you can call into evidence unless you have already decided that Cross was responsible for all five (or six). And every one of them is subject to the reservation I mentioned, the evidence we have is at best second-hand and, indeed, at three removes from the night in question (the event - the statements made at inquest - the reports of this inquest in the daily Press). Arguments over seconds and even minutes just can't be sustained in a culture that generally counted time in units like 'it wasn't very long - a few minutes - five or ten minutes at the most'. The Police officers would have had to be rather more precise, but there is only one timing established by Mizen - he was spoken to by Cross and Paul 'at a quarter to four'.
PC Neil: 'I examined the body by the aid of my lamp, and noticed blood oozing from a wound in the throat. She was lying on her back with her clothes disarranged.'
By the light of his lamp; blood oozing; her clothing was disarranged.
Every 'Ripper' murder is individual and distinctive, though there are elements of an identifiable signature which developed over the brief series; Nichols was first (or possibly second). Keppel,Weis, Brown & Welch ("The Jack the Ripper Murders: A Modus Operandi and Signature Analysis", Journal of Investigative Psychology Profiling,2, pp. 1-21, 2005).
And he kills them just for a bit of a laugh on his way to work?
Sorry, I wouldn't dare take your case to the DPP.
As for PC Neil, you have wilfully misunderstood my point, which was simply that he also is known to have been with Nichols at or very near the time of her death.
So also was her killer.

[harry]

It is not known exactly when Nichols died.It is not known how long it was for her murderer to have accosted her,or been accosted by her before the assault on her began.Certainly more than the 30 to 40 seconds it took for Paul to reach the scene,and on that information alone Cross is cleared.There was simply no time
Cross's evidence is clear 'when he reached the place where the body lay''.So Nicholes was either dead or dying when Cross reached the spot.After a brief examination,he stood in the road,untill Paul,who was a short distance away,arrived.
It is incorrect,at least among law enforcement people,to consider any person at the scene of a crime an automatic suspect,no more than it is of a person leaving the scene of a crime,It is after the person's explanation is given that a valuation is made. Cross gave his explanation under oath.He has never been a suspect.There has never been the evidence to consider him one.

[Clark]

Here are 31 points that were listed some time ago. If you read it, you will notice that there is a large number of reasons for the suspicions against Charles Lechmere.
Butt in, by all means - but get it right, please. It does not help the often inflamed discussions about Lechmere to repeat - intentionally or unwittingly - false statements.

Number 1: Charles Lechmere happens to stumble over the dead body of Polly Nichols.

Someone had to discover the body, and it was along Cross's route to work.

Number 2: The wounds to the abdomen were covered, whereas this does not apply in the other Ripper cases. Was that a coincidence, or did it serve the practical purpose of hiding from Paul what had really happened? If Paul had discovered that it was a murder, then Lechmere would not have been able to leave the premises without suspicion.

Innuendo and a priori fallacy. It only has meaning if we assume Cross was the killer.

Number 3: As Lechmere approaches the body, he has Robert Paul walking right behind him, thirty to forty yards away, so they are on the same, absolutely silent street. In spite of this, neither man professes to have seen or heard the other. And we know that John Neil heard his colleague Thain walk past the Buckīs Row/Brady Street crossing – 130 yards away! Was it a coincidence that Paul did not hear Lechmere? Or was that due to Lechmere not having walked in front of Paul, but instead having been engaged in cutting away at Nichols as Paul entered the street?
Note how a remark from Paul that he saw and heard Lechmere in front of him, ”There was this man walking right in front of me who suddenly halted outside Browns...”, would have meant that there could be no viable case for Lechmere as the killer.

PCs all wore the same style boots. What were carmen wearing that season? Innuendo and argument from ignorance.

Number 4: Lechmere must have passed up at the Bath Street/Foster Street crossing at the more or less exact moment Paul exited his lodgings, thirty, forty yards down on Foster Street. There were large lamps outside the brewery situated in the crossing. In spite of this, Paul did not see Lechmere passing.
Had Lechmere already passed the crossing, a second or two before Paul stepped out into Foster Street? If so, why did not Paul at least hear Lechmere, perhaps only thirty yards away? John Neil heard John Thain one hundred and thirty yards off.

Soft-soled shoes? Again, argument from ignorance.

Number 5: Nichols bled from the wounds in the neck as Mizen saw her, around five, six minutes after Lechmere had left the body. A pathologist has told me that stretching the bleeding time beyond five minutes is not to be expected. If that is correct, then we are left with very little or no time for an alternative killer. It remains that there can always be deviations in bleeding time, but overall, it must be accepted that the longer time we must accept that the neck bled, the less credible the suggestion is.

Llewellyn didn't appear to think so. Speculation.

Number 6: The blood in the pool under her neck was ”somewhat congealed” according to Mizen. Normally, blood congeals fully around minute seven whereas the congealing starts to show after three or four minutes.
A logical timing suggests that Mizen reached the body some six minutes after Lechmere had left it. This means that if the normal coagulation scheme applied, then it is very hard to see that anybody else than Lechmere could have been the killer.
Of course, deviations may apply here too, but we know that the blood had turned into a congealed mass, a clot, at the time it was washed away, so the blood had no problems to coagulate. We also know tgat much as alcohol can prolong the coagulation time, a more excessive intake of alchol, such as in alcoholism, will instead make the blood coagulate more easily.

"Somewhat" is an incredibly vague term. How did Neil normally define it? Argument from ignorance.

Number 7: Lechmere called Paul to the body, as if he wanted to see what they could do for the woman. But when Paul proposed that they should prop her up, Lechmere suddenly refused to do so.
It can be argued that much as Lechmere wanted to look as a helpful man trying to do what he could for the woman, he also knew that propping her up would immediately give away that she had had her neck cut to the bone.

According to Cross's testimony as reported in The Daily Telegraph, it was Paul who didn't want to prop up the body. Paul is not reported to have contradicted him at the inquest and Paul doesn't mention the incident in Lloyd's Weekly, so where are you getting that it was Cross that refused to prop her up? Maybe Paul was the killer?

Number 8: Lechmere arrived to the inquest in working clothes, thereby deviating from all other witnesses.
Our suggestion is that he used a false name and avoided to give his adress before the inquest in order to avoid having it known amongst his family and aquaintances that he had been a witness in the Nichols case. If this emerged, then he may have reasoned that there was a risk that his family and aquaintances would be more wary of any future connections to the coming murders. For example, as long as his family and aquaintances did not know about his involvement in the Nichols case, they would not react very much about the Chapman case a week later. But if they had been alerted to his role in the Nichols murder, then it may have seemed odd to them that the next victim should fall along his working route.
In light of this, he may have decided to go to the inquest in working clothes, so that he could give his wife the impression that he was instead headed for work.

Cross testified on Monday, a work day. Were laborers typically given the whole day off in order to appear at an inquest? They would be expected to return to work afterwards today, unless they took personal vacation time.

Number 9: Lechmereīs fastest routes to work were Old Montague Street and Hanbury Street. The former was arguably a minute or two faster than the latter. Four of the murders happened along these routes or on a short-cut trailing off from one of them (Dorset Street).
There are thousands and thousands of streets in the East End. Lechmere could have had logical routes that excluded one or more of the killings. Instead he seemingly matches them all. Coincidence or not?

Except, you don't know which route or routes Cross typically took. We know he took the Buck's Row route on the morning of Nichols' murder. Why do you think he would necessarily take any other route?

Number 10: All of these four murders may well have taken place at removes in time when Lechmere was heading for Pickfords, as far as the medicos given TOD:s are concerned. Coincidence?

Hardly. He demonstrably went to work around the time when Nichols was killed. Why would you expect him to change that schedule just to avoid suspicion of the other murders, which he had no way of knowing would be committed? Would his boss have changed his schedule so he would look less guilty to you over 100 years later?

Number 11: The Stride and Eddowes murders did not take place along his working routes, ruling out that he committed these murders en route to Pickfords. Instead, they are the only murders to take place on his night off, Saturday night. Coincidence?
If any one of these murders were to change places, Lechmere would be more or less ruled out. If Stride had died on September 8 at 1 AM, it would destroy the pattern pointing to Lechmere. If Kelly had been killed at 1 AM, the same would apply. If Eddowes had been killed at around 2 AM in Hanbury Street on a working day, the theory would be disrupted. Etcetera, etcetera – the fact that the locations, times and victims are all in line with the theory is a strong pointer towards Lechmere.

No, it means that Stride and Eddowes were killed on Saturday. And again, you haven't shown that Cross ever deviated from his route through Buck's Row.

Number 12: The Stride murder is perpetrated in St Georges in the East, in the midst of the many houses where Lechmere grew up. Once the killings shifted from the Hanbury Street/Old Montague Street area, they could go north, west or east. They did not. They went south. And as they did, they could have gone into any of the areas south of the earlier killing zone. But they didnīt. They went into the exact area where Lechmere grew up and stayed for decades, before moving to Doveton Street. Coincidence?

Er, three of the Whitechapel murders were south of the line between the first two murders. They could scarcely have been otherwise and remained in Whitechapel. Coincidence?

Number 13: Lechmereīs mother was at the time of the double event living in 1 Mary Anne Street, a stoneīs throw away from Berner Street and directly to the south of the murder spot, meaning that if he had visited his mother, he would have to head north past the murder spot to get home.
It was earlier thought that she had lived in 147 Cable Street on this occasion, but she actually lived very much closer to the Stride murder site than so. We are dealing with less than a hundred yards, if I read the maps correctly.

Maybe Cross's mother did it? Pretty speculative.

Number 14: These two murders took place much earlier than the others, dovetailing well with the suggestion that he either visited his mother or searched out pubs in his old quarters – he had moved out a few weeks later only.

So which is most important, the mother or the pubs? Seems like you got it covered either way. Maybe he had a mistress in the area as well. You can add that one to your list with my compliments.

Number 15: The murders started in combination with how Lechmere moved away from the close proximity to his mother that had been a factor in all his life.
It can be argued that his mother was a dominant force in his life – she managed to bring her two children up singlehandedly until Lechmere was around ten year old (her husband, Charlesī father, had left the family), and then she married a ten year younger man. After his premature death, she remarried again,with a ten year older man. Both these marriages were bigamous. She also changed occupations on different occasions, all pointing to a strong and resourceful character.
It can be reasoned that the move to Doveton Street released dammed urges within Lechmere.

He wanted to f*ck his mother? That cinches it.

Number 16: Charles Lechmere gave the name Cross to the police, instead of using his real name. There are around 110 instances where we can follow the carmanīs contacts with different authorities. In all of them but one, he used the name Lechmere.
Is it another coincidence that he should swop to Cross when contacting the police in a murder errand?

Were the other authorities all police? His step-father had been a cop, maybe he was known to the police by that name? What was the other case where he used Cross, and how close to 1888 had it been? We need some context here.

Number 17: Charles Lechmereīs family came to be involved in the horse flesh business. His mother was a catīs meat woman, and his children opened a catīs meat business in Broadway market, where Lechmere himself had a stand.
This means that Lechmere would have had a proximity to the butchery business for many a year. And we know that handling dead carcasses can desensitise people.

Yup, most murderers handle dead carcasses for a living. That's a fact.

Number 18: During the time Lechmere had a stand in Broadway Market, two dead women were found floating in Regents canal, passing through the market. Neither death was fully explained and the causes of death were not established.

Hmmm. He was also in London when the Queen died. Coincidence?

Number 19: Charles Lechmere did not raise any alarm at the Nichols murder site. He waited until Paul tried to pass him, and only then placed his hand on his fellow carmans shoulder, saying ”Come and look over here ...”
He did not call out to Paul as the latter approached, and neither man contacted any of the dwellers in Bucks Row. They instead left Nichols lying and set out to work, professing to wanting to find a PC on their way.

So now Paul is an accomplice? Cross raised the alarm by drawing Paul's attention to the body and agreeing to seek out a policeman.

Number 20: Charles Lechmere was stated to have told PC Mizen that another policeman awaited Mizen in Bucks Row, whereas he himself denied having said this at the inquest.
It is apparent from Mizens actions that he was under the belief that another PC did wait for him in Bucks Row. If he had not been told about the waiting PC in Bucks Row, he would have accepted that the carmen had found the body. It would therefore have sounded odd to him when Neil stated that he had found the body himself.

When did Neil tell him that he had found the body? I think I missed that.

Number 21: The things Lechmere say at the inquest mirrors the wordings Paul used in his newspaper report to a considerable extent, implying that having read the article was what made him come forward. Coincidence?

Hardly, Paul was taking credit for Cross's actions and got his name in the paper for it. Wouldn't you want to set the record straight?

Number 22: Lechmere only came forward after Paul had outed him in the newspaper article. Coincidence?

See Number 21.

Number 23: Paul saw no blood under Nicholsī neck in spite of kneeling by her side and checking for breath. He saw her clothes and her hat, though.
Could it be that the cuts were so fresh that the stream of blood towards the gutter had not yet formed?

Neil didn't see the blood until he turned on his lamp. Maybe it was dark?

Number 24: In spite of Old Montague street being the shorter route, Lechmere took the Hanbury Street route after having spoken to Mizen, perhaps implicating that he wanted to avoid the Smith/Tabram murder route when the PC watched.

So you're arguing that Smith & Tabram belong with the canonical cases? Even so, I'm not seeing the point here. Maybe Cross avoided the Old Montague route because two people had recently been killed along that way? Sounds pretty sensible to me.

I was in Washington DC once back in the late 1990s or early 2000s (I've been there twice, and I don't remember which visit it was when this incident occurred) and was staying in a hotel in Crystal City (across the Potomac from DC). I had stayed at a bar in DC until late at night, and when I got off the subway in Crystal City, I walked the few blocks back to the hotel. The next morning, I learned that I had missed a murder along that same exact route by about 15 minutes (just after I had passed by). You can bet that I took a different route back to the hotel the next few days that I was staying there. Sorry for the digression.

Number 25: Serialists regularly lack a father figure growing up. That fits Lechmereīs life. Coincidence?

Maybe not having a father figure as a child was a part of his plot to kill Nichols. Or maybe he had no say in the matter.

Number 26: Lechmere seems not to have given his address in open court during the inquest. Coincidence?

The same newspaper article (we don't have the inquest report), failed to list an address for Monk. Identifying the witnesses is standard procedure at an inquest, including address or place of employment. Either the coroner was slipshod, or more likely, the paper simply failed to report the address of two witnesses.

...deleted several intimations that Cross was responsible for nearly all murders in London during his lifetime...
Edited to add: That's a joke by the way. He only killed the torso.

Number 31: Lechmere said that he and Paul both spoke to Mizen, but Mizen is clear in saying that ”a carman”, not ”two carmen”, contacted him on the murder morning.

When did Cross say that? According to his inquest testimony, Cross did all of the talking. Paul doesn't contradict him at the inquest. The only time he contradicts Cross on this is when he claimed Cross's role in the affair when he made his statements to Lloyd's.

[Clark]

In light of that knowledge, claiming that John Neil is as likely a killer as Lechmere is demonstrably and totally wrong. It is painfully often par for the course, but wrong nevertheless.

Er, Neil's own testimony was that he had passed through Buck's Row less than 20 minutes before Cross discovered the body. Why couldn't he have killed her then?

[Clark]

As for PC Neil, you have wilfully misunderstood my point, which was simply that he also is known to have been with Nichols at or very near the time of her death.
So also was her killer.

Geography (or proximity, if you'd rather) does not indicate guilt. Unless you're a carman.

[Mirandola]

There seems to be a little confusion as to the kind of proceeding an inquest was (and still is).
An inquest is a Civil Law hearing which is overseen by a Coroner, who is a Government-appointed official (normally a Barrister or Solicitor); it may call a jury if that is deemed necessary, but does not have to.
An Inquest is not a criminal trial, oaths are not administered, witnesses are under no obligation to attend, the rules of criminal evidence do not apply; it is purely a fact-finding hearing, meant to establish the identity of the body and if possible the cause of death. That is all.
In the case of a decision of unlawful killing, it is then up to the Police to investigate, put together a case if they can, and take that case to Court, which is where actual formal legal protocols come into play.

[Fisherman]

Mirandola: Sorry, Fisherman, I am aware of all your arguments of coincidence. Only the first seven actually refer to the Nichols murder, which is all you can call into evidence unless you have already decided that Cross was responsible for all five (or six).

And that makes him a far better suspect than anybody else. Unless you can point to another suspect where there is circumstanital evidence X 7 that points to being the killer of Nichols?

One thing must be clear here - I am not saying that it is proven that Lechmere was the killer. I am saying that there is more evidence against hin than any other suspect.

And every one of them is subject to the reservation I mentioned, the evidence we have is at best second-hand and, indeed, at three removes from the night in question (the event - the statements made at inquest - the reports of this inquest in the daily Press).

See the above.

Arguments over seconds and even minutes just can't be sustained in a culture that generally counted time in units like 'it wasn't very long - a few minutes - five or ten minutes at the most'.

"The culture" did not rule how long people bleed, though. Mizen cannot have been in place any earlier than after five mnutes. And the victim still bled then. That means that Lechmere is a better candidate than any candidate who requires a longer bleeding time than that.

The Police officers would have had to be rather more precise, but there is only one timing established by Mizen - he was spoken to by Cross and Paul 'at a quarter to four'.

There is a time given as "exact" - by Paul. Plus no matter what time m<izen gave, he STILL couldnīt have managed to get to Browns Stable Yard any quicker than five minutes after Lechmere left the body. It is impossible, and the more credible thing is that it took six or seven minutes, further narrowing down the possibility for another killer.


PC Neil: 'I examined the body by the aid of my lamp, and noticed blood oozing from a wound in the throat. She was lying on her back with her clothes disarranged.'
By the light of his lamp; blood oozing; her clothing was disarranged.

Not sure what you are after.


Every 'Ripper' murder is individual and distinctive, though there are elements of an identifiable signature which developed over the brief series; Nichols was first (or possibly second).

Iīm sorry, but this is something you cannot know. Nichols was the first recorded murder where the neck was cut and an effort was made to open the abdomen. But whether she was the killers first (or second or third or fourth or...) remains hidden to us.


And he kills them just for a bit of a laugh on his way to work?

Show me where I said that, please, or shape up.


As for PC Neil, you have wilfully misunderstood my point, which was simply that he also is known to have been with Nichols at or very near the time of her death.
So also was her killer.

Wilfully misunderstood? You said that Neil was just as likely a killer as Lechmere. If you were going on physical proximity only, I agree. When you add the element of time, though, the premise falls. And if we add the rest we have on Lechmere versus Neil, the PC does not come anywhere within a country mile of the carman in terms of suspicion.
So why press a point that we both know is negated by the rest of the evidence? What would be the use? I have over and over on this thread pointed out that proximity alone is not a factor that requires suspicion, and you seem to agree with that.
So why?

[Fisherman]

Geography (or proximity, if you'd rather) does not indicate guilt. Unless you're a carman.

Not even then, Clark.

[Fisherman]

It is not known exactly when Nichols died.It is not known how long it was for her murderer to have accosted her,or been accosted by her before the assault on her began.Certainly more than the 30 to 40 seconds it took for Paul to reach the scene,and on that information alone Cross is cleared.There was simply no time
Cross's evidence is clear 'when he reached the place where the body lay''.So Nicholes was either dead or dying when Cross reached the spot.After a brief examination,he stood in the road,untill Paul,who was a short distance away,arrived.
It is incorrect,at least among law enforcement people,to consider any person at the scene of a crime an automatic suspect,no more than it is of a person leaving the scene of a crime,It is after the person's explanation is given that a valuation is made. Cross gave his explanation under oath.He has never been a suspect.There has never been the evidence to consider him one.

Where is that question I had not answered, Harry? Donīt be shy!

By the way, you have what happened wrong. According to Lechmere, he was never at the body until he went there with Paul. And he cannot be cleared by his own words only. It would take corroboration. Otherwise, anybody could say "I did not do it", and they would be cleared.

It really does not work like that, Harry.