Proposed modification to Lechmere's route to work

[Christer Holmgren]

I for one am having all sorts of trouble understanding how it would be less risky to kill at work than underways to it? I am working from the assumption that Michaels objections are of a practical nature, not one of adherence to norms and such.

So it seems, basically, that what is reasoned is that if we have no preceding examples of serial killers who have done something, then this in itself will make it unlikely - or impossible? - that any serial killer will do that something.

If we have no earlier examples of serial killers despatching victims en route to work, it is because serial killers would never...!

So how does that apply to Ridgways putting pebbles in the vaginas of his victims? That was a first, was it not?

And Paul Ogorzow, what about him? Before he started killing victims on the trains he was working on, no serial killer had used their work at the railways as a suitable locale for their murders. So how could Ogorzow do it?

Bundys plaster cast ruse - that was something he used, although nobody had done it before. Strange.

And Robert Yates burying a victim outside the window of the bedroom where he slept with his wife. Who would do such a risky thing? And who COULD - it had not been done before, mind you!

What if I was to suggest that Lechmere´s victims were killed by the carman becasue they had beaten him in chess? Wouldn´t that be the silliest of suggestions? No, it would apparently not, because it has happened before - Nikolay Shubin killed 13 people who had had the audacity to beat him in a game of chess. And if it has been done before, it is an established serial killer trait.

You see, Michael, the world of serial killing is filled with oddities, out of which using a time gap when going to work on dark mornings where the streets are free from witnesses to a very large degree is perhaps the least odd one. Therefore, it is of no consequence at all until you prove that it came with problems that would have been unsurmountable to Lechmere. Before that, it is just another useless claim, much like the "he would have run because no killer will stay put and bluff it out" thing.

These two are the weightiest points of criticism against Charles Lechmere as the killer, heading the race some way before "family men with children would not do that" point.

All in all, it says a good deal about how useful the case against Lechmere is.

[Edward Stow]

I don't know why you are so incredulous Mr Banks - and I'm not a fish.
The 'what other option did he have' makes 100% sense - and self evidently would to any 'normal' person. So by my reckoning it is not in the least unlikely. Whether or not the word unlikely looms in your conversations, has no relevance.

Serial killers and indeed criminals frequently commit crimes near where they live as the proximity creates degree of comfort. They tend not to stray to areas where they are unknown as they don't know what to expect around the corner.
That is why 'unknown local man' is so popular as the culprit. Its just that Lechmere was that man.
Druitt's distance from the East End is one of the many blots against his suspect status. You not accepting this changes nothing.

[Michael Banks]

Serial killers have killed at work.
If you introduce a very tight parameter you are likely to get a zero percentage point.
But then if the only purpose is to exonerate Druitt, by a self proclaimed non Druittist (hey did I just insert Druitt into a Lechmere thread), then I guess it's par for the course.
It's always a bit weird when discussions on a subject in one thread overlap into an unrelated thread but c'est la vie!

On the question of unliklihoods, and serial killer behaviour (in some suspect threads, it is allowed that serial killers are capable of all manner of unlikely behaviour)... there are all sorts of degrees of odd behaviour, some are tempered by circumstances.

Would any serial killer murder someone shortly before they go to work?

Putting to one side the argument that serial killers are supposedly capable of any outlandish behaviour, the answer would depend sensibly on a number of factors.

Did the time of day that the serial killer went to work help or hinder his plan? I.e. was it dark or light, quiet or busy?

Was his workplace a location where anything untoward about his appearance would stand out. eg an office or school where blood on his nice white starched shirt might be noticed? Or was it perhaps a dark subterranean stable that handled fresh meat products? For the sake of argument.

Did the serial killer have other options? Let's make the presumption that he was a psychopath with a desire to kill. How or where could he realise these vicious passions? Was his walk to work the only readily available time slot? Or did he have the opportunity to gad about unsupervised at all hours of the day across all of Southern England - for example.

Focusing back on Lechmere - or someone like him - the only available time was on his way to work. It was Hobsons choice- the choice was made for him.

The only other opportunity Lechmere would have had was on his night off, when perhaps he would visit his Old Ma and the daughter who lived with his Old Ma... near Berner Street.

The location was similarly forced on Lechmere. The East End as a location wasn't forced on Druitt. He would have had to deliberately and slightly obtusely select that location above all others... obtusely because he had no known connection to the East End - no comforting familiarity.

So to sum up, and after pointing out the very obvious fact that I didn’t ask about men killing during work hours but about men killing and mutilating a victim 15 minutes before clocking on. We can’t produce, from the entire history of our knowledge of serial murderers, one single example of a serial killer knocking off a victim 15 minutes or so before he was due at work. So by my reckoning the word ‘unlikely’ can’t help but loom in any conversation regarding Lechmere.

The ‘what other option did he have’ question makes little sense of course. He could have killer a bit earlier in the evening. He could have killed on Saturday evening when he didn’t have work the next day. I’m amazed that your employing a ‘what other choice did he have’ approach Fish.

If a guilty Druitt had selected Whitechapel then he’d have chosen an ideal place. Not too far from where he lived and an area where, even if seen, there would have been no chance of being recognised. What if local man Lechmere had been seen by someone that recognised him?

……

Ill ask another question that I genuinely don’t know the answer to:

What kind of percentage of serial killers had as a killing ground the streets that they passed through on almost a daily basis? And I don’t mean the same city. I mean an area the size of the rippers killing ground.

[Gary Barnett]

CAL (or Crossmere if you prefer) lived for 30 years or so in SGE and presumably walked to work along a route that didn’t take him through Spitalfields. Then in June, 1888 he moved to Mile End and had to work out a new route, one that logically had to take him through Spitalfields - and, lo and behold, within a few weeks Spitalfields unfortunates started dropping like flies.

[Edward Stow]

Serial killers have killed at work.
If you introduce a very tight parameter you are likely to get a zero percentage point.
But then if the only purpose is to exonerate Druitt, by a self proclaimed non Druittist (hey did I just insert Druitt into a Lechmere thread), then I guess it's par for the course.
It's always a bit weird when discussions on a subject in one thread overlap into an unrelated thread but c'est la vie!

On the question of unliklihoods, and serial killer behaviour (in some suspect threads, it is allowed that serial killers are capable of all manner of unlikely behaviour)... there are all sorts of degrees of odd behaviour, some are tempered by circumstances.

Would any serial killer murder someone shortly before they go to work?

Putting to one side the argument that serial killers are supposedly capable of any outlandish behaviour, the answer would depend sensibly on a number of factors.

Did the time of day that the serial killer went to work help or hinder his plan? I.e. was it dark or light, quiet or busy?

Was his workplace a location where anything untoward about his appearance would stand out. eg an office or school where blood on his nice white starched shirt might be noticed? Or was it perhaps a dark subterranean stable that handled fresh meat products? For the sake of argument.

Did the serial killer have other options? Let's make the presumption that he was a psychopath with a desire to kill. How or where could he realise these vicious passions? Was his walk to work the only readily available time slot? Or did he have the opportunity to gad about unsupervised at all hours of the day across all of Southern England - for example.

Focusing back on Lechmere - or someone like him - the only available time was on his way to work. It was Hobsons choice- the choice was made for him.

The only other opportunity Lechmere would have had was on his night off, when perhaps he would visit his Old Ma and the daughter who lived with his Old Ma... near Berner Street.

The location was similarly forced on Lechmere. The East End as a location wasn't forced on Druitt. He would have had to deliberately and slightly obtusely select that location above all others... obtusely because he had no known connection to the East End - no comforting familiarity.

[Christer Holmgren]

As quotes from serial killer history and research are regularly employed to make points (10% of serial killers did this or only 5% of serial killers act in this particular way or only 7% of serial killers have ever……etc) can we get an answer to a question I’ve asked numerous times? What percentage of serial killers murdered a victim 15 minutes before they were due at work? There might be numerous examples from history of this for all that I know but I’m beginning to get a tad suspicious that no answer to this particular question has never been forthcoming. Surely Lechmere can’t have been the only serial killer in history to have done this? Could he?

Very obviously, there is no instance that keeps tabs over the time gap between serial killers strikes and their working hours. Personally, I would say that the odds for a question like this varies with the circumstances involved. If those circumstances involve a likelihood to stay undetected, then as far as I can see, it poses no problem at all. In Lechmeres case, we do not know the circumstances. It could have involved problems, or it could have been problem free. Plus, of course, serial murder always comes with some level of risk.
To me, it is an invented problem only until it can be otherwise proven.

Maybe it is logical enough; when no factual problem is around, we invent substitutes as best as we can.

[Michael Banks]

As quotes from serial killer history and research are regularly employed to make points (10% of serial killers did this or only 5% of serial killers act in this particular way or only 7% of serial killers have ever……etc) can we get an answer to a question I’ve asked numerous times? What percentage of serial killers murdered a victim 15 minutes before they were due at work? There might be numerous examples from history of this for all that I know but I’m beginning to get a tad suspicious that no answer to this particular question has never been forthcoming. Surely Lechmere can’t have been the only serial killer in history to have done this? Could he?

[Christer Holmgren]

The point Abby makes is one we must never loose sight of: the Spitalfields victims were all claimed in a smallish net of streets that Lechmere passed through on a daily basis when going to his work. There is no need to lock oneself to any other perspective than this one. I always thought that it is extremely likely that there was a significant element of opportunism involved in the murders, but that does of course not mean that the victims must have been killed in spots where their paths crossed with Lechmeres working route. They either did or they didn´t, to a smaller or lesser degree. Nichols could have been picked up in Whitechapel Road, and she could have been found in Bucks Row by Lechmere. Or in Brady Street. Or in Thomas Street. She had walked eastwards from the Osborne Street crossing along Whitechapel Road, and she could have been noted/picked up by her killer in combination with soliciting in Whitechapel Road or as she was in the process of returning to it after having serviced a client. If she DID return there or solicit there in the first place, which is of course very likely but not proven. Picking up a victim from Whitechapel Road would have had the advantage of using a street where he knew there was prey to be had. The disadvantage would be that this was common knowledge; an unidentifiable number of punters would be around, as would an equally unidentifiable number of unfortunates, and so it would come with a greater risk to pick up prey there than in any of the smaller adjoining streets - where the disadvantage would be a likely scarcity of prey.
Opportunism seems to fit well with both choices, though: perhaps he took the opportunity to secure a victim when Whitechapel Road was temporarily otherwise deserted, and perhaps he stalked the adjoining streets and took whatever rare opportunity that surfaced there.

We cannot know what applies, but we CAN know that it applies that he traversed the killing fields of Spitalfields on a working day daily basis. And the distances are short in the area. R J Palmer writes in post 10 about how "Lechmere's only known route being the northerly one (ie., nowhere near Dorset Street)", but it is not as if Dorset Street was at the other end of the world; it was a minute´s walk or two away from Hanbury Street. So there is nothing strange at all about, say, the suggestion that Lechmere met Kelly as he walked Hanbury Street westwards and crossed Commercial Street - where Walter Dew tells us Mary paraded for customers.
Then again, why would we lock ourselves to the idea that he must always have walked Hanbury Street? Because we know he did on the Nichols murder night? We actually only know he walked Hanbury Street as far as to the Corbett´s Court crossing. Whether or not he then veered off from it is an unknown factor. The idea that he must ONLY have walked Hanbury Street serves one purpose and one only - if we do not allow him any other choices of route, it absolves him from a number of murders.
But we cannot do that. All we can do is to accept what Abby points out: On his route to work, Charles Lechmere traversed the very area where a number of Ripper murders occurred in the early morning hours. And for a suspect to have this factor fit with his person is no good thing at all in terms of possible culpability.

[Edward Stow]

Ah yes Gary - that Brigade.

Abby - yes all those things are possible - it is necessary to set anything in stone.

[Abby Normal]

Gary - I trust you meant 'anti Crossmere Brigade'...
Talking of which, ummmm

Michael Conner, who deserves certain accolades, yet he only dipped his toe into Lechmere waters back... when... 2006. Isn't that a little desperate?

And Christer in 2016 - which, more fool me - I looked up to see the context. Here is the full passage...

I would suggest that the Ripper murders were all opportunist slayings. I don´t think he stalked either of the victims, I think he pounced when he felt the situation allowed for it. I feel certain that he will have walked past a large number of potential victims on account of not liking the surroundings. Killing en route to work would equal killing in the window of opportunity that opened up each morning. It was dark, he was alone, the streets were more or less empty and there were lonely streetwalkers to be found. It would be the ideal hunting ground for a killer of the type we are looking at.
Stride was not killed along his working route. She was slain some way south of it. If he chose between walking up to the area where he had killed thrice before and walking west into city territory, I think he made the opportunists choice here too - he would have judged it a place that combined much prey with more safety than his earlier haunts.

Christer was responding to another poster who was trying to fit Lechmere's pattern of offending into the same straight jacket as RJP - that the crimes must have been on his strict route to work.
Christer doesn't believe he stalked his victims and neither do I. They were opportunist in the sense that he found a potential victim and struck - in areas where he would find a potential victim.
That is not the same as suggesting he literally blundered into a victim on his strict work route and opportunistically struck there and then - which is the simpleton version. I hope that clarifies.

Hi Edward (and Fish)
If lech was the killer I dont think he necessarily had to kill the non double event victims (tabram, chapman, kelly, mckenzie, maybe even nichols), on his way to work. perhaps he was off those days? I dont think it hurts the lech theory one iota to think this. to me whats important, is that his work route took him past where these women were, increasing the chances that he had seen them in the past or even had some kind of contact with them. And I dont think he was a full blown stalker in the sense of a Dennis Rader, but perhaps on his daily trek he had seen these women and thought perhaps they looked like easy targets and or was familiar to them, so when he was off work and out looking to kill, he kept an eye out for them.

But of course this all depends on how set a work schedule he might have had. Im sure carmen then had pretty set schedules-mon-sat correct? However having worked in the delivery business I know at least today that even though our delivery guys worked a pretty set schedule, it wast set in stone by any means. they would frequently be off on usual work week days either by their own asking or just company logistics. And perhaps lech being a valuable employee of twenty years he had some flexibility with his employers on when he had to work and days off?

Anyway to me, the main thing is his work routes took him near these women on daily basis and of course the lech triangle of his work, home and mom locations would do so also to some degree.

[Gary Barnett]

Gary - I trust you meant 'anti Crossmere Brigade'...
Talking of which, ummmm

Michael Conner, who deserves certain accolades, yet he only dipped his toe into Lechmere waters back... when... 2006. Isn't that a little desperate?

And Christer in 2016 - which, more fool me - I looked up to see the context. Here is the full passage...

I would suggest that the Ripper murders were all opportunist slayings. I don´t think he stalked either of the victims, I think he pounced when he felt the situation allowed for it. I feel certain that he will have walked past a large number of potential victims on account of not liking the surroundings. Killing en route to work would equal killing in the window of opportunity that opened up each morning. It was dark, he was alone, the streets were more or less empty and there were lonely streetwalkers to be found. It would be the ideal hunting ground for a killer of the type we are looking at.
Stride was not killed along his working route. She was slain some way south of it. If he chose between walking up to the area where he had killed thrice before and walking west into city territory, I think he made the opportunists choice here too - he would have judged it a place that combined much prey with more safety than his earlier haunts.

Christer was responding to another poster who was trying to fit Lechmere's pattern of offending into the same straight jacket as RJP - that the crimes must have been on his strict route to work.
Christer doesn't believe he stalked his victims and neither do I. They were opportunist in the sense that he found a potential victim and struck - in areas where he would find a potential victim.
That is not the same as suggesting he literally blundered into a victim on his strict work route and opportunistically struck there and then - which is the simpleton version. I hope that clarifies.

No I meant the ‘Crossmere’ brigade, those who can’t bring themselves to call the man by his name.

[Edward Stow]

Gary - I trust you meant 'anti Crossmere Brigade'...
Talking of which, ummmm

Michael Conner, who deserves certain accolades, yet he only dipped his toe into Lechmere waters back... when... 2006. Isn't that a little desperate?

And Christer in 2016 - which, more fool me - I looked up to see the context. Here is the full passage...

I would suggest that the Ripper murders were all opportunist slayings. I don´t think he stalked either of the victims, I think he pounced when he felt the situation allowed for it. I feel certain that he will have walked past a large number of potential victims on account of not liking the surroundings. Killing en route to work would equal killing in the window of opportunity that opened up each morning. It was dark, he was alone, the streets were more or less empty and there were lonely streetwalkers to be found. It would be the ideal hunting ground for a killer of the type we are looking at.
Stride was not killed along his working route. She was slain some way south of it. If he chose between walking up to the area where he had killed thrice before and walking west into city territory, I think he made the opportunists choice here too - he would have judged it a place that combined much prey with more safety than his earlier haunts.

Christer was responding to another poster who was trying to fit Lechmere's pattern of offending into the same straight jacket as RJP - that the crimes must have been on his strict route to work.
Christer doesn't believe he stalked his victims and neither do I. They were opportunist in the sense that he found a potential victim and struck - in areas where he would find a potential victim.
That is not the same as suggesting he literally blundered into a victim on his strict work route and opportunistically struck there and then - which is the simpleton version. I hope that clarifies.

[Dusty Miller]

>>Who said he was specifically killing victims of opportunity during his commute?<<

Ummm ...


"I would suggest that the Ripper murders were all opportunist slayings. ... Killing en route to work would equal killing in the window of opportunity that opened up each morning."
Fisherman, Casebook, 12-08-2016, 06:59 PM.

"The timings for some of the deaths in 1888 fit the routine of a working man opportunistically killing women engaged in morning prostitution, and they fit the known timetable of Charles Cross."
Micheal Conner RipperologistNo. 72


>>The interesting socialigical aspect to this is how the naysayers invent their own versions of the theory.<<

"Nayslayers" ?

[Gary Barnett]

Who said he was specifically killing victims of opportunity during his commute?
The interesting socialigical aspect to this is how the naysayers invent their own versions of the theory.

You have to chuckle at the antics of the ‘Crossmere’ brigade.

[Edward Stow]

Who said he was specifically killing victims of opportunity during his commute?
The interesting sociological aspect to this is how the naysayers invent their own versions of the theory.