Proposed modification to Lechmere's route to work

[Edward Stow]

Serial killers pick vulnerable targets for a reason.
This oft repeated suggestion that they would turn on a pursuer with their sharp knife misses this reality.

[Edward Stow]

And... on another thread (cough) it is accepted that logical thinking doesn't play a part on serial killer behaviour.

[Gary Barnett]

Serial killers pick vulnerable targets for a reason.
This oft repeated suggestion that they would turn on a pursuer with their sharp knife misses this reality.

That’s why the Ripper didn’t trawl the Ratcliff Highway. And why MJK is in a different category from the other victims.

[Mark J D]

... MJK is in a different category from the other victims...

-- From which you infer something intriguing...?!?

M.

[Edward Stow]

Possibly because she was from the environs of the Ratcliffe Highway?
In any case the Racliffe Highway wasn't on Lechmere's route to work!

[Gary Barnett]

-- From which you infer something intriguing...?!?

M.

Merely that if he generally chose his victims from among the seemingly destitute who were unlikely to have had bullies/pimps around the next corner, MJK stands out as an exception. Choosing a younger women and killing her in Jack McCarthy’s back yard is very different from the other cases.

Perhaps he had an extra Weetabix that morning.

[Mark J D]

Merely that if he generally chose his victims from among the seemingly destitute who were unlikely to have had bullies/pimps around the next corner, MJK stands out as an exception. Choosing a younger women and killing her in Jack McCarthy’s back yard is very different from the other cases.

Perhaps he had an extra Weetabix that morning.

Or perhaps she remembered her killer from the time his kids went to school with her pimp's kids...

I don't know much at all about McCarthy. Do you have him down as a serious player, with muscle? (Jeeezus, I sound like my old dad...)

(You may not have seen me ask this; but here and there online I've wondered aloud whether Lechmere might have had gangland connections -- the kind that could make a nobody like Hutchinson retroactively become a witness with total recall of a triumphantly convenient kind...)

M.

[Gary Barnett]

Or perhaps she remembered her killer from the time his kids went to school with her pimp's kids...

I don't know much at all about McCarthy. Do you have him down as a serious player, with muscle? (Jeeezus, I sound like my old dad...)

(You may not have seen me ask this; but here and there online I've wondered aloud whether Lechmere might have had gangland connections -- the kind that could make a nobody like Hutchinson retroactively become a witness with total recall of a triumphantly convenient kind...)

M.

On the days Lech did the school run?

I think McCarthy would have needed muscle to protect his business interests. I’m not convinced he was a pimp or anything seriously criminal, but he wasn’t a man to be messed with, and ripping one of his tenants to pieces would have qualified as messing.

Are you familiar with Billy Maher? He seems to have been muscle for the McCarthies at a slightly later date.

[Mark J D]

... On the days Lech did the school run? ...

"Hello Mary Jane!"
"Hello Charles! Fancy seeing you here in Commercial Street!"
"Yes, fancy!"
"How is young Mary Jane?"
"Young Mary Jane is fine, thank you. She's doing well at schuwel, and helps me with my spelling. She even brings back pieces of chalk for me, so I can practise writing on walls. I say: you don't know anywhere quiet I can stay tonight, do you? I want to see the Lord Mayor's Show tomorrow morning. Yes, really..."

M.

[Edward Stow]

Hello Mary Jane haven't seen you since I picked me nippers up when they went rand Maywood's gaff of a weekend.

Weren't it after school mister Lechmere?

Nah, of a weekend. I never had no chance after school because of me work, didn't I.

Oh yeah Mister Lechmere that's right. I tell yer wot, why not come rand me place in Miller's Court here to talk more...

[Gary Barnett]

Hello Mary Jane haven't seen you since I picked me nippers up when they went rand Maywood's gaff of a weekend.

Weren't it after school mister Lechmere?

Nah, of a weekend. I never had no chance after school because of me work, didn't I.

Oh yeah Mister Lechmere that's right. I tell yer wot, why not come rand me place in Miller's Court here to talk more...

Ah yes, one of those jelly and ice cream events in Breezers Hill, complete with a very realistic Punch and Judy show performed by Joe Brescher and Lottie Jones.

[Edward Stow]

Or a game of hoop and stick with a bit of bread and dripping.
I know times were hard back then, but were they so hard that kids couldn't play out with their neighbourhood schoolmates? Or even go round their house/brothel?

[Mark J D]

I will consult the plans when I get a chance

Here's another one. Anyone have good enough eyes to see where a gate or two might formerly have been, along that far wall...?

M.

[Gary Barnett]

It’s been a while since I’ve given any thought to this. Can anyone tell me why the entrance couldn’t have been in Liverpool Street (bottom right of photo)?

[Edward Stow]

The public entrance was by those buses.
There were two sets of platforms - one above the other - I seem to recall - with lifts to raise goods up and down to the yards far below.
the goods entrance address was around the corner to the left. I think.