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I am transferring this post from another thread:
I am going to make what many will think is a provocative post - I will state that I can prove that Lechmere is a very good suspect, to such a degree that no other suspect can compete with him.
So how do I suppose to do that? I am going to do that by looking at how the police identify suspects in cases that can be compared to the Ripper case, meaning cases of multiple murder where no killer has been identified.
There is an old triumvirate of pointers that has always been looked at as a suspect identification kit; opportunity, motive and means. Although Lechmere is as good as any other suspect going by this measuring method, we are going to look at another triumvirate of things - the exact three points the police will look at in cases like the Ripper case.
Logically enough, we will start with point number one, that I will call "presence".
1. Presence is more or less similar to opportunity in the old scale. Presence can be described as having been close enough to the murder site to enable for a person to have been the killer. Of course, if there are other circumstances that rule somebody out as the killer, that must be weighed in. An example would be if somebody has been killed by lifting and dropping a 200 pound stone on the victim, and a tiny old lady is found at the site.
If there are no such obstacles to disenable a person present at the site to have been the killer, then that person moves on to a check for point number two. He or she can do so alone or in company with other people who have been present at the site and who cannot point to something that would disenable them to be the killer.
2. The next point has a lengthy name: anomalies/lies/discrepancies. It boils down to how the police will interview everybody who has some sort of link to the murder, geographically or otherwise. Once the statements have been collected, what the police will do is to look at the various statements and compare them to each other in order to see if any of the statements fall out of the frame in any way. Is there any of the witnesses and involved parties who gives information that is in any way out of sync with the collective picture painted of the event? If there is one or more such persons, then they will move on to the third and final sieve of the process: the geography.
3. Once the police have a person who has cleared the hurdles of points one and two, so to speak, they will check that person for point number three: the geography. It can be said that those who tick box number one are all so called persons of interest. And it can then be said that those who click the second box too, are suspects.
What remains to be looked into at this stage is the geographical factor: Is there proof or indications that the suspect has been at or had reason to be at more murder sites at the relevant times than the particular one that made him or her a person of interest in the first place?
This is how police forces investigating cases of multiple murder should go about an investigation into the persons who have been found in the vicinity of any of the murder spots of their investigations. And lo and behold, Charles Lechmere ticks each and every box! And he does so in splendid solitude - most of the suspects named in the Ripper case do not even tick a single one of the boxes. The fewest tick one of them, and as far as I can see, nobody ticks two - but for Lechmere, who ticks all three.
For good measure, let´s look at three popular suspects from this angle, Aaron Kosminski, George Hutchinson and Francis Tumblety. In Aarons case, he is not proven to have been present at any of the sites, he is not recorded as having disagreed with any of the witnesses and persons involved in the case and he is not proven to have had any reson at all to visit the other murder sites at the relevant hours. So zero points - a bad suspect, using this method. George Hutchinson may have been in Dorset Street, but he may equallly not have been there - Walter Dew points to how Hutch could/would have been out on the time/days. We do not know of any anomalies/lies mentioned by him (the description of Astrakhan man is not a proven lie in any way, nor is it any anomaly), and we have no reason to think that he must have been at any of the other murder sites at the relevant hours. So half a point, and another bad suspect going on the scale we use. Last, Tumblety - no proof of presence, no proof or lies, anomalies or discrepancies telling him apart from the witnesses involved and no reason to think he would have been at the other sites. Another zero pointer, therefore, and a bad suspect.
So it seems Lechmere is unique by ticking all three boxes, the person of interest presence box, the suspect anomalies/lies/discrepancies box and the geographical confirmation box.
A very special man, Lechmere!
I am going to make what many will think is a provocative post - I will state that I can prove that Lechmere is a very good suspect, to such a degree that no other suspect can compete with him.
So how do I suppose to do that? I am going to do that by looking at how the police identify suspects in cases that can be compared to the Ripper case, meaning cases of multiple murder where no killer has been identified.
There is an old triumvirate of pointers that has always been looked at as a suspect identification kit; opportunity, motive and means. Although Lechmere is as good as any other suspect going by this measuring method, we are going to look at another triumvirate of things - the exact three points the police will look at in cases like the Ripper case.
Logically enough, we will start with point number one, that I will call "presence".
1. Presence is more or less similar to opportunity in the old scale. Presence can be described as having been close enough to the murder site to enable for a person to have been the killer. Of course, if there are other circumstances that rule somebody out as the killer, that must be weighed in. An example would be if somebody has been killed by lifting and dropping a 200 pound stone on the victim, and a tiny old lady is found at the site.
If there are no such obstacles to disenable a person present at the site to have been the killer, then that person moves on to a check for point number two. He or she can do so alone or in company with other people who have been present at the site and who cannot point to something that would disenable them to be the killer.
2. The next point has a lengthy name: anomalies/lies/discrepancies. It boils down to how the police will interview everybody who has some sort of link to the murder, geographically or otherwise. Once the statements have been collected, what the police will do is to look at the various statements and compare them to each other in order to see if any of the statements fall out of the frame in any way. Is there any of the witnesses and involved parties who gives information that is in any way out of sync with the collective picture painted of the event? If there is one or more such persons, then they will move on to the third and final sieve of the process: the geography.
3. Once the police have a person who has cleared the hurdles of points one and two, so to speak, they will check that person for point number three: the geography. It can be said that those who tick box number one are all so called persons of interest. And it can then be said that those who click the second box too, are suspects.
What remains to be looked into at this stage is the geographical factor: Is there proof or indications that the suspect has been at or had reason to be at more murder sites at the relevant times than the particular one that made him or her a person of interest in the first place?
This is how police forces investigating cases of multiple murder should go about an investigation into the persons who have been found in the vicinity of any of the murder spots of their investigations. And lo and behold, Charles Lechmere ticks each and every box! And he does so in splendid solitude - most of the suspects named in the Ripper case do not even tick a single one of the boxes. The fewest tick one of them, and as far as I can see, nobody ticks two - but for Lechmere, who ticks all three.
For good measure, let´s look at three popular suspects from this angle, Aaron Kosminski, George Hutchinson and Francis Tumblety. In Aarons case, he is not proven to have been present at any of the sites, he is not recorded as having disagreed with any of the witnesses and persons involved in the case and he is not proven to have had any reson at all to visit the other murder sites at the relevant hours. So zero points - a bad suspect, using this method. George Hutchinson may have been in Dorset Street, but he may equallly not have been there - Walter Dew points to how Hutch could/would have been out on the time/days. We do not know of any anomalies/lies mentioned by him (the description of Astrakhan man is not a proven lie in any way, nor is it any anomaly), and we have no reason to think that he must have been at any of the other murder sites at the relevant hours. So half a point, and another bad suspect going on the scale we use. Last, Tumblety - no proof of presence, no proof or lies, anomalies or discrepancies telling him apart from the witnesses involved and no reason to think he would have been at the other sites. Another zero pointer, therefore, and a bad suspect.
So it seems Lechmere is unique by ticking all three boxes, the person of interest presence box, the suspect anomalies/lies/discrepancies box and the geographical confirmation box.
A very special man, Lechmere!
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