Ripperologist 147 December Mary Kelly

[Christer Holmgren]

Cherry picking, Christer.
Poor Trev has a point.
Your giving precedence to a newspaper interview over inquest testimony.



The truth.

I could talk to you for hours about cherrypicking, Jon. And maybe I will. However, for now I will just point out a few things.

Cherrypicking means that you favour one part over another, picking the one that suits your argument best. I don´t do that - I recognize BOTH parts. Lechmere and Paul both said standing in the middle of the road at the inquest. The middle of the road is a millimeter wide and more than a hundred yards long, counting from Brady Street down to the schoolhouse. So, if we are to go by that distinction only, Lechmere COULD have been standing anywhere along that line.
So we have to ask ourselves whether there is any further qualification as to where he stood - a qualification that does not only place him along the middle line but also at a level of the street. And that is where the paper interview comes in, telling us that Lechmere was not in the middle of the road up at the schoolhouse corner nor at the Brady Street intersection - he was "where the body was" according to Paul. That is best taken as a distinction telling us that Lechmere stood in height with the body, outside the gates to Brown´s.

And from that stance, he would not have been many feet away from Polly Nichols.
You call this cherrypicking, and I´m afraid that says more about you than about the matter as such.
We have one distinction about the approximate position of Lechmere between the pavements: "In the middle of the road", and that distinction is an approximation that is very liberal. He can have been halfways out in the street, but he could equally have been 30 or 70 per cent out.
Then we have a distinction that places Lechmere along the other axis, the East-West axis. And that distinction says "where the body was". So, reasonably, in height with the body, give or take a little.

I use both distinctions and get a more exact position.

You EXCLUDE one of the distictions, opting to use one only. Oddly enough, the one that strengthens your argument.

So guess who is cherrypicking, Jon?

[Edward Stow]

This is a perverse diversion.

With respect to the heart, taken in the whole it seems overwhelmingly obvious that it was removed. A case can clearly be made that Reid's was mistaken.

With respect to Lechmere's position, Paul initially reported that Lechmere was were the woman was. By anyone's definition that is close.
Lechmere placed himself in the middle of the road. But if he was guilty then we might expect him to increase his distance away from the body.
The discrepancy we have here is between two people, a day apart, describing where one of them was standing - with respect to a dead body. There is a possible implication of guilt or at least suspicion associated with this positioning.
But are the two positionings necessarily conflicting? It is a narrow roadway. Colloquially in the 'middle of the road' need not mean smack bang in the middle. It could imply being over on the Polly Nichols side - where the woman was - near to the body. With the road being so narrow even if he as smack bang in the middle it was still effectively near to where the body was.
So Lechmere's inquest positioning could easily conform to Paul's newspaper report positioning. Just as Paul's inquest testimony can conform to his newspaper interview.

Is there any similarity here between Reid's later contention that no organ was removed, to the historic opinion that an organ was removed?
That is a straight forward 'removed or not removed'. There is no half way house. No possible compromise. The heart was removed or it was not removed.
But either way - the historic proponents of the heart being removed and those that stated it had not been removed could not have been making their case to absolve themselves from personal suspicion.

A seeker for the truth would realise this - surely.
I'm sure other posters will not relish Lechmere being gratuitously brought into this for very very strange (almost obsessional) reasons.

[Joan Tortorello]

Here are a few of the things I've learned since joining this forum so many years ago, and what is amazing is I've learned it all from each and everyone of you here.

1. Do not believe any newspaper account.
2. Do not believe any doctor's reports.
3. Do not believe any witness.
4. Do not believe any police reports.

Common Sense
Newspapers are about one thing, selling issues.
Victorian Doctors did not have the science.
Witnesses are self serving.
Victorian Police did not have the science nor skills, nor did they always tell the truth, and they were often as self serving as the newspapers.

I've read in some newspaper accounts, the heart was taken. I've read in some newspaper reports the heart wasn't taken. (I think they were newspaper reports, it all gets hazy after a while.) I've read where one doctor says, yes there was surgical knowledge. I've read another doctor say, there was no medical knowledge. I've read accounts by high ranking and low ranking police officials that are so different in their facts and accusations it's incredible. Witnesses were so all over the place with their information that their stories just cannot be believed.

I have no idea who did it or what happened, and I don't believe anybody does. I don't believe anybody at the time had a clue either. The theories all come and go rather quickly, and each has solved the case via some fantastical leap of logic that boggles the mind; the goal there is to sell books.

5. We get tunnel vision.
6. We get tunnel vision.

I've learned from each of you. I've learned from Mr. Marriott and quite a lot. I really, really hate to see him go because of a ridiculous thread that is going to solve nothing or add anything to the historical value of the case. Mr. Marriott has a voice that questions. I appreciate that because I don't have the expertise to argue some points that I see flawed. We are all flawed in our thinking at times. I depend on Mr. Marriott and all of you to argue those points for me. I depend on you all to root out the logic, and put a best possibility forward. To many have left or given up; let's not lose another over nonsense.

Often though some of us get stuck on the trees in the forest instead of seeing the entire forest. That forest overview takes you all, Mr. Marriott, Mr. Howard and each of you to make it more than a few trees that catches our jacket as we walk by. Unfortunately in the passion of the discussions, I see siege mentalities reign, and tunnel vision reign. I can't speak for anybody else, but I'll see a theory and say oh oh! Good! Job! Then one of you guys with your expertise comes along and zonks it out of existence. It's the collective you that does this for me. We need to keep open minds, and we need to allow others to have their theories whether we agree or not.

I'm asking you Mr. Marriott to please not leave and to keep questioning and arguing for me. Don't be shouted down. It doesn't matter who is right or wrong. It only matters that the questioning happens and that it continues to happen. I don't have the time or money to research, so I count on you to kick the information right or wrong into play for me. I don't have the knowledge to stand up to the research shown here by each of you, but you do.

[Jon Simons]

Okay, Jon - I´ll just use Pauls initial statement, then:

Cherry picking, Christer.
Poor Trev has a point.
Your giving precedence to a newspaper interview over inquest testimony.

What puzzles me is why anybody would question that Lechmere WAS close to the body...? Why would anybody feel a need to deny it?

The truth.

[Gary Barnett]

Stigmatism of disbelievers as stick-in-the-mud traditionalists who don't have the courage or the wit to abandon received opinions is one of the most useful tools in the theorist's box.

It's easy for him to pull the wool over the eyes of the general public, if he can tell a convincing tale, but how does he brush off the carping of those annoying Ripperologists who want to dig deep into the detail and refuse to see the elegance of the 'big picture'?

The answer is to characterise them as either deluded theorists or hopeless traditionalists. Then point out that these sad few are vastly outnumbered by your own legions of supporters.

I'm not referring specifically to Trevor here. Bruce Robinson is the classic recent example. But there have been others and, as Trevor might say, they know who they are.

[Robert Linford]

Trev, does it matter whether other posters on here agree with you? Of course it doesn't - not a sausage. The important thing is that you have the freedom to state your point of view. Whether or not other posters - or even the general public - agree with you is out of your hands.

The aim, surely, is to win arguments, not converts. If you think you've won the argument, then why should you care whether people agree with you?

[Christer Holmgren]

I really wish there was some way that you could both support a theory AND be regarded as trustworthy.
That´s probably asking for the moon, though.

Why change a simple statement like the middle of the road to close to the body, Christer ?

Okay, Jon - I´ll just use Pauls initial statement, then: Standing where the body was.
You see, I never "changed" any statement at all. Given the width of the street, Charles Lechmere was close to the body. Close enough, at any rate, to have been in contact with it before Paul arrived.

What puzzles me is why anybody would question that Lechmere WAS close to the body...? Why would anybody feel a need to deny it?

[Jon Simons]

Jon
Perhaps you need to address that question to Robert Paul. Is he a member of this forum?

Sadly not, Ed. But I have the reports of his and Cross`s inquest testimony to hand and I can`t see close to the body anywhere - they both state "middle of the road" though

I guess it`s a case of evaluating sources again.
Which do we go with ? The news paper interview or the inquest testimonies ?
An agenda to defend ?

[Edward Stow]

Jon
Perhaps you need to address that question to Robert Paul. Is he a member of this forum?

[Edward Stow]

Trevor could be alone and he could be correct. I don't think the numbers game means anything in such discussions.
But as Debra said some posts back - whether or not the heart was still there or whether it was taken away by the culprit, has long been a subject of contention. I don't think it is a hard and fast 'fact'.
Having said that I would suggest that the weight of contemporary evidence strongly points to it being missing.
Like many features of the Ripper case and indeed many features of any historical investigation - criminal, dynastic, social, military, you name it - there is a degree of ambiguity that allows for alternative interpretations.

However Trevor is trying to make it a hard and fast fact that the heart was still there. The dogmatism seems to be coming from Trevor.
This obviously is in line with his theory that the internal organs of other victims were not removed either - but were harvested by medical men who visited the mortuaries after the victims were taken there.
It seems to me that Trevor is guilty of fact creation in order to buttress his theory.

[Jon Simons]

I really wish there was some way that you could both support a theory AND be regarded as trustworthy.
That´s probably asking for the moon, though.

Why change a simple statement like the middle of the road to close to the body, Christer ?

[Christer Holmgren]

I'm sorry, Trevor, but what "many others" share your opinion about this? Nobody seems to be sharing your opinion here? And there are a lot of knowledgeable people arguing against you here, not theorists with some agenda to defend.

I really wish there was some way that you could both support a theory AND be regarded as trustworthy.
That´s probably asking for the moon, though.

[Paul]

You may then look at this in the way I and many others now do.
-Trevor Marriott-

No offense, because I do my utmost to be objective, Trev, which I think you know....but lets face it...there are no 'many others' who follow your line of thinking on this issue.
Had there been, at least one of them would speak up.

Sorry, Howard, I really must learn to read down to the bottom of a thread before commenting.

[Paul]

W You may then look at this in the way I and many others now do.

I'm sorry, Trevor, but what "many others" share your opinion about this? Nobody seems to be sharing your opinion here? And there are a lot of knowledgeable people arguing against you here, not theorists with some agenda to defend.

[Jon Simons]

Fuckin` hell.
Trevor`s leaving, and I just got myself some rose tinted blinkers for xmas.