Lechmere in 1912 | |
| Born | 5 October 1849 Strand, London, England |
|---|---|
| Died | 23 December 1920 (aged 71)[1] |
| Known for | Jack the Ripper suspect |
| Spouse(s) | (m. 1870) |
| Children | 12 |
Charles Allen Lechmere (5 October 1849 – 23 December 1920), also known as Charles Cross, was a carman (cart driver) from the east side of London who apparently worked for the Pickfords company for more than 20 years. He is suspected by some as having been the infamous serial killer Jack the Ripper.
Lechmere/Cross was long regarded as an innocent witness who discovered the body of Mary Ann Nichols, the first of the Ripper's five canonical victims. The possibility that he might actually be the Whitechapel Murderer was first proposed in 2001 by Derek Osborne in the magazine Ripperana.[2] The carman's possible guilt was further discussed by Michael Connor in three issues of The Ripperologist.[3][4][5][6]
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Mainstream awareness of Lechmere grew in 2014 when journalist Christer Holmgren and criminologist Gareth Norris explored the case against him in the 2014 Channel Five documentary Jack the Ripper: The Missing Evidence.[7][8] In 2021, Holmgren produced a book[9] in which Lechmere is linked not only to the Whitechapel Murders, but also to the longer series of killings known as the Thames Torso Murders.
Biography[edit]
Charles Lechmere was born on 5 October 1849, in the Strand, London, England, the son of John Allen Lechmere and Maria Louisa Roulson. Charles Lechmere had a 'broken home' growing up, having had two stepfathers and never knowing his real father. Lechmere's childhood was also characterized by instability of residence, being raised in a series of different homes. Lechmere married Elizabeth Bostock in 1870 and had twelve children. Lechmere died in December 1920 at the age of seventy-one.
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Jack the Ripper suspect[edit]
In Lechmere's testimony to the Nichols inquest, he claimed that he was walking to work down Buck's Row when he discovered the body of Mary Ann 'Polly' Nichols at 3:40 AM on 31 August 1888. Robert Paul, who was walking some distance behind, first noticed him standing 'where the woman was'; after he saw Paul, Lechmere brought him over to look at the woman. No blood was described by either man, but by the time a constable found Nichols shortly afterwards, blood had pooled around her neck, suggesting to some that the cut to her throat was very fresh when Lechmere and Paul were present. In addition, neither man reported seeing or hearing anyone else at Buck's Row, which had no side exits.
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It is therefore speculated that Lechmere may have murdered Nichols and begun mutilating her body when he suddenly heard the sound of Paul's footsteps; he then rapidly pulled down her clothing to cover up her wounds and portrayed himself as the discoverer of the body. The 2014 TV documentary also points out that Lechmere did not appear at the inquest until after Paul had been quoted in the press to the effect that another man had been present. At the inquest, Lechmere gave his name as Cross, which was the surname of a long-dead stepfather; no-one named Cross could be found in the census records for the address he supplied, meaning that his true identity was a mystery for well over a century.
The locations of Lechmere's home, family and place of work put him in the vicinity of several 'Ripper' murders and other, extra-canonical killings besides. His logical shortest routes to work -- one passing down Hanbury Street, the other down Old Montague Street -- would have Lechmere pass nearby streets around the same times as Martha Tabram, Polly Nichols, and arguably Annie Chapman were murdered. The murders of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes on the same night (the so-called 'Double Event') took place further south -- and in the small hours of a Sunday, likely the only day Lechmere would not have been travelling from home to work. Stride was killed in proximity to his mother's house and in the area he grew up in; the locality in which Eddowes was murdered would have been well known to him, as it was on the logical route to Broad Street from at least one of his earlier addresses.
Mary Jane Kelly was murdered near the northernmost route to his work, and the time frame in which she is estimated to have been killed is reconcilable with his presumed journey, although the day she was killed was a holiday and he may have had the day off.[10][11][12]
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References[edit]
- ^Jack the Ripper Suspects: The Definitive Guide and EncyclopediaISBN978-1-986-32469-4 p. 32
- ^Ripperana, No. 37, Jul. 2001, p. 12-17
- ^'Casebook: Jack the Ripper - Did the Ripper work for Pickfords?'. casebook.org. Retrieved July 7, 2021.
- ^Ripperologist, No. 72, Oct. 2006
- ^Ripperologist, No. 78, Apr. 2007
- ^Ripperologist, No. 87, May 2017
- ^'The Ripper of our nightmares: 5 theories about Jack the Ripper's identity'. HistoryExtra. Retrieved April 19, 2020.
- ^'Was Jack the Ripper a cart driver from Bethnal Green?'. The Daily Telegraph. August 31, 2012. ISSN0307-1235. Retrieved April 19, 2020.
- ^'Christer Holmgren: 'Cutting Point: Solving the Jack the Ripper and the Thames Torso Murders.' Timaios Press 2021. ISBN 9187611368, 9789187611360'.
- ^'Jack The Ripper: The Missing Evidence'. Five.
- ^'Aberystwyth University – November'. aber.ac.uk.
- ^McCann, Jaymi (November 16, 2014). 'EXCLUSIVE: Police overlooked Ripper 'hiding in plain sight''.