Police 5 Eyewitnesses 1
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Hello, I’m Richard Walker, with the fifth post in my series examining the history and background of the police who were faced with the Whitechapel murders, or what today are more often referred to as the Jack the Ripper murders.
In my previous post, I looked at how much the Metropolitan Police Force and the City of London Police Force were able to cooperate by looking at the events surrounding the night of ‘the double event’, the night of September 30 1888. This was a night when each of London’s two police forces was faced with a brutal murder.
One in Berner Street, which for the Metropolitan Police was their third murder in less than five weeks, all with very similar victims and all within a twenty-minute walk of each other.
One was in Mitre Square and was the only one of the Jack the Ripper murders that took place in the City of London.
Looking at how the two police forces operated that night, it isn’t obvious that a lack of cooperation was a major problem in investigating the crimes committed.
However, if we look at how the investigation proceeded, problems were inevitably caused by the fact that detective work was still in its early years.
Attitudes to eyewitness evidence were very different then. Indeed, it is only relatively recently that the reliability of eyewitness evidence has been seriously questioned.
The use of DNA by forensics teams has uncovered some glaring miscarriages of justice caused by reliance on eyewitness evidence.
The Innocence Project was founded in 1992 and has been investigating criminal convictions in the USA. By 2023, 318 convictions had been overturned. Eighteen of those convictions were men who were on death row.
The Innocence Project website reports that:
“Eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide, playing a role in 72% of convictions overturned through DNA testing”.
In the UK in 2009, William Mills was convicted of robbing a Glasgow bank.
Two police officers identified him from CCTV footage.
Two customers in the bank at the time of the robbery picked Mills out of an identity parade.
Six months into his nine-year jail sentence, DNA evidence from the scene was matched to a different person.
Research has shown that it is a myth that we are good at recognising faces. We are successful only when we are very familiar with a person. We are poor at recognising faces we have only seen briefly.
Research also shows that while eyewitnesses can often be correct right after a crime occurs, interviewing and questioning can contaminate their memories.
Eyewitnesses are generally motivated by a desire to help, which can lead them to attempt to “fill in the blanks” or come up with information they are unsure about.
The more times a witness is asked to recount what happened, the more likely their memories will become contaminated.
In the previous post, the fourth in the series on the London police, it is clear from the ‘Night of the Double Event’ that a lack of cooperation between the two police forces was not a major factor in investigating the crimes of ‘Jack the Ripper’.
The attitude to the testimony by eyewitnesses may well have been a major factor.
Liz Stride, the first of the two women murdered on September 30th. Louis Diemschutz discovered her body at one o’clock in the morning at the entrance to Dutfield’s Yard on Berner Street.
Like Polly Nichols and Annie Chapman, her throat had been cut, but unlike them, there were no other mutilations. The police believed this was because the man who discovered her body, Louis Diemshutz, had interrupted the killer before he could complete his work.
The killer then hid in the shadows, and when Louis went in to fetch a light, he ran, filled with pent-up rage, to Mitre Square, where he murdered and mutilated Kate Eddowes.
Inspector Frederick Abberline, his boss, Superintendent Donald Swanson, Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Robert Anderson, Commissioner Sir Charles Warren, and the newspapers all accepted this explanation, and it is the story that Jack the Ripper writers and tour guides will tell today.
The idea that two separate killers were out on the same night, each determined to cut their victim’s throats, and each within less than an hour of each other and less than a mile from one another, would seem too much of a coincidence.
The explanation for the murder was unambiguous.
The police, the newspapers and the majority of modern experts are clear about how these women became murder victims.
Philip Sugden, in his book The Complete History of Jack the Ripper, states the case most succinctly when he writes:
“Polly Nichols and the other victims, prostitutes all, accustomed to accosting men and taking them to dark and unfrequented byways and yards for sex greatly facilitated his crimes.”
Eyewitness evidence about Liz Stride’s activities in the hours before her murder fits with this story and may well be a reason that it was accepted.
Before looking at that eyewitness evidence, let’s get an idea of what Berner Street and the area around it were like at one in the morning of September 30 1888.
The first police officer to arrive at the scene of Liz Stride’s murder, PC Lamb, was asked at the inquest if he noticed anything suspicious in the area immediately before the body was discovered, and he said he did not. He said, “There were squabbles and rows in the streets, but nothing more.”
Another witness confirmed that people were on the streets around the time of the murder.
Edward Spooner explained that between half-past twelve and one o'clock, he was standing “outside the Beehive Public house, at the corner of Christian street, with my young woman.
We had left a public house on Commercial Road at closing time, midnight, and walked quietly to the point named. We stood outside the Beehive for about twenty-five minutes.”
So, there were couples on the streets at that hour in the morning that could cause confusion when it came to identifying the victim before she was murdered.
Identification would be made more difficult because the lighting was far from ideal.
The moon was waning at about one-third of its full brightness, and heavy rain had lasted until after midnight. So, at one o’clock that morning, weak moonlight behind 100% cloud cover would do nothing to aid visibility.
At the inquest, the Coroner explained:
"The parish plan shows that there are four lamps within 350 feet, from Commercial Road to Fairclough Street.”
Constable Lamb added:
“There are no public house lights in Berner Street.”
So, the only illumination provided for the length of Berner Street, over 100 yards, was from just four gas lights.
Visit St James’s Park on a cloudy night, and you will see the charming yellow glow from the gas lights. They are charming partly because the amount of light thrown from them is far less than from any modern electric street light.
On the fourth day of the inquest, three men gave their testimony against a background of less-than-ideal lighting conditions.
William Marshall said that he saw the deceased at about a quarter to midnight. She was on the opposite side of Berner Street from where the body was discovered an hour and a quarter later.
William Marshall said she was talking to a man three doors from his house.
He said he recognised her by her face and dress as the woman he had been shown in the mortuary.
Now, it is worth remembering that research has shown that it is a myth that we are good at recognising faces. We are successful only when we are very familiar with a person. We are poor at recognising faces we have only seen briefly.
Research also shows that while eyewitnesses can often be correct right after a crime occurs, interviewing and questioning can contaminate their memories.
Eyewitnesses are generally motivated by a desire to help, which can lead them to attempt to “fill in the blanks” or come up with information they are unsure about.
The more times a witness is asked to recount what happened, the more likely their memories will become contaminated.
Then consider William Marshall’s reply when the coroner asked if he could describe the man. He said:
“There was no gas lamp near. The nearest was at the corner, about twenty feet off. I did not see the face of the man distinctly.”
If bad lighting meant he could “not see the face of the man distinctly”, why should we believe he could see the face of the woman he was talking with distinctly?
Immediately after this witness came James Brown, who said:
“I live in Fairclough Street and am a dock labourer. I have seen the body in the mortuary. I did not know the deceased, but I saw her about a quarter to one on Sunday morning last.”
The same caveats about William Marshall’s evidence apply to James Brown’s evidence.
Immediately after James Brown claimed to have seen the victim one hour after William Marshall claimed to have seen her, Police Constable William Smith told the same story.
The Coroner asked if he had noticed any man or woman in Berner Street. Constable Smith said:
“Yes, talking together.”
He added: “I saw her face, and I think the body at the mortuary is that of the same woman”.
When asked if he saw the man's face, he replied:
“He had no whiskers, but I did not notice him much.”
Let’s be fair. The job of a beat policeman was tough.
Imagine spending hours walking the same circuit of less than one mile in one of London's poorest districts in the early hours of a dreary autumn night.
Could you honestly say you would be on heightened alert, determined to remember every face you passed during the long, weary hours?
I have just returned from a walk to my local shops. I passed a number of men, but now, as I write this, I realise that I couldn’t describe or pick out of a line any single man I passed because, as Constable Smith said, “I did not notice him much.”
Of course, if I were a beat policeman explaining to a magistrate the events surrounding the murder of a woman that took place in the middle of the tiny territory I was supposed to be taking care of, and the magistrate asked the leading question, “Had you noticed any man or woman in Berner Street when you were there before?”
I might want to answer with something other than, “No, governor, I didn’t notice anything.” Even if that required a little creative thinking on my part.
Three eyewitnesses with three separate sightings. One before midnight, one at quarter to one, and a police officer who claims he saw the victim at about 12:30.
Three sightings that all help confirm the theory that the victim was a prostitute talking with the client who she had accosted and who would later murder her.
Three eyewitness testimonies that helped focus the investigation by the police on the single theory that they were looking for a prostitute killer.
Other evidence presented by Constable Smith requires a close look, which we will do in the next post.
Thank you for checking out this post.