Charles Allen Cross Or Was It Letchmere?
The Suspect, known as Charles Allen Cross, AKA Charles Allen Letchmere
Derek Osborne, writing in the true crime mystery magazine Ripperana in July 2001, first suggested that the man who was discovered standing at the scene of the crime in Buck’s Row on August 31st 1888, should be considered a serious contender for the role of Jack the Ripper.
In 2005, Michael Connor wrote an article on casebook.org that began, “Charles Cross is a serious suspect for the Whitechapel murders”.
In 2012, The Daily Telegraph reported: “Jack the Ripper experts believe the real identity of the Whitechapel serial killer is Charles Cross, the cartman who ‘found’ the body of Polly Nichols.”
Then, in 2014, Swedish journalist Christer Holmgren went for the same Charles Cross.
Jack the Ripper: The Missing Evidence
He said that he had spent 30 years investigating the case and was revealing his findings in a Channel 5 documentary titled Jack the Ripper: The Missing Evidence.
Christer Holmgren says that most killers of this sort are men who can melt into the background. He believes the killer was not a royal prince or a doctor but just an ordinary working man.
The Criminologist and a Profile of a Serial Killer
Criminologist Dr Gareth Norris agrees. His profile of the killer shows that the killer would have been an unremarkable local man.
Gareth Norris explains that criminologists now have a clearer understanding of the kind of men who become serial killers.
This kind of person will have had a troubled background, and the fantasies they have will have taken time to develop.
Dr Gareth Norris believes the killer was in their mid to late 30s or even early 40s. And in the records of the police, Gareth Norris says there is a man who fits this profile.
Found at the Scene of the Crime
A man on his way to work called Robert Paul claimed that he had come across the body and that another man was standing over the body at the time.
The two men said later that they weren’t sure if she was alive or dead, but as they were late for work, they set off intending to tell a policeman. Just minutes after leaving Polly Nichols’s body, they met Police Constable Jonas Mizen.
Christer Holmgren’s case rests on the fact that this man was standing at the scene of the crime within minutes of the murder being carried out.
And Christer believes when you add in three lies told by the man who gave his name at the inquest as Charles Allen Cross the case against him grows stronger.
The First Lie
The first lie, says Christer, is that nobody was listed at 22 Doveton Street under the name Charles Allen Cross. Instead, there was a Charles Allen Letchmere.
Christer Holmgren then discovered research carried out in 2005 that showed that in an 1861 census record, Charles Allen Letchmere was recorded with the surname Cross.
He was then a 12-year-old boy who had been listed with the surname of his stepfather, Thomas Cross.
In all, there are 120 official documents relating to the man who at the inquest, called himself Cross. In 119 his name is Charles Allen Letchmere. Christer asks why he lied about his name.
The Second Lie
The second lie was that he told the police he left home at 3:30 and arrived at the murder site 10 minutes later at 3:40.
Accompanied by ex-superintendent Andy Griffiths, Christer Holmgren did the same walk, and it only took them 7 minutes.
In the documentary, forensic physician Dr Payne-James estimated that the murder and mutilation of Polly Nichols did not take longer than a couple of minutes. He also believed there would not be much blood, if any, on the killer.
The Third Lie
The third lie was when he and Robert Paul met Police Constable Mizen. Jonas Mizen said that Cross told him that a woman was lying in Buck’s Row, and there was a policeman with the body.
Cross knew there was no policeman there when he and Robert Paul left the body. Christer says “It seems he was lying.”
“There is a case to be answered.”
In the documentary, ex-superintendent Andy Griffiths says there is a case to be answered. “Certainly, in the modern age, you couldn’t prosecute anybody else without eliminating him first because, obviously, you’ve got someone who’s been with the body very close to the point of death.”
So was Charles Allen Letchmere the serial killer who features in every Jack the Ripper true crime tour of London?
Was Letchmere a match for known serial killers?
Criminologist Dr Gareth Norris discovered clues in Letchmere’s early life that match many known serial killers.
Letchmere never knew his biological father and had several step-fathers. Serial killers often come from broken homes. They also tend to have been moved around often. As a child, Letchmere moved home many times.
He was 39 years old at the time of the murders, married and had fathered 12 children. Yet he always lived with or close to his mother.
And Gareth Norris believes that it is significant that two months before the murders began, Letchmere moved out of his mother’s home, leaving the eldest daughter to remain with the mother. Norris believes there may have been some traumatic event that precipitated this.
He was within 20 or 25 minutes of where all the murders took place.
His new home in Doveton Street was within 20 or 25 minutes of where all the murders took place.
Martha Tabram was murdered in a stairwell in the George Yard Building on Gunthorpe Street, just yards from Old Montague Street, one of the most direct routes to work for Letchmere.
Annie Chapman was murdered in the backyard of 29 Hanbury Street. Hanbury Street was also on a direct route from Doveton Street to Letchmere’s place of work on Broad Street.
Norris says the murder of Liz Stride took place at the centre of the cluster of houses in which Letchmere grew up.
Also, Letchmere might have been visiting his mother, and his walk from Doveton Street to her home would have taken him close to the site of Liz Stride’s murder.
They suggest that he was disturbed before he could begin the mutilation of Liz Stride and so ran to where he was sure he could find another victim.
Forty minutes later, he murdered Kate Eddowes in Mitre Square.
New Evidence from the Murder of Mary Jane Kelly Completes the Case.
Then came the final murder. The murder of Mary Jane Kelly on November the 9th, 1888.
The documentary claims that new evidence from this brutal murder completes the case against Charles Allen Letchmere.
The new evidence is historian Arthur Ingram's discovery that Charles Alan Letchmere was a delivery driver who delivered meat. This, they say, explains a mystery.
Mary Jane Kelly was subjected to the worst of all the mutilations.
Letchmere was a Meat Delivery Man.
The documentary says: “It has always been a mystery how the killer could have left Kelly’s room unnoticed when he must have been covered in blood. But there is one more tantalising fact that could explain that mystery.”
The tantalising fact is that being a delivery driver who delivers meat, “his clothes would be dirty and he maybe be soiled”.
The documentary then says, “Arriving at the Broad Street depot with an apron smeared with blood would barely have raised an eyebrow.”
Beyond Reasonable Doubt
Christer says, “If he wasn’t the killer, then he was the unluckiest person in the world because he suddenly developed some sort of a habit of always passing by as somebody was killed in those streets”.
The documentary ends by saying Christer Holmgren believes beyond reasonable doubt that Charles Allen Letchmere was Jack the Ripper.
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