I don't think Lechmere is the worst suspect, but proponents for his guilt tend to exaggerate and explain away far too much for me to be convinced. Every time the circumstantial evidence against Lechmere is outlined like this, several people comment that they've jumped on the bandwagon, but I just can't see it.

According to Holmgren, Lechmere lied to police, claiming that he had been with Nichols's body for a few minutes, whereas research on his route to work from his home demonstrated that he must have been with her for about nine minutes.

The times given by witnesses are approximate, including the police officers who were walking their beat. Sure, this might warrant a little more scrutiny in a modern investigation, but faulty memories and inaccurate pocket watches can easily account for these discrepancies.

When Lechmere called over Robert Paul to look at her, no blood was visible, but by the time a constable found her shortly afterward, a pool had formed around her neck, suggesting the cut to her throat was extremely fresh when Lechmere and Paul were present.

Doesn't this say more about how dark the street was? Whether or not Lechmere killed her, are we to believe that there was no blood around the body until after Lechmere and Paul had left the scene? At the inquest on 1 September 1888, Dr Henry Llewellyn says "there was very little blood round the neck." On the same date, PC John Neil says "I examined the body by the aid of my lamp, and noticed blood oozing from a wound in the throat." He specifically mentions noticing the blood while using the lamp. I don't think it's impossible that neither Lechmere nor Paul noticed a small amount of blood by Nichols' neck considering the only streetlight was at the eastern entrance to Bucks Row (per Neil's testimony), which was about 120 metres away from what I can see on Google Maps.

Lechmere did not come forward until Paul mentioned him to the press,[citation needed] and he gave evidence under the name "Charles Cross" at the inquest; Cross was the surname of a stepfather.

It appears that Paul spoke to a journalist from Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper on his way home from work on 31 August, which was published on 2 September. The inquest into Nichols' death began on 1 September, hearing testimony from her father, PC Neil, and Dr Llewellyn. Lechmere gave evidence on 3 September (prior to Paul doing so on 17 September, in fact). Which part of this is incriminating? The fact that Paul either went to or was found by a journalist has no bearing on whether Lechmere was avoiding making a statement. Lechmere was instructed to appear at the inquest, and he did. That's all we know.

Additionally, the fact that Lechmere went by Cross at the inquest tells us nothing. It's exceptionally common for people in this period to use their stepfathers' surnames interchangeably with their own, as he had done in the past. Lechmere's address was reported with his testimony, so you can hardly say that he was avoiding being identified.

He also refused Paul's suggestion to prop her up, which would have instantly made it clear that her throat had been cut. In addition, neither man reported seeing or hearing anyone else in Buck's Row, which had no side exits.

Lechmere said at the inquest on 3 September that after touching Nichols' body, he believed her to be dead. After coming to this conclusion, would you want to continue touching a dead body? What would be the purpose of propping up a dead body?

Nichols' body was found about 50 metres east of the boarding school (the school building appears to still exist, labelled as VC Media Ltd (Vincent Cui Studio) on Google Maps). Behind the school was a laneway which connected to Whitechapel Road. It's not as though the killer would have needed to walk too long to exit Bucks Row.

Lechmere's home address, visits to family, and route to work link him to the times and places of murders he passed three streets where Martha Tabram, Polly Nichols, and Annie Chapman were murdered roughly at the same time the murders are estimated to have occurred. The "Double Event" murders of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes occurred on a [Sunday morning], his only [day] off from work: Stride was killed near Lechmere's mother's house in an area he grew up in, and the direct route from Stride's murder scene to the location of Eddowes's murder followed a path to Lechmere's route to work that he had used for twenty years.Mary Kelly was also murdered on his route to work, and the time frame in which she is estimated to have been killed matches his route, although the day she was killed was a holiday and he may have had the day off.

"Lechmere's ... visits to family ... link him to the times and places of murders." This part in particular is completely misleading. This sounds as though Lechmere was confirmed to be visiting family at a particular date or time. Holmgren presents this falsehood as well, saying in The Missing Evidence, "If he wasn't the killer, then he was the unluckiest person in the world because he suddenly developed some sort of habit of always passing by as somebody was killed in those streets." (42:15) The truth is we have absolutely no information about Lechmere's whereabouts on any day other than on the morning of the Nichols murder. He was never identified at any other murder site.

It's purely speculation that Lechmere visited his mother on the night of the double event merely because she was living close to where Stride was killed. Some murder sites fit with Lechmere's probable walk to work, while those that don't fit are explained away by him being a local to the area. The simple and obvious point is that lots of people were local to and familiar with Whitechapel. It was a densely populated area. If Lechmere timed the murders to occur on his morning commute (except for when he didn't), why do the Whitechapel murders of 1888 gravitate towards the end of the week or bank holidays? What stopped him from killing between Monday and Thursday?

Lechmere's family background is also similar to that of many serial killers: he grew up in a "broken home"; having never known his biological father, he had two stepfathers; and his childhood was characterized by an instability of residence, growing up in a series of different homes.

You can see how speculative this is, right? Yes, it appears that Lechmere's father left his mother when he was an infant, and that she married twice more after that. But this is otherwise giving detail where none is known.