who just watched the History Channel's show on JtR?

[Pontius2000]

first time poster here, though I've been on the site before. I've been interested in this case a long time. I've read numerous books. from all the info I've read, I've come away with 4-5 people that I think are 'good' suspects. Francis Tumblety was never one of them.

so who watched the History Channel's show just now? they presented 2 suspects.....Tumblety and a woman Pearcy (which I found to be kind of laughable). they obviously tried to paint Tumblety as the killer and made a pretty good case. but they also skimmed over some of the details. he never struck me before as a really good suspect, so I was wondering what anyone who saw it thought of the show?

first, they said that he hated women, and prostitutes in particular, because he had discovered that his ex-wife was a prostitute. then, they said that he had a uterus collection that he assorted by social class. they said all this was "newly discovered evidence". my question on this was, how would they know he had a uterus collection? it said that after he left the UK for America, nothing else was heard from him until his death years later in St Louis. so, if anyone knew he had a uterus collection, it would've most likely be the people who interviewed him at Scotland yard. and if they knew that, I can't imagine them letting him go.

the really compelling evidence was handwriting comparisons. they had an expert that compared some of his letters from the time period and she said that her opinion was that wrote the "From Hell" letter. I found the similarities in the two handwriting samples to be very interesting. his 'y's looped down onto the following lines and his "I"s connected to the next word, both like in the "From Hell" letter. and some of the word usages in the "From Hell" letter indicated that the writer was of Irish descent, as Tumblety was.

so my big questions are what did people think of this show and if the evidence is so compelling at Tumblety, why had I never looked much at him before? off the top of my head, I thought Kozminski (?) and George Chapman were solid suspects, in addition to a few others. I also tend to go along with the thought that JtR was problem somebody that caught a VD from a prostitute and that is what caused a lot of the anger and insanity as seen in the crimes. but the show said that Tumblety appeared to be homosexual as he was arrested in London for lewd acts on boys. I don't know many homosexuals, but I don't really know of any who hate women. more often, they seem to hate and blame men for them being homosexual (like Andrew Cunnanan).

[jackthekipper]

Just saw it, wasn't expecting much from the History Channel due to the nonsense they peddle about the rapture and 2012. I actualy thought ti was a repeat when they mentioned Tumblety. The only bit I liked was the profiler bit at the end.

[Pontius2000]

Just saw it, wasn't expecting much from the History Channel due to the nonsense they peddle about the rapture and 2012. I actualy thought ti was a repeat when they mentioned Tumblety. The only bit I liked was the profiler bit at the end.

I didn't care for the profiler part. he was looking for knowledge of area, level of medical knowledge, motive, etc. hell, there were probably 10,000 people living in London at the time that could've fit his profile.

what I found interesting was the handwriting comparisons. I don't know how they determine such things, but the woman said that a person who will extend letters into the following line is a person who will invade the "sexual space" of another. and both the "From Hell" letter and Tumblety's letters both had their "y"s extending into the following lines.

and, I wanted to know where they got this "newly discovered evidence" that Tumblety hated prostitutes and had a uterus collection. they alluded to a police interview, but didn't elaborate and I've never seen the first piece of information about him having a uterus collection. that would seem to be damning info if it were true.

[John Malcolm]

Money, it's a gas. Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash.

- Roger Waters

[JTRSickert]

I only caught the last 10 minutes of it. From what I saw though, they listed various reasons why Tumblety is a viable suspect, but didn't mention anything that is wrong with him being a suspect (e.g. his age, sexual preference, Littlechild's disbelief, etc.)

Then again, I'll have to watch the whole thing to be sure.

[Phil Carter]

suspect..

Hello Pontius,
welcome to the site!

QUOTE from the Casebook on Tumblety.. around the mid 1860's..

.........With the outbreak of the American Civil War, Tumblety moved to the capital and put on the airs of a Union army surgeon, claiming to be friends with President Lincoln, General Grant, and a host of other well-known political figures. It was at this time that Tumblety’s alleged hatred for women became most pronounced, as seen in the testimony of a Colonel Dunham, who was one night invited to dinner by Tumblety:

"Someone asked why he had not invited some women to his dinner. His face instantly became as black as a thunder-cloud. He had a pack of cards in his hand, but he laid them down and said, almost savagely, 'No, Colonel, I don’t know any such cattle, and if I did I would, as your friend, sooner give you a dose of quick poison than take you into such danger.' He then broke into a homily on the sin and folly of dissipation, fiercely denounced all women and especially fallen women.

He then invited us into his office where he illustrated his lecture so to speak. One side of this room was entirely occupied with cases, outwardly resembling wardrobes. When the doors were opened quite a museum was revealed -- tiers of shelves with glass jars and cases, some round and others square, filled with all sorts of anatomical specimens. The ‘doctor’ placed on a table a dozen or more jars containing, as he said, the matrices (uteri) of every class of women. Nearly a half of one of these cases was occupied exclusively with these specimens.

Not long after this the ‘doctor’ was in my room when my Lieutenant-Colonel came in and commenced expatiating on the charms of a certain woman. In a moment, almost, the doctor was lecturing him and denouncing women. When he was asked why he hated women, he said that when quite a young man he fell desperately in love with a pretty girl, rather his senior, who promised to reciprocate his affection. After a brief courtship he married her. The honeymoon was not over when he noticed a disposition on the part of his wife to flirt with other men. He remonstrated, she kissed him, called him a dear jealous fool -- and he believed her. Happening one day to pass in a cab through the worst part of the town he saw his wife and a man enter a gloomy-looking house. Then he learned that before her marriage his wife had been an inmate of that and many similar houses. Then he gave up all womankind."

If any of this account is to be taken at face value, it sets the mood for the ‘misogynist doctor’ so prevalent in Ripper theory and profiling. UNQUOTE


Hope that answers some of your questions

best wishes

Phil

[Pontius2000]

I only caught the last 10 minutes of it. From what I saw though, they listed various reasons why Tumblety is a viable suspect, but didn't mention anything that is wrong with him being a suspect (e.g. his age, sexual preference, Littlechild's disbelief, etc.)

Then again, I'll have to watch the whole thing to be sure.

they didn't mention his age. they did mention his sexual preference, but tried to paint that as a reason for him hating women. I would suspect that if a man hated someone because of his homosexuality, the anger would be towards men, not women.

it was interesting. I'm still of the mindset that the killer probably got something like syphillus from a prostitute that caused him to go mad.

[Brad]

Didnt see the show, but DR T isnt a viable suspect. Profiling is crap, the 21st century version of phrenolgy. Dr T was an oddball and a criminal who was under observation by Special Branch. Special Branch was primarly interested in The Fennians. Dr T was no doubt a Fennian suporter and a funnel for Irish American cash to the Fennians. He had some gay affair and was arrested by the police for that. He escaped back to America. This dude was a very flamboyant guy. He took out Ads in the papers of DC and Baltimore advertizing his practice. He also rode a white charger while being flanked by a brace of greyhounds walked by his black servent daily. He was super visable yet no JTR type murders were comitted in those cities at that time. It would be nice if the TV shows would look into thing before airing nonsense.

[Nunook]

I have to agree that it's not very compelling. I had the same questions that others have had. I didn't know about FT, so I had a LOT of questions:

1. Where was this uterus collection? What happened to it when he left the US? Where's the research to support victims of missing uteruses anywhere in the country around the time of the civil war? Why, if people really saw his collection of body parts, was he not arrested over it?

2. If he was as flamboyant as depicted, why did he blend into the woodwork in London? Why do people not know for SURE that he was the lodger?

3. The handwriting on some of those letters looked very neat. What's the explanation for the sloppily written ones?

4. A killer like JTR would not have just stopped; however, I didn't see any evidence that the killings picked up in New York.

I think I had more questions, but my theory is this: people found out he was gay and started blaming him for the murders. This would include the woman at the hotel, who probably LIED that she saw him with blood on him.

This suspect sounded like he was a very vocal man, who didn't bother offending people. I think they scared the crap out of him by accusing him of those murders. He fled and tried to disappear because that was way too serious. But I just don't think he'd go from doing the things his history said he did to ripping people open. And until I can read proof that he had these jars of body parts, and not just some hearsay about it, I can't believe he really carried around this collection of wombs.

I'm more inclined to believe Patricia Cornwell's theory about Walter sicker.

[belinda]

Just saw it, wasn't expecting much from the History Channel due to the nonsense they peddle about the rapture and 2012. I actualy thought ti was a repeat when they mentioned Tumblety. The only bit I liked was the profiler bit at the end.

Glad to see it's not just here they fob us off with that stuff

We get very few of these documentaries They showed one on The Black Dahlia a little while ago as a premiere and it was made ten years ago!

As for new Ripper programmes nothing is forthcoming

[sdreid]

"Profiling is crap", is right!

Regarding the handwriting, they picked out a couple of traits that matched and ignored the numerous ones that didn't.

[lynn cates]

handwriting match

Hello Pontius. It has been argued before that Tumblety wrote the "Lusk Letter." Well, even granting that (which is entirely possible, given his warped personality/sense of humour and possible organ collection), it does not necessarily imply he was the Ripper. It might, however, raise the numeric probability a bit.

It could also be the case that Tumblety commissioned a ripper for organs.

The best.
LC

[vol_cat]

History Ch.

On the positive side of the show however was the appearance of Donald Rumbelow and Stewart Evans. It appeared that Mr. Evans thought highly of Tumblety as a suspect. Is he a major proponent of Tumblety as Ripper? Has there been any good books that put forth Tumblety as a prime suspect?

[magnoliasouth]

This is my first post here so hello to all!

I have to agree that the History Channel has really dumbed itself down. I even fired off an email to them about it, more than once. It used to be good, but now it's tabloidish.

I have to further agree on wondering about these claims of Mr. Tumblety (the lodger, et al). There is a book about it (Jack the Ripper: First American Serial Killer), which I just ordered today and I'll see what I think after reading it.

The one thing that bothers me about this is the handwriting "expert". I don't believe for a second that one can positively identify a personality type simply by looking at handwriting, as the woman claimed. However I do believe that you can be fairly certain, when comparing handwriting samples, that one person is, or is not, one in the same. The points she made about similarly written characters from "known" Tumblety handwritten letters and the From Hell handwritten letter was pretty hard to ignore. I had to agree that those two were definitely similar, there is little doubt in my mind on that. Provided that the Tumblety letter(s) are real. Naturally those could be fakes, just like the diary.

The profile was not enough for me as far as the show goes. I also agree that profiles are not absolute, but I will say that they are averages. Naturally statistics are just that, stats and are not fact for predictions. It just makes it a little more helpful.

A page at Trutv says Tumblety can't be the one because of his age. They say he was about 55 in 1888 and that it didn't fit in with witnesses. I disagree with that though for obvious reasons. How could anyone say for certain what he looked like at 55?! My uncle was in his seventies and everyone thought he was my age, 40!

So my point is that I can't say I disagree that he could be the one, but I also can't say I agree. As always, the jury is still out on him.

In truth, I am of the belief that we will never know for absolute certain who he was.

One thing I'm fairly certain of, the killer was not a woman as was suggested in the show. I don't think that for a second.

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

The information that Tumblety had married a woman who turned out to be a prostitute, and so Tumblety hated all prostitutes, and that he had a large collection of uteri in jars in his office all come from an interview first printed in the New York World 2nd of December, 1888 (Phil Carter posted the relevant parts earlier on this thread). The man interviewed was Colonel Charles A. Dunham, described by the World as a well known New Jersey lawyer. Col. Dunham stated that he first met Tumblety in Washington soon after the Battle of Bull Run (21 July, 1861) when he was in the capitol on “official business” and that he, and his Lieutenant-Colonel, got to know the “Doctor” fairly well.

Rather than being new information, however, the interview was first brought to light by Stewart Evans and appeared in his and Paul Gainey’s 1995 book The Lodger, The Arrest & Escape of Jack the Ripper (published in North America as Jack the Ripper, First American Serial Killer). However, things aren’t all that they seem.

“Colonel” Dunham turned out to be a swindler, conman and pathological liar who was also known as Sanford (or Sandford) Conover, among his many aliases, who was jailed for perjury during the investigation into the Lincoln assassination. Dunham was never a Colonel in the Union Army but instead ran a scam to con the Government by half heartedly attempting to raise a regiment for the Union while submitting bogus bills to the War Department for costs supposedly incurred. The officers in this regiment were either cronies of Dunham’s who had helped him in several earlier scams (his Lieutenant-Colonel, Charles Bishop, was actually his cousin), or, like “Major Sandford Dockstader,” a Dunham alias, fake names.

Government records prove that Dunham was indeed in Washington on the 27th of July, shortly after the battle of Bull Run, but Tumblety was living in New York at the time and there is no evidence that he was in Washington before November. More importantly, Tumblety’s office/living arrangement, as described by Dunham, do not conform to Tumblety’s known living and working arrangements.

Dunham claims that Tumblety’s office and living quarters were together on two floors of one house, possibly on H Street. This point is important because Dunham had to show that Tumblety could take his guests into his office from his sitting rooms in order to show them his collection of uteri in glass jars. In reality, Tumblety was living at the Willard Hotel at 1401 Pennsylvania Avenue and 14th Street while his office, which he had the entire time he was in Washington, was not at the Willard, nor on H Street, but at No. 11 Washington Buildings, an office building situated at 344 & 346 Pennsylvania Avenue and 7th Street. Dunham’s interview is just a collection of lies sold to the World at a time when Tumblety’s name was in all the papers in connection with the Whitechapel Murders.

All this information first appeared in an article I wrote for Ripper Notes back in July, 2005, and a more detailed look at Tumblety’s time in Washington, and the Dunham interview, can be found in Tim Riordan’s new, and excellent, book Prince of Quacks.

Wolf.