Druitt.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I’m aware of course that continuing this ‘alibi’ discussion is pointless. I’d suggest that everyone, no matter how they feel about Druitt as a suspect, can understand the point and it’s why not one single person has stepped up to say “yes I agree that Druitt had an alibi.”

Druitt obviously and very clearly has no alibi with the evidence as it stands at the moment. Repeatedly mentioning Abberline is also pointless and just requires this repetition - he had retired and wasn’t in London at the time and we have no evidence at all that he was still ‘in the loop’ in any way.

The suggestion that some alibi ‘might’ have existed is the same as the old saying “and if my auntie had b***s then she’d have been my uncle.” I think that Lechmere is among the weakest of suspects but imagine the response from those that favour Lechmere if I’d tried: “ok, we have no evidence that he had an alibi but he might have had one that we don’t know about so we can say that he had an alibi and dismiss him.”

What if Druitt’s friends had been questioned? Could a question be more pointless? What if Lechmere’s friends and family had been questioned? Someone might have given him an alibi. Or someone might have said that he hated prostitutes and came home one night with blood on him claiming to have been in a fight. How much time should we waste on this kind of fanciful stuff? It gets us nowhere.

We know that Druitt was in Dorset during the day on the 30th and we know that he was in Dorset at some point in the day on the 31st. That’s all that we know. The likeliness or unlikeliness is down to individual opinion but I think we should be a little wary here. I’ve speculated that he might have had some pre-arranged work-based meeting in London, or he might have had some kind of Blackheath Club meeting (we know that he was treasurer and wanted the club to purchase some land so he could have had business related to this) I’m speculating of course but a Barrister having a meeting in London is hardly the stuff of science fiction. But more importantly when we are investigating whether a person was or wasn’t a serial killer we have to consider that their thought processes might not align with those of the rest of us. To claim that we might know the thought processes of such a person isn’t believable.

I don’t think that it’s outrageous to request proof for an assertion. The false assertion is that Druitt had an alibi. So…..

Could we see evidence please. This would include the time that the game started and ended. The travel from cricket ground to station. The train times. The times to get from station to Bucks Row etc.

If an ‘alibi’ cannot be established evidentially it’s about useful as a pool table on a yacht. Druitt’s suggested alibi is entirely mythical as everyone but one person can see apparently.

[Herlock Sholmes]

From Keith Skinner:

I've been keeping an eye on the Druitt thread and was interested in the post below (part reproduced) because I have been thinking about the "Since Friday" note for the past couple of months.

In Ripper Legacy, Martin Howells and I used the fact that in Druitt's pocket was found "...a second half return Hammersmith to Charing Cross (dated 1st December)..." This we used as a basis for our theory that Druitt intended to return from Hammersmith to Charing Cross (and thence back to Blackheath for which he already had a first class season from Blackheath to London, but never did.

What Martin and I overlooked - or did not appreciate the significance of - was that on the document pertaining to the Letters of Administration on the personal Estate of Druitt, it states he was "...last seen alive on the 3rd day of December 1888..."

And from memory I believe the dates inscribed on Druitt's headstone are August 15 1857 - December 4 1888

December 1st 1888 was a Saturday

December 2nd 1888 was a Sunday

December 3rd 1888 was a Monday

So it raises the question as to who it was that last saw Druitt alive on Monday 3rd 1888 and where?

I think it is generally agreed (although not proved) that Valentine had dismissed Druitt from the school on [Friday] November 30th 1888 and not on December 30th as printed in the newspaper. It is also conjectured that Druitt went to visit his mother in Tuke's asylum at Chiswick on December 1st 1888. If that is the case, it could be surmised the visit to his mother played on his mind over the weekend and he decided to commit suicide on the Monday December 3rd 1888. - ie Since Friday...

I have no problem with sharing this with the Board although, of course, I realise the 3rd and 4th December 1888 dates may have already been factored into everybody's theories.

I also appreciate it does not explain how Druitt ended up on MacNaghten's list six years later in February 1894 on an official report in the Scotland Yard papers. I know it has been speculated that MacNaghten put that report together for the Home Secretary in case questions were asked in Parliament as a result of the SUN series of articles about Cutbush (unnamed) but there is no evidence for this that I'm aware of - only (from memory) Abberline's reference to a report being sent to the Home Office about a young medical student's body being found in the Thames. (I should really quote Abberline exactly but it's a sunny day outside!) I'm guessing the source of Abberline's story is The Pall Mall Gazette around January 1903 because it comes off the back of the Chapman trial?

Best Wishes

Keith

Thank Keith for that Ero.

Speculation (again) but I’m wondering if the last person to see him was George Valentine, if Druitt had returned to collect his belongings?

[erobitha]

More from Keith:

”I saw these two posts (222 & 223) just as I was on my way out to the garden!

I'm fairly sure that Abberline was still living in London at the time of the Chapman's trial in 1903 and I believe the quote comes from the Pall Mall Gazette of January 1903. Interestingly Abberline had a Pall Mall Gazette reporter lodging with him in 1901! From memory, I believe the Sunday newspaper referred to, which gave the primary report, was The Referee?

I don't think Abberline got to Bournemouth until much later which was when Nigel Moreland famously doorstopped him!”

[Herlock Sholmes]

More from Keith:

”I saw these two posts (222 & 223) just as I was on my way out to the garden!

I'm fairly sure that Abberline was still living in London at the time of the Chapman's trial in 1903 and I believe the quote comes from the Pall Mall Gazette of January 1903. Interestingly Abberline had a Pall Mall Gazette reporter lodging with him in 1901! From memory, I believe the Sunday newspaper referred to, which gave the primary report, was The Referee?

I don't think Abberline got to Bournemouth until much later which was when Nigel Moreland famously doorstopped him!”

Cheers Keith, I made the mistake of assuming. He certainly retired in ‘92 though.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

I repeat what I wrote in # 221:


Druitt did have an alibi for the murder of Nichols.

I did not invent it, any more than I invented his cricketing trip to Dorset.

I believe that he had a strong alibi, because he was on that trip with companions who might have verified his whereabouts at the time of the murder.

I repeat that it is not true to claim, as Herlock Shomes has done, that he 'had no alibi.'

The fact that we do not know how strong his alibi was does not mean that he did not have an alibi.


It is hardly 'fanciful' to suggest that during his stay in Dorset, Druitt shared a room with a cricketing teammate, who could have provided him with an alibi for the very time at which the first murder in the series took place.

To suggest that this is no more likely than that upon being questioned, the teammate 'might have said that he hated prostitutes and came home one night with blood on him claiming to have been in a fight' is obviously not true.

It is also obviously not true that such questioning would have been 'pointless'.

If Druitt really had been a suspect, then such questioning would have taken place.

As Abberline stated, there is no case for Druitt to answer.

The argument that his assertion was invalid on the ground that he may have been in the dark about 'private information' supposedly received by Mcnaghten, the details of which are both unknown and untested, is, I suggest, unsustainable.

My suggestion that Druitt could have been proven to have spent his cricketing trip to Dorset in Dorset is described as fanciful, but at the same time we have the nonsense about Abberline being kept 'out of the loop' and so not knowing about the private information which was such powerful evidence of Druitt's guilt that it seems that Macnaghten never even shared it with anyone else.

[jmenges]

If I was accused of robbing a bank and I said I was 75 miles away from the bank at the time it was robbed- that is my alibi.
If the police were asked “Does he have an alibi?” they would say “Yes, he says he was 75 miles away”.
It’s then up to the police to investigate my alibi and find fault with it. It’s then the prosecutor’s job to present those faults to a judge or jury to decide if the police have, through the evidence, destroyed my alibi.

Druitt’s alibi, if he were ever questioned, would have surely been “I was playing cricket in Dorset”.

JM

[Herlock Sholmes]

But the murder took place at around 3.40am and we can’t prove that he was in Dorset at that time.

If a Mr X, who lived in Birmingham, was accused of a murder in Coventry at 3pm and the only witness we have was his wife who saw him in their house when she left for work at 7am and then again when she got home at 8pm, could Mr X claim being at home all day as an effective alibi with no way of backing this claim up? The police would just have said “you had ample time to have travelled to Coventry, committed the murder then returned home.” No barrister would present this as an alibi in court without further proof that he was seen in Birmingham at such at time that it was either impossible or highly unlikely that he could have made that journey. The evidence with Druitt gives us no evidence that he couldn’t have returned whether it’s thought likely or not on a behavioural basis. The evidence points to him having ample time.

[jmenges]

It’s not up to his barrister to prove a defendant’s alibi, it’s up to the authorities to punch holes in it beyond all reasonable doubt. A defendant’s alibi remains an alibi since it belongs to him, not his accusers, regardless if it’s shown to be flimsy. I think PI has made that point: a weak alibi is still an alibi. Druitt’s alibi would be that he was in Dorset.

JM

[Herlock Sholmes]

PI has previously claimed that Druitt had a cast-iron alibi though.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

PI has previously claimed that Druitt had a cast-iron alibi though.

We have dealt with this before.

I have never stated that Druitt had a cast-iron alibi.

I have stated that I believe he had a cast iron alibi because unlike the man in the hypothetical example you gave, he was with a large number of companions and would have been with them during the day - as well as night.

[jmenges]

(To Herlock)
Well, my position is hypothetical, as is yours. If he was questioned I believe he would have claimed Dorset as his alibi. You believe that alibi can be shaken enough to eliminate it. There is still, however, in this hypothetical scenario, an alibi.

[jmenges]

My opinion: We’d have to have evidence that he took the train, not only that he could have. Without that it’s a matter of probability vs possibility.

JM

[Herlock Sholmes]

(To Herlock)
Well, my position is hypothetical, as is yours. If he was questioned I believe he would have claimed Dorset as his alibi. You believe that alibi can be shaken enough to eliminate it. There is still, however, in this hypothetical scenario, an alibi.

I’m not saying that it could be shaken Jon. For all that we know if his friends had been asked at the time they might have said that Druitt hadn’t been out of their sight, providing him with a rock solid alibi but in the absence of that we can only say that it’s entirely possible that he could have returned to London. So we have no way of turning this suggestion into anything like a solid alibi.

[Herlock Sholmes]

So what PI is now saying is “I’ve never said that Druitt had a cast iron alibi but I believe that he had a cast iron alibi”!

The statement that he would have been with his companions “…during the day - as well as the night,” is about as blatant an invention as could possibly exist.

I don’t know why I’m bothering to say this but - what is the evidence for this?

[jmenges]

So we all agree that there’s an alibi.
Graat. Let’s please move on in peace.

JM