Favorite suspect/s?

[MrBarnett]

Did he ever use the name Lechmere when Cross senior was still alive, or the name Cross (other than in a context where he was already using it) after he'd died?

He and his sister were Christened after his mother (Maria) had married Thomas Cross and the name Lechmere was recorded. Thomas Cross had only been dead a year or so, and Maria hadn't yet remarried, when CAL married using the name Lechmere in 1870.

There are only two examples currently known where he used the name Cross after his stepfather had died. One was during the Nichols case and the other (which we can't be certain was him) was when the child was run over in 1876.

He had been listed as Cross on the 1861 census. In theory, Thomas Cross, as head of the household was responsible for providing that info, but Maria may have had a hand in it. CAL was 11/12, so we can be reasonably confident that the use of Cross wasn't his idea.

[Joshua Rogan]

Did he ever use the name Lechmere when Cross senior was still alive, or the name Cross (other than in a context where he was already using it) after he'd died?

[MrBarnett]

I recall reading your Fogarty research over on the JTRForum and thinking that you’ve come up with the likeliest killer of Martha Tabram. Have any authors caught onto this Gary? Has Fogarty been mentioned?

Hi Michael,

I drafted a long, waffly response to this and it disappeared.

Probably just as well😉

The short answer is there's been some interest but I'm not aware anything has been put together by anyone.

Gary

[MrBarnett]

Cheers Gary,

Then it seems certain that he used Lechmere every time when it came to anything written officially.

Did his mother revert to Lechmere after Thomas Cross’ death?

She remarried a man named Joseph Forsdike and as far as I know used that name until she died.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Cheers Gary,

Then it seems certain that he used Lechmere every time when it came to anything written officially.

Did his mother revert to Lechmere after Thomas Cross’ death?

[MrBarnett]

I’m assuming that this is hypothetical Gary? Or do we know how he registered his children?

If we don’t know (and I genuinely don’t) maybe he registered them as Cross? My only thinking on this is that maybe he didn’t see registering his children at school as something legally binding?

I accept your point though of course. I don’t have a real answer.

No, they were registered at Betts Street and Essex Street schools (from memory) as Lechmere.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Joshua,

Do I detect a note of scepticism in your response?

I've never considered Fogarty as the Ripper, but I think he warrants consideration as a possible killer of Tabram. I mean, how many vicious, mentally unstable individuals do we know who married the last person to see a WM victim alive? A person who tried to finger a seemingly innocent man for the crime?


Gary

I recall reading your Fogarty research over on the JTRForum and thinking that you’ve come up with the likeliest killer of Martha Tabram. Have any authors caught onto this Gary? Has Fogarty been mentioned?

[Herlock Sholmes]

In that case, what name would have been used when registering his kids at school? The register would have been filled out by the school and if they were called Lechmere at school and Cross at home that would be a bit odd.

I’m assuming that this is hypothetical Gary? Or do we know how he registered his children?

If we don’t know (and I genuinely don’t) maybe he registered them as Cross? My only thinking on this is that maybe he didn’t see registering his children at school as something legally binding?

I accept your point though of course. I don’t have a real answer.

[Harry D]

I’m still not sure how if behooved the Ripper to give the police his first name, workplace, and home address but lie about his surname?

[Joshua Rogan]

Do I detect a note of scepticism in your response?

Actually, no! Apologies if it came across that way. He seems as good a suspect as any, especially as you say for the Tabram murder.

[MrBarnett]

Interesting...if he was the Ripper, it explains how he managed to operate in such low light conditions.
Also, didn't someone suggsst that Mary Kelly's thighs could have been strippee by a woodworking tool called a draw-knife? It's all making sense now.

Hi Joshua,

Do I detect a note of scepticism in your response?

I've never considered Fogarty as the Ripper, but I think he warrants consideration as a possible killer of Tabram. I mean, how many vicious, mentally unstable individuals do we know who married the last person to see a WM victim alive? A person who tried to finger a seemingly innocent man for the crime?


Gary

[Joshua Rogan]

Although blind, he was occasionally described as a wood carver, an occupation requiring the use of sharp implements, which a homeless man would have presumably carried on his person.

Interesting...if he was the Ripper, it explains how he managed to operate in such low light conditions.
Also, didn't someone suggsst that Mary Kelly's thighs could have been strippee by a woodworking tool called a draw-knife? It's all making sense now.

[MrBarnett]

Interesting post gary.
So many intriguing characters surround this case!

I agree, Abbey. And for me fleshing them out is a more satisfying pursuit than endlessly arguing the toss over the same old differences of opinion.

Going off at a tangent, it's just occurred to me while composing this is that I have photos of Foggy, Billy Maher and Stephen Maywood. None of the Tomkins brothers themselves, but one of a son of Robert Tomkins. And of course, there's the one of CAL in later life posing in his back garden. So many of the people we are concerned with are little more than names. Simple soul that I am, a picture paints a million words for me.

Maywood is an interesting character, first identified as living at 1, Breezers Hill by Neil Shelden. Any mention of BH acts like a magnet to me because my maternal grandmother was born there in 1896 (no. 3). It seems Maywood was there in 1887 when one of Charles Booth's researchers described him (unnamed) as a drover and suggested his house was a brothel. His main occupation was a horse/cattle dealer, though later in life he came into money and bought a succession of farms, a number of which mysteriously burned down.

[Abby Normal]

Hi Caz,

Why so?

The Ripper existed, and we can be reasonably confident that he left a record of his existence that is available to us today. But why should that record be so overwhelmingly damning that if presented it would convince everyone?

Take my POI Thomas Fogarty. He was Pearly Poll's husband, spent most of his life in the East End where he lived among prostitutes and in doss houses. He was described as a 'vicious blind beggar' after he assaulted a young girl on the Commercial Road. He had numerous convictions for theft, assault and criminal damage.

Although blind, he was occasionally described as a wood carver, an occupation requiring the use of sharp implements, which a homeless man would have presumably carried on his person.

Shortly after his marriage to Poll, she was admitted to the ST Geo E infirmary suffering from syphilis. After she died in 1895, Fogarty spent increasingly more time in the ST Geo E workhouse/infirmary, ultimately being diagnosed with 'mania' and sent to Claybury Asylum in Essex. After five years there he was transferred to the East Sussex County Asylum, Hellingly in early 1907. When he first arrived at Hellingly he was described as being 'excitable' and interfering with other patients, but he gradually became more apathetic and his physical health deteriorated. He died at Hellingly six months after arriving there.

That's the basic bio, there's a fair bit more on the Thomas Foggerty thread at How's gaff.

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=27058&highlight=Fogarty&page=40

I'm sure everyone is aware of how problematic a witness Pearly Poll was. Tom Wescott covers her performance during the Tabram investigation and inquest in detail in The Bank Holiday Murders. The impression I got when reading the book was that Tom believed Poll was an agent of a grand conspiracy involving the 'Lords of Spitalfields', William Thick and other more shadowy figures. That never sat well with me and given the binary choice between Poll being that kind of agent or a ditzy, alcoholic tart, I'd plump for the ditz. But if there's a third option, that she was coerced into leading the police astray by a violent partner, that would seem equally plausible, if not more so.

One last thing. It was reported that on the morning of Annie Chapman's death a blind man of 'ungovernable temper' carried out a vicious daylight knife attack on his female guide near Spitalfields Market. He was eventually overpowered and disarmed by the crowd and his victim was taken first to Commercial Street Police station where she was seen by the police surgeon and then to the London Hospital. The story was covered by a few papers, but the details, including the names of the attacker and his victim have not yet been discovered. There may have been more than one vicious blind beggar in the East End at the time, but not too many I wouldn't have thought.

Even if we could show Fogarty committed the attack, the evidence for his having murdered Tabram wouldn't be overwhelming. But if I was investigating the case at the time and had all this info at my disposal, I'd pull him in for questioning tout suite.

Edit: I forgot to mention that between his early prison terms and winding up blind in NE Passage Foggy (as I like to call him) was in the army. Now, what's the name of the sharp thing soldiers stick on the end of their rifles? Ah, yes, that's it - a bayonet...

Interesting post gary.
So many intriguing characters surround this case!

[MrBarnett]

Or,

Couldn’t it just be the case that he used Cross as his day to day name but he’d been told that he must use his birth name on paper when filling out officil forms?
To someone with limited interaction with bureaucracy an Inquest was a purely word of mouth thing and so Cross might have been his natural choice?

In that case, what name would have been used when registering his kids at school? The register would have been filled out by the school and if they were called Lechmere at school and Cross at home that would be a bit odd.