Robert Mann - A 'New' Suspect

[Tom_Wescott]

Lynn,

There's a few theories about this, and all of them came from the contemporary press, more or less. Bob Hinton suggested a dog or giant rat might have carried them off from the murder scenes. Some have suggested they fell off the clunky ambulances en route to the mortuary. And apparently Trevor thinks they may have gone missing at the mortuary. There is, of course, not a single reason to think any of this was the case. There's little doubt but that the murderer took them with him.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[lynn cates]

kinds of Jack

Hello Mr. Marriott. I'm not sure I've heard this idea before. You're saying--Annie (and perhaps Kate?) had their organs removed, not in situ, but at a later date and location? That is quite fascinating!

I wonder what would be the difference in the 2 kinds of Jack pointed to with and without missing organs? Presumably a sexual serial killer would be less interested in organs and more so in just cutting/ripping. A violent thug type Jack might be interested in a financial compensation. Something along those lines?

The best.
LC

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Trevor,

But Mann wasn't left alone with Chapman's body, and apparently there was no suggestion by the doctors that Chapman had been 'tampered' with following her removal from the murder scene.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Trevor Marriott]

So far I have been relatively quiet on this thread save to agree with the majority that Mann is not a viable suspect and should not be considered any type of suspect.

However it would be wrong if i did not use Mann to add more weight to the theory that the organs of Chapman and Eddowes were not removed by the killer at the scene but at the mortuary before the post mortems were carried out.

In this post i will deal solely with Chapman as we know Eddowes body was taken to another mortuary where Mann had no access to.

In the case of Chapman these are the facts.

1. The body was left many hours before the post mortems were carried out.

2. Mann was mortuary keeper

3. He was never told to not touch the body or to not let anyone else touch
the body.

4. The Anatomy Act 1832 allowed bona fide medical personel to lawfully
remove organs from bodies at either hospitals or workhouse mortuarys. I
would imaging that first thing every morning these bona fide persons
would have done the rounds looking for organs.

As this was an every day occurence and Mann would have been aware of
that, what would have made that morning any different ? I would
suggest nothing.


I have previoulsy suggested that a mortuary keeper could have turned a
blind eye for some financial reward which in the case of Mann being a
pauper would be quite plausible. However it may be the case that it was
just an accepted thing for these people to come and take the organs
and Mann knew that.


Obviously when Mann was made aware that the body should not have
been touched and that an organ was missing he perhaps got himself into a
state hence how he was in the witness box.

i am afraid folks the killer removing the organs theory is now becoming
more and more unlilely. Even my experts agree with me !!!!!!!

So now in addittion to being an expert geographical profiler i am now an
expert in pathology.

[John Bennett]

Hi there Moriarty,

Don't look back, Sherlock's on your tail...

The plural, the American quack Francis Tumblety, was not proposed "from nowhere" as you have suggested but "amongst the suspects" by no less a source as ex-Chief Inspector John George Littlechild. You appear to have missed that part.

Absolutely.

And don't forget the numerous American press reports of the time...

[Stewart P Evans]

Nowhere?

...as when, from nowhere, American quacks are proposed as a prime suspect....

From nowhere?...quacks?...oh I see that someone has already answered this one, many thanks for that Spiro.

[John Bennett]

The only saving grace of this is I hear there's an unrated version of the documentary where John Bennett is interviewed shirtless.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

You wish.

[John Bennett]

John,

The way I remember it was that Mei showed surprise and delight when you showed him the map and was that you ? who led him to the location where the mortuary would have been ? It seemed clear to me, that Meir didn't know this, until you showed him the location on the map, in fact, I think Meir even said so in the programme. If memory serves me right. Which I thought it was interesting, because it added more to his theory.

Basically, it was like this.

Mei knew where the workhouse was, but not the precise location of the mortuary. He knew it as being 'Old Montague Street' or 'Pavilion Yard' or 'Eagle Place'. Having wandered around the area a few times, he could see no clues as to the mortuary's location.

The director of the documentary deliberately kept Mei in the dark about what I was going to show him. The film shows his response on finding out. The 'walkabout' sequences were filmed about a fortnight later.

As Colin suggests, these locations were known long before by numerous folks and personally, I don't believe it has any bearing on Mann's candidacy as the Ripper. But it was obviously important to Mei. And that's all there was to it, really.

[Tom_Wescott]

Just so we're all clear, Robert Mann is not a 'new name' introducted by Meirion James Troy. He's been in a dozen books and discussed on these boards in his actual capacity - that of a workhouse inmate cum mortuary attendant. He's also NOT a 'suspect', but instead is a man who has had an accusation made against him. The only saving grace of this is I hear there's an unrated version of the documentary where John Bennett is interviewed shirtless.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[auspirograph]

Hi there Moriarty,

Don't look back, Sherlock's on your tail...

The plural, the American quack Francis Tumblety, was not proposed "from nowhere" as you have suggested but "amongst the suspects" by no less a source as ex-Chief Inspector John George Littlechild. You appear to have missed that part.

[Moriarty]

And so the Ripper bandwagon trundles into life again. Periodically Ripperworld falls into a state of semi-quietude with nothing much to discuss of a constructive nature.

...as when, from nowhere, American quacks are proposed as a prime suspect....

[lynn cates]

quickie

Hello Septic. The 5 minutes walking time, then, would have precluded even a 7 minute quickie for Mann as in the Eddowes case.

Thanks!

Cheers.
LC

Even if this location had been known for a long time, what really counts is that Meir tied it up with where the location of his suspect living quarters was, which was really minutes away. ... In this instance, the mortuary and the work-house where Mann lived are only 5 minutes walk and THIS is the real find. Not if the location of the mortuary was known ages ago. Do you see what I mean ?

No! I do not see what you mean!

The locations of the mortuary and Union Infirmary were both known "ages ago"!

[ATTACH]6819[/ATTACH]
Site of Whitechapel Union Infirmary / Casual Ward, Baker's Row / Thomas Street, Hamlet of Mile End New Town / Parish of St. Mary Whitechapel (Click to View in flickr)
Underlying Aerial Imagery: Copyright Google Earth, 2007
Overlying Plots, Labels and Color-Shadings: Copyright Colin C. Roberts, 2009

[ATTACH]6820[/ATTACH]
Site of Whitechapel Union Infirmary, Baker's Row, Hamlet of Mile End New Town (Click to View in flickr)

[ATTACH]6821[/ATTACH]
Site of Whitechapel Union Infirmary / Casual Ward, Baker's Row / Thomas Street, Hamlet of Mile End New Town / Parish of St. Mary Whitechapel (Click to View in flickr)

[ATTACH]6822[/ATTACH]
Site of Whitechapel Union Casual Ward, Thomas Street, Parish of St. Mary Whitechapel (Click to View in flickr)

[ATTACH]6823[/ATTACH]
Site of Whitechapel Union Infirmary Mortuary, Eagle Place, Old Montague Street, Hamlet of Mile End New Town (Click to View in flickr)
Underlying Aerial Imagery: Copyright Google Earth, 2007
Overlying Plots, Labels and Color-Shadings: Copyright Colin C. Roberts, 2009

[ATTACH]6824[/ATTACH]
Site of Whitechapel Union Infirmary Mortuary, Eagle Place, Old Montague Street, Hamlet of Mile End New Town (Click to View in flickr)

------------

[ATTACH]6818[/ATTACH]
Figure 10: Deviations from Murder-Site Mean-Center (Elliptical Perspective): Aaron Kosminski; Robert Mann (Mortuary); Robert Mann (Union Infirmary) (Click to View in flickr)
Underlying Aerial Imagery: Copyright Google Earth, 2007
Overlying Plots, Labels and Color-Shadings: Copyright Colin C. Roberts, 2009

Red Dot (Smaller Green Ellipse): Whitechapel Union Infirmary Mortuary

Eagle Place, Old Montague Street, Hamlet of Mile End New Town, County of Middlesex
Longitude: 0° 3' 52.22" West
Latitude: 51° 31' 8.12" North

Smaller Green Ellipse: 0.73 Standard Deviations from Murder-Site Mean-Center

---

Red Dot (Larger Green Ellipse): Whitechapel Union Infirmary

Baker's Row, Hamlet of Mile End New Town, County of Middlesex
Longitude: 0° 3' 50.14" West
Latitude: 51° 31' 14.66" North

Larger Green Ellipse: 0.94 Standard Deviations from Murder-Site Mean-Center

I took the ground-level photographs, using the aerial imagery as my 'guide', in October 2007. It was obvious then, that the mortuary and Union Infirmary were "only 5 minutes walk".

What is actually unusual is the fact that a Union Infirmary and its mortuary, in this instance, should be that distantly removed from each other. I believe that I know the reasoning, in this particular case; and I will be happy to explain (later today), if anyone is interested.

What this means, of course, is that Mann's freedom of movement was limited to the "5 minutes walk", between the two facilities (i.e. mortuary and infirmary); thus enabling the Guardians of the Whitechapel Poor Law Union to hold him strictly accountable for his whereabouts.

Robert Mann was apparently a life-long ward of the Whitechapel Poor Law Union; and was in all likelihood, confined to the Whitechapel Union Infirmary, during the autumn of 1888.

Until this issue is sufficiently addressed by someone having at least a rudimentary understanding of the English Poor Law and some of its major facets (e.g. the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834), Mann cannot possibly be considered a person of interest, let alone a 'suspect'.

Robert Mann is an outright non-starter!

[The Good Michael]

SP,

It looks to me that Mann was chosen simply because his name was found and a somewhat convincing case could be made because there wasn't enough information to refute it. I daresay that any of us could randomly pick 10 or 20 people from the 1991 census and see what jobs they had, where they lived (proximity to the murder scenes), find that there is no further information about these people, and then build a case for the one that fits our purposes. We may base it upon age, location, occupation, marital status, and religion, or anything. Then, because there is no further information to be gleaned, we can build our case for our suspect. It isn't hard and it's what seems to happen often. I do like the peripheral knowledge one often gains from reading about new "suspects", but the process makes then unlikely at the very least. This goes for Mann, of course.

Cheers,

Mike

[scarletpimpernel]

Hi all,

Even if this location had been known for a long time, what really counts is that Meir tied it up with where the location of his suspect living quarters was, which was really minutes away. The analogy of this is : to knowing a few words in English but words if you do not string them into sentences, don't make any sense, they are just isolated, like bricks, you can get a thousand building bricks but if you do not put them together, you will never make a building, it will always just amount to a pile of bricks. In this instance, the mortuary and the work-house where Mann lived are only 5 minutes walk and THIS is the real find. Not if the location of the mortuary was known ages ago. Do you see what I mean ?