Exonerating Michael Kidney - A Fresh Look at Old Myths

[Tom_Wescott]

I don’t find it difficult to accept the possibility that Le Grand supplied the cab that took Kidney to Leman Street. However it is hardly a matter which has been proven beyond reasonable doubt.

There’s always going to be doubt, Lechmere. But unless someone else supplies information to make it reasonable to suppose someone other than Le Grand ushered Kidney to the police station in a cab, I will say that while my conclusion is not beyond doubt, it’s currently beyond reasonable doubt. At no point, in my essay or here, have I stated that it’s a FACT that Le Grand took Kidney to the police station.

Stride was killed in the early hours of the morning on 30th September.
At some time on 1st October Kidney saw Stride’s body at the mortuary at St George’s-in-the-East.
At night time on 1st October Kidney turned up drunk in a cab at Leman Street police station.
Stride’s inquest was held on 3rd October at the Vestry Hall, St George’s-in-the-East
Kidney said amongst other things:
“I have heard something said that leads me to believe, that had I been able to act the same as a detective I could have got a lot more information.”
This doesn’t sound like someone who had been spending time with two private detectives.

Whatever I wrote in my essay would be more accurate than what I’ve posted here. That’s why I post my essays when I can. I should probably go back and re-read it for discussion (remember, I did not reactive this thread), but I simply don’t have time, as I’m reading three different things and preparing something on Emma Smith. But whatever I put in my essay is not likely to be erred. I’m not saying you’re wrong, what I’m saying is I may have been wrong in our discussions on this thread, but not likely so in the essay.

I know Le Grand was a bit of an incompetent crim but why would he send Kidney to Leman Street unless he was sure Kidney would provide the right story? All Kidney seems to have done is blather on about his own theory for which he required an unknown police detective. This again undermines the notion that Kidney was involved with Le Grand.

I would disagree with this. I don’t suspect Le Grand knew Kidney before the murder, so he didn’t know who or what he’d be dealing with. What you consider as being unlikely in this case is precisely the behavior Le Grand displayed with Packer, albeit to better effect. And as for criminals, Le Grand was not incompetent at all.

I think the reason this aspect is under discussion is because the rest of the dissertation is fairly unarguable, but I think Le Grand being shoehorned into the Kidney story detracts from it a bit.

As you may have noticed, if you’ve read some of my other Berner Street essays, they are a potpourri of whatever I’m thinking or have turned up at the time I’m writing that article. Some of the other stuff I included in there had little or nothing to do with Kidney, but I thought might be of interest to readers.

For some reason, Le Grand makes a lot of people uncomfortable. I stand behind my contention that Le Grand, and not some anonymous good Samaritan, took Kidney to the police station, but clearly that is not a documented fact, and I make an effort in all my essays to draw a clear distinction between fact, deduction, and speculation. It’s a fact that Kidney went to the police station that night, it’s deduction that told me Le Grand was the likely taxi, and my ruminations as to what was behind Kidney’s theory was pure speculation.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Lechmere]

Tom
Blimey – I’ve re-read your article three times to check the Le Grand claims!

In this thread, on post 48 you stated:
“To my mind, the importance of the discovery was that Le Grand was the one who took Kidney to the police station.”
It’s not the biggest of big deals but it was that claim that attracted my attention.
The nature of this field is that it is for you want to establish a new 'fact' then you must prove it with substantial facts not conjecture. Otherwise it is just your theory. It is not for other people to find a fact that disproves it as that won’t realistically happen.

But I am more interested if my dates are wrong.

You said this in the article:
“Le Grand, a career criminal employed as a ‘private detective’ with the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, had been in Berner Street since just after the discovery of the murder and was also present at the mortuary on Oct. 1st.”
And this:
“Le Grand and Batchelor would have had no trouble in locating Michael Kidney. All had been to the mortuary on the same day and may have met there,”

Put simply I think you are mistaken in saying that Le Grand was at the mortuary on 1st October and accordingly he never bumped into Kidney.
If my dates are correct then the whole Le Grand cab theory falls apart.

And you did start this thread and it was only a few months ago!

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Lech. Yes, I created the thread months ago to announce the posting of my article. What I said was that I did not REACTIVE it. However, I think this article was first published in the very first issue of Examiner, so that's how long it's been since I've read it.

For the umpteenth time, I have not called anything a fact that wasn't, so the lecturing on facts vs fiction can be saved on me.

You said this in the article:
“Le Grand, a career criminal employed as a ‘private detective’ with the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, had been in Berner Street since just after the discovery of the murder and was also present at the mortuary on Oct. 1st.”
And this:
“Le Grand and Batchelor would have had no trouble in locating Michael Kidney. All had been to the mortuary on the same day and may have met there,”

Put simply I think you are mistaken in saying that Le Grand was at the mortuary on 1st October and accordingly he never bumped into Kidney.
If my dates are correct then the whole Le Grand cab theory falls apart.

Thank you for finally making the discussion about my essay. LOL. You quoted me dead to rights. While I would strongly disagree that my cab theory would 'fall apart', if I were wrong, I'd feel compelled to buy you a tall one should you become the first person to ever catch me developing a theory on a blatant factual error, and publishing it in a journal. Of course, I'd have to be wrong first, and I doubt that's the case. But now I'll certainly go and re-read what I've written! Of course, I'm being intentionally immodest just for fun, but I will be very grateful to you if you've caught something I missed.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Tom_Wescott]

Update

I re-read the salient portions of my essay and find that I frustratingly didn't provide the source for why I decided Le Grand and Kidney had been to the mortuary on the same day. Therefore, I'll have to look for it when I come back around to that material. Something must have convinced me of it, or else I confused the 1st with the 4th.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[mariab]

I re-read the salient portions of my essay and find that I frustratingly didn't provide the source for why I decided Le Grand and Kidney had been to the mortuary on the same day.

I sorta recall asking you about not having put a footnote for this last July, when I first read that article as a complete newbie. I remember it bothered me considerably that the quotes were not documented.

(But then again, in my own essays some sections spot a footnote on about every third word.) :-)

[Lechmere]

Tom
You put forward the Echo news story about some people talking to the crowds in Berner Street on 1st October as 'evidence' that Le Grand and Batchelor were in the environs on that date, on the basis that you thought the unnamed speakers may have been them. To me that would be a leap of faith, but I quite see how these snippets almost have to be used now to piece a theory together.
I suspect that if there was direct evidence that Le Grand had been to the mortuary on 1st and had there been direct evidence that a private dectetive had provided Kidney with his cab, then you would not have had to use the vague Echo report.

I look forward to my extra large drink.

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Lech. I don't think that's the reason I included it. There's no question that Le Grand was in Berner Street shortly after the murder, as although he didn't take Packer to the mortuary until the 4th, he'd been visiting him for days, taking him to see Eddowes, etc, and although I don't yet know why I was so sure he was at the mortuary on the 1st, it's doubtful his trip there with Packer was his first, though I'd like to know for sure.

I sorta recall asking you about not having put a footnote for this last July, when I first read that article as a complete newbie. I remember it bothered me considerably that the quotes were not documented.

I sorta don't recall that, and any quotes in my article are in fact sourced.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[curious4]

Michael Kidney/Long Liz, Lippy Liz

Hello again,

I have had a picture in my mind of Michael Kidney and friends holding an impromptu wake in a nearby pub, everyone getting very heated at the police failure to find the murderer and Kidney finally being poured into a cab, perhaps paid for by a whip-round at the pub, in order to speak his mind and voice his discontent. Pure fantasy, of course.

I have wondered about Long Liz - the Swedish for liar being "lögnare", "lögn" being pronounced something like "lergn", and whether the nickname came from her Swedish aquaintances (Lögn - Long) referring to her as a liar (which, of course, she was).

Further to this, Lippy I think meant cheeky, someone who always had an answer and nothing to do with her mouth - her so-called injury was said to be to the palate, inside the mouth, not to her lip. Looking at the photograph, she seems to have a "thick lip" after a blow to the mouth rather than a deformity.

Regards,
C4

[Lechmere]

I have had a picture in my mind of Tom Wescott holding an impromptu wake in a pub over his theory that Le Grand sent Kidney to Leman Street, getting very heated at the failure to find right dates and Tom finally pouring me a big drink, perhaps paid for by a whip-round at the pub. Pure fantasy, of course.

[mariab]

Quote mariab:
I sorta recall asking you about not having put a footnote for this last July, when I first read that article as a complete newbie.

I sorta don't recall that, and any quotes in my article are in fact sourced.

It's sorta just one quote, the one about the 2 detectives spiriting away Packer, and I've just realized it's sorta in the Examiner 2 article. So I guess I should sorta apologize.

I have had a picture in my mind of Michael Kidney and friends holding an impromptu wake in a nearby pub

I have had a picture in my mind of Tom Wescott holding an impromptu wake in a pub over his theory that Le Grand sent Kidney to Leman Street

You guys make me feel like going to a pub right now, and there are no pubs in Berlin. (Actually, there's an Irish pub not too far from where I am.)
The “theory“ in question is the most logical probability – unless there were 2 pairs of detectives running around the exact same neighborhood in the exact same week in a hansom cab, driving witnesses from the exact same case to the exact same police precinct with similar hazy motives.

I have wondered about Long Liz - the Swedish for liar being "lögnare", "lögn" being pronounced something like "lergn", and whether the nickname came from her Swedish aquaintances (Lögn - Long) referring to her as a liar (which, of course, she was).

Very interesting, Curious. (And by the by, "lögn" in Swedish, “lügen“ in German, so you see how close a game it is.) There's the Ollson book about Stride's early years in Sweden, but I don't think it discusses her lying. Problem is, the nickname “Long Liz“ generated in London, among the British.

Looking at the photograph, she seems to have a "thick lip" after a blow to the mouth rather than a deformity.

There are absolutely no visible bruises from blows on the face for Stride (as there are for Nichols). Her lower lip is unusually thick (esp. compared to her very thin upper lip) and asymmetrical. What they call “harelip“. I've looked it up on the internet and it's sometimes related to palate asymmetry. And the pics (for cleft lip) are totally eewww.

[Rubyretro]

Maria -with all your self proclaimed brilliance, I'm astonished that you don't know what a 'Hare lip' is. Go back to the Internet and look (clue: the upper lip is cleft and resembles a hare's lip).

There is a discussion on the photography thread (Rob Clack's Uber Thread ?)
where Garry has cleaned up Liz Stride's photo and it is clear that she had a 'wierd' (at least) or deformed lip ( but not a 'Hare Lip' by any imagination). The visual is supported by Neil Sheldon's description of her.

Curious : I think 'Long Liz' was a play on her surname, 'Stride'.

[tji]

I've looked it up on the internet and it's sometimes related to palate asymmetry. And the pics (for cleft lip) are totally eewww.[/QUOTE]

This sentence is just wrong on so many levels, children/people with cleft lip don't ask for the reaction they get, or the bullying, it is a medical condition they are born with that affects them significantly and I would think anyone with an ounce of sense would realise this and not comment so insensitively.


Also a hare lip does not denote a thick bottom lip compared to a thinner top one, a hare lip is just another term for a cleft lip.

Maybe if you read what you wrote before sending you would not have people pointing out your mistakes all the time.

Tracy

[Lechmere]

Right Maria, as everyone else is picking on you I will jump back in...
"The “theory“ in question is the most logical probability – unless there were 2 pairs of detectives running around the exact same neighborhood in the exact same week in a hansom cab, driving witnesses from the exact same case to the exact same police precinct with similar hazy motives."

Kidney goes to morgue and then Leman Street police station alone in a cab for a short distance at night time after getting roaring drunk on 1st October. The overt and not very hazy motive being that he had his own theory as to how the case could be solved.

Packer goes to morgue and a long distance to Scotland Yard in a cab in the daytime on 4th October with two private detectives. The overt and not very hazy motive was to show to the WVC that the private detectives were efficiently doing their job.

There is no evidence whatsoever that Kidney met any private detectives or that anyone paid for his very short cab ride to Leman Street.
You can theorise on it by all means but it is not a logical probability.

[tji]

[QUOTE=Lechmere;191594]Right Maria, as everyone else is picking on you I will jump back in...[

I can't see how correcting her is picking on her, should we just let misinformation pass us by?

Tj

[Tom_Wescott]

I have had a picture in my mind of Tom Wescott holding an impromptu wake in a pub over his theory that Le Grand sent Kidney to Leman Street, getting very heated at the failure to find right dates and Tom finally pouring me a big drink, perhaps paid for by a whip-round at the pub. Pure fantasy, of course.

I’d be careful letting it get around that you fantasize about me buying you a drink at a pub. If Phil Carter starts PMing you for a pic, don’t blame me.

Further to this, Lippy I think meant cheeky, someone who always had an answer and nothing to do with her mouth - her so-called injury was said to be to the palate, inside the mouth, not to her lip. Looking at the photograph, she seems to have a "thick lip" after a blow to the mouth rather than a deformity.

Hi curious. Let’s not forget that the coroner ruled out any injuries to her face. Mother Gumm and Hippy Lip Annie would indeed be references to her mouth. Women with large bottom lips and retracted chins also display a lot of gum when they smile.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott