Was Tumblety The Lodger?

[c.d.]

I simply don't understand the whole lodger story and whether it has any basis in fact. If Tumblety was the lodger why would he be so dumb as to leave a bag of incriminating evidence in his room and ask his landlady to wash a blood soaked shirt? And even more importantly, when he was in custody for gross indecency why wasn't his landlady brought in to identify him? Didn't the police have the lodger's name and description by then? All very confusing.

c.d.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I simply don't understand the whole lodger story and whether it has any basis in fact. If Tumblety was the lodger why would he be so dumb as to leave a bag of incriminating evidence in his room and ask his landlady to wash a blood soaked shirt? And even more importantly, when he was in custody for gross indecency why wasn't his landlady brought in to identify him? Didn't the police have the lodger's name and description by then? All very confusing.

c.d.

Hi c.d.

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense does it? I have to admit to not having read anything Tumblety related for quite some time but I never really thought that the 'Lodger' story was anything other than just that, a story. I've tended to assume that it was connected to the G.Wentworth Bell Smith story (and didn't that come from Forbes Winslow?) We can't know how intelligent the ripper was but to ask a landlady to wash bloody clothes right in the middle of the so-called Autumn Of Terror would qualify him as a moron of the highest order (also the world luckiest ever murderer!) It would also speak volumes about the Landlady!
I can't really see this story as anything other than a legend fed by Chinese Whispers or someone seeking a claim to fame.

[c.d.]

Hello Herlock,

Thanks for your response especially as you were the only one to do so. I was pretty much of the same mind set as you believing that it was just a story until I read the following on Casebook.

http://www.casebook.org/suspects/lodger.html

Amidst the fiction there appears to be some fact. I can't seem to separate the two. Maybe somebody else can help.

c.d.

[jerryd]

I believe Tumblety was suggested as the lodger with Mrs. Kuer at 22 Batty Street in 1888. Forbes Winslow's story, in 1889, was about a lodger of Mrs. Callaghan in Finsbury Street and that involved G. Wentworth Bellsmith.

Two different lodgers and two different stories.

[Scott Nelson]

Three if you count Kosminski. And counting..

[John Wheat]

I simply don't understand the whole lodger story and whether it has any basis in fact. If Tumblety was the lodger why would he be so dumb as to leave a bag of incriminating evidence in his room and ask his landlady to wash a blood soaked shirt? And even more importantly, when he was in custody for gross indecency why wasn't his landlady brought in to identify him? Didn't the police have the lodger's name and description by then? All very confusing.

c.d.

Or was Henry Wentworth Bellsmith The Lodger?