Was Tumblety Proven Innocent of the Whitechapel Murders?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Wolf,

People were tried by magistrate in the court which served the area in which the offence[s] occured.

These were the boundaries of the area served by the Marlborough Street court at the time, so Tumblety's four gross indecency offences could not have taken place in Whitechapel.



Regards,

Simon

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Thanks for that Simon. It helps to prove my point.

Mike.

Still waiting for an answer to my question over on the Andrews board.

Wolf.

[mklhawley]

Hi Wolf (and Simon),

I apologize for not replying sooner. I just got back from a week-plus long camping trip late last night. Wolf, I will certainly respond to your query on the other thread. Thanks for clarifying my comments, but I do want to point a few things out in reference to Tumblety being arrested in Marlborough Street as opposed to Whitechapel. You have pointed out some other issues, but I want to address each one individually. John Winsett, I will certainly respond to your comments, as well. Just be patient.

Here’s what Francis Tumblety stated in his interview in January 1889: "I had been going over to England for a long time-ever since 1869, indeed-and I used to go about the city a great deal until every part of it became familiar to me”.

Tumblety is admitting he was in both Marlborough and Whitechapel. The fact that he was finding love in neighboring Marlborough District does not diminish the probability of him being in Whitechapel during the time of the murders, especially when he admitted to being there. “I happened to be there when these Whitechapel murders attracted the attention of the whole world, and, in the company with thousands of other people, I went down to the Whitechapel district”.

21 Great Marlborough Street (where he was charged) is only four miles from Whitechapel road and a number of his evening encounters were even closer. This actually supports the fact that Tumblety was in London at the time of the murders as opposed to being in France or New York. The Marlborough District is a short ride from Whitechapel and plus or minus four miles is certainly walking distance. Also, if he was JTR, would it not be a more elusive method of escaping identity/capture to find your love in a separate but close London location?

When Tumblety admitted to “being there” notice he says nothing about being in Marlborough, yet this is where he was arrested. Would this not have been the perfect alibi to claim he was NOT near the murders? My point is that Tumblety did not make the distinction between these two locations, probably because they were so close to each other. The whole area was his playground as he himself admitted to. When Tumblety spoke to the American reporter two months after the last killing, his intentions were clearly to convince the U.S. public he was not JTR. Why would he even admit to an American reporter to “being there” during the murders and possibly further implicate himself? Some say that he was a pathological liar therefore everything he said was a lie, but this is actually a stretch of logic. This charlatan expertly spun his tails just as Colonel Dunham did. He told the truth about any information that could be verified (such as explaining the wound on a guy’s face where Tumblety had struck him with a cane), but only lied where it could be plausibly denied.

Lastly, notice what Chief Inspector Littlechild of Scotland Yard stated in his letter: "Tumblety was arrested at the time of the murders in connection with unnatural offenses,…charged at Marlborough Street, remanded on bail, jumped his bail, and got away to Boulogne." The fact that Tumblety was charged at Marlborough Street gave him no concern about Tumblety being in the Whitechapel district during the murders. In other words, this high level Scotland Yard official considered Tumblety a serious JTR suspect and he had full knowledge of where he was charged. Littlechild showed no lapse in memory. He knew specifics, such as being charged at Marlborough Street.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Mike,

All that Wolf Vanderlinden was pointing out, and which I confirmed by illustrating the boundary divisions of Marlborough Street magistrates court, is that Tumblety's four gross indecency offences could not have taken place in Whitechapel.

Over and above this basic fact you are on your own with your theorising.

By the way, Littlechild did show a major lapse in memory. He wrote that after leaving Boulogne "it was believed" Tumblety "committed suicide".

Believed by whom? Tumblety lived for another fifteen years.

Regards,

Simon

[mklhawley]

"All that Wolf Vanderlinden was pointing out, and which I confirmed by illustrating the boundary divisions of Marlborough Street magistrates court, is that Tumblety's four gross indecency offences could not have taken place in Whitechapel."

Hi Simon,

This is not entirely true. Wolf then stated, "Thanks for that Simon. It helps to prove my point." His point:"This suggests, therefore, that Tumblety wasn’t living in Whitechapel."

The clear inference by both of you is that there is no evidence of Francis Tumblety living in Whitechapel and I have absolutely no evidence. To further this claim Wolf stated that “This little bit of information [Tumblety having a herb shop in Whitechapel] comes from only one report that appeared in an American paper but we don’t know if it is true or not”. Actually, it was more than one paper and also more than one source:

1) In the Bridgeport News on 08 October 1888, it talks about an American who used to live in NYC owning a herb shop in the Whitechapel district being visited by Whitechapel authorities.



2) Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette (26 December 1888) and The Bucks County Gazette (13 December, 1888) -
“…His "herb doctoring" finally became unprofitable in America; so he went to London, located near the Whitechapel road, and for a while did a big business. His oddity of manner, dress and speech soon made him notorious as the "American doctor"; but he enjoyed notoriety and turned it into money, till the Whitechapel horrors caused a general overhauling of suspicious characters…”

I did not make this stuff up. All I am doing is pointing out that there is impressive evidence that Tumblety was in the Whitechapel district at the exact time of the Whitechapel murders. Anti-Tumblety folks are not presenting this, so I merely have taken it upon myself to present it. Yes, experts such as Wolf and you are keeping me honest, but for the sake of discovering the truth, I actually like that.

Sincerely,

Mike

[Jonathan H]

To Simon

I agree that Littlechild seems to lapse into error by claiming that 'it was believed' at Scotland Yard that Tumblety committed suicide.

Really? Believed by whom?

Why does it have to be 'believed' at all, like a faith?

Does that mean others disbelieved it?

Do they not know whether Tumblety was at least dead or not?

Why not ...?

My interpretation is that since Littlechild gets everything else right, that the context of his letter to Sims is being under-appreciated [but then anything remotely about Druitt acts like Cryptonite on these Boards].

Sims, his social and celebrity superior, was the leading writer regarding the 'Drowned Doctor' suspect with his 'hot-line' to the Assistant Commissioner, Macnaghten.

What Littlechild was writing to Sims was to say: you're wrong.

The contemporaneous doctor suspect of 1888 was an Irish-American, not an Englishman, and he WAS arrested [for another offense] not ABOUT TO BE arrested as the fiend but ... he, eh, probably did kill himself.

I think that Littlechild softened the blow for the great Sims by suddenly, uncharacteristically, lapsing into this vague 'it was believed ...' because he did not want to completely humiliate the great 'criminologist', and also -- and perhaps more importantly -- he did not want the celebrity journalist to actually be so peeved that he started unearthing the whole Tumblety debacle again [a CID debacle, mind you, not Special Branch].

Therefore Littlechild implies that the 'Dr T' suspect maybe, maybe, maybe, went into the drink off France -- well, certainly heard from no more.

Very mysterious, anyhow. No need to go checking what happened.

'Dr T' vanished from our midst, just like 'Dr D' though the latter was fished out of the Thames.

Since Sims, in 1915, is still confidently propagating about the English doctor who killed himself [and for the first time names 'Blackheath' as where he lived with his 'people'] the scoop about Tumblety was presumably ignored. Perhaps with reassuring words from Macnaghten that it was Littlechild who was the one mixing up Ripper/doctor suspects from 1888 [which was not the case].

The unconvincing 'it was believed' line, backed by no other surviving source, shows Littlechild to be a clumsy dissembler, one easily neutralized by an accomplished dissembler like Macnaghten.

[mklhawley]

To John Winsett,

Hi John,

I am going to post my comments one at a time, because it seems you have glossed over a number of important points Stewart Evans made (and even mine).

”There is no doubt Tumblety was a big man. All accounts so far have eluded to the fact that he was at least 5'10 and strongly built. But I'm of the opinion that he was larger than that. No news reporter then or now would have any reason to add 7 inches to his size. That makes no sense.”

That makes no sense to you. One problem is people do not understand what average height means. Let’s assume the average height of a male in Victorian London was 5 feet 8 inches. This does not mean that everyone was 5 feet 8 inches, so anyone 6 feet 2 inches would stick out like a sore thumb. It actually means 50% of the male population was taller than that and following the bell curves 10 – 15 % were taller than 6 feet! In my neck of the woods we have the Erie County fair. I am about an inch taller than today’s average height, but when I go to he fair, it seems that a large percentage of the male population at the fair is taller than me. To say Tumblety would stick out like a sore thumb does not take into account normal human perception. If you are correct, Tumblety would have certainly been aware of this. Even if he had nothing to do with the killings, he still frequented shady areas in his private life that he did not want publicized, yet he still did it and quite frequently. He even did this on the evening London streets during the ripper murders as evidenced by the court records.


”No Witness has described anyone of this nature. Now I would agree that eyewitness accounts are not really reliable but if that is true we have to discount the Stride murder all together because that murder suspect was not only seen but heard and he looked nothing like Tumblety.”

This is not true. I have posted multiple articles commenting upon a “tall” man either being arrested for questioning in the case of the ripper killings or accosting a women but getting away. Here is one:

ON SUSPICION.

TWO SUPPOSED AMERICANS ARRESTED IN LONDON
IN CONNECTION WITH THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS

LONDON, Oct. 5.-Two supposed Americans have been arrested in connection with the Whitechapel murders. In fact, the police are actively engaged in arresting … One of the Americans, or supposed Americans, arrested Wednesday night at 11 p.m., it is alleged, refused to give his name or any account of himself, but claims to have lately arrived from New York. He is described as being smooth shaven, TALL and well dressed. He is charged with accosting a woman in Whitechapel and threatening if she refused to go with him that he would “cut her up,” etc…

Here is another:

The Daily Telegraph, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1888

EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIR. - It has just transpired that a young woman, named Annie Murphy, living at Sanderstead-road, Croydon, was stopped on Monday night last, when in the Brighton-road, near her home, by a TALL, thin man, who suddenly put his arm round her. She struggled and screamed, and a policeman who was near ran at once to the spot. By the time that he arrived, however, the man had got away, and the young woman only complaining that he had embraced her, the matter was not followed up. Later in the evening, however, she found that her dress was cut, and that she had been stabbed in the breast. She immediately went to a doctor, and informed the police, who are now searching for her assailant. The woman says she did not feel the stab at the time.

Now, these are not in connection with the known murders, but that may not have been the case if these acts went to fruition. Also, contemporary sources clearly shows Scotland Yard considered every sized man a suspect.

Sincerely,

Mike

[caz]

By the way, Littlechild did show a major lapse in memory. He wrote that after leaving Boulogne "it was believed" Tumblety "committed suicide".

Believed by whom? Tumblety lived for another fifteen years.

Hi Simon,

These major lapses in memory seem a bit too convenient somehow, don't they?

I used to think the explanation was more the fact that out of sight was out of mind, and that once Dr T had fled abroad, Littlechild no longer had the same 'need to know' what had become of him.

But that never really satisfied me, and I've been wondering lately if Littlechild knew very well that Dr T hadn't gone the same way as Dr D, but merely suggested as much to Sims to put him off the risky scent of the well-connected family Druitt and imply that his source(s) had confused the two. Compared with Druitt, Tumblebum was more cold hash brown than hot potato.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

-- he did not want the celebrity journalist to actually be so peeved that he started unearthing the whole Tumblety debacle again [a CID debacle, mind you, not Special Branch].

Therefore Littlechild implies that the 'Dr T' suspect maybe, maybe, maybe, went into the drink off France -- well, certainly heard from no more.

Very mysterious, anyhow. No need to go checking what happened...

...the scoop about Tumblety was presumably ignored.

I just read your post, Jonathan.

I'm not sure Littlechild needed to mention Tumblety at all, at least not by name, if he didn't want Sims to start checking him out as a 'scoop' instead. I see it more as damage limitation, which, as you say, didn't succeed in diverting Sims from his risky English gent, although the Druitt name remained out of reach.

Love,

Caz
X

[John Winsett]

Hi Mike,
Thanks for the info. Here is what I'm thinking:

That makes no sense to you. One problem is people do not understand what average height means. Let’s assume the average height of a male in Victorian London was 5 feet 8 inches. This does not mean that everyone was 5 feet 8 inches, so anyone 6 feet 2 inches would stick out like a sore thumb. It actually means 50% of the male population was taller than that and following the bell curves 10 – 15 % were taller than 6 feet! In my neck of the woods we have the Erie County fair. I am about an inch taller than today’s average height, but when I go to he fair, it seems that a large percentage of the male population at the fair is taller than me. To say Tumblety would stick out like a sore thumb does not take into account normal human perception. If you are correct, Tumblety would have certainly been aware of this. Even if he had nothing to do with the killings, he still frequented shady areas in his private life that he did not want publicized, yet he still did it and quite frequently. He even did this on the evening London streets during the ripper murders as evidenced by the court records.

Of course I don't believe that every man in London 1888 was 5'8. I'm sure there were lots of men and women above the average height. Stride and Kelly have both been listed as being over 5'5 and that's moderately tall now for women. My point is that no one reported seeing a tall man in the area or speaking to one of the victims. To a 5 ft woman a 5'8 man would be tall. To a 5'5 woman a 5'8 man wouldn't be so tall to them. but a man between 5'10 to 6'2 would be considered tall in that community. A man like Tumblety who was tall and reported to be of a stout nature and with the dark facial hair would definitely be easily identifiable and memorable. He did do some shady visits but they only came to light when he was arrested, so who knows what he was into, but that's not what we're discussing here.

[/QUOTE]This is not true. I have posted multiple articles commenting upon a “tall” man either being arrested for questioning in the case of the ripper killings or accosting a women but getting away. Here is one:

ON SUSPICION.

TWO SUPPOSED AMERICANS ARRESTED IN LONDON
IN CONNECTION WITH THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS

LONDON, Oct. 5.-Two supposed Americans have been arrested in connection with the Whitechapel murders. In fact, the police are actively engaged in arresting … One of the Americans, or supposed Americans, arrested Wednesday night at 11 p.m., it is alleged, refused to give his name or any account of himself, but claims to have lately arrived from New York. He is described as being smooth shaven, TALL and well dressed. He is charged with accosting a woman in Whitechapel and threatening if she refused to go with him that he would “cut her up,” etc…

Here is another:

The Daily Telegraph, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1888

EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIR. - It has just transpired that a young woman, named Annie Murphy, living at Sanderstead-road, Croydon, was stopped on Monday night last, when in the Brighton-road, near her home, by a TALL, thin man, who suddenly put his arm round her. She struggled and screamed, and a policeman who was near ran at once to the spot. By the time that he arrived, however, the man had got away, and the young woman only complaining that he had embraced her, the matter was not followed up. Later in the evening, however, she found that her dress was cut, and that she had been stabbed in the breast. She immediately went to a doctor, and informed the police, who are now searching for her assailant. The woman says she did not feel the stab at the time.

Now, these are not in connection with the known murders, but that may not have been the case if these acts went to fruition. Also, contemporary sources clearly shows Scotland Yard considered every sized man a suspect.
[/QUOTE]
So your supposition is that everyone believes that no tall people commit crimes? Since these have nothing to do with the Whitechapel murders they are really a moot point. Of course taller people commit crimes, as do dwarves, but no giants or dwarves were suspected of being JtR. Your articles do not even give a height estimation so the victims/eyewitnesses could've considered an average size man as being tall if they themselves were of short stature. Scotland Yard took notice of any case that involved stabbing and such while this was going on so of course they would come across people who are above average height committing crimes.
So as far as it goes for me, we're back to square one. Tumblety was tall and recognizable but no one gave a description that fit Tumbelty. We can get into the fact he was in his middle fifties too if you want as it doesn't look like he aged well between the two known photos of him. But I appreciate the post and you not being too rough with me.

John

[John Winsett]

Hi Mike,
Thanks for the info. Here is what I'm thinking:

That makes no sense to you. One problem is people do not understand what average height means. Let’s assume the average height of a male in Victorian London was 5 feet 8 inches. This does not mean that everyone was 5 feet 8 inches, so anyone 6 feet 2 inches would stick out like a sore thumb. It actually means 50% of the male population was taller than that and following the bell curves 10 – 15 % were taller than 6 feet! In my neck of the woods we have the Erie County fair. I am about an inch taller than today’s average height, but when I go to he fair, it seems that a large percentage of the male population at the fair is taller than me. To say Tumblety would stick out like a sore thumb does not take into account normal human perception. If you are correct, Tumblety would have certainly been aware of this. Even if he had nothing to do with the killings, he still frequented shady areas in his private life that he did not want publicized, yet he still did it and quite frequently. He even did this on the evening London streets during the ripper murders as evidenced by the court records.

Of course I don't believe that every man in London 1888 was 5'8. I'm sure there were lots of men and women above the average height. Stride and Kelly have both been listed as being over 5'5 and that's moderately tall now for women. My point is that no one reported seeing a tall man in the area or speaking to one of the victims. To a 5 ft woman a 5'8 man would be tall. To a 5'5 woman a 5'8 man wouldn't be so tall to them. but a man between 5'10 to 6'2 would be considered tall in that community. A man like Tumblety who was tall and reported to be of a stout nature and with the dark facial hair would definitely be easily identifiable and memorable. He did do some shady visits but they only came to light when he was arrested, so who knows what he was into, but apparently it wasn't killing prostitutes in Whitechapel.

This is not true. I have posted multiple articles commenting upon a “tall” man either being arrested for questioning in the case of the ripper killings or accosting a women but getting away. Here is one:

ON SUSPICION.

TWO SUPPOSED AMERICANS ARRESTED IN LONDON
IN CONNECTION WITH THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS

LONDON, Oct. 5.-Two supposed Americans have been arrested in connection with the Whitechapel murders. In fact, the police are actively engaged in arresting … One of the Americans, or supposed Americans, arrested Wednesday night at 11 p.m., it is alleged, refused to give his name or any account of himself, but claims to have lately arrived from New York. He is described as being smooth shaven, TALL and well dressed. He is charged with accosting a woman in Whitechapel and threatening if she refused to go with him that he would “cut her up,” etc…

Here is another:

The Daily Telegraph, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1888

EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIR. - It has just transpired that a young woman, named Annie Murphy, living at Sanderstead-road, Croydon, was stopped on Monday night last, when in the Brighton-road, near her home, by a TALL, thin man, who suddenly put his arm round her. She struggled and screamed, and a policeman who was near ran at once to the spot. By the time that he arrived, however, the man had got away, and the young woman only complaining that he had embraced her, the matter was not followed up. Later in the evening, however, she found that her dress was cut, and that she had been stabbed in the breast. She immediately went to a doctor, and informed the police, who are now searching for her assailant. The woman says she did not feel the stab at the time.

Now, these are not in connection with the known murders, but that may not have been the case if these acts went to fruition. Also, contemporary sources clearly shows Scotland Yard considered every sized man a suspect.

So your supposition is that everyone believes that no tall people commit crimes? Since these have nothing to do with the Whitechapel murders they are really a moot point. Of course taller people commit crimes, as do dwarves, but no giants or dwarves were suspected of being JtR. Your articles do not even give a height estimation so the victims/eyewitnesses could've considered an average size man as being tall if they themselves were of short stature. Scotland Yard took notice of any case that involved stabbing and such while this was going on so of course they would come across people who are above average height committing crimes.

So as far as it goes for me, we're back to square one. Tumblety was tall and recognizable but no one gave a description that fit Tumbelty. We can get into the fact he was in his middle fifties too if you want as it doesn't look like he aged well between the two known photos of him. But I appreciate the post.

John

[Phil H]

From an earlier post:

"I agree that Littlechild seems to lapse into error by claiming that 'it was believed' at Scotland Yard that Tumblety committed suicide.

Really? Believed by whom?"

The word "believed" was and is used by British civil servants where there is potentially relevant information but no proof or evidence. "It is understood that..." would be another way of expressing the same thing.

For instance, if an official were briefing a Minister or another senior official he might give the facts, then, to ensure that the material provided was comprehensive, might refer to rumour, speculation or unconfirmed accusations/statements, add something along the lines of: "However, it is believed that the same individual is the suthor of scurrilious posts on the Casebook web-site under the name Phil H..."

Hope this clarifies.

Littlechild could, thus have been setting out information which he had heard about T's fate, but which he had not seen confirmed. In this case, he might also have been passing deliberately misleading information to his correspondent. (I remain open to the idea that Littlechild was leaking sensitive information about T for his own purposes.)

Phil

[John Winsett]

Littlechild wrote this letter decades after the murders. Why are we taking what he wrote as gospel? Everyone else who had written about the murders has been accused of bad memories, not being involved at the time of the murders, not in a position to know, etc. Well Littlechild was not fully involved in the murders yet he's given credence over macnaughten and the rest. Why? Truth be told his word should be questioned extensively since it was decades after the murders.

[Phil H]

John

Littlechild had been involved with rather different aspects of police work than others, thus his perceptions and knowledge-base may have been rather different.

Tumblety might have been of interest to him, within his purlieu, in a way that he was not to others.

I suspect the same is true of intelligence work today. MI5 (the Security Service) might know more about a foreigner up to no good than the Met.

Also, what was Littlechild trying to tell his communicant? Are we sure we know?

Phil

[John Winsett]

John

Littlechild had been involved with rather different aspects of police work than others, thus his perceptions and knowledge-base may have been rather different.

Tumblety might have been of interest to him, within his purlieu, in a way that he was not to others.

I suspect the same is true of intelligence work today. MI5 (the Security Service) might know more about a foreigner up to no good than the Met.

Also, what was Littlechild trying to tell his communicant? Are we sure we know?

Phil

Hi Phil,
I completely agree with you. Unfortunately Littlechild is very tight lipped about his info. It appears to me the only reason he mentions Tumblety at all is because He was asked about a "Dr. D" which of course brings a doctor into the mix and he thought of Tumblety. But what if he had named 5 others in his letter? What credence does his suspicion really hold? He named an irishman who had a hatred for women. Wasn't that his purpose to investigate the irish radicals? Of course he's gonna name an irishman. I would've been surprised if he didn't. But what if he named Gull, or Lewis Carroll or Joseph Merrick? knowing what we know about these individuals would we give his suspicions about them any credence? No we wouldn't. We should be very careful in suspecting Tumblety. Not that he isn't a good contemporary suspect, but he is not any better then Chapman, and a worst suspect then Druitt. He's still worth investigating but until they find his wombs and his brass rings we can list him right next to Maybrick for the time being.

John