Hi Stewart,
Thank you for that very substantial answer to my question. One more if you please. If Tumblety was indeed picked up and questioned on suspicion of being the Ripper and then released, is it not reasonable to believe that he would be aware that he was being watched and that in all likelihood that observation would continue even after his release? If so, why would he then take the chance of murdering Mary Kelly? That would either take major league cojones or major stupidity.
c.d.
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Source
The source for the dates, and wording, of these charges is the actual Tumblety charge sheet a copy of which was obtained from the PRO (Chancery Lane) by Andy Aliffe and of which I have a copy. And a Happy New Year to you. I shall not be staying 'back on the boards'.Originally posted by Simon Wood View PostLeave a comment:
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Thank You
Hi Phil, thank you for the kind comments and a Happy New Year to you too, and to all here.
I first started reading about the case in 1961 and expanded into serious research during the mid to late '60s. So you may imagine what I felt when I 'found' the Littlechild letter in 1993 and realised that here was a 'new' but genuine suspect. In many ways I would rather have not written a 'suspect book' at all, but given the circumstances, as explained in my book, there was really no way of avoiding it. Such was the genesis of the Tumblety book.
There is no way, of course, that a 'suspect book' can be looked upon as a text book or solid reference work as it will always be too subjective and carry a degree of bias. After all, the requirement is to make the best possible case for a particular individual being Jack the Ripper. And publishers being publishers will always require a degree of sensationalism and strength of argument. This, however, should not include invention or dishonesty.
Through extensive research we were able to include not only a 'new' suspect but also much material that had not been published in a Ripper book before. No matter how good any such book is the author has to expect much criticism and strong attacks upon his theorising - for theory forms an important part of such a book.
For anyone to imagine that a book that provides a case for the identity of a murderer in an unsolved case can be free of personal opinion, interpretation and theory is misguided. As a police officer my whole career revolved around such subjects as legal evidence, witnesses and proof. So I am only too aware of the hopeless task in trying to make out a solid case in the absence of hard evidence. But if we were halted by such constraints then there would be no 'suspect books' and the subject would be, I venture to suggest, very boring.
At the time that I wrote my first book it was very difficult to get a Ripper book published unless it contained a really good new suspect or theory. A rare exception was, of course, the excellent A-Z which was ahead of its time.
The 90s witnessed the dawn of an era of much greater public (and international) interest in the case, fuelled by the Internet. We saw Sugden's valuable contribution (just before our book was published) and by the millenium I was able to publish much more objective reference works such as The Ultimate Sourcebook and Letters From Hell. But, I guess, any author may be judged only by the work he produces.Leave a comment:
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Hi Stewart,
Happy New Year. Good to see you back on the boards.
Could you please help clear up a detail? I have put this question to a number of people, but to no avail.
I have seen the Court Calendar listing Tumblety's four acts of gross indecency, but what is our source for the actual dates of these offences?
Friday, July 27, 1888 — Albert Fisher
Friday, August 31st 1888 — Arthur Brice
Sunday, October 14 1888 — James Crowley
Friday, November 2nd 1888 — John Doughty
Regards,
SimonLeave a comment:
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Hello Stewart,
Happy New Year!.
I read your book about Tumblety again today, for the first time in a while. I decided I had not paid enough attention recently to make some of the facts about him stick in my own head. So I refreshed my mind a little.
The points I found, having closed the book afterwards were that this suspect was, and to this day still is, a plausible and reasonable suspect. That doesn't mean, as you say yourself, that Tumblety is JTR. But it does mean that the advance of this suspect helped open up more research areas, both for and against.
It also did something VERY valuable, to my mind. It opened up an alley that we had not previously looked down. Personally, I still have great respect for the book. Having read most of the books previous to it, and the at times dire period from Mr. Knight onwards, where one poor theory after another surfaced, it was actually refreshing to get to grips with a REAL possibility once again. It also gave me a belief that we were getting away from the idiocy, acrimony and in-fighting, that had sadly crept into Ripperology.
I personally believe also, that unseen inspirations were given to others, who later researched and investigated a whole plethora of alleyways occured. And had it not been for the seriously methodical research you and your co-writer used, we may still have been in the dark old days in many ways. It was a refreshingly fine thing to see.
I for one am grateful..nay, very grateful for this contribution. The influences of Rumbelow, Evans, Skinner and Scott, to name but a few, have been shining examples that have inspired the NEXT generation and set standards. That is something you can assuredly and happily hold proud within you. Your contribution through your book about Tumblety, and afterwards, was, and is immense. Thank you.
best wishes
PhilLeave a comment:
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Interpretations
We all have our own ideas, opinions and interpretations of the few available facts pertaining to the case. Over the years these are added to, and often modified, as new information comes to light.Originally posted by c.d. View Post
Littlechild's pronouncements have been attacked in the light of modern knowledge and perspectives, as one would expect. A favourite is to suggest that as head of the Special Branch at Scotland Yard at the time he would not have been au fait with the investigation. To my mind, and knowing how the police work, this is a nonsense. He was one of the few head of department Chief Inspectors at Scotland Yard at the time and it would be unthinkable that he would not have discussed the case with colleagues such as Swanson and Moore and supervisors such as Anderson. He would have known more than we shall ever know. And, it must be remembered, he did not make any grand claim that Tumblety was the Ripper. He merely stated that Tumblety was 'amongst the suspects' and to his mind 'a very likely one'. Also, independent of any American press reports, Littlechild noted that Tumblety's "feelings towards women were remarkable and bitter in the extreme, a fact on record."
What I feel cannot be gainsaid is the fact that Tumblety was indeed a serious suspect but, as with others, no shred of hard evidence could be adduced. Even if a person is a serious suspect for murder, without hard evidence they simply cannot be held. My take is (and I stress it is my opinion) that Tumblety was indeed arrested in connection with suspicion of complicity in the Whitechapel murders and the police hoped that, once in custody, they could interrogate him and elicit some sort of confession. They obviously failed to do that. In order to further ensure that he remained in England they then resorted to keeping him in the country on the indecency offences that their inquiries had revealed. Whether or not they were sanguine of eventually getting a confession or obtaining evidence against him with regard to the murders I don't know.
Tim Riordan's new book on Tumblety is very good although Riordan makes some errors and over inflates his case against the points we make in regard to Tumblety. Riordan states, "...Evans and Gainey present the most ludicrous argument of the book. They contend that Tumblety disappeared and could not be caught. The police, knowing he was Jack the Ripper and realizing how it would look that they let him escape, engaged in a truly massive cover-up. This argument is stunningly self-delusional or intentionally misleading."
Let's look at this dispassionately. First a few points - (1) Tumblety did disappear and escaped to France and then to the USA and was not caught; (2) The Police, as I have explained, did not know that he was Jack the Ripper - he was, as I tire of pointing out, only a suspect against whom they had no hard evidence. (3) However, Tumblety was indeed a charged offender, out on bail, who did elude the police and get away from the country. (4) We did not suggest that the police 'engaged in a truly massive cover-up', what we suggested that was in view of the fact that Tumblety was on bail for indecency offences and was also a Whitechapel suspect, they merely did not supply any details or his name to the press. When you look at some of the more ludicrous suspects that did attract press attention it is truly remarkable that Tumblety's name is totally absent from the British press, even with regard to the indecency charges, his flight and estreatment of his bail. As for stating that our argument is 'stunningly self delusional or intentionally misleading' I feel that Riordan is totally off the mark and making comments that I would have thought were beneath his status.
Riordan also suggests that as Tumblety's flight and arrival back in New York was known then, if he was "such a fugitive, he could have been arrested as he stepped off the boat [sic]." He adds, "For the rest of his life, Tumblety was in plain sight and could have been picked up at any time. That he was not indicates Scotland Yard had no interest in him." Again Riordan misses the point - and I really do get fed up with reiterating it - Tumblety was only a suspect, there was no hard evidence against him for the murders, he could not be 'picked up at any time' as the bail he had jumped was for minor offences which carried no power of extradition from the USA.
It has to be stated (again and again in my opinion) that there was no hard evidence against any suspect whatsoever for the murders. Not just Tumblety, but every named suspect that we know of. Riordan may make light of the fact that one of the points we used in support of Tumblety was the fact that he was in London at the relelvant time, hardly a factor in proving that he was Jack the Ripper, but in Ripperworld we all know that there are high profile past suspects (such as Prince Eddy, Sickert and Cream) who ostensibly were not in London at the time but are still proposed as viable suspects.Leave a comment:
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Hi Stewart,
Thanks for that information. Do you believe that the indecency charges were simply a way to hold Tumblety while the police attempted to gather more evidence so that he could be charged again for the Ripper murders?
c.d.Leave a comment:
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Amusing
Very amusing AP, trouble is the fact that if you throw enough sh*t some of it sticks - even if you are 'a bumbling old drunk.'Originally posted by Cap'n Jack View PostLeave a comment:
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Bumbling Idiots
I have, above, explained some of the difficulties we were working under when researching and writing our 1995 book. It never ceases to amaze me how our detractors (and even some serious writers such as Tim Riordan) seem to totally ignore this and don't even allow any mitigation or make any mention of it. They speak as great oracles some fourteen years later and with hindsight as if we were bumbling idiots without a clue about historical research. Oh that we all had many years to prepare our work.Originally posted by Cap'n Jack View Post
When I first acquired the Littlechild letter and became aware of Tumblety as a suspect he was initially identified by my dear friend Keith Skinner who located a couple of small reports in The New York Times of December 1888 and a 1903 account of Tumblety's death and legacy which did indeed, include the wording that Tumblety had fled back to the USA in December 1888 pursued by Scotland Yard detectives. We also had the Pall Mall Gazette report of 31 December 1888 that stated (inter alia) "Inspector Andrews, of Scotland Yard, has arrived in New York from Montreal. It is generally believed that he has received orders from England to commence his search in this city for the Whitechapel murderer." This report, we later found, was supported by reports in some US papers. We also had the statement in the 1928 book Masters of Crime by Guy B. H. Logan that, "The murders ceased, I think, with the Miller [sic] Court one, and I am the more disposed to this view because, though the fact was was kept a close secret at the time, I know that one of Scotland Yard's best men, Inspector Andrews, was sent specially to America in December, 1888, in search of the Whitechapel fiend on the strength of important information, the nature of which was never disclosed." Logan was a criminological writer with good police contacts and it is a pity that he did not divulge the source of this information.
So far from being a personal 'fantasy' as the above poster claims, we were working with the best information we had at that time. And although Andrews' North American travels remain still to be fully explained, later detractors of our 1995 work are using many years of supplementary information gathering to fuel their criticisms. And it was many years before much of the new information was found, after the introduction of digital searching. I shall have more to say, of Sanford Conover, later. Here is Logan's 1928 piece.
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Difficulty
The great difficulty in trying to establish an exact timeline for Tumblety's arrest and bail is exacerbated by the fact that the daily police station records, such as custody and bail records, have not survived. However we do know that the Victorian police did use police bail, similar to today's, in order to dispose of a prisoner whilst gathering evidence for the offences with which he would be charged.Originally posted by Cap'n Jack View Post
No one, including me, has ever claimed that any hard evidence for Tumblety being the Ripper has been, or was, adduced. It was merely suspicion. In order to charge a prisoner with an offence hard evidence is required. In the case of Tumblety and the suspicion the police had of his complicity in the Whitechapel murders, he could be held for that no longer than any of the many other suspects detained in connection with the murders. In order to detain Tumblety hard evidence for some other offence(s) was thus required. Unfortunately for the police the Section 11 offence of gross indecency, despite what others may try to get us believe, was only a misdemeanour and not a serious felony, or as the dictionary defines it, 'less heinous than felony; offence, misdeed.' As a less serious offence police bail was used if the charges had not already been supported by full evidence. I have also pointed out that where there are multiple similar offences, such as these four gross indecency charges, the police often commenced with the one the offender was arrested for, usually the most recent and only known initial offence, and then, by inquiry, located further 'victims' (witnesses) and formulated further charges as the witnesses were located.
In light of the few (and incomplete) contemporary records of Tumblety's arrest, detention and bail that have survived we were (and are) forced to make the best of what we do have. More recently this has been added to with the information Tumblety himself provided in the January 1889 interview published in the New York World. A more likely scenario, now, is that Tumblety was indeed arrested on suspicion of being the Whitechapel murderer, which he states himself, but was 'released' on that charge as there was no hard evidence (which we know). Indicators are then that he was immediately re-arrested on the misdemeanour charges (for which there was evidence) and was subsequently bailed. Even Tumblety himself stated that he was held only "Two or three days", and not well over a week as the detractors proclaim.
The offence under section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 did not refer to the serious offence of buggery (or sodomy) but to a lesser act of indecency between males (such as inter-crural intercourse etc.) not involving penetration. So, like it or not, gross indecency was very much a lesser offence. What is interesting, of course, is that the 'victims' would probably have been co-offenders rather than the independent witnesses that the police would desire. Tumblety was probably paying them for their services. I have long believed this is why the charges against Tumblety include the legal qualifiers 'with Force and Arms' indicating that the 'victims' were forced by Tumblety into the acts, rather than being willing co-offenders. I have an original copy of the said Act and reproduce below the relevant section.
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'which is why I have been absent for some time...'
The one thing you cannot deny me, SPE, is that I do know how to get you outta bed!Leave a comment:
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The Easiest Thing
The easiest thing in the world is to attack a Ripper author when he has written a book proposing a particular individual as the unknown killer. We see it every day on the boards and I have done it myself. Sometimes these attacks are justified, sometimes they are misguided and sometimes they are fired by simple jealousy or rivalry. Any author who has written a 'suspect book' should, however, expect them. Of all the books I have written the one that is singled out for the most criticism and denigration is the book on Tumblety. This I expect and, I hasten to add, I am not averse to constructive criticism. I am far from perfect.Originally posted by Cap'n Jack View Post
However, conversely, it may be thought that such prolonged and vituperate criticism of Tumblety's status as a suspect indicates that others regard him as a threat to their own ideas. Thus they attack all the arguments made supporting the idea of his possible involvement in the murders and also seek to belittle and vilify Littlechild himself for having the temerity to write such things in a private letter all those years ago. And while they are at it, perhaps it would be a good idea to attack the police in general - people seem to like seeing that. But I am here to address the various points raised in the post above. And to do that I need to address them individually so as not to confuse the issue.
The story of the 'Batty Street Lodger' is mentioned as "Propping up Tumblety as a suspect by maintaining he was a resident in a nearby street to the murders, when he wasn't..." Prior to our book the story of the 'Batty Street lodger' had not appeared in any Ripper book. It was, however, prominent in many newspapers of the time. It was a story that I came across whilst writing the book (after acceptance by the publisher) and not one that appeared in our proposal to the publisher. In the book I explained why there were reasons to think the said lodger was an American.
Readers and researchers have now had many years to examine the press reports on this incident - and to find more reports on it via modern research methods and increased availablility of all the reports. Thus in the intervening years more information is to hand which does cast greater doubt that the said lodger was Tumblety. However, it hasn't been proved that he wasn't as the above poster would have us believe. A careful study will reveal that with the short-term letting out of rooms when the usual occupant was away (which landlords did) it is still a possiblility. But it is not at all crucial to the argument that Tumblety might have been involved in the murders, it is merely supportive of that hypothesis. At the time we wrote the book, and with the information to hand at that time, it was a reasonable theory.Last edited by Stewart P Evans; 01-05-2010, 01:00 PM.Leave a comment:
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Having just caught Stewart Evans"s post I agree completely regarding the word "fantasies"---no need whatever to insult what was a well researched and very plausible account of the enigmatic fraudster Tumblety!Leave a comment:
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A Few Points
Although I generally try to avoid 'suspect debates' there are a few points that I should like to address with regard to the above post.Originally posted by Cap'n Jack View Post
First I am going to state the obvious - as it obviously needs stating. No book making out a case for a particular individual as a suspect for the Whitechapel murders can be anything but subjective. That is not to say that it should be dishonest, nor should the author 'invent' facts. But, inevitably, the author will be required to interpret and give his opinion on the material he has. Inevitably, because everything cannot be included in a book with a limit on the word count, the author will have to give greatest attention to press stories that may have related to the individual he is looking at. He will then have to present these opinions and interpretations for the reader to assess. For a critic, no matter how vitriolic, to call the hypotheses and opinions we present in our 1995 book as 'fantasies' I find insulting.
Secondly I would ask the reader to cast his mind back to the first half of the last decade. At that time I was not connected to the Internet and online digital searching of newspapers and other necessary sources was unheard of. All the research for this book had to be done the hard, and the expensive, way. Much travelling took place and I shelled out over £1,200 of my own cash for hard copies of material, both official and non-official. Also, at this time, proper Ripper research was in its infancy and, incredibly, the American newspapers had never been checked and so Tumblety was totally unknown in 'Ripperworld' at that time.
What we did know was that we had a genuine police suspect in Tumblety as per the exact words of ex-Chief Inspector Littlechild - "...but amongst the suspects, and to my mind a very likely one, was a Dr. T. ..." I also knew that this was a new, but more importantly a genuine, suspect and was not one that I had conjured out of thin air with no evidence that he was a suspect.
At that time with no online search facilities and legwork the only option the information came through slowly. Added to that I was a full-time police officer with a family, and little spare time, thus the situation was exacerbated. I invited Paul Gainey, a full-time press officer with the Suffolk Constabulary, to assist me with the research and writing of the book - all of which had to be completed on a few months' deadline - an incredibly short period to fully research and write a complete book. It was decided that I would deal with the Ripper research and writing whilst Paul carried out the American research, he visited New York and St Louis, on Tumblety. It is given these qualifications that I ask the reader to contemplate the situation - remember nothing was known of Tumblety in Ripper circles at that time.
Given the fourteen years that have since passed, and the incredible advances in online search facilities that are now accepted as the norm, it should be realised that hindsight truly is a wonderful thing. Despite these problems I still feel that we made a fair effort in the research and writing of the book. Also any subsequent Tumblety researcher had all the information contained in our book as a starting point for Tumblety.
In view of other disparaging comments in the above post I shall be addressing the poster's other comments in further replies. I should also like to make the point that I am sick of the pettiness and jealousies to be found on the various message boards which is why I have been absent for some time. This does not mark my return to the boards on a regular basis.Last edited by Stewart P Evans; 01-05-2010, 12:24 PM.Leave a comment:
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Thanks Mike for such a thorough and analytic update of what is so far known about Tumblety.
I will need to re-read some of your argument to see if it holds together as well on a second reading as a first but so far only Cap"n Jack"s point strikes home as being inconsistent with his criminality.
First off as Cap"n Jack infers,the homophobia of the Victorian Police and others at the time should not blind us about Tumblety"s homosexuality.There is nothing on record about him having a violent homosexual libido-------so just what was this "gross indecency"? What did it amount to? Indiscretion perhaps? Someone who hung around the gents doing "indecent" sexual acts in the toilets?
My own suspicion is that Tumblety was watched by police for one of two reasons:
1]either because any Irish American -which Tumblety was--was treated as a "suspect" at the height of the dynamite outrages----the Jubilee Plot of 1887 highlighted the lengths the British Government would go to to entrap those they believed to be hatching or assisting in the finance of Irish Nationalist outrages.
or
2]because Tumblety himself was a double agent-working for the Fenians but offering up or pretending to offer up "information" on London"s fenian activity---of which there was much as Sir Edward Jenkinson revealed in his letters.
All your other points I can accept.He could have been capable,thats for sure.Whether he was is not supported by any history of proven or even "known" violent activity.
Best
NormaLast edited by Natalie Severn; 01-05-2010, 12:21 PM.Leave a comment:
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