Was Tumblety in Jail during the Kelly Murder?

[Dr. John Watson]

Ok. Thanks for that, Dr. That makes it a little clearer (I think). It all seems to hinge on the distinction between being detained and under arrest. I still think that Tumblety would have been a fool to think that he was not being followed and therefore to immediately run out and kill Mary Kelly wouldn't seem to be the best course of action.

c.d.

Hello c.d.

I understand your puzzlement. The verb "arrest" originally meant simply "to stop." Over time, the word has come to mean an actual loss of freedom and taking into custody, either for committing a crime witnessed by an officer, or under warrant issued by a court of law. Police authority for arresting citizens is governed by laws and regulations which have been tested in various courts of law. The regulations governing London police in the 1880's, as set forth by Trevor and Monty, mirror those in the U.S. Laws and regulations also allow police to detain and question citizens, under certain circumstances and for a limited period, without warrant. To the average person, this may seem confusing, but to the police officer it makes perfect sense!

I do agree that once Tumblety had been questioned about the Ripper murders, he would likely suspect he might be under surveillance and would certainly not risk picking up any more young men for sex (by then, of course, it was too late!), much less murdering anyone!

John

[Trevor Marriott]

Hi c.d.,

I still think if he was merely arrested for some kind of suspicious behavior wearing what he did and being who he was, he'd think little of it, but you could very well be right.

Sincerely,

Mike

You have changed again you have gone from him being arrested as a ripper suspect to being arrested for some suspicious behaviour

[mklhawley]

Hi Mike,

That would hold true if this only had to do with the charges of gross indecency which I don't think was the case. Regardless of whether the police mentioned the Ripper murders outright or not, I think that he realized that there was more going on than mere indecency charges. I think he realized that he was a Ripper suspect and to therefore think that he could be followed doesn't seem to be too great a leap. Throw in his alleged Fenian connections and it would seem to be even more of a certainty.

c.d.

Hi c.d.,

I still think if he was merely arrested for some kind of suspicious behavior wearing what he did and being who he was, he'd think little of it, but you could very well be right.

Sincerely,

Mike

[c.d.]

Hi Mike,

That would hold true if this only had to do with the charges of gross indecency which I don't think was the case. Regardless of whether the police mentioned the Ripper murders outright or not, I think that he realized that there was more going on than mere indecency charges. I think he realized that he was a Ripper suspect and to therefore think that he could be followed doesn't seem to be too great a leap. Throw in his alleged Fenian connections and it would seem to be even more of a certainty.

c.d.

[mklhawley]

Ok. Thanks for that, Dr. That makes it a little clearer (I think). It all seems to hinge on the distinction between being detained and under arrest. I still think that Tumblety would have been a fool to think that he was not being followed and therefore to immediately run out and kill Mary Kelly wouldn't seem to be the best course of action.

c.d.

Hi c.d.,

It seems clear to me that they were not required to tell Tumblety the evidence they had against him when they officially charged him with gross indecency on November 7th. He would have found this out in closed session on November 14th with his solicitor, therefore, he would not have known he was being followed. If he was only picked up on suspicion like scores of others, that would mean in his mind he was not being followed.

Sincerely,

Mike

[Dr. John Watson]

Hello Lynn!

Yes, I was referring to Insp. Littlechild's department. I seem to recall reading something a few years ago concerning Tumblety's possible connection with the Irish radicals in Britain and the suggestion that his many trips to England involved delivery of money to support the Irish Republican cause. Tumblety, of course, was born in Ireland, but left that country for America at a young age. Still, he may have felt a need to support the Irish cause, and Scotland Yard must have had more than mere suspicion of his involvement to justify maintaining a "large file" on him. A curious fact, noted even in newspapers, is that Tumblety always seemed to have a lot of money and appeared wealthy beyond what one would expect for an "Indian herb doctor" selling pills to cure pimples. The implication is that he had certain benefactors supplying him with funds - but who and why has never been ascertained.

John

[c.d.]

When Tumblety was detained as a Ripper suspect, he could be questioned about the murders since he was not under arrest, or under warrant for arrest, nor did he stand accused of the crimes. However, once he had been arrested on the indecency charges, police could not question him about those crimes. See Trevor's and Monty's posts.

John

Ok. Thanks for that, Dr. That makes it a little clearer (I think). It all seems to hinge on the distinction between being detained and under arrest. I still think that Tumblety would have been a fool to think that he was not being followed and therefore to immediately run out and kill Mary Kelly wouldn't seem to be the best course of action.

c.d.

[mklhawley]

When are you going to stop believing what you read from the papers have you not read and digested post 102
Anyone arrested without warrant was taken at first to the station sgt whose responsibility it was to review the grounds for arrest and what evidence there was .if there was evidence the he would authorise charge.
If there was none to justify a charge the person was released

Now get this after a person was arrested the police could not conduct any interview. That is fact and documented so accept it

Trevor, I have absolutely no issues with this and I have accepted it. I don't believe there was an interview. Just as the cable sources stated, he was arrested on suspicion just like scores of others. The fact that he was wearing a slouch hat AND he was an American AND he claimed he was a doctor (as per the court calendar), which matched an already established Ripper theory (as Paul demonstrated), this was good enough for the Sergeant to notify Headquarters.

...and John makes a good point.

Sincerely,

Mike

[Dr. John Watson]

I have to admit that I am pretty much lost here. Would the police have been allowed to question Tumblety about the charges of gross indecency? Would they have been allowed to question him about the Ripper murders?

c.d.

When Tumblety was detained as a Ripper suspect, he could be questioned about the murders since he was not under arrest, or under warrant for arrest, nor did he stand accused of the crimes. However, once he had been arrested on the indecency charges, police could not question him about those crimes. See Trevor's and Monty's posts.

John

[lynn cates]

Irish radicals

Hello John.

"Scotland Yard's "Special Branch" apparently had a dossier on Tumblety as a possible supporter of Irish radicals."

You mean section D? If so, then he would almost certainly be watched closely.

"Wouldn't they have the resources to carry out such a wide surveillance of Tumblety . . ."

They would indeed. They had a very efficient network for gathering information about suspects. Just read Porter again and discovered that they had a few RIC men posted in London as part of the information chain. Sir Ed Jenkinson seems the first to have used this set up, but Monro and Sir Nick Gosselin appear to have continued it.

" . . . and perhaps reason to want to jail him or chase him out of the country?"

Not necessarily. Oddly, they rather liked to keep regulars in place--made it easier to keep tabs.

Cheers.
LC

[Trevor Marriott]

Here's my earlier post on the London cable source:



Sincerley,

Mike

When are you going to stop believing what you read from the papers have you not read and digested post 102
Anyone arrested without warrant was taken at first to the station sgt whose responsibility it was to review the grounds for arrest and what evidence there was .if there was evidence the he would authorise charge.
If there was none to justify a charge the person was released

Now get this after a person was arrested the police could not conduct any interview. That is fact and documented so accept it

[Dr. John Watson]

I love you guys! Nice to see a little give-and-take without all the acrimony!

I'm sorry, Trevor, for perhaps seeming a bit thick yesterday. I had been up all night and was half asleep when I posted my last remarks (always a bad idea). But it stands to reason that since there is no record of Tumblety being charged as a murderer, his arrest and subsequent bail hearings must have involved the indecency charges. Therefore, he must have been detained earlier for questioning in the Ripper murders, then formally arrested on the other charges. At least that's my understanding. The newspapers carried many stories of others being "brought in" for questioning in the Ripper matter and then released without charges - or were those stories wrong? When Tumblety later spoke to a reporter in America, he connected his arrest to the Ripper case rather than to the sex charges for reasons already expounded. Again, that's my take on the matter - of course, being human, I could be wrong!!!!!

I greatly appreciate your reference to the period laws governing arrests and cautioning, along with Monty's follow-up document - original sources add so much to understanding - but I saw nothing there to conflict with my scenerio. And am I wrong in referencing the Wilde and Cleveland St. cases as examples of using rent boys, who could have been arrested and charged as accomplices, as prosecution witnesses instead? In published works on these cases, I saw no indication that any of them were arrested and cautioned, thus leaving the inference that they were induced to cooperate rather than face charges themselves. This is exactly what I think happened in the Tumblety matter. If I'm totally misunderstanding the entire set of facts, please straighten me out.

As I mentioned in another posting, police interest in Tumblety as a Ripper suspect does seem a bit strange, considering his age, physical description, etc., as does the surveillance of his movements in both the west and east ends. Does this not suggest, at least, that other forces may be involved? Scotland Yard's "Special Branch" apparently had a dossier on Tumblety as a possible supporter of Irish radicals. Wouldn't they have the resources to carry out such a wide surveillance of Tumblety, and perhaps reason to want to jail him or chase him out of the country? Just a thought.

Seeking Enlightenment John

[mklhawley]

Here's my earlier post on the London cable source:

The problem with Trevor’s proposal is that, even though it seems to conform to British Law, it does not fit all of the evidence. I am going to propose an alternative series of events that fits both British Law AND additional evidence. Sir Robert Anderson continuing the Tumblety case after the Kelly murder aside, the evidence I would like to focus on is the London World News cable source, which was reported in the San Francisco Chronicle on November 18, 1888:

San Francisco Chronicle, 18 November 1888,
A Heavy Swell Arrested in Whitechapel.
A Score of Prisoners, but No Clew.
[THE NEW YORK WORLD CABLE SERVICE; COPYRIGHTED, 1888 - SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE]
LONDON, November 17.
…Another arrest was a man who gave the name of Dr. Kumblety of New York. The police could not hold him on suspicion of the Whitechapel crimes, but he will be committed for trial at the Central Criminal Court under the special law passed soon after the Modern Babylon exposures. The police say this is the man's right name, as proved by letters in his possession; that he is from New York, and that he has been in the habit of crossing the ocean twice a year for several years.
A score of other men have been arrested by the police this week on suspicion of being the murderer, but the right man still roams at large…

Why should the cable source be taken more seriously that a mere US newspaper report? The cable source claimed its source was the police, and to confirm this being true, the points of fact given were correct and could only have come from police. “The police say this is the man’s right name as proved by letters in his possession.” All who now know Tumblety’s habits agree he did just this. How would a reporter, who had no idea Tumblety was a murder suspect at all, pull that correct fact out of thin air? There was no time for the reporter to do a background investigation before sending the cable. Just as Trevor stated, the case was in private session, so neither British nor US papers would have known, but once he posted bail on November 16th, the cable source (most likely stationed at Marlborough Street Station, since a New York World correspondent was stationed there, the timing is perfect, and the details of the case are correct) spoke with police about Tumblety and then sent the cable off by November 17th.

Also as I stated earlier, why would the London cable source just make it up about him being arrested on suspicion of the Whitechapel crimes, especially when Littlechild confirmed this and Tumblety admitted it?

Sincerley,

Mike

[mklhawley]

I have to admit that I am pretty much lost here. Would the police have been allowed to question Tumblety about the charges of gross indecency? Would they have been allowed to question him about the Ripper murders?

c.d.

Hi c.d.,

According to the London cable source who questioned the police, Tumblety was arrested on suspicion of the Whitechapel crime just like scores of other men. It seems clear to me he was arrested and questioned about his suspicious behavior on the streets that night. The cable source also makes clear that there was an investigation on him already (it may even have been a file Littlechild's department or just an ongoing gross indecency investigation), and once they realized who they had, for some reason they believed he was significant enough to get him off the streets and pursuse the gross indecency charges. The police had no reason to question him about the gross indecency charges at the time, since they needed to further get statements from the young boys. In view of this, Tumblety was not at all threatened by him being arrested for the Whitechapel crimes (he thought he was merely arrested just like the scores of other men) and for gross indecency.

Sincerely,

Mike

[c.d.]

I have to admit that I am pretty much lost here. Would the police have been allowed to question Tumblety about the charges of gross indecency? Would they have been allowed to question him about the Ripper murders?

c.d.