A Moustache Too Big to Hide?

[caz]

IIRC, Tumblety theorists have suggested in the past that MJK may not have been a ripper victim - and that would have been a convenient way round the possibility that he wasn't free to kill that night.

IMHO he'd still be one of the weakest lady killer suspects if it was ever categorically proved that he had the opportunity.

Love,

Caz
X

[jmenges]

The extravagant and eccentric look of Astrakhan man is somewhat reminiscent of Tumblety, but even that comparison is scraping the barrel.

In 1888 he was no longer dressing in the ostentatious manner of his younger years, and by the mid-1890s onwards he’s reported to have looked downright shabby, like a homeless person.

JM

[Lewis C]

The only person ever seen (allegedly) with a victim of the Ripper who comes anywhere near the physical traits of Tumblety, would be Astrakhan man.

The extravagant and eccentric look of Astrakhan man is somewhat reminiscent of Tumblety, but even that comparison is scraping the barrel.

Apart from Astrakhan man, nobody else omes close to sharing the attributes of Tumblety, who would have stood out like a sore thumb.

But seeing as I don't believe a word Hutchinson said, then that goes to rule out Tumblety completely for me.

The real Ripper was someone that you wouldn't have taken a 2nd look at; totally average looking IMO.

I'm glad that you said that that comparison is scraping the barrel, because in addition to the point that JM made, I doubt that anyone would have thought that Tumblety looked Jewish.

[Lewis C]

It wasn’t “thoroughly debunked” RJ, as all Barat did was provide evidence to create enough doubt. It’s not categorical. It didn’t prove he wasn’t incarcerated.

What classifies as debunking seems to die hard in Ripperology too.

In my humble opinion.

Hi Jay,

I don't think that RJ was saying that the possibility of Tumblety being incarcerated at the time of MJK's murder has been debunked. I think he was saying that certainty that he was incarcerated at that time has been debunked. Certainty, or at least very near certainty, is what would be needed to eliminate him as a possible suspect.

I do have a couple of questions though. In the examples that David Barrat gave, were any suspected of being Jack the Ripper? If not, I would say their cases weren't identical to Tumblety's. Also, if Tumblety was out of jail at the time and suspected of being the Ripper, wouldn't the police have been watching for him?

I wouldn't favor eliminating him as a suspect, but I think he's very much a longshot, about like Francis Thompson.

[c.d.]

Question -- Was Tumblety suspected of being the Ripper when he was arrested on charges related to homosexuality?

c.d.

[Marcel Prost]

Plus I think rather big moustaches were quite en-vogue at the time!

You're absolutely right, large moustaches were common at that time. But if Tumblety's well-known portraits are realistic, his moustache is over the top, even by Victorian standards.

[Lewis C]

Question -- Was Tumblety suspected of being the Ripper when he was arrested on charges related to homosexuality?

c.d.

I was relying on memory for that. I just just checked his wiki article and found this:

"The Metropolitan Police arrested Tumblety on 7 November 1888 on unrelated charges of gross indecency, apparently for having been caught engaging in a homosexual encounter, which was illegal at the time.^[27] Whilst awaiting trial on this charge on bail of £300 (equivalent to £42,000 today), and knowing that Scotland Yard was increasingly interested in him with regard to the recent murder spree in Whitechapel,^[13] he fled England for France on 20 November under the false name of "Frank Townsend"'

Based on this, I can't say for sure that they suspected him at the time of his arrest, but if not, then they did very soon afterward.

[mklhawley]

A poster has pm'd me to ask if I have changed my mind and now believe Druitt is a stronger suspect than Tumblety.

Let me be clear - absolutely not!

I like and respect the Hainsworths and the sources they have found are invaluable. The way they are nickel and dimed here is really unjust and depressing.

But I think they are wrong in their interpretation and Jon and Chris are fine with all of us disagreeing. They are the first to say they could be wrong.

I think that what they have discovered about Macnaghten being deceptive and a propagandist is correct. But it was in the service of hiding Francis Tumblety whom certain police never stopped believing was the killer.

I place great store in Macnaghten's memorandum that he put in the official file: "no shadow of proof could be brought against..." Druitt, and co. Macnaghten writes that he did not believe, the man's family did - by implication mistakenly.

Tumblety should be in that memo, but everything Macnaghten does from 1889 to his memoirs in 1914 is to evade mentioning this prime suspect from 1888. By omission and implication, the man he really believed was "Jack the Ripper"

In 1913 Littlechild had had enough of Sins' profile of an English medico's suicide and wrote to him to correct the record. That Littlechild has been misinformed that Dr Tumblety killed himself in 1888 (probably by Macnaghten) is the clincher that the American solution is being hidden inside another and lesser suspect.

Macnaghten did all this to improve the public image of Scotland Yard as can-do guys who nearly got the job done but the prime suspect was a suicide and so could not be brought to earthly justice. Just think how much better a story that is for the British public than the following humiliating tale: he jumped his bail, reached the States and got off scot free dying of natural causes in an expensive nursing home.

The Hainsworths agree that this is a perfectly legitimate way of interpreting the extant sources; Macnaghten knew everything and was as slippery as the proverbial eel - so where's Tumblety?

As for his moustache being too big; in his interview by a New York paper in 1889 it is reported that he now wears it much trimmed down. He also tells incriminating fibs in that interview whilst conceding he knows the Whitechapel district very well. I'll bet.

[The Rookie Detective]

A poster has pm'd me to ask if I have changed my mind and now believe Druitt is a stronger suspect than Tumblety.

Let me be clear - absolutely not!

I like and respect the Hainsworths and the sources they have found are invaluable. The way they are nickel and dimed here is really unjust and depressing.

But I think they are wrong in their interpretation and Jon and Chris are fine with all of us disagreeing. They are the first to say they could be wrong.

I think that what they have discovered about Macnaghten being deceptive and a propagandist is correct. But it was in the service of hiding Francis Tumblety whom certain police never stopped believing was the killer.

I place great store in Macnaghten's memorandum that he put in the official file: "no shadow of proof could be brought against..." Druitt, and co. Macnaghten writes that he did not believe, the man's family did - by implication mistakenly.

Tumblety should be in that memo, but everything Macnaghten does from 1889 to his memoirs in 1914 is to evade mentioning this prime suspect from 1888. By omission and implication, the man he really believed was "Jack the Ripper"

In 1913 Littlechild had had enough of Sins' profile of an English medico's suicide and wrote to him to correct the record. That Littlechild has been misinformed that Dr Tumblety killed himself in 1888 (probably by Macnaghten) is the clincher that the American solution is being hidden inside another and lesser suspect.

Macnaghten did all this to improve the public image of Scotland Yard as can-do guys who nearly got the job done but the prime suspect was a suicide and so could not be brought to earthly justice. Just think how much better a story that is for the British public than the following humiliating tale: he jumped his bail, reached the States and got off scot free dying of natural causes in an expensive nursing home.

The Hainsworths agree that this is a perfectly legitimate way of interpreting the extant sources; Macnaghten knew everything and was as slippery as the proverbial eel - so where's Tumblety?

As for his moustache being too big; in his interview by a New York paper in 1889 it is reported that he now wears it much trimmed down. He also tells incriminating fibs in that interview whilst conceding he knows the Whitechapel district very well. I'll bet.

Excellent post, some good points made here.