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No problem Michael. I wasn't judging your efforts, just trying to summarize your problem.
Most researchers do not use Mortimer's statement to any effect, it isn't given preferential treatment.
And for me, that just one of the illogical premises with this whole topical enchilada Jon. Believe the folks with every reason to lie and zero corroboration, and dismiss the people who we have every reason were being 100% honest.
I was specifically interested in examples of men who have come forward pretending to be witnesses, not murderers. I can't think of any example - from this or any other murder case - of an "attention-seeker" reading about an unidentified man observed at a crime scene and saying, in essence, "yes, that was me, but I was only a witness".
Be careful in determining what you think you have found.
If it takes a while to find one example that you think proves an argument, what you have really found is the exception that proves the rule.
The most common example is the one most likely to be the answer, not the rare example that has only ever happened once.
Whatever persuaded Abberline to accept Hutchinson's account, I don't know. What I do accept happened is that following MJK's murder there was a door to door search conducted around Jewish homes.
I don't recall such a search being recorded at the time. Are you referring to some later memoirs, like Anderson or Cox?
I did read a door-to-door search was conducted throughout the length of Dorset St. & adjoining sidestreets over the weekend after Kelly's murder, but these were not specifically Jewish homes.
Since they had nothing else to go on, no evidence, they took a chance with Hutchinson and probably combined that with Bond's early profile of JtR.
They were also working on Mary Ann Cox's suspect - Blotchy.
Scotland Yard were not short of clues to work on.
From what I understand in the month after MJK was murdered there was a considerable drop in numbers from the force on the ground and the month after that there was hardly any.
No, not really. We do have some official figures that show numbers of police still being drafted into Whitechapel the following year. There was no sudden decline in activity.
Hutchinson on the streets with police looking for JtR doesn't appear to have solved anything.
It was only for one night.
It might be said that the description he provided was sufficiently unique, they didn't really need him to accompany them.
The police have not relaxed their endeavours to hunt down the murderer in the slightest degree; but so far they remain without any direct clue. Some of the authorities are inclined to place most reliance upon the statement made by Hutchinson as to his having seen the latest victim with a gentlemanly man of dark complexion, with a dark moustache. Others are disposed to think that the shabby man with a blotchy face and a carrotty moustache described by the witness Mary Ann Cox, is more likely to be the murderer.
Echo, 19 Nov.
This a full week after Hutchinson gave his story to the police.
If nothing else, it shows the press had reason to believe the police were focused on two equally viable suspects.
Sugden (page 344-345) has the statement of a man called Galloway, and suggests that some police 'may have been a bit too occupied with the image of the dark continental.'
Galloway, a clerk employed in the City, was walking home along Whitechapel Rd in the early hours of Wednesday 14th November. There he encountered a man very like the one Mrs Cox had seen with Mary Kelly.
Galloway stated that 'The man had a very frightened appearance and glared at me as he passed. He was short, stout, about 35 to 40 years of age. His moustache, not a particularly heavy one, was of a carrotty colour and his face blotchy through drink and dissipation. He wore a long, dirty brown overcoat and altogether presented a most villainous appearance.'
Galloway followed the man into Commercial St where he saw him unsuccessfully try to accost a woman, and then, near Thrawl St, 'appeared disconcerted by the sudden appearance of a policeman.' He looked as if he might run back or cross the road to avoid the constable but in the end continued to walk on.
Galloway stopped the policeman and pointed out the retreating individual's resemblance to the man Mrs Cox had seen. The constable, said Galloway, declined to arrest the man, saying that he was looking for a man of a very different appearance.'
Galloway stopped the policeman and pointed out the retreating individual's resemblance to the man Mrs Cox had seen. The constable, said Galloway, declined to arrest the man, saying that he was looking for a man of a very different appearance.'
Well spotted.
This has all the hallmarks of a "Wearside Jack". No Geordie accent? Let him go.
Doesn't look like the man Hutchinson described? Let him go.
Why would you assume I don't have that book already?
Kozminski's failing as a suspect is due to the fact no police official mentioned him as a suspect at the time of the murders.
And, at 23 yrs old in 1888, far too young.
Kozminski was an afterthought.
Sugden (page 344-345) has the statement of a man called Galloway, and suggests that some police 'may have been a bit too occupied with the image of the dark continental.'
Galloway, a clerk employed in the City, was walking home along Whitechapel Rd in the early hours of Wednesday 14th November. There he encountered a man very like the one Mrs Cox had seen with Mary Kelly.
Galloway stated that 'The man had a very frightened appearance and glared at me as he passed. He was short, stout, about 35 to 40 years of age. His moustache, not a particularly heavy one, was of a carrotty colour and his face blotchy through drink and dissipation. He wore a long, dirty brown overcoat and altogether presented a most villainous appearance.'
Galloway followed the man into Commercial St where he saw him unsuccessfully try to accost a woman, and then, near Thrawl St, 'appeared disconcerted by the sudden appearance of a policeman.' He looked as if he might run back or cross the road to avoid the constable but in the end continued to walk on.
Galloway stopped the policeman and pointed out the retreating individual's resemblance to the man Mrs Cox had seen. The constable, said Galloway, declined to arrest the man, saying that he was looking for a man of a very different appearance.'
Actually, the story about Gallowey is in the Casebook Press Reports:
The police state that the man who aroused the suspicion of Mr. Galloway by frequently crossing and recrossing the road, is a respectable citizen, and that he was, as a matter of fact, acting in concert with them in his "mysterious movements." The streets of Whitechapel presented their normal appearance last night.
He fits the description pretty well. Drinking beer, red hair and mustache, build, dress-and I wonder if the hollow under the cheeks could have something to do with the blotches described by cox.
"Is all that we see or seem
but a dream within a dream?"
-Edgar Allan Poe
"...the man and the peaked cap he is said to have worn
quite tallies with the descriptions I got of him."
-Frederick G. Abberline
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