Tumblety: The Hidden Truth

[Ally]

As for being on the Nyquil.....what you couldn't share....then I wouldn't have sounded like Vin Diesel in need of a nap ��

Steadmund Brand

It gets better. I managed to hit myself on the head yesterday with what is basically a wood bat so now I am rocking an awesome concussion as well. I ain't smart.

Just so you all know that the edit wasn't made to make Ally sound crazy.

Yeah....sure it wasn't....

As to the rest as I am responding to a lot of posts in a lump, I think it's clear that Tumblety actually had a condition, whether micro-penis as seem apparent or true hermaphrodite is unknown but regardless. To get back to something in the podcast that Mike said to "look up" and which I didn't really need to but others are free to do so, I want to reiterate a point I made. Having a preoccupation with the size of his manhood points away from Tumblety having a Narcisisstic Personality Disorder. Yes Narcissists can have feelings of inferiority but it's the inferiority of realizing that their outsized perceptions of themselves don't match reality. The they think they're a 12 and they are actually a 6. Being confronted every single day with the evidence that you are, quite literally an inferior man would be more likely to result in an overcompensating inferiority complex that gears towards aggression as a compensation technique than a NPD.

[Steadmund Brand]

Ally Ally Ally....."beat you over the head with it" is just an expression...no need for the wooden bat!!!....Hope you are feeling better.....

Steadmund Brand

[Ozzy]

So he had a mother = sister as well.
I wonder how much this still goes on. Years after leaving school I bumped into somebody who I was in the same school class with. After the usual how have you been etc he told me that his father turned up. What do you mean I said. It turned out the person who he thought was his father was actually his grandfather. The woman who he thought was his mother was actually his grandmother and the woman who he thought was his sister was actually his mother.
It wasn't the first time I'd heard of this in families. But this was the first time I'd heard of it happening to somebody I knew.

Thanks for the podcast to all involved.

[mklhawley]

Hi Ozzy,

Tumblety was never confused about his mother and sisters, and was acutely aware of the lives of his siblings and their children. Tumblety was the 11th child, two of them brothers and the rest sisters. He came over during the Great Famine, or Potato Famine, from Ireland with mom and dad, but some of his older siblings were in the US prior to the Famine. His father died within a couple of years of arrival and mom died in 1873.

The last time Tumblety visited Rochester was around the same time his brother Lawrence died in 1898. He had been ill for a full year before his death. Tumblety outlived all of his siblings except for one, Jane. She died in 1904.

Sincerely,

Mike

[Steadmund Brand]

Hi Ozzy,

Tumblety was never confused about his mother and sisters, and was acutely aware of the lives of his siblings and their children. Tumblety was the 11th child, two of them brothers and the rest sisters. He came over during the Great Famine, or Potato Famine, from Ireland with mom and dad, but some of his older siblings were in the US prior to the Famine. His father died within a couple of years of arrival and mom died in 1873.

The last time Tumblety visited Rochester was around the same time his brother Lawrence died in 1898. He had been ill for a full year before his death. Tumblety outlived all of his siblings except for one, Jane. She died in 1904.

Sincerely,

Mike

I still think Tumblety may have visited Rochester/Buffalo around the turn of the century.. maybe in 1901... can't prove it yet, but I think so


Steadmund Brand

[Robert]

"The only motivation that I can think of to cause all of these witnesses to lie on sworn depositions would be the promise of money. Bribed to give certain false evidence in order to benefit those who were contesting Tumblety's will. So unless and until a researcher can track down whether or not payment was made to these witnesses in order to make up dirt on the good doctor, we should assume that they were all likely telling the truth. That's how I look at it anyway."

Hi JM

Is there any reference in the material to Tumblety being accused of the Ripper crimes, or to the four indecency charges? I would have thought that would be a sine qua non for anyone wanting to blacken his name.

[Ally]

Honestly I can't even imagine what money would have made it worth the one guy's while to come forward with that statement. I was literally laughing my ass of at his "well sure there I am taking money, and clothes from guys and apparently willing to wrestle around naked, but I'm going to have to punch him in the face for thinking I'm 'thataway'." Obviously that's not a direct quote and I can't remember the guy's name right off the top of my head.

But considering it was different circumstances and sources, I can't imagine so many people willing to lie about the same thing. And why THAT? If they wanted to discredit him, having a tiny penis isn't really like... massively injurious to invalidating a will.

[jmenges]

Hi JM

Is there any reference in the material to Tumblety being accused of the Ripper crimes, or to the four indecency charges? I would have thought that would be a sine qua non for anyone wanting to blacken his name.

I can only go off of what I've been told as I've yet to see Norris' deposition in the flesh and that is that Norris brought up the Whitechapel murders without being asked anything about them, that his statement in total was a bit of a rant, meandering to and fro, and since the topic at hand was specifically relating to Tumblety's state of mind circa 1901-1903, the judge wasn't interested in delving into the more salacious episodes from Tumblety's past.

Edit-and I don't believe the London gross indecency charges were brought up, but having not personally viewed the files I stand to be corrected.

JM

[jmenges]

I now have a transcript of Norris' deposition so I can answer any questions if Mike Hawley is not available. I won't be releasing the whole thing and all inferences and opinions I make are of course my own.

JM

[jmenges]

This section of Richard Norris' deposition Mike Hawley read on air so I'm safe to post it here.

Q: Did you ever know an individual here known as Dr. Tumblety or Tumilty?
A: I met Dr. Francis Tumilty, I think, in 1880, during Mardi-Gras. I was at the St. Charles Theatre, and he had a seat alongside of me. During the intermission, a fellow and I got up to go and get a drink, and he followed us. When we got to the counter he introduced himself, saying he was [a] stranger here for the Mardi-Gras holidays, and asked us the privilege of treating. He did not notice my friend much, but seemed to pay all attention to me, and wanted to know my business. I told him I was then employed by the American District Telegraph Office, in charge of the telephone exchange here, when it was up in the Denegre Building; and he told me that he was a surgeon, drawing a pension from the government, and that he was a stockholder in the Western Union. I think he was he then had Ninety Thousand Dollars of stock in the Western Union. Well, I was pleased to meet him, thought he was a fine man, and a stranger. He took me to Lamothe’s and gave me a supper, and asked me to go to his room with him, wanted me to write a letter for him. He had a room at the St. Charles hotel at the time. I told him I was out late, that I lived uptown quite a distance and I could not go with him, because my people objected to my staying out late; in fact, I was afraid of him. He had some large diamonds on him, and I thought he was a confidence man, or a burglar. I excused myself to him, and went on the side, and told my friend, “I will take a chance, I haven’t got anything, and I will take a chance and write this letter for him,” and I asked my friend to wait for me. I went up to the St. Charles hotel with him, he ordered a couple of bottles of Burke’s ale; I drank a bottle, and he drank the other, and he insisted upon my drinking the other. I thought he wanted to get me drunk intoxicated, and I refused to do it. He then opened a large trun (but in the meantime ordered some more ale) and he pulled out a velvet vest which had, I judge, four – three or four medals on each side – they looked to me like gold medals. He told me they were awarded to him by the English Government. Then there was a sort of tray in the trunk, and there were all sorts of large knives in there, surgical instruments – that is, I did not know what they were at the time. After that he was arrested, supposed to be a bad character; it was a sort of put up job at the time, to find out what he really was. There were large knives in the trunk; and the he came over to me, and felt my pulse, and felt my legs. I was smoking a cigarette at the time, and he said, “Throw that away”, and he handed me a cigar, saying it was bad to smoke cigarettes. He said the trouble with young men are those cigarettes, and those confounded Street Walkers. He said, if he had his way they would all be disemboweled. Now, I read and new of the White Chapel business and did [not] know it at the time. I got a little scared of this man, and I went over to the Chief of Police, and told him of this fellow, and he told me that reminds him of the big tall man that he read of in the Chicago Herald, and Pittsburg Dispatch, as being Jack the Ripper, and I said, he answers the description. And seeing, and noticing the way he spoke, and how he acted – he never frequented the street in the daytime; he used to walk the streets all hours of the night. When I spoke to him about the numerous women that had been killed around White Chapel, he said, “Yes, I was there when it all happened”. Well, after he told me that, I tried to shun him, and he sent me notes and letters, and even came to the office after me. He gave me a good time, took me to the theatre, and spent a good deal of money on me. He bought me several suits of clothes, and he never attempted to do anything wrong with me until one night he took me to his room, and he locked the door on me. I don’t know whether he was humbugging or not, but he did make a bluff at me with one of those big knives. He said, “You cannot get out of this room while I have this”. He had the door locked and he tuned the gas low, and he then unbuttoned my pants, sat alongside of me, and caught hold of my penus (sic) and played with it, and looked at it. I expected at once what he was, that he was what was commonly known as a **********. I made up my mind right then and there that he would have to kill me, as I don’t go up against those kind of people. He then let go of me, and stood up, unbuttoned his pants, and showed me something, and he told me he was not good. He was trembling, and was very nervous. He asked me to go to bed with him, that he enjoyed it just as much as a woman did. Of course, I did not know at the time the difference between a morphadite, and never did now that he was a morphadite before. So he got in bed and cocked his legs up, but I did not get down and look at him; I stood off and looked at him; and he insisted upon my having connection with him. I told him I would do this to-morrow; and he did everything, coaxed me, and done everything, offered me money, and made me promise that I would be back the next morning at 10 o’clock. He gave me twenty Dollars that night. So I was there the next morning and I met him coming out of the door. He asked me to go down to the Customhouse that morning with him. He was not at the Charles hotel then [Note: this did not occur that first night], he had changed his place – I don’t know for what cause he had change his lace, but he had changed to Old No. 190 Canal street. He was coming downstairs at the time.
Q: What time did all this take place?
A: This happened in 1881 or 1880.

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[Robert]

Thanks Jon. It seems to me that if Norris was coached to deliver a concocted story, whoever did the coaching would have tried to have him appear less simple-minded and mercenary.

"I expected (sic) at once what he was." Ah, you can't pull the wool over Norris's eyes.

[jmenges]

In order to minimize confusion over the time frame as he does tend to jump around a bit, the main incident he's relating took place 1880-1881 while the conversation with the police Chief was 1888-1890, as he refers to the Chief later on in his deposition as David Hennessy. You might recall us discussing this tendency of him to time jump on the show.

And yes I agree Robert. The fact that at least
3 attorneys and a couple of doctors also gave testimony of an embarrassing nature must be taken into account.

JM

[David Orsam]

In order to minimize confusion over the time frame as he does tend to jump around a bit, the main incident he's relating took place 1880-1881 while the conversation with the police Chief was 1888-1890, as he refers to the Chief later on in his deposition as David Hennessy.

Do we know when the conversation with Tumblety, when he spoke to him about the Whitechapel murders, took place?

[jmenges]

He doesn't specify. You have what I have and this section is the only time he speaks of the Whitechapel murders. If I were to guess it would be around the same period as when he spoke to Hennessy as he then describes Tumblety basically buying back his trust, which must have worked as they continued their relationship nearly up until Tumblety's death.

JM

[Ally]

One of the conversations I had with Mike that was not on the actual recorded podcast was an attempt to ascertain just when the "I think prostitutes should be disemboweled" conversation took place. Because to me, if they were discussing the murders or after the murders and Tumblety did a "Pfft I think all prostitutes should be disemboweled it's kind of a natural outgrowth and literally therefore is evidence of nothing since there's knowledge in the world of the exact happening. I mean it's evidence of him being a butthead but not ..evidence of him confessing his predeliction to disembowel prostitutes. Prostitutes are being disemboweled and like many people who presume morality much like say someone in the 80's saying of gay people getting AIDS, serves them right...(please note, this is NOT MY OPINION I am just trying to provide an example of how him saying how he thinks prostitutes should be disemboweled can be evidence of literally nothing). Anyway, Mike was not able to give an exact time as to when that discussion took place if I remember correctly.