Tumblety: The Hidden Truth

[David Orsam]

So... I mean...basically attempting to pick apart Norris's character or testimony seems an exercise in futility.

I have a horrible feeling that comment is directed at me. It would be a huge mistake to think I am doing that, but if there are holes in his evidence then others surely will pick his character or testimony apart.

The timing of the comment as to when Tumblety spoke of a desire to disembowel prostitutes is rather important, especially if he said it before 1888. It's a key piece of evidence that points to Tumblety as Jack the Ripper. Not everyone, I suspect, is going to accept it if there is even the slightest doubt about the matter.

[Ozzy]

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

Not sure what I was thinking. I done a word search for "mother" in all the posts before mine and can't find a single instance. Maybe I read mother = sister in another thread, or maybe a totally different website's forum, and then posted in the wrong thread/website!

[jmenges]

I think he's 95 percent truthful. I think he's five percent untruthful in attempting to cover up his own homosexual tendencies and escapades. Which frankly given the times, I excuse him for.

It's almost as if he was under the impression he was giving sealed testimony. Which makes me wonder if the meat and bones of the case were sealed for a period of time and then possible a statute of limitations expired. These days in Missouri any case can be sealed via a motion leading to a court order or by the judge's discretion.

JM

[Ally]

See I disagree about dates and times being confused being indicators of credibility. If you attempt to remember something that took place 18 or 10 years ago, you may well remember the event, if not the date. I find zero cause to doubt someone can remember an event but not precisely when it happened. I can remember verbatim conversations I had with people to the point that I can recall the inflection and what they were wearing but I could not for the life of me tell you when exactly they happened and if they happened before we had Conversation B which I also remember or Conversation C. They may have all happened in the same year or years apart. Of course I can also completely forget conversations I had with someone, but that's another issue and usually involving alcohol. When he is giving this deposition it is almost 20 years after some of the events in question. I am not surprised he doesn't have a precise and perfect timeline. I'd actually be a lot more suspicious if he DID have a precise and perfect timeline. I'd find that kind of precision far more suspicious than not being able to remember exactly what happened years ago.

[Ally]

It's almost as if he was under the impression he was giving sealed testimony. Which makes me wonder if the meat and bones of the case were sealed for a period of time and then possible a statute of limitations expired. These days in Missouri any case can be sealed via a motion leading to a court order or by the judge's discretion.

JM

That's actually a really interesting point. I wonder if there's a way to find out?

[Ally]

Ozzy,

You misread something Jonathan had posted about Bundy and a myth that he'd been raised to think his mother was his sister. That's where I think you got it. Probably just skimmed it and conflated the two cases.

No worries, we've all done it.

[Ally]

I have a horrible feeling that comment is directed at me. It would be a huge mistake to think I am doing that, but if there are holes in his evidence then others surely will pick his character or testimony apart.

No, it wasn't at all! Sorry if I left that impression.

[Howard Brown]

If he had been working with the local police for 23 years in 1907 then he started working with them in about 1884 by my maths.

Just repeating what it mentioned in the December 10th, 1907 New Orleans Times Democrat.
However, subsequent to that, the February 28, 1918 Times Picayune stated he began as a patrolman in August ( 8th ) 1880.
Take yer pick.

[David Orsam]

See I disagree about dates and times being confused being indicators of credibility.

Let me put it this way. If you go into a court of law and give sworn evidence in which your dates and times are all confused you will get torn apart by any half decent counsel and probably leave the witness box with your credibility wishing it had never been born.

Just to give one example. Counsel stands up and says: so Mr Norris, all these events occurred in 1880 or 1881 did they? He says "yes". You say but the Jack the Ripper murders were in 1888. He goes "erm, crikey, I might have got mixed up". It can go quickly downhill from there until Norris is suddenly not even sure of his own name.

It's a big mistake if you think the kind of informal conversations you have in normal daily life can be replicated in a court room. It's the kind of mistake that is made every single day and every single day some poor unsuspecting witness, faced with a highly paid and very experienced cross-examiner, learns the error of his or her ways.

While we can adopt a more tolerant approach on the forum, the credibility of any story in which the facts are shown to be wrong will be affected I'm afraid. That's just life.

[jmenges]

The timing of the comment as to when Tumblety spoke of a desire to disembowel prostitutes is rather important, especially if he said it before 1888. It's a key piece of evidence that points to Tumblety as Jack the Ripper. Not everyone, I suspect, is going to accept it if there is even the slightest doubt about the matter.

To me Norris is describing his first meeting with Tumblety in "1880 or 1881" he goes on to mention, in order, events with Tumblety that happened in 1888; 1889; 1895 and 1902.

JM

[GUT]

That's actually a really interesting point. I wonder if there's a way to find out?

It actually should be easy to find out.

First up there should be an order on the file indicating that it is sealed.

[David Orsam]

Just repeating what it mentioned in the December 10th, 1907 New Orleans Times Democrat.
However, subsequent to that, the February 28, 1918 Times Picayune stated he began as a patrolman in August ( 8th ) 1880.
Take yer pick.

They could both be right I guess. The comment is working "with" the police rather than working "for" them so if he left the police force in 1884 and started working with the police as a telegraph operator/clerk, or whatever he was, that would make sense.

[Ozzy]

Ozzy,

You misread something Jonathan had posted about Bundy and a myth that he'd been raised to think his mother was his sister. That's where I think you got it. Probably just skimmed it and conflated the two cases.

No worries, we've all done it.

That sounds about right Ally thanks.
Like you, I'm a little under the weather myself at the moment. A chesty cough I can't get rid of. Maybe the Co-codamol I'd taken shortly before had something to do with it all.

[GUT]

They could both be right I guess. The comment is working "with" the police rather than working "for" them so if he left the police force in 1884 and started working with the police as a telegraph operator/clerk, or whatever he was, that would make sense.

That was my thought too.

[Ally]

Let me put it this way. If you go into a court of law and give sworn evidence in which your dates and times are all confused you will get torn apart by any half decent counsel and probably leave the witness box with your credibility wishing it had never been born.

Oh I agree that if your dates and times are all confused, and dates and times matter and you are cross-examined your credibility will take a hit. But as I don't know that the cross examination took place, and I don't know that the dates were ever specified as being meaningful if it happened. See to us, the precise dates are meaningful and relevant. To someone just trying to get a general idea of Tumblety's character and hearing about "bad acts", when exactly these bad acts took place aren't necessarily relevant. Yes absolutely, he could have been slammed, if there was a halfway decent cross-examination, I'll give you that, but let's be honest., Ninety percent of court cases don't have the preparation that Law and Order leads us to believe they have and most attorneys don't put that kind of work into it. It would be nice to think there was a Matlock moment in every law case, but usually it doesn't happen.

I have a feeling the cross examination was less concerned as to when these alleged actions took place and more concerned with just not allowing the actions themselves into the record. And if he said anywhere in there...well I've known him for twenty years, a lot's happened, most juries will realize you can't have a precise memory over twenty years.

I mean I'll be honest, I really don't even know as to what point Norris was testifying about stuff that happened twenty years ago was to this trial. What did events of twenty years ago matter to his making a will presumably, far more recently?