Tumblety: The Hidden Truth

[Steadmund Brand]

See, there I have to disagree...I know what you are saying... but it is very possible that it is a separate time.... plenty of times a conversation can be like that....just as an example (a bad one but in honor of the horse race this weekend) ....

so I swore I would never again bet on a gray horse. Now, I read that the favorite is a gray horse and I don't know what to do...

See talking about two different times with "Now" as the separator....I am not saying I am right and you are wrong.. I am just saying without directly asking what he meant, we can't know for sure

Steadmund Brand

[Abby Normal]

Thanks you guys.
whenever he said it before or after the murders it points as a check mark to his validity as a suspect. It shows motive (at least an outward one) and the desire. Of course if he said it before its more relevant but either way its still very significant IMHO.

[Steadmund Brand]

HAHAHA us damn Yankees with our book learnin'

The point I am making is, even with a drawl, the language (English) is complex and can be read different ways... and sadly we will never know which is right in a case like that

Steadmund Brand

[Steadmund Brand]

Thanks you guys.
whenever he said it before or after the murders it points as a check mark to his validity as a suspect. It shows motive (at least an outward one) and the desire. Of course if he said it before its more relevant but either way its still very significant IMHO.

I agree....see, you have to remember I am not and never was a "Tumblety guy" which is why Mike and I work together... checks and balances... I do agree he is a "suspect" and a valid one.. and I believe Scotland yard thought of him as a suspect (suspect..not the killer himself) but the odds of him being Jack....same as with the other (legit) suspects.... chances are we will never know for sure (until that time machine is fixed.. and now that Art Bell is retired how will we ever find out when that is!!!)

Steadmund Brand

[Ally]

Except the phrase "Now I read" is used all the time as a means of setting up your expert status in something or giving your credentials. As is "Now I know about..." usually followed by sentences that display staggering ignorance on the subject of which they are about to claim knowledge. It's is a common-place phrase.

And regardless, he said "and I knew it at the time".

So... What event "at the time" was he referring to except the one he'd just referred to? He is claiming that he had knowledge at the time that Tumblety said that about prostitutes and therefore what Tumblety said disturbed him.

And yes, we can know, because one way makes sense, and the other doesn't. Even in your example you said Now I read THAT. Which is totally different to Now I read...AND. They are different.

That would basically be the equivalent of me reading a statement where someone from england describes Well I went to my car and got my scarf out of the boot. And someone years later attempting to claim he meant from a pair of shoes, and that proved he had boots and the killer wore boots, so therefore your interpretation is as valid as mine, so that was proof the suspect had a pair of boots.

Uh no. You can't twist it and pretend it has alternate meanings that the dialect and the language don't naturally support. He was a southerner. Southerners have a way of speaking. If you read it, as it would have been said, the entire thing makes perfect sense. If you want to add things and pretend there's "alternate" explanations that's fine, but it's not really scholarly.

Now you can argue which boot it was if you wish, but you can't argue that he said "he knew it at the time". So what was he referring to with that?

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Hi Jonathan.

Norris mentions the O'Malley arrest of Tumblety "in the Customhouse" and says that the newspapers reported finding burglar tools but then corrected themselves the next day to say that they found "surgical instruments". I can't remember if Mike read this section on the show. Norris claims he saw him "that very night". Whether he meant the night of his arrest or the night after it made the papers is unclear.

O’Malley arrested Tumblety at his boarding house, not “in the Customhouse,” where Govan worked, but this is only a small matter.

The bit about newspapers reporting that burglars’ tools were found “but then corrected themselves the next day to say that they found surgical instruments” does not appear to be true.

One newspaper, the New Orleans Times Democrat, 25 March, 1881, stated that according to O’Malley Tumblety’s room “contained lots of burglars' tools and a box of medical instruments.” You’ll notice that what O’Malley claimed was “medical instruments,” not “surgical instruments.” There is a distinction. The article goes on to state that when O’Malley returned with his search warrant he “found that the burglars' tools and case of medical instruments had been removed during his absence” (I can understand why burglars’ tools might disappear, if they existed, but why would Tumblety’s medical instruments vanish as well?).

No one, other than O’Malley, saw, or claimed to have seen, any burglars’ tools or medical instruments at the time of Tumblety’s arrest. The Rochester Union & Advertiser, 13 April, 1881, states “It was charged at first that mysterious instruments and tools of unholy character were found in Dr. Tumblety’s room at the time of his arrest,” without describing any of them as being “medical,” but it went on to declare “As for the tools and instruments, they seem to be inventions. Nobody has ever seen them, and the landlady, Mrs. Field, emphatically declares that there were no such articles in Dr. Tumblety’s room at any time.”

This was the belief of the police, and subsequently the judge, that O’Malley was lying about the whole thing. According to the New Orleans Times Picayune, 26 March, 1881, “From a statement made by Detective M. Hennessey, who has been investigating the case, it is learned that a piece of a file was found lying on the table in the Doctor’s room. He claims to be in possession of evidence to show that the piece of file was left on the table by O’Malley for the purpose of leading to the belief that there were burglars tools in the room and that they had been removed.” Again, no mention of medical instruments but the belief that O'Malley had attempted to set Tumblety up.

Wolf.

[David Orsam]

So here, I think, are the two different ways that the first bit of the passage is being read (with me taking liberties with the text):

Ally's way (with a confused Norris saying 1881 when he should have said 1888):

"He said if he had his way they would all be disemboweled. Now, I'm always reading the newspapers and, in 1881, when we were having this conversation, I knew of the White Chapel business.... "

Steadmand's way (with no confusion on Norris' part about the year)

"He said, in 1881, if he had his way they would all be disemboweled. Now, seven or eight years later, I read and knew of the White Chapel business...."

I don't know which is correct but I think that with Steadmand's way you need to change the subsequent "and did know it at the time" to "and did not know it at the time" for it to make sense.

Have I got that right?

[Ally]

Yes. My way Noris confused the year it happened. Not specifically that it was exactly in 1888 but it was post-1888 and not in 1881.

Their way, IT happened in two separate years and if you add a not and make thesentence completely not-grammatical, and ignore the second half of what he says and then add in an unvoiced but we know it happened time jump of eight years between sentence 1 and sentence 2....it all matches the theory.

Because that makes more sense than just Norris got his year mixed up.

But yes. You've got the gist of it.

[David Orsam]

Yes. My way Noris confused the year it happened. Not specifically that it was exactly in 1888 but it was post-1888 and not in 1881.

Their way, IT happened in two separate years and if you add a not and make thesentence completely not-grammatical, and ignore the second half of what he says and then add in an unvoiced but we know it happened time jump of eight years between sentence 1 and sentence 2....it all matches the theory.

Because that makes more sense than just Norris got his year mixed up.

But yes. You've got the gist of it.

Jolly good!

I put 1888 in by way of example because I was thinking most of the discussion about him being JTR in the US press was in the papers in November/December 1888 but I'm sure it continued into 1889 and beyond.

Yes I agree that your way makes a lot more sense without the "not" which I guess is why Mike felt it needed to be added.

And it is, as I have mentioned earlier, a little strange that Norris then apparently goes from 1888 (or post 1888) all the way back to 1880/1881 without missing a beat in the story or marking the change.

[Steadmund Brand]

I just figured out where the confusion (in my take) is.....I do NOT!!! think the "not" should be in the statement.....Mike and I disagree on that....so in one sense I agree with you Ally....but you were misrepresenting what I said (I think unintentionally because you assumed I was agreeing with/defensing Mike) ...Abby was close.....how I read it is ....

He said they should be disemboweled (in 1881), now I read about the Whitechapel murders (in 1888-1889) and I did know at the time (at the time I knew he had said they should be disemboweled).....see I agree the "not" shouldn't be there.....

Now Ally be nice and apologize for misrepresenting what I had said ( this is me not "they"....remember this is why Mike and I work together...because we don't always agree...as in this case)...after all I am as delicate a flower as you are ��.....by the way...how is your head? Feeling any better

Steadmund Brand

[Ally]

How did he know it at the time he said it if he said it in 1881 and the WC murders hadn't happened until 88?

I read of the WC murders and knew it at the time he said it... in 81?

[Steadmund Brand]

Like i said...i read it as "I knew at the time" meaning...
"I knew at the time I read that, that Tumblety had said in the past he thought they should be disemboweled".....again....remember I never said this was a fact, that he meant that, only that when I first read it that is what I interpreted his meaning.....it's a possibility....as is he confuses the years, as is the stenographer messed up....just a possibility....not sure as I wasn't there and can't ask him to clarify ��

Steadmund Brand

[David Orsam]

He said they should be disemboweled (in 1881), now I read about the Whitechapel murders (in 1888-1889) and I did know at the time (at the time I knew he had said they should be disemboweled).....see I agree the "not" shouldn't be there.....

Well in which case you presumably think the word "know" shouldn't really be there because what you think he was actually trying to say was: "I did remember [what he told me eight years earlier] at the time". Is that right?

[Steadmund Brand]

The meaning yes....I read it as he remembered at the time...but said know, as in "I knew at the time.. that in the past he has said"

I think every word that is there should be....as is, because I am not looking to take anything out or add anything, all I am saying is that none of us were there, so nobody can state with certainty as to what was intended...we can all draw our own conclusions and be open to them because there is no way to know for sure...

This is what makes for good talk....and why "Case Closed" is so mocked and laughed at in this field of study

Steadmund Brand

[Ally]

Except once again you then have to believe that in the midst of this, he suddenly becomes a complete linguistic incompetent, and at the very key and important passage can't string together a coherent or grammatical sentence. Because the way you want to try and twist the wording to mean, makes literally no linguistic sense.

You want us to believe that for some reason he had to refer back and in a completely convoluted, contorted fashion to remind us that he knew what he had just told us he knew. But not actually say it, just use "it" to refer back to a subject from a preceding sentence instead of the "it" referring to the natural antecedent in the sentence it was in.

So he just suddenly loses all linguistic ability? In that one key sentence? See part of the problem we were having is Norris looked like an idiot, because we were looking at this sentence with the Not in it and the sentence made no sense. Except there never was a Not in there and when you read it as it would have been spoken the sentence actually makes perfect sense. Unless of course you start trying to twist it all out of fashion to fit a predetermined idea.

The grammar of the sentence doesn't support the supposition that this took place at two different times. The "it" has a natural antecedent and that is the knowledge of the WC murders. That's the sentence it's in. It just doesn't make sense when you try to establish the "it" as him vaguely and weirdly referring to the previous knowledge Tumblety had told him years before AND not establishing that it had occurred years before. And you can't twist it to make it fit that supposition. Norris speaks in a winding, southern fashion but his stories are generally, when spoken aloud clear and easy to follow. They make sense. There's pauses and phrases, as would happen in normal speech, but by and large, it makes sense.

It doesn't make sense that he would just suddenly stop making all sense in this one key sentence. He doesn't. It makes perfect sense. It all happened at once, and it happened as a whole.