Jack the Ripper Suspect Dr. Francis Tumblety

[mklhawley]

Mike then conflates a report referring to “agents of the British government” with Scotland Yard detectives. They are not necessarily the same thing.

Above all, Mike does not tell us WHY an English Scotland Yard detective would have bothered to make an expensive trip to New York at cost to the public purse. He couldn't arrest Tumblety because there was no enforceable warrant. If Tumblety needed to be followed in New York this could have been done by Pinkerton's men on behalf of Scotland Yard. So what was he doing there? Mike seems to swallow a bartender's story that this English detective told him he was there "to get the Whitechapel Murderer". But how? Any such arrest in America by an English police officer without a warrant would have been illegal. And if there was sufficient evidence to arrest Tumblety for any of the murders in Whitechapel why hadn't he been arrested while in London when he was in custody? It doesn't make sense and if it doesn't make sense then it probably didn't happen.

Lots of minimalizing here, but I'll take a bit at a time. When asked if an American detective company was working for Scotland Yard, Andrews himself stated that they could do it themselves, so they would indeed have done just what Andrews stated. The bartender's story was actually bartenders' stories collected from competing New York newspaper reporters independently and on the same day. This is corroboration! These reporters saw the man too. Are they all lying or is David minimalizing because it does not conform to his published article and future book?

We have reports that Scotland Yard detectives were in New York City in late 1888 because of the Irish independent issues, so why is it a shock that one of them would have been used to keep an eye on a Jack the Ripper suspect? Not being able to catch the killer was the biggest embarrassment for Scotland Yard in 1888. Sorry David. It does make sense, just not for you.

Mike

[David Orsam]

I have just been told David Barrat is doing his prepping for his David Orsam books by minimalizing evidence and putting his spin on selected parts of my book. I predicted this. David has a reason for what he’s doing. When i have some time i will respond.

Where did you predict anything?

What do you say is the reason for me doing what I am doing?

How am I "minimalizing" evidence and putting any spin on selected parts of your book?

What "David Orsam books" are you talking about?

[David Orsam]

David, the November 7 record is under "taken into custody," and since the case at hand was the gross indecency and indecent assault, that's what it would have been for. So, you're saying taken into custody is not being arrested? I don't decide to keep anything from him. You are leading the readers' minds more than I am. How could I have kept information away when I justify my point that he was free by commenting upon three Scotland Yard officials naming him as a suspect AFTER the Kelly murder.

Sorry David

You don't need to apologise Mike but taken into custody does NOT mean being arrested in the court calendar records. It means being held in custody on remand in prison.

I don't know who the three Scotland Yard officials you refer to are who named Tumblety as a suspect but how do we know that they didn't eliminate Kelly from the string of Jack the Ripper murders? And how do we know that they were aware of all the dates Tumblety was in and out of prison? We can't just make assumptions.

[David Orsam]

That's complete BS, David. You just led the reader by a minimalizing statement by saying Littlechild only stated he "got away to Boulogne" when in fact he stated, "and got away to Boulogne. He shortly left Boulogne..." The second part does indeed show that Littlechild was privy to something other than purchasing a ticket in England.

Good job, David.

Take a look at your own book Mike! You minimalized the statement yourself!!!! Here is exactly what appears in your book:

"What is certain is that Chief Inspector Littlechild, head of Special Branch, stated Tumblety was spotted in Boulogne, France, on or before November 23 1888:

Tumblety was arrested at the time of the murders in connection with unnatural offences and charged at Marlborough Street, remanded on bail, jumped his bail, and got away to Boulogne."

So you don't include the part about him leaving Boulogne in the extract you use to support your claim that it is "certain" that Tumblety was spotted in Boulogne!

It's not surprising because Littlechild saying that Tumblety "left" Boulogne doesn't mean that anyone saw him doing so.

So where is the evidence that Littlechild has ever said that Tumblety was "spotted" in Boulogne?

[mklhawley]

Mike tells us that Tumblety was "initially arrested on November 7, 1888" although there is no evidence to confirm that this is correct. He certainly appeared in a Magistrate's Court on that date but, as he needed to be brought before a magistrate within 24 hours of arrest, he could have been arrested on 6th November. And the only reason we can assume he wasn't arrested on, say 30th October (and then brought before a magistrate that day and remanded on bail to the 7th November), is that one of the charges relates to an offence on 2 November. In theory this could have been committed while he was out on bail but it's unlikely. The point is that we don't know for sure that Tumblety was arrested on 7th November.

Furthermore, Mike decides not to unsettle his readers by informing them that one certain fact we do know about Tumblety is that he was sent directly from Marlborough Street Magistrate's Court to Holloway Prison on 7th November 1888 and would have remained in that prison until at least 8th November. He might have been freed on bail from prison on 8th November (and thus been free to murder Mary Jane Kelly) but this is not certain and it is therefore strange that Mike decides to keep this information from his readers.

David, the November 7 record is under "taken into custody," and since the case at hand was the gross indecency and indecent assault, that's what it would have been for. So, you're saying taken into custody is not being arrested? I don't decide to keep anything from him. You are leading the readers' minds more than I am. How could I have kept information away when I justify my point that he was free by commenting upon three Scotland Yard officials naming him as a suspect AFTER the Kelly murder.

Sorry David

[mklhawley]

It doesn't then get much better, for in the next sentence we are told that it is "certain" that Chief Inspector Littlechild stated that Tumblety was spotted in Boulogne, with a supporting quote provided in which Littlechild says absolutely no such thing! All Littlechild says is that Tumblety "got away to Boulogne" which is something that the police could have established subsequently. And they could have done so very simply by learning that Tumblety had purchased a ticket, while in England, to travel to Boulogne!

That's complete BS, David. You just led the reader by a minimalizing statement by saying Littlechild only stated he "got away to Boulogne" when in fact he stated, "and got away to Boulogne. He shortly left Boulogne..." The second part does indeed show that Littlechild was privy to something other than purchasing a ticket in England.

Good job, David.

[mklhawley]

I have just been told David Barrat is doing his prepping for his David Orsam books by minimalizing evidence and putting his spin on selected parts of my book. I predicted this. David has a reason for what he’s doing. When i have some time i will respond.

Mike

[David Orsam]

What’s your opinion of the book overall David?

I'm only interested in the facts and the arguments, Herlock, not the overall nature of the book.

[David Orsam]

I see that Mike has decided to continue his argument with me about whether a Scotland Yard detective really was in New York in December 1888 to meet Tumblety on his arrival. Although my central argument is that the "English detective" referred to in a couple of New York newspapers as hanging around Tumblety's dwelling probably didn't exist, Mike prefers to focus on my suggestion that, if he did exist, he was more likely to have been a private detective than a Scotland Yard detective, a suggestion he coyly attributes to "a number of modern researchers". Perhaps Mike can name those researchers for us because I'd be interested to know how their arguments are expressed and if they accord with mine.

Mike seems to think that if he can find a few examples of Scotland Yard detectives being referred to as "English detectives" he has somehow proved that anyone referred to in the American press as an "English detective" must have been from Scotland Yard! I don't know how that works.

Hawley himself writes that "contemporary American readers believed English detectives were synonymous with Scotland Yard detectives, not private detectives from England". That is EXACTLY the point I have made, namely that anyone who saw an Englishman who looked like a detective simply assumed he was from Scotland Yard, regardless of whether that was the case or not.

Mike's key exhibit is a newspaper report in the Chicago Daily Tribune of 30 June 1889 relying on what their reporter was told by someone Mike describes as "Special Branch Detective H. Dutton". But there was no officer called Dutton in the Special Branch at any time prior to 30 June 1889, so it all starts off terribly badly. Even worse, Mike says that "Claiming that the funding of a Scotland Yard man being sent to New York must be in Home Records conflicts with the facts." What facts? He doesn't present any! Just a newspaper report sourced to a non-existent Special Branch detective who himself does not refer to a single Scotland Yard man being sent to New York! In fact, of the two paragraphs cited by Hawley, which he attributes to Dutton, neither of them is actually attributed to Dutton within the story!! The first supposedly comes from a visit by the reporter to Scotland Yard’s crime museum while the second is unsourced and follows a discussion by the reporter with Robert Pinkerton (but he does not appear to be the source of the information).

Mike then conflates a report referring to “agents of the British government” with Scotland Yard detectives. They are not necessarily the same thing.

Above all, Mike does not tell us WHY an English Scotland Yard detective would have bothered to make an expensive trip to New York at cost to the public purse. He couldn't arrest Tumblety because there was no enforceable warrant. If Tumblety needed to be followed in New York this could have been done by Pinkerton's men on behalf of Scotland Yard. So what was he doing there? Mike seems to swallow a bartender's story that this English detective told him he was there "to get the Whitechapel Murderer". But how? Any such arrest in America by an English police officer without a warrant would have been illegal. And if there was sufficient evidence to arrest Tumblety for any of the murders in Whitechapel why hadn't he been arrested while in London when he was in custody? It doesn't make sense and if it doesn't make sense then it probably didn't happen.

[David Orsam]

Mike tells us that Tumblety was "initially arrested on November 7, 1888" although there is no evidence to confirm that this is correct. He certainly appeared in a Magistrate's Court on that date but, as he needed to be brought before a magistrate within 24 hours of arrest, he could have been arrested on 6th November. And the only reason we can assume he wasn't arrested on, say 30th October (and then brought before a magistrate that day and remanded on bail to the 7th November), is that one of the charges relates to an offence on 2 November. In theory this could have been committed while he was out on bail but it's unlikely. The point is that we don't know for sure that Tumblety was arrested on 7th November.

Furthermore, Mike decides not to unsettle his readers by informing them that one certain fact we do know about Tumblety is that he was sent directly from Marlborough Street Magistrate's Court to Holloway Prison on 7th November 1888 and would have remained in that prison until at least 8th November. He might have been freed on bail from prison on 8th November (and thus been free to murder Mary Jane Kelly) but this is not certain and it is therefore strange that Mike decides to keep this information from his readers.

[Herlock Sholmes]

What’s your opinion of the book overall David?

[David Orsam]

It doesn't then get much better, for in the next sentence we are told that it is "certain" that Chief Inspector Littlechild stated that Tumblety was spotted in Boulogne, with a supporting quote provided in which Littlechild says absolutely no such thing! All Littlechild says is that Tumblety "got away to Boulogne" which is something that the police could have established subsequently. And they could have done so very simply by learning that Tumblety had purchased a ticket, while in England, to travel to Boulogne!

[David Orsam]

It's always really important when reading a book that you can be confident that the author is not trying to mislead or trick you, which is why it was so immensely disappointing for me to read this sentence in this book:

Coincidentally, Scotland Yard senior official Lieutenant Colonel Pearson reported to the Home Undersecretary about deploying twelve extra constables at two train stations on November 20, 1888, in order to “examine the belongings of passengers arriving from America.”

The way this is written makes it seem that 12 extra constables were, if fact, deployed at train stations on 20 November 1888, at a time when Tumblety was fleeing justice. But this was not the case at all. These constables were not deployed until 1889, their deployment having been approved in October for the sole purpose of speeding up the process of checking luggage for travellers from the United States.

All that happened on 20 November is that their future deployment was referred to in a letter. It wasn't just a coincidence, it was a pure coincidence which had nothing whatsoever to do with Tumblety. Yet the very next sentence in the book states: "Officially, Tumblety was never reported as a suspect, so it would not be a surprise that his name was absent from any correspondence." The unsuspecting reader would think that the author is here explaining why Tumblety was not mentioned in the letter of 20 November 1888.

I don't know if Mike thinks that by using the word "Coincidentally" he gets away with it, and was only mentioning it in passing as some sort of freaky but amusing coincidence, despite having no connection with Tumbley. Because that is not how it is written.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Thanks for posting Steadmund! No, you don't need to read The Ripper's Haunts. It is a stand-alone book. Lots of discoveries, such as locations he visited after his initial arrest and before his sneaking out of England, and where he went after he arrived in New York City in early December 1888 until he returned in January 1889. I also added much more detail about his misogyny, surgical knives, hermaphroditic condition, etc.

Sincerely,

Mike

Thanks Mike. I look forward to it

[GUT]

Thanks for posting Steadmund! No, you don't need to read The Ripper's Haunts. It is a stand-alone book. Lots of discoveries, such as locations he visited after his initial arrest and before his sneaking out of England, and where he went after he arrived in New York City in early December 1888 until he returned in January 1889. I also added much more detail about his misogyny, surgical knives, hermaphroditic condition, etc.

Sincerely,

Mike

Wrong answer Mike you should insist he BUY Ripper Haunts first. You need to make a buck you know.