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  | Archive through May 07, 2003 | Chris Phillips | 25 | 1 | 5-07-03 4:33 pm |
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Chris Scott
Chief Inspector
Username: Chris
Post Number: 689
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, November 08, 2003 - 12:48 pm: |       |
I have found the full regarding William Hickman above. This is the one where it asserts the man drowned in the Thames was one Andrew Kramer and hints that Hickman knew of the Ripper case and used this name, suggesting that this was a well known name in reports of the Ripper case. I'm also attaching two pics from the article of Hickman.
Havre Daily News Promoter
26 December 1927
ALLEGED CONFESSION GIVEN BY HICKMAN
HICKMAN IN ALLEGED CONFESSION DECLARES HE KILLED GIRL AS SHE KNEW TOO MUCH, NO STATEMENT GIVEN OUT BY LOS ANGELES COPS WHEN QUESTIONED BY REPORTERS
Portland, Oregon.
The Telegram says it has leanred on good authority that William Edward Hickman has confessed to Los Angeles authorities that he alone is responsible for the murder of little Marian Parker.
That it became necessary for him to do away with her because he had "told her too much," was the reason given by Hickman, it is understood, for the crime.
The crime was committed in a manner that is even more gruesome than the public has been led to believe, the Telegtam said, and it is deemed advisable by the Los Angeles officials to withold the confession until Hickman is securely locked behind jail doors for fear that the details would fan into flame the embers of the lynching spirit that is said to have taken hold of the Los Angeles populace.
"We will have no statement to make," said James Davi, Los Angeles Chief of Police, when questioned about the confession last night.
"Do you deny that a confession has been made?" he was aked.
"We will make no statement now," he reiterated.
Asa Keyes, district attorney, merely stated, when asked about the reported confession, that he could say nothing at present.
Hickman contended that he did not intend to murder Marian Parker, the Telegram learned. "I had no intention of doing her harm," he is quoted as having said, "but after I let her find out who I wasm that I had worked at the bank and all that, I knew that if she ever saw her father again they would know who I was and get me. There was nothing else to do."
It was also intimated that Hickman did not commit the actual murder in the Bellevue Arms apartment, but killed the girl elsewhere, nearby, and then took the body to the apartment and there mutilated it. According to the alleged confession, Hickman committed no outrage upon the body of the girl. He used drugs with which to put her to sleep, and purposely administered an overdose prior to committing the deed which is described by one Los Angeles official as "too awful to talk about."
In his alleged confession, the Telegram stated Hickman says he cut up the body with intentions of disposing of it, but later realized that could not obtain the $1,500 unless he presented the girl to the father, whereupon he reconstructed the body as best he could to make it appear that Marian was still alive.
KEYES MAKES DENIAL
Sacramento, Calif. Dec. 26.
The Sacramento Bee in a story from Dunsmuir, Calif., today says that Asa M Keyes, district attorney of Los Angeles, denied that William E Hickman, kidnapper, had confessed the killing of Marian Parker, 12 year old victim.
"Hickman has made no further confession other than what he told the officers at Pendleton, Ore., before the Los Angeles officers arrived," said Keyes.
ON SPECIAL CAR
Aboard Cascade Limited, at Klamath falls, Ore. Dec. 26.
Speeding toward the southland where the kidnapping and murder of Marian Parker was perpetrated, the special car bearing W Edward Hickman was at the doorstep of California this morning. Locked in a compartment Hickman spent the night shackled to a Los Angeles detective. He slept and made no disturbance, said his custodians.
The youthfil kidnapper and alleged slayer who made two attempts to end his life Sunday morning after a night of hysteria quickly recovered his composure under soothing tactics of his new custodians, but his appearance showed unmistakably the effect of the intense nervous strain of the past week. Knowledge that he was returning to the scene of his crime was not expected to improve his mental or physical condition.
Maurice Cottouri, one of the railroad agents guarding the car, said this morning that Hickman reminded him of Hugh de Autremont one of the trio of brothers responsible for four murders in a holdup in southern Oregon in 1923.
Cottouri was active in running down the de Autremonts.
"Hickman is the same type as Hugh," he said. "Sly and cunning, superficially smart. It is this kind of youth that thinks he can get away with a career of crime. Hickman, like the de Autremonts, showed a tremendous ignorance of the methods of officers of the law in tracking criminals. They noth left in their tracks a mass of evidence that led to their identification and capture. Both of them were "smart", and thought they could outwit the law."
Rumors that Hickman yould be taken off the train somewhere in California and transferred the rest of the way by airplane have been definitely denied by officers on the train. District Attorney Asa B Keyes said such a procedure would be foolhardy.
The big plane in which Inspector of Detectives D M Longueran flew as far as Corning, Calif. last weekm with extradition papers was released yesterday by order from the Los Angeles officers.
Hickman will remain on the train as it passes through Oakland this evening. The stop there for transfer of the special car to the Southern Pacific Padre will be only about 20 minutes, it was said. The train is due in Los Angeles at 9:40 Tuesday morning.
A small crowd met the train at Klamath falls.
DETECTIVES BUSY
Los Angelesm Dec 26.
Los Angeles detectives continued today to add to the fabric of evidence they have woven to show how little Marian Parker was murdered.
As they awaited the arrival of William Edward Hickman, the accused youth, from Oregon, the police extenede their search for "the woman in the case." This move developed after the discovery Saturday night of a woman's fingerprints on dishes in the apartment Hickman occupied here.
Further substantiation of the police theory that Marian was killed and cut to pieces in Hickman's apartment was found when the drain pipe of the kitchen sink revealed two pieces of flesh, which the police believe to be that of a human being. A microscopic examination of Hickman's lair is being made.
The fact that Hickman named one Andrew Cramer as the murderer of Marian parker and the fact that the girl's body was dismembered, were connected and given significance today by Milton Carlson, handrwiting expert criminologist.
Carlson pointed out that the youthful kidnapper of the slain girl admitted familiarity with the details ofthe life of Jesse james and the Loeb-Leopold case. He suggested that possibly Hickman also had read of the Whitechapel murders in London in 1881 (sic). Several women were murdered and mutilated and the suspected murderer, a younf student of surgery, although nevercaught, was found dead in the Thames river. His name was Andrew Kramer.
The criminologist declared it a trait of the criminal mind to unhesitatingly use an incident or name out of a case or report of which he had read much. Carlson also referred to Hickman's spelling of the name "Cramer" st first, the later admitting it might have been spelled with a "K" as in the Whitechapel cases.
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Andrew Spallek
Inspector
Username: Aspallek
Post Number: 222
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, November 08, 2003 - 1:04 pm: | |
Thanks for this, Chris.
I guess the obvious question now is whether there is a record of an Andrew Kramer or Andrew Cramer who committed suicide in London in late 1888 or in 1889. Interesting possibility which would explain a lot.
Andy S.
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Jeffrey Bloomfied
Inspector
Username: Mayerling
Post Number: 159
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 12, 2003 - 8:32 pm: | |
Hi Andy, Chris, Chris, and all:
Although there is no reason to not doublecheck the
name of Andrew Kramer or Cramer for suicides in
London in 1888 or 1889, I feel I should add the following information about the Hickman-Parker
Kidnapping Murder of 1927.
I have a copy of THE GRAVESIDE COMPANION: AN
ANTHOLOGY OF CALIFORNIA MURDERS, ed. by J. Francis
McComas (New York: Ivan Obolensky, Inc. c. 1962).
Although each chapter is a seperate essay by a
different writer, McComas wrote the essay/chapter
on Hickman. It is called "Our Younger Brothers:
The kidnap-murder of Marion Parker by William Edward Hickman" and is on pages 61 - 90. On page
81 this is mentioned about Hickman's use of the
name of Andrew Cramer.
"Meanwhile, in Pendleton [Oregon], Hickman
had formally admitted the kidnaping of Marion Parker. However, he denied killing her. That had been done by one Andrew Cramer, his partner in
crime. Cramer, so Hickman said, had conceived the crime because "he needed a few hundred dollars and I wanted a thousand dollars to go to Bible college." After Cramer had killed the girl,
Hickman had taken her body to Perry M. Parker because he knew the parent would want to bury his daughter with proper respect.
Cramer was a real person, all right. As a matter of fact, he was a resident of the Los Angeles county jail, where he had been incarcerated since August 1927 [Marion was kidnaped and murdered in December 1927]. At this
distance in time,not much is known about Andrew
Cramer. He hotly denied Hickman's story and, as vehemently, denied even knowing Hickman. But Hickman must have known him, or known of him, to
have Cramer's name at hand. On the other hand, the acquaintanceship must have been very slight for even Hickman would not have named as an
accomplice a man with as ironclad an alibi as Cramer had."
Hickman's murder was pretty gruesome - he strangled Marion, and then cut off her legs and
hands. He also used thread or string to prop open her eyelids when he left her corpse along the
side of the road for her father to pick up. Pretty ugly (it is hard to feel he did not deserve
to be hanged), so comparable to the mutilations of
Jack in 1888.
Best wishes,
Jeff |
Simon Owen
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, March 27, 2004 - 9:25 pm: | |
Who is this ?
* Found dead at Blackfriars
* Found with his pockets stuffed with large rocks
* Found with a large amount of money on him.
No , NOT Druitt but Roberto Calvi , found hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge in June 1982.
The Italian for Blackfriars is Fratelli Neri , a nickname for Freemasons , whereas the large stones are an obvious symbol for Masonry. Both Druitt and Calvi had large amounts of money on them , maybe a reference to Judas , maybe both Calvi and Druitt both betrayed their brother Masons ?
The difference is that whoever killed Calvi wanted his body to be found , and whoever killed Druitt didn't want this to happen.
What had Druitt done to deserve this punishment ? The obvious suspicion would be that he wrote the Goulston Grafitti , and by the reference to ' Juwes ' and leaving the piece of apron - another Masonic symbol - at the scene , he was implicating the Masons in the Ripper crimes. Maybe he had a crisis of conscience ? Mitre Square is also a place which has connections to Freemasonry and the mitre/miter and (T) Square are both Masonic symbols.
|
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 2347
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 13, 2004 - 5:22 pm: | |
Hi all
Re the return ticket, today I discovered that Emily Davison, the suffragette who stood in front of the King's horse at the 1913 Derby, had bought a return ticket to Epsom.
Robert |
Michael Raney
Inspector
Username: Mikey559
Post Number: 282
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 13, 2004 - 5:42 pm: | |
I've never been sure about suicide. I think it possible that his brother killed him to spare him from spending the rest of his life in an institution. I too have attempted suicide more than once in my life (again, don't give me any sympathy, I don't want, warrant or need it) and it was something running through my head for days before each attempt. I don't think I would have purchased a round trip ticket. My mind would have been saying, you don't need it. You won't be coming back......(right or wrong, that would have been running through my mind). I believe Druitt was gay and because of it he felt he was "crazy" like his mother.
Mikey |
Natalie Severn
Chief Inspector
Username: Severn
Post Number: 658
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, April 13, 2004 - 6:09 pm: | |
Hi Mikey[again],Yes I have thought Druitt might have been gay and that his famiy were quite rigid-especially his father who seems to have been quite mean with the male members of his family in his will.
But the fact that he was quite a brilliant athlete[fives champion as well as ace cricketer]
along with his dismissal from the school as well as some indications emerging of "the same illness as Mother" and all the rumours about him in Dorset,and in the words of Albert Bachert" I was told the ripper had been found drowned"[this being in January or February 1889] has always made me think he was the man.But there is no evidence and apart from Macnaghten we have no clue as to why he became his prime suspect.I shoudnt have thought it was because he may have been gay though.How would that in any way have connected him with the Whitechapel mueders?
Following your point about him being suicidal
this I can see.A man distressed about his mother, distressed about the prjudice that existed about mental illness and then mental illness and worries possibly about his loss of a job and his sexual orientation being a possible factor ---well maybe he just wanted out and started the rumours himself get out of it all.
Natalie |
Vincent
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, April 15, 2004 - 12:42 pm: | |
It seems to me that, strong swimmer or not, jumping into the Thames in early December might be as sure a way of killing yourself as any other. I can easily imagine cramping up from the cold and quickly drowning. The rocks in his pockets certaintly wouldn't help either. The cold water might also drastically delay decomposition--enough to delay the body's rise to the surface. Any of you Britishers care to hazard a guess as to the average water temperature of the Thames in December?
Regards, Vincent |
Neil K. MacMillan
Detective Sergeant
Username: Wordsmith
Post Number: 84
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 21, 2004 - 4:45 pm: | |
May I inject just a few comments? Rereading my above post it occured to me that Suicide was illegal in the United Kingdom in 1888. The return ticked may have been a cover just in case he wasn't succesful and the police arrested him.
we don't know exactly why Druitt killed himself although if the note is genuine, and I have no reason to doubt it is at this point then he may well have feared goping insane and it may have had little to do with his sexual orientation. The key may well lie in why his mother was hospitalized.
The water temperature even in December would very likely be warmer than the air temperature but I would surmise probably in the 40-45 degreee F. range I base this on the average temperature or the North Atlantic at that time of year.Either way, if the water didn't get him, exposure would have. Kindest regards, Neil |
Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 1206
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 06, 2004 - 7:41 am: | |
Hi all
I came across this article from 1913 which quotes McNaghton referring to what must be Druitt's suicide - he says it occurred in November 1888. He also refers to the "private info" mentioned in the confidential memorandum and speficially says that no records exist of them. It is from the Frederick Post (Maryland) and is dated 2 June 1913.
Chris
 |
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 308
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, May 21, 2004 - 5:22 pm: | |
I'm sure many people in the UK have been watching Peter Ackroyd's excellent TV series on London. In the final part broadcast tonight he covered Jack the Ripper (though purists will be offended by the image of the top-hatted, caped murderer, and the assumption that the murderer was responsible for the Ripper Letters).
However, the part that caught my attention came a little earlier, with his examination of the River "Occurrence Books", with details of suicides by drowning in the Thames since 1839. Apparently these were produced by the Metropolitan Police Marine Support Unit, based at Wapping.
From a quick scan of the Internet, I suspect Druitt's suicide may have been too far upriver to fall within their jurisdiction, but I wonder if anyone knows for sure?
Chris Phillips
(Message edited by cgp100 on May 21, 2004) |
John Savage
Inspector
Username: Johnsavage
Post Number: 188
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 22, 2004 - 10:01 am: | |
Hi Chris,
I too watched this programme and had similar thoughts.
However a quick check of the internet shows that in 1901 the area covered by the river police extended from Dartford in the east to Chelsea Bridge in the west. Hammersmith is of course to the west of Chelsea, so would have been outside that area.
Also the report of Druit's inquest in the Acton Chiswick and Turnham Green Gazette tells us that the policeman called to the scene by the waterman Winslade, was PC George Moulson 216T. The letter T signifies that he was attached to Hammersmith police station.
Because of this I do not think there wil be any new information to be found in these occurrence books.
Best Regards
John Savage |
Chris Phillips
Inspector
Username: Cgp100
Post Number: 310
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 22, 2004 - 12:51 pm: | |
John
Thanks for that - your Internet search was more successful than mine in pinning down the jurisdiction (probably because I was searching for "Thames Division" rather than "River Police").
Chris Phillips
|
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 2465
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 22, 2004 - 4:39 pm: | |
If they did want to take a photograph of Druitt, they may not have had far to look - in 1891 Dr Diplock was living just a few doors away from a photo studio.
Robert |
John Ruffels
Inspector
Username: Johnr
Post Number: 221
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, May 23, 2004 - 3:03 am: | |
One assumes that if the body was found on the river bank, then the jurisdiction was that of the local police district.If the body was found floating in the middle of the river,was this the jurisdiction of the River Police? Or did they only supervise boats and those messing around in them?
I too am curious to learn why NO police records of local jurisdictions survive at all. After all,
the authorities seem to have devised a smooth apparatus for dealing with the corpses of those "Found Drowned". Even to the extent of putting up regular notices outside Thames-side police stations, seeking information on the deceased, or announcing Inquests.And organising pub basements for the temporary storage of soggy
bodies.
Did nothing survive of the Hammersmith Police records for 1888/9 ?
Were other government departments involved other than Police? What about the Home Office? Or Health
Officers?
I have asked the following question before, but no-one seems to be able to provide an answer:
If the senior police suspected Montague Druitt -now deceased- of being 'Jack The Ripper' could they use the fact a dead man cannot receive a fair trial to close the book on the case and quietly slink away?
Surely, correspondence with the Prime Minister,
Treasury Solicitors, or even Scotland Yard's own legal people would have been necessary to quietly approve such an arrangement?
|
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 2472
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 24, 2004 - 4:42 pm: | |
Hi John
Re Hammersmith, I don't know if this has come up before, but there was in the 1881 census a Police Constable Henry Charles Drewitt, with wife Ann Drewitt and daughter Ann Elizabeth W. Drewitt, living at 6 York Place, London Middlesex. I do not know precisely where York Place was, but from the fact that Ann Elizabeth was listed as born Hammersmith, likewise the younger members of the families either side of number six, I suspect that it was in Hammersmith. I'd love to know if there was any relation to Monty.
Robert |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 2491
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 29, 2004 - 2:45 pm: | |
Hi all
I have now put the questions of the Occurrence Books, and the possibility of mortuary photographs, to Spike Hughes at the police orders website, but all he could tell me was that PC Moulson joined in 1883 and was never in Thames Division, his Division being Hammersmith until he left it to transfer to the CID. He retired in 1905.
Robert |
David Andersen
Sergeant
Username: Davida
Post Number: 16
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 29, 2004 - 6:56 pm: | |
As a Chiswick person it is my recollection that Chiswick was, at least during my youth, in 'F' division as is Hammersmith. Henry Winslade,the man who actually found Druitts body, floating lived at SHORT St, and not Shore st as has sometimes been stated. In 1988 when I interviewed the then occupant of Winslades old house I was suprised to find that her name was Drewett. As far as I have been able to ascertain, so far,Montague had no relatives living in Chiswick or its environs. His Mother, however was moved to the Manor House Asylum, about 300 yards from where Montagues body was found, 18 months after his death. It is my contention that Montagues presence in Chiswick was associated with the owners of the Asylum (Tuke). The brothers who ran the asylum were contemporaries of Druitt at Oxford, and like Druitt they played for the Oxford cricket team. I further contend that it was at the asylum that Druitts note was penned and that he disappeared from the asylum around the 3rd of December 1888. The finding of his body, some three weeks later was not an unexpected event. It also explains how his body was identified so quickly. I know that some reports state that he was identified from 'papers found on the body' but I would question this since papers would probably be unreadable after 3 weeks immersion in the Thames. More importantly we have P.C. Moulsom testifying, at the inquest, that 'no papers of any kind were found on the body'.
Regards
David |
David Andersen
Sergeant
Username: Davida
Post Number: 17
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 29, 2004 - 6:59 pm: | |
We are told that Winslade brought the body ashore. This would have placed the body within the jurisdiction of the local police.
Regards
David |
Jeffrey Bloomfied
Inspector
Username: Mayerling
Post Number: 357
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 29, 2004 - 8:02 pm: | |
I am glad to see some movement going here regarding Monty's last day, and his possible connection to the asylum and the Tukes. Nice piece of logic and research there David. Also there is increasing chance of a mortuary picture of Monty.
As for the name, Druitt can have several variations. How about Drouet? There was a quack medicine group called the Drouet Institute for the Deaf that Dr. Hawley Crippen worked for at the turn of the twentieth century. The Drouet in that name was a French quack. Also, in America, Theodore Dreiser's SISTER CARRIE's hero is named Drewitt (I think that is the spelling).
Regards,
Jeff |
David Andersen
Sergeant
Username: Davida
Post Number: 18
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 29, 2004 - 8:34 pm: | |
Did you get my e-mail?
Regards
David |
Jeffrey Bloomfied
Inspector
Username: Mayerling
Post Number: 361
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, May 30, 2004 - 10:56 pm: | |
Yes, and I hope you got my response,
Regards,
Jeff |
|
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