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A Ripper Notes Article
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This article originally appeared in Ripper Notes. Ripper Notes is the only American Ripper periodical available on the market, and has quickly grown into one of the more substantial offerings in the genre. For more information, view our Ripper Notes page. Our thanks to the editor of Ripper Notes for permission to reprint this article.
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British writer Stewart P. Evans
is regarded as a leading authority on the Whitechapel murders. At
his home in East Anglia, he maintains an
extensive “Black Museum” of crime-related artifacts and
documents, which include the “Littlechild Letter”
written in 1913 by Chief Inspector John George Littlechild to
journalist George R. Sims. The letter, which names Irish-American
Dr. Francis Tumblety as a “likely” suspect in the
Whitechapel murders, led Stewart together with Paul Gainey, to
write and, in 1995, publish The Lodger, which appeared in the
United States as Jack Ripper: First American Serial Killer. Now
retired after nearly 28 years’ service with the Suffolk
police, Stewart has more Ripper projects in the works; as always, a must read!
A Talk with Stewart Evans, Part I
by Chris George
CG: Stewart, I understand you first became
interested in the Whitechapel murders when you were a boy. How
did you become involved in the case at such an early age?
SPE: My
interest in Jack the Ripper, in fact, predates my teens. I hasten
to add that this means interest only, not research. About 1958,
when I was nine years old, my parents took me to Madame
Tussaud’s waxworks [in London], and I took a look at the
famous “Chamber of Horrors.” Even at that age, I had an
interest in mysteries, and the rather macabre classic murder
cases and crime films. In the Chamber of Horrors, very different
in those days from today, was a framed copy of an original
Metropolitan Police poster depicting the “Dear Boss”
letter and “Saucy Jacky” postcard. I read these and was
impressed--as so many have been--by the name “Jack the
Ripper.” I had a vague idea of the unknown Victorian London
killer, and on seeing this it gelled into a definite interest.
Over the years, this interest remained although I did not
actively pursue it, other than reading the odd short piece here
and there. It was in 1965 with the almost simultaneous
publication of two books on Jack the Ripper by [Tom] Cullen and
[Robin] Odell that the interest became truly academic and deeper.
I bought both books, avidly read them, and was very impressed.
That was the real start of my “active” interest in the
Whitechapel murders.
CG: Would
you mind telling me your rank in the Suffolk police? Were you
were in the C.I.D. [Criminal Investigation Department]?
SPE: I was a
police constable in the uniformed branch.
CG: Do you
think that your background as a policeman has aided you in your
study of the murders?
SPE: Yes.
Remember, I had experience of reading about the subject for years
before I joined the police in 1969. The interest continued, and
nearly 28 years as a police officer made me fully “au
fait” with all the laws and rules of evidence. Many of those
regulations were the same back in 1888, albeit dictated under
different legislation. I took thousands of witness statements,
arrested hundreds of people, from the most serious of offences,
down to shoplifting. I had to be proficient in a court of law,
from the lowest magistrates’ court up to the Assizes, and
later the Crown Courts. I met and got to know criminals of every
type imaginable, including several murderers. I watched my first
autopsy at age 20 and saw dozens more after that. That certainly
gives you a better insight on the more gruesome aspects of the
Ripper case, as I have seen several autopsies that were worse
than what was done to Mary Jane Kelly. It is noticeable that many
“Ripperologists” (a word I do not like, but I guess it
is a term with which we are stuck!), are pretty good armchair
detectives, or “Agatha Christie” types, whose reasoning
bears little relation to hard facts and reality. I know how
untrustworthy apparently good witnesses may be, how genuine
mistakes are made and taken as fact, and all the subtle
influences at work in any investigation. As a police officer, I
discovered that you had to rapidly learn to be a psychologist in
the hardest school of all--real life. Those who didn’t soon
made grave errors or ended up getting badly beaten by some
violent criminal. I know all the “tricks of the trade,”
many of which date back to Victorian times, and I know the traps
that befall an investigator of crime. The hierarchy of the
[British] police force is a very old and traditional structure,
and I know its workings and way of thought intimately. The main
difference between the British police of today and those of 1888
is the experience of the highest ranks. Today, every police
officer, right up to the Chief Constable or Chief Commissioner,
started at the bottom of the ladder as a “bobby on the
beat.” In Victorian days, those ranks were all occupied by
the likes of Warren (a soldier), Anderson (a barrister),
Macnaghten (a tea plantation manager), Monro (a lawyer), Smith (a
book-keeper, soldier, and “gentleman”), and so on.
“Dolly” Williamson as Chief Constable was a unique
exception. Other than Williamson, these men had no real police
experience, no on-the-ground skills of investigating and
arresting criminals. In a word, they did not dirty their hands
with crime. They were administrators, the link between their
political masters and the police. From Superintendent down, you
found the career police officers. Being a police officer is such
a unique experience that it cannot be understood by anyone who
has not been one for several years. So, yes, a deep understanding
of police meanings and procedures has caused me to have a much
better understanding of all the surviving material on the
Whitechapel murders, and a better insight into what actually went
on. A minor example is the mistaken understanding of the role of
Inspector Henry Moore in the case. In [Chief Inspector Walter]
Dew’s book, he is called a Chief Inspector at the time of
murders, when he was actually only a Detective Inspector and
junior to Inspector [Frederick George] Abberline. However,
Abberline was taken off the Whitechapel murders investigation
around March 1889, and Moore took over his role, and kept it
until the date of the last report on the files, 18 October 1896.
Moore joined Abberline on the investigation in September 1888, so
he probably knew more about the case than did Abberline, because
he stayed in charge on the case for many years longer than
Abberline. It was for this reason that many years later Dew
remembered Moore as being in charge of the investigation, which
he was from around March 1889 to at least October 1896. Moore was
promoted to Chief Inspector in September 1895, and retired from
the Metropolitan Police Force, in that rank, on 9 October 1899.
As a result of my understanding of the ramifications of what had
been written about Moore, I was able to identify his true role
and correct errors, such as the entry on him in the [Jack the
Ripper] A to Z.
CG: Dave
Yost made the statement that given when you first started
researching the murders, you seem to have almost lived through
what might be called the “modern-age of Ripperology,”
like a favorite uncle who first witnessed the twin-prop plane,
the breaking of the sound barrier and the Space Shuttle. Do you
think this has made an impact on your views and how you view this
case? And, do you think it has provided you with a certain amount
of “insight” as compared to those who have only read
about such things in modern works, such as A to Z and Philip
Sugden’s The Complete History of Jack the Ripper?
SPE: Am I
that old? Hell, I must be, my grandson is four years old now! I
can remember planes breaking the sound barrier in the early
1950’s. Needless to say, having been born in 1949, I missed
by a few years Lindbergh ’s flight across Atlantic in the
“Spirit of St Louis” in 1927! However, I guess it was a
bit like that, though I don’t know that my long-time
interest in the case necessarily gave me a better insight, other
than the fact that I was able to get a good look at the East End
before it radically changed in the early 1970’s. I think
with such comprehensive reference works as the A to Z and Sugden
that the modern student, if he has read them, immediately gets
started with more thorough and accurate knowledge than I ever had
when I started. Throughout the 1970’s, my deep interest in
aviation history rather curtailed my Ripper interest, other than
the fact that I kept buying the new books as they came out. I was
especially impressed with Donald Rumbelow’s book [The
Complete Jack the Ripper, 1975], as well as with some of the new
information revealed by Stephen Knight [Jack the Ripper: The
Final Solution, 1976] from the official files. In 1987/88, I sold
my Ripper book collection to Clifford Elmer Books (a stupid
move), because I was a bit disheartened by the Centenary
“overkill.” Any insight I may have into the case is
rather more derived from my experience in the police force than
the span of years my interest has covered. However, it has been
most interesting watching the development of the Ripper
“industry”--a phenomenon in which I never imagined that
one day I would become so involved.
A Talk with Stewart Evans, Part II
by Chris George
In the second installment of this
interview, former British policeman Stewart P. Evans describes
how he came to purchase the "Littlechild Letter"
written in 1913 by Chief Inspector John George Littlechild that
names Irish-American Dr. Francis Tumblety as a "likely"
suspect in the Whitechapel murders. In 1995, Stewart and fellow
Suffolk policeman Paul Gainey published their book on Tumblety,
published as The Lodger in the United Kingdom & renamed for
its US publication Jack the Ripper: First American Serial Killer.
Besides his research into the Whitechapel murders, Stewart is an
expert on World War II aviation and also lists the Titanic among
his other arcane interests. In his East Anglia home, he maintains
a sizeable "Black Museum" containing crime-related
artifacts, and he has an extensive crime library . As this writer
and others who are interested in the Whitechapel murders can
attest, Stewart is very "giving" with his time and
resources.
CG: Stewart, have the passing years and the
accumulation of your private criminology collection changed your
aims, or is your devotion to the chase motivated by that original
spark?
SPE: The
passing of the years, the gaining of experience, a more cynical
outlook, and the accumulation of my collection all influenced my
thinking on the case in many ways. I really do miss the days of
my youth when I believed in the strict fact of the canonical five
victims, the simplicity of Druitt being the Ripper, the solidity
of the stated facts in the books I read, the romance and irony of
the super villain who single-handedly eluded the London police
and wrote mocking letters. To sum up, I grew up. And weren't
things more magical when you were young, the world a different
place, and all things so much more simple?
CG: Could
you explain for our readers how you came into possession of the
Littlechild Letter, the steps you took to verify its
authentication, and how you came to be involved in the
investigation of Dr. Tumblety?
SPE: I have
been a collector of general crime ephemera and memorabilia for
many years, and I have quite a "Black Museum" which
includes three used execution ropes, a death-mask, weapons,
murderers' letters, and so on. The collection also includes a
large amount of antiquarian and used books on crime, dating back
to the 1700's. (Other interests and collections include the
Titanic, old movies, the Loch Ness monster, and many other
eclectic subjects.) As a result, I am friendly with and know many
dealers and antiquarians. They know of my interests, so much
gravitates to me. It was as a result of this that Camille Wolff,
the delightful doyen of true-crime book dealers, informed me of
some items she had been offered. I have known Cam since the
mid-80's, and I know that when she has something offered it is
often well worth pursuing. She had been contacted by an old
antiquarian book dealer friend, Eric Barton, of Richmond, Surrey.
Eric had been dealing in crime books and ephemera for longer than
many of us have been born, and in the "golden years"
acquired many choice items, several of which went to Mme
Tussaud's. He had sold Tussaud's several Ripper items in the
early 1960's. These were mainly from the collection of author/
journalist George R. Sims who had his own "Crime
Museum."
Eric, by then aged in his eighties, was
reluctantly closing down his company, Baldur Books, and retiring.
It was February 1993, and he contacted me, thanks to Cam, and
asked if I would like to purchase some "Jack the Ripper
letters." He explained that they were the remains of the
collection of George R. Sims, which he had purchased from
Sotheby's in the early 1960's, and that they were letters written
to Sims about the Ripper. I, of course, said that I was very
interested and the letters duly arrived by post about a week
later. You may imagine how stunned I was on reading the
Littlechild letter. I was well-aware of just who Chief Inspector
Littlechild was, and already had a copy of his 1893
Reminiscences. The fact that he named a "new" suspect
as a "very likely" Jack the Ripper and divulged the
names of the men that Scotland Yard believed to have written the
"Jack the Ripper" letters seemed incredible to me, and
I knew that this was a milestone breakthrough. Even if Tumblety
proved not to be the Ripper, he was a genuine contemporary
suspect.
As Martin Fido said when he learned of
the letter, the provenance was immaculate, and no one has ever
questioned its authenticity. Indeed, it wasn't until the TV
documentary was made in 1996 that the letter was subjected to
forensic tests and proved to be genuine. Of course, the mere fact
that research based on the letter led to the discovery of
Tumblety was authentication in itself. Initially it was my old
friend Keith Skinner to whom I entrusted the new information and
it was Keith who discovered Tumblety in the New York Times and
The New York Herald. The full story is told in our book.
An intriguing footnote to all this was
that on meeting Eric Barton at his home I found it to be a
veritable "Aladdin's Cave." In telling the story of his
purchase, Eric revealed that also with Sims' letters was a full
set of the crime scene photos of Miller's Court and Mary Jane
Kelly! He had never sold them and they were still in his home
somewhere. I kept in contact with Eric hoping that he would find
these photos which he said I could have. Unfortunately Eric died
before the photographs were located. (It will be remembered that
Sims was a friend of Macnaghten and it is from him that Sims
undoubtedly obtained the photos).
CG: Littlechild may have known Tumblety through his investigation of
the doctor's Fenian or Irish nationalist activities. We know a
file on Tumblety existed at Scotland Yard which has since
disappeared. Isn't it possible the file mainly focused on
Tumblety as a Fenian rather than as a suspect in the murders?
SPE: Yes,
Chief Inspector Littlechild probably did know of Tumblety because
of his Irish connections, after all this was Littlechild's
special area of concern. But that still does not alter that fact
that we know that Littlechild also considered him a "very
likely" suspect for the Whitechapel murders. Don't forget
Douglas Browne consulted the Yard files in the mid 1950's, when a
lot was still there that is now missing, and said that Macnaghten
actually identified the Ripper "with the leader of a plot to
assassinate Mr Balfour at the Irish Office." We have no idea
what he saw which made him say this.
The file, or dossier, probably did
contain more on Tumblety as a Fenian rather than as a suspect in
the Whitechapel murders, we have never suggested otherwise. But a
mention from the official files of why he was suspected in regard
to the murders would be very nice to find. It must be remembered
that, whatever the police suspicions were against any suspect,
they had no hard evidence of guilt.
CG: On the
Cloak and Dagger Club site, the following appears in regard to
your June 1, 1996 appearance at the club: "The police did
not want it escaping that they had let Jack the Ripper escape.
Just think--Scotland Yard and the Metropolitan Police would be
the laughing stock of the world were it known that they had the
worst killer of all time (or at the time) in their grasp and they
set him free. So they set about a cover-up. They destroyed all
papers referring to Tumblety, including the dossier. Today
nothing exists in the files at the Public Records Office in Kew
that refer to Tumblety."
Frankly, this "cover-up" seems
very convenient, and almost makes smacks of the type of cover-up
proposed by proponents of the Royal conspiracy. Could such a
cover-up be so, or is it that the file has gone missing for some
other reason, much as so many files in the case are missing?
SPE: You
know this sort of question worries me, for you are putting to me
something that I never said, as a quote by me. And I have the
whole of my Cloak and Dagger talk on videotape and can prove it!
I will reiterate what I did, and do, say. I do not propose and
never have proposed a "cover-up" of the sort you
indicate. What I have said is that there was a
"convenient" silence and lack of information given out
by the police, a very common occurrence then and now I can assure
you. In Tumblety, even if you do not accept him as the prime
suspect, the police did have a suspect for the murders, without,
as with all the others, any hard evidence, only strong
suspicions. And suspicions are insufficient without hard
evidence. What I did say is that when he escaped justice by
jumping his bail and fled to America they had lost a Ripper
suspect, and this was a fact that, had they admitted it, would
have given an aggressive press much ammunition to use against
them, and could have resulted in the resignation of some
officers. So no, I didn't even suggest, nor have I ever
suggested, that any files were destroyed, or that an elaborate
"cover-up" was instigated. They merely kept quiet about
it, which is evidenced by the lack of any mention of Tumblety's
name in any British newspaper.
And this is a very strange omission when
we look at the huge publicity he received in North America, both
as a Whitechapel murders suspect, and as escaping British
justice. Many totally unlikely and even non-starter suspects are
mentioned in the British press of the time, as well as the more
serious ones. But not a whisper about Tumblety. This is very odd.
How did they hush it up? Yes the dossier is missing, but so are
thousands of others. No Special Branch files have ever been
released to the Public Record Office, so it may still repose
somewhere in the records of the Special Branch at Scotland Yard.
And these are highly confidential. Fenian sympathies run down in
families from generation to generation and such files will
probably never be made public.
CG: In the
first publication of your book, Dr. Tumblety is accredited with
killing Mary Jane Kelly. In the more recent version, this does
not seem to be the case. Could you expound on this change of view
in greater depth?
SPE: There
is no short answer to this one so I shall expound on it. First
let me say that the content of the first edition of our book in
this regard, is still there in the second, but it has been added
to in the addendum. And, if you re-read it you will see that we
are not dismissing Kelly as a Ripper victim, merely adding
another possibility that was very ably presented by Alex Chisholm
in his "Revision of History" piece which he had sent to
me prior to the publication of the second edition. In fact Alex's
piece was so good that we included it verbatim in the second
edition. This sort of flexibility, and allowance for other
possibilities really is something that all "Ripper"
authors should consider, for we often see how inflexible they
are, some refusing to budge an inch on any previous theory they
have adopted, even when proven wrong.
A problem for me, bearing in mind the
length of time I have been researching this subject, is that
having "discovered" and written about a suspect, Dr.
Tumblety, I tend to be regarded, as Jon Smyth so amusingly puts
it, as the "Tumblety man." Now, anyone who knows me
well will tell you that my stand is totally objective, and all my
writing on the subject is based on that foundation. Tumblety is
an innovation for me in the subject, but I do understand his
relevance and importance. Therefore to answer this question fully
I will attempt to be fully objective, and I will be totally
honest. I, as most, had for a long time accepted, without
question, the "canonical five" victims. I also, in the
early days, felt that M. J. Druitt was the killer. Over the
years, naturally, this view modified with what I read, and I
later thought that Kosminski was the best suspect. We are all
influenced by what we read and it was not until I began to use
primary sources alone that my ideas began to change and other
possibilities were revealed to me.
Unfortunately, as regards Tumblety, as
in so many cases, nothing has survived on him in the known
official sources. Littlechild is by implication an official
source and it is therefore exceedingly fortunate that his letter
survived. He clearly states "but amongst the
suspects..." was Tumblety which is an unequivocal statement
of fact, not even his opinion, clearly meaning that Tumblety was
a contemporary suspect. Indeed, this means that his candidacy can
be placed nearer to the time of the crimes than Kosminski,
Druitt, or Ostrog who were not named until 1894. In fact,
Littlechild, one of the Departmental heads at Scotland Yard until
1893 when he retired, even indicated that he had "never
heard of a Dr. D. in connection with the Whitechapel
murders...," and this was undoubtedly Druitt. He then gives
his opinion that Tumblety, as a suspect, was "a very likely
one." Two observations should be made here. First
Littlechild, a close colleague of Swanson, was there at the time
and in possession of more facts than we will ever know, so he
should be in a better position to know this. His statement is a
sober modest one (he is not saying dogmatically that he knew who
"Jack the Ripper" was, he is giving his informed
opinion in a private letter, so he is not even bragging).
Secondly the mere fact that Tumblety was pursued to New York in
December 1888, and that all those years later Littlechild still
thought him a "very likely" suspect indicates that he
was never really cleared as a suspect. We have to take him
seriously. Having always assumed Kelly to be the final victim,
indeed she has been for many the raison d'etre for the whole
mystery, I had never questioned her candidacy. When it was
claimed that Tumblety may have been in custody at the time of her
murder, that would leave only two possibilities. He was not the
Whitechapel murderer, or Kelly was not a victim of the
Whitechapel murderer. So we had to consider that possibility. The
case for him not being the murderer I will look at next. As
regards Kelly not being a victim of the Whitechapel murderer I
can do no better than to recommend readers to Alex's excellent
argument. And it should be noted that it is not Alex' final view
that he totally rejects Kelly as a victim of the Whitechapel
murderer, it is just a very viable option he offers that others
have never considered.
Germane to this whole question on
Tumblety is his arrest on 7 November 1888, two days before the
Kelly murder. All who have read our book will know the options
here, but it obviously needs saying again as so many do not
understand police procedures and powers. There are no surviving
police documents on the arrest of Tumblety. All we have is the
Crown Court Case Calendar for the period, which is not a police
document but a printed Court list for cases coming up for trial
at the Old Bailey. It has basic columns listing basic facts about
each of the defendants. One of the columns is headed "When
received into Custody," which is merely the date of first
arrest of the defendant. Now there is always a long time between
this date (when the police first detain the offender) and his
court appearance. It is only in the more serious of cases that an
offender is actually locked up from when he is first
"received into Custody" and when he finally makes his
court appearance. In the majority of cases the prisoner is either
bailed to a Magistrates' court for committal to the higher court,
or he is given police bail for a week to re-appear at the police
station for charging and bailing to the Court. These rules
applied then, as they do now. The Court Case Calendar we have
here does not list any interim police bails, nor arrests on
answering such bail. All it records is the initial time of being
taken into custody.
Tumblety's arrest was for a misdemeanor,
not a serious one, and was, initially in all probability for only
one offence of gross indecency. Police inquiries from one
"victim" to the next undoubtedly led to the other three
offences. So the options for the police on 7 November 1888, when
Tumblety was initially arrested were to charge him and take him
before a court to remand him in custody, or to grant him police
bail for a week to return in seven days to be charged and taken
before a court. If he had been charged, taken before a court,
then held for a week it should have been shown on the record, but
is not. As the offence they had arrested him for was relatively
minor (it carried only 2 years' imprisonment as maximum penalty)
the high probability is that he was granted police bail for a
week to return to the police station for charging, thus giving
the police time to gather their evidence for the four charges.
Unfortunately all the police arrest, charge and bail books do not
appear to have survived, so there is no police record known of
Tumblety's arrest. The police had to charge him and take him
before a court within 24 hours of his arrest, or release him on
Police bail for 7 days. The fact that a warrant was issued
against him on 14 November, two days before his actual appearance
before the magistrate shows that this was almost certainly the
case. He would have been released on police bail for a week
within 24 hours of his arrest on 7 November. It was the law then,
as it still is today.
Now, although it can be shown that
Tumblety was probably free two days later, at the time of the
Kelly murder, it did cause me to seriously consider the question
of Kelly's candidacy as a Ripper victim. We have since all heard
the arguments for and against her candidacy, the almost totally
different modus operandi etc., but I had never questioned that
she was a Ripper victim seriously before. I had thought it
because of the stated differences, but, as with most others, I
had unquestioningly always accepted her as the final victim, and
"...the most notorious act of the Ripper, and therefore his
defining moment..." as Alex Chisholm so appropriately
describes it. I have to say that my knowledge of the facts is
quite encyclopedic, as it is of all the circumstances surrounding
Tumblety. And I know that it has not been proven that he was
"Jack the Ripper," and also that no hard evidence was
adduced against any suspect. But, and I would need to sit and
talk at length to explain it, my opinion is that he is by far the
best suspect we have. Littlechild also indicated this, and did it
in a more modest way than any other police officer of the time
who has suggested a viable suspect.
So in summation, I have not rejected
Kelly as the final victim, nor do I now blindly accept her as the
final victim. My view has changed, but it is now more open rather
than unquestioningly accepting the received "wisdom"
that she was definitely the last victim. That may be seen as
"hedging my bets" in relation to Tumblety being the
killer, but this is not the case. I remain open to all arguments,
and all new information. Objectivity and flexibility remains the
only way forward in this type of research.
CG: Would
the police have taken a detailed description of Tumblety when he
was arrested, and if so, has it been located? Can we determine if
the good doctor's moustache really was as gigantic as
contemporary illustrations make it appear?
SPE: In
Victorian times, as now, it was standard British police procedure
to fill out a "DF" or descriptive form for every
prisoner charged with a crime. Again there are many factors to
consider here, many of which are addressed in our book. First
there are, at the moment, only the three illustrations of
Tumblety known. There must be more, including a good photograph.
But this aspect is important as so many dismiss Tumblety out of
hand merely on the strength of his description. This is a
dangerous and unscientific thing to do with any suspect. First,
we would have to know exactly which witnesses actually saw the
killer--it could have been one, two, or even three witnesses.
Taking Mrs Long and Lawende as certainly the most likely to have
seen the killer, and the best witnesses, then the descriptions
would appear to be of two totally different men. Bear also in
mind that the police at the time were not certain if they had a
good description of the killer, and there were several genuine
suspects who were a little older, such as Stephenson, Ostrog, and
Tumblety, all much of an age. Significantly all had moustaches. A
further problem is the fact that their statements have not
survived. We do know that Mrs Long said that her suspect was
apparently over 40 years of age.
The first illustration of Tumblety, from
his 1866 book, shows him as a younger man with a large droopy
moustache. The second illustration, from the New York World of 5
December 1888, shows him with a similar droopy moustache, and
wearing a sober two piece suit, and peaked cap. The third
illustration, from his 1891 book shows him wearing some sort of
military uniform jacket with a large waxed moustache. The actual
dates of these two illustrations are not known but I would think
that the first was probably from the early 1880's, and the second
possibly a little earlier when he was still affecting military
connections. Tumblety was about 5 feet 10 inches tall, and had an
American accent. His style of dress and demeanor, by 1888,
appeared to not be as flamboyant as in his younger years. In our
book, we quote the description given of a suspicious man seen
talking to prostitutes by the witness John Lardy in Whitechapel
in mid-October 1888. Lardy's description is remarkably like
Tumblety, and is as follows: "...At first he was wearing a
sort of frock coat reaching his knees only, but when he came out
of the house in King Street he had on a large overcoat which
reached to within three inches of the ground. From what I could
see he appeared to be between forty and forty-five years of age,
and from 5 feet 11 inches to 6 feet high...He wore a low hat with
a square crown, but I cannot describe his trousers or boots. He
had the appearance of an American. His cheek-bones were high and
prominent, his face thin, cheeks sunken, and he had a moustache
only, his cheeks and chin being clean-shaven. The moustache was,
I believe, a false one, for it was all awry, one end pointing
upward and the other towards the ground. His hair was dark,
apparently black, and somewhat long." Now the suggestion
that the man was wearing a false moustache is not too unlikely,
for they were a popular accessory in 1888 and there are adverts
in the contemporary papers for them with rows of different styles
illustrated. Could the man have been wearing a larger moustache
to conceal a smaller one, or lack of one, beneath?
Now compare that with the description of
Tumblety given in the New York papers on his arrival there on 3
December 1888: "He wore a long English cloth ulster, without
a cape, a derby hat, and carried an umbrella and two canes tied
together." (New York Daily Tribune). "...a big,
fine-looking man...He had a heavy, fierce-looking mustache, waxed
at the ends; his face was pale and he looked hurried and excited.
He wore a dark blue ulster, with the belt buttoned. He carried
under his arm two canes and an umbrella fastened together with a
strap." (New York World). This clearly proves that in 1888
Tumblety was not the loud, flamboyant dresser he had been in his
earlier years.
CG: Do you
plan another update of your book on Tumblety?
SPE: Not at
the moment. The position is that the rights for the book in the
UK have reverted to us as authors, as Century/Random House are
not republishing. That may sound odd as it was a
"best-seller" selling 15,500 copies in hardback as The
Lodger and 15,000 copies as an Arrow paperback, Jack the Ripper:
First American Serial Killer, in the UK. It is still in print in
the US as a paperback. However, Century/Random House is a large
publisher dealing, in the main, with "blockbuster
best-sellers." Our book pales into insignificance alongside
a Gulf War SAS book, published at the same time as ours, which
had, the last I heard, sold nearly 400,000 copies! It would,
however, be nice to update our book and work the addenda
information into the main text, take out some now superfluous
material, and add some new material we have found. So the book is
there, for update, should any publisher be interested.
CG: I
understand you are working on a number of new projects. Could you
tell us about them?
SPE: Yes I
am. I am very busy at the moment. I have formed a sort of
author/researcher/consultant partnership with Keith Skinner and
we are working closely together. Keith is an excellent
researcher. I have my 188,000 word factual manuscript on the case
which I am also developing with Keith, and I am also producing a
book with Nick Connell, The Man Who Hunted Jack the Ripper, which
should be published next March by Rupert Books. Nick is at the
cutting edge of research and the book will contain many new
facts. In addition, Keith and I are working on another book
project at the moment but it is still in the embryonic stage.
Another area I am always busy in is the
collection of illustrative material on the case and the period,
and Henninger TV Productions drew on this for their new Jack the
Ripper documentary which the Discovery Channel should air early
next year.
CG: You
have expressed distrust of "profiling" advised by
authorities such as the FBI's John Douglas. Does profiling have
any place in the hunt for the Ripper?
SPE: Yes, I
do distrust profiling, and I do not feel it has a place in the
hunt for the Ripper. I shall go into these specifics here. John
Douglas himself exhibited the main problem in the television
production of 1988, "The Secret Identity of Jack the
Ripper," when he was part of a panel of "judges."
They panel was "fed" the facts and information of the
established canon of the time, often opinion and assumption being
presented as facts, and reached the inevitable conclusion that
Kosminski was most likely the "Ripper." What nonsense,
it was not, and can never be, established which were definitely
the victims of a common killer. I have previously shown examples
the dangers of accepting certain things as "facts" when
they are not such at all. To use it in this 111 year old case is
more dangerous than forgetting such considerations, common sense
and balance of probability are the best yardsticks to use.
It never ceases to amaze me how some of
those into the profiling "fad" draw up their own
profiles, or select from published ones, as to age, description,
psychology, location of residence, etc., then dismiss out of hand
any suspect who does not fit. What nonsense! It is akin to
astrology. There is a little too much of it in our book for my
liking, and it is something that I would revise should the book
be rewritten.
Profiling should be used as an aid to
detecting and identifying a modern killer in a current
investigation. It has no place in solving or attempting to solve
a 100-plus year-old unsolved murder case. It is next to useless
in this context as it is all supposition, guesswork, and a
balancing of odds. As a further comment on profiling, I find it
amazing how it has turned into a money-making business all of its
own with books, movies, and media appearances. No wonder so many
earning cash and fame from it are pushing it so hard. The last I
heard was that the FBI only ever claimed a highest accuracy rate
of 75 per cent with profiling anyway. And most of those were
obvious facts in the first place, such as "All the bodies
were found within walking distance of a railroad station."
Conclusion: "The murderer must have been aware of the train
times and used the railroad." My, that's absolutely
brilliant. I will now quote Detective Chief Inspector Gary Copson
of the Metropolitan Police, "With some of the profiling,
when you take out the obvious things that have been suggested
such as the offender is male, is 18 to 30 and is anti-social, the
ratio of correct predictions to incorrect ones is 1.45 to 1. That
means you may as well toss a coin." Even though the
psychologists were unable to come up with accurate profiles, 84
percent of detectives found their advice useful and 68.5 percent
said they would use psychologists again. The main reason they
found it useful was that it gave them new ideas or it confirmed
ideas they already had. The profiler most often used by the
police was found to be the least accurate and the police felt
that it would be useful to know how they reached their
conclusions and reveal the degree of guesswork involved. And that
was for modern profiling on a current offender. It simply cannot
be applied historically or retrospectively in the way that some
"Ripperologists" apply it.
CG: Prior
to your discovery of the Littlechild Letter, which piece(s) of
primary source material broadened your knowledge and/or
understanding of the JtR case the most? Can you remember a moment
in those years when you felt, "Ah ha! Now I'm getting
somewhere?"
SPE: This
has to be when I acquired the hard copies of all the Police and
Home Office files from the Public Record Office (PRO). I suppose
on seeing their content I realized how immensely useful they were
going to be, but I don't think that there was any defining moment
that it suddenly came to me. It was more of a gradual process of
learning and assimilation of facts. My transcription of all the
official records was a great assistance as I have a retentive
memory for facts. I can usually look at a piece or essay on the
case and immediately spot factual errors. This is one of the
reasons that Richard Whittington-Egan asked me to proofread the
manuscript of his new book, The Quest for Jack the Ripper.
CG: Which
contemporary newspapers contain the most accurate coverage of the
Whitechapel Murders? I have heard it said that the newspapers of
the day should be used with caution. What would you advise
would-be researchers on the use of contemporary newspaper
accounts?
SPE: I
suppose I have found that The Times and the Daily Telegraph give
about the best coverage, although many others are very good. The
Star, the East London Advertiser, and the East London Observer
are also good. I do have a run of the original issues of The
Times in three leather bound volumes from July 1888 to March 1889
and I have found these very useful for reference. When you see
the Discovery channel documentary, two of these volumes will be
seen next to me while I am being interviewed. Most of the
newspaper reports that appeared immediately on the discovery of
the crimes were a bit confused, often inaccurate, and contained
much hearsay from locals just wanting to see their names in the
papers.
As for using contemporary newspapers
with caution, any researcher has to proceed with caution at all
stages and with all sources. However, the official records should
always be accepted as the best source in an area where they
exist. Any relevant or important newspaper account being used, or
developed in relation to a theory, should be checked out as
thoroughly as possible against known facts, or factual sources,
such as checking out the identity of people supplying stories
against the census returns or directories. Where a story is shown
to contain obvious factual errors, then other parts of the story
which cannot be checked out should be avoided if possible.
If possible, it is always best to try to
corroborate the stories in the newspapers. And you can't always
do it by reference to another paper as the stories were often
syndicated by the Central News Agency or the Associated Press. In
the main, the newspapers are most accurate when reporting the
inquest hearings. The reason for this is that the reporters sat
in the court noting the evidence in shorthand, thus allowing for
less error and hearsay.
