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** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
In the footsteps of the WHITECHAPEL MURDERS by John F Plimmer
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Media: Specific Titles:
Non-Fiction:
In the footsteps of the WHITECHAPEL MURDERS by John F Plimmer
Author: Rowena
Saturday, 08 January 2000 - 05:02 pm |        | Hello,
Has anyone read "In the footsteps of the WHITECHAPEL MURDERS" by John F Plimmer? If you have what do you think about it? I have trouble trying to work out what is fact and what is fiction.
In the book on page 33 it talks about an imprint of the sole of a size 8 boot being found at the scene of the Chapman murder. The imprint is supposidly cut across the sole, the book states that this was common amongst sailors to help them get a better grip on deck. Has anyone come acrossany mention of this imprint in any other JTR litereture?
On page 158 the book goes on about foreign ships that were docked in london at the time and comes up with a ship called the St Petersberg that was in port at all the right times. Also that one of the seamen went missing around the time of the Kelly murder. Is it known if the ships were checked at the time, or has anything come to light afterwards.
Does anyone know if there was a Cavell St in Whitechapel?
Mr Plimmer is an ex policeman so do you think he has some inside information, or is it more fiction than fact.
All the best, Rowena. |
Author: John Malcolm
Sunday, 09 January 2000 - 01:51 am | | Rowena,
Other than the descriptions of the murders, most of the content is hypothetical, including the shoe prints, etc. I think the book was interesting at times, but there were some mistakes that I wouldn't have expected to see in a well-researched work on the Whitechapel Murders, considering the information that is available today. I was a little disapointed. |
Author: John Malcolm
Sunday, 09 January 2000 - 01:57 am | | | (I meant 'disappointed') |
Author: A.M.P.
Sunday, 09 January 2000 - 06:38 am | | Rowena,
Whilst I do not know what steps were taken to search ships in the docks, it would seem to be a fair assumption that such checks were made. Following the Miller's Court murder, Home Secretary Matthews received a communication from Queen Victoria asking whether the cattle and passenger boats had been checked. Perhaps another correspondent can tell us more...
You don't state the context in which Plimmer mentions Cavell Street. If referring to a modern reconstruction of events he'd be OK, since the street runs south off Whitechapel Road just east of the Royal London Hospital, forming a crossroads with Brady Street. On the other hand, Plimmer would be wrong to use that name when discussing the 1888 investigation. The 1873 Ordnance map shows it as South Street, the 1894 one as part of Bedford Street. The very name Cavell Street has the obvious ring of a post-1918 street renaming. |
Author: Bob Hinton
Sunday, 09 January 2000 - 09:08 am | | Dear Rowena,
Apart from the fact that several women get murdered in the book and in life, there is very little to connect this with reality.
all the best
Bob Hinton |
Author: Guy Hatton
Sunday, 09 January 2000 - 01:58 pm | | Some time ago, I posted a review of this book here on the boards, but it looks like it may have gone by now. I'll see if I can find my original and re-post it if people are interested.
All the Best
Guy |
Author: Ashling
Monday, 10 January 2000 - 05:03 am | | Hi all.
ROWENA: If you don't have a copy of Jack the Ripper A-Z by Begg/Fido/Skinner, I strongly suggest you get one. Look under L for Larkins, Edward Knight. He was a statistical clerk in the Customs Dept., and a bigot - evidently convinced that all Portuguese men who set foot on any type of sailing vessel were blood-thirty fiends. After reading a copy of his original "report" to the police, I burst out laughing. Larkins suspected 2 Portuguese cattlemen who went in and out of the London docks aboard the City of Cork and the City of Oporto during the Autumn of Terror. (I don't know why the A-Z refers to one of the boats as The City of London.)
So between Queen Vicky's prodding (as A.M.P. pointed out in an earlier post) and Larkins hounding the police, the cattle boats were well and truly investigated.
GUY: Since so many posts have disappeared into the mawl of the Great Computer Glitch, I'm sure any recreated posts will be helpful to at least some of us.
Best regards,
Janice |
Author: Guy Hatton
Monday, 10 January 2000 - 06:18 am | | Janice -
I'll be happy to see what I can do.
All the Best
Guy |
Author: Guy Hatton
Monday, 10 January 2000 - 02:43 pm | | THE THICK BLUE LINE.
In the Footsteps of the Whitechapel Murders by John F.
Plimmer.
A question which regularly occupies the minds of historians,
researchers, and armchair investigators into the Whitechapel
Murders is this: If the crimes had been committed in
modern-day London, would the culprit have been detected and
brought to justice? The prospect of an assessment of the
murders by a former Murder Squad officer, applying
up-to-date investigative methods, is therefore very
appealing. Sadly, this book fails to provide the careful,
detailed analysis for which we may have hoped, and is
promised in the publisher’s blurb.
Detective Superintendent Plimmer’s track record in the West
Midlands Police would appear to be exemplary - we are told
that he took the role of Senior Investigating Officer in
more than thirty murder cases, with a 100% detection rate,
in the course of a 31 year career up to 1997. Our attention
is drawn to his qualifications in Law and Police
Interviewing Techniques. Impressive credentials indeed. But
Mr. Plimmer is no historian.
"John F. Plimmer brings his police service...to bear on how
the modern police force would deal with the facts (my
emphasis) in the case of Jack the Ripper" we are told.
Doubtless Mr. Plimmer’s successes in real life must have
been reliant upon accurate facts gathered by talented
investigation teams. We are not informed as to how Mr.
Plimmer came by the "facts" of the Whitechapel Murders which
he uses as the basis of his investigation. No researchers
are acknowledged, and no bibliography presented. Presumably,
then, we are to take it that this book is all Mr. Plimmer’s
own work. The result is an account of the case which is
riddled with inaccuracy, omission, myths unquestioningly
repeated, and in at least one case, an almost hilarious
inability to comprehend simple reporting of the crimes.
To make matters worse, Plimmer takes to deliberate (and
explicit) fiction in order to illustrate modern
investigative techniques in action. As a consequence, the
reader is subjected to constant jarring leaps from the past
to the present, from invented conversations intended to
provide "colour", to historical fact. One minute, Inspector
Abberline, who has now, in keeping with the custom of a
modern investigation, taken on the rank of Detective
Superintendent, is riding around Victorian London in a
Hansom cab. On arrival at his destination, he is receiving
reports by fax! Furthermore, his team is assigned duties
ranging across all of the "canonical five" murders,
including that of Catharine Eddowes. It seems that the City
of London police force has mysteriously ceased to exist.
Ultimately, it becomes hard to tell which parts of the story
have been altered to bring the case into the modern day, and
what is simply the result of poor research.
As stated above, Plimmer’s account of the case demonstrates
a very poor standard of historical accuracy. Whilst some
details of any case may be open to dispute, enough has been
written about the Whitechapel Murders, particularly in the
past ten years, and enough painstaking research done by
people like Keith Skinner, Paul Begg, Martin Fido and Philip
Sugden (amongst others), to enable the central facts to be
pinned down with a high degree of certainty. What a shame,
then, that Mr. Plimmer does not appear to have consulted any
of their works. Had he done so, he could have saved himself
from making some very embarrassing mistakes.
There is little point going into the fine details of all of
Plimmer’s glaring errors here. A few choice examples should
suffice to demonstrate the lamentable lack of background
research on offer. Let us look at Plimmer's description of
the discovery of Polly Nichols’ body, for example:
"George Cross, a market worker in nearby Spitalfields..."
begins Mr. Plimmer.
Already he has repeated an error (substituting George for
Cross’ actual name Charles) which modern researchers have
largely eradicated. He has stated Cross’ occupation
incorrectly. (He was a carman employed by Pickford’s in
Broad Street.) And when a second man appears on the scene,
announcing his approach by the sound of footsteps, we are
told that Cross "recognised their owner, a fellow market
worker, John Paul." Perhaps we can forgive Mr. Plimmer for
confusing the 19th-Century East End worker Robert Paul with
the current Pope. But there is no evidence to suggest that
Cross had ever clapped eyes on Paul before, as he was
neither employed by the same company, nor in the same place.
Indeed, it is reported that, as the two continued westwards
after alerting PC Mizen, Cross "was subsequently puzzled by
Paul’s sudden disappearance when he slipped into Corbett’s
Court, while Cross was proceeding toward the City." (Jack
the Ripper A-Z, p.342) The reason for Paul’s "sudden
disappearance"? Simply that he had reached his place of
work, while Cross still had some distance to go.
Things do not improve with the arrival on the scene of Dr.
Llewellyn. Plimmer describes how the doctor examines the
wound in Nichols’ neck. But then:
"Llewellyn also found a wine glass near to where the body
lay and handed it to one of the police officers."
What are we to make of this? Has Mr. Plimmer unearthed some
previously unknown detail? An otherwise undocumented item of
Nichols’ belongings? Or perhaps a clue left tauntingly by
the murderer? Of course not. Readers of any moderate
experience in this subject will immediately be able to make
the Nichols/wine glass connection. Sugden states it thus:
"The relatively small amount of blood left at the place
where the dead woman had been found was later to be the
subject of some speculation. Dr. Llewellyn, in a statement
issued to the press later in the day, spoke of a small pool
of blood on the footway, ‘not more than would fill two wine
glasses, or half a pint at the outside.’"
(The Complete History of Jack the Ripper, p.39)
The A-Z describes it only slightly differently in the
entry for Llewellyn:
"[Llewellyn] noticed there was only a wine-glass and a half
of blood in the gutter beside her..."
How Plimmer derived his wine glass at the scene from this
beggars belief. Maybe he interpreted the A-Z entry as
meaning there was "a wine glass" AND "a half of blood"
present. (Try ordering THAT in your local sometime - "I‚ll
have a half of blood, please landlord, and a packet of
cheese and onion crisps".) He clings to this fictitious wine
glass as a valuable piece of evidence, though - it is sent
for testing, and referred to several times in his account of
the investigation. He also reports Llewellyn’s initial
opinion that the killer was left-handed, and goes on to
retain this as important evidence, to the extent that the
man eventually brought to trial by Abberline and his team is
shown to be left-handed. Llewellyn’s retraction of his early
statement, and strong evidence from subsequent murders
pointing to a right-handed killer, is ignored completely.
By now it should be clear how carefully Mr. Plimmer checks
his facts. He also shows himself to be lax in marshalling
witness evidence. A Mrs. Lilley is reported as testifying to
hearing whispering, gasps and moans in Bucks Row at about
3:30 am. I could find no mention of this witness in other
reference works on the subject. (Perhaps somebody else out
there knows the source of this story?) Patrick Mulshaw, the
night watchman at the sewage works in Winthrop Street is
said to have been "standing near to the murder scene,
smoking", another claim which does not appear to be
substantiated anywhere else. Emma Green and Walter Purkiss
warrant no specific mention. Similar errors and omissions
characterise Plimmer's account of the other murders. Mrs.
Long, Israel Schwartz, and Joseph Lawende apparently did not
exist to give evidence in Mr. Plimmer's world. George
Hutchinson, it is implied, goes right up to Mary Kelly‚s
door and hears "whispered voices coming from inside" before
taking up his position by Crossingham’s Lodging House to
watch Miller’s Court. Hutchinson’s real-world statement
suggests that he did nothing of the sort. Plimmer states
that "apart from George Hutchinson, there were no other
witnesses who physically saw Mary Jane Kelly in the company
of a man." Setting aside the question of how a witness would
see Kelly in any way other than "physically", Mr. Plimmer
seems already to have forgotten Mrs. Cox’s sighting of Kelly
with the man with the blotchy face, carrotty moustache and
quart of beer, to which he has referred only two pages
earlier. The alleged lack of sightings leads Plimmer to
speculate that the killer travelled about Whitechapel by
carriage, despite the fact that this solution makes the
killer’s demonstrable disposal of Eddowes’ apron in Goulston
Street whilst fleeing from the site of the Mitre Square
murder almost impossible to explain.
Stephen Ryder has already mentioned elsewhere on this site
that Plimmer repeats the myth of Mary Kelly’s pregnancy. Dr.
Bond’s post-mortem report on Kelly is not made use of by
Plimmer's investigators. Stephen also points out that Mr.
Plimmer seems confused as to which "Ripper" letters were
sent when, and to whom. (The "Dear Boss" letter is
reproduced with a caption which reads "Letter sent to George
Lusk from a person claiming to be the Ripper") As I say
above, Mr. Plimmer does not tell us his research sources.
The only book on the case mentioned by name is Donald
McCormick’s Identity of Jack the Ripper, first published in
1959. I have not had the opportunity to read this book
myself as yet, but would refer readers to the published
opinions of other, more experienced researchers regarding
McCormick and his book. (The contributions by Paul Begg and
Melvin Harris in The McCormick Legacy, elsewhere on the
Casebook, strongly suggest that McCormick freely and
unashamedly fictionalised elements of his account, and made
serious errors of fact.) One such , mentioned by Phil
Sugden, is echoed in Plimmer's description of the Chapman
slaying:
"There were also two clean cuts made on the left side of
the spine, parallel with each other and separated by only
half an inch. Those incisions had facilitated the removal of
a kidney."
Plimmer's claim that Chapman had been married to a soldier
called Fred Chapman also appears to be a regurgitation of
McCormick’s faulty research, repeating Amelia Palmer’s
inquest testimony without taking into account the
corrections delivered subsequently by Chapman’s brother.
We are thus drawn inevitably to this conclusion - that Mr.
Plimmer has written his book entirely without consulting
primary sources, and that his secondary sources are out of
date. Perhaps McCormick’s book, nearly forty years old and
widely held to be fundamentally untrustworthy, is Plimmer's
ONLY source of "Ripper" information. Certainly, vital
information unearthed or recovered since 1987/8 has escaped
him.
Without the "Ripper" content, Mr. Plimmer would have
provided us with an informative, if unexciting, account of
the mechanics of a modern-day murder investigation - its
broad methodology and management structure. However, he
chose to use this merely as a vehicle for the presentation
of a study of a real, well-documented case. Our terms of
reference are thus changed when we come to assess the value
of his work. As a study of the Whitechapel Murders, Mr.
Plimmer's book can only be seen as a dismal failure. Readers
who are familiar with a broad range of the available
literature, or who have conducted their own research, may
derive some small amusement from In the Footsteps of the
Whitechapel Murders. The novice, on the other hand, would be
well advised to give it a miss.
Guy Hatton, December 1998. |
Author: Ashling
Tuesday, 11 January 2000 - 04:35 am | | GUY: Fabulous review ... I'm still giggling over the wine glass bit!
Janice |
Author: Guy Hatton
Tuesday, 11 January 2000 - 05:25 am | | Janice -
It's a great one, isn't it! What on earth was he thinking of?
All the best
Guy |
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