What do you make of Dr Francis Tumblety?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Tumblety
http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/tumb-art.html
In terms of likelihood to be the Ripper, his candidacy has probably risen the most of any suspect in my lifetime.
The counter argument, of course, is that a man with a moustache of those proportions may have been unable to move his head unaided.
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Yith.
Sorry, I did not read your casebook link, before I hastily replied to your reply the other day. I normally post on this MB from my office desk, so my input is when work allows, and due to this, I tend to speed type (hence my bloody awful grammar)
I’ve just read Scott Hannaford’s appraisal of Tumblety, and although it’s a very well written and thought out piece, his theory don’t ring true to me.
We know that Tumblety was arrested on a charge of gross indecency on the 7th November, but we don’t know when he was bailed, there are no documents in existence to tell us of this, also despite what Hannaford states, gross indecency was no misdemeanour in the Victorian period, it’s almost certain that Tumblety was caught indulging in a homosexual act – considered nefarious back then, and it’s unlikely that he would have been released within a mere few hours.
However, if Tumblety
was bailed on the 7th or early on the 8th would he really have gone out looking for his next victim, so soon after his brush with the law – seems unlikely to me.
Also Hannaford states that Tumblety was a well-known suspect, perhaps, but not for being the ripper.
The fact that Special Branch had an interest in him, suggest that they were on his tail for something else, probably for his political leanings, it’s well known he had strong fenian views - the Irish question being a big issue with the authorities of the day.
Joseph Lawende, (previously I said Harry Harris – that was wrong) almost certainly caught a glimpse of the Ripper with Cate Eddowes near Mitre Sq, and estimated his age at being 30, and his height at 5 foot 7, Tumblety was 50 and stood at 5ft 10 – 5ft 11, I'm also pretty certain that had Tumblety been with Eddowes that night, then Lawende would have noted this, and to have been able to recognise him again, due to his unusual appearance..
I Just can’t imagine that Tumblety, who was an eccentric, but successful self-promoting con man, of being the sexually motivated, blood thirsty miscreant that the ripper undoubtedly was.
In saying that however, I would put Tumblety with the few known suspects that I would not write off.
I do like Hannaford’s take on the Stride murder though, the thought that whoever killed Stride wasn’t complicit in the 4 or 5 other murders is plausible IMO.