Tumbelty's "Friend" Speaks

[Nina Brown]

The Wheeling Register
Wheeling West Virginia
December 8, 1888


THE WHITECHAPEL FIEND

Is Not Dr. Twomblety - The Story Told by the Doctor's Friend
NEW YORK, December 7. - The Star publishes a lady's story as to the past life of Dr. Twomblety who is suspected of the Whitechapel murders. She is a friend of the Doctor's and says she knows of his whereabouts. She maintained that the Doctor had committed no crime, and it was preposterous to hound him simply because he was suspected of being implicated in the Whitechapel murders.

According to her story the Doctor was living quietly in Charing Cross, doing quite an excellent business with his "pimple eradicator." He was known to be an odd genius, and appeared on the streets clad in old-style garments that characterized him during his stay in this city. When the English detectives had been baffled on every hand, and could not find any one in answer the description of "Jack the Ripper," they finally swooped down on quack surgeons and cranks in every walk of life. It was in one of these general hauls that Dr. Twomblety was arrested, but he was not held by the authorities, for he easily proved that he was not a surgeon. His arrest and the enenviable fame occasioned thereby forced the Doctor to leave the country.

[How Brown]

According to this "friend"...Tumbelty is allegedly living in Charing Cross.

Far from being sympathetic to Tumbelty,this newspaper article mentions something seldom discussed.

That being that Tumbelty was picked up as a " usual suspect"...noting the reference to the following:

"When the English detectives had been baffled on every hand, and could not find any one in answer the description of "Jack the Ripper," they finally swooped down on quack surgeons and cranks in every walk of life. It was in one of these general hauls that Dr. Twomblety was arrested, but he was not held by the authorities, for he easily proved that he was not a surgeon..."