Proof of Innocence?

[Michael Banks]

What a load of 'utter drivel'... and do I detect anger? from the non Druittist Druittist. Yes I think I do.

I know my own position on Druitt. How low does debate have to sink for you that you can resort to insinuating that despite what I say you somehow know what I’m thinking? There’s only one person in this conversation with a massively exaggerated belief in a suspect. All that it needed was an “ok, so the evidence as it stands doesn’t eliminate Druitt.” But you just couldn’t. It somehow stuck in your throat.

He keeps going on about waterlogged wickets and how they affect batting. I only introduced a waterlogged wicket as a possibility for the match being totally abandoned (and so no further batting or bowling taking place, rather than the batsmen being bowled out for a low return on a sticky wicket) to allow Druitt to get an earlier train - something I clearly didn't think happened. I have repeatedly suggested a sticky wicket and low scores, not abandonment due to waterlogging.
I found my quote...

'Incidentally the low scores suggests a wet wicket that favoured the bowlers.

This isn’t true. A low score doesn’t suggest poor weather. A low score can occur on any kind of wicket.

For the second innings to be abandoned early I would suggest that the pitch must have been totally waterlogged with no prospect of it drying out and so no chance of a spectacle for the late afternoon and early evening, half closing and expo crowds.
It is far likelier I would suggest that bad weather stopped play, but they cannot realistically have been in a position to judge that it couldn't resume before 4.30. Dusk was just before 7 and around that time cricket must have ended anyway. So at 4.30 there was still potentially two hours cricket available.'

You speculate based on thin air. The game could have started at 12.00. Then rain came after 2 hours play with Purbeck on 62. The rain got heavier while they were off. Match abandoned at 3.00. There’s absolutely nothing that’s unlikely about this kind of scenario. Change to a 1.00 start and we get a match abandoned at 4.00. Half and hour, or even less, of heavy rain can leave a pitch looking like a pond making very obvious that no further play would be possible.

And so based on facts, it’s quite possible and not at all implausible that the game could have been called off between 3 and 3.30 or even 4.00. These times are remotely unlikely. Yet you appear to be confident even when we’re faced with so many unknowns. You seem very keen to stress and support points that veer Druitt potentially reaching this train into the realms of the unlikely.

Going through this thread I see that for a considerable part of it, it was assumed that Druitt could hypothetically have got to London - before the incorrect 4.55 deadline was found. We are back to the earlier proposition that it was hypothetically possible for Druitt to get to London quite late in the night, but not via his home town of Wimborne. Which creates some new issues.

It creates no issues. Druitt could have made the 4.55 train. End of. Or at least t should be.

The logistics of Druitt's travel arrangements, accounting for his cricket gear, his knife and where he would stay are actually of some importance.

No. They’re completely and utterly irrelevant. A bag is no hindrance to anyone. You can’t assume an issue. 1. He could have left it with a teammate who was also playing in the next game. 2. He could have given it to a friend to drop it at his parents (it can’t be unlikely that one of them might have lived at or near Wimborne). 3. He could have paid a cab at the station to take it to his parents house.. 4. He could have taken it to London and dropped it at his lodgings.

Did Druitt have access to his term time lodgings during the close of school? I think it's probably unlikely that he did.

Is this serious? You’re suggesting that when Druitt was given the job, Valentine said “ ok Mr Druitt you have the job which includes lodgings. But during the holidays you have to find alternative arrangements?” Do you think that’s normal? So for a two week holiday period a boarding teacher would have to pack up his belongings, move to a boarding house somewhere, then pack up again and bring them back? Why would anyone do this?

More implausibilties...
Which team mate went home via Wimborne to drop his bag for him?

We don’t know and I’m not saying that this is what happened. It might have been. When we don’t know something for a fact we can only speculate. You are trying to raise the ludicrous non-issue of his possession of a bag into the equivalent of him being left in charge of a camel. It was a bag. Just a bag. People have bags in their and manage to cope with them.

He went from Waterloo to his probably inaccessible lodgings in Blackheath to get his knife, then went to Whitechapel?

Pure invention. Probable’s, maybe’s and what if’s elevated to the level of fact purely to suit your agenda.

Let the celebratory jigging continue.

Im celebrating nothing. This proves absolutely nothing except that there’s zero that would have prevented or hindered Druitt playing in this match and travelling to London. He would have had ample time.

But you just can’t accept it can you Ed. You have to keep on with the silly ‘yes but’s.’ The odds are that Druitt wasn’t the ripper, but he might have been however remote the chances might or might not be. But we cannot dismiss him on facts and evidence at this point in time. You really should try ditching the bias. Those Lechmere Goggles are warping your judgment.

[Chris Phillips]

This is all getting far too personal again.

Please can everyone stick to discussing the case and stop discussing one another?

[Michael Banks]

Well said Mr Stow, and if Nichols was the first murder in the serie, imagine Druitt taking all that effort to reach London just to kill his first one!

And the same can be said if Tabram was the first murder, this is not how it works, Druitt is not obliged to kill in the neck of time and only and exclusively in Whitechapel.


Druitt is history, only a couple of people want to still think he could have been the ripper, and for those, no amount of logical reasoning will make them change their minds, I know some peope believe Maybrick is the most likely suspect, very much the same.



Tammy

Haven’t you read the evidence? There’s not a single, solitary smidgeon of evidence to eliminate Druitt. And yes, we’ve even found out that his alibi for Tabram was false. It’s a wonder that you can spell ‘logic.’ If there’s no evidence against something that means that it’s possible. Bad luck.

[Michael Banks]

Why do you think it is unlikely? He's been living at the school for eight years.

Wouldn't it have been a major hassle to move all his gear down to Wimborne for five or six weeks every August, and turn in his keys?

I imagine if he wanted to spend a night or two at the school, he could have arranged it. Whether he did or not is another question.

Exactly, Roger.

[R. J. Palmer]

For the sake of objectivity, here is an angle that should be considered.

The timetables vary, but if Druitt needed to be in London on the 31st, he could have left the next morning and have been in Waterloo by either 10.30 a.m. or around 11.05 a.m.

There was a morning train from Wimborne to Bournemouth at 7:26.

Then, depending on which table one uses, he could have been in Waterloo at 11.05





The 10.30 time comes from a Bournemouth paper published in November 1888 ('the direct railway') so one would need to confirm it was the same in August.





I suppose it would depend on how early MJD wanted to be in London. If it was much before 11 a.m., he would have to have taken a train the night before.

There was an even earlier morning train out of Wimborne listed in the 1887 Bradshaw's, but I think it would have left him stranded in Salisbury for two or three hours, and the Templecombe route wouldn't get him there until the afternoon.

So far, it looks like 10.30 a.m. is the earliest possible ETA.

[R. J. Palmer]

I see now that I may have uploaded the wrong timetable. The first chart has him in Waterloo via Brockenhurst at 11.05 a.m. I'll have to review my notes to confirm the earlier time was possible.

[R. J. Palmer]

The earliest train out of Wimborne in the 1887 Bradshaw's was 6.43 a.m. (Page 46) It arrives in Salisbury at 7.59 a.m.




But the Waterloo train had already left Salisbury at 7.45 a.m., so this wouldn't have helped him.




I think he'd be hard pressed to reach London before 11.05 a.m. if he had a meeting. I think I was wrong about an earlier morning train to Bournemouth; the timetable Ed uploaded in Post 936 shows the Wimborne morning train not arriving in Bournemouth until 10.07 a.m.

[Chris Phillips]

The earliest train out of Wimborne in the 1887 Bradshaw's was 6.43 a.m. (Page 46) It arrives in Salisbury at 7.59 a.m.




But the Waterloo train had already left Salisbury at 7.45 a.m., so this wouldn't have helped him.




I think he'd be hard pressed to reach London before 11.05 a.m. if he had a meeting. I think I was wrong about an earlier morning train to Bournemouth; the timetable Ed uploaded in Post 936 shows the Wimborne morning train not arriving in Bournemouth until 10.07 a.m.

I think this page of the 1887 Bradshaw shows he could have left Wimborne at 6.30 and got to Waterloo via Salisbury at 10.37:

https://hdl.handle.net/2027/umn.319510022004750?urlappend=%3Bseq=93%3Bownerid=13510798903049516-115

[R. J. Palmer]

I think this page of the 1887 Bradshaw shows he could have left Wimborne at 6.30 and got to Waterloo via Salisbury at 10.37:
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/umn.3195...8903049516-115

Thanks for pointing that out.

I now think I was right the first time when I suggested he could have made London by 10.30 a.m. via Bournemouth.

I thought I was losing my marbles but there are some differences between 1887 and 1888, and I went back and tracked down the 1888 timetable for Wimborne to Bournemouth West (see below, published in August 1888).

He would have arrived at 7.47 a.m.

The time is tight, but since the Direct Train for London left Bournemouth West at 7.50 in 1888 (Post 995), in theory he could have also made London by 10.30 using this route, though he only had 3 minutes to board.

Either way, it looks like he could have just as easily taken a morning train if, in theory, he had an afternoon meeting in London on the 31st.

[Edward Stow]

Which means... if he got the northbound from Blandford it was a preconceived plan to murder.
Druitt targeted Whitechapel for no apparent reason, encumbered by cricket bag with knife concealed under the tin of Blanco... with secure lodgings to retire to (or not) after his long and busy day.

[Edward Stow]

Notoriously cabs don't like going south of the river. Was it the same in 1888? Probably. Did he walk back to those insecure Blackheath lodgings?

[Chris Phillips]

This is all getting far too personal again.

Please can everyone stick to discussing the case and stop discussing one another?

I've just had to delete a further post [Edit: two posts] containing more personal stuff. I'll delete any more that appear on this thread.

I don't like doing it, and apart from that I have other things to do. So please can everyone get back to discussing the case, and stop expressing opinions about other people's intelligence, truthfulness, maturity and so on?

[Michael Banks]

Ok, I’m done.

[Chris Phillips]

Ok, I’m done.

Thanks. Of course everyone is very welcome to argue about the case as robustly as they like, so long as it doesn't involve personal remarks about the people putting a different point of view.

[Michael Banks]

Which means... if he got the northbound from Blandford it was a preconceived plan to murder.
Druitt targeted Whitechapel for no apparent reason, encumbered by cricket bag with knife concealed under the tin of Blanco... with secure lodgings to retire to (or not) after his long and busy day.

Or….it means that an intelligent man, who might have had a reason to have been in London on the 31st (like a meeting/appointment which hardly be claimed as unlikely or impossible for a Barrister/Schoolteacher/cricket club Secretary) might have checked out the train times beforehand which would hardly have been difficult to have done. He would also have had three options giving him leeway according to whatever time the game finished (which is an unknown by the way). He could have caught the 4.55 which the evidence shows us has definitely not been eliminated. He could have caught a later train. Or he could have caught an early morning train. It only ‘sounds’ strange behaviour if we make the unfounded assumption that he could only have gone to London purely for the purpose of murder. Even if we make that unfounded assumption we have to add another unfounded assumption….that serial killers think and behave as non-serial killers do.

The title of this thread “Proof of Innocence,” shows us that the purpose of the research that followed was to decide if that game proved that Druitt couldn’t have got to London to kill Nichols or even if it made it in any way unlikely. So what have we found out thanks to the research that’s gone on?

That we don’t know what time the game began or ended.
That there was rain in the area but no specific mention of rain during the game.
That this was overwhelmingly likely to have been a two innings game shortened to a one innings game (and that rain was the likeliest reason for this)
That the actual play could have been completed in around 2 hours (it could also have taken longer of course.)
That there were also later trains that Druitt could have taken.
That the alibi for Tabram’s murder has now been eliminated.

So in answer to the thread title the answer is a resounding ‘no.’ This is simply a fact that’s supported by the evidence.

…..

“Druitt targeted Whitechapel for no apparent reason.”

If he was guilty (and it’s no more than an ‘if’ of course) then we just can’t know what he was thinking - how could we? Why would a killer murder a woman on his regular route to work? Why believe that we can second guess the thoughts of a serial killer? Serial killers have cited many weird and terrible reasons for what they’ve done. Some believed that they were on some kind of mission from God or that they were doing society a favour. Jonathan Hainsworth for example believes, like Cullen, that Druitt was a kind of ‘deranged social reformer.’ Who’s to say this couldn’t have been a motive for Druitt or indeed any other suspect that we can name?

“….encumbered by cricket bag with knife concealed under the tin of Blanco..”

Anything can be made to sound unlikely if we exaggerate its importance or difficulty. Have any of us ever heard of anyone cancelling their plans because they have a bag? It was simply a bag. An item created for carrying items from one place to another. A portable item. We have suggested numerous possibilities as to what he could have done with the bag, none of which require magic, teleportation or excessive strength. The bag is a non-issue.

“…..with secure lodgings to retire to…”

Yes, he had lodgings. For all that we know he might have had two. Only you have claimed that he would have had to have given up his lodgings during the holidays. Does this sound remotely feasible or likely? It just sounds like you are going to desperate lengths to try and find some reason to dismiss Druitt.

……

Roger, Gary and Chris appear to have accepted that, as it stands, the evidence doesn’t dismiss Druitt. Why can’t you accept the facts?