Thomas Fogarty

[Edward Stow]

Gary
Have you ever considered that Foggy may have still had one of his old uniforms?
Judging by his record his uniform must have been in 'nearly new' condition.
Aaaah.

But what was that reference? Was Foggy a... Jew? I missed that if it had been posited before. Like Roy I dip in and out of the threads but I tend to read the Foggy stuff as he is an interesting cove.
The Jew bit adds to the possibility of guilt I take it?

And the knives, the whittling? I am reminded now (no YouTube posting Roy) of the Young New Mexican Puppeteer (which I'm listening to as I type).
Did he carry knives? Did carmen also carry knives?
Does the occupational use of knives make someone a more likely knife-wielding serial killer?
Were knives that difficult to obtain? I somehow don't think so.

By the way - when was the first reference to his 'blindness'?
I am reminded of that Colditz episode where one of the POWs faked madness in order to be given a ticket back to Blighty and pretending, over an extended period, actually made him go really mad.
I say 'mad': in these enlightened times I probably shouldn't use such a term. I'm not sure what condition he aped, nor which he was diagnosed with upon return.

So we have an unruly, nutty 'blind' man who married Pearly Poll, oh so briefly before she died. Can he be a 'possible'? I guess so if you like.

The Spitafields attack - the one that may or may not have involved Foggy? It's similar to the attack on Tabram?

But for the sake of argument let's go with your possibility. Tabram is found murdered. The only clue is the soldier seen by the copper.
So guilty Foggy coerces his girlfriend to come forward to insert herself in the investigation to throw added suspicion on some squaddy - possibly (did you consider this) out of his grudge against the military?
A bit of a stretch there don't you think? The most likely outcome would be to link himself to the murder which he'd have gotten away with.

[Anna Morris]

Considering Foggy's blindness, Gary's avi shows a man who appears to have completely sunken or collapsed eyeballs. It does not look like there is question of the man's blindness.

An interesting aspect of Foggy's candidacy as possible killer is the odd wound to Martha's breast bone that was compared to a stab from a bayonet. Gary has been researching and asking whether such a wound could have been delivered by a wood carving tool. I say yes, especially with a chisel or some types of gouge. No one, in 1888 till now, really knows what caused that would in Martha's chest. It could have been a heavy knife or surplus bayonet or it could have been a tool.

Over all the murder of Martha was a sloppy job. Lots of stabs, maybe a hit over the head or a fall that damaged her head. Many non-lethal stabs. Could've been a sadist or mutilator or someone(s) so blind--in a manner of speaking--drunk that he or they stabbed and battered wildly in a fit of rage. I cannot rule out a truly blind man that did some form of woodworking or carving, who had a terrible temper and who eventually married Pearly Poll.

[Edward Stow]

A bayonet would produce a deep clean wound - quite unlike a chisel, I should think. It would be something like a bayonet - not a tool which is not designed to stab.

The photo is from many years later (1906). I am unsure of his condition in 1888.

[Anna Morris]

I have been badly cut with woodcarving tools. It can be done and I think the right, heavy tool, sharply plunged into a body, could look like a bayonet. Not that I know much about bayonets.

(Discussion of bayonet wounds and Tabram always remind me of another story that turned out to be false from one end to another. That is the case of Anna Anderson/ Franziska Schanzkowska / Grand Duchess Anastasia. Her supporters claimed she had a bayonet wound on her foot, identified because of the shape of the Russian military bayonet. In truth, Franziska had survived a terrible explosion in an armaments factory and she had shrapnel scars. No bayonet was involved.)

[Cogidubnus]

Do you suppose a blind beggar would have the wherewithal to purchase/possess a professional set of woodworking tools, or whether perhaps some or all were adapted/improvised from whatever he'd been able to pick up?

As an example, rather than a chisel, something reground from some other blade perhaps? Or something adapted to fulfil multiple purposes?

Just a passing thought...

Dave

[Edward Stow]

As a young lad in my Woodwork class at the old school, I foolishly drew the blade of my chisel towards me instead of away and I sliced my left hand open - which required stitches. It was very sharp. But it wasn't a stabbing instrument.

In the East End markets- which I used to frequent some years ago - there would be many-a-stall selling old tools. I have no doubt that old second hand tools could have been obtained for a trice.

[Gary Barnett]

As a young lad in my Woodwork class at the old school, I foolishly drew the blade of my chisel towards me instead of away and I sliced my left hand open - which required stitches. It was very sharp. But it wasn't a stabbing instrument.

In the East End markets- which I used to frequent some years ago - there would be many-a-stall selling old tools. I have no doubt that old second hand tools could have been obtained for a trice.

Wood carving tools came in all shapes and sizes. Look at the one in the middle below. That could be used as a stabbing weapon and it has a profile very similar to that of a dagger. Let’s not forget that Killeen describe the wound as having been inflicted by ‘some kind of dagger’. He struggled with a precise description of the weapon used.

We recently looked at a stabbing case where a wood carver living in a Dorset Street doss house described the collection of tools he carried in his pocket as a ‘bag of knives’. I doubt that someone like Foggy would have rejected any kind of sharp implement that came his way.

There’s no getting away from the fact that as a destitute wood carver Fogarty almost certainly carried a heterogeneous selection of bladed implements on his person.

[Gary Barnett]

Do you suppose a blind beggar would have the wherewithal to purchase/possess a professional set of woodworking tools, or whether perhaps some or all were adapted/improvised from whatever he'd been able to pick up?

As an example, rather than a chisel, something reground from some other blade perhaps? Or something adapted to fulfil multiple purposes?

Just a passing thought...

Dave

Spot on, Dave.

For much of his adult life Fogarty was destitute, in and out of the workhouse and the most downmarket doss houses. On one occasion he deliberately put his fist through a plate glass shop window to get a bed for the night in a comfy cell. I doubt he had the financial wherewithal to acquire a set of professional wood carving tools.

[Gary Barnett]

An obstreperous blind man begging in the Commercial Road and threatening to break windows. Could it be...?




East London Advertiser 30th November, 1895.

[Edward Stow]

Gary
Are you saying he was unknown to H Division?

I see you still have difficulty quoting your sources properly!
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Ah you edited it.

The implement in the middle could probably be used to stab someone but it wouldn't leave a wound like a bayonet or some kind of dagger. Bayonets (and all kinds of daggers) are designed to stab people and would leave a relatively clean wound as they are also designed to be extracted cleanly - unlike a sharp woodwork tool, which might slash but not stab cleanly. The shape of the blade is also not at all like a bayonet or dagger.

If Foggy was the culprit (I will humour you for a moment) then he would have had to acquire a dagger-like instrument, which wouldn't have been that difficult. Indeed virtually anyone could have acquired such an instrument of death had they wanted to. The tools of his supposed trade would not have made him a Ripper, nor even a pre-Ripper.

[Gary Barnett]

Gary
Are you saying he was unknown to H Division?

I see you still have difficulty quoting your sources properly!
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Ah you edited it.

The implement in the middle could probably be used to stab someone but it wouldn't leave a wound like a bayonet or some kind of dagger. Bayonets (and all kinds of daggers) are designed to stab people and would leave a relatively clean wound as they are also designed to be extracted cleanly - unlike a sharp woodwork tool, which might slash but not stab cleanly. The shape of the blade is also not at all like a bayonet or dagger.

If Foggy was the culprit (I will humour you for a moment) then he would have had to acquire a dagger-like instrument, which wouldn't have been that difficult. Indeed virtually anyone could have acquired such an instrument of death had they wanted to. The tools of his supposed trade would not have made him a Ripper, nor even a pre-Ripper.

He would have been known to them as a teenager. Then he went into the army and was presumably well-known to the MP. The Spitalfields attack aside (assuming that was him), his later flurry of violence etc seems to have broken out after his Poll had died. The influence of a ‘good’ woman and a fixed abode may have kept him out of trouble for a few years. So who knows how well he would have been known to the cops in 1895.

Next time I’m at the LMA Ill have a look to see if there’s a likely candidate entering Wandsworth in November, 1895.

The destitute wood carver aspect of Foggy has real cake and eat it potential. He is likely to have carried an assortment of sharp implements on his person. A penknife, almost certainly, and another tool that might produce a wound like ‘some kind’ of dagger? Quite likely - possibly even an actual dagger.��

Of course, a trainee serial killer who’d only been active for 15 years and was on his way to work might have gone out armed only with a penknife and a dagger (or something similar). ��

[Edward Stow]

You think he carried out the 1888 attack though don't you? And if he was as violent as you think and if he was a beggar - he would have been known to the police surely?

When did he get out of jail and out of the Army - was it 1886?

When is the first record of him being blind?

It's all - if he was with Pearly Poll in 1888.
If he had a knife in 1888.
If he was mad in 1888.
If he was the Spitalfields blind man.
If, if, if.

What was he anyway? A master baker? A whittler? A match seller? A labourer?

[Gary Barnett]

You think he carried out the 1888 attack though don't you? And if he was as violent as you think and if he was a beggar - he would have been known to the police surely?

When did he get out of jail and out of the Army - was it 1886?

When is the first record of him being blind?

It's all - if he was with Pearly Poll in 1888.
If he had a knife in 1888.
If he was mad in 1888.
If he was the Spitalfields blind man.
If, if, if.

What was he anyway? A master baker? A whittler? A match seller? A labourer?

Indeed, it’s fascinating speculation. Lots of loose ends to tie up.*

His 5-year sentence was remitted in 1885 and he claimed to have been living predominantly in NE Passage from about 1887 (from memory).

His occupations include, soldier, baker, tailor, errand boy, wood carver, laces seller/hawker generally, beggar.

The actions of the Spitalfields attacker, struggling to free himself from the crowd to continue his attack, are reminiscent of Foggy’s threatening to lump the PC who arrested him if he could retrieve his stick.


* I’ve been in touch with FIBIS (Families in British India Society) who have some genealogical data from the 1882 Allen’s Indian Mail on their website. Nothing about courts martial, unfortunately, but they may be able to point me in the direction of their source.

[Gary Barnett]

You think he carried out the 1888 attack though don't you? And if he was as violent as you think and if he was a beggar - he would have been known to the police surely?

When did he get out of jail and out of the Army - was it 1886?

When is the first record of him being blind?

It's all - if he was with Pearly Poll in 1888.
If he had a knife in 1888.
If he was mad in 1888.
If he was the Spitalfields blind man.
If, if, if.

What was he anyway? A master baker? A whittler? A match seller? A labourer?

I think he may well have been the Spitalfields attacker. Violent blind laces sellers won’t have been ten a penny in the East End. Of course, that there might have been two or a few isn’t beyond the realms of possibility. The attack took place while Poll was in the Infirmary. Perhaps he didn’t get on with her replacement

[Edward Stow]

Come on man, don't be so evasive. When is the first record of him being blind?
And what pray is that record?