Thomas Fogarty

[Gary Barnett]

Hi Ed,



Yes exactly, Ed. The Tap-tap-tapping of Foggy's cane as he goes up the stairwell. And he has to get the across busy streets and up alleys first. But did anyone see a blind man that night? Did anyone see Martha Tabram in company with a blind man. Or hear the tap tap tapping of his cane anywhere in the vicinity.

Because we have had Shill Theorom further elucidated for us. If Reid and his boys couldn't sniff out Martha, Poll and soldiers, and no one saw Martha with Poll, then Pearly Poll is a lying shill deployed to deceive the authorities in a murder case. Plain and simple.

it's over to you Gary, slotting your man in. You have drawn a direct line from point A, the murderer Tom Fogarty to point B the lying shill Pearly Poll. They were an item and he corerced her to go forward and tell a bunch of cockamamie lies because Fog was afeared someone had espied him the night before when he murdered Martha Tabram.

But not only did nobody report seeing a blind man about, nobody heard him either!

So again, you want to have your cake and eat it too, Gary. Foggy was afeared of "What?" Because in Shill Theorom, if Reid's boys couldn't sniff it out - IT DIDN'T HAPPEN in the first place.

At least in Tom's version, where some agent of the lodging house syndicate has coerced Pearly, who knows why or how he did, but he's somehow convinced her to outright lie to the police to cover up that someone in the lodging house world murdered Martha Tabram - at least in Tom's scenario, there are literally hundreds of players in the world of the lodging houses, and none of them have to be walking around tap-tap-tapping a gall darned cane up the landing back of George Yard Buildings.

Roy

Roy,

A blind man only has to tap-tap-tap if he’s on his own. If he has a guide or guides he doesn’t.

You are aware that there were several noisy disturbances that night? And screams of ‘murder’ (I think). There may also have been the clip-clop of horses, the sound of barrows being wheeled, the sound of hard boot/shoe heels on the pavements and granite sets. (Polly Nichols was wearing boots with steel-tipped heels, but no one mentioned hearing those in far quieter Buck’s Row.) Why did no one hear those?

Did anyone see a blind man that night? Did anyone see a one legged man or a man with any other physical disability? Perhaps there weren’t any, they might have been on a disabled persons charabanc outing to the coast. Or perhaps a blind person and his tap-tap-tap weren’t felt worthy of mention.

I’m happy to address thought-through objections to my theory, but come on...

Gary

[Gary Barnett]

Edward Stow:

... the killer ripped open Tabram's clothing to establish the most suitable loci for his incisions? While she struggled? And she went quietly with him, and lay down quietly (apart from that damned tap-tap-taping echoing like an infernal metronome around and through the stairwell, resonating into the inner sanctum of the caretakers flat I shouldn't wonder).

Roy Courderoy:

Yes exactly, Ed.

Me:

Or perhaps the killer whacked Martha over the head, stunning her. Then he commenced to stab her. At some point he felt the need to rip open her upper clothing and lift her skirts. We don’t know whether any of the wounds went through her clothing. There is an IPN sketch that suggests they all did, but who gives any credence to IPN images?

[Gary Barnett]

There is nothing, absolutely nothing that precludes Tabram’s murderer from having been a blind man. Or that makes the idea an ‘outre’ suggestion.

[Tom_Wescott]

The most common put forward (such as by Paul Begg) is that she wanted money and fame. Show me the reams of press interviews and appearances and I'll buy that one.
-Tom Wescott-

Tom...if she had done it for fame and money, she couldn't have known how it would turn out one way or the other, having received no money and little 'fame'. Paul's suggestion is valid, IMHO.

There have been many, many cases of people coming forward and confessing to capital crimes....as well as providing false information to the police.

There are three or four primary reasons why people confess or provide bogus info.
Personal ( which I agree with you on)....Fame....Fortune....or they're mentally imbalanced.

One-armed Liz was interviewed twice. Poll zero. The press was seeking her for months. They paid for interviews. One does not make money or gain fame by refusing paid offers from the press.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Tom_Wescott]

If I recollect correctly, a few posts back you were saying Tabram was nude. Now your wording is ‘almost naked’. I thought her upper clothing had been ripped open and her skirts lifted. Why would Fogarty have been incapable of that? And if Martha had been undressed (I don’t think she was, but perhaps you have a source for that I’ve missed) why would Fogarty, a man who was probably sighted until he was in his thirties and would later marry a prostitute, necessarily be less able to remove Martha’s limited clothing than a sighted person?

Why outre, Tom? What were the lighting conditions on that landing? How easy would it have been for a sighted person (or persons) to have avoided treading in the blood that slowly oozed from Tabram’s body?

I don't believe I said Tabram was nude. She was not nude. But she was certainly exposed. The fact that Fogarty lost his sight so late in life (something I wasn't aware of) means he was even less used to being blind than I thought. Tabram's murder would not have been easy for a sighted man to pull off and get away with it. It's theoretical for us, so sometimes we loose sight of this (pardon the pun), but it's true. Murder like this is a big deal and it's rare. Add to this the location and then make the killer blind and it indeed an outre suggestion. If you don't like that word, replace it with odd, unique, unlikely, what have you.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Howard Brown]

One-armed Liz was interviewed twice. Poll zero. The press was seeking her for months. They paid for interviews. One does not make money or gain fame by refusing paid offers from the press.

Good point, Tom...very good point.
Possibly, she originally had the desire to attain some fame and fortune but had it suggested to her to avoid the press.
Your points sound better though.

[Gary Barnett]

I don't believe I said Tabram was nude. She was not nude. But she was certainly exposed. The fact that Fogarty lost his sight so late in life (something I wasn't aware of) means he was even less used to being blind than I thought. Tabram's murder would not have been easy for a sighted man to pull off and get away with it. It's theoretical for us, so sometimes we loose sight of this (pardon the pun), but it's true. Murder like this is a big deal and it's rare. Add to this the location and then make the killer blind and it indeed an outre suggestion. If you don't like that word, replace it with odd, unique, unlikely, what have you.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

You implied that she was when we discussed the IPN images. You are now saying she was merely ‘exposed’? So why the comment about a blind man being unlikely to have been able to undress her?

She wasn’t nude, nor was she undressed. Someone had pulled apart her upper clothing - just a jacket, wasn’t it? - and lifted her skirts. On a dark landing. Can you explain what is outre, odd, or whatever word you would like to choose, with that having being done by a blind man?

Tabram may well have been felled by a blow before being repeatedly stabbed. That doesn’t seem too complicated to me. Your idea that she was also ‘outraged’ internally is a rather imaginative suggestion that really does lean towards the outre.

[Gary Barnett]

One-armed Liz was interviewed twice. Poll zero. The press was seeking her for months. They paid for interviews. One does not make money or gain fame by refusing paid offers from the press.

Good point, Tom...very good point.
Possibly, she originally had the desire to attain some fame and fortune but had it suggested to her to avoid the press.
Your points sound better though.

Is there evidence that the press were ‘seeking’ Poll ‘for months’? Tom states it as a fact, so presumably there is.

[Robert Linford]

As far as I'm aware, no one heard a one-legged blind man descending the stairs - which would have sounded like the first few seconds of this :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KulNV2xmsXs

[Howard Brown]

Is there evidence that the press were ‘seeking’ Poll ‘for months’? Tom states it as a fact, so presumably there is.
Gary Barnett

It would be news to me, buddy.

[Gary Barnett]

Here’s something really outre: a one-armed, one-legged East End street robber.

His name was Tommy Power.

When he wasn’t mugging people, he was smashing pubs up.

Ridiculous?

Look him up.

[Gary Barnett]

As far as I'm aware, no one heard a one-legged blind man descending the stairs - which would have sounded like the first few seconds of this :


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KulNV2xmsXs

Rob,

Have you heard of Delia Derbyshire?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nV0F2i4J0a4

What with the noisy neighbours and the voracious vermin, I wonder whether the residents of GYB would have been able to listen out for even the tap-tap of Greta Garbo at their window, let alone that of a blind man on the communal stairs. The bed bugs were particularly ferocious in August, so I have been told, and many tenement residents slept outside on their balconies.

Gary

[Guest]

The blind attacker in Spitalfields Market was blind enough to need someone to lead him along, and stab her several times in the neck while she lead him along. So the neck wounds seem to have been at least initially inflicted while they were both standing and walking.



JM

[Gary Barnett]

The blind attacker in Spitalfields Market was blind enough to need someone to lead him along, and stab her several times in the neck while she lead him along. So the neck wounds seem to have been at least initially inflicted while they were both standing and walking.



JM

Indeed they were, JM. And it seems that the subsequent knife wounds were inflicted while the victim was on the ground and the crowd was attempting to restrain the assailant. So a comparison between the superficiality of those wounds and the deeper wounds of Tabram, inflicted on a prone, possibly unconscious or semi-conscious victim with no one there to intervene, is not really valid.

[Guest]

The Spitalfields Market attack at least does show what someone that blind is still capable of. Several stab wounds to the neck... Luck? Good aim? A stout woman and so a larger target? Did he grab her from behind so he could quickly feel for where exactly he intended to stab her? It’s not entirely out of the realm of possibilities that Tabrams attacker could have had such a disability. It’s still unlikely IMO, but if true, I do think he might have required an accomplice on the scene to help him get away.

JM