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Gradually, a few other passengers were heard from, but they insisted they had not even seen the bloodstained young man. In spite of offers of nearly $17,000 in rewards, and assurances that their anonymity would be protected, the four vital witnesses—the two men seen talking to the stranger, and a man and a boy who had refused to occupy the bloody seat the stranger had just vacated and would be able to say when he got off the bus—still kept silent. What was the reason? Some papers said fear. Others noted that the bus was filled with passengers from Birmingham's rough-and-tumble tenderloin, Balsall Heath, whose residents are not friendly to cops. Others put it down to the I'm-All-Right-Jack mentality of what the London Daily Express called "the never-had-it-so-good citizenry, stuffed with comfort" and forever asking "What's in it for me?" Said desperate Superintendent Haughton: "The man who committed this dreadful crime is obviously a pathological sadist who could strike again."