Did the Seaside Home ID happen?

[GUT]

For someone to be deemed unfit to plead they first have to be charged, that involves the use of evidence to first bring a charge. Evidence to charge or evidence to show Kosminski was ever charged seems to be a bit thin on the ground would you not say?

Your take is nothing more than speculative, but I am sure your followers will hang on your every word and readily accept it as being gospel.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Legally Trevor is right, but would any policeman in his right mind, let alone officer from the Prosecutor's office. bring charges if it was patently obvious that the suspect was as mad as a hatter.

The answer is self evidently and resoundingly, NO unless they were out to waste public money and that's not generally a good career move.

I suspect that even if Kos was charged the prosecutions dept would have said "Lets not waste time and money hear the fact that this Charle ain't fit to plead is as plain as the nose on your face."

[Monty]

Again, you are guessing the two are one in the same. We have no certainty on this on this seaside home Kosminski other than a name which, if the same Kosminski who appeared at court due to a muzzleless dog, did use at least one alias.

It often humors me that we assume we are in a better position of knowledge that those who experienced the situation.

We are not, however it doesn't stop muddying waters.

The dark art of non existent suspectology.

Monty

[Monty]

Legally Trevor is right, but would any policeman in his right mind, let alone officer from the Prosecutor's office. bring charges if it was patently obvious that the suspect was as mad as a hatter.

The answer is self evidently and resoundingly, NO unless they were out to waste public money and that's not generally a good career move.

I suspect that even if Kos was charged the prosecutions dept would have said "Lets not waste time and money hear the fact that this Charle ain't fit to plead is as plain as the nose on your face."

And there's another assumption, the purpose of the parade was to proceed with prosecution.

Monty

[Chris]

Again, you are guessing the two are one in the same. We have no certainty on this on this seaside home Kosminski other than a name which, if the same Kosminski who appeared at court due to a muzzleless dog, did use at least one alias.

We may not have absolute certainty, but it's far more than just a guess.

There were only a handful of men called Kozminski in London at the time, and only one was committed to an asylum. He was committed to Colney Hatch, as Swanson wrote, and lived in his brother's house, as Swanson wrote.

Certainly, people can suggest he went by another name and was never recorded in this country as Kozminski. But I think if they suggest that they also need to explain why two police sources should have referred to him as "Kosminski," rather than using the only name he was ever officially known by.

[Trevor Marriott]

We may not have absolute certainty, but it's far more than just a guess.

There were only a handful of men called Kozminski in London at the time, and only one was committed to an asylum. He was committed to Colney Hatch, as Swanson wrote, and lived in his brother's house, as Swanson wrote.

Certainly, people can suggest he went by another name and was never recorded in this country as Kozminski. But I think if they suggest that they also need to explain why two police sources should have referred to him as "Kosminski," rather than using the only name he was ever officially known by.

And while on the subject of police sources i.e Anderson Swanson and Mcnaghten, who if all are to be believed refer to a Kosminski being regarded as a prime suspect based on the ID issue, then we must not forget the other police sources i.e Monro, Smith, Abberline, Reid who strangely enough mention nothing about this momentus breakthrough in the Ripper enquiry.

Reid actually going on record as firmly rebutting what Anderson had written.

Abberline inferring much the same

Mcnaghten also backing down on the Kosminksi he originally named.

A question mark over who wrote the last sentence in the Swanson marginalia naming a man named Kosminski.

This in another case like Tumblety, where another person of interest has been made into a prime suspect by modern day researchers desperate to identify the killer, with no supporting evidence to corroborate this, and again we see the reluctance of researchers to accept this.

In fact is there is no evidence which would suggest that there is anyone who should be regarded as a prime suspect.

But of course to remove prime suspects from this ripper mystery would not be in keeping with what the Ripper mystery has been all about these past 100 years or so.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[PaulB]

For someone to be deemed unfit to plead they first have to be charged, that involves the use of evidence to first bring a charge. Evidence to charge or evidence to show Kosminski was ever charged seems to be a bit thin on the ground would you not say?

Your take is nothing more than speculative, but I am sure your followers will hang on your every word and readily accept it as being gospel.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Trevor,
Thank you for taking the time to help the people here understand that the words 'my take' convey something speculative. Well, almost. 'My take' means my impression, my feeling, my informed conclusion...

And do I have followers unquestioningly accepting everything I say? What fun! And, alas, untrue. Also a moronic thing to say.

However, you are absolutely correct to say that the evidence for Kosinski ever being charged is thin on the ground. That's why I never said it. So trying to score points off me there, Trevor, was a bit of an own goal. Must be water off a duck's back to you, it happens so often.

Anyway, what I said, pretty much, is that we don't know what pressure, if any, was brought to bear on the witness to give evidence because, when Kosminski's family committed him to an asylum, there would have been little point in proceeding with charges because Kosminski, already certified, would not have been fit to plead.

[Batman]

Pizer

It seems to me that the seaside incident is a mosaic of stuff from different times in the case. Its like mixing Pizer, Sadler and Kozminski into one entity.

For example Pizer,

Sergeant William Thick was sent to get him.

From CB - "His neighbours, family and friends denied that he was known as Leather Apron." So we have Jewish connections denying he is Leather Apron but probably recognizing him. They obviously knew about the murders and didn't want to see him hang for it. Yet he was later cleared because the police corroborated his movements. He was watching the fire from the dock while talking to a PC. Lucky guy

Sadler and Kozminski we have covered but in the end imagine people like Swanson, Anderson and Abberline coming across this type of historical late memoir record of something. I think based on what we know about them they would have just rejected this outright as being too vague and sounding like the creation of a journalist or a publicity seeker. I don't think its either though. Just thoughts get jumbled as we get older. The mind isn't a time machine. Memory is done in the present.

[PaulB]

Legally Trevor is right, but would any policeman in his right mind, let alone officer from the Prosecutor's office. bring charges if it was patently obvious that the suspect was as mad as a hatter.

The answer is self evidently and resoundingly, NO unless they were out to waste public money and that's not generally a good career move.

I suspect that even if Kos was charged the prosecutions dept would have said "Lets not waste time and money hear the fact that this Charle ain't fit to plead is as plain as the nose on your face."

Trevor is correct in saying that charges would have to have been brought before Kosminski could be found unfit to plead. However, by having Kosminski certified before charges could be brought, Kosminski's family, intentionally or otherwise, effectiely established that he was unfit to plead if any charges were brought. Trevor's response was therefore based on a complete misunderstanding of the point being made.

There would still have been an advantage to the police to bring charges, namely they could have had an opportunity to lay before the court their evidence for believing Kosminski was the Ripper, and thus quelled such public anxiety as may have existed, but I suspect, like you, that there would have been many good arguments for not taking that course of action.

[GUT]

There would still have been an advantage to the police to bring charges, namely they could have had an opportunity to lay before the court their evidence for believing Kosminski was the Ripper, and thus quelled such public anxiety as may have existed, but I suspect, like you, that there would have been many good arguments for not taking that course of action.

Spot on.

[lynn cates]

I D

Hello Harry, Jon. Have a go at the Wirtkofsky (Polish Jew) affair and his identification by another Jew (Lowenheim) at a Christian home.

Cheers.
LC

[Chris]

And while on the subject of police sources i.e Anderson Swanson and Mcnaghten, who if all are to be believed refer to a Kosminski being regarded as a prime suspect based on the ID issue, then we must not forget the other police sources i.e Monro, Smith, Abberline, Reid who strangely enough mention nothing about this momentus breakthrough in the Ripper enquiry.

Obviously whether "Kosminski" was regarded as a prime suspect by the police is general is a quite different question from whether "Kosminski" was Aaron Kozminski or someone else.

[Monty]

We may not have absolute certainty, but it's far more than just a guess.

There were only a handful of men called Kozminski in London at the time, and only one was committed to an asylum. He was committed to Colney Hatch, as Swanson wrote, and lived in his brother's house, as Swanson wrote.

Certainly, people can suggest he went by another name and was never recorded in this country as Kozminski. But I think if they suggest that they also need to explain why two police sources should have referred to him as "Kosminski," rather than using the only name he was ever officially known by.

Valid points Chris,

I was merely pointing out the lack of certainty, upon which statements of fact are being made.

Monty

[Robert]

I find it all rather baffling.

Kosminski - suspected of being JTR - no trial takes place - sent to Colney Hatch.

Thomas Cutbush - suspected of jobbing women - no trial takes place - sent to Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum despite not being (legally) a criminal.

[Jonathan H]

Suspectology?

I agree that the significant police figures were there and we were not. That's the argument of my forthcoming book. But they disagreed, and I think that it is possible, though highly unlikely, that this cancels them all out.

I think it more probable that some cops, or one, knew more than the others (and did not inform the others).

For example, it is not well understood here that sources by Macnaghten, and sources on his behalf, move in two contradictory directions regarding the Polish suspect being identified (or at least spotted) by a witness.

In 1898 (Aberconway; Griffiths) Macnaghten points towards a witness to the Polish suspect at a murder scene. By 1907 (Sims) he has backed away from this notion. By 1910 he has rudely quashed it, and by 1914 written, himself, that there was only a single witness worth mentioning--and he did not see anything useful.

The extraordinary aspect of Macnaghten is his incredibly accurate memory, assuming he was not relying on a private archive of clippings. He recalled in "Days of My Years", for example, that [Lawende] saw the murderer with his victim before she was killed.

[Harry D]

It depends how hush-hush this whole identification was. After the furor about Pizer and the removal of the Goulston St. Graffito, the authorities were highly sensitive about the anti-Jewish sentiment brewing in Whitechapel.

With this in mind, had the Ripper been proven to be a Jew I can totally see an agreement to have him carted off to the asylum rather than risk causing a riot. It was only later on, when the case was closed and the hysteria had died down that the senior officers were able to come out and claim that they actually caught their man and that he was Jewish.