Lawende And Schwarz

[Hunter]

Originally Posted by Fleetwood Mac

Just a point on Swanson, it seems to me that Swanson is not simply repeating that which he was told. Comments such as "sent by us" suggests to me Swanson is including himself as one of those involved in the ID logistics. In the event he was relating a story, I'd imagine he would narrate from third person perspective.

Exactly. He was in charge of the investigation. While others came and went he was the one constant in the whole chain of the police investigation.

If it was just Anderson's call in all of this, it could be easy to dismiss his claims - knowing the caveats and controversy that surrounded him then, as well as now. But Swanson is a different story. He was a career policeman; had no aspirations compared to the patronage appointed officials above him, other than to finish out his career as a policeman. He wrote annotations in many manuscripts; he had done so in reports while on active duty.

Here, he is writing extensively and conclusively on a subject he certainly felt he knew something about. He felt he was filling in the blanks, not just repeating something he had heard. That some of the details are not clear to us is unfortunate. But I doubt he was considering posterity when he wrote it; no more than he did when he wrote annotations in other documents on other matters.

[Jonathan H]

It's because he was so efficient that I don't believe Swanson would have made the errors about 'Kosminski' being dead and that no other murders were committed after he was caged, as he himself investigated Coles as if it was a 'Jack' murder (and involving two hats, and so on).

I think he would have known the full name too (but Anderson was relying on Macnaghten).

To me Swanson sought clarification between the two, contradictory versions of Anderson, wrote it down because it was so, well, bizarre, and kept it to himself.