Did the Seaside Home ID happen?

[Jonathan H]

Jeff, you must try harder to keep track of your various sins, evasions and untruths.

You have Anderson and Swanson conspiring to conceal the Ripper solution from Macnaghten. That's a conspiracy inside the Met, against a high-ranking officer of the same organ of the state

My how you're caught in the proverbial Texas storm of your own work; you can't go forward, you can't go backward and you can't make it stop.

It has nothing to do with a Eureka moment--another author had considered this 'theory' years ago--but rather the ignoble end to the Kosminski express. You would not hop aboard when Russell Edwards sped off, then tried to catch up and jump on, then you crashed in the ditch with the dodgy DNAers.

And that sudden un-sourced claim that Macnaghten supposedly believed in Druitt's guilt--or I suppose the guilt of a handy suicide--before he joined the Met is a new (and new low) wrinkle on your failed attempts to discredit a competent, hands-on, popular and compassionate police sleuth in favour of his loathed and loathsome boss.

[John G]

The problem being, Pinkmoon, that Kosminski was not an asylum inmate at the time of the supposed Seaside Home identification. He was 'sent' there, with 'difficulty', and was afterwards returned to his brother's home in Whitechapel.

But it seems to me that all of this presents huge difficulties. I mean, why should trying to accommodate the family's wishes have been of paramount consideration if the police believed they had a serial killer in their midst? Why such a complex process just to secure an identification, particularly if that identification would subsequently have little or no evidential value? And why wasn't Kosminski charged if the police felt there was sufficient evidence? As you say, he wasn't even institutionalized at the time of the identification. Moreover, as I've pointed out before, everyone is assumed to be sane unless proved otherwise. Questions over the suspects sanity, or fitness to plead, should surely have been left to a judge and jury, particularly as insanity has a different legal meaning to the medical definition.

[Paddy]

Feb 19th in the Huddersfield Daily Chronicle

I find the following article on Feb 19th 1894 in the Huddersfield Daily Chronicle very interesting as the "Jack The Ripper Story" has elements of Kosminski about it......Pat

[Jeff Leahy]

Jeff, you must try harder to keep track of your various sins, evasions and untruths.

You have Anderson and Swanson conspiring to conceal the Ripper solution from Macnaghten. That's a conspiracy inside the Met, against a high-ranking officer of the same organ of the state

There is no conspiracy here.

Anderson is approach by a member of the family. They ask for it to be kept quiet out of fear (Which the Crawford letter clearly states).

Anderson who is the superior officer arranges the ID.

I don't see that Anderson would have to informed MacNaughten. He'd have no obligation..

The ID goes wrong. But as nomore murders happen Anderson is convinced of the solution, as time passes..

Two years later MacNaughten is ask to write a memo about Cutbush. He gets out the files picks out three suspects more likely than Cutbush. But the file on Kozminski only contains info unto MArch 1889. But the memo is never used or published.

I don't see that Anderson has any obligation to reveal the ID to MacNaughten, its not a conspiracy just a don't need to know, situation

Its so bloody simple, its been starring everyone in the face for years. As you say Rob House hinted at this in his book, it just required a final leap of faith that there were two totally separate incidents not one long one.

The beauty of a great theory is simplicity, certainly not complex agendas with no substantiating evidence.

Yours Jeff

PS I've never been involved in the DNA testing. I believed the shawl to be modern, it proved otherwise. DNA is not my area and I will be happy to take on board any new test results…But it has nothing to do with my theory.

[Jeff Leahy]

ps. I am of the opinion that whoever purloined the file knew full well the implications of an official file being known if Kosminski and Druitt and PAV and all known proposed suspects up until that point in time are not mentioned in it. Because there is..in fact. .very little point in keeping that little keepsake without those names. It would rather change a direction. The direction of suspicion. After all. This was an OFFICIAL suspects file..not a hand written private opinion.

Yeah right a kozminskite conspiracy..

Except the files almost certainly disappeared before the name Aaron Koznminski was in the public domain, and most of us Kozminskites hadn't been born… Owell another theory debunked..

Oh and as for missing files just to use the words 'Historical context' again

Many many documents and photos have disappeared over the years… The kelly photos were missing for some time…The Bond report? oh and the original Abberconway version is missing..

And of course stuff has been returned, so there is still hope it will turn up..

Calm logic dictates that MacNaughten worked from the files to produce his Memo

Yours Jeff

[Jeff Leahy]

I find the following article on Feb 19th 1894 in the Huddersfield Daily Chronicle very interesting as the "Jack The Ripper Story" has elements of Kosminski about it......Pat

Its certainly interesting… Yours Jeff

[pinkmoon]

Kosminski wouldn't have been left all those years in an asylum the police would have kept an eye on him and there would have been a general agreement amongst police that he was the ripper and there wasn't was there.

[Trevor Marriott]

Yeah right a kozminskite conspiracy..

Except the files almost certainly disappeared before the name Aaron Koznminski was in the public domain, and most of us Kozminskites hadn't been born… Owell another theory debunked..

Oh and as for missing files just to use the words 'Historical context' again

Many many documents and photos have disappeared over the years… The kelly photos were missing for some time…The Bond report? oh and the original Abberconway version is missing..

And of course stuff has been returned, so there is still hope it will turn up..

Calm logic dictates that MacNaughten worked from the files to produce his Memo

Yours Jeff

And what about logic, when there is no mention of any of these suspects by any other police officials at the time or in later years. Or are we back to the hot poatato ?

MM I agree must have got his information from somewhere but it certainly wasn't accurate.So if he did get it from a suspect file compiled by the police goes to prove a point that we should not readily accept what the police said way back then as being gospel.

As for the Marginalia that as reliable as an umbrella in a hurricane

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Trevor Marriott]

Its certainly interesting… Yours Jeff

The Cutbush affair springs to mind ?

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Jeff Leahy]

MM I agree must have got his information from somewhere but it certainly wasn't accurate.

But thats what I'm saying ..its was accurate given the dates MacNaughten gives…its the file created unto March 1889…

MacNaughten doesn't know about the ID

Its that simple

Yours Jeff

[Monty]

Yes and no, Monty. Investigators certainly felt that the writing had the potential to inspire an outbreak of violence, but at the same time they had no idea who had authored it and thus should have photographed it on the offchance that it was the killer's handiwork. That was the no-brainer.

Purely speaking from an Arnold perspective Garry, however, I cannot see how the writing could be linked to the killer, even if he was caught.

It merely shows he was in that location, and therefore not damning in its own right.

Personally, I agree, it should have been properly recorded, however I really can understand why it was removed.

Monty

[pinkmoon]

But thats what I'm saying ..its was accurate given the dates MacNaughten gives…its the file created unto March 1889…

MacNaughten doesn't know about the ID

Its that simple

Yours Jeff

He would know this information would be known to a policeman who might have to investigate a ripper suspect the other high ranking police officers wouldn't keep it to themselves.

[Jeff Leahy]

He would know this information would be known to a policeman who might have to investigate a ripper suspect the other high ranking police officers wouldn't keep it to themselves.

It was a failed ID, from a politically sensitive suspect that came to nothing..

I don't think Anderson need share such information with MacNaughten, who wasn't involved in the investigation. He may have gone to the Pinchin Street and Coles murder sights but as far as I'm aware MacNaughten was not involved in the Whitechapel murder investigation other than being asked to produce the memo.

Yours Jeff

[Garry Wroe]

But it seems to me that all of this presents huge difficulties. I mean, why should trying to accommodate the family's wishes have been of paramount consideration if the police believed they had a serial killer in their midst?

But did investigators believe that they had laid hands on the killer, John? Since we are unaware of how or why Kosminski came to the attention of the police we have no way of knowing if initially he was even regarded as a likely suspect. Remember that the vast majority of those who came into police custody did so as a consequence of the suspicions of a member of the public. Such men included those who carried black bags or exhibited a shifty gaze. It may be the case that Kosminski fell into one of these categories. He certainly doesn’t appear to have been under arrest at the time of the Seaside Home identification, and despite the purportedly positive identification was allowed to return to his brother’s house immediately afterwards.

This is the context I keep banging on about.

Thus, given that Kosminski appears not to have been under arrest, he had certain legal rights which may have been invoked by his family. I’m inclined to the view, therefore, that the family agreed to the identificational procedure so long as it took place away from the gaze of the London press. As a consequence a venue in Brighton was agreed upon by both parties.

Why such a complex process just to secure an identification, particularly if that identification would subsequently have little or no evidential value?

Criminals were frequently convicted during the Victorian era on eyewitness identifications and ‘bad character’ alone, John.

And why wasn't Kosminski charged if the police felt there was sufficient evidence?

According to Swanson the evidence was the identification. Once the eyewitness refused to give evidence against a fellow Jew the case against Kosminski collapsed.

As you say, he wasn't even institutionalized at the time of the identification. Moreover, as I've pointed out before, everyone is assumed to be sane unless proved otherwise. Questions over the suspects sanity, or fitness to plead, should surely have been left to a judge and jury, particularly as insanity has a different legal meaning to the medical definition.

Mental competence had no bearing on the issue, John. Any possible chance of a conviction rested upon the identification. When the eyewitness withdrew his co-operation investigators had nothing against Kosminski beyond Anderson’s moral certitude.

[Garry Wroe]

Personally, I agree, it should have been properly recorded, however I really can understand why it was removed.

Me too, Monty. But the City detectives didn't see it that way and I can fully understand why.