Senior Investigators-Inside Knowledge

[Michael W Richards]

There was a suspect, Kosminski was the suspect.

Kosminski will remain forever the prime suspect of the whole case.

The Baron

How someone can claim this without any evidence but some quotes from notes on the subject is mystifying. There may well have been many Persons of Interest with respect to these crimes, there are a lot of men taken in and questioned regarding individual murders, surely some left some suspicions with the authorities. But to suggest that there was any one man that Police had evidence on that connected him to any one of these Ripper murders is incorrect. Based on what information has been made available on these crimes of course.

A Suspect designation requires more evidence than just being alive at the time of the murders, being mentioned in notes, or living in the same huge city. Jack the Ripper crimes do not have any Suspects, they have investigator opinions...sometimes seemingly very misguided ones....they have theoretical motives that point in some directions, and they have physical evidence that contain no identified clues as to who killed any of the Canonical Group. I say identified clues because things like the envelope piece by Annie may well have been a breadcrumb. Kates facial cuts. Things like that, just not deciphered properly.

[The Baron]

If that were true each detective would have the same suspect, but they don't.
Druitt was the first and original suspect, but neither Druitt nor Kozminski were suspected at the time of the murders, and neither could be placed in the vicinity at the time of any murder.
"Prime Suspect" is just the title of a book.

This is literally wrong on all aspects I am afraid.


I choose to go with Anderson and Swanson on this, other officers differ?! That is to be expected, we don't have a case closed scenario here, nor the word prime suspect means a conviction. The only one who had ever a good view of the murderer without hesitation identified him! Can you proove otherwise ?!

If not then all your queries are of an academic value only.




The Baron

[Simon Wood]

Hi Baron,

Sir Robert Anderson, who never uttered the name Kosminski, was a fabulist of the first order.

I demonstrated this in my book, "Deconstructing Jack."

So on what is your observation that "Kosminski will remain forever the prime suspect of the whole case" based upon?

Regards,

Simon

[Wickerman]

Actually one has to ask, what YOU have got, if anything...


There was a suspect, Kosminski was the suspect.

Kosminski will remain forever the prime suspect of the whole case.

If that were true each detective would have the same suspect, but they don't.
Druitt was the first and original suspect, but neither Druitt nor Kozminski were suspected at the time of the murders, and neither could be placed in the vicinity at the time of any murder.
"Prime Suspect" is just the title of a book.

[The Baron]

Hi Baron,

No suspect
No witness
No identification

What else have you got?

Regards,

Simon

Actually one has to ask, what YOU have got, if anything...


There was a suspect, Kosminski was the suspect.

Kosminski will remain forever the prime suspect of the whole case.

You may have found a way to convince yourself otherwise by discrediting Sir Anderson maybe, but changing written history needs more than that.


I don't know if Kosminski WAS the ripper, nor do I have all the paperwork made by the police at the time of the murderes, I do believe that the murderer was of an unsound mind, had a great hatred of women, specially of the prostitute class, and had strong homicidal tendencies, someone who is like Kosminski even if he wasn't.




The Baron

[Trevor Marriott]

Another one bites the dust

And that doesn't change a thing.


There was a suspect.

But on what evidence did that suspect come to the notice of the police in the first instance?

There was a witness.

Who was that witness, and what was his evidence to make him such a prime witness?

There was an identification.

But that identification was not conducted under the identification guidelines so it was not worth the paper it was written on, and if it did ever take place and I do not believe it did in the way described. I have to ask why would the police jeopardize a murder case by not conforming to the identification rules?

Kosminski was the suspect.

What evidence was there to make Kosminski a suspect in the first place to enable the police to put him on an Id parade?

The marginalia that it seems you seek to rely on is so flawed in many ways to be able to rely on anything that is contained in it.It's just another example of too much emphasis and reliability being put on these ageing police officers memoirs by researchers


The Baron

[Simon Wood]

Hi Baron,

No suspect
No witness
No identification

What else have you got?

Regards,

Simon

[The Baron]

SRA was not anti-Semitic?

That will come as a shock to nobody.

Witness how closely SRA allied himself with the authors of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

And that doesn't change a thing.


There was a suspect.

There was a witness.

There was an identification.

Kosminski was the suspect.




The Baron

[Simon Wood]

SRA was not anti-Semitic?

That will come as a shock to nobody.

Witness how closely SRA allied himself with the authors of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

[Michael W Richards]

I'm not sure which overtly anti-Semitic opinions you are referring to. One thing Anderson was not, is anti-Semitic.

Jewish Chronical, March 11, 1910.

"
IN THE COMMUNAL ARMCHAIR.
THE RIPPER CRIMES AND SIR ROBERT ANDERSON.
By Mentor.




I have read the interview with a representative of the Globe which Sir Robert Anderson accorded that paper in order to reply to my observations upon what he said in Blackwood's Magazine concerning the Jack the Ripper crimes. The editor of the JEWISH CHRONICLE has also been so good as to send for my perusal Sir Robert Anderson's letter to him, which appears in these columns, on the same subject. With great deference to Sir Robert, it appears to me that he misses the whole point of my complaint against what he wrote. I did not so much object to his saying that Jack the Ripper was a Jew, though so particular a friend of our people would have been well-advised, knowing the peculiar condition in which we are situated, and the prejudice that is constantly simmering against us, had he kept the fact to himself. No good purpose was served by revealing it. It would have sufficed had he said that he was satisfied the murderer was discovered.

As I pointed out, the creature whom Sir Robert believes to have been the author of the heinous crimes was a lunatic - obviously his brain virulently diseased - so that if he was a Jew, however regrettable it may be that our people produced such an abnormality, in that there does not lie the aspersion. What I objected to - and pace Sir Robert Anderson's explanations still do - in his Blackwood article, is that Jews who knew that "Jack the Ripper" had done his foul deeds, shielded him from the police, and guarded him so that he could continue his horrible career, just because he was a Jew. This was the aspersion to which I referred and about which I notice Sir Robert says nothing. Of course, when Sir Robert says that the man he means was "proved" to be the murderer, and that upon that point he spoke facts, he also ignores the somewhat important matter that the man was never put upon his trial. Knowing what I do, I would hesitate to brand even such a creature as Sir Robert describes as the author of the Ripper crimes upon the very strongest evidence short of a conviction after due trial. I wonder whether the circumstance I am about to mention was brought to Sir Robert Anderson's notice.

Before the Ripper crimes took place there came into my hands a book which had been sent to me by the author, whom I had known since he was a little child. The book, if I remember aright, was printed by a provincial printer and was issued anonymously. The young man, whose first effort it was, had always been a strange, weird, dreamy sort of an individual. I confess that when I received it I merely glanced through its pages and wrote the writer something complimentary. I recollect that the story the book told appeared to me then to be mere extravagancies of a highly imaginative character, and seemed to have resulted from the author having dived deeper into the "Gehenna" of modern Babylon than was good for one of his years, especially as the "Gehenna" district he chose to explore was the most sordid and filthy it was possible to find. I put the book aside and though no more of it till the Ripper crimes were setting the town in panic. Then I recollected that its author had prophesied that such crimes would take place and gave details of happenings, in local, in method and in manner, which convinced me could not be accounted to the long arm of coincidence when they actually took place.

The very streets in which the murders took place, the exact class of victim are all set down with weird accuracy. I read the book carefully, I re-read it, and the more I studied it the more did the horrible conviction grow upon me that it was possible the young man who had written it - a young Jew - had become mad and that the author of the book might be the author of the Ripper crimes. I consulted a literary friend of mine of great experience and he said it was "impossible" - I remember his repeating the word three times, each with growing emphasis - "impossible" that anyone, especially a raw youth, should so accurately have forecasted such outrages by someone else. The home of my young acquaintance was in a northern town, and enquiries I set on foot elicited the fact that while the Ripper crimes were in progress he was away from his house - in London. Enquiry at his hotel brought me the news that he invariably went out late at night, and did not return till the small hours. I am afraid I had little doubt that my "theory" about the Whitechapel crimes was correct. I am happy to think I was quite wrong. I communicated to the Scotland Yard authorities all I knew - although I was a Jew and the one I suspected was a Jew too. I sent them the book. I took care to tell them that the youth had always been strange in manner. After some days the authorities assured me there was nothing in my "theory," and that they had convinced themselves that all that was in the book was purely imaginary and coincidental! I was naturally much relieved, though to this day my suspicion, formed I am bound to say upon some apparent substance, is a really painful memory. My only complaint against Scotland Yard in the matter was that they kept the book, and I could never get it from them or - from anyone else! But I believe a copy exists in one of our public libraries.

[Michael W Richards]

I'm not sure which overtly anti-Semitic opinions you are referring to. One thing Anderson was not, is anti-Semitic.

"In saying that he was a Polish Jew I am merely stating a definitely ascertained fact." When confronting the suspect at the Seaside Home with a witness he refused to identify the man because he was"one of his kind".....what does that sound like? His "kind"? Dehumanizing the person?

These are but a few of Andersons reckless and revealing remarks.

[John Malcolm]

I think that's one reason why they may have been intentionally misrepresented opinions...which may clear Anderson a bit for his overt Anti-Semitic opinions.

I'm not sure which overtly anti-Semitic opinions you are referring to. One thing Anderson was not, is anti-Semitic.

[John Malcolm]

On at least three occasions in TLSOMOL, Sir Robert Anderson told elaborate and demonstrable lies.

Huh? These have apparently escaped me. Please elaborate, it would be much appreciated.

[Michael W Richards]

If Swanson didn't pen the marginalia, is the reference to the 'seaside home' weirdly specific? Kosminski, yeah, could have come from a book, the lunatic theory etc, but why place an identification at the seaside home?

For me this represents a red flag too. This ID would be a significant milestone in the investigation, and would be about a killer who raised the bar so high that his acts reverberated in newspapers around the world for months. Why would this be taking place at something which by its very name suggests a Rest or Retirement Home? You would think Jack the Ripper would be held in the most secure place they had.

I think the fact that all the statements do not match each other indicates there was no "official position" that they were to follow, or to be all in agreement with, which then suggests that some were either out of the loop, or that most if not all were just relating their own opinions, fabricated or not. The issue to me is there....were they fabricated?

One last thing....if they were just giving their own opinions, then interesting they were varied in terms of basic suspect profiles. You would think that if they all shared the same data that at the very least a probable profile would be uniformly accepted.

I think that's one reason why they may have been intentionally misrepresented opinions...which may clear Anderson a bit for his overt Anti-Semitic opinions.

[Simon Wood]

Hi c.d.,

"Anderson simply could have been mistaken or honestly believed what he stated without sufficient evidence to back it up."

Of which particular instance were you thinking?

Regards,

Simon