The Seaside Home: Could Schwartz or Lawende Have Put the Ripper's Neck in a Noose?

[Elamarna]

Why not Hyams, Cohen or Levy ...?

(Darryl Kenyon, # 936)


As for Cohen, if you mean Nathan Kaminsky, he may well be part of the composite-Kosminski of Swanson's imagination.

(PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1 #937)


In deference to your correction, I have rewritten my # 943 as follows:


The suspect is Kosminski by name, but many details about him given by Anderson or Swanson match Cohen or Piser rather than Kosminski.

It was Piser, not Kosminski, who was unhesitatingly identified.

It was Piser, not Kosminski, who returned to his brother's house while still a suspect.

It was Cohen, not Kosminski, who was incarcerated weeks after the last murder.

It was Cohen, not Kosminski, who had to be placed under restraint in Colney Hatch.

It was Cohen, not Kosminski, who died within months of being incarcerated.

Swanson cannot be describing one historical person.

It's a mistake many make.
I am preparing a full rebuttal of the claims and arguments you have made the last few weeks.
However, such takes time if it's to be correct.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

It's a mistake many make.
I am preparing a full rebuttal of the claims and arguments you have made the last few weeks.
However, such takes time if it's to be correct.

It is a fact that Cohen and Kaminsky are misleadingly used interchangeably on most websites that mention one of them.

As I indicated, it makes no difference to the strength of my argument whether Cohen's real name was Kaminsky or whether they were two different people, except to the extent that if Cohen was not Kaminsky then Swanson could not have been confusing the names Kaminsky and Kosminski.

Looking forward to seeing your 'full rebuttal'.

[Elamarna]

It is a fact that Cohen and Kaminsky are misleadingly used interchangeably on most websites that mention one of them.

As I indicated, it makes no difference to the strength of my argument whether Cohen's real name was Kaminsky or whether they were two different people, except to the extent that if Cohen was not Kaminsky then Swanson could not have been confusing the names Kaminsky and Kosminski.

Looking forward to seeing your 'full rebuttal'.

The fact that many websites quote the false information that Kaminsky was really Cohen simply demonstrates how unreliable many sites are.

Such repeating of misleading and incorrect information is one of the big issues with the study of this subject, along with selective quoting, presenting opinion as fact, talking in absolutes and pure invention.

We see it all the time, even on the better websites.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

The fact that many websites quote the false information that Kaminsky was really Cohen simply demonstrates how unreliable many sites are.

Such repeating of misleading and incorrect information is one of the big issues with the study of this subject, along with selective quoting, presenting opinion as fact, talking in absolutes and pure invention.

We see it all the time, even on the better websites.

As per an 1895 article by Sir Robert Anderson, who was the Assistant Commissioner CID at Scotland Yard at the time of the murders, it becomes apparent that the killer was in fact identified by a witness. The witness, however, refused to come forward in an official capacity, leading Anderson to write “the only person who had ever had a good view of the murderer unhesitatingly identified the suspect the instant he was confronted with him; but he refused to give evidence against him."

Later, in his 1910 book ‘The Lighter Side of My Official Life’, Anderson published a memoir hand-written by ex-Superintendent Donald S. Swanson, in which he named Aaron Kosminski as the suspect who matched the description of a Polish Jew. The passage reads: “The suspect had , at the Seaside Home where he had been sent by us with difficulty in order to subject him to identification, and he knew he was identified....

Nathan Kaminsky is believed to have been David cohen’s real name....

The witness, who is likely to have been Joseph Lawende who was named during the investigation of the murder of Catherine Eddowes, is believed to have correctly identified Kaminsky – not Kosminski – adding more weight to the theory that the name was simply mixed up when Swanson named the suspect in his book.


https://thejacktherippertour.com/casebook/suspects/david-cohen/

[Elamarna]

As per an 1895 article by Sir Robert Anderson, who was the Assistant Commissioner CID at Scotland Yard at the time of the murders, it becomes apparent that the killer was in fact identified by a witness. The witness, however, refused to come forward in an official capacity, leading Anderson to write “the only person who had ever had a good view of the murderer unhesitatingly identified the suspect the instant he was confronted with him; but he refused to give evidence against him."

Later, in his 1910 book ‘The Lighter Side of My Official Life’, Anderson published a memoir hand-written by ex-Superintendent Donald S. Swanson, in which he named Aaron Kosminski as the suspect who matched the description of a Polish Jew. The passage reads: “The suspect had , at the Seaside Home where he had been sent by us with difficulty in order to subject him to identification, and he knew he was identified....

Nathan Kaminsky is believed to have been David cohen’s real name....

The witness, who is likely to have been Joseph Lawende who was named during the investigation of the murder of Catherine Eddowes, is believed to have correctly identified Kaminsky – not Kosminski – adding more weight to the theory that the name was simply mixed up when Swanson named the suspect in his book.


https://thejacktherippertour.com/casebook/suspects/david-cohen/

The site you quote is hardly noted for its reliability, nor is the page you cite apparently available.

UPDATE, a manual search found the quote you gave, that the direct link does not work, may give one cause for concern as to how well maintained the site is.

Not withstanding that, this simply illustrates my point about many sites being unreliable.

I would always prefer to trust research by those who are experts in the area concerned, in this case Anderson's Suspect, than a general site.

I suggest you use more reliable sites, such as here or JTR Forums.
I could point you at the recent podcast by Richard Jones and myself on this very subject, on his website, https://www.jack-the-ripper.org/

You could of course read Martin Fido's article in Ripperologist #129- Rethinking Cohen and Kosminski.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

The site you quote is hardly noted for its reliability, nor is the page you cite apparently available.

This simply illustrates my point about many sites being unreliable.

I suggest you use more reliable sites, I could point you at the recent podcast by Richard Jones and myself on this very subject, on his website.

You could of course read Martin Fido's article in Ripperologist #129- Rethinking Cohen and Kosminski.

I have read Fido and Richard Jones.

The link works sometimes.

I did not consider that site to be reliable even before I visited that page!

[Elamarna]

I have read Fido and Richard Jones.

The link works sometimes.

I did not consider that site to be reliable even before I visited that page!

In which case why post the link, unless you are simply attempting to agree how unreliable some sites are.




If you have read Fido's article in Ripperologist, and listened to the Richard Jones podcast, i fail to see why you originally posted Kaminsky rather than Cohen.

But again all this will be covered in the upcoming rebuttal posts.

[Darryl Kenyon]

PI, You say that Joseph Lawende is believed to have identified Nathan Kaminsky adding weight to the confusion theory . But by your reckoning this cannot be possibly be true. After all Kaminsky was a Jewish Bootmaker not a Nordic Sailor

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

In which case why post the link, unless you are simply attempting to agree how unreliable some sites are.




If you have read Fido's article in Ripperologist, and listened to the Richard Jones podcast, i fail to see why you originally posted Kaminsky rather than Cohen.

But again all this will be covered in the upcoming rebuttal posts.

I quoted from that website in order to express my agreement with you about the unreliability of much of what is published on such websites.

I provided the link as confirmation.

It was just a slip on my part.

As I pointed out, whether the man was called Cohen or Kaminsky does not affect the validity of the argument I was putting forward.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

PI, You say that Joseph Lawende is believed to have identified Nathan Kaminsky adding weight to the confusion theory . But by your reckoning this cannot be possibly be true. After all Kaminsky was a Jewish Bootmaker not a Nordic Sailor

I do not say that at all.

I was quoting from a website to show how unreliable much of the information published online is.

The same article has Anderson including Swanson's Marginalia in his memoirs.

I did reproduce the howlers in bold type.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

There is one point that has been overlooked with Kosminski and that is the extent of the police investigation into him being regarded as a suspect...

not only do we have officers of those ranks telling us the ID procedure did not take place, but there is also no evidence from them in any form to show Kosminski was ever investigated or regarded as a suspect...

It is clear in the absence of anything to prove to the contrary that at no point either before or after the ID procedure was he ever arrested

Neither Anderson nor Swanson ever explicitly states that Kosminski / the suspect was ever investigated or arrested.

Anderson's insinuation that Kosminski's relatives protected him from arrest should be followed by some mention of their at least having been questioned, but neither Anderson nor Swanson ever mentions it.

Kosminski could not have been identified unless he had already been investigated and some incriminating evidence found, but neither Anderson nor Swanson ever mentions any.

Anderson mentions a house search producing no evidence against anyone.

In order for his Polish Jew to have become a suspect, a subsequent house search would have had to produce evidence against someone.

But he never mentions one - and nor does Swanson.

If Kosminski was guilty, he would have had to have associated with prostitutes, yet neither Anderson nor Swanson mentions any surveillance yielding any evidence that he did so.

The only surveillance mentioned - which according to Elamarna lasted for more than six months - is not accompanied by any mention of Kosminski's association with prostitutes.

Kosminski could not have been transferred to the coast without being arrested, yet no arrest is mentioned by Swanson.

In order for Anderson to have been contemplating bringing charges against the suspect, he would first have had to ascertain whether the suspect had an alibi for any of the murders.

Anderson and Swanson are silent on that matter too.

The whole case against Kosminski looks like pure invention.

[Sunny Delight]

Neither Anderson nor Swanson ever explicitly states that Kosminski / the suspect was ever investigated or arrested.

Anderson's insinuation that Kosminski's relatives protected him from arrest should be followed by some mention of their at least having been questioned, but neither Anderson nor Swanson ever mentions it.

Kosminski could not have been identified unless he had already been investigated and some incriminating evidence found, but neither Anderson nor Swanson ever mentions any.

Anderson mentions a house search producing no evidence against anyone.

In order for his Polish Jew to have become a suspect, a subsequent house search would have had to produce evidence against someone.

But he never mentions one - and nor does Swanson.

If Kosminski was guilty, he would have had to have associated with prostitutes, yet neither Anderson nor Swanson mentions any surveillance yielding any evidence that he did so.

The only surveillance mentioned - which according to Elamarna lasted for more than six months - is not accompanied by any mention of Kosminski's association with prostitutes.

Kosminski could not have been transferred to the coast without being arrested, yet no arrest is mentioned by Swanson.

In order for Anderson to have been contemplating bringing charges against the suspect, he would first have had to ascertain whether the suspect had an alibi for any of the murders.

Anderson and Swanson are silent on that matter too.

The whole case against Kosminski looks like pure invention.

It was hardly an invention. From what we know- and we do not know everything, indeed far from it as so much has been lost to us but from what we know Kosminski was a weak suspect. From what we know an ID was stated to have been carried out. We don't know who the suspect was although it seems very likely to have been Aaron Kosminski. We don't know who the witness was although it seems very possible it was Joseph Lawende. We don't know for sure where it took place or under what conditions. What we have are some annotations written by Donald Swanson and whatever Robert Anderson was prepared to go public with. That says to me that your assertions are based on a number of assumptions that cannot be definitively stated as certain.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

It was hardly an invention. From what we know- and we do not know everything, indeed far from it as so much has been lost to us but from what we know Kosminski was a weak suspect. From what we know an ID was stated to have been carried out. We don't know who the suspect was although it seems very likely to have been Aaron Kosminski. We don't know who the witness was although it seems very possible it was Joseph Lawende. We don't know for sure where it took place or under what conditions. What we have are some annotations written by Donald Swanson and whatever Robert Anderson was prepared to go public with. That says to me that your assertions are based on a number of assumptions that cannot be definitively stated as certain.

Would you please identify the assumptions and explain why they are questionable?

[Sunny Delight]

Would you please identify the assumptions and explain why they are questionable?

Almost every line is based on something we can't know for sure. We don't know when Kosminski first came to Police attention. We don't know if Kosminski's relatives were questioned. We don't know what evidence the Police had on Kosminski if any. We don't know if Kosminski ever used Prostitutes. We don't know the details of Kosminski's transfer to the coast other than it was completed with difficulty. The fact that these are not mentioned or expanded on by Anderson or Swanson does not mean they did not happen.

The bottom line is this- Anderson wrote about an ID in his book that was made available to the public. I have seen no evidence his claim was ever dismissed as fantasy. Swanson annotated his personal copy of Anderson's book for reasons only he knew. He appears to have enjoyed annotating and did it extensively so it may have been as simple as he took pleasure in adding little tidbits. Maybe he felt that if in future his family read his personal copy of the book they would see the notes and be proud that the Ripper had actually been caught. We don't know. But why would he lie in a personal copy of a book? There is no reason for it.

[Trevor Marriott]

Almost every line is based on something we can't know for sure. We don't know when Kosminski first came to Police attention. We don't know if Kosminski's relatives were questioned. We don't know what evidence the Police had on Kosminski if any. We don't know if Kosminski ever used Prostitutes. We don't know the details of Kosminski's transfer to the coast other than it was completed with difficulty. The fact that these are not mentioned or expanded on by Anderson or Swanson does not mean they did not happen.

The bottom line is this- Anderson wrote about an ID in his book that was made available to the public. I have seen no evidence his claim was ever dismissed as fantasy. Swanson annotated his personal copy of Anderson's book for reasons only he knew. He appears to have enjoyed annotating and did it extensively so it may have been as simple as he took pleasure in adding little tidbits. Maybe he felt that if in future his family read his personal copy of the book they would see the notes and be proud that the Ripper had actually been caught. We don't know. But why would he lie in a personal copy of a book? There is no reason for it.

Detective Inspector Reid who was actively engaged in the murders was quoted in The Morning Advertiser April 23rd 1910. Following the publication of Anderson’s book: “Now we have Sir Robert Anderson saying that Jack the Ripper was a Jew, that I challenge him to prove, and what is more it was never suggested at the time of the murders. I challenge anyone to prove that there was a tittle of evidence against man, woman or child in connection with the murders, as no man was ever seen in the company of the women who were found dead.”

www.trevormarriott.co.uk