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

[Trevor Marriott]

Interestingly McNaghton refers to Druitt and Ostrog with first names or initials but only refers to a 'Kosminski'. Always found that interesting.

I am glad to see someone else has noticed this

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Herlock Sholmes]

I am glad to see someone else has noticed this

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

I have to ask how you can view the marginalia with impartiality when you are convinced that the Seaside Home ID couldn’t have occurred? If the ID couldn’t and didn’t take place then clearly someone like Swanson wouldn’t have confirmed it. Whereas someone who accepts the possibility that the ID could have occurred can. Even someone who is certain that the ID took place could still accept the possibility of forgery. So you can’t think anything else but that it must have been a forgery.

So to sum up, your ‘evidence’ of forgery consists of….

a) You’re conviction that the ID couldn’t have occurred.
b) The fact that no Christian name was used.
c) The fact that he wrote “Kosminski was the suspect” instead of “the suspect was Kosminski.”
d) The fact that 2 pencils were used.
e) The fact that some of the writing showed slight differences due to hand tremors.

Hardly approaches strong evidence when you look at it does it. I’d call it weak to non-existent.

a) Makes it difficult/impossible to view the marginalia with impartiality.
b) Hardly a killer point even when taken in conjunction with the other points.
c) Again, so what. People write in different ways. What sounds natural to one person will sound unnnatural to another.
d) He owned 2 pencils the use of which could have any number of perfectly reasonable explanations.
e) There could be periods during one day where shaking did and didn’t not occur so this shouldn’t be used to suggest a huge gap of time between entries.


Then the points against forgery….

1) The absolute unlikeliness of Jim Swanson as a forger. A well-to-do business who had just received an inheritance with no apparent financial issues.
2) A man who would have had to added the words within around a month of Alice dying. How could he have known for example the current state of ripper research? How could he have known for example that some researcher hadn’t found evidence that the subject of the ID wasn’t some other Jewish man?
3) He was an intelligent man who would have known that test would have been called for which could have shown that the entries weren’t genuine.
4) How worthwhile a reward could he have expected for information which merely confirmed what everyone suspected anyway?
5) For such a limited reward what huge risks to his and his family’s reputation would have ensued from exposure. Probable loss of employment too.
6) Dr. Davies’s report which concluded “very strong evidence” that Donald Swanson wrote it and “no evidence” of forgery.

If we put the above ‘evidence’ to any jury or group of people you know very well what the result would be. An overwhelming vote for ‘genuine.’ So yes, I have considered all of your points. I’ve ignored none of them but unfortunately you completely ignore the points against forgery as you imperviously ride your hobby horse toward yet another wrong conclusion.

[Sunny Delight]

I am glad to see someone else has noticed this

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Yeah but I don't neccessarily see any conspiracy behind that although it is peculiar.

[Trevor Marriott]

Yeah but I don't neccessarily see any conspiracy behind that although it is peculiar.

But it is a point that has to be considered in the grand scheme of things

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[Herlock Sholmes]

But it is a point that has to be considered in the grand scheme of things

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Then why do you completely ignore the points against forgery which vastly outweigh the ‘case’ for forgery?

[Trevor Marriott]

I have to ask how you can view the marginalia with impartiality when you are convinced that the Seaside Home ID couldn’t have occurred? If the ID couldn’t and didn’t take place then clearly someone like Swanson wouldn’t have confirmed it. Whereas someone who accepts the possibility that the ID could have occurred can. Even someone who is certain that the ID took place could still accept the possibility of forgery. So you can’t think anything else but that it must have been a forgery.

So to sum up, your ‘evidence’ of forgery consists of….

a) You’re conviction that the ID couldn’t have occurred.
b) The fact that no Christian name was used.
c) The fact that he wrote “Kosminski was the suspect” instead of “the suspect was Kosminski.”
d) The fact that 2 pencils were used.
e) The fact that some of the writing showed slight differences due to hand tremors.

You have forgotten the following points

There is no corroboration to the content of the marginalia

The expert's opinions are not conclusive

Dr Davies extract
"These observations cause me to conclude that these two sets of entries were written at different times and that the set one entry was written first"

Forensic press release quoting Dr Davies
": “What was interesting about analyzing the book was that it had been annotated twice in two different pencils at different times, which does raise the question of how reliable the second set of notes were as they were made some years later. There are enough similarities between the writing in the book and that found in the ledger to suggest that it probably was Swanson’s writing, although in the second, later set, there are small differences. These could be attributed to the ageing process and either a mental or physical deterioration, but we cannot be completely certain that is the explanation. The added complication is that people in the Victorian era tended to have very similar writing anyway as they were all taught the same copybook, so the kind of small differences I observed may just have been the small differences between different authors.

Jim Swanson was categoric that Donald did not suffer from any neurological afflictions which would cause hand tremors so how did the differences in the writing come about?

If France Coles was a ripper victim Kosmiski could not have been the ripper because he was already incarcerated in an asylum by then

No one has mentioned the possibility that Swanson could have been referring to another ID procedure involving Grainger.. A story appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette dated 7th May 1895, which reported that Grainger had been identified by the one person whom the police believe, saw the murderer with a woman a few moments before her mutilated body was found. There is no information to tell us where or when this identification procedure took place but it is believed to have taken place at a "Seamans Home"

There are concerns over this as there are over the identification procedure Swanson and Anderson refer to. One being the fact that the Grainger offence came under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police and Lawende was a witness in the murder of Eddowes, which came under the jurisdiction of the City Police. Would the Metropolitan Police use a City witness? In practice yes they would, but it appears that if the seaside home identification parade did ever take place then why didn’t the Metropolitan Police also use Lawende the City Police witness? There is only talk of one witness in the marginalia

At the time the Pall Mall Gazette report was published Swanson who led the original Ripper investigation was interviewed by a reporter from that paper. He poured cold water on the suggestion that Grainger could be the Ripper and stated, “The Whitechapel murders were the work of a man who is now dead”. So this in itself again must eliminate Aaron Kosminski as he was institutionalized at that time and he didn’t die until 1919. If Swanson was correct then why did the police subject, Grainger, to an identification procedure in an attempt to connect him to at least one Ripper murder?

So that in itself must question the marginalia content

And the name Kosminski could have been added to the marginalia as suggested

Hardly approaches strong evidence when you look at it does it. I’d call it weak to non-existent.

a) Makes it difficult/impossible to view the marginalia with impartiality.

That's the issue you are always keen to accept without question all that has been left behind since 1888 and beyond you need to take the blinkers off

e) There could be periods during one day where shaking did and didn’t not occur so this shouldn’t be used to suggest a huge gap of time between entries.

Several years gap?

Then the points against forgery….

1) The absolute unlikeliness of Jim Swanson as a forger. A well-to-do business who had just received an inheritance with no apparent financial issues.
Never judge a book by its cover

2) A man who would have had to added the words within around a month of Alice dying. How could he have known for example the current state of ripper research? How could he have known for example that some researcher hadn’t found evidence that the subject of the ID wasn’t some other Jewish man?
Alice`s story cannot be tested now

3) He was an intelligent man who would have known that test would have been called for which could have shown that the entries weren’t genuine.
All he needed to do was add the last sentence and any discrepancies would be down to an expert concluding in the exact way they did

4) How worthwhile a reward could he have expected for information which merely confirmed what everyone suspected anyway?
A £1000 was a lot of money in 1981

5) For such a limited reward what huge risks to his and his family’s reputation would have ensued from exposure. Probable loss of employment too.
Nobody commits a crime with the intention of getting caught

6) Dr. Davies’s report which concluded “very strong evidence” that Donald Swanson wrote it and “no evidence” of forgery.

Strong evidence is not conclusive we are talking about the addition of just 4 words

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[Trevor Marriott]

Then why do you completely ignore the points against forgery which vastly outweigh the ‘case’ for forgery?

The same reason why you persistently prop up all the old accepted theories surrounding these murders

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[Abby Normal]

Theres nothing wrong with either the ID or the swanson marginalia. Three senior police named him a suspect, and they brought him to a witness, probably Lawende, who IDed him, although it was clearly not as strong an ID as Anderson boasted about. swanson, for his own sake, probably so hewouldnt forget the suspects name, jotted it down in the book. Questions yes, but there is no great mystery here. and no evidence of anything nefarious.

[rjpalmer]

Theres nothing wrong with either the ID or the swanson marginalia. Three senior police named him a suspect...

To be technical, this isn't true. Anderson never named his suspect. One assumes that Swanson got it right, but there are no guarantees.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I have to ask how you can view the marginalia with impartiality when you are convinced that the Seaside Home ID couldn’t have occurred? If the ID couldn’t and didn’t take place then clearly someone like Swanson wouldn’t have confirmed it. Whereas someone who accepts the possibility that the ID could have occurred can. Even someone who is certain that the ID took place could still accept the possibility of forgery. So you can’t think anything else but that it must have been a forgery.

So to sum up, your ‘evidence’ of forgery consists of….

a) You’re conviction that the ID couldn’t have occurred.
b) The fact that no Christian name was used.
c) The fact that he wrote “Kosminski was the suspect” instead of “the suspect was Kosminski.”
d) The fact that 2 pencils were used.
e) The fact that some of the writing showed slight differences due to hand tremors.

You have forgotten the following points

Ive forgotten nothing. You, on the other hand, deliberately ignore the points against forgery.

There is no corroboration to the content of the marginalia

Swanson and Anderson corroborate each other. The fact that we have no other corroboration doesn’t increase the likelihood of forgery.

The expert's opinions are not conclusive

Dr Davies extract
"These observations cause me to conclude that these two sets of entries were written at different times and that the set one entry was written first"

Which means absolutely nothing of relevance.

Forensic press release quoting Dr Davies
": “What was interesting about analyzing the book was that it had been annotated twice in two different pencils at different times, which does raise the question of how reliable the second set of notes were as they were made some years later.

And I’ll continue to ask how it could be established that the second set of notes were made some years later. I find impossible to understand as we have no evidence provided for this assertion. No chemical tests were done to establish times.

There are enough similarities between the writing in the book and that found in the ledger to suggest that it probably was Swanson’s writing, although in the second, later set, there are small differences. These could be attributed to the ageing process and either a mental or physical deterioration, but we cannot be completely certain that is the explanation. The added complication is that people in the Victorian era tended to have very similar writing anyway as they were all taught the same copybook, so the kind of small differences I observed may just have been the small differences between different authors.

Jim Swanson was categoric that Donald did not suffer from any neurological afflictions which would cause hand tremors so how did the differences in the writing come about?

You ignore…..

“Among recently discovered letters are some written by Swanson to his grandson Donald. In one, dated 22 August 1923, Swanson writes: I am sorry [for my rough] writing with pencil my hand shakes paralytically and causes me to stop. A few lines further on, he signs off and adds a PS: I am sorry my hand begins to shake so that I have had to stop.”

Notice…….”my hand begins to shake….” Proving what I said earlier, his hand begun to shake meant that his hand didn’t always shake. This is from the horses mouth.

If France Coles was a ripper victim Kosmiski could not have been the ripper because he was already incarcerated in an asylum by then

And the fact that the vast majority of ripperologists don’t consider her a victim doesn’t bother you? Such a weak and desperate point Trevor.

No one has mentioned the possibility that Swanson could have been referring to another ID procedure involving Grainger.. A story appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette dated 7th May 1895, which reported that Grainger had been identified by the one person whom the police believe, saw the murderer with a woman a few moments before her mutilated body was found. There is no information to tell us where or when this identification procedure took place but it is believed to have taken place at a "Seamans Home"

Grainger wasn’t Jewish. Either way this is irrelevant to the genuineness of the marginalia.

There are concerns over this as there are over the identification procedure Swanson and Anderson refer to. One being the fact that the Grainger offence came under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police and Lawende was a witness in the murder of Eddowes, which came under the jurisdiction of the City Police. Would the Metropolitan Police use a City witness? In practice yes they would, but it appears that if the seaside home identification parade did ever take place then why didn’t the Metropolitan Police also use Lawende the City Police witness? There is only talk of one witness in the marginalia

Not relevant to the genuineness of the marginalia. You are obfuscating.

At the time the Pall Mall Gazette report was published Swanson who led the original Ripper investigation was interviewed by a reporter from that paper. He poured cold water on the suggestion that Grainger could be the Ripper and stated, “The Whitechapel murders were the work of a man who is now dead”. So this in itself again must eliminate Aaron Kosminski as he was institutionalized at that time and he didn’t die until 1919. If Swanson was correct then why did the police subject, Grainger, to an identification procedure in an attempt to connect him to at least one Ripper murder?

The identification could still have taken place but it doesn’t mean that Swanson agreed that Kosminski was the ripper.

So that in itself must question the marginalia content

And the name Kosminski could have been added to the marginalia as suggested

Not in the slightest. You’ve produced a tissue of irrelevances, obfuscation and the ignoring of evidence.

Hardly approaches strong evidence when you look at it does it. I’d call it weak to non-existent.

a) Makes it difficult/impossible to view the marginalia with impartiality.

That's the issue you are always keen to accept without question all that has been left behind since 1888 and beyond you need to take the blinkers off

Change the record Trevor. How many times do you have to come on here arguing a lost cause with everyone disagreeing with you only for you to resort to that pathetic, tired old ‘defending the old established theories’ mantra. It’s your regular get out clause.

e) There could be periods during one day where shaking did and didn’t not occur so this shouldn’t be used to suggest a huge gap of time between entries.

Several years gap?

Where is the evidence for ‘several years’?

Then the points against forgery….

1) The absolute unlikeliness of Jim Swanson as a forger. A well-to-do business who had just received an inheritance with no apparent financial issues.
Never judge a book by its cover

Another brilliant analysis.

2) A man who would have had to added the words within around a month of Alice dying. How could he have known for example the current state of ripper research? How could he have known for example that some researcher hadn’t found evidence that the subject of the ID wasn’t some other Jewish man?
Alice`s story cannot be tested now

Please explain. What has Alice to do with anything?

3) He was an intelligent man who would have known that test would have been called for which could have shown that the entries weren’t genuine.
All he needed to do was add the last sentence and any discrepancies would be down to an expert concluding in the exact way they did

Please explain this gobbledygook.

4) How worthwhile a reward could he have expected for information which merely confirmed what everyone suspected anyway?
A £1000 was a lot of money in 1981

Not worth risking your livelihood hand reputation for and not for a General Manager of a group of factories who had just come into an inheritance.

5) For such a limited reward what huge risks to his and his family’s reputation would have ensued from exposure. Probable loss of employment too.
Nobody commits a crime with the intention of getting caught

Genius.

6) Dr. Davies’s report which concluded “very strong evidence” that Donald Swanson wrote it and “no evidence” of forgery.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Poor even for you/

[Aethelwulf]

How far can we trust Andersen's judgement. This what he said in 1910 about the Rose Mylet case:

• "the Poplar case of December, 1888, was death from natural causes, and but for the 'Jack the Ripper' scare, no one would have thought of suggesting that it was a homicide."

This is what Dr Phillips said at the time:

• 'the murderer 'had studied the theory of strangulation, for he evidently knew where to place the cord so as to immediately bring his victim under control.'

Mr. Wynne Baxter, coroner, also wanted nothing to do with this "nonsense" of "death by natural causes."

The clearness of the cord mark around the neck was noted on several occasions.

Sounds like Andersen was one of those people that couldn't accept they were wrong. Does the same apply here - Andersen is either wrong, or seeing a mountain of evidence from some sort of ID when it was actually a molehill.

Also, some very high ranking official, believed by Beadle to be Swanson, appears to have taken a rather entrenched view, only days after Bury was arrested, that he was not the ripper because he had confessed to the crimes but could provide no details. As we know, it was testified in court that what Bury actually said was that he was afraid of being apprehended as the ripper. So this eminent police officer has dismissed a suspect based on information that was factually wrong (still to be found on many websites to this day).

So how far can we trust the judgement of these people? Not that they were deliberately misleading, just...wrong.

[GUT]

To be technical, this isn't true. Anderson never named his suspect. One assumes that Swanson got it right, but there are no guarantees.

A very valid point, Swanson may only have though Kosminski was the man Anderson was talking about

[Abby Normal]

A very valid point, Swanson may only have though Kosminski was the man Anderson was talking about

andersons suspect was koz. either you know little about the case, rob houses book, or you have a favored suspect which isnt koz lol

swansons detail of koz as well with his closeness with anderson means he knew who the suspect was and it was the jewish suspect theory suspect of anderson stated obviously. again no great mystery unless of course you have a different favored suspect like druiitt lol. i mean he wrote it next to andersons book section... its not rocket science.

[Herlock Sholmes]

How far can we trust Andersen's judgement. This what he said in 1910 about the Rose Mylet case:

• "the Poplar case of December, 1888, was death from natural causes, and but for the 'Jack the Ripper' scare, no one would have thought of suggesting that it was a homicide."

This is what Dr Phillips said at the time:

• 'the murderer 'had studied the theory of strangulation, for he evidently knew where to place the cord so as to immediately bring his victim under control.'

Mr. Wynne Baxter, coroner, also wanted nothing to do with this "nonsense" of "death by natural causes."

The clearness of the cord mark around the neck was noted on several occasions.

Sounds like Andersen was one of those people that couldn't accept they were wrong. Does the same apply here - Andersen is either wrong, or seeing a mountain of evidence from some sort of ID when it was actually a molehill.

Also, some very high ranking official, believed by Beadle to be Swanson, appears to have taken a rather entrenched view, only days after Bury was arrested, that he was not the ripper because he had confessed to the crimes but could provide no details. As we know, it was testified in court that what Bury actually said was that he was afraid of being apprehended as the ripper. So this eminent police officer has dismissed a suspect based on information that was factually wrong (still to be found on many websites to this day).

So how far can we trust the judgement of these people? Not that they were deliberately misleading, just...wrong.

Hello Wulf,

If only we had more info! Did they have more to make them suspect Koz or did he just fit their idea (profile) of the ripper (low class, foreigner, mad etc)? It’s not impossible that tunnel vision might have prevented taking another potential suspect like Bury more seriously. There could of course have been some evidence that we don’t know about that counted Bury out for them but it’s also possible that this might have been something like a false alibi. I don’t know. As I said in an earlier post, perhaps the witnesses first thought was “well it certainly looks like him” but then he started to have doubts and wasn’t prepared to give a conclusive “yes” considering the possible consequences?

[Herlock Sholmes]

A point worth re-stating (imo) is that it was actually Swanson and not Anderson who claimed that the witness only refused to identify the suspect because he was Jewish. Anderson imply said that he refused to identify him (with no reason given) I tend to forget this and assume that Anderson said it.

What do we think about these words of Anderson’s?:

“Having regard to the interest attaching to this case, I’m almost tempted to disclose the identity of the murderer and of the pressman who wrote the letter above referred to. But no public benefit would result from such a course, and the traditions of my old department would suffer.”

How do we think that the traditions of his old department would have suffered if he’d have come out and said “we caught the ripper but the witness just wouldn’t identify him and we didn’t have enough evidence to get him convicted even though our investigation convinced us of his guilt. We then ensured that he was safely locked in an asylum where he could do no more harm.”

Basically he would have been saying ‘we caught him and had him locked away for the rest of his life.’

Would that have harmed his old department?