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

[Bridewell]

You suggested that Kosminski was incarcerated in an asylum by the time of his identification.

Swanson claimed that he was not.

You cannot both be right.

Did I? I thought I replied to a post of yours claiming that Kosminski was in an asylum and that those in charge of it would be unlikely to let him go into somebody else's care without a warrant. In fact I've checked my post and that is exactly what I did. Swanson can be right because I'm not contradicting him. Goodnight.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Anderson claimed that the murderer had been identified but that the witness refused to swear to it. Swanson then adds "because the suspect was also a Jew and because his evidence would convict the suspect and witness would be the means of murderer being hanged which he did not wish to be left on his mind".

That looks like corroboration to me. Swanson places the ID at The Seaside Home; Anderson is silent on the location. You may not believe an ID procedure took place, and you may be quite right not to believe it, but your claim that it is uncorroborated is disingenuous.

(And of course a witness account doesn't have to be corroborated in order to be true; it just helps if it is).

That does not look like corroboration to me.

As I noted previously, Swanson provides no inside information to corroborate anything he relates.

He does not name the suspect nor any policeman involved in the identification or surveillance, and does not give the date on which any event occurred.

Between them, Anderson and Swanson created a fable which lacks any factual basis.

Neither of them mentioned any identification evidence against Kosminski - such as the fair hair, salt-and-pepper jacket, and appearance of a sailor mentioned by Lawende - nor any search of his home, nor states when he became a suspect.

Anderson's initial story, that Kosminski (as Swanson identified him) was already incarcerated at the time of the identification, means that the identification would have taken place no earlier than February 1891, in which case why would Kosminski's home be put under surveillance 27 months after the last murder and at a time when he was no longer living there?

The fact that Swanson stated that Kosminski died about three decades before he actually did, and that Anderson appeared to believe the same, suggests that neither of them knew much about Kosminski.

The fact that Anderson thought the murders ended as a result of Kosminski's incarceration and that Swanson thought his identification, followed shortly by his incarceration, brought the series of murders to an end, proves that both Anderson and Swanson thought that the identification of Kosminski took place early in 1889.

They were thus following Macnaghten, who thought that Kosminski was incarcerated in March 1889.

All three - Macnaghten, Anderson, and Swanson - thought that the incarceration took place about two years earlier than it did.

Two of them - Anderson and Swanson - thought that the murders ended because of Kosminski's identification or incarceration, whereas we know that Kosminski was walking a dog without a muzzle in the City of London more than a year after the last murder at a time when, according to Swanson, he would have required round the clock surveillance in order to stop him eviscerating gentile women.

It is a wonder that anyone takes their writings seriously.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

How do we know that Kosminski was not under arrest? (Just to be clear, I'm not arguing that he was, just pointing out that we don't know that he wasn't).

If Kosminski was indeed under arrest and this enabled the police to take/send him to the coast, then why was he allowed to return home and then re-arrested, having his hands tied behind his back?

[Herlock Sholmes]

I don't think anyone is saying that Swanson fabricated anything.

The question is whether what he wrote is believable.

The fact that he would not make any public statement, in spite of the fact that the man he was defending had practically been accused of making things up, and in spite of his own belief that he could not be sued by the man he named as the suspect, suggests that he was not confident that the contents of his marginalia would stand up to critical scrutiny.

Swanson provides no inside information that would indicate that he is describing true events and events with which he was connected.

He provides not a single date and not a single name, other than Kosminski's - which had already been mentioned by Macnaghten.

He does not name the witness nor any policeman involved in any of the events he relates.

That would be understandable had he made his story public, but the fact that he kept it private and still provided no such names suggests he did not possess such inside information.

You're not making any sense.

It's one or the other. If Swanson didn't fabricate the incident then he must have been telling the truth. If he was telling the truth, it must, by definition, be believable.

You are aware he was the most senior investigating detective at Scotland Yard employed on the Whitechapel murder case, right?

All you keep repeating is that he didn't include every single detail of the incident in his very short summary in his private note but you never explain why he needed to do so.

You really don't seem to have a clue what you are trying to say.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Please see my replies below.

I was responding to Shomes' assertion that police did arrest him later and asking how it was possible that they could not arrest him even after they had evidence that he was the Whitechapel Murderer.

I never said that the police arrested him later, or at any time I literally said to you in #574; "Swanson doesn't mention an arrest". Please don't put words into my mouth.

- Kosminski had just been, according to senior Police officers, identified as JTR by a witness. They had to release him as there was no evidence other than an ID that would not be sworn too. Of course they would put 24hr surveillance on him- he had been identified as JTR (we can argue whether even the ID would have been satisfactory).

My question was: why would they have put him under round the clock surveillance about two years after the last murder?

- Again we don't know Police tied his hands behind his back just that he was escorted with his hands tied behind his back. By whom we don't know.

I was responding to Shomes' assertion that it was the police who tied his hands behind his back.
My response was to ask how they could have done that if he was not under arrest!

I never said they did. You asked me in #568 if it was "believable" that they did so and I said in #570 that it was believable. But I never said that they actually did so.

- We don't know it was Police who took him to the Workhouse either.

Again, I was responding to Shomes' assertion that it was the police who were in charge of him when he was taken to the workhouse.

Once again - and we've now hit three falsehoods about me in a row - I never said this. I did no more than quote from the police instruction book in #574.

Can you please stop using me as cover for your shoddy work?

And it would be much simpler for people to follow a discussion if you would stop being so childish as to keep responding to my points within posts to others (Sholmes said etc.) You sound like a sulking wife saying to the kids “tell your father I’m going out,” when he’s sitting at the same table.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Did I? I thought I replied to a post of yours claiming that Kosminski was in an asylum and that those in charge of it would be unlikely to let him go into somebody else's care without a warrant. In fact I've checked my post and that is exactly what I did. Swanson can be right because I'm not contradicting him. Goodnight.

I'm sorry if I have misrepresented what you meant, but I was referring to your comment in # 584:

If Kosminski was incarcerated in a mental institution all you would need would be the acquiescence of those in charge of that institution.

I suppose your remark was hypothetical, which is why you used the conjunction if.

I think what I meant was that if, as Anderson originally related, Kosminski was already in an asylum, the police would not have been able to take him anywhere without a warrant, which I suggested would not have been forthcoming.

I just cannot see a hospital or institution of that kind allowing the police to take a patient on a 100-mile return trip without a warrant.

[Trevor Marriott]

You are completely right Herlock . Why fabricate a supposed ID in private notes in his personal copy of a book and then as far as we are aware never show said notes to anyone. It just doesn't sit right .

Regards Darryl

It does sit right if Swanson didn't pen all of the marginalia

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Herlock Sholmes]

I just cannot see a hospital or institution of that kind allowing the police to take a patient on a 100-mile return trip without a warrant.

Why is that relevant though? It’s not a fact, it’s simply your opinion. How can you or any of us have any knowledge of what a Victorian asylum would or wouldn’t do?

[JeffHamm]

It does sit right if Swanson didn't pen all of the marginalia

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

True, but since we have nothing to indicate he didn't, and the handwriting experts final evaluation is that he did, isn't this just a hypothetical suggestion? As in, if we didn't know what we know, this could have been the case? Of course, since everything we have indicates he did write all of the marginalia, to assert this is to risk being accused of clutching at straws isn't it?

- Jeff

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

True, but since we have nothing to indicate he didn't, and the handwriting experts final evaluation is that he did, isn't this just a hypothetical suggestion? As in, if we didn't know what we know, this could have been the case? Of course, since everything we have indicates he did write all of the marginalia, to assert this is to risk being accused of clutching at straws isn't it?

- Jeff

Well, the case against Swanson's marginalia does not depend on proving them or parts of them to have been written by someone else.

It is quite obvious that Swanson has a problem with dates.

First, he does not give any.

Secondly, he has Kosminski dying about three decades too soon.

Thirdly, he has the identification taking place soon after the last murder, and the incarceration shortly after the identification, which means the incarceration taking place two years earlier than we know it did and the identification taking place at the Seaside Home before it actually opened.

Those who claim that he meant the identification took place in July 1890 or February 1891 have never explained how Swanson could have thought that it coincided with the cessation of the murders - and they never will.

Swanson evidently wrote his marginalia as a defence of Anderson.

If Anderson was wrong when he claimed in his memoirs in 1910 that the Polish Jew/Kosminski had been identified as the murderer, then the marginalia are unsupportable.

Anderson stated in 1892 that the murderer had not been identified and stated it again in 1908.

There have been reports that by the time he wrote his memoirs, he was showing signs of confusion and was unable to state correctly which party prominent politicians belonged to.

Have any of Anderson's supporters been able to explain why he reported, also in 1908, that a broken clay pipe was found in the fireplace at Miller's Court, when all Inspector Abberline found there were burnt clothes?

Was he confusing the murder of Kelly with that of McKenzie, who smoked a clay pipe and was murdered nine months later?

Is this the quality of recollection to be expected of someone who is able to state that the identification of a Polish Jew as the Whitechapel Murderer was a definitely ascertained fact?

Would someone recollecting an actual identification be so confused about what had actually occurred that he would first claim that the suspect was in an asylum when the identification took place and then, just months later, leave out all reference to the incarceration of the suspect?

Like Swanson, Anderson gives no dates or details of any search of the suspect's home, nor of any incriminating evidence discovered, that might have led to his becoming a suspect in the first place.

How could they have, when Kosminski had never even been a suspect before his incarceration?

[Trevor Marriott]

True, but since we have nothing to indicate he didn't, and the handwriting experts final evaluation is that he did, isn't this just a hypothetical suggestion? As in, if we didn't know what we know, this could have been the case? Of course, since everything we have indicates he did write all of the marginalia, to assert this is to risk being accused of clutching at straws isn't it?

- Jeff

I am quite definitely not clutching at straws the content of the marginalia is unsafe

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Bridewell]

That does not look like corroboration to me.

As I noted previously, Swanson provides no inside information to corroborate anything he relates.

He can't corroborate himself. He corroborates Anderson. He doesn't have to provide "inside information" as he's writing his own notes in a copy of Anderson's book.

He does not name the suspect nor any policeman involved in the identification or surveillance, and does not give the date on which any event occurred.

Why should he? He's writing his own notes in a copy of Anderson's book.

Between them, Anderson and Swanson created a fable which lacks any factual basis.

Two highly respected senior officers and both lying. Any "factual basis" for that beyond your own surmise?

Neither of them mentioned any identification evidence against Kosminski - such as the fair hair, salt-and-pepper jacket, and appearance of a sailor mentioned by Lawende - nor any search of his home, nor states when he became a suspect.

Why should they? They weren't writing what they did for you and me.

All three - Macnaghten, Anderson, and Swanson - thought that the incarceration took place about two years earlier than it did.

So all three were misinformed - perhaps by the same source. Doesn't prove that what they wrote was fiction.

Two of them - Anderson and Swanson - thought that the murders ended because of Kosminski's identification or incarceration, whereas we know that Kosminski was walking a dog without a muzzle in the City of London more than a year after the last murder at a time when, according to Swanson, he would have required round the clock surveillance in order to stop him eviscerating gentile women.

The surveillance by City CID is what you are referring to is it? The City of London where he was caught walking a dog without a muzzle? That City of London? I wonder who caught him doing that. Could it perhaps have been the City of London officers who were conducting the surveillance who caught him doing that in the City of London?

It is a wonder that anyone takes their writings seriously.

I'm sure that if they had known you would disapprove they wouldn't have bothered.

[Bridewell]

If Kosminski was indeed under arrest and this enabled the police to take/send him to the coast, then why was he allowed to return home and then re-arrested, having his hands tied behind his back?

I don't know. Why would I?

[Bridewell]

I'm sorry if I have misrepresented what you meant, but I was referring to your comment in # 584:

If Kosminski was incarcerated in a mental institution all you would need would be the acquiescence of those in charge of that institution.

I suppose your remark was hypothetical, which is why you used the conjunction if.

I think what I meant was that if, as Anderson originally related, Kosminski was already in an asylum, the police would not have been able to take him anywhere without a warrant, which I suggested would not have been forthcoming.

I just cannot see a hospital or institution of that kind allowing the police to take a patient on a 100-mile return trip without a warrant.

We were probably at cross purposes then. I guess it depends on the circumstances of his detention at the mental health institution. I confess that I don't know what the prevailing rules were as the Mental Health Acts I worked with were obviously many years in the future when these events took place.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Please see my replies below.

So all three were misinformed - perhaps by the same source. Doesn't prove that what they wrote was fiction.


I had written: 'All three - Macnaghten, Anderson, and Swanson - thought that the incarceration took place about two years earlier than it did.'

That proves that they were not familiar with Kosminski's real history.

And that suggests that there is not much of a case against him.

That means what they wrote was not reliable, whether one calls it fiction or not.



The surveillance by City CID is what you are referring to is it? The City of London where he was caught walking a dog without a muzzle? That City of London? I wonder who caught him doing that. Could it perhaps have been the City of London officers who were conducting the surveillance who caught him doing that in the City of London?


I am amazed that you would suggest that anything of the kind happened.

First, why would officers keeping a suspect under surveillance to see whether he is about to commit a murder stop him in connection with a petty offence?

I am sure that Trevor Marriott can tell you the likelihood of something like that having happened.

Secondly, according to Swanson, Kosminski was placed under surveillance shortly after his identification.

Are you saying that the identification had already taken place by the time Kosminski was stopped while walking his dog?

You mean that a man who had just been identified as the Whitechapel Murderer was stopped for walking a dog without a muzzle?

And since, according to Swanson, Kosminski was shortly afterwards sent to an asylum, he should be put away shortly after appearing in court.

But he is not until more than a year later.

And you scoff about fiction.