How Are The Mighty Fallen

[Stewart P Evans]

Think

Part of the problem with all of this is people with "pet" suspects trying to shoot other's "pet" suspects down and any parameters that go with them... true objectivity and anaylisis of the research found is often dismissed as a result. This has always plagued any rational study of this case. Thank God for the few that plod on with honest research that they offer freely to all of us without getting themselves involved in petty debates, or have any "agenda" of their own.

I shall have to think about that one. It's quite a sweeping statement.

[Hunter]

Stewart,

You've been at this for a long time and I can sense a reluctance on your part to participate in discussions here, anymore, for the very reasons that I have pointed out. There is nothing wrong with discussing suspects or any other people connected with this case, but some wrap themselves around a particular individual or a "theory" like it was the Holy Grail to the point that rationality is all but lost and sensible discussion is thwarted.

[Ally]

At it again Ally?

At what again Stewart? You mean challenging unsupported "facts", conclusions without evidence and unsupported statements made in the name of "becauseI said so"? You betcha. I am indeed at it again.

I was aware of this information before it appeared on these boards and I did qualify what I said with the words 'pending confirmation of the source.'

If you are aware of it before it appeared on the boards then surely you must know what the REST of the memo contains, correct? Or does your prior knowledge extend only so far as the provocative excerpt without surrounding context?

Also Simon would not lie in self-interest and 'he is not a vainglorious liar or boaster...'

It has nothing to do with, nor has it been suggested that Simon is lying. He has stated that he has been sent this excerpt without any other context by someone he cannot name.

Without a source and without context, any data presented is irrelevant. I am quite sure someone did indeed select Simon as his patsy in setting him up to post this carefully worded and edited excerpt completely devoid of surrounding context or the rest of the memo, in the hopes that the Anti-Anderson brigade would seize on it, as has been done, and no one would bother asking for what the rest of the memo contained.

Regardless of whether Simon is telling the truth, or not, the excerpt, without source or context, is irrelevant.

[Stewart P Evans]

Many Thanks

Stewart,
You've been at this for a long time and I can sense a reluctance on your part to participate in discussions here, anymore, for the very reasons that I have pointed out. There is nothing wrong with discussing suspects or any other people connected with this case, but some wrap themselves around a particular individual or a "theory" like it was the Holy Grail to the point that rationality is all but lost and sensible discussion is thwarted.

Many thanks for the expansion of your thoughts. Yes, there is a reluctance and it has been discussed in the past.

I think the main reason that I return to the debate is the fact that I was very interested in the case many years before I ever wrote about it. And for that reason I remain an amateur and someone who is interested in learning as much as he can about a series of unsolved murders for which we shall never have any definitive answer as to who the offenders were. And, yes, I agree that some get very 'precious' about their suspects and their theories.

It also saddens me that a fellow author has written emails in which he disparages my work and derogates my books.

[Stewart P Evans]

Many Thanks

At what again Stewart? You mean challenging unsupported "facts", conclusions without evidence and unsupported statements made in the name of "becauseI said so"? You betcha. I am indeed at it again.
If you are aware of it before it appeared on the boards then surely you must know what the REST of the memo contains, correct? Or does your prior knowledge extend only so far as the provocative excerpt without surrounding context?
It has nothing to do with, nor has it been suggested that Simon is lying. He has stated that he has been sent this excerpt without any other context by someone he cannot name.
Without a source and without context, any data presented is irrelevant. I am quite sure someone did indeed select Simon as his patsy in setting him up to post this carefully worded and edited excerpt completely devoid of surrounding context or the rest of the memo, in the hopes that the Anti-Anderson brigade would seize on it, as has been done, and no one would bother asking for what the rest of the memo contained.
Regardless of whether Simon is telling the truth, or not, the excerpt, without source or context, is irrelevant.

I simply do not know what I would do without you to explain things for me. I can't help being a bit dim and it's greatly appreciated. Many thanks.

[Ally]

You are most welcome.

[Jeff Leahy]

It also saddens me that a fellow author has written emails in which he disparages my work and derogates my books.

?

Pirate

[Jonathan H]

To Robhouse

In 1907 Anderson wrote in his book CRIMINALS AND CRIME the following:

'... the inhabitants of the metropolis were just as secure during the weeks the fiend was on the prowl, as they were before the mania seized him, or after he had been safely caged in an asylum.'

To me Anderson is perpetuating a myth about the un-named Kosminski and about the police hunt for the Ripper. That the investigation only lasted 'weeks' and then the fiend was permanently incarcerated.

This suggests 1888, or, at the most, early 1889 -- exactly where Macnaghten places Kosminski's incarceration.

Not anywhere does Anderson concede that the investigation lasted for over two years, and that in that time this suspect, if it was Kosminski whom he meant, was at large for the same length of time -- an inactive killer -- until 'safely caged' in an asylum.

Is that the only interpretation?

No, if one assumes that Anderson did know, or does recall, that Kosminski was not incarcerated when Macnaghten claims, in the 1894 version of his Report, then it could be argued that Anderson is choosing his words, very, very carefully.

That the mere 'weeks' he refers to is when a homicidal rage gripped Kosminski. After Kelly, this rage subsided -- therefore it would not matter how long it took to 'cage' him as he had stopped by himself.

I tried to argue something like this line in an article for 'Ripperologist'. An Anderson anguished over the excruciating gap and then his ego blocking it out, nullifying the embarrassment, by redacting the hunt for Sadler back into 1888. Not confusing Sadler with Kosminski -- rather ELIMINATING Sadler, and ELIMINATING a hunt up until 1891.

The whole tenor of Anderson's claims or what others, like Griffiths, claim he said point to him believing, from 1895, that the both the Polish Jew's incarceration AND the police hunt were of short duration.

The thrust of his memoirs is that there was a house-to-house search in 1888, so successful that it did not even require Anderson to be in England -- another self-serving memory lapse -- but that a treacherous witness let them down. Luckily, that did not matter as [in the magazine version] the Ripper was institutionalized. Anderson's agenda is that this all happened: bang, bang, bang, quickly and smoothly, except for the Judas -- but then we are not a pseudo-police state like the French, thank God.

Since Anderson never, ever mentions the events of 1891 the balance of probabilities, in my opinion, favors Anderson thinking that Kosminski was incarcerated in 1889, because he is relying on information supplied by his deputy, Macnaghten, who places Kosminski being 'safely caged' at that point in time -- wrongly of course.

I quite understand why Martin Fido, the man who found Kosminski, ironically rejected him as Anderson's Suspect. That Anderson must mean another Polish Jew as Kosminski's medical records do not match the meaning of the story he tells: a contemporaneous suspect dealt with soon after the Kelly murder.

What Fido could not countenance is that it was the other way round.

That Kosminski WAS Anderson's suspect but that the police chief had sincerely -- and self-servingly -- misremembered the timing of his Polish Jew coming to police attention as a Ripper suspect.

Worse, the other primary sources strongly point to Kosminski not being suspected until after he was incarcerated.

Macnaghten could easily keep Druitt a secret suspect as he was long dead, he had never been connected to the Ripper inquiry whilst alive, and the information about the family's darkest suspicions had totally bypassed any other police channels apart from himself [the source being a politician of all people].

But Aaron Kosminski being positively identified by a witness and nobody apart from Anderson -- and arguably Swanson -- ever learning of this extraordinary event? That it did not leak? Not even a whisper? That Macnaghten, Abberline, Reid, Smith et. al. were completely and utterly out of the loop -- forever?

It is ludicrous.

The balance of probabilities is that such a tale is illogical, unlikely, and, finally, quite unnecessary, to torture the surviving sources to suit such a vain, biased and unreliable source as Anderson.

[Jeff Leahy]

Schizophrenia attacks suffers in waves. Periods called psychotic episodes lasting periods between 12 – 16 weeks. Gaps between attacks can vary but it would be usual to expect each consecutive attack to progress in severity. It would also be consistent for periods of apparent recovery between each psychotic attack.

Pirate

[robhouse]

Jonathan,

So your only "evidence" than Anderson meant 1888 is this one phrase "the weeks the fiend was on the prowl"..? Is that a fair assessment?

I do not see in any way that this implies that the investigation lasted only weeks, nor that the fiend was only "at liberty" for a span of several weeks. (I assume you would also assume that the fiend was incarcerated BEFORE the crime series as well?) To me it seems rather clear that Anderson simply meant that the murders themselves only lasted a several weeks. I do not see how this implies anything about when Anderson believed Kozminski was entered into the asylum. Nor do I see how the fact that Anderson never mentioned Kozminski's entrance to the workhouse and the asylum strengthens your argument. Indeed, Anderson said very little about Kozminski... for reasons he gave himself.

You are aware, I assume, that Swanson wrote, "And after this identification which suspect knew no other murder of this kind took place in London." I have always taken this to imply that Swanson meant that the suspect knew the police suspected him (which should be obvious) and that he stopped killing because he knew he was being watched by the police.

"An Anderson anguished over the excruciating gap and then his ego blocking it out, nullifying the embarrassment, by redacting the hunt for Sadler back into 1888."

--- This type of sentence makes me realize how utterly pointless it is for me to bother discussing anything on these boards.

"Wow Trev...you just scored a hat trick! A quick swipe and all three were out!"

--- Another sentence of the same type.

[Jonathan H]

No, no, stay 'Robhouse', because you are a buff with a buff's mentality; that of the strict, sterile interrogator who says, over and over, you show me a thousand individual trees but never a forest.

In your histrionic, bush-lawyer way you cannot accept that there could be historical arguments meant in good faith in which Anderson is sincere yet mistaken.

No -- never!

For then the whole edifice of dogmatic certainty might crumble.

You cannot see that Swanson wrote entirely to himself which makes it a very, very limited source. Yes, he wrote that no other murder of this kind took place in London. Your interpretation is lame and self-serving. For what a shame that Scotland Yard and Anderson did not know what supposedly Swanson knew, from the way they chased Sadler not only as Coles murderer, but potentially as the Ripper -- AFTER Kosminski was sectioned.

Leave the boards?

Who are you kidding?

You belong here completely, mate. You're home.

It is I who do not belong here, not because I provisionally believe it was Druitt [BLASPHEME!] but because, like a couple of other members of the Ripper 'underground', I can accept the veracity of multiple theories.

[robhouse]

"from the way they chased Sadler not only as Coles murderer, but potentially as the Ripper -- AFTER Kosminski was sectioned."

--- see below.

[robhouse]

"In another famous serial murder case, the “Green River Killer” prostitute murders in Seattle in the 1980s, the police for many years had a strong hunch about a suspect named Gary Ridgeway. Ridgeway had been arrested for soliciting prostitutes, and several prostitutes on the Sea-Tac strip actually suggested he was possibly the killer. Over the years, the police questioned Ridgeway on several occasions, and searched his house and his vehicles. Ridgeway admitted that he fished on the Green River near the sites where some of the victims’ bodies were dumped, and even that he’d had “dates” with some of the girls who were murdered. On one of these “dates,” in fact, Ridgeway began strangling a prostitute, but when she begged for her life, he let go. The woman went to the police and picked Ridgeway’s photo out in a police album. When Ridgeway was questioned about the incident, he cooperated with police (as he always did), and even admitted to strangling the woman for 10 or 15 seconds, after she had bitten him during oral sex. The police had no option but to release him. All they had were bits and pieces of circumstantial evidence. They never found any hard evidence to convict him. Despite this, King County Sheriff Dave Reichart, the man in charge of the Green River investigations, was convinced Ridgeway was the killer.

Gary Ridgeway was only one of a dozen suspects on the taskforce’s “A” list. There was no consensus among the detectives working the case—each had a different favorite suspect. “You go to one detective’s desk,” said Task Force Lt. Gary Nolan, “and he’ll have half a dozen names and he’ll swear one of them is the killer. Go to the next desk a couple of feet away, Nolan said, and that guy will have 10 different names and he’ll swear up and down that one of them has got to be the Green River Killer—and both of them can give you lots of good reasons why.” Finally in 2001, the police made a conclusive DNA match to a suspect. When detective Tom Jensen received the DNA results, he went to Dave Reichart (then retired from the case) and handed him an envelope. He said it contained a photo of the Green River Killer. “I don’t even have to open it,” Reichart said. “It’s Gary Ridgeway.” "

[The Good Michael]

Rob,

Nice post. It makes certain suspects more tangible, doesn't it?

Mike

[Tom_Wescott]

No, no, stay 'Robhouse', because you are a buff with a buff's mentality;

I agree. Rob House is a very, very, very fine House.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott