Did Anderson Know

[Jonathan H]

To Pirate,

Yes I think something like that is possible, from a speculative pov.

That this member of the Kosminski clan, unilaterally, alerted Anderson about Aaron. Perhaps triggering a scramble by the family to do what they had put off doing for over two years -- get him 'safely caged' from the authorities in an asylum?

[DVV]

from a speculative pov.

To say the least.

Amitiés,
David

[Jeff Leahy]

Rob House put forward his theory about the Crawford letter some time ago.

And out lined that theory on the podcast about kosminski

http://www.casebook.org/podcast/listen.html?id=74

It’s the only Ripper theory in my time of considering the JtR murders that has ever made any sense

Pirate

[DVV]

Thanks for the link, Pirate.
I haven't listened to this one.

Amitiés,
David

[Jonathan H]

Yes, I liked that podcast too.

My most significant diagreement with the debators is that I subscribe to the Evans/Rumbelow 'Sailor's Home' theory of a suspect jumble by 1910.

Where I am different from Evans and Rumbelow is that I think a strong historical argument can stil be mounted for Kosminski as the fiend; a strong suspect who is somewhat obscured by Anderson's over-reach [and because so many of the jigsaw pieces are missing].

I think that Anderson telescopes events which happened between 1888 through to 1891, or thereabouts, not because he was deranged but simply because his aging memory is failing him, though it was certainly not failing his own self-image.

The original trigger for this sincere mythologising was an excruciating aspect about Kosminski; that Scotland Yard had no significant knowledge about him until after Sadler fizzled out.

It makes sense to me -- for what that is worth -- that a stiff-necked egoist like Anderson just would not care to remember such an embarrassment as a Kosminski who was both 'at large' for all that time, and who only, finally, came on their radar when there was nothing that could be done to officially investigate this suspect.

The psychic pain of that moment must have been almost unbearable?

Furthermore, that a fading, egocentric, 'I Won Waterloo' memory, one anguished by a need to be always right -- and sincerely believeing that this really was 'Jack' -- would inevitably rewrite the 'unsatisfactory' events of 1891. Thus, on cue, his biased memory replaces Sadler with Kosminski, the Sailor's Home with the Seaside Home, and turns Lawende the co-operative into a despicable Judas [I realise the police hospital detail comes only from Swanson, nevertheless I believe that the Marginalia is a record of what his ex-chief told him]

I think some people think that for Aaron Kosminski to remain a strong suspect then Anderson must be defended, at all costs, as a paragon of virtue, and as having perfect recall [about a case about which he admits he barely reflected on as it was so minor and overblown by the tabloids].

I think this is falling for Anderson's own heroic self-image.

Yet behind that tangle is quite possibly, even probably, an extraordinary suspect -- or else why would Anderson commit himself to Kosminski when he carried such baggage?

The strongest counter-argument to that is that there are no surviving sources which actually show that Anderson knew -- at any point -- that Kosminski was for two years out and about in the community; an inactive killer.

I assume he had to orginally know this and then, quite idiosyncratically, began to stop knowing, and that is why the Polish Jew suspect is popping up quite implausibly in 1888 [as the retired detectives were correct to challenge] and that the Coles murder/Sadler embarrassment utterly vanishes from his account, replaced by 1910 with the myth of the Supergrass who let them down, and so on.

[robhouse]

A few brief comments:

1. We do not know when or how Kozminski came to the attention of the police. 2. Anderson's "caged in an asylum" remark was removed from the book version. As I have stated, it is quite possible he misremembered this, and confused Kozminski's being in a workhouse, with his being in an asylum.
3. It is highly unlikely that Kozminski only became known to the police AFTER he was in colney Hatch, since Swanson clearly states that he was kept under surveillance by City CID after the identification when he was returned to his brother's house in Whitechapel (sic).
4. I do not see why it is likely that Macnaghten first learned of Kozminski. Seems much more likely that Macnaghten learned about Kozminski somewhat after Anderson and Swanson did.

There s a tendency, in my opinion, to add unneeded complexity to the story told by Swanson and Anderson. The story they tell is rather simple, and does not have many demonstrable errors. Anderson (in the book version) makes no known errors in what little he says about Kozminski. Swanson makes one error.

Rh

[Jonathan H]

Thanks for that Rob,

1. What about that Swanson writes that no other murders of this kind took place after when in fact, only days later Frances Coles was murdered and Swanson himself thought this very likely to be a Ripper murder?

2. What about the complete lack of taking this Polish Jew suspect seriously by Abberline and Reid, who did not realise that it was actually a too-late suspect redacted back into 1888?

3. What about that Anderson strangely never refers to the witness 'confrontations' which took place allegedly subsequent to Kosminski's incarceration and definite identification?

4. Well prior to 1910 Anderson is recorded as claiming that this suspect was only at large for 'mere weeks' before being safely institutionalised. In fact, Kosminski was out and about as an inactive killer, if he was the killer, for over two years.

5. Swanson's so-called 'one error' is a shocker!? He writes that this suspect expired shortly after being incarcerated. That is far worse an error than anything Macnaghten wrote about Druitt OR Kosminski. Not just wrong by decades, but also such a conveniently self-serving mistake [one I do not think originates with Swanson].

Overall, I find your line of argument does not tackle with the contradictions in the sources. That's my take, right or wrong.

[Natalie Severn]

Real questions that need real answers , Jonathan.

[caz]

It makes sense to me -- for what that is worth -- that a stiff-necked egoist like Anderson just would not care to remember such an embarrassment as a Kosminski who was both 'at large' for all that time, and who only, finally, came on their radar when there was nothing that could be done to officially investigate this suspect.

The psychic pain of that moment must have been almost unbearable?

...Yet behind that tangle is quite possibly, even probably, an extraordinary suspect -- or else why would Anderson commit himself to Kosminski when he carried such baggage?

The strongest counter-argument to that is that there are no surviving sources which actually show that Anderson knew -- at any point -- that Kosminski was for two years out and about in the community; an inactive killer.

I assume he had to orginally know this and then, quite idiosyncratically, began to stop knowing, and that is why the Polish Jew suspect is popping up quite implausibly in 1888 [as the retired detectives were correct to challenge] and that the Coles murder/Sadler embarrassment utterly vanishes from his account, replaced by 1910 with the myth of the Supergrass who let them down, and so on.

I must say, Jonathan, that although I don't go along with all your reasoning I do enjoy reading your posts, which I only started coming across recently. I think you give us all much food for thought.

I suspect there can be an irresistible psychological boost for whoever finds, or is offered information on a potential suspect not heard of previously, which can unfortunately lead to objectivity taking a back seat along with all other suspects, while this new and exciting 'name' is adopted as the veritable Holy Grail. Could Macnaghten's adherence to Druitt and the private information that he had managed to obtain on him, and Anderson's adherence to his low-class Polish Jew (possibly dropped in his lap via Crawford, but surely not conjured from thin air and called Kosminski just for jolly) not be classic examples of the phenomenon?

If Anderson thought he could always lay the blame at the door of the family he believed had protected his LPJ during the house-to-house searches, and had continued to turn a blind eye until one desperate female member was forced to cry "Hold, enough!" after her brother had waved his knife in her direction, maybe he was able to push to the back of his mind any inconvenient facts about this particular 'maniac', such as the two years he spent apparently not being a 'homicidal' one before being 'safely' caged.

Love,

Caz
X

[jason_c]

Another aspect of the Crawford Letter referring to Kosminski which feels wrong is thematic. A recurrent theme of Anderon's is that 'certain' low-class Polish Jews were unhelpful to Scotland Yard regarding the Polish Jew suspect. That they rejected the English rule of law as 'Gentile Justice', and were uncoperative -- as was an alleged Jewish witness.

This ingrained bitterness on Anderson's part does not seem to tally with a member of Kosminski's family, or extended family, trying to reach out to the Yard for assistance.

A single near relative doesnt absolve the "sin" of the community. Especially if the near relative only contacted police a year or so after the murders, and to prevent herself being further threatened with a knife.

[Jonathan H]

I don't think this woman would have contacted the police 'a year after the murders' as Kosminski was incarcerated before the murder investigation finished up -- in fact, mere days before the official Ripper hunters cranked themselves up again over the Coles murder.

Re: Coles

That they would have told the press that they thought that Tom Sadler might be the Ripper, as opposed to just the chief suspect in that murder, reveals how desperate and clueless they were at that moment, which Macnaghten [but predictably not Anderson] confirms in his memoirs. That they would have brought in Lawende to 'confront' this burly bruiser of a sailor in the hopes that their best witness might just identify him as the murderer of Eddowes is again wishful thinking at best.

To me it shows that Anderson could not possibly have yet established that the Ripper was a low-class Polish Jew, let alone Aaron Kosminski, or else why did they not play down Sadler as a possible 'Jack' to the salivating tabloids? If they already knew that the Ripper was under restraint and positively identified, and that he knew he had been identified, and so on, why be so foolish?

Instead the police wheeled in Lawende to confront a Gentile suspect, one who did not live in Whitechapel.

Yet I agree with you that they may not have known about Kosminski until some time later. For me, therefore, the balance of probabilities tells against the Crawford Letter being from a Kosminski -- or even being of much importance at all.

My hunch, rightly or wrongly, is that Anderson's mentioning the house-to-house search in the memoir is critical.

That there is something about that search that really does connect with the Kosminski suspect, who only came to police attention after he was 'safely caged' two or three years later.

Here is a supposition.

In Feb 1891 Macnaghten meets Farquharson and believes he has found the fiend, though a painfully embarassing suspect as he was both 'one of us' and over two years in his grave.

In the wake of what seemed like a suddenly reactivated Ripper [the Coles murder] Anderson rejected Druitt out of hand, in favour of Sadler -- and then that all fell apart and he could not even nail him for Coles' murder.

Anderson still would not countenance Druitt, partly because it would mean admitting chasing a phantom right into 1891 with Sadler -- when he already knew about Druitt -- and partly because the man he despised, Macnaghten, had found him.

Instead, Anderon countered that he thought the fiend must be being sheltered by local scum in the vicinity of the killing zone -- and that his name is probably on that 1888 list.

Macnaghten decided to test this.

He checked the names and indeed did find a madman who had been commited by his family just prior to the Coles murder, and about whom there were dark family suspicions. Mac took the view that these family suspicions were unfounded -- as the Druitts were not -- and that it was absurd that Jack the Ripper could have been inactive for two and bit years. He told Anderson that this could not be the Ripper, that it must have been Druitt. His chief may have grumpily agreed, or pretended not hear.

In 1894, with the potential of a scandal over Cutbush, the politically discreet Macnaghten did not use contemporaneous suspects nore likely than the cop's deranged relative [Tumblety, Sadler] instead deploying the man he thought was the real Ripper [though downplayed to obscure that he was unknown], and a local madman who had been suspected by family but essentially cleared, and a ludicrous suspect in no position to ever sue to make for a
list -- instead of an indecisive pair.

To make Kosminski seem a bit more credible, and a contemporaneous suspect -- just for the Home Office -- Mac backdated his incarceration to a still lengthy five months after the Kelly murder, but better than over two years.

Such a Report was never needed, and Mac breathed a sigh of relief.

Then in 1895 Grainger, a Druitt lookalike, came into the frame and once more -- against Mac's advice -- Anderson insisted on getting Lawende to have a look at him. Remarkably Lawende said 'yes'. Despite proven violence against a prostitute, no alibi for the 1888 murders, being a Gentile sailor and affirmed by the best witness the police did not pursue Grainger any further for the Whitechapel murders, and he was soon forgotten [though not by his lawyer who turned up in 1910 to claim that his client indeed was the Ripper and that the police knew it].

This should have been the moment when Anderson said to Macnaghten, ok, maybe you are correct to argue that it was this Druitt. That what you were told in 1891 trumps anything on Grainger.

Instead, mean-spirited Anderson continued his petty feud with his subordinate by agreeing it was not Grainger in favour of ... Kosminski?! Who was sexually vile, lived at the scene, hated prostitutes, attacked his sister and was suspected by his family. Plus, Anderson began to point to this 'safely caged lunatic' to the press to forestall any lingering egg-face over Grainger [it's in the same article as the un-named Lawende's affirmation]. Mac also noticed that Anderson was beginning to fuse the house-to-search list with Kosminski's incarceration thus removing the two and helf year interval -- and that it was Mac who found and rejected him.

Thus Anderson had self-servingly absorbed Mac's chicanery in the 1894 Report as if it were literally true; that Druitt was nothing as a suspect, and that Kosminski was being hunted in 1888, and locked away not too long after Kelly.

In 1898 Macnaghten struck back at this mythos by using Major Griffiths and then George Sims; the chief suspect was the un-named Druitt not the much less likely un-named Kosminski, let alone or un-named non-starter Ostrog.

The battle between the police chiefs over who found the fiend continued until their memoirs of the late Edwardian Era. Anderson's egocentric memory completely banished Sadler, Grainger and Druitt -- the latter's expiration being moved across to Kosminski by the time he told Swanson the tale in
1910.

In Mac's 1914 memoirs he put the boot into Anderson one last time: the chief suspect had never been in a nuthouse, the police had never heard of him until years later, and the Ripper investigators thought the [here un-named] Coles might be a victim of the fiend too -- as late as 1891!

[Scott Nelson]

[Roy Corduroy]

Hi Jonathan,

Grainger, a Druitt lookalike

I didn't know that. How do we know that?

Roy

[Jeff Leahy]

I don't think this woman would have contacted the police 'a year after the murders' as Kosminski was incarcerated before the murder investigation finished up -- in fact, mere days before the official Ripper hunters cranked themselves up again over the Coles murder.

Re: Coles

That they would have told the press that they thought that Tom Sadler might be the Ripper, as opposed to just the chief suspect in that murder, reveals how desperate and clueless they were at that moment, which Macnaghten [but predictably not Anderson] confirms in his memoirs. That they would have brought in Lawende to 'confront' this burly bruiser of a sailor in the hopes that their best witness might just identify him as the murderer of Eddowes is again wishful thinking at best.

To me it shows that Anderson could not possibly have yet established that the Ripper was a low-class Polish Jew, let alone Aaron Kosminski, or else why did they not play down Sadler as a possible 'Jack' to the salivating tabloids? If they already knew that the Ripper was under restraint and positively identified, and that he knew he had been identified, and so on, why be so foolish?

Instead the police wheeled in Lawende to confront a Gentile suspect, one who did not live in Whitechapel.

Yet I agree with you that they may not have known about Kosminski until some time later. For me, therefore, the balance of probabilities tells against the Crawford Letter being from a Kosminski -- or even being of much importance at all.

My hunch, rightly or wrongly, is that Anderson's mentioning the house-to-house search in the memoir is critical.

That there is something about that search that really does connect with the Kosminski suspect, who only came to police attention after he was 'safely caged' two or three years later.

Here is a supposition.

In Feb 1891 Macnaghten meets Farquharson and believes he has found the fiend, though a painfully embarassing suspect as he was both 'one of us' and over two years in his grave.

In the wake of what seemed like a suddenly reactivated Ripper [the Coles murder] Anderson rejected Druitt out of hand, in favour of Sadler -- and then that all fell apart and he could not even nail him for Coles' murder.

Anderson still would not countenance Druitt, partly because it would mean admitting chasing a phantom right into 1891 with Sadler -- when he already knew about Druitt -- and partly because the man he despised, Macnaghten, had found him.

Instead, Anderon countered that he thought the fiend must be being sheltered by local scum in the vicinity of the killing zone -- and that his name is probably on that 1888 list.

Macnaghten decided to test this.

He checked the names and indeed did find a madman who had been commited by his family just prior to the Coles murder, and about whom there were dark family suspicions. Mac took the view that these family suspicions were unfounded -- as the Druitts were not -- and that it was absurd that Jack the Ripper could have been inactive for two and bit years. He told Anderson that this could not be the Ripper, that it must have been Druitt. His chief may have grumpily agreed, or pretended not hear.

In 1894, with the potential of a scandal over Cutbush, the politically discreet Macnaghten did not use contemporaneous suspects nore likely than the cop's deranged relative [Tumblety, Sadler] instead deploying the man he thought was the real Ripper [though downplayed to obscure that he was unknown], and a local madman who had been suspected by family but essentially cleared, and a ludicrous suspect in no position to ever sue to make for a
list -- instead of an indecisive pair.

To make Kosminski seem a bit more credible, and a contemporaneous suspect -- just for the Home Office -- Mac backdated his incarceration to a still lengthy five months after the Kelly murder, but better than over two years.

Such a Report was never needed, and Mac breathed a sigh of relief.

Then in 1895 Grainger, a Druitt lookalike, came into the frame and once more -- against Mac's advice -- Anderson insisted on getting Lawende to have a look at him. Remarkably Lawende said 'yes'. Despite proven violence against a prostitute, no alibi for the 1888 murders, being a Gentile sailor and affirmed by the best witness the police did not pursue Grainger any further for the Whitechapel murders, and he was soon forgotten [though not by his lawyer who turned up in 1910 to claim that his client indeed was the Ripper and that the police knew it].

This should have been the moment when Anderson said to Macnaghten, ok, maybe you are correct to argue that it was this Druitt. That what you were told in 1891 trumps anything on Grainger.

Instead, mean-spirited Anderson continued his petty feud with his subordinate by agreeing it was not Grainger in favour of ... Kosminski?! Who was sexually vile, lived at the scene, hated prostitutes, attacked his sister and was suspected by his family. Plus, Anderson began to point to this 'safely caged lunatic' to the press to forestall any lingering egg-face over Grainger [it's in the same article as the un-named Lawende's affirmation]. Mac also noticed that Anderson was beginning to fuse the house-to-search list with Kosminski's incarceration thus removing the two and helf year interval -- and that it was Mac who found and rejected him.

Thus Anderson had self-servingly absorbed Mac's chicanery in the 1894 Report as if it were literally true; that Druitt was nothing as a suspect, and that Kosminski was being hunted in 1888, and locked away not too long after Kelly.

In 1898 Macnaghten struck back at this mythos by using Major Griffiths and then George Sims; the chief suspect was the un-named Druitt not the much less likely un-named Kosminski, let alone or un-named non-starter Ostrog.

The battle between the police chiefs over who found the fiend continued until their memoirs of the late Edwardian Era. Anderson's egocentric memory completely banished Sadler, Grainger and Druitt -- the latter's expiration being moved across to Kosminski by the time he told Swanson the tale in
1910.

In Mac's 1914 memoirs he put the boot into Anderson one last time: the chief suspect had never been in a nuthouse, the police had never heard of him until years later, and the Ripper investigators thought the [here un-named] Coles might be a victim of the fiend too -- as late as 1891!

saga saga saga. It is an interesting yarn.

But all based on fitting square pegs into round holes.

Namely that you would prefer Druit as the main suspect instead of kosminski.

You only have fantacy, and projection to support your theory.

As I have pionted out repeatedly, there is nothing to suggest that Anderson was losing his marbles. far from it.

He is unlikely to have mixed Sadler with a Polish Jewish Suspect.

Which Kosminski certainly was NOT.

You would have to be senile to make that mistake...

Anderson was NOT, and as fact was supported by the Swanson Marginalia.....WHICH IS GENUINE

Pirate

[Jonathan H]

To Roy

Oh we don't. It's supposition on my part trying to connect the dots -- without all the dots.

So far as I know, nobody agrees with me.

Eddowes' witness, Joseph Lawende, described a man who is, amongst the senior police's suspects, a generic fit for Druitt [and no doubt thousands of others of course] in that he was a slim, medium-heighted, Gentile-featured man, around about 30, and dressed a like a sailor.

This matches very well the senior high school photos of Gentile Druitt, who looks about that height -- yet a muscular athlete -- and has the smudge of a moustache.

Of course a photo may turn up of Druitt, from when he was an adult of 30, showing him to have become obese, bald and sporting a beard.

Also seemingly undermining my sub-theory is that Macnaghten, Druitt's Ripper patron, never, ever makes this connection in nay surviving source.

Quite the opposite.

In the unofficial version of his Report he claims that the suspect seen with Eddowes resembled the Polish Jew, Kosminski, according to an un-named beat cop -- who never existed -- and in his memoirs he dismisses this sighting as unsatisfying.

I think that Macnaghten's agenda was to deflect attention away from the real Montie Druitt, and so he tortured the evidence to nullify Lawende's sighting -- eliminating Lawende altogether.

In 1895 Lawende was asked to 'confront' Ripper suspect William Grant Grainger and remarkably said 'yes', and yet this real sailor was discarded as a serious possibility.

The description of Grainger in the newspaper account does sound like a perfect fit for the man Lawende saw with Eddowes six years before, and obviously Lawende certainly thought so.

My theory is that Macnaghten was comfortable with Lawende's affirmation, AND with rejecting Grainger, because he already knew what Druitt looked like having seen a photo, or having been given at least a verbal description -- probably by MP Farquharson. That it made sense to Macnaghten that Lawende would mistakenly pick Grainger because the two men were, co-incidentally, very much alike in appearance - minus the seafaring tattoos.