No known suspect pre 1895 was Jack the Ripper

[Heinrich]

Heinrich, where does Barnett admit to arguing with Mary on the night of the murder?

At Mary Kelly's inquest, in answer to the coroner, he admitted to objecting to her consorting with prostitutes and that this was the reason for their break-up just over a week previously. "Because she had a woman of bad character there, whom she took in out of compassion, and I objected to it. That was the only reason." These disagreements he claimed were never threatening to Mary Kelly, claiming "He spoke of a series of quarrels about her lifestyle and he linked them to the murders, accounts of which he read to her from the newspapers, saying "Our own quarrels were very soon over." On the night of the murder, he reports that she had one of her friends, Lizzie Albrook, with her when he arrived and that this woman left upon his arrival, leaving him alone with Mary Kelly. He reports that although he left her on good terms that night, he had refused to give her money as he was unemployed. This was the old argument theme.

[Lechmere]

The likelihood is, I think, that the police asked to be kept informed of any mad people sent to the asylum from the Whitechapel area, particularly Jews. So Kosminski would have not been picked out of ether but out of the Admission register.
I would guess that the details about him that would have been known to only a few more senior officers would have been researched back. As the case got colder and no new attacks occurred and people like Sadler and Grainger cleared, his candidacy, with details muddled, will have looked more attractive to officers keen to be seen to be all knowing.
However it is fairly clear that Kosminski wasn’t a suspect in 1888-91 (as demonstrated by Phil Carter) so it would be exceptionally unlikely for any missing files to mention him.

[Phil Carter]

Hello Jonathan,

You should like this little-known quote from Mac's memoirs, in which he is much more candid in a throw-away remark about the lack of a chief suspect, than he is in either version of his 'Report':

'No light was vouchsafed to us, and after two or three weeks it seemed as if the Muswell Hill murder was going to climb on the shelf of undiscovered crimes alongside Jack the Ripper and the Cafe Royal case of eighteen months before ...' (Macnaghten, 'Days of My Years', p. 139)
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And I will now go to sleep with an even larger smile on my face. Thank you sir.


kindly

Phil

[Jonathan H]

To Monty

You keep saying that Macnaghten did not lay down major suspects [in the official version] of his 'Report', as if it is an established fact.

It is not. It is a theory.

I can understand why you take this line, but it is only an interpretation and arguably not a strong one.

Yes, it is an official document of state and it does state that M. J. Druitt, 'Kosminski' and Michael Ostrog are unlikely and yet are better suspects than Cutbush -- if that makes any sense?

On the other hand, Anderson and/or Swanson seem to have believed that 'Kosminski' was not a minor suspect at all, but almost certainly the fiend.

Mancaghten himself in the alternate version of the same document, disseminated to the public, claimed that the un-named Druitt was almost certainly the Ripper. He did the same in his 1914 memoirs where no other suspect is worth mentioning.

If it is a draft is that why he had to write it again? Because he had given the game away about Druitt? And then he returned to this truth, at least as he understood it, when he briefed his literary cronies a few years alter?

Consider that if you only had Mac's official version you would never realize that the reason Druitt was not arrested was not because he was perhaps a weak suspect -- but better than Cutbush and 'believed' by his own family and definitely a sexual maniac -- but because he was long deceased.

Thus Mac did something in his memoirs which he did not do in either version of his so-called 'Home Office Report'. He conceded that Druitt was a posthumous suspect and that the police had been, embarrassingly and excruciatingly, chasing a phantom. He goes against the expected bias of such a source, making it more reliable than what he write under political pressure twenty years before.

That is why I argue that the memoirs, the de-facto third version of his 'Report', despite memoirs being unreliably self-serving, trumps the official version -- a document, moreover, so obscure, I argue, that Doug Browne did not come across it when he finished 'The Rise of Scotland Yard' in 1956 (he misunderstood the import of the last lines of Mac's Ripper chapter; as a literal plot against a minister and has Macnaghten disagreeing with his successor that the fiend took his own life, when he did no such thing?)

In that memoir chapter, Macnaghten, the 'man of action', hurtles down to the East End to investigate the Pinchin Street murder in 1889. He meets with a prostitute and her pimp-partner over a meal of 'toasted bloaters'. A Disraeli-style, one-nation Tory he expresses compassion and sympathy for their economic and moral destitution. About the Ripper menace she says that she does not care if she lives or dies.

What Mac is getting at is that he could not reassure this poor wretch that at least she had nothing to fear from the likes of 'he' because, at that time and for 'some years after', nobody at the Met knew that the murderer was already nine months in his grave.

To Phil

You should like this little-known quote from Mac's memoirs, in which he is much more candid in a throw-away remark about the lack of a chief suspect, than he is in either version of his 'Report':

'No light was vouchsafed to us, and after two or three weeks it seemed as if the Muswell Hill murder was going to climb on the shelf of undiscovered crimes alongside Jack the Ripper and the Cafe Royal case of eighteen months before ...' (Macnaghten, 'Days of My Years', p. 139)

[Trevor Marriott]

Hello Trevor,

We mustn't let FACTS like that come in the way of a theory... it spolis the oil in the wheels of the non-stop, must be kept going, ever-pushed Merry-go round.

Time for bed said Zeberdee! Boing!

kindly

Phil

I am off to bed now in the knowledge that I can rest easy I am sure you can do the same, not to sure about others

[Phil Carter]

Hello Trevor,

We mustn't let FACTS like that come in the way of a theory... it spoils the oil in the wheels of the non-stop, must be kept going, ever-pushed Merry-go round.

Time for bed said Zeberdee! Boing!

kindly

Phil

[Trevor Marriott]

Again,

To clear up yet another misleading remark attributed to me by Phil.

Monty is saying that there is no evidence for or against Kosminki as being the killer for certain (as with any suspect)

Monty is also saying that there may be evidence out there which would highlight, or dismiss Kosminski, of which we may not be aware of. This with the fact some suspect files are missing.

Now Monty says, with respect and calm, for Phil to stop being cute. It doesn't suit him.

Monty

But what you cant prove is that there ever was a specific file referering to Kosminski so in view of that it is wrong to say there may be or there ever was such a file for it to go missing

[Phil Carter]

Monty,

We have the sarcasm about to enter the arena, and probably the mickey taking too.

as the posts crossed..

Predictable..or what?

amused

Phil

[Phil Carter]

Well, we've had the old chestnut about files missing, and that applies both ways, for and against.

We've had the old chestnut that you can't rely on newspapers,, that works both ways too.

We've had the putting down of any person who misunderstands everything.

We've had the derision at the thought that anybody could possibly dare to think different than what we are supposed to accept.

All known methods of confirm nor deny, disperse and confuse.

We have the sarcasm about to enter the arena, and probably the mickey taking too.

Its like an old record. Scratched, worn out and in desperate need of a remake.

kindly, and amused by the predictability of the same methodology of some...

Phil

[Monty]

Again,

To clear up yet another misleading remark attributed to me by Phil.

Monty is saying that there is no evidence for or against Kosminki as being the killer for certain (as with any suspect)

Monty is also saying that there may be evidence out there which would highlight, or dismiss Kosminski, of which we may not be aware of. This with the fact some suspect files are missing.

Now Monty says, with respect and calm, for Phil to stop being cute. It doesn't suit him.

Monty

[Chris]

You can rubbish away as much as you like..

Thanks for your courteous response, Phil.

[Trevor Marriott]

You may have no doubt about that Trevor, and I must honestly say I cannot counter it.

However Kosminskis name is there, so is Druitts, and neither can be wholely dismissed at this precise moment.

Monty

I am more than happy in my investigation to mothball both of them along with Tumblety and others to numerous to mention.

[Phil Carter]

Hello Chris,

Monty has spelled it out very clearly. There is no KNOWN evidence to show that Kosminski was a suspect in the JTR murders.

You can rubbish away as much as you like.. The recent and very noticeable push over the last year trying to push the Kosminski name, on film, in book form and now the recent discovery of 24 year old letters, discovered 10 years after the man died, still proves nothing..because, as Monty says.. there is no police evidence in the files.

Kosminski was not suspected of being JTR at the time of the murders based on what there is. It's simple. Show us the evidence. Hard police evidence. If not, go to newspapers and find some there. You wont find any more than an un-muzzelled dog.

With the 125th coming up and the charge gaining momentum, better discoveries had better be found before Kosminski mounts any throne as top suspect.

kindly

Phil

[Chris]

Wouldnt you like to know

Mildly curious, that's all.

[Monty]

You may have no doubt about that Trevor, and I must honestly say I cannot counter it.

However Kosminskis name is there, so is Druitts, and neither can be wholely dismissed at this precise moment.

Monty