New Article on the Swanson Marginalia in Ripperologist 128

[jason_c]

Hello Jason,

Yes, Swanson signed letters to his family and also personal notes using both the initials DSS and Donald Sutherland Swanson.

I've provided several instances of this in the article.

Best wishes Adam

Thank you for the confirmation.

[Trevor Marriott]

Hello Rob,

Much as I would like to stand on the side of the outcome of the swishing of the razor of probability, the WM is, imho, a very good reason to NOT apply that rule. Because the razor's cut points AWAY from Kosminski being the Ripper, simply because he is not seen nor noted nor seen to be or noted to be anywhere near any of the crimes, to our knowledge. And we can only go on what we have, so I'm told.

Ipso facto..Occam's Razor rule, if applied, i.e. logical conclusion, discounts every single known suspect as to being the Ripper, but dint of them NOT "being in the room when the glass was dropped". Standing outside the door or living in the neighbourhood when the glass was dropped doesn't mean they were the culprit.

Ok.. so where does that leave us with regard to the razor? Apply it gently? Sparse application? Or just chosen application to back up a personal belief?

As regards that I am suggesting, which you referred to...

I suggest the following by MY interpretation of the History of the Marginalia, etc....

1) DSS was a man of his word.
2) He stated, clearly, that wild horses would not drag the name of the perpetrator(s) of the Whitechapel Crimes out of him.
3) He wrote a reflection as to Anderson's story as he knew it. He expanded upon Anderson's story, not his own. That way, he was not guilty of revealing any name he knew of himself, which he expressly said he would not do.
4) Anderson meant that a lowly Polish Jew was the "Ripper". DSS named the man Anderson was talking of. He also added a few details of Anderson's story TO the story we have been given.
5) The written evidence of his annotating, from what I have seen thusfar, suggests that he does the same to other written points. It is impossible to see that DSS himself would be involved in every episode he annotated upon in every book. Therefore he adds his knowledge to another person's involvement and story. That is a logical outcome, imho.
6) If Anderson's suspect, the lowly Polish Jew, was Kosminski, it is no means a certainty that the killer DSS knew of but never told of, was Kosminski. Logically, if DSS swore never to reveal who the killer was, then the revelation of Kosminski by DSS was not the person DSS knew of. Otherwise he breaks the solemn word he imposed upon himself to his family. From DSS' own words, I believe he kept that word, both to himself and the world. Writing the Anderson suspect's name in the book lost him nothing.I simply take DSS' word for what it is.

That is what I am suggesting Rob. And it isn't stretching the bounds of logical probability either.

best wishes

Phil

Hi Phil

Wise words

It would seem many on here are getting carried away again with the marginalia and the name Kosmiski as a suspect (Aaron)

Firstly Aaron has been eliminated so that just leaves another Kosminski ?

Now for anyone to become a likely suspect first there must be some reasonable suspicion perhaps hearsay

For that person to be elevated to a prime suspect the level of suspicion must also be elevated and corroborated by something more than hearsay evidence.

For that suspect to be looked upon as the actual killer as Swanson does, there would have needed to be a reasonable amount of factual evidence. what was it. where was it recorded, where is it now, why hasnt anyone else spoke or written about this?

( please dont reply suggesting it was all in a suspect file that is now either lost stolen or destroyed) That is wearing thin now

NOt a scrap of evidence form any workhouse or asylum records suggesting that at any time did they have incarcerated anyone who the police knew to be Jack The Ripper.

In any event the ID procedure could not have taken place before February 1891. THis is corroborated by what is written in the marginalia.

The result of the ID procedure in any event whether the witness gave evidence or not could not have led to the identification of Jack The Ripper nor the conviction. The witness could have only been Schwartz and his flimsy evidence was in relation to the Stride murder and that not enough to even charge a person.

The more evidence there was available if in fact there ever was would have surely been known to more than just Swanson or Anderson. It would have had to come from a source or sources either within the police service or from outside. If that had been the case others would have known and spoken out thereafter on such an important case..

Are we expcted to belive that the only two people in London who knew the real identity of the ripper were Anderson and Swanson. Are we expected to belive that the alleged suspect was taken by Swanson and Anderson alone to the ID parade, and that no other officers who might have been involved along with the seaside home staff were also sworn to everlasting silence

Are we expected to belive that the CITY officers who allegedly kept watch after the suspect was brought back were also sworn to everlasting silence. They would have been briefed about why they were keeping observations and would have certainly known about any postive identification, and Major Smith would ceratinly have been aware of this significant development but no not a whisper from him til the day he dies he stated the police did not have a clue.

Insp Reid goes so far as to publicly pour cold water on Andersons ID procedure and the suggestion that the killer was a Jew, and he even asks him to prove what he had written. That surley would have been the time for Swanson to have gone public and supported what Anderson had written as I am sure it would have been common knowledge.

We are expected to take as being gospel what Swanson is purported to have said to family members, was it true or was it is ego talking not wanting to accept failure in catching and bringing to justice the killer?

In concluding we have to consider Magnaghten who first mentions the name Kosminski as a likley suspect, and then in the AV almost exonerates him.

I reiterate what I have said many times the marginalia does stand up to close scrutiny and i continue to ask why so many people are so ready to accept what some of these officers said without question, when much of what they say is nothing more than hearsay and without any corroboration. It should not be totally disregarded but much of it should not be accepted as being the gospel truth.

[Jenni Shelden]

Hi Trevor,
I think we are possibly talking about two things that you don't have to agree with both to believe the former is true, namely
1)what this article demonstrates which is that the marginalia is in Swanson's hand
and 2) that Aaron Kosminski was JtR.

This article dealt with point one. As far as I can tell it didn't attempt to deal with point two.

I will say whilst I am not a raving Kosminskite, I did enjoy Rob House's talk in York and found it incredibly compelling. I also bought Rob's book at York - which I'd been meaning to do for ages - and I have to confess its one of the few - if not the only - suspect based JtR book i've read all the way through in one sitting AND without wanting to throw it at the wall. But leaving this aside.

In relation to if Kosminski was Jtr - we arent at a stage where we can prove this to my satisfaction (NB we may never be at this stage with any suspect!!), but we certainly have evidence he was thought of as a potential suspect at the time by McNaughten and by Swanson (and most likely by Anderson although he himself doesnt say this outright, scared of libel maybe as Aaron was still about potentially).

Swanson says himself in the marginalia that the suspect - ie Kosminski - was identified by a witness but that this witness would not testify to this for some reason - ergo there was not evidence to prosecute the said person. He wasn't put in an aslyum as JtR because this would be without due process of law - ie a trial, and we know he was put in their by his family after attacking his sister, not by the police.

If we are assuming Aaron Kosminski was the Kosminski who Swanson meant (which seems to be likely as there is not a better candidate for Kosminski called Kosminski at present) then clearly some of the information somewhere does not make 100 per cent sense. There could be several reasons for this
1) - what i think you are suggesting - it was a out and out lie/made up by Swanson/Anderson/MM.
2) - it was the suspect but some of the other information is confused or garbled, due to poor recollection after the fact - in this sense whilst he was Anderson's prime suspect - according to what Swanson thought from what ANderson was saying - he was not necessarily Swanson's, DSS is merely stating what Anderson isnt saying about Anderson's own suspect. (although this doesnt exclude the idea he agrees)
3) the truth does not make sense because we do not have access to everything.

I sit in the second category - and you presumably i the first.
There may be other categories i havent thought of.

Incidentally, yes people do mention it because it is true - the suspect files no longer exist in the public domain at least. There surely would have been some and we cant say what they would have contained or where they had gone. I think it would be safe to assume there were ones for the many suspects we know about from the time, Kosminski, Pizer, Tumbelty for example. Surely to suggest there was no suspect files - as it were - suggests the police had no suspects - or suspect relating lines of inquiry. Surely they did in fact have these? Potentially in vast numbers including from crank information

Jenni

[Fisherman]

Rob House:

"I have to admit, I don't find any of it strange at all."

Lucky you!

" He kept it inside for all those years, over two decades, he couldn't tell anyone. Finally he jotted down the name in a book. Why is it so unusual? "

It is unusual to expect to be charged with a libelous action for naming somebody as a killer, if one is certain that nobody will take part of the accusation, for example. And that was what you wrote; that the reason for swanson not to name any Christian name was that it would be libelous.

"I don't really think he had any purpose behind writing it, except to jot it as a note to himself."

Then that is the next strange thing - did he need to remind himself of what he knew? AND sign it?

"And he may have realized in the back of his mind that someday, after he was gone, someone would discover it."

If he wished for it to be read, then I don´t think it would have been a wish formed "in the back of his mind". I think that somebody who makes notes and sign them do so with a clearly formulated wish from the front of his mind, if you will, to have them found.

And choosing Andersons book if this was so, is yet another strange thing, to my mind at least.

We have different takes, therefore. No big deal.

The best,
Fisherman

[Trevor Marriott]

Hi Trevor,
I think we are possibly talking about two things that you don't have to agree with both to believe the former is true, namely
1)what this article demonstrates which is that the marginalia is in Swanson's hand
and 2) that Aaron Kosminski was JtR.

This article dealt with point one. As far as I can tell it didn't attempt to deal with point two.

I will say whilst I am not a raving Kosminskite, I did enjoy Rob House's talk in York and found it incredibly compelling. I also bought Rob's book at York - which I'd been meaning to do for ages - and I have to confess its one of the few - if not the only - suspect based JtR book i've read all the way through in one sitting AND without wanting to throw it at the wall. But leaving this aside.

In relation to if Kosminski was Jtr - we arent at a stage where we can prove this to my satisfaction (NB we may never be at this stage with any suspect!!), but we certainly have evidence he was thought of as a potential suspect at the time by McNaughten and by Swanson (and most likely by Anderson although he himself doesnt say this outright, scared of libel maybe as Aaron was still about potentially).

Swanson says himself in the marginalia that the suspect - ie Kosminski - was identified by a witness but that this witness would not testify to this for some reason - ergo there was not evidence to prosecute the said person. He wasn't put in an aslyum as JtR because this would be without due process of law - ie a trial, and we know he was put in their by his family after attacking his sister, not by the police.

If we are assuming Aaron Kosminski was the Kosminski who Swanson meant (which seems to be likely as there is not a better candidate for Kosminski called Kosminski at present) then clearly some of the information somewhere does not make 100 per cent sense. There could be several reasons for this
1) - what i think you are suggesting - it was a out and out lie/made up by Swanson/Anderson/MM.
2) - it was the suspect but some of the other information is confused or garbled, due to poor recollection after the fact - in this sense whilst he was Anderson's prime suspect - according to what Swanson thought from what ANderson was saying - he was not necessarily Swanson's, DSS is merely stating what Anderson isnt saying about Anderson's own suspect. (although this doesnt exclude the idea he agrees)
3) the truth does not make sense because we do not have access to everything.

I sit in the second category - and you presumably i the first.
There may be other categories i havent thought of.

Incidentally, yes people do mention it because it is true - the suspect files no longer exist in the public domain at least. There surely would have been some and we cant say what they would have contained or where they had gone. I think it would be safe to assume there were ones for the many suspects we know about from the time, Kosminski, Pizer, Tumbelty for example. Surely to suggest there was no suspect files - as it were - suggests the police had no suspects - or suspect relating lines of inquiry. Surely they did in fact have these? Potentially in vast numbers including from crank information

Jenni

Hi Jenni
First I would like to say it was a pleasure meeting you and Neal at York.

I will reply to some of your commnets and observations.

Firstly the marginlia does not prove Aaron Kosminski was JTR

Secondly with regards to the name Kosminski for Aaron Kosminski to be the Kosmimski touted about by MM and Swanson that would mean that what they both wrote was wrong because the antecednets of Aaron Kosminski simply do not fit with what they both wrote. thats has been established so why are some continuing to prop him up.

If they were referring to Aaron Kosminki then none of what any of them wrote therfater can be relied upon as being accurate

This is where the goalposts get moved by those reseacrhers who continue to play the failing memory card etc, and in the same breath they choose to ignore what is written in the Aberconway Version whereby MM in my opinion eliminates the suspect named Kosminski from any further suspicion.

Those who favour Kosminski can doctor it up which ever way they want it doesnt detract from the fact that if you exonarate a suspect you remove them from suspicion. Clearly sometime after 1894 MM did just that with Kosminski

The Seaside home fiasco as I stated could not have taken place before 1891. Three years before MM wrote the MM. You must also not forget that MM was Chief Constable (CID) in 1891 and would have been in charge of Swanson. In his role as Swansons superior he would have had to authorise the procedure and would certainly have known of the outcome and then been in a wonderful position to make some mention of such an important and significant development in this case in 1894.

If there ever was a file on Kosminski (Aaron or otherwise) MM would have known about it and had access to it and therfore would have mentioned the contents in the MM. So whether or not such file existed and whether or not it went missing is academic if it had been there in 1894 MM would have been able to refer to it in its entirety and would have mentioned the positive identification.

As far as ID parades were concerned and the reporting of it would appear that there were two conducted in an attempt to identify the Ripper, These being in relation to Sadler and Grainger, Now both of these proved futile yet both were reported albeit in a minor way, yet another one is alleged to have taken place whereby according to Swanson and Anderson JTR was identified and yet nothing appears anywhere in any newspaper article, police report, or from the mouth of anyone who was involved directly or indirectltly.

Now if all of the above mentioned facts do not set the alarm bells ringing then there must be a lot of people who are in desparate need of hearing tests.

As far as the marginalia is concerned all I will say at this time is what I have said before that The marginlia does not stand up to close scrutiny.

[Monty]

Why would Swanson lie or mislead Trevor?

And do you still stand by your accusation the final Kosminski line was added later?

Monty

[PaulB]

Trevor,
The marginalia does stand up to close scrutiny. It was written by Donald Sutherland Swanson, just like you have been told.

You are claiming nothing different from what has been stated over and over again since 1987 - for 25 years - and that is that the story Swanson (and Anderson) tell doesn't fit the context of other information and is difficult to accept. We all know that. Rob House knows it. I know it. Everyone knows it. It isn’t rocket science.

[Trevor Marriott]

Trevor,
The marginalia does stand up to close scrutiny. It was written by Donald Sutherland Swanson, just like you have been told.

You are claiming nothing different from what has been stated over and over again since 1987 - for 25 years - and that is that the story Swanson (and Anderson) tell doesn't fit the context of other information and is difficult to accept. We all know that. Rob House knows it. I know it. Everyone knows it. It isn’t rocket science.

Well its time for people to stop suggesting it as being fact, remove his name from the list. In fact I have a better idea why not simply tear up the full list and lets all start again.


A good detective never belives what he is told he has to be able to prove or disprove it !

[Chris]

I think the one thing that really needs to be cleared up now is Trevor Marriott's claim earlier this year that a "leading handwriting expert" had stated that in their opinion the marginalia were not written by Swanson, and that these findings were "conclusive".

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=14187&page=6

In the light of the evidence presented in the article by Adam and Keith I find those statements extremely difficult to believe.

[lynn cates]

final word

Hello Paul.

"and that is that the story Swanson (and Anderson) tell doesn't fit the context of other information and is difficult to accept."

Precisely. And absent new information, your cogent dictum might well serve as the final word. At least, I'm content to let it do so.

Cheers.
LC

[Trevor Marriott]

I think the one thing that really needs to be cleared up now is Trevor Marriott's claim earlier this year that a "leading handwriting expert" had stated that in their opinion the marginalia were not written by Swanson, and that these findings were "conclusive".

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=14187&page=6

In the light of the evidence presented in the article by Adam and Keith I find those statements extremely difficult to believe.

I have read the article by Adam which I have to say was an excellent article well written, informative and well presented.

With regards to the contents and in particular the part relating to the re examanination I have not finished digesting all the content. As and when I am rest assured there will be a further release from me.

In defence of what has been said and stated before that from my experience in the criminal justice system it is not unusual for two experts in the same field of expertise to disagree with each others findings.

[jason_c]

Underlining on page 137 regarding the house-to-house search and Anderson's conclusion that the killer and his people were Polish Jews.

This underlining struck me as interesting. I had read that Swanson underlined certain passages, but viewing first hand it does stand out somewhat. As someone who does this myself this passage seems to have been of particular significance to Swanson. No-one underlines passages in a book that are not of importance to the person underlining them.

[Phil Carter]

This underlining struck me as interesting. I had read that Swanson underlined certain passages, but viewing first hand it does stand out somewhat. As someone who does this myself this passage seems to have been of particular significance to Swanson. No-one underlines passages in a book that are not of importance to the person underlining them.

Hello Jason,

Yes, I agree. I have done this as well in the past.
The trouble is that people underline things for different reasons. The main agreeable point is to emphasise. But without a clarification in terms of annotation or footnote, for example, we do not know exactly why DSS underlined this text in emphasis. For example...

He could be agreeing with the written word in front of him.
He could be agreeing and making notes elsewhere for his own use.
He could be noting with the intention of using the agreeable passage later.
He could be disagreeing with the written word in front of him.
He could be disagreeing and making notes for his own use.
He could be noting with the intention of using the disagreeable passage later.
He could be noting with the intent of picking up the phone and talking with someone about it, possibly Anderson himself.

There are a myriad of possibilities, and I believe it really is pointless to try and speculate on what DSS was actually thinking when he underlined the text all those years ago.

best wishes

Phil

[Phil Carter]

Hello all,

"Such was every case of murder where the murderer was not charged because evidence was not obtainable"

It is also noted that underneath this text, and the "Macnagthen" annotation, both kindly provided by Adam Wood previously, that Swanson does not "sign" the annotations with "DSS" on these occasions.

A question I have for Adam, therefore, is throughout this book, how many annotations/additions/emphasised underlinings are there, and how many are undersigned?

best wishes

Phil

[PaulB]

Well its time for people to stop suggesting it as being fact, remove his name from the list. In fact I have a better idea why not simply tear up the full list and lets all start again.


A good detective never belives what he is told he has to be able to prove or disprove it !

You don't get it do you. The marginalia is genuine and unless you are suggesting that Swanson was lying or wishfully thinking or confused or mistaken, or anything else that's been suggested a dozen times, the fact remains that there was a suspect identified by Swanson as "Kosminski", so the name is on the list. So tear it up, start again. I don't care. His name will have to be on any list produced.

And what a good detective believes or disbelieves is neither here nor there. This is history.