New Article on the Swanson Marginalia in Ripperologist 128

[Jenni Shelden]

Indeed - if he were merely explaining what Anderson meant you would expect some indication that he disagreed and as to why. He was writing this as it appears for himself, just like we might annotate a book in our possession - for his own reference?

Jenni

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Chris, you're absolutely right. The fact that he does offer a supportive statement for Kozminski suggests at the very least he had not written off Kozminski as the Ripper, but considering the annotations overall, one is not left with the impression that he felt convinced of his guilt. If this is so, then DSS would not have believed the case solved. Maybe something more along these lines will come out with Neville Swanson searching the family archives.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[jason_c]

Absolutely. And in fact he adds an argument in favour of Kosminski's guilt - "after this identification which suspect knew, no other murder of this kind took place in London". It's not much of an argument, but why would he add it at all if he was convinced that a different suspect was the Ripper? And why bother giving all the additional information about Kosminski anyway, if he favoured a different suspect?

I believe as time went on without another murder this fact became more and more important to those convinced of the suspects guilt. Lets assume for arguments sake that the suspect is tentatively identified by his fellow Jew the day after Kelly's murder. All parties then leave the ID room with a fairly satisfactory but still less than perfect outcome. The fact that no murders occur during the next month is interesting to those who witnessed the ID, but not especially important. When does the lack of a 6th murder become important to Anderson and Swanson? Six months, one year, two years?

I can see a scenario where tentative evidence against Kosminski becomes overwhelming in the minds of both men as time went on without another murder.

[robhouse]

Firstly there is not a scrap of evidence to connect AAron Kosminski to any of these murders. Forget about all this business about living in the area close to the murder scenes etc, thats used to paper over the cracks. There is not a scrap of evidence to show the killer lived or worked in Whitechapel.

Anyone taking that view has a 50/50 chance of being right.

Whoever the killer of killers were he or they were certainly not lunatics or persons like Aaron who in his final days of freedom was described as being dirty and eating out of the gutter.

I have recently studied 67 serial killer cases and have not come across anyone who you could say is on a par with Aaron Kosminski in his ways, habits and style of living etc.

Aaron Kosminski was originally foundby Martin Fido and eliminated soon after by Martin as his antecedents did not match those of the Kosmniski mentioned in the MM.

Furthermore Frances Coles murder was Feb 1891 after Aaron was incarcerated.

The infamous ID procedure mentioned in the marginalia could not have taken place before that date and up until then and therefater the police were still hunting the ripper.

As I said earlier if you and others continue to champion Aaon Kosminski then you have to be prepared to accept that MM was wrong or deliberatly lied and that the Kosminski named in the marginalia is not Aaron Kosminski. Either way he put the record right in the AV by in effect exonarating the person named Kosminski.

Now you tell me why Aaron Kosminski should still remain a suspect and in doing do give me your interpretation of the word "suspect" and how a person becomes a suspect. Let me help you to consider your answers.

Consider this Officer A meets Officer B

Officer A says to Officer B " I think C is JTR"

Does that make him a suspect the answer is no.

Its hearsay sadly there is no much hearsay

That's what I thought. Nothing.

But I thought you had found some new evidence that proved Kozminski was not the Ripper. What ever happened to that I wonder.

RH

[Jonathan H]

To Jason C

The problem is trying to come up with a theory to explain these incomplete and very contradictory primary sources.

A theory with no major loose ends.


- A positive witness identification which nobody has heard of at Scotland Yard apart from two senior officers (arguably perhaps only one)?

- Not only is the suspect rejected by another senior police officer, Macnaghten, but he knows more about the same suspect which is accurate than the two who advocate him as Jack? How could Mac correctly believe he was alive and they both think he was dead?

- Sir Robert was a pious, competent and incorruptible administrator (if reactionary and egocentric) with Hebrew friends, and Swanson was a diligent, distinguished and successful policeman. The latter admired the former. Yet both much later claim it was all solved, and solved early, while contemporaneous sources suggest the exact opposite?


There were further 'Jack' murders after Kelly, at least some police, including Swanson and Anderson and Reid, thought there were at the time (Reid always).

For example, Mylett, the Pinchin St Torso, McKenzie, and most significanly Frances Coles. The actual actions of the police argue in favour of them believing that they might have found the culprit in Tom Sadler.

An odd thing for any of them to think, or for Swanson to think, if they/he knew that the real Ripper was already 'safely caged'?

In 1892, Sir Robert gives an intervie which can be interpreted to mean that he was excusing himself for not having indentified the murderer. There is an earlier interview from about 1889 where he is even more explicit with a guest about not finding Jack. Yet his memoir wll backdate the identification, by implication, to late 1888 or early 1889 (exactly, of course, where his confidential assistant had 'mistakenly' placed the incarceration of 'Kosminski'.)

In 1895, with the suspect Grant, you arguably have the same lack of certainty. That is if it is true that a Whitechapel witness, as with Sadler almost certainly Lawende, was confronted with a suspect -- to whom he apparently said yes.

From that year only does the notion of the locked-up lunatic begin from Anderson in the extant record. Swanson seems to confirm this, in the same year, with describing a prime suspect who is deceased.

This is not true of Aaron Kosminski, a point rarely debated as to why Swanson was so misinformed, along with Anderson and yet, again, Macnaghten was not.

Furthermore, Anderson's description of the suspect, appearing in dribs and drabs from 1895 to 1910 -- where for the first time the 'evidence' is provided of a treacherous witness -- does not match Aaron Kosminski nearly enough. As in the latter was local, did masturbate, and was permanently sectioned but he not at large for mere weeks. Nor is the misleading impression given in the memoirs that the Ripper was put into care -- and then presumably deceased soon after -- before July 1889 a fit for Aaron Kosminski.

The timeline not maching was one of the reasons Fido rejected Aaron and stuck with Cohen; partly because he is off the scene in late 1888 and deceased the following year. Fido's right -- that is a better match for the Polish Jewish suspect as broadly described by Anderson, but it does not match police-Ripper agitation over subsequent murders, particularly Coles.

In the magazine version Sir Robert has the identification taking place after the suspect has been caged. That would place the identification perhaps in early 1891, when not-so-coincidentally there was a failed identification of a Ripper suspect, Sadler, by a Jewsh witness.

A police chief weho in 1908 can confuse the relevant minister from the correct government, and the correct year -- a politician whom he worked with and was putting him under pressure who was a fellow Tory becomes a Liberal -- is certainly capable of mixing up witnesses, and suspects, and years, that these events happened re: Jack the Ripper. Sincerenly, self-servingly but wrongly.

I think that in 1910 Swanson clarified this discrepancy with his former boss; how coukld there have been a pisitive witnes identification about which he was ignorant? The latter strained to recall and came up with the 'Seaside Home' eg. the suspect was sent outside of London and it involved the City Police. For that to work Anderson would have to say he was there, hence the emphatic yet vividly described melodrama of the fiend confessing with his incriminating pantomime.

Anderson may well have been there when Lawende confronted Sadler.

[PaulB]

Has it I wouldnt be so smug if I were you

I am not in the least bit smug, Trevor, but even you must recognise that your innuendo and promises of future revelations has now passed. If you have evidence to lay on the table, it is time for you to lay it. It's as simple as that.

[PaulB]

Hi Mike,

No, it's not important for that particular list. I'm just trying to ascertain if everyone (except Trevor, of course) agrees that a) Aaron Kosminski was a bonafide suspect, b) that Anderson, Swanson, and Macnaghten were talking about the same man, and c) Aaron Kozminski, as identified by later researchers, was one and the same as 'Kosminski'.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Tom
(a) A man named "Kosminski" was a bonafide suspect, (b) yes, A,S, and M were talking about the same man, and (c) can't be said with absolute certainty, but he fits the criteria and is the only Kosminski so far found in any asylum records.

[Trevor Marriott]

I am not in the least bit smug, Trevor, but even you must recognise that your innuendo and promises of future revelations has now passed. If you have evidence to lay on the table, it is time for you to lay it. It's as simple as that.

When I am good and ready my friend !

[Chris]

(c) can't be said with absolute certainty, but he fits the criteria and is the only Kosminski so far found in any asylum records.

Obviously one discrepancy between Swanson's description and Aaron is the statement that he died soon after being sent to the asylum. But it's also worth noting that up to 1925 deaths in England and Wales were registered for only two male Ko(s/z)minsk(i/y)s who would have been adults in 1888 - Abram (d. 1893) and Aaron (d. 1919). Abram doesn't appear to fit Swanson's description in any respect.

I think the only way that Swanson could be describing someone other than Aaron would be if the man was recorded by another surname at his admission to Colney Hatch and at his death, and probably also in the workhouse records and in other records that have been searched by Ripperologists for Kozminskis. But in that case it is difficult to understand why the police would have referred to him as Kosminski at all.

[Chris]

When I am good and ready my friend !

As far as your claim about the "leading handwriting expert" goes - that his/her opinion was that the marginalia were not written by Donald Swanson and that these findings were "conclusive" - you announced that publicly nine months ago.

I think that in fairness to the Swanson family you should now either withdraw that claim or else back it up by publishing the full details.

[m_w_r]

When I am good and ready my friend !

Hi Trevor,

What happened to the shattering revelations you promised to make at York? I thought it was 'to the victor the spoils'? It seems rather unfair to trail disclosures sufficient to unseat all previous studies in the field, and then demurely shy away from delivering these. Are we to be on tenterhooks indefinitely?

Regards,

Mark

[Trevor Marriott]

As far as your claim about the "leading handwriting expert" goes - that his/her opinion was that the marginalia were not written by Donald Swanson and that these findings were "conclusive" - you announced that publicly nine months ago.

I think that in fairness to the Swanson family you should now either withdraw that claim or else back it up by publishing the full details.

How about you and the others who swore blind that the two original reports from Dr Totty asnd Dr Davies were conclusive proof of the authenticity of the marginalia, when clearly that was not the case.

If I had not questioned the evidential value of these reports in the first place then the second examination would never have taken place and you all would have been happy to rely on two reports which were both flawed.

[Trevor Marriott]

Hi Trevor,

What happened to the shattering revelations you promised to make at York? I thought it was 'to the victor the spoils'? It seems rather unfair to trail disclosures sufficient to unseat all previous studies in the field, and then demurely shy away from delivering these. Are we to be on tenterhooks indefinitely?

Regards,

Mark

Oh they were startling its just you werent there to savour them !

[AdamNeilWood]

If I had not questioned the evidential value of these reports in the first place then the second examination would never have taken place and you all would have been happy to rely on two reports which were both flawed.

That's not the case, Trevor.

I contacted Dr Davies because new handwriting samples by Donald Swanson had been discovered, not because you weren't happy.

Dr Davies was happy to re-examine the Marginalia because these samples were written in the 1910-1924 bracket, which he referred to in the conclusion of his 2006 report as being better for comparison purposes.

Best wishes
Adam

[m_w_r]

Oh they were startling its just you werent there to savour them !

Oh, right.



Regards,

Mark