New Article on the Swanson Marginalia in Ripperologist 128

[Phil Carter]

I've had to read a lot about Victorian medicine to understand what in God's name James Maybrick's doctors were pumping him full of in his last few weeks. It's appalling by our standards.

Why would you give heavy weight - I'm not saying no weight - to a Victorian era expert on the insane?

Should we not then also hold said experts responsible for the treatment of the mentally ill in the asylums of the day?

Hello Robert,

Thanks for the reply. Tuke and Howden are not, I maintain, whackos in their field.

I maintain that contemporary expert opinion on the murderer's mind is of import to our understanding.

And what of the SRA observation I made? Any thoughts?

best wishes

Phil

[Jenni Shelden]

Any chance of getting back on topic?

Or is that too much for some?

Monty

Indeed - it was an excellent article. I think much kudos should be being given to the authors for their outstanding research

Jenni

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

Thanks for the reply. Tuke and Howden are not, I maintain, whackos in their field.

No argument here on that. None whatsoever.

I maintain that contemporary expert opinion on the murderer's mind is of import to our understanding.

The issue here is how much weight we should give it. If we were discussing astrophysics we would not denigrate Ptolemy, but he wouldn't factor into our discussion. Maybe someone would open a paper with a quote from him....but he wouldn't be relied on....

1888 was the dawn of the Serial Killer. It is to be expected that Victorian investigators and physicians would make serious mistakes in analysis.

[harry]

PaulB,
To answer your post 566.A person of interest is a well known description.It does not,as you imply,neccessarily mean the subject is a suspect,not in law enforcement terms,that is.Kosminski's name may have come to police attention in one of several ways,and the information given may have been that the informant considered Kosminski a person they (the police)should investigate.Perhaps the informant places Kosminski at or near,a murder site.No matter what,because a name has been supplied,the police decide to act.At this time Kosminski would be a person of interest only.It may be that at a later time,during the police enquiry,evidence surfaces that supports the informant's information,and connects Kosminski in an incriminating way,to one or more murders.Then he would be classed as suspect,and if the evidence be strong enough,accused of a crime.Now police then nor now, do not jump in with two feet accusing anyone simply on the basis of what a member of the public might say,they gather and apply their own evidence,and it is this lack of any evidence gathered,or known,that leads some of us to state there was never any in the ripper murders,that pointed to a suspect named Kosminski.

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

Now police then nor now, do not jump in with two feet accusing anyone simply on the basis of what a member of the public might say,they gather and apply their own evidence,and it is this lack of any evidence gathered,or known,that leads some of us to state there was never any in the ripper murders,that pointed to a suspect named Kosminski.

Lack of any evidence......

So you mean to tell us Anderson and Swanson had no evidence. Not weak evidence, not bad evidence, not mistaken evidence.

No evidence. Never any.

Except you say the police are wise and do not just jump in.

You sound like another beat cop with a prejudiced eye towards his superiors. We've seen a few here. The field would have been better off with more historians, but this is what they have left us. Sources mean nothing.

[PaulB]

PaulB,
To answer your post 566.A person of interest is a well known description.It does not,as you imply,neccessarily mean the subject is a suspect,not in law enforcement terms,that is.Kosminski's name may have come to police attention in one of several ways,and the information given may have been that the informant considered Kosminski a person they (the police)should investigate.Perhaps the informant places Kosminski at or near,a murder site.No matter what,because a name has been supplied,the police decide to act.At this time Kosminski would be a person of interest only.It may be that at a later time,during the police enquiry,evidence surfaces that supports the informant's information,and connects Kosminski in an incriminating way,to one or more murders.Then he would be classed as suspect,and if the evidence be strong enough,accused of a crime.

I'm afraid I am very well aware of what a person of interest is, but thanks for taking the time to explain it. I also know when it came to be used, and why, and how, and also that it has no real official definition in the US or in England, and that it wasn't a term or a distinctionused in Whitechapel in 1888. Or probably in 1998 for that matter. And above and beyond all else, I know that to all intent and purposes it is a euphemism for someone thought to have a connection to a crime or criminal group - and in the down and dirty real world, the word suspect seems to happily cover that. Obviously. Because someone with no real or perceived connection with any crime or criminal group wouldn't be a person if any interest at all. Not to any law enforcement agency anyway. Would he?

Now police then nor now, do not jump in with two feet accusing anyone simply on the basis of what a member of the public might say,they gather and apply their own evidence...

Yes, Harry, Now, hold that thought.

[QUOTE=harry;245921]and it is this lack of any evidence gathered,or known,that leads some of us to state there was never any in the ripper murders,that pointed to a suspect named Kosminski./QUOTE]

Right, so the police do not accuse anyone simply on the basis of what a member of the public might say. That's what you said. So it follows, does it not, that if they did accuse someone then they would have evidence?

So when Macnaghten tells us there were many circs which made Kosminski a good suspect, and when Swanson says it was with great difficulty that Kosminski was sent for identification, and when Anderson says Kosminski was Jack the Ripper, it would follow, would it not, that they said and did those things on the basis of evidence?

Sorry, Harry, but the problem you and others seem to have is that you can't get your heads around the fact that information not existing today doesn't mean it never existed at all. By your own defining words, the "police... gather and apply their own evidence...", so if the police accused anyone they did so after having gathered and applied their own evidence. Yet you deny that evidence was gathered and applied against Kosminski. And why? Because that evidence doesn't exist today. And since the evidence associated with a vast number of criminal investigations doesn't exist today, that is a fundamental flaw in your reasoning.

[PaulB]

Hi Paul
I dont discount their words-I count them! Thats why Kos has to be considered a suspect today.

My point is if we are playing detective TODAY-given all we know now-the case is weak. Kos is a weak suspect. They all are. Kos (and a few others IMHO) are just less weak.

Ah, well the case may be weak on the basis of the information which has survived, but even people playing detective today have to acknowledge that the information which exists today is unlikely to be all the information that existed back then. Even people playing detective today have to listen to the voices from back then, so that when one of them tells us that there were many things which made Kosminski a good suspect then there probably were many things that made him a good suspect even though we don't know what those many things were. And unless people playing detective today have very good reasons for doubting the word of our witnesses to the past, they have no real alternative but to accept what they are told, especially when other witnesses to the past describe actions that were taken and conclusions that were reached. The bottom line is that what exists today is not what existed back then, and unless you have very good reasons for believing that what doesn't exist today didn't exist back then either, the detective today has to accept that all the witnesses and suspects and evidence and everything is just a fragment of what once existed. Anyone playing detective today has a tough job. Most of their evidence, evidence in every form, doesn't exist anymore.

[PaulB]

Hi Paul

[/B] My emphasis.

So Rob is also incorrect when he says? :

Quote:
Originally Posted by PaulB View Post
I know what you mean, but he's not a weak suspect. He can't be. We know next to nothing about why he was suspected, so how on earth can we judge whether he's strong or weak? All we can say is how people back then thought of him.
Hi Paul

Quote:
We know next to nothing about why he was suspected, so how on earth can we judge whether he's strong or weak?
My emphasis.

So Rob is also incorrect when he says? :

Quote:
I also think that today, we as historians must still consider Kozminski as a strong suspect in the Ripper case
__________________

No, he's not wrong. We know that Macnaghten says there were many things which made him a strong suspect and we know that Anderson thought he was Jack the Ripper. And we know that Swanson may have thought he was too. So we know without shadow of doubt that we must consider Kosminski a strong suspect in this case.

What we don't know is whether or not those many things which made him a good suspect actually did make him a good suspect, or, indeed, whether they really were many or lots and lots. We don't know whether Anderson's conclusion was sensibly based or whether he was heavily biased or talking through the back of his neck.

From our vantage point toady, with the paucity of information at our disposal, and with no knowledge of the evidence at all, we can't judge whether Kosminski was a strong or weak suspect. But as historians we can form an opinion of what informed and senior people thought back then.

[Fisherman]

Paul B:

"the problem you and others seem to have is that you can't get your heads around the fact that information not existing today doesn't mean it never existed at all."

I would like to step in here in order to establish that I do not belong to the group of people you mention here, Paul - for I have a feeling that you may think that I do.
Of course we may conclude that there was once evidence against Kosminski, and that this evidence has gone missing since then. It is simple and unavoidable logic.
What does not follow, however, is that this evidence was good quality evidence. I hope you concur on this point - we canīt tell.

We cannot use one manīs enthusiasm as proof of good quality evidence as long as we know that his contemporaries in high positions and commands did not concur. One of them explicitly says that it was an outrage on behalf of Anderson to make his call, another tells us that Anderson only thought he knew, a third opts for another suspect, arguably because he feels the evidence is not strong enough in Kosminskis case and so on.

Thatīs where we are left. We know that something was used as evidence, we know that some liked the quality of that evidence whereas others disliked it. For the life of me, I cannot see how we could have drawn anything but a blank here.

Since so much bad blood is boiling so badly by the suggestion that Kosminski is a weak suspect as it stands, I think I may need to offer a further distinction. The one and only reason he is weak is because of the lack of case evidence, as I have pointed out. I would, on the other hand, say that Kosminski is an extremely interesting suspect. He is also a suspect that could never be dropped by any discerning researcher (and I am now speaking of "Kosminski" only, since there is not yet any definite coupling made to Aaron K) as long as nothing has surfaced to take him off the map. If you can refrain from asking what the difference between promising and strong is, I would also say that he must be regarded as a promising lead. In all of these disciplines, he has little if no competition to face on the surface of things.

Once we delve through that surface, though, other things emerge that must make for a viable reasons to regard other suspects as better ones than Kosminski. I prefer, as you will know, Lechmere. He was alone with Nichols at a time extremely close to her death, he used another name than his real one when speaking to the police, he apparently did not give his address publically, he misinformed Mizen (or so the PC tells us), and he reasonably trod routes that would have taken him right past the murder spots at the approximate times of the murders. Plus there are many other anomalies attaching to him.

That is what I perceive as plentyful and useful evidence. In this respect, he outweighs Kosminski by the weight of a sturdy circus elephant, and to me, that carries great .... exactly: weight!

I would find it very odd if we were to name Kosminski the better suspect of these two on what we have on the men today. It does not add up. If Kosminski is a strong suspect on no evidence at all but the evidence that there once was evidence (phew!), whereas Lechmere, on whom we have so many oddities and anomalies recorded is to be looked at as - how did Phil H put it ... a "tin-pot theory" or something to that effect, then I think we are on very thin ice indeed.

I would also like to posit two quotations from your latest posts aside each other:

"Even people playing detective today have to listen to the voices from back then, so that when one of them tells us that there were many things which made Kosminski a good suspect then there probably were many things that made him a good suspect"

and

"with no knowledge of the evidence at all, we can't judge whether Kosminski was a strong or weak suspect. But as historians we can form an opinion of what informed and senior people thought back then."

... and then I will add one word: Issenschmidt. He was a major suspect, he was put behind bars and as Abberline put it: 'Although we are unable at present to procure any evidence to connect him with the murders, he appears to be the most likely person that has come under our notice to have committed the crimes'.

When the double event went down, Issenschmidt was still imprisoned, but he was let loose of course. The reason for this was that although a lot of evidence had been amassed against him, not a shred of it tied him specifically to any of the former murders. He had been away from home, walked the streets at night, carried knives with him, employed violence (as per the Star, at least) and he had claimed to be Leather Apron.
That made him the most likely suspect, a very strong suspect in the eyes of the police, strong enough for them to put him behind bars and read him his rights.
But in the end, they had nothing at all to tie him to the case. In the end it crept out that as far as true evidence goes, coupling him to the murders as such, was not involved in the accusation act. So he never had the goods it takes to BE a strong suspect, after all. And what was it MacNaghten said? Not a shred of proof could ever be produced against any man in the investigation. And that would include Kosminski too.

So apt comparisons, in combination with knowledge about what the police sought after, the reoccurring statements that the Ripper was a maniac etcetera is enough to tell us that we may perhaps need to be very careful about overinvesting in Kosminski. Extremely interesting, yes. Promising on the surface of things, yes. But strong suspect? No.

All the best,
Fisherman

[harry]

Sir Robert,PaulB
I was never a beat cop.No,as a general rule police do not jump straight in.They are careful in their approach,I'm sure that in 1888 they were careful,a nd still there were senior officers who stated there were no suspects.That there were never anyone accused and put on trial,rather tends to support those officers.So it is not myself with a beef against senior officers,it is a case of me supporting senior officers,being led by their knowledge.And no Paul,it is not always an euphemism for someone having a connection to a crime or criminal group.A person of interest can be anyone the police believe might help in enquiriesIt covers a wide spectrum.Police enquiries quite often clear a person against whom suspicions are directed.The police do not work on the assumption that everything they are told is true,and it appears that many posters,I am one,do not work on the assumption that everything stated by police is true.So while Macnaghten,Swanson and Anderson did state all those things,it is only a belief by some,that what they stated was true,But I could even get my head around that,if those beliefs were bolstered by evidence.
By the way,what was the law in 1888 applying to murder.?

[robhouse]

I prefer, as you will know, Lechmere. He was alone with Nichols at a time extremely close to her death, he used another name than his real one when speaking to the police, he apparently did not give his address publically, he misinformed Mizen (or so the PC tells us), and he reasonably trod routes that would have taken him right past the murder spots at the approximate times of the murders. Plus there are many other anomalies attaching to him.

After all this talk, all this stuff about how there is no evidence against Kozminski... this is your so-called "evidence" against Lechmere? I had not followed those threads, and I admit I was thinking there might have been something.... but this is it? This? Seriously?

Lechmere "did not give his address publically [sic]".. this is damning evidence? But the fact that Kozminski threatened his sister with a knife is not evidence? The fact that Macnaghten says Kozminski had a "great hatred of women, especially prostitutes" is not evidence? The fact that the post-mortem mutilation is a common characteristic of murder committed by schizophrenic killers... this is not evidence? The fact that Kozminski was identified by a witness is not evidence? The fact that Kozminski was plausibly the "Batty street" suspect? The "many circs" ... again, not evidence? Anderson, Swanson... not evidence? That he lived right in the heart of where the crimes took place, less than a 2 minute walk from the site of the Stride murder? That the "getaway route" from Goulston street goes, arguably, in the direction of his home? That his walking route home from the Ripper's hunting grounds goes right down Berner street? That he lived, in 1882, literally next door to one of the murder sites? That he matches many of the general statistic characteristics of serial killers. That his whole life his people, the immigrant Russian Jews, had been "blamed for nothing" (ie scapegoated) both in Russia and London...

I could go on... but I won't.

I am going to crawl back to my hole now, because I am thoroughly bored with all this.

RH

[PaulB]

Paul B:

"We know next to nothing about why he was suspected, so how on earth can we judge whether he's strong or weak?"


Let me see if I grasp this, Paul! We cannot judge if he was strong or weak - so we opt for strong.

Is that about it?

Nope. Not it. Nowhere near it. But I can see where you are misunderstanding me.

We cannot say whether the evidence against Kosminski was good or bad, we cannot assess the probability of his guilt or innocence, we cannot say whether he was in reality a strong suspect (likely to have been the murderer) or a weak suspect (unlikely to have been the murderer).

We can say with some degree of certainty that Kosminski was considered to be a strong suspect back then. We can say that because people from back then and who were in a position to know tell he was. And we can say with reasonable confidence that the people back then had reasons for suspecting him. We can say that because sensible and intelligent and informed people, especially policemen, generally have reasons for suspecting someone.

How we view Kosminski as a suspect on the evidence available to us today doesn't matter diddly. It would matter if we knew what the evidence was and could assess it and assess the probabilities, but we don't know what it was, so we can't assess it. But Kosminski was a serious suspect back then. No doubt about that.

I would say that all suspects of whom we cannot judge if they are strong or weak, remain weak until such evidence surfaces as to provide cause for upgrading them.

I really canīt believe that we are discussing this. It goes without saying in the civilized corners of the world.

The best,
Fisherman

And you'd be right to say that - if you were being asked to make that judgement. But you're not. That judgement has already been made by the people who had all the evidence. They decided that Kosminski was a serious suspect. It's not up to you to say he wasn't. You don't have the evidence to do that even if it was.

[Fisherman]

Rob:

"this is it? "

No, this is part of it. You need to read the threads to get the full picture. I only used these matters to show why I think a lot more evidence can be found on Lechmere than on Kosminski. I could have gone on in eternity otherwise, and people donīt care much for that ...

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Paul B:

"Nope. Not it. Nowhere near it. But I can see where you are misunderstanding me.
We cannot say whether the evidence against Kosminski was good or bad, we cannot assess the probability of his guilt or innocence, we cannot say whether he was in reality a strong suspect (likely to have been the murderer) or a weak suspect (unlikely to have been the murderer).
We can say with some degree of certainty that Kosminski was considered to be a strong suspect back then. We can say that because people from back then and who were in a position to know tell he was. And we can say with reasonable confidence that the people back then had reasons for suspecting him. We can say that because sensible and intelligent and informed people, especially policemen, generally have reasons for suspecting someone.
How we view Kosminski as a suspect on the evidence available to us today doesn't matter diddly. It would matter if we knew what the evidence was and could assess it and assess the probabilities, but we don't know what it was, so we can't assess it. But Kosminski was a serious suspect back then. No doubt about that."

I donīt object about any of this, Paul. It all tallies with what I think myself. The only thing I would add is that you forget to say that just as we have senior officers promoting Kosminski enthusiastically, we have other senior officers dissing him. Otherwise, this is something I agree with. I have not said that he was not a hot lead back then - I am saying that on basis of what we have on him TODAY, we can not state that he is a strong suspect. Period. And you have given all the reasons for this yourself.

"That judgement has already been made by the people who had all the evidence. They decided that Kosminski was a serious suspect. It's not up to you to say he wasn't. "

And - believe it or not - I am not doing that either. I am not saying that he WASNīT. I am saying that he ISNīT. And that is because I cannot condone what Anderson had in retrospect without knowing what it was. And because I know full well that there were very clear disagreements about the value of the assessment made by Anderson.
Plus I would change "serious" for strong, to keep the discussion in line with the former posts. I happen to think Kosminski a serious suspect, but not a strong one. Distinctions, distinctions ...

The best,
Fisherman

[PaulB]

Sir Robert,PaulB
I was never a beat cop.No,as a general rule police do not jump straight in.They are careful in their approach,I'm sure that in 1888 they were careful,a nd still there were senior officers who stated there were no suspects.That there were never anyone accused and put on trial,rather tends to support those officers.So it is not myself with a beef against senior officers,it is a case of me supporting senior officers,being led by their knowledge.And no Paul,it is not always an euphemism for someone having a connection to a crime or criminal group.A person of interest can be anyone the police believe might help in enquiriesIt covers a wide spectrum.Police enquiries quite often clear a person against whom suspicions are directed.The police do not work on the assumption that everything they are told is true,and it appears that many posters,I am one,do not work on the assumption that everything stated by police is true.So while Macnaghten,Swanson and Anderson did state all those things,it is only a belief by some,that what they stated was true,But I could even get my head around that,if those beliefs were bolstered by evidence.
By the way,what was the law in 1888 applying to murder.?

Harry,
I am not going to argue about the meaning of 'person of interest' as it a nasty expression which shouldn't even be applied outside of threats to national security. Secondly, I am perfectly well aware of what the police do and how they do it and I, like you, do not assume that everything the police say is true. In fact, I don't accept that anything historical sources tell us is true, Nor does any historian worthy of the name. The sources are tested, we ask questions of them, we analyse, we check against other sources, we put them into context, and so on and so on. We try to check the reliability of the sources themselves, and understand them in the context of their beliefs and the time in which they lived. That's how history works. And whilst I appreciate that you'd like those beliefs bolstered by evidence - wouldn't we all! - they're not. You have to live with that. Make the best use of what you do have. The whole point is that the marginalia reflects what Swanson believed. He had a reason for believing it. Right or wrong.