Evidence to prove a suspect valid

[Jonathan H]

"The San Francisco Chronicle"

February 14, 1891.


A Clew to London's Brutal Murderer

Extra Efforts Being Put Forth to Capture the Ripper---His Latest Guise.

Special Dispatch to the Chronicle.

London, February 13.-- The latest victim of "Jack the Ripper" has been identified as "Carroty Nell." It was about 2 o'clock Friday morning, as Patrolman Thompson was passing under an archway of the Blackwall Railway leading from Chambers into Royal Mint Street, that he stumbled over the body of a woman.
She was lying in a pool of blood, which was oozing from a gash in her throat. As he stooped to listen to the sound as of heavy breathing coming from the prostrate form he suddenly heard receding footsteps.
In an instant he had darted forward, expecting to grasp the assassin, but nobody was to be seen. He raised the alarm, and when assistance came every nook and doorway was searched without result.
When the police surgeon, Dr. Phillips, arrived the woman was found stiff in death, she having breathed her last while the search for the murderer was being made.
The police declare, of course, that none but "Jack the Ripper" was guilty, and that the arrival of the constable prevented the usual mutilation which he has hitherto indulged in.
The spot where the body was found is a favorite resort for women at night, two having been arrested there for loitering early Thursday evening.
Inspector Swanson says that any ruffian might have cut the unfortunate woman's throat in the way that this was done, but when a second soft felt hat rolled from under the victim's arm, in addition to the one she wore, he felt that this must have been done by the "Ripper." The theory has long been that he paraded in woman's attire, and Swanson thinks he dropped the hat while struggling with his victim.
Commissioner Sir Edward Bradford professes to be confident that he will unearth the murderer of "Carroty Nell," and the public hopes he will.
The location of the tragedy is near the city boundry in the vicinity of the docks, and viler in some respects than the scenes of the "Ripper's" former crimes. For this reason had not the officer actually stumbled over the body the "Ripper" might have returned to his horrible task after the policeman had passed, and the officer's statement indicates that the murderer was waiting in the darkness with this object when frightened into [retreat?] by the officer's detection of the body.
Constable Thompson is the most unhappy man in London to-night, as he fels that he had the most noted criminal of the age almost in his grasp.
The inquest will be held tomorrow (Saturday). Meanwhile, the police are scouring the city for suspicious characters, and Sir Edward has spent all day in his office directing the operations."

[Jonathan H]

Not according to an 1891 U.S. newspaper source in which it is claimed that Swanson [initially] thought the second woman's hat found at the Frances Coles murder scene proved his theory that the fiend disguised himself as a woman.

The PMG article is a primary source about Swanson claiming publicly what he will later assert prvately--the likeliest suspect was deceased.

[Wickerman]

The PMG article is a primary source for what police believed, or may have believed, or what just Swanson believed in 1895--

Without knowing that the expressed opinion did come from the police, or Swanson himself, that's a leap of faith.

By 1895 at least two 'speculated' suspects were dead.

The article should not be viewed with suspicion but as potentially revelatory, as it matches exactly what the same alleged source within a source--Swanson--will write entirely to himself around fifteen years later.

If not, that is quite a coincidence.

We have our fair share of coincidences already in this case, lets not assume the word was placed in the dictionary without good reason.

Swanson talking to the press is out of character for the otherwise reserved Chief Inspector who throughout the Whitechapel murder investigation is never once found to have provided anything to the press.
Even in retirement was apparently not tempted to write his own memoirs revealing case related material nor his private suspicions.

[Wickerman]

G'Day Jon



I'd suggest that that applies to most of what we have available to us today.

Yes, most of what we know about the case comes from press articles.

Given the police did not share their case files with the press, and we know this from both sides, from the police and the protestations of the press, then how much faith do we put in case related speculations which appear in newspapers?

Not a lot.

[Jonathan H]

The PMG article is a primary source for what police believed, or may have believed, or what just Swanson believed in 1895--the time when the safely caged suspect first enters the extant record via Anderson and Griffiths.

The article should not be viewed with suspicion but as potentially revelatory, as it matches exactly what the same alleged source within a source--Swanson--will write entirely to himself around fifteen years later.

If not, that is quite a coincidence.

[GUT]

G'Day Jon

it is a second-hand opinion, therefore hearsay.

I'd suggest that that applies to most of what we have available to us today.

[Wickerman]

The PMG is not a primary source, it is a second-hand opinion, therefore hearsay.

The PMG article raises the question of who informed the PMG reporter of Swanson's opinion, and was it true?
In 1895 Swanson was still Chief Inspector with no cause to talk to the press about an unsolved series of murders.

The article should be viewed with suspicion.

[Jonathan H]

What we see is a through-line between two different primary sources.

A suspect who was dead, and then a suspect who was dead and named.

[Wickerman]

Jonathan.

Swanson identified Anderson's suspect as Kosminski.

[Jonathan H]

Arguably not.

That Swanson was likely to have said this to a reporter of the 'Pall Mall Gazatte' is strengthened by what he wrote to himself in 1910, or thereabouts, in a copy of his beloved ex-chief's memoirs.

He names the likely Ripper, "Kosminski", and also that he died "shortly aferwards" (eg. shortly after being incarcerated in a mental institution).

In 1895, for the first time in the extant record, Dr. Anderson began to speak (in his case to Major Griffiths under his alias Alfred Aylmer) of a major suspect who was safely caged after being on the prowl for the weeks of the murders (the police chief does not say the man was deceased, but his son in his later biog. of his parents decribes the Polish suspect as being incarcerated and then dying.)

[Wickerman]

Except to say that the murders were the work of a man who was then dead (PMG 7 May 1895).

If I'm not mistaken that report claimed "Mr Swanson believed....".

No direct quote offered, ...so, worse than hearsay, don't you think?

[GUT]

G'Day Tom

I would need some serious convincing before I could accept that there is a person alive today, 125 years after the event and given all the material no longer in existence, that knows more than any senior officer alive at the time of the crime.

[Tom_Wescott]

But we also have to seriously consider these suspects as the police clearly knew more than we do 125 years later. We can't just cast them aside.

If you mean police as collectively, then yes, they knew far more than we do. But when we consider the policemen individually it can be a very different matter. And that's something that shouldn't be forgotten.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Scott Nelson]

Swanson never voiced an opinion on the identity of the murderer.

Except to say that the murders were the work of a man who was then dead (PMG 7 May 1895).

[TomTomKent]

The police opinions (Anderson, Macnaghten, Littlechild, Abberline, etc.), are all private opinions, not official police opinion.
No surviving paperwork indicates the police collectively held one single opinion towards any suspect.

And, even though Swanson named Kosminski, his careful choice of words can easily indicate that he was not offering his own opinion, but merely clarifying Anderson's opinion.
Swanson never voiced an opinion on the identity of the murderer.

Again, I agree, but this just indicates further that no single suspect can be accepted or discounted as favourable. That Swansons words are open to subjective interpretation pretty much reinforces my point.