Evidence to prove a suspect valid

[pinkmoon]

It makes it possible, and that is fair speculation, but the same could be said of other suspects named by those who were closer to the investigation. I would still suggest that even if a number of people in any organisation are given the same evidence (and multiple options) not all will agree to a consensus. (Often they will, sometimes they wont.) I can't see Policemen being exempt from human failings and traits.

But if we take your above measure into account, we can flip the coin over. Why did Anderson describe a Jewish suspect that Swanson called Kosminski, if Druitt was such a good subject?

There is no doubt a lot of evidence lost, that would have made the named suspects viable avenues of investigation. They got on the list somehow. We have no idea which was supported by what (lost) evidence. So we can either measure up which officer we think was in the best place to know, or we can assume all had their reasons to place one of the suspects as their most likely.

I do believe this is one the situations Terry Pratchett described as: "If two drawves sit at a bar and talk about any subject they will walk away with three points of view".

Hi tomtom,I think the conclusion from this must be that there wasn't any real evidence against Druitt or kosminski I think Druitt is the most tantalising because of this "private information" and also the story of the killer drowning himself in the Thames appeared a few weeks after the Kelly murder.

[TomTomKent]

Hi tomtom,I think the conclusion from this must be that there wasn't any real evidence against Druitt or kosminski <SNIP>.

I disagree. The only conclusion we can make, because any evidence the Police had for any suspect is missing and we have no records indicating what was included is that we do not know what evidence, or how much evidence there was.

We have evidence indicating there was possibly a witness identification of a suspect as well as the evidence that placed the suspect under investigation, but we can not conclude a lack of evidence.

If we do not have information to hand it is far wiser to state we have no grounds to reach a conclusion than to simply conclude the data would be a negative result. At best we can state that none of the available theories overcome a null.

[Errata]

So we can conclude that we can make no conclusions about the existence of evidence pointing to any suspect...

This is why I don't bother with suspects.

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi tomtom,I think the conclusion from this must be that there wasn't any real evidence against Druitt or kosminski I think Druitt is the most tantalising because of this "private information" and also the story of the killer drowning himself in the Thames appeared a few weeks after the Kelly murder.

Although I typically eschew family lore, or at least accept it with a grain of salt, I wonder if there isn't something to Macnaghten's daughter's statement that her father made most of that up. I seriously doubt there was any 'private information' other than loose suspicion and probably no papers were burned.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Wickerman]

But if we take your above measure into account, we can flip the coin over. Why did Anderson describe a Jewish suspect that Swanson called Kosminski, if Druitt was such a good subject?

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.

[GUT]

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.

[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.

[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).

[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

[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.

[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?

[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]

Jonathan.

Swanson identified Anderson's suspect as Kosminski.

[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]

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.