Did the Seaside Home ID happen?

[Trevor Marriott]

Two years later MacNaughten is ask to write a memo about Cutbush. He gets out the files picks out three suspects more likely than Cutbush. But the file on Kozminski only contains info unto MArch 1889. But the memo is never used or published.

But the suspect file was not missing then why not mention Tumbelty for example or any of the other known names from 1888? Instead we get 4 names of at best persons of interest from where? If theese names were the best of a bad bunch form the suspect file it doesnt insoire us to contnue invedtigating these murders.

It goes to prove the point that the likes of Tumblety, Ostrog, Kosninski and Dr Who were not regarded as suspects. Their absenece fron suspicion in later years goes to prove that.

But in the memo he states he died shortly after. So that information is wrong. so in 1894 it was known that this man Kosminski died in 1889 how come it wasnt known about the ID parade which must have happened in the ensuing years? if it did happen

[Jonathan H]

The truth is that Macnaghten was intimately involved in the Ripper
investigation the moment he got onto the Force. Unlike Anderson and Swanson, he recalled--as did Reid--the protracted nature of the inquiry; that it took place over years.

As sources attest, Mac was there at the scene of the Coles' crime in 1891, as was Anderson and Swanson. This was considered by Anderson, Swanson and Cox to be the final victim, though failing memoirs merged this young victim with the other young victim from 1888: Mary Jane Kelly.

It is Macnaghten who spent fruitless nights prowling Whitechapel, who identified the hoax journalist in 1890, who investigated Aaron Kosminski at Colney Hatch, who knew Ostrog from Eton, and who made a private investigation of a gent who was deceased: Montague Druitt.

Not only did Macnaghten also know about the mythical failed i.d. -- he created it, and this was projected onto the public consciousness for the first time not by Anderson, but by George Sims in 1907:

'One man only, a policeman, saw him leaving the place in which he had just accomplished a fiendish deed, but failed, owing to the darkness, to get a good view of him. A little later the policeman stumbled over the lifeless body of the victim. ...

The policeman who got a glimpse of Jack in Mitre Court said, when some time afterwards he saw the Pole, that he was the height and build of the man he had seen on the night of the murder.'

[Jeff Leahy]

But the suspect file was not missing then why not mention Tumbelty for example or any of the other known names from 1888? Instead we get 4 names of at best persons of interest from where? If theese names were the best of a bad bunch form the suspect file it doesnt insoire us to contnue invedtigating these murders.

We've no way of knowing why MacNaughten choose those three suspects. Perhaps he went into an archive and simply grabbed the first he came across. But more likely there was some sort of reason.

As I've hinted at we don't know what MacAnughtens private info was or how long before he came by it… But perhaps Macnaughtens Dryuit theory was already formed when he was asked to produce the memo?

Perhaps he picked names he vaguely remembered from conversations and simply asked a lackey to fetch the files..

We just don't know… However there is no link between the Memo and The Marginalia… So kozminski was named separately by two different people which makes him significant.

It goes to prove the point that the likes of Tumblety, Ostrog, Kosninski and Dr Who were not regarded as suspects. Their absenece fron suspicion in later years goes to prove that.

But in the memo he states he died shortly after. So that information is wrong. so in 1894 it was known that this man Kosminski died in 1889 how come it wasnt known about the ID parade which must have happened in the ensuing years? if it did happen

Know it only goes to prove there are gaps in our knowledge…However you appear to be confusing the Memo and the Marginalia here, the memo never says Kozminski is dead…MacNaughten simply doesn't know what happened to Kozminski once placed in an Asylum

(2) Kosminski -- a Polish Jew -- & resident in Whitechapel. This man became insane owing to many years indulgence in solitary vices. He had a great hatred of women, specially of the prostitute class, & had strong homicidal tendencies: he was removed to a lunatic asylum about March 1889. There were many circumstances connected with this man which made him a strong 'suspect'.
Kosminski, a Polish Jew, who lived in (the very) heart of the district where the murders were committed. He had become insane owing to many years indulgence in solitary vices. He had a strong hatred of women, with strong homicidal tendencies, He was (and I believe still is) detained in a lunatic asylum about March 1889. This man in appearance strongly resembled the individualseen by a city PC near Mitre square.

However the Marginalia makes the claim the suspect, died shortly after..

I believe that Swanson believed this for some reason. And that if he was told Kozminski died it probably came from Anderson, who might have been miss informed on the transfer to Leavesdon

Yours Jeff

[Jeff Leahy]

The truth is that Macnaghten was intimately involved in the Ripper
investigation the moment he got onto the Force. Unlike Anderson and Swanson, he recalled--as did Reid--the protracted nature of the inquiry; that it took place over years.

As sources attest, Mac was there at the scene of the Coles' crime in 1891, as was Anderson and Swanson. This was considered by Anderson, Swanson and Cox to be the final victim, though failing memoirs merged this young victim with the other young victim from 1888: Mary Jane Kelly.

It is Macnaghten who spent fruitless nights prowling Whitechapel, who identified the hoax journalist in 1890, who investigated Aaron Kosminski at Colney Hatch, who knew Ostrog from Eton, and who made a private investigation of a gent who was deceased: Montague Druitt.

Not only did Macnaghten also know about the mythical failed i.d. -- he created it, and this was projected onto the public consciousness for the first time not by Anderson, but by George Sims in 1907:

'One man only, a policeman, saw him leaving the place in which he had just accomplished a fiendish deed, but failed, owing to the darkness, to get a good view of him. A little later the policeman stumbled over the lifeless body of the victim. ...

The policeman who got a glimpse of Jack in Mitre Court said, when some time afterwards he saw the Pole, that he was the height and build of the man he had seen on the night of the murder.'

As I said there is no hard evidence MacNaughten was involved in the investigation…if he walked the streets of Whitechapel as you claim he did it in his own time

Yours Jeff

PS its interesting that the last sentence confirms what I've been saying, that Harvey may well have seen someone leaving the square hence the City PC comment in the Memo.

[PaulB]

The missing suspects file was seen in 1973 by Paul Bonner of the BBC.

There were over 100 names within it.

No Kosminski. No Druitt. No Ostrog.

It went awol shortly thereafter.

Nowhere. Absolutely nowhere..is the name Kosminski written down or known to have been written down on any official police paper. It wasn't in the OFFICIAL and now missing SUSPECTS file. Neither was Druitt. Over 100 names....

Facts. Known facts. Let us not run away from or avoid them.
NOT IN THE MISSING SUSPECTS FILE. The known one.
Not hard is it.


Phil


ps. I am of the opinion that whoever purloined the file knew full well the implications of an official file being known if Kosminski and Druitt and PAV and all known proposed suspects up until that point in time are not mentioned in it. Because there is..in fact. .very little point in keeping that little keepsake without those names. It would rather change a direction. The direction of suspicion. After all. This was an OFFICIAL suspects file..not a hand written private opinion.

Paul Bonner wrote that "These are reports that seem to have been called for by Scotland Yard in January 1889..."

"...one only supposes that mention of these may have been among those 22 items in A4930 listed as destroyed... or missing, or possibly in the two items referred to as passed to Mr Anderson."

If Bonner is correct then the files related to suspects up to and including January 1889 and would not have included Druitt and Kosminski. Bonner also refers to a total of 24 items, missing or passed to Anderson. And that assumes the so-called suspects file would have included serious suspects, whch from the evidence of those which it did include (men suggested by foreign, provinsional forces, for example) probably wouldn't have been the case.

[Monty]

Me too, Monty. But the City detectives didn't see it that way and I can fully understand why.

If memory serves, some of the City detectives had spent some time in Paris, studying their French counterparts, who were, by that time, heavily using photography for evidence gathering. I think an influence may have come in to it.

However, yeah, I also agree the City boys didn't see it that way, nor should they have. They did have an investigation to conduct.

Monty

[Phil Carter]

Yeah right a kozminskite conspiracy..

Except the files almost certainly disappeared before the name Aaron Koznminski was in the public domain, and most of us Kozminskites hadn't been born… Owell another theory debunked..

Oh and as for missing files just to use the words 'Historical context' again

Many many documents and photos have disappeared over the years… The kelly photos were missing for some time…The Bond report? oh and the original Abberconway version is missing..

And of course stuff has been returned, so there is still hope it will turn up..

Calm logic dictates that MacNaughten worked from the files to produce his Memo

Yours Jeff

"Except the files almost certainly disappeared before..." the file I am on about Jeff is the missing suspects file. .that was seen by Paul Bonner in 1973, and by both Stephen Knight and Donald Rumbelow pre their books in 1975 and 1976. Kosminski. .The name..and Druitt..The name ..we're very much in the public eye at that time Jeff. Fact.

"Calm logic dictates that Macnaughten worked from the files to produce his Memo"

In which case he worked from the suspects file..In which there is no mention of Kosminski, Druitt and Ostrog. As witnessed by the above three men who saw the suspects file ..now missing.

You cannot surely be suggesting that Macnaughten worked from a 2nd..unknown..unheard of suspects file? Especially when the missing suspects file that we DO know exists..has over 100 names in it? You'll be telling us next that the three Macnaughten mentioned were in a secret suspects file!

"Oh..and the original Aberconway version is missing"

Really Jeff? Have a word with Adam Wood old chap. Did a rather nice article in Rip mag USING the ORIGINAL ABERCONWAY VERSION. Gone missing has it? That's news to us all. Better tell the owner Jeff.


Phil

[Paddy]

The Cutbush affair springs to mind ?

Hi Trevor
yes I think Cutbush started this flurry of news reports but where did they get the incident of attacking his sister with a knife and being taken back to his brothers house. As far as I can see Thomas Cutbush didn't have a brother and there was a sister that seemed to have died young.
I wonder where they got this confused information from? Or did this story come after Macnagtons response?

I checked out Albert street in Newington also on old maps and could see no back entrance (but in fairness thats not to say there wasn't one)

Pat........

[Phil Carter]

Paul Bonner wrote that "These are reports that seem to have been called for by Scotland Yard in January 1889..."

"...one only supposes that mention of these may have been among those 22 items in A4930 listed as destroyed... or missing, or possibly in the two items referred to as passed to Mr Anderson."

If Bonner is correct then the files related to suspects up to and including January 1889 and would not have included Druitt and Kosminski. Bonner also refers to a total of 24 items, missing or passed to Anderson. And that assumes the so-called suspects file would have included serious suspects, whch from the evidence of those which it did include (men suggested by foreign, provinsional forces, for example) probably wouldn't have been the case.

So by 1894 when the memorandum was written..just exactly where...apart from in a suspects file..would you expect Macnaghten to FIND Kosmindki the suspect..Druitt the suspect. ..Ostrog the suspect..If not in the suspects file?

By the time he saw it..ALL the suspects would have been in it. Tumblety included. Yet in 1973..not a sign of one of them.

Square pegs to fit round holes.


Phil

[mklhawley]

So by 1894 when the memorandum was written..just exactly where...apart from in a suspects file..would you expect Macnaghten to FIND Kosmindki the suspect..Druitt the suspect. ..Ostrog the suspect..If not in the suspects file?

By the time he saw it..ALL the suspects would have been in it. Tumblety included. Yet in 1973..not a sign of one of them.

Square pegs to fit round holes.


Phil

You're using the 'Absence of evidence is evidence for absence' fallacy, Phil. The scientific process rejects this for a reason. It creates an illusion.

Mike

[PaulB]

So by 1894 when the memorandum was written..just exactly where...apart from in a suspects file..would you expect Macnaghten to FIND Kosmindki the suspect..Druitt the suspect. ..Ostrog the suspect..If not in the suspects file?

Gosh, Phil, where would I expect to find them? Well, let me take a stab at that. I think I'd expect to find them in a suspect's file. Just not in a file that only included suspects up to and including January 1889, as Paul Bonner suggests was the case with the file he saw. The clue seems to be in what Paul Bonner wrote: "These are reports that seem to have been called for by Scotland Yard in January 1889..."

By the time he saw it..ALL the suspects would have been in it. Tumblety included

Where is the record that says that, Phil? You may be right. Stranger things are known to have happened I guess, but it looks to me like Paul Bonner was saying that the suspects file he saw, that's the suspects file with 100 names in it that you are talking about, didn't include the names of anyone suspected after January 1889.

Yet in 1973..not a sign of one of them.

I know.Not really surprising if the file didn't mention anyone suspected after January 1889 is it? Or if, as Paul Bonner suggested, they were one of the 24 items, missing or with Anderson. Or if as I suggested the file Paul Bonner saw only concerned suspects suggested by the provincial or foreign forces.

Square pegs to fit round holes.

I agree. Don't you think you ought to stop trying to hammer them in?

[PaulB]

You're using the 'Absence of evidence is evidence for absence' fallacy, Phil. The scientific process rejects this for a reason. It creates an illusion.

Mike

I don't think this is understood, Mike. It's been explained sooooo many times.

[John G]

But did investigators believe that they had laid hands on the killer, John? Since we are unaware of how or why Kosminski came to the attention of the police we have no way of knowing if initially he was even regarded as a likely suspect. Remember that the vast majority of those who came into police custody did so as a consequence of the suspicions of a member of the public. Such men included those who carried black bags or exhibited a shifty gaze. It may be the case that Kosminski fell into one of these categories. He certainly doesn’t appear to have been under arrest at the time of the Seaside Home identification, and despite the purportedly positive identification was allowed to return to his brother’s house immediately afterwards.

This is the context I keep banging on about.

Thus, given that Kosminski appears not to have been under arrest, he had certain legal rights which may have been invoked by his family. I’m inclined to the view, therefore, that the family agreed to the identificational procedure so long as it took place away from the gaze of the London press. As a consequence a venue in Brighton was agreed upon by both parties.


Criminals were frequently convicted during the Victorian era on eyewitness identifications and ‘bad character’ alone, John.


According to Swanson the evidence was the identification. Once the eyewitness refused to give evidence against a fellow Jew the case against Kosminski collapsed.


Mental competence had no bearing on the issue, John. Any possible chance of a conviction rested upon the identification. When the eyewitness withdrew his co-operation investigators had nothing against Kosminski beyond Anderson’s moral certitude.

Hello Garry,

Actually that makes a lot of sense. However, why go to so much trouble when the evidence against the suspect seemed so flimsy, at least before the identification, I.e. largely based on family suspicions and the fact that the suspect lived in the area? In fact, if I understand your argument correctly, there wasn't even enough evidence to secure an arrest.

[Jeff Leahy]

"Except the files almost certainly disappeared before..." the file I am on about Jeff is the missing suspects file. .that was seen by Paul Bonner in 1973, and by both Stephen Knight and Donald Rumbelow pre their books in 1975 and 1976. Kosminski. .The name..and Druitt..The name ..we're very much in the public eye at that time Jeff. Fact.

Martin Fido didn't discover Aaron Kozminski until about 1987 as his book was going to press… In 1976 Anderson suspect was still thought to be Pizer…get real.

"Oh..and the original Aberconway version is missing"

Really Jeff? Have a word with Adam Wood old chap. Did a rather nice article in Rip mag USING the ORIGINAL ABERCONWAY VERSION. Gone missing has it? That's news to us all. Better tell the owner Jeff.

Phil

To my knowledge the Abberconway version is a copy of the original written by MacNaughten which disappeared with some brother or other to India.

But as usual you clog around in detail missing the fundamental point that lots of documents are lost or destroyed. Some of which were lost and found (Returned) some may still surface, but we know that there are things we know and don't know.

Yours Jeff

[pinkmoon]

So by 1894 when the memorandum was written..just exactly where...apart from in a suspects file..would you expect Macnaghten to FIND Kosmindki the suspect..Druitt the suspect. ..Ostrog the suspect..If not in the suspects file?

By the time he saw it..ALL the suspects would have been in it. Tumblety included. Yet in 1973..not a sign of one of them.

Square pegs to fit round holes.


Phil

How do we know Mr Bonner actually saw the suspect file is they anybody else who could confirm this story.