Did the Seaside Home ID happen?

[PaulB]

Precisely

Succinctly put.

[pinkmoon]

Stand back take a deep breath and think London is a big place now there would have been hundreds of places to arrange a meeting between suspect and witness you wouldn't have to travel miles away you could even take the witness to the asylum so the most logical conclusion is there must have been a policeman who was unable to come to the witness so they took the witness to him.Hundreds of police man worked in the area during the murders is it possible that one saw something and for what ever reason didn't report it maybe he confided in his work mates and then this information came to a senior policemans attention it makes sense and it makes sense not to record this on paper because the police would have looked even more stupid in the eyes of the general public.Of course we have the other possibility that there was no attempt to indentity anyone at the seaside home and the story was just made up.

[Jonathan H]

No, but it is a snide way of making exactly the same charge. Very typical of Anderson's style: arrogant, accusatory and inaccurate.

Look at Sims' 1910 demolition again:

“It was only the other day that the late esteemed head of the C.I.D. caused a storm of indignation among the King’s Jewish subjects by stating that JACK THE RIPPER was a Jew, and that the Jews knew who he was and assisted him to evade capture. The statement went beyond ascertained facts. ... it was certainly indiscreet of Sir Robert to plump for the Polish Jew, and to imply that many of the Jewish community in the East End were accessories after the fact.'

Very gentlemanly, isn't it?

"The statement went beyond ascertained facts".

Sims does not come and call Anderson a liar, but that is what he means-- in the same passive-aggressive way as Anderson's attempt to dump on a whole stratum of the East End's Hebrew population.

[Jonathan H]

To Pinkmoon

No, there is another alternative.

Not made up. Just remembered wrongly. The Sailor's Home becoming the Seaside Home, and so on.

[harry]

We are expected to believe that Kosminski did accompany officers to a place where he fronted an eyewitness,by whatever means it was accomplished.I am sceptical of the whole account,but if not arriving under arrest,if claims are true,he should have left in custody.Yes he should have been told a reason for his attendance,but I doubt it would have been a blunt,"Youre going because we think you are the Ripper".Nor do I think he displayed the signs of madness attributed to him.

[Batman]

Hello Paul,

Actually, it isn't 'crystal ball stuff' at all, it was and is a commonplacee, the use of psychology, of tricking a person into responding guiltily or with innocence.

Thanks for taking the time out to answer some of the stuff I put forward. While I would agree much with your corrections below to the mistakes I made, there are a few things I would disagree with. If we refer to psychology we shall find that a jury is asked not to take into account a person's demeanour in court or reactions. This is because we can demonstrate experimentally that the wrong inferences can be made doing this. A persons reaction can never be evidence of their guilt. For example, imagine pre-DNA, as a suspect being questioned the interviewer reveals to you that new science called DNA analysis has found your genetic make-up all over the victim and it can't belong to anyone else. Innocent people would be surprised right? Now a guilty person might give up at this point and “confess” but that's different as the inference to their guilt is not based on their reaction, but their confession. So Anderson, IMO, without a confession, is indeed doing crystal ball stuff as I call it. Therefore one can't help but see a trend emerging here that can transfer over to the Seaside affair quite well in its explanatory power for its ambiguous content.

And H.L. Adam's so often cited comment, it should be as often made clear that Anderson himself wrote that he was very tired (from which it seems safe to assume that he may have anticipated some errors of memory caused by fatigue).

Still he is being corrected on mixing cases (plural, not 'case' singular) in his contemporary later life. The mixing up of cases has some explanatory power behind its ambiguous content.

The house-to-house search was undertaken before the Double Event, which was before Dr Bond's did his profile.

Ah you are right. However if Kozminski was on a list and a description that caught someone's attention post- Dr.Bond's profile, that might explain things.

I don't recall Warren saying that the murderer was protected by his own kind. It was Anderson who said that. Except he didn't say it either. He say that if the murderer lived with his people (his family) then they must have had their suspicions aroused by seeing such things as bloodstained clothing and that they were not conveying their suspicions to the police. In other words, Anderson thought one or more family members weren't conveying suspicions to the police, which is not quite the same thing as saying they protected him.

Yes, quite right. It was Anderson.

[Hunter]

The house-to-house search was undertaken after the double event but before Bond's profile following the Kelly murder.

If the ID attempt did take place, and of all the officials giving opinions on the case, it would have been Swanson who would have been directly involved. This was what he did.

[PaulB]

No, but it is a snide way of making exactly the same charge. Very typical of Anderson's style: arrogant, accusatory and inaccurate.

Look at Sims' 1910 demolition again:

“It was only the other day that the late esteemed head of the C.I.D. caused a storm of indignation among the King’s Jewish subjects by stating that JACK THE RIPPER was a Jew, and that the Jews knew who he was and assisted him to evade capture. The statement went beyond ascertained facts. ... it was certainly indiscreet of Sir Robert to plump for the Polish Jew, and to imply that many of the Jewish community in the East End were accessories after the fact.'

Very gentlemanly, isn't it?

"The statement went beyond ascertained facts".

Sims does not come and call Anderson a liar, but that is what he means-- in the same passive-aggressive way as Anderson's attempt to dump on a whole stratum of the East End's Hebrew population.

And Sims was talking out of his bottom! Anderson NEVER said the Jews as a whole and never said they assisted him to evade capture. In the context in which he made the comment, Anderson very clearly meant 'family'. If Sims and Smith didn't make an honest and stupid error of interpretation, one might believe they were intentionally misinterpreting Anderson to make him look bad.

But that's a possibility I'll leave to the conspiracists.

[Jonathan H]

No, I think Anderson getting everybody off-side in 1910 was very much his own work.

Anderson tried to mollify and modify by changing the emphasis from his mag version to the book, about exactly which Jews were so treacherous, but it made no difference.

What impresses me is that a secondary source, by Evans and Rumbelow, that had put a theory--that Anderson was unreliable and inaccurate--received further confirmation by a primary source only discovered years after they had published.

[Batman]

What impresses me is that a secondary source, by Evans and Rumbelow, that had put a theory--that Anderson was unreliable and inaccurate--received further confirmation by a primary source only discovered years after they had published.

Actually that's what I am reading. Scotland Yard Investigates.

There is a very good Ripperologist article from Skinner on the Swanson Marginalia though. There is little doubt he wrote it and to say he didn't know what he was talking about would be odd, but he does get Kozminski's death details quite wrong.

At the same time if one thinks going into an insane asylum is good reason why the murders stopped, so is Chapman's going to America and Tumblety for that matter too.

I must admit I do find the Evans/Rumbelow suggestion that this is a mixing of Sadler with something else, to have explanatory power. If Swanson though had been more accurate, we wouldn't be having this conversation and would likely be case closed.

[Harry D]

At the same time if one thinks going into an insane asylum is good reason why the murders stopped, so is Chapman's going to America and Tumblety for that matter too.

Not quite, as they were both still free men. Why weren't the murders replicated in the States?

[Batman]

Not quite, as they were both still free men. Why weren't the murders replicated in the States?

If Tumblety then because police where on to him. If Chapman that's a can of worms. I tend to accept he did threaten to kill Lucy. I side with her on that.

If Kozminski why is he so quiet in his case evaluaton?

[Abby Normal]

Trevor,
Thank you for taking the time to help the people here understand that the words 'my take' convey something speculative. Well, almost. 'My take' means my impression, my feeling, my informed conclusion...

And do I have followers unquestioningly accepting everything I say? What fun! And, alas, untrue. Also a moronic thing to say.

However, you are absolutely correct to say that the evidence for Kosinski ever being charged is thin on the ground. That's why I never said it. So trying to score points off me there, Trevor, was a bit of an own goal. Must be water off a duck's back to you, it happens so often.

Anyway, what I said, pretty much, is that we don't know what pressure, if any, was brought to bear on the witness to give evidence because, when Kosminski's family committed him to an asylum, there would have been little point in proceeding with charges because Kosminski, already certified, would not have been fit to plead.

Hi Paul
How does one reconcile Anderson's "definitely ascertained fact" that Kosminsky was the man--- with not charging him because he was certified insane and couldn't stand trial?

As another poster asked-if the ID was as rock solid as Anderson would have us believe-why wasn't Kosminiski charged immediately? A reluctant witness can be impelled to testify, kosminski was NOT certified insane at that point, and even if he was shortly afterward the police can still charge him if they are so sure they have their man, and let the cards fall as they may.
Happens all the time.

The police were under enormous pressure to find the killer so they could charge Kosminiski if they were so sure and if they couldn't prosecute because of the insanity cert. then they could say well we tried but the law/courts/Drs wont allow it but we still caught him and hes off the streets anyway-we did our job. We caught the killer.

So either Anderson's "definitely ascertained fact" that they knew who the ripper was-was nothing of the kind at the time of the ID (and shortly after) and only grew in his mind after many years----or it was a fact that he knew they had the ripper around the time of the ID but kept it a secret.

I find the latter so hard to believe, especially taking Andersons boastful nature into consideration and the pressures on the police to catch the killer, that it borders on near impossibility.

[PaulB]

Hi Paul
How does one reconcile Anderson's "definitely ascertained fact" that Kosminsky was the man--- with not charging him because he was certified insane and couldn't stand trial?

As another poster asked-if the ID was as rock solid as Anderson would have us believe-why wasn't Kosminiski charged immediately? A reluctant witness can be impelled to testify, kosminski was NOT certified insane at that point, and even if he was shortly afterward the police can still charge him if they are so sure they have their man, and let the cards fall as they may.
Happens all the time.

The police were under enormous pressure to find the killer so they could charge Kosminiski if they were so sure and if they couldn't prosecute because of the insanity cert. then they could say well we tried but the law/courts/Drs wont allow it but we still caught him and hes off the streets anyway-we did our job. We caught the killer.

So either Anderson's "definitely ascertained fact" that they knew who the ripper was-was nothing of the kind at the time of the ID (and shortly after) and only grew in his mind after many years----or it was a fact that he knew they had the ripper around the time of the ID but kept it a secret.

I find the latter so hard to believe, especially taking Andersons boastful nature into consideration and the pressures on the police to catch the killer, that it borders on near impossibility.

Well, first of all a 'definitely ascertained fact' doesn't mean there was sufficient evidence to ensure a conviction. The police may have wanted to firm up their case, ormaybe they wanted to persuade the witness to give testimony willingly, not force him to testify and have a hostile witness.

I would't say they 'kept it a secret'; they weren't allowed to say they'd caught the Ripper until the suspect was tried and convicted. I'd also like to see how the evidence of Anderson's supposed 'boastful nature' stacks up against the boastfulness in other police memoirs of the time. One might argue that Anderson wasn't boastful at all, but was a man who participated in some historic moments, saw no reason for secrecy when the need for it had passed, and wrote of those events cadidly. But however one might view Anderson, he spilled the beans as soon as he was retired and sort of free to speak.

[PaulB]

Actually that's what I am reading. Scotland Yard Investigates.

There is a very good Ripperologist article from Skinner on the Swanson Marginalia though. There is little doubt he wrote it and to say he didn't know what he was talking about would be odd, but he does get Kozminski's death details quite wrong.

At the same time if one thinks going into an insane asylum is good reason why the murders stopped, so is Chapman's going to America and Tumblety for that matter too.

I must admit I do find the Evans/Rumbelow suggestion that this is a mixing of Sadler with something else, to have explanatory power. If Swanson though had been more accurate, we wouldn't be having this conversation and would likely be case closed.

Case closed? Perhaps not.

Let's say it is too improbable to be true that different women were assaulted in the same place within minutes of 0ne another and that Stride was therefore killed by the man Schwartz saw. Let's suppose Schwartz was the witness and Kosminski was the man he saw. He makes a positive ID, the police believe Stride was murdered by the same person who murdered the other women. But she wasn't.