Did the Seaside Home ID happen?

[Chris]

Because Swanson and Macnaghten may have wanted to emphasize that Anderson's Polish Jew suspect was an immigrant from the continent-- thus they referred to him by his non-anglicised name, rather than his anglicised name, which the suspect would have been confined under.

If he was always known as Cohen (say) in England, I'm not sure why the police would ever have heard his original surname. But if they had, I don't believe that Macnaghten, writing in an official memorandum, would have used that surname and omitted the one used in the official records. As the recipient of the memo, my question to him would have been, "This man is known as Cohen and appears as Cohen in all the records. Why on earth have you called him Kosminski (and not even Kosminski, alias Cohen) in your memorandum?"

[Batman]

William Grant Grainger?

Yes candidates like that. Its rare though to find an Irish SK, if one has ever existed. Maybe pairing for business like Burke and Hare but not much else.

Cork is a place close to my heart.

[Trevor Marriott]

There would be a prosecution file created by the police, and passed on to their solicitors, who would review the evidence and decide if the case is sound enough to go to court. They make that call.

If a charge is withdrawn, there would be an entry in the withrawn charges book. However, he may not have been charged at all.

Monty

But then we get back to how they managed to take a suspect from London to Brighton without arresting him first.

There has never been any records to show anyone by the name of Kosminski was ever arrested, and you would have thought such a potential breakthrough as this would have been recorded. After all they didn't drag everyone arrested down to Brighton.

In fact if they had such a good witness I have to ask, how come others were not taken down the same route i.e. Tumblety ? if of course Tumblety was ever a suspect.

You would have thought other police officers would have known about the suspect and the ID, but no a deadly silence over all of these years.

And what about the home itself, surely if it had taken place someone from their whether it had been resident of staff might have said something in later years or even at the time.

So if I did take place, what officers could have been involved in this, according to what we know only two possibles. Swanson and Anderson. I doubt Anderson would get off his backside and come out of his palatial office to involve himself in this, that only leaves Swanson who would not have been able to conduct this on his own. By my reckoning it would have taken at least 2 other officers besides him. I would suggest an Inspector and a Sgt. What Inspectors were directly involved in the investigation Abberline and Reid and neither of them mention this in later years.

What make this questionable, is that if it did take place as has been suggested, then are we really expected to believe that the police had the killer in their grasp having been identified and they simply brought him back to London and dropped him off as if nothing had happened.

My money is is on the fact that this never took place in the way it has been described by Anderson and Swanson.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Chris]

What make this questionable, is that if it did take place as has been suggested, then are we really expected to believe that the police had the killer in their grasp having been identified and they simply brought him back to London and dropped him off as if nothing had happened.

I think it's worth considering the exact words Swanson used. The police didn't take him there, they sent him there with difficulty. They didn't bring him back and drop him off. He returned.

I think that wording is consistent with the police having arranged for Kozminski to go to a seaside home as a patient.

[Trevor Marriott]

I think it's worth considering the exact words Swanson used. The police didn't take him there, they sent him there with difficulty. They didn't bring him back and drop him off. He returned.

I think that wording is consistent with the police having arranged for Kozminski to go to a seaside home as a patient.

That makes it even more unbelievable !

[Chris]

That makes it even more unbelievable !

Why do you find it unbelievable? Given what had happened in Pizer's case, it's quite believable that both the police and (particularly) the family should have wanted to avoid public knowledge of the identification. Why not arrange for this mentally ill man to go to a convalescent home for a few weeks, where he could be shown to the witness informally, rather than arresting him and leaving him and his family vulnerable to the kind of near-riots that had taken place in Mulberry Street?

[Trevor Marriott]

Why do you find it unbelievable? Given what had happened in Pizer's case, it's quite believable that both the police and (particularly) the family should have wanted to avoid public knowledge of the identification. Why not arrange for this mentally ill man to go to a convalescent home for a few weeks, where he could be shown to the witness informally, rather than arresting him and leaving him and his family vulnerable to the kind of near-riots that had taken place in Mulberry Street?

So you are suggesting that Kosminski was sent/allowed to go to a location for a period of time where a prime witness was ensconced and allowed to freely mingle with that witness?

I am sorry but your statement is even more unbeiveable than the first !

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[harry]

If the police didn't take Kosminski to the seaside home,who did.Who else had the power to do so,and why should anyone other than the police do so.If an identification was intended as part of the police investigation,then Kosminski must have been subject to suspicion before the seaside home identification.It doesn't make sense that,the identification being positive,Kosminski was not placed under arrest at the seaside home,and no one has yet come forward with a better answer than Trevor.That is ,that an identification never took place as described.

[Batman]

Why take him there at all? This only seems to make sense if this is where the witness was.

[GUT]

Why take him there at all? This only seems to make sense if this is where the witness was.

G'day Batman

Not necessarily, maybe it was somewhere they knew they could keep security tight and that the "witness" could get to.

[Batman]

I think the environmental choice has to be explained in terms of who was there. London is a big place and far away and surely this location contains a lot of old retired/vacationing policemen.

[Batman]

Also when it comes to PC witnesses I wonder if White was there, but he isn't Jewish and there's that strange ambiguous Peoples journal story about his encounter.

[John G]

What I find difficult to understand is why both Swanson and Anderson regarded Kosminski as such a strong suspect. I used to think it was because of the witness identification, but that just doesn't make any sense. Thus, if their opinion was largely influenced by such a consideration, why didn't they regard Grainger as a far better candidate. After all, he was also "unhessitatingly" identified by a witness, probably Lawende. Moreover, he was known to have actually seriously assaulted a prostitute, Alice Graham.

And, as the Pall Mall Gazette pointed out, in responding to Grainger's identification: "There is one person whom the police believe to have actually seen the Whitechapel murderer...That person is said to have identified Grainger as the man he saw. But obviously identification after so cursory a glance, and after the lapse of so long an interval, could not be reliable; and the enquiries were at length pulled up a cul-de-sac."

Now doesn't this give a powerful insight into police thinking? I mean, the clear implication is that they were unwilling to put much faith in a potentially unreliable witness identification, even with the powerful additional factor of the serious wounding of Alice Graham.

It therefore makes no sense that, in respect of Kosminski, they would change tact and regard witness ID as the determining factor. No, I feel that there had to be a substantial additional factor that drove Anderson and Swanson to conclude that Kosminski should be the prime suspect.

Perhaps, being mentally ill, he just fitted the stereotype. After all, for Macnaughton at least, that seems to have been the driving factor in respect of Druitt's candidacy, with references to him being "sexually insane", and his subsequent suicide regarded as proof that his "brain gave way altogether.".

[Chris]

So you are suggesting that Kosminski was sent/allowed to go to a location for a period of time where a prime witness was ensconced and allowed to freely mingle with that witness?

No, I'm not suggesting that at all. I'm suggesting that it was arranged for Kozminski to go there as a patient, not that the witness was a patient.

[PaulB]

What I find difficult to understand is why both Swanson and Anderson regarded Kosminski as such a strong suspect. I used to think it was because of the witness identification, but that just doesn't make any sense. Thus, if their opinion was largely influenced by such a consideration, why didn't they regard Grainger as a far better candidate. After all, he was also "unhessitatingly" identified by a witness, probably Lawende. Moreover, he was known to have actually seriously assaulted a prostitute, Alice Graham.

And, as the Pall Mall Gazette pointed out, in responding to Grainger's identification: "There is one person whom the police believe to have actually seen the Whitechapel murderer...That person is said to have identified Grainger as the man he saw. But obviously identification after so cursory a glance, and after the lapse of so long an interval, could not be reliable; and the enquiries were at length pulled up a cul-de-sac."

Now doesn't this give a powerful insight into police thinking? I mean, the clear implication is that they were unwilling to put much faith in a potentially unreliable witness identification, even with the powerful additional factor of the serious wounding of Alice Graham.

It therefore makes no sense that, in respect of Kosminski, they would change tact and regard witness ID as the determining factor. No, I feel that there had to be a substantial additional factor that drove Anderson and Swanson to conclude that Kosminski should be the prime suspect.

Did they regard the witness identification as a determining factor? Anderson clearly implies the witness's refusal to testify was the reason why the police didn't prosecute (it gave the family the opportunity to have Kosminski certified), but he doesn't say or even really allow us to infer that it was a deciding piece of evidence. So, yes, one is indeed left to assume that there was a 'substantial additional factor' involved.