Did the Seaside Home ID happen?

[Jeff Leahy]

Why would Kosminski be taken to a private home when their is clear evidence that he was taken on two occasions to more local asylums, and why one so far from London, which would have meant financial outlay by the family. It does not make sense. Its another case of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole and not wanting to drop Aaron Kosminski from the prime suspect list

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He wasn't taken to the work house until July 1890 and then again three days before being transferred to Colney Hatch.

Also bear in mind he was thrown out of the work house in July because he clearly wasn't considered mad enough…quite a problem for the family?

Quite a few asylums in Surrey at the time would have been perfectly walkable from Whitechapel. Plus Kosminski's mother had connections to Wansworth and as the broad family stuck together (People from the Kladowa district) then in seems probable a community in that area. Southwark had one of the largest private asylum capacities at the time in Bethlem and of course Balham also took private patients. But Holloway does have an oral history of Jack the Rippers bedroom why I think it shouldn't be ruled out.

But there were hundreds of much smaller private asylums, that might fit the bill.

Bear in mind that Aaron's brother was earning what can only be considered today as considerable amounts of money. So it seems to me reasonable that the at first tried to take care of the problem which eventually became obvious was not going to go away as his conditions and attacks steadily got worse.

Yours Jef

[Trevor Marriott]

Quite a few asylums in Surrey at the time would have been perfectly walkable from Whitechapel.
Yours Jef

I would estimate that the distance from The East End to the nearest Surrey border would have been at least 15 miles, hardly walkable would you not think ?

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[Jeff Leahy]

I would estimate that the distance from The East End to the nearest Surrey border would have been at least 15 miles, hardly walkable would you not think ?

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Rubish I can walk Tower Bridge to Southwark bridge in under an hour..

I am talking the surrey boarder in 1888 not today..

Yours Jeff

[John G]

Rubish I can walk Tower Bridge to Southwark bridge in under an hour..

I am talking the surrey boarder in 1888 not today..

Yours Jeff

Of course, prior to the creation of the London County Council, 1889, both Croydon and Sutton were in Surrey, as I believe were Lambeth and Wandsworth, as well as Southwark, Richmond Upon Thames, Kingston Upon Thames and Merton.

[Trevor Marriott]

So the ID take place between Monroes resignation Around July 1890 and the time Kozminski is placed in Colney hatch. February 1891.

Yours Jeff

If you are right and the ID did take place, clearly identified Kosminski as being the killer. How can you explain that in 1895 when Grainger was arrested the police thought he was the ripper, and apparently conducted some from of an ID procedure with regards to him. Despite Swanson stating that the ripper was now dead.

Now that ID is more in line with what we know.

With Graingers ID parade re the ripper we do have some independent corroboration with the secondary newspaper article

A positive ID by the witness ( who may well have said he was not prepared to go to court)

This is just another nail in the coffin of Aaron Kosminski

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[Jeff Leahy]

Of course, prior to the creation of the London County Council, 1889, both Croydon and Sutton were in Surrey, as I believe were Lambeth and Wandsworth, as well as Southwark, Richmond Upon Thames, Kingston Upon Thames and Merton.

I hope so john, I interviewed an expert last week that pretty much said the boundaries originally went right up to the Thames past Southwark.

They did however change around the end of the 1880's, and several times afterwards.

All the best

Jef

[Jeff Leahy]

If you are right and the ID did take place, clearly identified Kosminski as being the killer. How can you explain that in 1895 when Grainger was arrested the police thought he was the ripper, and apparently conducted some from of an ID procedure with regards to him. Despite Swanson stating that the ripper was now dead.

Now that ID is more in line with what we know.

With Graingers ID parade re the ripper we do have some independent corroboration with the secondary newspaper article

A positive ID by the witness ( who may well have said he was not prepared to go to court)

This is just another nail in the coffin of Aaron Kosminski

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

No Trevor its called standard procedure, as no conviction was ever made of Aaron….thats because as Swanson tells us Schwartz refused to testify.

yours Jef

[Trevor Marriott]

No Trevor its called standard procedure, as no conviction was ever made of Aaron….thats because as Swanson tells us Schwartz refused to testify.

yours Jef

Come on Jeff
Agreed, no conviction was made, but if you believe what Anderson and Swanson wrote they stated knew the identity of the killer by reason of the seaside home ID and they knew he was then caged thereafter.

So why would they suspect Grainger all those years later and go to the lengths they went to if they already knew the real killer? which scenario can we believe as being factually correct? Which one is the more plausible, which one has corroboration to it.

Which one suggests that Anderson could have been writing about the Grainger ID. As to the Swanson marginalia I am not even going to go there again.

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[Harry D]

No Trevor its called standard procedure, as no conviction was ever made of Aaron….thats because as Swanson tells us Schwartz refused to testify.

yours Jef

Hello, Jeff.

It's your assumption that Swanson was referring to Schwartz. I'd be inclined to rule him AND Lawende out, personally.

[Jeff Leahy]

Come on Jeff
Agreed, no conviction was made, but if you believe what Anderson and Swanson wrote they stated knew the identity of the killer by reason of the seaside home ID and they knew he was then caged thereafter.

So why would they suspect Grainger all those years later and go to the lengths they went to if they already knew the real killer? which scenario can we believe as being factually correct? Which one is the more plausible, which one has corroboration to it.

Which one suggests that Anderson could have been writing about the Grainger ID. As to the Swanson marginalia I am not even going to go there again.

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The police followed procedure there was no conviction its that simple.

However Anderson said they didn't have a clue in Sept 1889, and yet shortly after Kozminski went into the Asylum, before McNaughten wrote his memoranda, Anderson was already starting his 'Insane' Jewish madman story, as early as 1892.

Swanson may have been obligated to investigate Grainger, it was his job. But I've never seen any evidence that Anderson took it seriously.

Yours Jef

[Jeff Leahy]

Hello, Jeff.

It's your assumption that Swanson was referring to Schwartz. I'd be inclined to rule him AND Lawende out, personally.

All the evidence suggests that the police where aware of a berner Street suspect. Kozminski lived only a few hundred yards from the murder scene and also lived next door to Dutfeild Yard as a kid (Which curiously makes me wonder if he knew a back way out?)

But I don't think he was ID for the Ripper murders. Only the Stride murder which makes a lot of sense..

Hence it was Schwartz. The only man who actually had a good view of a murder and murderer,who makes sense

especially if Aaron was given up by his own family

And what Anderson says suggests something happened to change his mind between 1889-92 long before the Grainger incident.

Yours Jeff

[Hunter]

No Trevor its called standard procedure, as no conviction was ever made of Aaron….thats because as Swanson tells us Schwartz refused to testify.

Swanson tells us nothing about Schwartz in that regard. In fact it is strange that Schwartz was the one who came forward in the first place and could expect to possibly identify someone (unless he was an idiot) while Lawende & co. were reluctant witnesses from the start.

Nevertheless, the Berner St. witness is not mentioned anywhere after 1888 while the Mitre Square witness is.

[Jeff Leahy]

Swanson tells us nothing about Schwartz in that regard. In fact it is strange that Schwartz was the one who came forward in the first place and could expect to possibly identify someone (unless he was an idiot) while Lawende & co. were reluctant witnesses from the start.

Nevertheless, the Berner St. witness is not mentioned anywhere after 1888 while the Mitre Square witness is.

I'm aware of the facts. However Inspector Ried mentions a suspect in Berner street.

I'm simply saying that if Swanson was requested to investigate a suspect who lived in Provence Street, who had lived in Berner street and whose family lived in Greenfeild Street..

Then the Stride murder would be the obvious start for any detective…

And Schwartz was the witness in 'Berner street' so its a no brainer.

Yours Jef

[Trevor Marriott]

Swanson may have been obligated to investigate Grainger, it was his job. But I've never seen any evidence that Anderson took it seriously.

Yours Jef

But there was never any evidence that other police officials took Anderson seriously in what he wrote in 1910 in fact they rebutted what he did say, did they not.

So who do we believe ?

Then MM in the Aberconway version retracts his suspicion of Kosminski

There is too much of this wanting to believe these senior officers simply because they were senior officers, when much of what they did say has now proved to be questionable, along with connecting documentation which has now also proved to be more than questionable.

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[Jonathan H]

To repeat for the record, you have two police chiefs who are seemingly writing (and talking to others) about the same suspect.

One chief characterizes this suspect as being long deceased, that he was positively identified by a witness and the solution to the case was over relatively quickly (e.g. early 1889). The other chief describes the suspect as being alive, he was not positively identified by any witness and that it was a protracted length of time he was out and about after the Kelly murder.

The latter profile by Macnaghten is arguably a better match for Aaron Kosminski than the former profile by Anderson (and Swanson).

To repeat, here are some of the scraps that point to this provisional conclusion and away from Anderson as the most reliable police source:

Major Griffiths on Anderson 1895, the same year a Jewish witness said yes to a Ripper suspect and nothing came of it:

“Much dissatisfaction was vented upon Mr. Anderson at the utterly abortive efforts to discover the perpetrator of the Whitechapel murders. He has himself a perfectly plausible theory that Jack the Ripper was a homicidal maniac, temporarily at large, whose hideous career was cut short by committal to an asylum.”

From Anderson's son's biography of his parents:

“Sir Robert states as a fact that the man was an alien from Eastern Europe, and believed that he died in an asylum.”

Macnaghten in a report, some of whose contents were disseminated to the public via cronies. It may have been written in 1894 or as late as 1898:

[Kosminski] was (and I believe still is) detained in a lunatic asylum, about March 1889.”

Sims in 1907:

'They [Kosminski and Ostrog] were both alive long after the horrors had ceased, and though both were in an asylum, there had been a considerable time after the cessation of the Ripper crimes during which they were at liberty and passing about among their fellow men.'