Did the Seaside Home ID happen?

[pinkmoon]

Hi Jonathon

I will pick these points up and address as much as possible. However its bank holiday weekend and I have family obligations…please bear with me

Yours Jeff

Bank holiday why don't you take them all to the seaside.

[Wickerman]

Bank holiday why don't you take them all to the seaside.

Likely, because that's where everybody else is.

We just had our Bank Holiday Weekend. It amuses me how people can't wait to get out of work, just to sit for hours in traffic going north to cottage country.

Go home, there's nobody there, the roads are quiet, the stores are empty, and you can actually get a bloody seat at Tim Horton's coffee shop.
What else could you wish for....

[Garry Wroe]

Smith apparently came to agree with Anderson some years after the publication of Anderson's book, according to H.L. Adam.

That claim has always been a little too vague for my liking, Scott. But even if we assume it to be true, any identification of Kosminski, whether by Lawende or Schwartz, would have been known about by Smith at the time, and yet we have him on record as having wholly rejected Anderson's purported solution.

Again, Scott, the Met and City forces worked hand in glove following the Eddowes murder and engaged upon a daily exchange of case-related information. Given that City detectives mounted a round-the-clock surveillance of Kosminski, moreover, it is inconceivable that Lawende wouldn't have been summoned to give Kosminski the once over. Thus Major Smith would have been aware of any identification secured by the Met, and he would certainly have been aware of an equivalent operation ordered by himself. That he subsequently castigated the proposed Anderson solution speaks volumes. It demonstrates both that the Seaside Home identification could not have been as decisive as Anderson would have us believe, and that Lawende could not have identified Kosminski on behalf of the City.

All the same, I'd like to know more about the HL Adam claim. It is certainly intriguing given Smith's prior opposition to Anderson's assertion that the killer's identity was established as a definitely ascertained fact.

[pinkmoon]

Likely, because that's where everybody else is.

We just had our Bank Holiday Weekend. It amuses me how people can't wait to get out of work, just to sit for hours in traffic going north to cottage country.

Go home, there's nobody there, the roads are quiet, the stores are empty, and you can actually get a bloody seat at Tim Horton's coffee shop.
What else could you wish for....

I live 500 yards from the sea it's just a shame the beach is radioactive and full of rubbish.

[Garry Wroe]

also Anderson clearly states Kozminski was in an Asylum when the ID took place..

Which means that it would have amounted to an illegal operation.

Which in turn demolishes Swanson's assertion that the identification could have been used in a criminal court to convict Kosminski.

[Jeff Leahy]

Which means that it would have amounted to an illegal operation.

Which in turn demolishes Swanson's assertion that the identification could have been used in a criminal court to convict Kosminski.

Hi Gary

I certainly don't think it would be illegal, especially if Kozminski's own family were cooperating in the process. However what ever your belief on the legality it is what Anderson claims: “I will only add that when the individual whom we suspected was caged in an asylum, the only person who ever had a good view of the murderer at once indentified him.”

I'm simply looking at what everyone actually said, and working from the position that they all told the truth to the best of there ability or knowledge. And Anderson clearly says here that the suspect was caged in an asylum when the ID took place.

I believe he is not talking about Colney Hatch here but a Private Asylum in Surrey that had a convalescent Seaside Home attached (Which was common) and its here that the ID happened .

Yours Jeff

[Jonathan H]

To Garry

I agree.

There are three variant versions of the timing of the identification in terms of the suspect;s incarceration: Anderson's memoir as in the magazine version, the subsequently redrafted book version and the Swanson Marginalia (I subscribe to the theory that this is Anderson too).

Evans and Rumbelow argued in 2006 that the suspect being caged matches the coincidence' that a few days after Aaron Kosminski was safely a Jewish witness confronted Ripper suspect Tom Sadler--all after the 'final' victim was killed Though Aaron was already sectioned before that homicide).

I think pertinent to all this is that in 1908 Anderson blamed an un-named doctor for sabotaging CID's catching the Ripper. Supposedly the clumsy physician broke a major pipe clue at the crime scene. This was actually Dr Phillips--who did not break the pipe--and the crime scenes have been mixed up.

This is tellingly similar to the hyperbolic guff Anderson wrote about the un-named Lawende: unfairly blaming somebody blameless and, though based on a real event, it has been hopelessly muddled and distorted.

[Jeff Leahy]

The Aberconway Papers (the original is lost) were not written in 1894 but more likely 1898. I agree with Rumbelow (of 1975) and Fido (of 1987) that they were composed later than the official version.

It had to be written no later than 1898 because that is when Griffiths published his version of the suspects' section.

Therefore if they were written as late as 1898 then Macnaghten correctly believed that Kosminski was still alive, which he was, but later checked and found he was still alive--as Sims recorded in 1907.

The logical conclusion is that the Abber-conway version is an original draft which was edited down to produce the memo. This process is called editing and fairly common when writing reports. However to some extent it doesn’t actually effect what I’m saying one jot.

If MacANughten was working from files to produce his memo in 1894, then the file he was working from only contained information about Kozminski upto March 1889, where MacNaughten says he goes into an asylum. He never states where this asylum is and never does…That’s because the file has no information about the later failed ID event which Anderson and Swanson know about.

So even if MacNaughten did keep the file on Kozminski and later destroy it, he never knows where kozminski is or what happened to him. The story given by Sims might be adding new details but its from the same source the Kozminski File upto March 1889… And all the information it contains relates to that original investigation.

Whereas Anderson (and by extension Swanson) have Kosminski banged up and dead soon after the Kelly murder. Again I think that Cullen, Farson, Fido and Rumbelow, who theorized that Anderson was writing about Pizer and Violenia, are still, to some extent correct.
We know that Aaron actually entered Colney Hatch Feb 1892. The ID they talk about “With his hands tide behind his back Workhouse and Colney Hatch all happen then.

Neither Rumblow nor Fido could have suspected that they were looking at two completely separate events rather than one event which is deep in ripperologist psychi. Once you free yourself of the single event theory you have the answer.

When you come back from your shopping sojourn I suggest you actually read Paul Begg's book because he wonders--with his usual laser-beam accuracy in my opinion--whether Macnaghten may not a source who should not be taken "literally". Begg is a highly regarded writer-theorist who also does not think that Aaron Kosminski was Anderson's suspect--therefore it does not matter if Aaron was sectioned a dozen times. He is not Anderson's suspect according to a secondary source who judges this chief as essentially reliable.

As I’ve said several times, Aaron Kozminski is the only feesable person to be Andersons suspect in the real world, there is no other contender.

But if we actually look at what Sims writes in 1907 its absolutely clear that it’s the same information contained in the yet unpublished memo created by MacNAughten. It adds more details so possibly hes working from a more detailed earlier draft created by MacNAugten but it still gives us know information about Colney Hatch or the ID spoken about by Anderson and Swanson.

But most importantly it simply repeats the information about Kozminski and Ostrog. MacNAughten not having a cklue what happened to Kozminski.


Sims actually says 1907: "The first man was a polish Jew of curious habits and strange disposition, who was the sole occupant of a certain premises in Whitechapel after night fall. this man was in the district during the whole period covered by the whitechapel murders (Remember MacNaughten only counted unto MJK) and soon after they ceased certain facts came to light which showed it was quite possible that he might have been the Ripper. He had at one time been employed in a hospital in Poland. He was known to be a lunatic at the time of the murders, and some-time afterwards he betrayed such undoubted signs of homocidal mania that he was sent to a lunatic Asylum."

"The policeman who got a gimpse 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"

They (The polish Jew and the second suspect 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.

MacANughtens story: 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.


As you can see its the same basic story including the City PC who saw someone levying Mitre Square, not only quite possible but a very good circumstance for a long surveillance on Kozminski.

However there is no mention of an ID as described by Anderson and Swanson. Thats simply because MacNaughten doesn't know it happened.

I'll try reply to the second topic later

Yours Jeff

[Jonathan H]

This is what you need to reply to, but won't:

The 1908 interview in "The Daily Chronicle", with Anderson proves that the aging, retired chief--who had been sacked in 1901--was capable of the most grotesque, partisan and self-serving conflations and confusions. Perhaps some people have not seen the pertinent quotation as it is not on this site:

''In two cases of that terrible series [the Ripper crmes] there were disticnt clues destroyed - wiped out absolutely - clues that might very easily have secured for us proof of the identity of the assassin. In one case it was a clay pipe. Before we could get to the scene of the murder the doctor had taken it up, thrown it into the fireplace, and smashed it beyond recognition. In another case there was writing in chalk on the wall - a most valuable clue; handwriting that might have been at once recognized as belonging to a certain individual. But before we could secure a copy, or get it protected, it had been entirely obliterated ... I told Sir William Harcourt, who was then Home Secretary, that I could not accept responsibility for non-detection of the author of the Ripper crimes, for the reasons, among others, that I have given you.'

As the late Philip Sudgen cogently wrote about this primary source:

'Even in the brief allusion to the Ripper case there are two glaring errors. Sir William Harcourt ceased to be Home Secretary in 1885, three years before the murders began. The man with whom Anderson dealt with in 1888 was Henry Matthews. The reference to the pipe is also incorrect. Anderson's mention of a fireplace clearly indicates that he had the murder of Mary Kelly in mind for this was the only one in the series committed indoors. Dr. Phillips, the divisional police surgeon, was called out to the scene of the crime. And a pipe belonging to Joe Barnett, Kelly's lover, was found in Mary's room. But this was not the pipe that was smashed. Anderson was confusing the Kelly murder with that of Alice McKenzie in Castle Alley about nine months later. A clay pipe found with Alice's body was thrown to the floor and broken. However, this incident occurred at the mortuary, during the post-mortem examination, not at the crime scene, and the culprit was one of the attendants, not Dr. Phillips. So here, two years before his memoirs appeared, and speaking of investigations for which he bore overall responsibility, Anderson was confounding officials and running quite separate incidents together in his head.'

[Jeff Leahy]

This is what you need to reply to, but won't:

'

Thats because it is not relevant. Its simply an attempt by you to try and rubbish Anderson's character and as I've said on numerous occasions leading experts like Paul Begg and Martin Fido have long since tackled and refuted these rather silly attempts that seek to avoid what he says.

If you actually read what Sims says in 1907. And I have supplied you with that information. It simply doesn't support your claim that MacNAughten at this time know what happened to Kozminski.

It does however largely support what MacNAughten says in his memo 1894, and thus its logical that MacNaughten was Sims source.

However there is absolutely no mention of a workhouse or Colney Hatch, suggesting that MacNAughten didn't have a clue about what happened to Kozminski. You have of course accept that MacNAughten didn't know about the ID in 1894 when he created the memo

Sims 1907 is just more of the same, with a generalised merging of Kozminski and Ostrog having been at large for some time after the Kelly murder as a posed to Druit who died shortly afterwards supporting MacNaughtens theory.

But hopefully we have at least finally put to bed the idea that MacNAughten knew Kozminski was alive, he didn't know what happened to kozminski any more than Sims..

Its simply another fertile invention of your imagination to support a theory that simply doesn't hold water.

I will tackle the next point in detail later

Yours Jeff

[Jonathan H]

Not only will you not deal with this source, presumably because it is too frightening, you do not even read it and therefore do not realize it is Anderson's own words followed by Sudgen, who is just as esteemed by many here as much, if not more so, than Fido and Begg (neither of whom agree with you that Aaron Kosminski was Anderson's suspect).

And nothing below outlines any theory of mine, just that Anderson is clearly an unreliable source, an interpretation which is supported by Cullen, Farson, Evans, Palmer and Rumbelow, so I too can deploy a list of Ripper worthies-- in fact more of them.

The 1908 interview in "The Daily Chronicle", with Anderson proves that the aging, retired chief--who had been sacked in 1901--was capable of the most grotesque, partisan and self-serving conflations and confusions. Perhaps some people have not seen the pertinent quotation as it is not on this site:

''In two cases of that terrible series [the Ripper crmes] there were disticnt clues destroyed - wiped out absolutely - clues that might very easily have secured for us proof of the identity of the assassin. In one case it was a clay pipe. Before we could get to the scene of the murder the doctor had taken it up, thrown it into the fireplace, and smashed it beyond recognition. In another case there was writing in chalk on the wall - a most valuable clue; handwriting that might have been at once recognized as belonging to a certain individual. But before we could secure a copy, or get it protected, it had been entirely obliterated ... I told Sir William Harcourt, who was then Home Secretary, that I could not accept responsibility for non-detection of the author of the Ripper crimes, for the reasons, among others, that I have given you.'

As the late Philip Sudgen cogently wrote about this primary source:

'Even in the brief allusion to the Ripper case there are two glaring errors. Sir William Harcourt ceased to be Home Secretary in 1885, three years before the murders began. The man with whom Anderson dealt with in 1888 was Henry Matthews. The reference to the pipe is also incorrect. Anderson's mention of a fireplace clearly indicates that he had the murder of Mary Kelly in mind for this was the only one in the series committed indoors. Dr. Phillips, the divisional police surgeon, was called out to the scene of the crime. And a pipe belonging to Joe Barnett, Kelly's lover, was found in Mary's room. But this was not the pipe that was smashed. Anderson was confusing the Kelly murder with that of Alice McKenzie in Castle Alley about nine months later. A clay pipe found with Alice's body was thrown to the floor and broken. However, this incident occurred at the mortuary, during the post-mortem examination, not at the crime scene, and the culprit was one of the attendants, not Dr. Phillips. So here, two years before his memoirs appeared, and speaking of investigations for which he bore overall responsibility, Anderson was confounding officials and running quite separate incidents together in his head.'

[Garry Wroe]

I certainly don't think it would be illegal, especially if Kozminski's own family were cooperating in the process. However what ever your belief on the legality it is what Anderson claims: “I will only add that when the individual whom we suspected was caged in an asylum, the only person who ever had a good view of the murderer at once indentified him.”

Here, Jeff, I’m largely trusting to Stewart’s professional opinion as detailed in one of his Casebook dissertations. He stated that Anderson’s claimed asylum identification would have been illegal. My own researches in this area would seem to confirm this as being so.

Remember too that Anderson stated that the murderer’s family shielded the wanted man even though they knew of his guilt. This would appear to mediate against your proposal that the family then co-operated with investigators and helped to facilitate an asylum identification.

I'm simply looking at what everyone actually said …

Me too, Jeff.

… and working from the position that they all told the truth to the best of there ability or knowledge. And Anderson clearly says here that the suspect was caged in an asylum when the ID took place.

But the problem, Jeff, is that Anderson and Swanson flatly contradicted one another. Whereas Anderson stated that the identification took place in an asylum, Swanson contended that it occurred at the Seaside Home. Thus we have to assess the evidence in order to determine which of them, if either, was relating accurate information. Swanson was unambiguous in that he stated that the identification in itself was sufficient to have secured a conviction. The case collapsed, he said, when the witness refused to give evidence against Kosminski. Anderson made a similar claim when lamenting that the killer’s identity was firmly established but that the evidence which might have convicted him was never forthcoming. This was his moral versus legal certainty over the issue. Beyond question, therefore, the investigative aim was to procure the evidence which would convict Kosminski. This being so, I think it highly unlikely that the police would have thrown away any possibility of securing a conviction by conducting an illegal identification. Hence I consider it far more probable that Swanson’s recollections were the more accurate of the two.

[Jeff Leahy]

2) Anderson realized he'd stuffed up and changed the tale for the book version and the Marginalia. He's not saying two incarcerations. Nobody is in the primary sources.


Ok lets take a look at this. First of all Anderson clearly does make changes from the Blackwoods version to the LSOMOL version. Its what he doresnt change that is revealing. Dispite coming under heavy critisim from Mentor, Anderson sticks clearly to his story simply caveating heavily that he was not critisising Jews in general but indeed was talking about a specific group possibly even family. This fits perfectly with what we know about Aaron Kozminski, the man who threatened his sister with a knife. If indeed the family places Kozminski in a Private Asylum in March 1889 as I now believe, Anderson would have good cause for his claims and convictions and making what he was saying clearer in the final version.

Of course MacNAughten never knows about the ID or later events in 1890. So he’s never going to mention two events but Anderson is absolutely clear that Aaron Kozmoinski was already in an Asylum when the ID took place-read it carefully:

“I will only add that when the individual whom we suspected was caged in an asylum, the only person who ever had a good view of the murderer at once identified him.”

It’s absolutely clear that the suspect was already in an Asylum when the ID took place

And the only possible conclusion, if you take Anderson at his word, what he actually says, then the ID took place in an asylum. Not Colney Hatch but a private asylum convalescent home.

He may never say that there were two asylums, why would he? but the intimation is clear that Kozminski was in an asylum when the ID took place.

Again what we have here is not error or forgetfulness or making stuff up…What we have is two completely separate events one described by MacNaughten and the other by Anderson and Swanson… As the old saying goes if it looks like a duck and waddles and quacks it probably is a duck. Two events the same suspect its that simple.

Right I’ll try and look at your final question after I’ve finished some DIY

Yours Jeff

[Jeff Leahy]

Here, Jeff, I’m largely trusting to Stewart’s professional opinion as detailed in one of his Casebook dissertations. He stated that Anderson’s claimed asylum identification would have been illegal. My own researches in this area would seem to confirm this as being so.]

Ah but would it be so if it were a Private Asylum. Places like Holloway took people who were quiet free to come and go, they were ill they had not committed any crime.

If the family were indeed in fear of riots it would be in there interest for any ID to happen well away from London

Remember too that Anderson stated that the murderer’s family shielded the wanted man even though they knew of his guilt. This would appear to mediate against your proposal that the family then co-operated with investigators and helped to facilitate an asylum identification.]

Yes he did. And if the family did indeed get him out of harms way in MArch 1889 then thats exactly what happened, how could they possibly know Aaron was not going to recover? Schizophrenia comes and goes in Waves.

When things became so bad with Aarons illness Matilda had to think about her family. Perhaps there was even disagreement amoung the family what was for the best. But I do think Anderson is talking specifically about them even if he also stuck a deal following the Crawford meeting.

But the problem, Jeff, is that Anderson and Swanson flatly contradicted one another.

No they don't they say the same thing they just call it different things..we are talking about a Private Asylum in Surrey. Holloway for instance had a number of covelesent Seaside Homes… They are one and the same. Martin Fido agrees the Police Seaside home has never made any sense…

Whereas Anderson stated that the identification took place in an asylum, Swanson contended that it occurred at the Seaside Home. Thus we have to assess the evidence in order to determine which of them, if either, was relating accurate information. Swanson was unambiguous in that he stated that the identification in itself was sufficient to have secured a conviction. The case collapsed, he said, when the witness refused to give evidence against Kosminski. Anderson made a similar claim when lamenting that the killer’s identity was firmly established but that the evidence which might have convicted him was never forthcoming. This was his moral versus legal certainty over the issue. Beyond question, therefore, the investigative aim was to procure the evidence which would convict Kosminski. This being so, I think it highly unlikely that the police would have thrown away any possibility of securing a conviction by conducting an illegal identification. Hence I consider it far more probable that Swanson’s recollections were the more accurate of the two.

I think the ID was conceived to get Aaron in Broadmore, when it went wrong a compromise was reach with Colney Hatch.

Yours Jeff

[Jeff Leahy]

3) The destroyed documents refer to Anderson and the Townsend letter, not Macnaghten and any Druitt documents.

Well I’ve read the quote half a dozen times now and it clearly has nothing to do with a letter: Daily Mail 2 June 1913- Of Course he was a maniac. But I have a very clear idea who he was and how he committed suicide, but that, with other secrets, will never be reveled by me. I have destroyed all my documents and there is now no record of the secret information which came into my possession at one time or another”

I just think that’s very clear. MacNaughten destroyed the information, and if he also had the files on Kozminski perhaps he destroyed them altogether, who knows? What we know is they are nolonger in existence, although its always possible they might turn up if they weren’t destroyed by MacNAughten

But MacNaughten is clearly talking about destroy information in 1913.. Perhaps he realised his theory had been holed bellow the water line in 1910?

Yours Jeff