Plausibility of Kosminski

[PaulB]

Trevor,
First of all, it is unacceptable practice to insert your replies within the text of someone else's message, that's why everyone quotes, hence the greyed out boxes. Please conform to normal and acceptable practice.

But there is big difference bewteen a file containing the names of suspects and a specific named suspect file. My point is that there was never a prime suspect to warrant a specific file on any such person being opened so therefore no such file could have gone missing if it was never there in the first place.

You disputed the existence of a suspect's file which had gone missing, but it is established that there was at least one and that it has gone missing

You are now claiming that there was "was never a prime suspect to warrant a specific file on any such person being opened", but you don't know that, it's just a guess. Tumblety could have been considered a prime suspect, so too could Ostrog, and if Anderson believed "Kosminski" was Jack the Ripper then his primacy as a suspect certainly wasn't chopped liver. But who says there was a prime suspect and thus a file labelled "prime suspect"? And given that Anderson believed "Kosminski" was the Ripper and Macnaghten believed Druitt was the Ripper, how do you think they might have though of them? Also rans? And historically, how are we supposed to treat these people who were believed by senior officers to be the Ripper? Nonentities? No, Trevor, they were and are prime suspects, at least insofar as they seem to have been thought such by men who were there.

So 6 years later he could reel off verbatum everything he knew and had been told about the ripper case. Another one of your get me out of the proverbial answers

Nope. Did I say that? I said that Macnaghten is believed to have had a specific interest in the case and that he kept photos of the victims in his drawer, and that he probably had the basic facts on file to hand. It may not have been necessary for him to call up the files, which would have been huge.

Well how could they seriously suspect Kosminski then if you eliminate the domestic what evidence is there i.e hearsay,circumstantial, documentary to make them suspect Kosminski at any time some 2- 3 years after the murders ceased.

I don't know, but you are telling everyone that Kosminski came to the attention of the police because of an East End domestic with a knife maybe three years after the murders. Fine, but that's your opinion and there is no evidence for it.

Ostrogs criminal record file would have been different from a suspects file and would have been stored in the Criminal records office or their equivelant

So what papers do you think would have been in his file with the Ripper papers?

MM didnt need to get the info on Cutbush from a file it was public knowledge was it not surrounding the Cutbush arrest and the belief he could have been the Ripper.

You just said Cutbush's file was on the top of the suspect files when Macnaghten opened the papers. So was it or wasn't it?

YOu are right about the evidence so in essence as we speak there is no more evidence against Kosminski than there is against any of the many names you list from the suspect file in fact there is less because no where does Kosminkis name appear.

Except, unlike all those other names, nobody has actually suggested that they were Jack the Ripper. "Kosminski's" name does appear in that context and at a very senior level.

Except in The MM written in 1894 and that has proved to have been totally unrelieable and the marginalia allegedly written 20 years or so later and again like the entry in THe MM only consists of a surname.

Absolutely, and the Macnaghten memoranda has not be "proved" to be "totally unreliable" and the marginalia was written, not allegedly written, 20+ years after the murders. And they are historical sources and should be treated as such, not in the cavalier fashion you do.

Yest out of all the supects he keeps being pushed to the front al the time. It is time now to let go of him and others.

So you keep saying. But he isn't being "pushed". You don't seem to understand that.

Someone mentioned Burnt Toast I would suggest very very burnt toast in fact.

Yes, somebody did mention toast, Talkie, Talkie Toaster our chirpy breakfast companion is wrong. "Kosminski" isn't toast. Or a muffin or a teacake, or a bun, bap, baguette or bagel. Or a croissant, crumpet, pancake, potato cake or hot-cross bun, and definitely no smegging flapjack. And it's not a waffle either.

You see, no matter who was suspected, no matter how the evidence was stacked, Anderson and Macnaghten would have known about it - and yet they still believed their respective suspects was Jack the Ripper.

But of course you are forgetting Littelchild and Abberline and their "suspects" and not forgetting the entry for The SB register which is suggested may relate to Randolph Churchill and Littlechild entry from the registe where he names another suspect. I think you are getting to carried away with what you see before you in writing from Scotland yards finest.

Nope, I don't forget Littlechild and Abberline or anyone else. I don't even forget Feigenbaum, and the written material from the men who were investigating, with those who were investigating, or were otherwise overseeing the Ripper investigation are far preferable sources to those who weren't

[Garry Wroe]

I do not credit 'criminal profiling' with the accuracy and consistency with which some tend to endow it …

I understand why some might take that view, Stewart. In fact, I tend to think that profiling has become a victim of its own success. It became ‘sexy’ and thus attracted a number of glory-chasers who in truth were woeful practitioners. But this should not detract from the intrinsic value of profiling as part of the investigative process. We should simply ensure that the quality of practitioner is of the highest order, otherwise we risk throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

… I discussed this at length with Bill Hagmaier, former Chief Special Agent with the FBI, in charge of the Child Abduction and Serial Murder unit at Quantico (successor to John Douglas) when he came and stayed with us. It was most enlightening, and he told of some great experiences such as interviewing Ted Bundy and others series killers. The book he recommended as a bible on serial murder is Practical Homicide Investigation by Vernon J. Geberth which, if you haven't read it, is an excellent textbook.

That sounds like a fascinating conversation. And no, I don’t recall reading the Geberth book. It’s one I’ll look out for, though. Thank you.

But all that aside, blithely citing what a certain type of murderer is going to be like, and how he will act, is far from a science.

True, Stewart. But the principles which underpin such analyses are (or at least should be) rooted in established psychology – the scientific study of mind and behaviour. We do not expect every single medical diagnosis to be absolutely accurate, so it would be unrealistic to assume infallibility within profiling. Usually, however, the fault lies with the practitioner rather than the underlying science of the discipline.

[PaulB]

There's a copy of the spiral bound edition going on Amazon for just over $10.

Are you still in contact with Bill, Stewart. I still use my FBI keyring.

[Stewart P Evans]

THank you...

I understand why some might take that view, Stewart. In fact, I tend to think that profiling has become a victim of its own success. It became ‘sexy’ and thus attracted a number of glory-chasers who in truth were woeful practitioners. But this should not detract from the intrinsic value of profiling as part of the investigative process. We should simply ensure that the quality of practitioner is of the highest order, otherwise we risk throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
That sounds like a fascinating conversation. And no, I don’t recall reading the Geberth book. It’s one I’ll look out for, though. Thank you.
True, Stewart. But the principles which underpin such analyses are (or at least should be) rooted in established psychology – the scientific study of mind and behaviour. We do not expect every single medical diagnosis to be absolutely accurate, so it would be unrealistic to assume infallibility within profiling. Usually, however, the fault lies with the practitioner rather than the underlying science of the discipline.

Thank you for that Garry. I do appreciate what you are saying and the points that you have made.

A while back I worked on a Ripper documentary in London with Brent Turvey who has written much on profiling. His take differs from the FBI and I don't think the two get along too well. I liked Brent and Bill is a dear friend of mine, but I don't think that they would agree too much with each other.

[Stewart P Evans]

Yes...

There's a copy of the spiral bound edition going on Amazon for just over $10.
Are you still in contact with Bill, Stewart. I still use my FBI keyring.

Yes, I am Paul. I still have my FBI keyring...hey I've got an idea, why don't we start an FBI keyring holder cartel?

[PaulB]

Yes, I am Paul. I still have my FBI keyring...hey I've got an idea, why don't we start an FBI keyring holder cartel?

That sounds good to me. There would be you, me, the FBI... hey, who is going to mess with us!

If you have his email, I'd love to make contact again. Judy and I had a nice dinner with him, and I'll never forget his face as we were sitting in the Pride of Spitalfields and the door was pushed open and around it peered - a horse; a police horse too! Jeremy should have been there.
Paul

[Natalie Severn]

You don't think the Sun articles on Cutbush, referenced by Mac in the MM were an instigating factor?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Yes, and poor old ex Supt Charles Cutbush of Scotland Yard may have been
making rather loud noises.....of one kind or another----after all it wasn't that long before he shot himself through the head so perhaps he had doorstepped Macnaghten into a 'shotgun' memo!

[PaulB]

Yes, and poor old ex Supt Charles Cutbush of Scotland Yard may have been
making rather loud noises.....of one kind or another----after all it wasn't that long before he shot himself through the head so perhaps he had doorstepped Macnaghten into a 'shotgun' memo!

He retired in 1891.

[Garry Wroe]

Again the point is that Macnaghten settled on Druitt as a consequence of information received privately. We don't know that there was ever an investigation - Macnaghten doesn't seem to even hint of one - so I doubt that his name came forward as a result of a review of the files.

I’m not so sure, Paul. Macnaghten stated that the killer must have suffered a psychological meltdown and committed suicide, otherwise the murders would not have ceased. Thus it is equally plausible that Macnaghten used this as a starting point in order to identify those suicides which occurred shortly after the Kelly murder. If his conjecture was correct, he may well have reasoned, Jack the Ripper must have been one of them. In other words, the suicide may have been the catalyst for his interest in Druitt, with the private information coming to him as a consequence of this interest, rather than vice versa.

As said before, I think, you are assuming that "Kosminski" was suspected of being the Ripper by the City C.I.D. They may have been maintaining surveillance for some other reason altogether, in which case there is no particular reason why Major Smith would have known about the Met's ID.

And as I said before, Paul, why would Swanson have referred to the City surveillance if it was unconnected with the Ripper investigation(s)? And what on earth could have prompted the City to mount an intensive, round the clock surveillance operation within the Metropolitan jurisdiction? This was Kosminski, not Morriarty.

And surely, if Kosminski had been positively identified at the Seaside Home, the Met would have been obliged to inform Major Smith, if only because the identification would have rendered Kosminski the prime suspect in the Eddowes murder.

[Garry Wroe]

A while back I worked on a Ripper documentary in London with Brent Turvey who has written much on profiling. His take differs from the FBI and I don't think the two get along too well. I liked Brent and Bill is a dear friend of mine, but I don't think that they would agree too much with each other.

For several years, Stewart, I corresponded with David Canter and as a consequence received several prepublication papers which have proved seminal in transforming the somewhat 'suck it and see' American approach to profiling into a far more scientifically rigorous discipline. Unfortunately there was a split in the UK between the mathematical and traditonal practitioners and the whole thing became very embarrassing. The last I heard, all communication had broken down between the two groups and there was even a refusal to share basic information. Like I said, all very embarrassing.

Thanks, anyway, for your comments, and of course your private message. Much appreciated.

[Trevor Marriott]

Trevor,
First of all, it is unacceptable practice to insert your replies within the text of someone else's message, that's why everyone quotes, hence the greyed out boxes. Please conform to normal and acceptable practice.

But there is big difference bewteen a file containing the names of suspects and a specific named suspect file. My point is that there was never a prime suspect to warrant a specific file on any such person being opened so therefore no such file could have gone missing if it was never there in the first place.

You disputed the existence of a suspect's file which had gone missing, but it is established that there was at least one and that it has gone missing

You are now claiming that there was "was never a prime suspect to warrant a specific file on any such person being opened", but you don't know that, it's just a guess. Tumblety could have been considered a prime suspect, so too could Ostrog, and if Anderson believed "Kosminski" was Jack the Ripper then his primacy as a suspect certainly wasn't chopped liver. But who says there was a prime suspect and thus a file labelled "prime suspect"? And given that Anderson believed "Kosminski" was the Ripper and Macnaghten believed Druitt was the Ripper, how do you think they might have though of them? Also rans? And historically, how are we supposed to treat these people who were believed by senior officers to be the Ripper? Nonentities? No, Trevor, they were and are prime suspects, at least insofar as they seem to have been thought such by men who were there.

So 6 years later he could reel off verbatum everything he knew and had been told about the ripper case. Another one of your get me out of the proverbial answers

Nope. Did I say that? I said that Macnaghten is believed to have had a specific interest in the case and that he kept photos of the victims in his drawer, and that he probably had the basic facts on file to hand. It may not have been necessary for him to call up the files, which would have been huge.

Well how could they seriously suspect Kosminski then if you eliminate the domestic what evidence is there i.e hearsay,circumstantial, documentary to make them suspect Kosminski at any time some 2- 3 years after the murders ceased.

I don't know, but you are telling everyone that Kosminski came to the attention of the police because of an East End domestic with a knife maybe three years after the murders. Fine, but that's your opinion and there is no evidence for it.

Ostrogs criminal record file would have been different from a suspects file and would have been stored in the Criminal records office or their equivelant

So what papers do you think would have been in his file with the Ripper papers?

MM didnt need to get the info on Cutbush from a file it was public knowledge was it not surrounding the Cutbush arrest and the belief he could have been the Ripper.

You just said Cutbush's file was on the top of the suspect files when Macnaghten opened the papers. So was it or wasn't it?

YOu are right about the evidence so in essence as we speak there is no more evidence against Kosminski than there is against any of the many names you list from the suspect file in fact there is less because no where does Kosminkis name appear.

Except, unlike all those other names, nobody has actually suggested that they were Jack the Ripper. "Kosminski's" name does appear in that context and at a very senior level.

Except in The MM written in 1894 and that has proved to have been totally unrelieable and the marginalia allegedly written 20 years or so later and again like the entry in THe MM only consists of a surname.

Absolutely, and the Macnaghten memoranda has not be "proved" to be "totally unreliable" and the marginalia was written, not allegedly written, 20+ years after the murders. And they are historical sources and should be treated as such, not in the cavalier fashion you do.

Yest out of all the supects he keeps being pushed to the front al the time. It is time now to let go of him and others.

So you keep saying. But he isn't being "pushed". You don't seem to understand that.

Someone mentioned Burnt Toast I would suggest very very burnt toast in fact.

Yes, somebody did mention toast, Talkie, Talkie Toaster our chirpy breakfast companion is wrong. "Kosminski" isn't toast. Or a muffin or a teacake, or a bun, bap, baguette or bagel. Or a croissant, crumpet, pancake, potato cake or hot-cross bun, and definitely no smegging flapjack. And it's not a waffle either.

You see, no matter who was suspected, no matter how the evidence was stacked, Anderson and Macnaghten would have known about it - and yet they still believed their respective suspects was Jack the Ripper.

But of course you are forgetting Littelchild and Abberline and their "suspects" and not forgetting the entry for The SB register which is suggested may relate to Randolph Churchill and Littlechild entry from the registe where he names another suspect. I think you are getting to carried away with what you see before you in writing from Scotland yards finest.

Nope, I don't forget Littlechild and Abberline or anyone else. I don't even forget Feigenbaum, and the written material from the men who were investigating, with those who were investigating, or were otherwise overseeing the Ripper investigation are far preferable sources to those who weren't

The trouble with you is that you believe what you want to beleive and you are totally blind to anything that does not fit your scenarios. You clearly accept without question Anderson and Swanson and in paticular Swanson. You have to rely on Swanson and the questionable marginalia because without Swanson your theories go out the window. Simply the answer to this mystery does not lie in a book or an official police record. The full truth will in my opinion never come out now due to the passage of time.

All we can do is to assess and evaluate what there is. I keep saying this it is for each and evveryone to draw their own conclusions from that. I look at this in a totally different light to you as far as assessing and evaluating certain aspects of this case.

We have to live with the fact that names of "suspects" were mentioned and even 123 years later we should try to understand why they were mentioned. In saying that clearly there is no evidence to elevate any of them into prime suspect status. If you are going to keep flogging Kosminski then he has to be looked at in the same light as all of the others and not as a prime suspect. You cannot keep floggin him on the basis that Anderson and Swanson were shining lights.

YOu have said that you believe Swanson because he was in charge yes but only for a time his being in charge ended in December 1888. Who was left holding the baby after that Abberline until 1889 and who after that ? So if Kosminski or others came to light after that wouldnt other officers have known about it. They clearly did not close the file on the Ripper when Swanson left to go back to Scotland yard.

If the infomation on Kosminski was "hot" then it would not have gone straight to Swanson at the yard other officers in the chain of command would have been aware. Notice there is nothing from anyone else corroborating Kosminksi coming to notice. Nothing from anyone else to corroborate anything else that is supposed to have happened after that. You cant simply ask or send someone like Kosminski 100 miles for an ID parade without anyone else knowing the mere logistics of it would have entailed 4 0r 5 men.

Not forgetting the "witness" would he have not gone back and at some time said to another or others "Oh I just went and identifeid JTR" would he have kept such an important issue quiet again nothing mentioned anywhere. The press would have paid a fortune for that story.

As far as suspect files are concerned there is a big difference between a file with names of supects show within and specific files relating to specific suspects. You can aruge the suspects files containing the names would have then been extended and included in the CID register. Clearly names were put forward and clearly steps were taken to eliminate them. BUt no mention of the names from The MM.

I cannot see why anyone would want to steal a file or files which if you are correct held the key to unlocking this mystery. It would be to valuable to sit and look at daily. I can understand collectors wanting to steal piece of history but thats totally different. Now before you say if they came forward with it they would be in trouble. After this gap in time hardly. All they need to have said is that they went to an auction or car boot sale and bought and old box full of papers and found it in with them. The we have another press and media frenzy as with The Diary.

Over all the years no one has ever seen anyhting anywhere which corroborates what is written in The MM or what Anderson says and what Swanson is supposed to have written in the marginalia. You can I suppose argue that they corroborate each other but when you look at them idivudually you have to ask are they sufficiently reliable.

Not only on this issue but the overall mystery is being bogged down by posters quoting chapter and verse from authors books and officers memoirs going back donkeys years. How can we be sure that what they wrote is accurate. Certainly grave doubts surround officers written memoirs. We only have to look at how modern day Ripper books are ripped to pieces by so called experts why does no one rip some of these older books to pieces we have about 140 published over the years they all cant be factually correct.

Sadly I fear the list of suspects will remain despite nothing to suggest now most were not worthy of suspect status let alone prime suspects.

But you keep holding court here but it is clear that many others now do not agree with you illogical and negative thinking and are prepared to listen to and consider other plausible explantions.

[PaulB]

I’m not so sure, Paul. Macnaghten stated that the killer must have suffered a psychological meltdown and committed suicide, otherwise the murders would not have ceased. Thus it is equally plausible that Macnaghten used this as a starting point in order to identify those suicides which occurred shortly after the Kelly murder. If his conjecture was correct, he may well have reasoned, Jack the Ripper must have been one of them. In other words, the suicide may have been the catalyst for his interest in Druitt, with the private information coming to him as a consequence of this interest, rather than vice versa.

I suggested a long time ago that Druitt could have come to light as a consequence of a routine trawl of suicides, hence Abberline's comment, but he said that there was nothing but the coincidence of his death so soon after the Kelly murder to incriminate him. The private information could therefore have been a result of the initial 1888 inquiries, albeit coming a long time after.

And as I said before, Paul, why would Swanson have referred to the City surveillance if it was unconnected with the Ripper investigation(s)? And what on earth could have prompted the City to mount an intensive, round the clock surveillance operation within the Metropolitan jurisdiction? This was Kosminski, not Morriarty.

Why wouldn't he have referred to the City C.I.D. surveillance if it was the City C.I.D. who maintained it? The City could have mounted surveillance within Met jurisdiction if they suspected "Kosminski" of having committed a crime in the City. Why they would have thought it necessary to do so is another question and one we can't answer. Maybe they did suspect him of being the Ripper, maybe they didn't. However, if they did then they'd probably have had him identified by Lawende, who presumably didn't recognise him, thus the Met having a crack with Schwartz.

And surely, if Kosminski had been positively identified at the Seaside Home, the Met would have been obliged to inform Major Smith, if only because the identification would have rendered Kosminski the prime suspect in the Eddowes murder.

One would have supposed so, but Smith's reaction to Anderson suggests that they didn't. Maybe it would all be blindingly obvious if we knew more, but we don't, hence the need to research. Whether or not we'll ever get the answers remains to be seen.

[Phil H]

We only have to look at how modern day Ripper books are ripped to pieces by so called experts why does no one rip some of these older books to pieces we have about 140 published over the years they all cant be factually correct.

You have already proved Trevor that your grasp of history is tenuous at best. Now you indicate clearly that you know nothing of historiography.

What is your point?

Phil

[Natalie Severn]

He retired in 1891.

I was well aware of that Paul and have personally seen the Mepo reference 10282 in Kew-along with the reference to the knife wound to his right thigh.
I doubt it would have stopped him making a trip to Scotland Yard if he thought it was urgently needed.
Besides he would no doubt have read the series of 1891 Sun articles declaring they knew "the Ripper" was none other than Thomas Cutbush then arraigned in Broadmoor for Her Majesty's pleasure and though The Sun did not go so far as to actually name him, many knew it was Thomas Cutbush and apparently thought he was Charles Cutbush's nephew-so not exactly the most pleasant bit of news for poor old Uncle Charles in his well earned retirement !

[Scott Nelson]

And surely, if Kosminski had been positively identified at the Seaside Home, the Met would have been obliged to inform Major Smith, if only because the identification would have rendered Kosminski the prime suspect in the Eddowes murder.

Maybe it was the other way around..... the city police informing Anderson that the suspect had been positively identified, but nothing more forthcoming, so they wrote it off as a failure -- but not Anderson. Smith apparently did not even think it worth mentioning.