Plausibility of Kosminski

[Jonathan H]

To Wickerman

You touch on what for me is one of the pieces of compelling, albeit soft evidence for Druitt's guilt.

That Montie was a dead ringer for Lawende's 'Jack the Sailor', at least generically: lithe, medium height, about 30, and fair-moustached; a Gentile-featured, youngish man seen by a Jew -- at least according to Druitt's high school pictures.

Since Druitt was an athlete it is reasonable to assume that he remained slim and trim. And Lawende was, at least according to the way police used him, the very best Ripper witness.

To Versa

I think that both Anderson and Macnaghten both believed that they knew the identity of the Ripper. Since they preferred different suspects they both cannot be right, and might both be wrong.

But Macnaghten, as a primary source, goes against the expected bias of class and race by choosing somebody from his own class and race. It is quite extraordinary that he did that, an aspect mostly missed here.

[Errata]

Hi Errata,

So in answer to your question about why didn't the police tell the public that they knew the Ripper's identity, and embroider the facts "to restore the city's faith in law enforcement, and their fellow man"... they apparently did.

Rob H

See, I had always read these differently, as a sort of "sources tell us" story. Mostly because of the tenor of journalism in those days. I did not see the one quoting Swanson.

Did they make an official announcement? Or did they just release a statement to one newspaper? I would have thought a speech on city hall steps, but that may be my American flair for the dramatic.

Why not close the case? And did anyone at the time ask them why they weren't closing the case if they knew who it was?

[robhouse]

The thing that is interesting to me is that the Police issued statements that were vague enough that people would not be able to follow them up, and that these statements seemed to be designed to ease the public's fears. As such, it is interesting that they claimed the Ripper was someone with a medical background (which fit some of the public's suspicions), and also that he had been in an asylum (private asylum), and had died (which would put the public at ease.)

I do think it is possible that the police designed certain "stories" to both ease the public's worry that the Ripper might still be on the loose, while simultaneously keeping them completely in the dark as to the truth. Of course, they would not want anyone asking too many questions, but they could always simply say "I am sorry, but I can't go into details... but rest assured, we knew who the Ripper was. He is now dead." So yes, I think it is possible that this was a sort of cover story, and I think Druitt may have been used in a similar sense as a tactic of misdirection.

You ask "Why not close the case?" I am not sure what you mean by this. What do you mean "close the case"?

RH

[Errata]

You ask "Why not close the case?" I am not sure what you mean by this. What do you mean "close the case"?

RH

Declare it solved. Go through all of the murders and file them under "solved" as opposed to "unsolved". Make it official. They were sure that the Ripper murders were over, and if someone made a deathbed confession 20 years down the line, they could declare that guy a crackpot and go on with their lives.

If Anderson was convinced of Kosminski's guilt in 1895, why didn't he fill out the necessary paperwork, declare the murders solved, the case closed, and never think on them again?

[robhouse]

Well according to what Anderson said, the police lacked sufficient evidence to prove Kozminski's guilt in court. This may mean that Anderson was still convinced of Kozminski's guilt, (or at least pretty much convinced anyway), but whatever evidence they had was not sufficient legally speaking. I mean, you can not just go ahead and declare a case officially closed, when you do not have a conviction.

[Jonathan H]

To Rob

I disagree that Anderson would have been deliberately involved in misdirecting the public (I doubt Swanson would have either).

My assessment of him as a source is that he always said what he thought was the Gospel truth -- not that this means, of course, that it was always accurate.

Whereas the extant record shows that Macnaghten did engage in this sort of chicanery, with both colleagues and cronies.

On a related point, it's possible that in 1895 Swanson is referring -- eg. a chief suspect who was deceased -- elliptically to Druitt, not 'Kosminski'. This would tally if the later Marginalia is a reproduction of what Anderson told him, rather than the other way round.

[Errata]

Well according to what Anderson said, the police lacked sufficient evidence to prove Kozminski's guilt in court. This may mean that Anderson was still convinced of Kozminski's guilt, (or at least pretty much convinced anyway), but whatever evidence they had was not sufficient legally speaking. I mean, you can not just go ahead and declare a case officially closed, when you do not have a conviction.

Ok, this may be a difference between our legal systems, But in the US the police close cases fairly regularly based on the guilt of a dead person. A lot of cold case files in fact get closed this way. Say they find that a long dead serial killer was in a certain town at a certain time, and there is an unsolved murder in that town that is not contrary to the serial killer's methods. They will declare the serial killer the one responsible for that death and close the case.

In fact they did it famously with Adam Walsh a couple of years ago. About a decade after Otis Toole's death they declared him to be the killer of Adam Walsh. There was nothing in Toole's history that ran contrary to the facts of the case, he was in the general area at the time, and it was consistent with his killing methods. They would never have been able to prove the case in a court of law, but it was solved to enough people's satisfaction that the case was closed.

[robhouse]

I honestly do not know what case closed means, technically speaking. I have always assumed it meant that the case was legally resolved somehow.

Whether or not the Police or certain individuals at SY considered the case to be "closed" in a loose sense of the word is not really relevant. Since the police couldn't do anything legally, the best they could hope for is that people would just forget about the whole thing. If people started asking questions, that would have caused a whole slew of problems. You have to look at this from the perspective of people like Anderson, Swanson, Monro etc. Assume that they had strong suspicions about Kozminski's guilt but couldn't prove it in court. That is the premise. Now in that situation, you have to ask, what could they do? What would you do in that position? What would any intelligent person do?

To go around trumpeting the fact that they knew the Ripper's identity or declaring the case "officially closed" would have been really stupid. For starters, this would only stir the pot, get people curious. People might start trying to find out who he was, asking questions. Then if they found out the identity of the suspect, all hell would break loose... The police could get in legal trouble, for starters. Not to mention security problems at the asylum, the safety of Kozminski's family, and riots against Jews in the East End in general.

What people don't seem to think about is that in such a situation, the police would have had very limited options. You think they would go around trumpeting the fact that they knew the Ripper's identity? People have suggested this actually, and I just can't fathom it. The best option would be to have the suspect institutionalized... perhaps pressure the family to do it. Then to hush the matter up... spread around a few false stories about a suspect... maybe he was in an asylum, maybe he died, maybe he was a doctor, maybe he was in Broadmoor, maybe a private asylum. Maybe he commited suicide. Etc. Pretty soon there will be so many stories floating around that no one will know what to believe, and they will forget about it eventually. This is sort of along the lines of a "limited hangout."

RH

[Jonathan H]

To Rob

I agree that the case could never be 'closed' if there was no conviction.

I also agree that the police -- well, just Macnaghten actually -- had to tread very carefully. He had to both reveal and conceal the chief suspect to the public or else risk scandal, distress to others, possibly a libel action.

'Ripperology', for want of a better term, does not grasp that Major Griffiths announced that the case might be solved in 1898, and then the much more widely read George Sims went even further the following year. Both men have the same source: Macnaghten.

What this pair, a Tory and a Liberal, claimed was thus officially blessed.

What was not clear, at the time, was this it was not monolithic Scotland Yard or Home Office opinion, just Macnaghten's -- Abberline, Reid, and Anderson all disputed the 'Drowned Doctor' paradigm in public, either explicitly or implicitly.

Nevertheless, from 1899 to 1917, Sims relentlessly claimed as a certainty that Scotland Yard had solved the case.

There was no longer a Ripper mystery.

And the fiend was not the Polish Jew suspect either.

He was a gentile, and a gentleman, and a professional. He had told a humane confidant (eg. here a physician) that he felt compelled to kill harlots. A tormented figure he took his own life in an act of self-disgust.

But the Edwardian Era's certainty became forgotten as Sims, a successful but quickly dated playwright, also became forgotten, leaving behind the pop image of the murderer with a black bag, top hat and opera cloak -- but now forlornly detached from its historical origins.

The Ripper as a Jekyll-and-Hyde figure came from a police chief's firm opinion, which was either a hopeless mistake or a discreet disguise? His memoir, which mostly dropped the mythical cocoon, suggests the latter

In a sense 'Jack the Ripper' became a mystery again ironically once Druitt was found and, after about a decade, the 'solution' seemed acutely unsatisfying because the drowned barrister did not match what Macnaghten had written (outside of his neglected memoir) and then disseminated to Sims.

But early researchers initially did not find Sims' other writings on the Ripper, especially his 1907 opus. These would have shown that this police chief was peddling fiction as fact on a much larger scale than just a few errors in an internal report.

[Robert]

There's one small point : in the years after 1910 it probably would not have occurred to Anderson, Swanson or Macnaghten that anyone would be convicted of the murders at such a remove in time. I don't suppose it would have occurred to anyone at all, except perhaps a very early Ripperologist . Still, if we believe that a small group of top ranking officers believed that they had a solution or solutions (Kosminski or Druitt), but that this hadn't percolated down to the lower ranks, then there was always a slim chance of an "innocent" man being charged with the crimes. Therefore one might have expected these officers to a least leave a proper record of what they knew, e.g. a sealed envelope to be opened in the event that someone was charged with the crimes after the top ranking officers had died. They don't seem to have done this, which is odd, because they wouldn't have wanted a miscarriage of justice (as it would appear to them, they being in possession of the solution).

[Jonathan H]

Interesting point, Robert.

I would just say that from the moment that Macnaghten briefed literary mouthpieces to claim, rightly or wrongly, that the case was solved, then anybody arrested after that would surely have a barrister competent enough to simply exploit this 'scoop' -- sourced from the top 'men' at Scotland Yard -- to say that there has to have been a ghastly mistake, and we will be expecting a full public apology.

[Robert]

Hi Jonathan

Well, if you just take Anderson's memoirs, that's the same sort of thing. Still, it does seem a bit cavalier of these officers to go to their graves without leaving a sealed envelope or something of the kind.

[Errata]

Out of curiosity,

Why would they have to conceal who the suspect was? Especially if they were already dead (or believed to be dead). I mean, you can't sue for libel on a dead guys behalf. 1910, most of these guys are retired, why keep it a secret?

[Wickerman]

Out of curiosity,

Why would they have to conceal who the suspect was? Especially if they were already dead (or believed to be dead). I mean, you can't sue for libel on a dead guys behalf. 1910, most of these guys are retired, why keep it a secret?

Because even when retired they are all still members of The Reform Club, Pall Mall, and would rather not be greeted by the rustle of raised newspapers everytime they enter the room.


Jolly poor show, that man!

Jon

[Jonathan H]

For a start you cannot say somebody is officially guilty of a crime if they never stand trial, are never convicted -- are never even arrested for said crime (The Warren Report which 'convicted' Lee Oswald being a notable exception).

Anderson refers to the libel laws and witholds the name of his Polish Jew and the witness.

The 'West of England' MP story, which arguably solved the mystery, refers fearfully to the libel laws.

Tom Sadler apparently successfully sued a couple of tabloids for claiming that he was 'Jack'.

The dead cannot sure but the living sure can, not on behalf of the deceased but on their own behalf. The libelous implication being that they harboured the fiend and did nothing about it!

I do, though, think that Macnaghten concealed Druitt in a way quite different from Anderson who always acted honestly and appropriately.

Mac did this to protect from distress the surviving Druitts. Hence making Montie unrecognizeable and unrecoverable. Hence his inexplicable lie in 1913 that he had destroyed all documents with the fiend's name. In fact, he had not even destroyed the draft, or rewrite, of his own report. I think this was a signal to the family -- to feel reassured.

Incredibly, this discreet defecltion regarding the murderer has lasted to this day?!

The other reason Mac did this was to improve the Ripper-dented reputation of the Yard, which also appealed to his modesty. He had found Druitt in 1891, entirely posthumously and entirely outside normal police channels. But in the story he told Sims, he redacted the 'doctor' back into 1888 (made Druitt somewhat Tumbletyesque) so that the police could seem to have been about to arrest the Ripper but he drowned himself -- news, of course, to Abberline and Reid?

Without the slightest hint of irony, Sims writes in 1917 that it would be unseemly for the police to be seen convicting a corpse, for 'the dead cannot defend themselves'.

No, but their true identity can be obscured to the point where they do not have to.