Plausibility of Kosminski

[PaulB]

The other one is Stepney Workhouse for Mile End Old Town Workhouse. Of course, I'm aware of the argument about MEOT Workhouse being in Stepney, which makes it an understandable error, but it's an error nonetheless.

True.

[Fleetwood Mac]

Again, you are putting words into my mouth. I have tried to choose my words carefully, and I have not suggested that Swanson "embellished" his account.

By all means let's end this dialogue. But for heaven's sake don't come back with one final misrepresentation of what I have said!

Chris, this is turning into the outright bizarre.

In post 880, you replied to Mike:

Mike suggested that the police could well have taken the suspect/witness encounter to mean they had their man, without there being a statement from the witness to the effect: "that's the man". Your reply was something like: "I have always considered this to be the most likely scenario".

Tell you what, Chris, do me a favour please and help out the simple minded (i.e. me): clearly and concisely, what do you consider to be the most likely scenario?

[Fleetwood Mac]

Chris and Mac,
A very small question, if you have a source which makes an unverifiable claim then the usual rule is “if in doubt, leave it out”, but when there is a paucity of relevant source material and one cannot afford to do that, the course of action is to assess the credibility of the source. If the source is credible, at what point do you think it becomes acceptable to alter what the source says, discount bits, accept bits, and otherwise “manipulate” what it says?

Well, I wouldn't leave out a source document simply because of a lack of other material to back it up. I would consider the following in particular:

a) Is the author in a position of authority in terms of being in the right place at the right time to know what he is talking about?

b) A crucial question is this: what was the author's objective when writing whatever is included in the document?

c) Is the document genuine, i.e. written by the supposed author.

I have no view on C.

I'm satisfied with A and B.

I feel that two questions need a good explanation for anyone arguning against the positive ID:

a) Why would Swanson lie in notes that were intended for his own consumption only? i.e. why would he lie to himself?

b) Are we really saying that Swanson, a trained policeman with years of service, lacks the capacity to differentiate between a possibility and an actual positive ID? Are we really saying that? Because in the event we are, we are, in effect, accusing him of incompetence considering he was trained to solve crime; which must involve being able to sift the wheat from the chaffe in terms of evidence.

Of course, question a) is for those who believe he was lying and question b) is for those who believe the event was misintrepreted.

In terms of the second part of your question, Paul, I think the main thing to distinguish between is fact and opinion. For example:

a) He states a positive ID as a fact.

b) He offers his opinion that the suspect would have hanged based on the ID.

As the latter is an opinion, then of course there is more scope for debate around whether or not he would have been hanged.

Now, I know there's a flaw in the logic here as he claimed Kosminski died in the asylum shortly after. Then it becomes a judgement call: do you take one error to disqualify the entire document? I wouldn't, simply because a small detail does not detract from the central premise in the document, i.e. there was a positive idea.

[Chris]

Fleetwod Mac

I've already explained, and I have no intention of adding to that explanation. Please just read what I have said, rather than continually trying to put your own words into my mouth.

[Fleetwood Mac]

Fleetwod Mac

I've already explained, and I have no intention of adding to that explanation. Please just read what I have said, rather than continually trying to put your own words into my mouth.

I have read what you said in post 880, which included your 'most likely scenario'.

For the sake of concluding this discussion, and it's one we've put a bit of effort into so no use in leaving it unfinished, do you want to explain how and why my post 1007 is 'putting words into your mouth'?

In post 880, did you reply to Mike's suggestion that the police could well have misintrepted the actions of suspect/witness to take it as read that the ID was positive? did you reply with the words: "I've always considered this to be the most likely scenario"?

[Chris]

Fleetwood Mac

I said nothing about post 1007. I asked you to stop putting words into my mouth, which you have done repeatedly. Now kindly drop it.

[Fleetwood Mac]

Fleetwood Mac

I said nothing about post 1007. I asked you to stop putting words into my mouth, which you have done repeatedly. Now kindly drop it.

When you accused me of putting words into your mouth, I then referred you to your post 880.

For whatever reason, you're happy to accuse of me of putting words into your mouth but when I respond and point you to your post 880 which vindicates what I said and shows that I'm not putting the words into your mouth, you now want to drop it.

Bad form, mate.

If it helps Chris, these were your words in post 880:

I feel the third choice is by far the likeliest. To my mind it seems probable that there was an attempted identification, that the witness was not able to make a positive identification, but that Anderson (and probably Swanson) believed, or came to believe, that the witness and the suspect had recognised each other.

And I feel I am justified in accusing you of accusing Swanson of being incompetent, which I did earlier and it is what started this whole 'don't put words in my mouth'.

So, bringing us back full circle:

Swanson stated in his notes that the the man was identified and in the event the witness testified to it, the suspect would have been hanged. You're stating that Swanson simply 'believed' they had recognised one another. Swanson was a trained policeman with years of service and if you're right, i.e. he couldn't tell the difference between his own belief based on a nod and a wink or whatever and a witness stating: "that's the man", then he was wholly incompetent considering his job was to resolve crime and a major part of that was being able to sort the evidence wheat from the chaffe.

[The Good Michael]

Mac,

In looking at Chris' post, he suggests the likelihood of Swanson being inaccurate, but with his words based on fact. This is interesting, because he also says that he doesn't believe there was a positive ID. I think this gets down to defining 'positive ID'. In my vision, there was a positive ID in Anderson's (and Swanson's) heads, though not anything they could work with. In other interpretations, this wouldn't then be a positive ID as there wasn't anything said to the effect of "Yes, that's him." That too is a fair assessement of 'positive ID.' Earlier, Stewart talked about how crazy it is to think that there was a positive ID, but the suspect was let go. Not his exavct words, but a concise representation. That also is true, in my opinion. If there was an actual witness pointing out a suspect and then refusing to submit a written statement, in the manner we see on TV or surmise about how line-up identifications work, I feel the police would have done everything they could have done to leverage the suspect. A non-verbal ID would have been a gut feeling about a reaction and in some minds (authorities who want to prove something perhaps) have been enough, in retrospect, to discuss the incident as a truth, and in their minds, such a thing would have been the truth. In this scenario, we are left with no lies, and no gross exaggerations. We are left with stubborn people who don't want to admit that the evidence really wasn't there, or forgot the extend to which an ID had been made. It's wishy-washy and unsatisfactory, but at its worst, this scenario implies a desire to be right and not the desire to tell out and out lies.

Mike

[Chris]

Fleetwood Mac

Yet again, you try to make out that I am "accusing" Swanson - this time of incompetence!

Just to be clear, I said no such thing, and I have never suggested any such thing.

[robhouse]

I understand you interpretation, Mr. House, but indeed there is no evidence whatsoever that the police or any private detectives had been with Ms. Kür at any time previously to October 9 (as reported by The Northern Eastern Gazette of the next day) and that the police had managed to supress the story up until then.

There is evidence that the police were trying to suppress the story, as this is stated explicitly in at least one of the articles, if not more.

There is also evidence that the Police talked with Mrs. Kuer prior to October 9. Again, the articles explicitly state that a) the Police learned about the story from a neighbor during house-to-house inquiries following the Stride murder. It is known that these inquiries took place around October 1-3. I think it is quite clear that if the Police learned about this story from a neighbor, they would have immediately gone to Mrs. Kuer and spoken to her directly about it. Which is indeed what is stated in these articles. So I think it is quite obvious from reading all these articles that the police were well aware of the bloody shirt story about a week before Le Grand reported it to them.

As I say in the book, the main reason this in interesting in regards to Kozminski as a suspect is that the reports suggest that the Police were conducting surveillance on a location in the east end which was the residence of a foreigner, a ladies tailor (apparently a master tailor), and which was located a few hundred yards from the site of the Stride murder. All of which fits Kozminski exactly. Still it is speculation on my part, and indeed there were other master ladies tailors in the area. The reports also say that information about the suspect was given to the police by a woman who lived with the suspect... and I have speculated that this may have been one of Kozminski's relatives.

I am perfectly willing to agree to disagree as you put it.

RH

[Garry Wroe]

I seem to recall that Lawende was at some point sequestered by the Met, but have no idea whether he would have been taken to a hotel, safe house or some similar such place. Given the curious location of the alleged Kosminski identification, I've been wondering whether the Seaside Home might have been used for just such a purpose.

But if not, why was it used for this particular identification? Surely there must have been other more convenient venues that would have provided the necessary degree of safety, security and privacy. So why the Seaside Home?

[Fleetwood Mac]

Mac,

In looking at Chris' post, he suggests the likelihood of Swanson being inaccurate, but with his words based on fact. This is interesting, because he also says that he doesn't believe there was a positive ID. I think this gets down to defining 'positive ID'. In my vision, there was a positive ID in Anderson's (and Swanson's) heads, though not anything they could work with.

Mike, I agree with your interpretation of Chris's post.

This is my point:

In his notes, Swanson states the idenification was enough for the suspect to have been hanged. That has to mean it was a: "yes, that's the man", as a 'belief' or 'interpretation' based on body language or whatever would not have been enough to convict him and quite clearly Swanson would have known this.

Therefore, Swanson's notes are unequivocal in that it was a: "that's the man". In order for the idea that "Swanson came to believe this" to work, then clearly the inference is that a) Swanson's mind deceived him or b) Swanson couldn't tell the difference between a definite "yes, that's the man" ID and a possibility based on something they saw in the interaction between suspect and witness.

And, either a or b, this line of argument calls into question Swanson's credibility and consequently his years of training/service as a policeman.

I suppose I'm banking on this: if a competent policeman with years of experience/training/service felt he had enough for the man to hang, then I'm going to go with him and accept that he had enough for him to hang, which can only mean a: "yes, that's the man".

[Phil Carter]

Hello Garry,

Nice post. I wonder why, and for which particular reason, the suspect is taken to the witness, and not, as is far more usual I believe, for the witness to be taken to the suspect?


kindly

Phil

[Garry Wroe]

Thanks, Phil. Hopefully, someone with more detailed knowledge of such things will provide an explanation.

[Fleetwood Mac]

Hello Garry,

Nice post. I wonder, and for which particular reason, why the suspect is taken to the witness, and not, as is far more usual I believe, for the witness to be taken to the suspect?


kindly

Phil

Or were both suspect and witness taken to the home?

I was thinking about this the other night and one thing that popped into my mind is did the police home have a facility where the witness could see the suspect but the suspect couldn't see the witness? Thereby maintaining the suspects anonymity. But from there, how did the suspect know he was identified (as per Swanson's notes)? Unless of course the police told him but didn't reveal the suspect's name - a long shot really.

I would say, though, if it was the police home, then the key is it being police inhabited rather than it being a home - which is self-explanatory I suppose.