Plausibility of Kosminski

[Hunter]

One of the problems which besets this subject is that some people treat it as if it was a cold case crime investigation, whilst for others it is a historical problem. What criminal investigators do and what historians do have some very close parallels, but they are also utterly different disciplines.

This is the quote of the day.

[Abby Normal]

To me, other than the fact that they all disagree, the greatest thing that points to Anderson and Mac basically clutching at straws with their "suspects" is that if they really knew who the ripper was, why did it take so long for them to finally proclaim it? And why did their belief grow over the years? If they had truly identified the ripper I think they would have been saying it (shouting it actually) closer to the time of the events and not much later as they actually did.

[robhouse]

If they had truly identified the ripper I think they would have been saying it (shouting it actually) closer to the time of the events and not much later as they actually did.

I think the exact opposite is true. It is clear that despite what Anderson or Swanson believed, the police had no proof that would be sufficient to secure a conviction. So it would have been pretty foolish (and legally problematic) to say or shout about it at all. I think it might even have been illegal to do so.

[Roy Corduroy]

Good afternoon Jonathan,

For myself, I think it is a very reasonable working hypothesis that two police chiefs, who worked together for a dozen or so years -- with the pious recluse sitting above the boyish smoothie -- and who then exclude each other, totally, from their memoirs must have absolutely loathed each other.

Okay then, let's say as a hypothetical that's true. Mcnaghten and Anderson loathed each other.

Furthermore, in 'Days of My Years' (1914), Macnaghten provides jauntily chummy thumbnails of everybody else:

Which you enumerate. Abberline, Littlechild, Swanson, Monro and so on. Thank you.

It is quite something to think that the 'Protean' [though un-named] Druitt gets an entire chapter to himself in Mac's memoirs and Anderson -- and his 'definitely ascertained fact' -- do not exist.

But if they despised each other, then of course Anderson and his solution don't get any face time in Macnaghten's memoir. That doesn't help us to gauge the plausibility of Kosminski. Except in the sense that Mcnaghten favored another solution, his Simon Pure. (Druitt disguised)

Your actual debate point is that Macnaghten favored Druitt as the murderer. His enmity with Anderson, a non-issue, is apparently a historical fact, so thank you for illuminating it for our benefit.

Roy

[Abby Normal]

I think the exact opposite is true. It is clear that despite what Anderson or Swanson believed, the police had no proof that would be sufficient to secure a conviction. So it would have been pretty foolish (and legally problematic) to say or shout about it at all. I think it might even have been illegal to do so.

Hi Rob
Good point and raises some questions for me. In Macs case(Druitt), even though a suspect is dead, could not the police continue to officially investigate especially if evidence comes to light later, eventhough obviously there can be no conviction? In Anderson's case (AK), if he really thought he had his man, could he not officially pursue it, use all the vigor and resources of the police to try and push it to trial and let the courts decide?

It seems that both did not-and to me is very telling.

[Jonathan H]

To AbbyNormal

A counter-argument is that no, the police would be on very shaky ground officially investigating a respectable gent who was deceased, with the libel laws as a looming threat (as the 1891 MP story fearfully alludes to, as does Anderson in 1910).

Plus, Anderson perhaps knew nothing about 'Kosminski' until 1895, and then honestly, and directly, and sincerely mentioned him as a 'perfectly plausible theory' in that year to Griffiths (under his pseudonym Alfred Aylmer).

In the case of the locked-up lunatic case they could not arrest a suspect who had been declared mentally incompetent, and that as soon as Anderson locked onto his theory he shared it with the public, as did Swanson perhaps with his claim, in the same year, of a likely Ripper who was apparently deceased.

If we examine Macnaghten, consider the tar-baby from his point of view.

In the midst of the publicity debacle over Tom Sadler -- where it could look like the police were desperately trying to railraod an innocent, working class sailor -- he learns that an indiscreet Tory back-bencher is shooting his mouth off about some suicided suspect.

Mac, also a Tory, goes to shut him down and, unexpectedly, what Henry Farquharson tells him ('from private information') is devastating and convincing. Mac then moves on, quite unofficially, to meet with the Druitts, or a Druitt, and is confirmed in his belief -- rightly or wrongly.

Here is the semi-fictional, satisfyingly exaggerated version of all this provided by Macnaghten via George Sims in 'The Referee' (under the latter's pseudonym Dagonet) in 1903:

'A little more than a month later the body [actually it was seven weeks] of the man suspected by the chiefs at the Yard [actually it was just Mac 'some years after'] and by his own friends, [actually it was his brother William] who were in communication with the Yard [actually it was just Mac and William conferring in 1891] was found in the Thames. The body had been in the water about a month. [yes, but he had not drowned himself in the river until three weeks after the Kelly murder]

The MP's 'doctrine' (and that of a 'good many people' he told) originating amongst the family, who 'believed', becomes the 'certain facts' pointing to a 'conclusion ... some years after', according to a highly regarded, hands-on, Ripper-obsessed police chief.

The problem for Macnaghten was that the story was an embarrassment for the Yard as the best suspect was dead, he had been dead for a long time, and they had found him via the vulture press.

Obviously there could never be a conviction.

Plus the Druitt family could be ruined, Scotland Yard and the Tory party could be embarrassed, and the Valentine school would start circling the plughole too.

As Sims so ironically wrote -- whether he knew it or not -- in 1917:

'... you can't try a corpse for a crime, however strong the suspicion may be.

And the authorities could not say, "This dead man was Jack the Ripper." The dead cannot defend themselves.'

So, Macnaghten 'cut the knot in his own way' by altering an embarrassing and potentially destructive tale into a harmless one which hid Druitt and his family (the 'friends') and in the act of hiding him, slyly and self-servingly redacted him back into the 1888 investigation as somebody they were about to arrest.

In using George Sims Macnaghten, from behind the scenes, was shouting from the highest roof-top that the case was solved. This opinion was meant to steamroller over all contrary police opinions and, at the time, did so.

"Jack the Ripper" was known, was identified, and is dead. Let him rest.' (Dagonet, 1903)

[PaulB]

Hi Rob
Good point and raises some questions for me. In Macs case(Druitt), even though a suspect is dead, could not the police continue to officially investigate especially if evidence comes to light later, eventhough obviously there can be no conviction? In Anderson's case (AK), if he really thought he had his man, could he not officially pursue it, use all the vigor and resources of the police to try and push it to trial and let the courts decide?

It seems that both did not-and to me is very telling.

The simple answer to both points is why would the police do either? Druitt was dead, Kosminski was safe in an asylum and very probably couldn't have stood trial, and the police had other crimes to pursue with their vigor and resources.

[Jonathan H]

I agree with Paul, with a caveat.

I agree that no official investigation was ever made of Druitt (or I think 'Kosminki') as a Ripper suspect, dead or alive.

Where I disagree is that I subscribe to the theory that Macnaghten made a private, and thus unofficial, investigation of the deceased Druitt in 1891, or thereabouts. That he met with the MP and then dead man's 'people' -- and came away convinced.

The paradigm set up by Dan Farson and Tom Cullen, that Macnaghten was genuinely forgetful and only knew his preferred suspect at arm's length, was always a shaky one. Every contemporaneous source describes Macnaghten as hands-on, and possessed of an extraordinary memory. The idea of a poor memory, creating creeping 'inaccuracies', comes from Mac himself -- in the 'Cheshire Cat'-like preface of his memoirs.

I argue that this unlikely paradigm was forever smashed by Andrew Spallek's breakthrough essay 'The West of England MP -- Identified' in 2008, though I hasten to add that this was not necessarily a claim made by that author but rather by me as a reader.

[lynn cates]

inversion

Hello Jonathan.

"I subscribe to the theory that Macnaghten made a private, and thus unofficial, investigation of the deceased Druitt in 1891, or thereabouts. That he met with the MP and then dead man's 'people' -- and came away convinced."

I believe this, too. But I would invert the order. I think Farqy first dropped the story, THEN Mac poked about for some information.

Do you think that possible?

Cheers.
LC

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

The Thames suicide story from a West of England MP made its debut on 11th February 1891. It held water for a whole two days, by which time Frances Coles had been murdered and the Ripper franchise was back in the saddle. Small wonder Lloyds Weekly News published the story on 15th February under the sub-head "Remarkable Fiction".

While Macnaghten was checking out the facts, he might also have cared to check out this 26th February story from a North of England MP.

“I am in a position to give, on the authority of a Scotland Yard detective, a somewhat remarkable piece of information respecting the hunt of the English police after the perpetrator of the terrible series of East End murders which convulsed the whole country with horror a while ago. We have heard nothing of “Jack the Ripper” for some time past-over a year-and his murderous operations have not been renewed.

“The reason of this is that the police have, for many months past, been perfectly certain that they have discovered the man. The chain of evidence has been completed with the exception of a single link. That link they have been making unavailing endeavours to supply. The suspected criminal, till within a month at any rate, has been shadowed night and day, awake and asleep, by Scotland Yard detectives. Everything points to the conclusion that he has himself been perfectly aware of this vigilance on the part of the police, and it is, no doubt, from this cause, and this alone, that the Whitechapel murders have ceased."

Both stories made nonsense of the Sadler-as-Ripper investigation, so from whom were these two Tory MPs getting their contradictory information?

Regards,

Simon

[Roy Corduroy]

26th February story from a North of England MP.

" The suspected criminal, till within a month at any rate, has been shadowed night and day, awake and asleep, by Scotland Yard detectives."

Simon, your article could be about Aaron Kosminski. Being watched 'till within a month."

Roy

[Stewart P Evans]

Similar reports

...
While Macnaghten was checking out the facts, he might also have cared to check out this 26th February story from a North of England MP.
“I am in a position to give, on the authority of a Scotland Yard detective, a somewhat remarkable piece of information respecting the hunt of the English police after the perpetrator of the terrible series of East End murders which convulsed the whole country with horror a while ago. We have heard nothing of “Jack the Ripper” for some time past-over a year-and his murderous operations have not been renewed.
“The reason of this is that the police have, for many months past, been perfectly certain that they have discovered the man. The chain of evidence has been completed with the exception of a single link. That link they have been making unavailing endeavours to supply. The suspected criminal, till within a month at any rate, has been shadowed night and day, awake and asleep, by Scotland Yard detectives. Everything points to the conclusion that he has himself been perfectly aware of this vigilance on the part of the police, and it is, no doubt, from this cause, and this alone, that the Whitechapel murders have ceased."
Simon

Similar reports appeared in various newspapers after the Coles murder, the below appeared on 1 March 1891.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Roy,

Most certainly it could.

Which would make even more nonsense of the Sadler-as-Ripper investigation.

Hi Stewart,

Who wrote that gem-dandy?

Regards,

Simon

[robhouse]

Very interesting post Simon. I do not recall ever seeing this before. Is this a new discovery you have made?

Rob H

[Jonathan H]

To Simon Wood

Yes, interesting and I have seen it before. It's not from Macnaghten I don't think because in every other source has is insistent that the fiend was himself dead by his own hand the morning of the Kelly murder.

It sounds like somebody trying to wipe the Humty Dumpty-size egg of their faces for the Sadler debacle?

To Lynn Cates

Hi, hey we are in agreement. I must have put it clumsily.

Like you I think it went something like this:

In Dorset, the terrible truth about their late Montie leaked from the family, or a family member, along the Tory grapevine in early 1891. Henry Farquharson was so overcome by the tale that he began telling his ten closest friends, and the story inevitably made its somewhat elliptical appearance in the press.

Macnaghten went to hose down the MP, a fellow gentleman, Tory and Old Etonian, and Indian plantation owner, and came away a believer. He then met with William Druitt, who told him the whole story whilst Mac assured him it would never surface in the media. At least not in such a way as to identity and thus ruin a respectable family. Mace 'cut the knot his own way' (the Drowned Doctor semi-fictional suspect) to keep his promise.

'Kosminski'

Consider that Aaron kosminski, a mostly harmless mentally ill man out and about for over two years after the Kelly explosion, seems a very unlikely fit for 'Jack -- eg. not plausible. That was what Martin Fido thought when he found him.

But Macnaghten's 'Kosminski', whom he projected to the public via his literary cronies, is a much better fit!

In this version of 'Kosminski'; he hates all women, he was sectioned in March of 1889, and he strongly resembled an eyewitness sighting -- by a cop no less! -- of a man seen with a victim very soon before she was murdered and mutilated.

The remake is, deliberately, much more 'plausible'.