The witness that refused.

[lynn cates]

via media

Hello Cris. That's a very good point. Lawende was also not too eager to come forward nor too hesitant. And his testimony was cautious.

All this makes it look genuine.

Cheers.
LC

[Fleetwood Mac]

Despite the caveats presented by Lawende's statement about not recognizing the man again, he is the only witness in this whole series who has corroboration by two other witnesses. This is always of major importance in any police assimilation of witness statements and would not have been unrecognized by Swanson.

He was the best 'of a bad lot' because his sighting was verified by Harris and Levy.

He may have been the best of a bad known bunch.

He may have had a good look at a man 10 minutes before the murder - by his own admission he didn't.

Regardless, he certainly can not be classed as viewing the murderer with the degree of certainty proposed by Anderson.

It seems that Anderson's witness was not Lawende.

[Jonathan H]

Joseph Lawende is the witness to a Gentile-featured, sailorish-attired youngish suspect chatting non-menacingly with Eddowes, and who (albeit un-named) apparently said 'no' to Tom Sadler and 'yes' to William Grant.

If the 'Pall Mall Gazette' of 1895 has got this right, Lawende despite the passage of several years fully justfied police faith in his sighting and powers of recall in that he affirmed to a prime, Jack the Ripper suspect.

In the same article, not only is Swanson quoted as saying this is not the Ripper but he has sound knowledge that the real killer is deceased.

How sound? If Lawende said yes to Grant (Grainger) it still did not move them from another suspect who could not be arrested. They preferred a dead man to an eyewitness confirmation of a youngish, thuggish sailor who had been caught red-handed trying to slice up a Whitechapel harlot (his victim lived). No wonder his own lawyer thought that his client was 'Jack'.

But why not CID?

Is it because Anderson had become convinced that the fiend had to be a Polish-Jew protected by his fellow low-life, sectarians, and had made his rigid opinion well know to his colleagues?

And then into his office, at the time of the Grant investigation, springs his insufferable, 'Eton forever' deputy with vital news he has just learned. That an insane Polish-Jew, local to the East End and permanently sectioned back in early 1889 -- and soon after deceased -- was believed by his own family to be the real 'Jack'?

Oh, and he was reportedly guilty of the Sin of Onan too, repeatedly ...

[lynn cates]

vague?

Hello Jonathan. It has always puzzled me that Lawende, in spite of his self confessed likely inability to pick out the "culprit" seen with Kate, was able to do the "No", "Yes" thing, years after the fact.

Is it at all possible that this consisted in some broad terms as, for instance, "Definitely not--too X" for Sadler; but, "Well, I cannot rule him out--possibly" for Grainger?

Cheers.
LC

[Nemo]

I can't recall where I saw it but I think the witness only said Grainger/Grant was of the same height and build of the suspect

[lynn cates]

explanation

Hello Nemo. If true, that would explain much.

Cheers.
LC

[DVV]

No, Grainger was taller.
I don't know why his lawyer thought he was JtR, but the sequence of events has nothing to do with the Ripper MO.
It's very similar to the Sadler case.

[Jonathan H]

To Nemo

I think you are confusing what George Sims wrote about the [non-existent] beat cop seeing the Polish Jew suspect some time later and thinking there were only certain features similar: the 1907 piece for Lloyds-Weekly.

Whereas the un-named Lawende apparently said, yes, it's him when confronted with Grant.

To Lynn

I think that the cops just put it about that Lawende could not really be sure as they assumed that the Ripper read the papers. They wanted to create a false sense of security. Their actions and Lawende's actions suggest they regarded him as the best witness, and the only witness worth wheeling in and out.

Why not -- if he affirmed to Grant?

The modern theories that Lawende was not Anderson's witness for the arguably non-existent Seaside Home 'confrontation', and that it was really Schwarz cut no ice with me at all.

[lynn cates]

explains much

Hello Jonathan. If true, that would explain reams. And part of his description was intentionally--and admittedly--withheld.

Cheers.
LC

[DVV]

I don't believe for a moment all that stuff about Lawende and Grant.
In his long controversy with Forbes, Kebbell made no allusion at all to such an identification, although he tried his best to back up his theory.
Instead, we are provided with arguments such as "He used to carry a most extraordinary knife like that of a surgeon".

[Jonathan H]

'Kosminski' not Grant?

To Lynn

Yes I have wondered that too.

Surely Kebbell would have screamed that story from the clock-face of Big Ben -- instead not a word?!

So, I postulate the following:

Grant was investigated as the fiend, for sure.

But by then, 1895, Macnaghten was comfortably locked into Druitt and Anderson and/or Swanson were locked into 'Kosminski'.

It is why there is no senior police agitation over Grant, as there hjad been over Sadler.

Then why did the reporter make this error about the un-named Lawende?

Apart from the explanation that they just made it up, there is something else to consider.

In the same 'Pall Mall Gazette' story Swanson is quoted as saying that the more likely 'Jack' is deceased, and this will match his Marginalia of about fifteen, or more years later. Anderson's son's biog. will also confirm the notion of a Polish Jewish suspect who was subsequently deceased, after being affirmed by a witness and sectioned.

Therefore what the reporter may have picked up on from Swanson, or somebody privy to the Anderson-Swanson faction was that a Jewish witness had said 'yes' when 'confronted' with a Ripper suspect.

The reporter misunderstood and assumed they meant this suspect, Grant.

Whom Swanson or whomever actually meant was 'Kosminski', from several years before.

Otherwise we have a big coincidence; that a Jewish witness affirmed to a Ripper suspect and fifteen years later Anderson and/or Swanson both wrote about a Jewish witness who affirmed to a Ripper suspect -- and they are completely different suspects?

[lynn cates]

other way about

Hello Jonathan. Thanks. But I would have thought the converse?

Cheers.
LC

[Jonathan H]

Can you elaborate?

[Wickerman]

Despite the caveats presented by Lawende's statement about not recognizing the man again, he is the only witness in this whole series who has corroboration by two other witnesses. This is always of major importance in any police assimilation of witness statements and would not have been unrecognized by Swanson.

He was the best 'of a bad lot' because his sighting was verified by Harris and Levy.

Hi Cris.
Do you mean that Lawende's sighting was confirmed by his two friends?
Even though that "sighting" was to a degree uncertain?

From what I understand, Levy only saw a couple, but took no notice of them and could not offer a description of either.
Also, Harris only claimed to have seen the back of the man.

Even if we compile all three together, we really have nothing of value. Which tends to raise the question, where did the 'detail' come from that made up the suspects description?

I had raised the question previously that some of Lawende's 'detail' may have been borrowed from the Stride case, the Schwartz suspect. If you notice, the description attributed to Lawende does change each time it is reported.

Regards, Jon S.

[Jonathan H]

Yes, but the very first time the Lawende description enters the record it broadly matches 'Knifeman' (the press version of 'Pipeman') and not 'Broad-Shouldered man'.