Is Kosminski the man really viable?

[Fleetwood Mac]

Sorry my friend, this is an assumption I feel the need to pull you up on.

At no time, nowhere, does Swanson call the suspect a murderer, in his opinion.

What Swanson does do, is speculate that if the witness had given the evidence that was expected of him, the suspect would then become the accused (ie; the murderer).
Swanson does not say that in his opinion Kosminski was the murderer, but that is what your sentence is intended to imply.

Jon,

That is disingenious.

In effect, you're saying that Swanson thought that a possibly innocent man was about to be convicted of murder. And, considering Swanson was running the investigation, I think he would have had something to say about that in his notes. But he doesn't, he says: murderer would have hanged.

Why are people jumping through hoops to discount the ID and Swanson believing he would have hanged. Ultimately, Swanson tells us that they had enough on him in the event the witness gave evidence; ergo he was the man as far as Swanson was concerned.

According to your view, Jon, Swanson was saying something like: "the man was identified; the man we thought was the man, which is why we brought him here, but even though our views were confirmed by a positive ID he could be innocent even though a positive ID would have led to him being hanged".

Gotta say, Jon, would a load of old bollocks that really is.

Edited to add: out of sheer curioisty, what do you propose the evidence was? Evidence that would have been good enough for a court of law, in the absence of an argument that Swanson meant hanged by a lynch mob, but not good enough for Swanson?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Chris,

Froest is an interesting suggestion. But if it was him, does it imply he was ruling out Tumblety, a case in which he was personally involved?

Anderson made many post-retirement comments during the first decade of the 1900s, so perhaps we cannot rule him out completely.

Swanson had been retired for two years when this newspaper report appeared, so might it have been him?

Boiling down the story to its essentials, we have witnesses who hesitate "very much before giving evidence which may cause a fellow-being—murderer though he may be—to lose his life" [redolent of Anderson's TLSOMOL story and the Swanson marginalia].

There is also "His family knew of the circumstances, knew that he was not only a madman, but a man possessed of considerable surgical knowledge, and with their full consent and the knowledge of the police he was put away in an asylum" [which prima facie appears to confuse Druitt and Kosminski, although I cannot recall any evidence as to Kosminski possessing considerable surgical skills].

Perhaps it was the recently-retired Robert Sagar, who was reported in the City Press, 1905, as saying that "the crimes were those of a madman, and suspicion fell upon a man, who, without a doubt, was the murderer. Identification being impossible, he could not be charged. He was, however, placed in a lunatic asylum, and the series of atrocities came to an end." In another press report Sagar also endorsed the sighting of Macnaghten's City PC, who "met a well-dressed man of Jewish appearance coming out of the court [Mitre Square]". And, the last time I checked, Druitt wasn't Jewish.

The Ripperological possibilities become endless given this hopelessly-tangled bugger's muddle of police opinion.

Regards,

Simon

[Chris]

The article appeared in the Sunday Chronicle, 15th October 1905.

Anderson retired in 1901, but if it is him [and with its reference to hesitant witnesses it certainly sounds like him] then perhaps we should be looking for a married, generally-respected businessman, a suspect profile which fits neither Kosminski nor Druitt.

I agree it sounds like him, though as you imply the fact that he was retired would be a difficulty, and I think "engaged in a large way of business in the city of London, was married, had a family, and was generally respected" is difficult to reconcile with what he wrote in 1910, even without taking into account Swanson's remarks. On the other hand there is another similarity in the reference to the Elizabeth Camp case, which Anderson also brought up in the Daily Chronicle in 1908:

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=3405

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=4839

One man who would have been a senior detective in 1905, and who reportedly worked on the Camp case and had a propensity for "yarns" about Jack the Ripper, was Frank Froest.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Sleekviper,

I honestly don't know. It's the reason I asked.

The article appeared in the Sunday Chronicle, 15th October 1905.

Anderson retired in 1901, but if it is him [and with its reference to hesitant witnesses it certainly sounds like him] then perhaps we should be looking for a married, generally-respected businessman, a suspect profile which fits neither Kosminski nor Druitt.

Regards,

Simon

[Fleetwood Mac]

"Anderson only thought he knew."

Which can be turned on its head to read: "I thought Anderson only thought he knew".

Depends upon who was privvy to the pertinent points.

[Fleetwood Mac]

Three senior policemen all holding the same opinion can appear impressive, or at least significant. However, we are not talking about three independent opinions. It would only take one written report, emanating from Swanson, to spread one opinion among the three men.

Jon,

You're not making a great deal of sense here.

I doubt there's ever been a murder investigation where 3 police officers have independently discovered clues and arrived at a conclusion, only to find their fellow officers had found other clues and arrived at the same conclusion, prior to discussing notes. So, there will always be someone informing the others of significant events.

What are you saying here? MacNaghten and Anderson were idiots who simply believed everything Swanson told them? Did they lack the capacity to review the situation, ask questions and form an opinion? It begs the question: how did these idiots reach senior positions in the police force? And, more to the point, how on earth did they function as human beings acting out the bare essentials such as buying food?

[sleekviper]

Hello Simon,
Is it Wensley?

[Wickerman]

We have the notes of a senior policeman speaking off the record...he calls Kos the "suspect" seven times and the "murderer" once.

Sorry my friend, this is an assumption I feel the need to pull you up on.

At no time, nowhere, does Swanson call the suspect a murderer, in his opinion.

What Swanson does do, is speculate that if the witness had given the evidence that was expected of him, the suspect would then become the accused (ie; the murderer).
Swanson does not say that in his opinion Kosminski was the murderer, but that is what your sentence is intended to imply.

Once again, Swanson calls Kosminski "the suspect", but.... if the I.D. had gone according to plan the "suspect" would then have become the "accused", simply a natural consequence of procedure in law. Swanson was wrong to call him the "murderer" (which is a conclusion), he should have said the "accused", but we do know what he means.

Why are Berkin's comments so hard to understand?? I mean it's not the Goulston Street Graffiti for the love of God.

They are not hard to understand, but equally her opinions are not contemporary.
Mary Berkin is relating what she has been told, precisely the same situation that I am in with my own grandfather. However, you choose to interpret her words as evidence, they are hearsay, and we cannot presume they represent the verbatim truth.

Regards, Jon S.

[RivkahChaya]

I am curious as to why you say that, because it makes Swanson etc. sound like a pack of idiots. Up until JtR, they had no experience with serial killers or murderers of strangers without a motive....they would have been inclined to think each of these women was done in by someone they knew. Obviously as things progressed they started to realize that they were up against something new but I am certain that there was debate within the police as to how many victims were actually Jack's work.

I think you are missing my point.

I am wondering why there seems to be no record of an interview with Kosminski or his family in order to establish his whereabouts for the murders. Maybe this did happen, and we just don't have the record, but you'd think the police in general would know it happened, it it would be mentioned in memoirs somewhere.

That was all I had to say.

Tangentially, I added that, because back then, the consensus among investigators seems to have been that all the Whitechapel/Spitalfields murders were by one person, Kosminski needed an alibi for just one in order to be cleared of all five of them.

I didn't mean, by saying that, that the detectives back then were stupid for thinking all the murders were done by one person, and people who disagree now were extra clever. I said it because I know a lot of people on the board don't think there was a single killer, and I was just acknowledging that. I thought, if I merely said "Funny they don't seem to have interviewed him, or asked for an alibi, especially since an alibi for one of the murders would have cleared him of all five," because I saw a number of people posting "Hey, we don't know there was one killer-- Kosminski might just have killed one of the victims, etc."

So now I have you thinking I called the police stupid.

I didn't.

But really, I do think there was a point at which the police pretty much agreed that JTR killed no less than the C5, so that having an alibi for any of those murders meant that a suspect was not JTR. The suspect could still have killed Emma Smith or Rose Mylett, or someone else entirely, and likewise, having an alibi for the Emma Smith murder did not exculpate a person from the C5 murders.

So, is there a record some place of inquiries regarding Kosminski's whereabouts during the C5 murders? Maybe there is, and I just don't know about it, but all the time people are emphasizing that there is this flawless witness who won't come forward, nobody mentions anything else, like Kosminski not having an alibi for any of the murders.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Rob,

Me, too.

Our anonymous Scotland Yard detective continued—

"Perhaps the most terrible crime during the last decade which was not followed by a conviction was the killing and mutilating of a number of unfortunate women in Whitechapel. Day after day these murders occurred. Failure again? Yes. But listen to this.

"We found our man. He was engaged in a large way of business in the city of London, was married, had a family, and was generally respected. For some time he had been known as eccentric, and various escapades had caused his friends a good deal of anxiety.

"Frequently, as we learned later, he stayed out all night about the time when these outrages were committed. His description agreed with that of a man seen in Dorset-street, Whitechapel, on the night when Mary Jane Kelly was cut to pieces, and at that time he was very near to actual arrest by a policeman.

"His family knew of the circumstances, knew that he was not only a madman, but a man possessed of considerable surgical knowledge, and with their full consent and the knowledge of the police he was put away in an asylum.

"Since that man's removal there has not been another such crime in London . . ."

Regards,

Simon

[robhouse]

Hi All,

Who said this—?

"It is easy to suspect a man," said a well-known Scotland Yard detective to a representative of the Sunday Chronicle. "Frequently it is not difficult to suspect the right man. But unless there is an unbroken chain of circumstances connecting the suspected person with the actual crime it is both useless and harmful to make an arrest.

"Again, there are often people who could, if they would, supply these missing links, but the ordinary man or woman hesitates very much before giving evidence which may cause a fellow-being - murderer though he may be - to lose his life.

"Often we cannot take credit for finding the man, because suspicion, however strong, without legal proof has to be kept quiet.

"We have thus frequently to submit to the public verdict that we have utterly failed in some important case when as a matter of fact we have morally succeeded."

Regards,

Simon

Sounds like Anderson to me.

RH

[Phil H]

I believe we are looking for 1 and only 1 person possibly a local of the Whitechapel area who was at one point a butcher and thus in possession of some sort of cover-all which he used to wipe the weapon after the act. Thoughts on this theory welcomed

Mr Holmes

You asked for comments on this idea.

To my knowledge it goes back at least to 1965, when Robin Odell
wrote a book called "JtR: Fact and Fiction". This did not (unusually for its time) name a suspect but identified "Jack as plausibly a Jewish slaughterman or schochet.

It remains, so far as I am aware, a reasonable hypothesis, but no name has ever been advanced as to an individual of that profession or to suggest one.

You might like to search out Odell's book. I hope that helps.

P.S. Here are a couple of relevant links:

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=3186&highlight=Odell

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=1790&highlight=Odell

Phil H

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

Who said this—?

"It is easy to suspect a man," said a well-known Scotland Yard detective to a representative of the Sunday Chronicle. "Frequently it is not difficult to suspect the right man. But unless there is an unbroken chain of circumstances connecting the suspected person with the actual crime it is both useless and harmful to make an arrest.

"Again, there are often people who could, if they would, supply these missing links, but the ordinary man or woman hesitates very much before giving evidence which may cause a fellow-being - murderer though he may be - to lose his life.

"Often we cannot take credit for finding the man, because suspicion, however strong, without legal proof has to be kept quiet.

"We have thus frequently to submit to the public verdict that we have utterly failed in some important case when as a matter of fact we have morally succeeded."

Regards,

Simon

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

I meant that if Kosminski had an airtight alibi for the Annie Chapman murder, and that one alone, the police in 1888 (or 89) would have eliminated him from consideration for all the murders, rather than say "OK, perhaps he didn't do that one, but still did the other ones"; or "OK, maybe he just did the ones we have a witness for, and someone else did the others."

I am curious as to why you say that, because it makes Swanson etc. sound like a pack of idiots. Up until JtR, they had no experience with serial killers or murderers of strangers without a motive....they would have been inclined to think each of these women was done in by someone they knew. Obviously as things progressed they started to realize that they were up against something new but I am certain that there was debate within the police as to how many victims were actually Jack's work.

[RivkahChaya]

I mean, if he could provide an alibi for one of the murders, wouldn't that have settled things? maybe not for us, but for the police at the time, who believed they were looking for one person?

Are we looking for more than one person?

A lot of people on the board think we are, and I was trying to head them off at the pass.

I meant that if Kosminski had an airtight alibi for the Annie Chapman murder, and that one alone, the police in 1888 (or 89) would have eliminated him from consideration for all the murders, rather than say "OK, perhaps he didn't do that one, but still did the other ones"; or "OK, maybe he just did the ones we have a witness for, and someone else did the others."