Is Kosminski the man really viable?

[Bridewell]

The Boarders

It's probably been posted many times before but, according to the 1891 census, the following are the police officers resident at 51, Clarendon Villas, Hove:

James Day Boarder 41 Police Inspector born Kent, Egerton
Henry R Hatch " Police Constable born Middlesex, Southall
Frederic Child " 20 Police onstable born Bucks Beaconsfield

Am I right with No.51 as (at that time) the Seaside Home?

Regards, Bridewell.

[lynn cates]

yup

Hello Colin.

"Stewart's dissertation on the Seaside Home identification is well worth a read (or re-read). It's the most plausible explanation of the known facts to my mind."

Absolutely!

Cheers.
LC

[Jonathan H]

In my opinion it is more likely that Swanson's annotation refers to the top cops who knew the identity of the reporter who hoaxed the letter.

What he is doing there is pulling back from Anderson's typically egocentric comment. In his own memoirs, Macnaghten claimed that he had identified the journalist. Mac's only appearance in Anderson's book is the un-named senior policeman wgo turned to jelly over a threatening letter.

What a put-down of the 'action man'. No wonder Macnaghten airbrushed Anderson out of existence and, by implication, debunked his Ripper prognostications: not a Jew, not sectioned, no witness, and not known about until 'some years after' (by Mac).

How they must have hated each each other and this laothing has to be a factor in their Ripper rivalry (in the extant record Anderson never refers to Druitt or his semi-fictional variant: the 'drowned doctor').

Swanson identifies Macnaghten as the nervous nelly.

Now how did he know that?

Did Anderson tell him at the time, shafting Swanson's superior? Is this a glimpse into that healously and enmity?

Or, did Swanson ask him in retrirement when he read it?

Did he terefore also ask Anderson to clarify this witness identification about which Swanson was unfamiliar, and that that is why he wrote it down in his ex-chief's book -- because otherwise he would not recall something with which he was not involved, eg. the Seaside Home, etc.

The positive i.d. only appears in 1910. Swanson mya have believed that 'Kosminski' was the culprit from 1895 but there is nothing to suggest that he knew about this witness, or that Andersi did either until that much later date.

I am arguing that the Seaside Home identitifcation is a sincere addition. Swasnon knew about the Polish suspect -- whom he wrongly believed was deceased and sectioned after Kelly -- but not the witness who affirmed and then refused to testify.

I would direct people's attention to what Stewart Evans and Don Rumbelow wrote in 'Scotland Yard Investigates', theorising that Swanson and/or Anderson is sincerely misremembering the Jewish witness, almost certainly Lawende, 'confronting' a Ripper suspect, Tom Sadler, and saying no -- only a few days after Aaron Kosminski was 'safely caged'.

Anderson muddled up the minister of state who was Home Sec during the murders, getting wrong the politician and the party and the government.

Why not Ripper suspects in early 1891?

The problem with the theory that Macnaghten was out of the loop when it comes to 'Kosminski' is that he knew more accurate information about that same suspect than either Anderson or Swanson put together. Writing only the suspect's surname originated with his Report(s) too.

On a side note, because of a comment by a previous poster, the idea that there is such a thing as a 'suspect' Ripper book as opposed to a general book on the same subject is, I think, wrong-footed -- if by the same author.

For example, if I write a biography of Franklin Roosevelt then that has a different focus to a book about all of World War II, of course.

But if I write in the biog. that FDR knew the Japanese attack of Pearl Harbour was coming and did nothing about it, but then in the World War II book claim that he did not know, or do not adress this issue, then I will appear to have shifted ground; to have changed my opinion on this aspect -- or to have openly acknolwedged to have changed my mind.

Therefore a Ripper book which says it was likely to be Druitt and then another book by the same author which claims that none of the police 'knew' is not just a shuffle between sub-genres -- it's a major shift in opinion about that aspect of the case.

[Tom_Wescott]

The source for Le Grand as a contemporary suspect is well documented in the article 'Le Grand The new Prime Suspect' by Tom Wescott, which appeared in Casebook Examiner issue two,June 2010.

Thanks for that, Debs. At least someone around here believes in credit where credit is due.

And to Phil H,

If you don't read the journals, you're NOT up on the research.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Wickerman]

That's right, yes.

Jon, sorry if that wasn't clear. We could argue about the degree of validity that identification has because it was recorded retrospectively - but I'm not sure there's very much point. Its not as if that identification occurred outside of living memory, so there's no immediate reason to suspect that it wasn't correct to the best of belief.

It was the space of a few years, not centuries.

Hi Sally, and thankyou Rob.

From surviving paperwork in this case we know that up to mid September the two principal suspects worthy of any note were Isenschmid and Piser (or Leather apron), both Abberline and Swanson wrote about them.
Indeed, by the 19th Sept. Charles Warren writes:

"No progress has yet been made in obtaining any definite clue to the Whitechapel murderers. A great number of clues have been examined and exhausted with out finding any thing suspicious."
CW, 19 Sept. 1888.

Robert Anderson, commenting on Swanson report dated 19th Oct. writes:

"That a crime of this kind should have been committed without any clue being supplied by the criminal is unusual, but that five successive murders should have been committed without our having the slightest clue of any kind is extraordinary, if not unique, in the annals of crime."
RA, 23 Oct. 1888.

Abberline writes a brief report, again making reference to Swanson's important summary (19th Oct.), where he still refers to Schwartz & the Lipski affair, and John Sanders, the last known insane medical student.
This is the state of affairs as of 1st Nov. 1888.

All the important figures in hierarchy from Warren, to Anderson, Swanson & down to Abberline, up until November 1st 1888, none of them had a clue about Kosminski.

This is contemporary reporting, this appears to be the true state of affairs in the fall of 1888.

Regards, Jon S.

[Tom_Wescott]

All the important figures in hierarchy from Warren, to Anderson, Swanson & down to Abberline, up until November 1st 1888, none of them had a clue about Kosminski.

This is contemporary reporting, this appears to be the true state of affairs in the fall of 1888.

Is there a reason they should have known who Kosminski was prior to that date?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Wickerman]

Is there a reason they should have known who Kosminski was prior to that date?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

The surviving paperwork appears to suggest no police official suspected a member of the Kosminski family in this period. The question then becomes, at what point did they begin to suspect him and why?
There are hints, many of them covered in Rob's book, that suggest the police only suspected Kosminski long after the last murder, anything from months to years later.

The important point raised here is that there is no reason to believe (no evidence) that he was a suspect at the time. He may have been any one of the "300" suspects being looked into (Swanson), but that does not make him a principal suspect. These people were just being investigated.

This means that any suspicions they had about Kosminski in the 1890's were not based on criminal evidence because the murders were long done. At the very most all they can claim is that years later, "one man fingered another man" in a confidential identification parade which had no legal importance and may have even been viewed as dubious because no hint of it was leaked to the press.
This after-the-fact accusation is very weak from a legal perspective, Anderson & Swanson must have known this at the time of the I.D. which is why there is no official paperwork connected with it.

This of course is limited to the Met. Police. We have no idea whether the City Police suspected Kosminski in the fall of 1888, no paperwork has survived. We do see that the Met. Police did not, contrary to later claims by Anderson & Swanson.

Regards, Jon S.

[Jonathan H]

To Wickerman

I think, and remember I'm always wrong, that Macnaghten, who knew 'Kosminski' was alive and not dead, that he was a chronic masturbator, that he had threatened a relation wih a knife, that he was not sectioned until a considerbale time after Kelly, informed Anderson in early 1895 of this suspect's possible culpability based on checking out his reasons for admission to an asylum.

Mac kept tabs on Ostrog in an asylum, why not Aaron Kosminski?

Macnaghten went rhough all the Ripper mail on his first day on the Force, and tracked down the reporter-hoaxer -- or so he claims -- so why not the originator of this suspect in terms of the police as he is with Druitt and Ostrog.

Though unlike Druitt, Ostrog was wanted in 1888 by the police as potentially dangerous and Aaron Kosminski's name may have appeared in the 1888 investigation as a local oddball -- a name among many.

In Anderson's fading memory by 1908 was the Liberal William Harcourt who was Opp. leader by 1895, and whom he mistakenly thinks was the Home Sec druing the murders (he was in that office two years previous, in a completely different government from the part Anderson loathed).

[Chris]

This after-the-fact accusation is very weak from a legal perspective, Anderson & Swanson must have known this at the time of the I.D. which is why there is no official paperwork connected with it.

But is there any surviving official paperwork connected with any identification (or identification attempt)? Unless I'm missing something, we're reliant on press reports even for the identification of Pizer by Violenia/Violina.

[harry]

To be a suspect,there must be reasonable suspicion that such suspect is connected in an incriminateng way,to a crime.That is why,in my opinion,so many officers deny the existence of any suspects.We have it said that Kosminski was take with difficulty to the seaside home.With difficulty, seems to imply that he strongly objected or resisted,and was compelled to go.Which raises another question.No one could be compelled to go anywhere unless under arrest.So was he at that time under arrest?

[miakaal4]

Chris,
Talking of Newspapers, their rabid clawing for information and perhaps leading questions to the Whitechapel poplace surely couldn't help but throw suspicion on men like Kosminski. Foreign looking, Jewish looking, Mad man, fiend , etc would cause many to think about who was around that fitted in with that description. And yet in truth Abberline is on record as saying that witnesses he knew of only viewed the suspect from behind! I guess he didn't think much of Hutchingsons coments.

[Sally]

Hi Harry - yes, 'with difficulty' might mean that Kosminski resisted physically; or perhaps alternatively it might mean that the identification was difficult to arrange - perhaps because it was a covert operation. It seems open to some interpretation - we just don't know the exact circumstances of the I.D. at present.

[Sally]

Miakaal -

Talking of Newspapers, their rabid clawing for information and perhaps leading questions to the Whitechapel poplace surely couldn't help but throw suspicion on men like Kosminski. Foreign looking, Jewish looking, Mad man, fiend , etc would cause many to think about who was around that fitted in with that description.

Are you suggesting that Kosminski was only suspected because he was a good 'fit' for the prejudices of the local populace (including the police) at the time?

Surely it would have taken a little more than that?

[Lechmere]

I think The police, or certain policemen, came to suspect kosminsky because he fitted their preconceived notions of who the culprit would be.
A single mad poor Jew.
His name may have been on file from the house to house search.
I think the police were kept informed about people being locked up in mad houses at this time.
However if he was the genuine no1 suspect - and not an after the event saloon bar cigar smoke late night chat type of potential suspect, then how can it be reconciled that the senior policemen got so much about him wrong?
And it is inconceivable that his medical notes don't even give a covert reference such as 'watch out he may be dangerous'.

More tellingly would a man who was either overtly mad or had mad episodes be able to operate as a stealth killer?

[miakaal4]

Lechmere you are my man! Exactly.