Kosminski - Dead or Alive

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

The initial search after the Stride murder did. The later search (completed October 15th) did not.

Please provide details of the initial search.

[Scott Nelson]

The initial search after the Stride murder did. The later search (completed October 15th) did not.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Most of that seems pretty reasonable to me. One thing though: at one time they did a house-to-house search in which they talked to a lot of people. It seems to me there's a good chance that Kosminski's family, along with many other people, were likely to have at least been briefly interviewed at that time.

I don't think so.

According to Anderson, the search was of premises where single men were living alone, which would exclude the Kosminski household.

Like so much of Anderson's claims, it is, however, not credible.

But there is something else: the areas where that search took place did not include the street where Kosminski lived.

[Lewis C]

Most of that seems pretty reasonable to me. One thing though: at one time they did a house-to-house search in which they talked to a lot of people. It seems to me there's a good chance that Kosminski's family, along with many other people, were likely to have at least been briefly interviewed at that time.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

I think it's because he didn't want to name his suspect anyway, so the offer was of no interest to him.

Thanks for your reply.

I did not ask the question with a definite answer of my own in mind.

One reason could be that Anderson knew that even if his suspect was already dead, he might be liable to prosecution by the suspect's relatives, who he implied covered up his guilt.

I suspect the reason he did not want to name his suspect is that deep down he was not as sure of his case as he made himself out to be - in short, that his identification of the Whitechapel Murderer was a definitely ascertained fact.

In particular, the question as to whether anyone else could confirm the identification of the murderer would have become a question of whether anyone else could confirm that a particular named person was identified as the murderer, and Anderson must have known that that was not going to happen.

Swanson was obviously not a witness to the identification, as he recorded that Kosminski was 'sent by us'.

Anderson would have been unable to substantiate his allegation that Kosminski was identified, let alone that he committed any murders, let alone that his relatives covered up his guilt.

Had they sued him for libel, he could hardly have claimed he meant someone else, since he made it clear that the people who covered up his crimes were living with him.

He could not have proven that they covered up anything unless he could prove at the very least that they were ever questioned by police.

How could he have explained to a court that he questioned the suspect's relatives but that he did not attempt an identification of the suspect until he had been incarcerated?

It is quite obvious that they never were questioned.

There is no record - not even anecdotal - of Kosminski's / the Polish Jewish suspect's relatives ever being questioned in connection with the Whitechapel murders.

[Lewis C]

Another quick question: why did Anderson turn down his publisher's offer to indemnify him against any libel action brought against him in consequence of his naming his suspect, if his suspect was already dead?

I think it's because he didn't want to name his suspect anyway, so the offer was of no interest to him.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Hi all,

Quick question: How did Melville Macnaghten know that 'Kosminski' was alive yet Assistant Commissioner Anderson and Chief Inspector Swanson did not?

Sincerely,

Mike

Another quick question: why did Anderson turn down his publisher's offer to indemnify him against any libel action brought against him in consequence of his naming his suspect, if his suspect was already dead?

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Though his memory is dodgy, other police primary sources from 1891 show that Coles' murder was taken very seriously as Jack's return, for example by Swanson.

Even though Swanson's suspect, Kosminski, had by the time of Coles' murder been safely caged in an asylum?

Of course, by suspect I mean the man whom Swanson - some 20 years later - named as the man he had - like Anderson - known all along to have been the Whitechapel Murderer.

[Jeff Leahy]

Macnaghten knew Aaron Kosminski was alive,

Actually having read through these last posts this is where the whole of Jonathon's theory falls down..

Actually we have know idea what MacNaughten did or did not know because what he says is: "He was (and I believe still is) detained in a lunatic asylum about March 1889"

'And I believe still is' is a clear indicator that MacNaughten didn't know the definitive answer to what happened to Kosminski after March 1889.

Of course MacNaughten continues to give this information out to various people including Griffith's…

But he never knows what happens after March 1889

We know of Course that James Monroe did not believe that an ID had taken place after the Alice McKenzie murder some months later and its not until 1890,Monroe told Casells magazine that he had formed a theory on the case, adding 'when I do theorise it is from a practical stand point. and not upon visionary foundations' He also said, however, that the police had nothing positive' by way of the clues, with the ryder that such crimes were difficult to solve since the victims, as well as the murderer, SOUGHT SECTRET SITES'

Did at this time Monroe know about the meeting (Crawford Letter) between Anderson and a member of Kozminski's family but the ID itself hadn't yet taken place…

Another words the ID took place after July 1890 but the introduction and meeting took place before?

Yours Jeff

[Jonathan H]

Sectioned and then dead?

Have a look at this quote from a top cop's memoirs:

It is about a suspect who probably was the killer, they just could not nail him.

'... But the identification had entirely failed ... Some months after the man was ajudged insane and confined in a lunatic asylum, and, as far as I know, he died there.'

Sounds like a version of the Swanson Marginalia: an identification which does not get the required result for a courtroom, though this is the likeliest suspect -- but never fear he was sectioned and then expired.

Well, that's some kind of justice.

The main difference with Swanson is the wriggle room the author leaves for himself in case the suspect is not deceased -- which he wasn't.

He was not guilty of murder either.

The above is from Sir Melville's memoirs, p. 186, about the Elizabeth Camp murder on a train in 1897.

Chris Phillips found the suspect, or at least elements of a suspect who was investigated and who was cleared. He also got better, and was released from the asylum.

Yet he seems to have been merrged with other suspects, one of whom wore a false moustache. This was not true of the young, mentally ill barrister

Surely the similarities with 'Kosminski' are not only obvious but relevant.

Macnaghten knew Aaron Kosminski was alive, and yet his superior, Anderson, believed -- or was misled to believe -- that the suspect was long deceased (which of course was true of Druitt).

Since we know that Mac falsely wrote that 'Kosmisnki' was sectioned in early 1889, was this detail also used to mislead his loathed boss? Certainly Anderson writes as if these were all events tidied up in late 1888 and/or early 1889.

That contingent line -- 'as far as I know' -- echoes Littlechild writing to Sims and saying it was provisionally 'believed' that the American quack had vanished and, maybe, taken his own life.

Tom Divall claimed in his 1930 memoir that Mac had told him that the Ripper was a man who fled to the States and died there -- in an asylum.

I'll put this on the other site to see if debate can be generated about this aspect.

[Jonathan H]

Never-ending Loop?

On the other site there is a debate about whether Reid knew about Aaron Kosminski, or at least his fictional variant: 'Kosminski'.

I would argue there is nothing in the extant record to suggest that he knew of this suspect. Quite the opposite. He has a generic theory, that's all.

Debaters still ignore two salient points, in my opinion, which traps the debate in a never-ending loop.

1. Macnaghten knew that 'Kosminski' was alive.

Why shouldn't he? He was alive. He also knows that he was sectioned a long time after the Kelly murder. Why shouldn't he? Macnaghten had been on the Force for nealy two years when Aaron Kosminski was permanently incarcerated. He knew that Aaron was a chronic self-abuser and lived in the heart of the kill-zone. Why shouldn't he? Both of these details are true too.

What needs explaining is why Anderson (and Swanson?) thought he was dead soon after being sectioned?

2. That the timing of Druitt's suicide at least explains the cessation of the Ripper murders.

It doesn't.

The last Ripper victim was initially thought to be Frances Coles, over two years after Druitt had taken the fateful plunge. That Kelly is the real final victim is retrospective only; it is imposed by the timing of Druitt's demise not the other way round.

Almost everybody does not think Druitt is viable suspect, nor that Sir Melville is a strong and reliable source. Fair enough.

The puzzle is why so many people stick with his Druitt-centric list of victims (albeit some do not). That's the easiest way to eliminate Druitt -- the timing of his self-murder does not fit.


For example, Reid always believed that Coles was the final victim and we can see why. Though his memory is dodgy, other police primary sources from 1891show that Coles' murder was taken very seriously as Jack's return, for example by Swanson.

Certainly there was no indications in 1891 that any police thought that they had identified the Ripper as a 'safely caged' madman -- not until 1895 when Swanson says it is believed to be a man who is deceased and Anderson tells Griffiths he believes it is probably a locked-up lunatic.

In 1898 Griffiths mentioned the locked-up lunatic again, but sidelined him in favour of the drowned, English doctor, the timing of whose death cemented Kelly as the final victim with Coles not mentioned at all (no acknowledgment is made that the timeline is being altered because the Major is also claiming that the police knew at the time in 1888 about all these suspects.)

[Jonathan H]

Mac chose before we had to ...

To Wickerman

Macnaghten is cognizant that 'Kosminski' is alive in a document from 1894. In 1907 in a proxy source he is still aware that the man was alive for a long, long time after Kelly's murder.

To deny that basic match between 'Aberconway' and the meagre medical sources on Aaron Kosminski is to fly in the face of, well ... common sense.

Instead it is twisted to mean that Macnaghten agrees with Anderson and Swanson that he's dead.

All I can say is: abandon all hope ...

Nowhere in the extant wrritings of Anderon and Swanson are they are aware of this elongated timeline, or that their suspect was alive as they wrote him off for dead.

Quite the opposite.

A strong argument can be mounted that they thought the same suspect was deceased 'soon after' the Kelly murder (back to Mac again).

Eveything with them is soon after. That's the key theme. The murderer's reign was 'cut short', it was brief. He died 'soon after' being sectioned. Swanson talks in 1895 of a man who is already dead. Anderson tells his son that the man was deceased -- when he actually outlived the police chief.

None of that matches Aaron Kosminski, hence the lingering arguments for David Cohen. Scott Nelson's recent effort is fascinating.

There are a myriad of competing pressures and countervaling forces which go into the making of primary sources, including playing fast and loose with the facts when so required.

That 'Aberconway' was a draft is a long-standing theory, not a fact, and maybe correct.

What is a 'definitely, ascertained fact' is that the so-called draft was propagated to the public. Mac shared much of the content with the public -- though anonymously.

This is an element nof the mystery which RipperLand has never absorbed and never will. Macnaghten's opinion did not stay in a drawer; he shared it with the public.

The 'drowned doctor', eg. behind which impenetrably lies Druitt, is the best suspect.

Then Mac reconceived the document again as his memoir chapter 'Laying the Ghost of Jack the Ripper' (1914). This time, the only time, it would be under his own prestigious name for the public -- forever

Thus there are arguably three versions to 'choose' from.

The choice you say which has to be made was made by Macnaghten himself.

He's already used the shears, though people in 1914 could not have known this unless they were playing very careful attention to what George Sims had written about a doctor who drowned himself in the Thames, the same night as the final murder:

3rd Version:

- the best suspect was a 'Simon Pure' Gentile gent and not a Jew.
- no mention of being a mddle-aged doctor
- had never been 'detained' in an asylum, or been a lodger.
- all other suspects are worthless, and not worthy of even the briefest outline.
- no witness saw anything worthwhile, not even a beat cop.
- the police, eg. Anderson, had never had the real Ripper on their radar
- the real Jack only came to police attention 'some years after' he killed himself.
- these 'certain facts' leading to a 'conclusion' by Macnaghten were provided by 'his own people'.
- he had a diseased body as well as mind, and suffered from an implosion after the 'awful glut' of Miller's Ct.
- yet this implosion was not the same night, as he could function to get away from the East End and be noticably 'absented' by his 'people' presumably family members whom he seems to live with (though it does not state that explicitly).

But if all that cuts no ice, then consider this line from the official version which is aruably definitive (not my argument):

' ... He was sexually insane, and I have little doubt but that his own family believed him to be the murderer'.

They believed he was Jack the Ripepr because he was Jack the Ripper.

As for the witness?

Of course there was one -- and he appears in no extant source by Mac or on his behalf.

It was Joseph Lawende, used once if not twice by the police of the day.

In my opinion Macnaghten went to great lengths (well, it took all of a few minutes) to eliminate Lawende's existence from public consciousness; to obliterate a witness and whom that witness allegedly saw: a man of about 30, Gentile featured, middle-figured and heighted, with enough charm to put an exhausted, poverty-striken, middle-aged woman at her ease ...

[Wickerman]

Hello Jonathan.

Yes, there are differences between the Official version and the Aberconway version, is what I meant. It was these differences I was concerned with.

When the Aberconway states, "No-one ever saw the Whitechapel murderer, unless possibly it was the city P.C...." and the Official states, "No-one ever saw the Whitechapel murderer".

We must choose one, we cannot have it both ways, either he was seen or he wasn't - the choice is black or white.

Likewise then, when comparing the two, either Kosminski was a weak suspect whom he thinks 'may' still be alive, or a strong suspect, where he makes no comment either way.

As the Abeconway version (always assuming it is a faithful copy), is taken to have been the draft copy, then any differences between it and the final Official version are generally accepted to indicate a change of opinion meaning, false information was superceded by accurate information.

We cannot use these contrary statements at the same time.

[Jonathan H]

Who's this 'we'?

Plus Donner is 'Aberconway'.

The 'Donner' version, by which I presume -- perhaps wrongly -- that you mean the original from which Lady Christabel Aberconway made a typed and hand-written copy (sometime, it is thought, in the 1930's) is the same version as the one in which Macnaghten knows, between 1894 and 1898, that 'Kosminski' is still alive.

Perhaps you mean the filed version for Scotland Yard's arhcive in which he says nothing about the ultimate fate of 'Kosminski' one way or another.

To deny one version because it does not suit the 'conventional wisdom' is not how an historian works. You are meant to test the received wisdom and expand the possibilities, not contract them, by examining a range of sources.

In a source, 'Aberconway', exactly what Mac wrote matches other primary sources about the fate of Aaron Kosking -- that he was still alive.

Yet we are supposed to ignore that, shut our eyes to it, because in the filed version -- the alternate version I think you mean -- he says nothing about his fate (it would be a stronger argument if he had written for file that 'Kosminski' was deceased, but he does not).

Another point adherents to this wisdom will never digest, is that Macnaghten chose 'Aberconway' as his opinion for the public -- albeit anonymously. Sure enough, Sims tells the public in 1907 that the Polish Jew was out and about and alive and well for a coniserable time after the Kelly murder.

That also matches the primary sourcesa about Aaron Kosminski and not what Anderson writes or Swanson (who may only have Anderson as his source).

In his own memoirs, the one source under his own name for the public, Macnaghten eliminated 'kosminski' altogether and implicitly debunked Anderson's preferred suspect.

Swanson not only has 'Kosminski' safely dead but soon after incarceration. These are annotations in an account which Swanson never corrects the false impression that this all happened in late 1888 or early 1899 (where Cohen theorists understandably try and locate the arrest of the suspect and the positive i.d.)

Where would Anderson and/or Swanson have gained the erronoeus impression that 'Kosminski' was 'safely caged' almost two years earlier than he actually was?

From Macnaghten who in the extant record -- twice -- backdates an incareration which happened while he was already months and months on the Force.

Otherwise, if you do not backdate then 'Kosminski' is no longer a viable suspect. Again this matches the opinion of those who propose Choen or somebody like him. To a certain extent, this is true of Fido's opinion.

The conventioanl wisdom has long argued that Macnaghten received his information from Anderson and/or Swanson, but just adding up the bits that the former gets right and the latter get wrong, suggests the flow of information was the other way round.

Of course in the filed version, the one nobody seems to have read until 1966, and which too often is the only one which makes it into today's secondary sources, Macnaghten wrote that Druitt was definitely turned on by ultra-violence. Police were [allegedly] unsure what he did for a living, or whether he came from a good family, or whether his body was upwards of a month in a river -- but he was definitely 'sexually insane' causing his family to 'believe' in his guilt. How could they not ...?

[Roy Corduroy]

Good morning to you Mike,

Yes Jonathan did a great job of compiling those excerpts for us. But no he confirmed I've not missed something. Because he said -

Sir Robert Anderson never mentions the suspect being alive, or dead, after being 'safely caged', in any extant source by him,

Jonathan then went on to say -

but it can be inferred from two other sources who were close to him that this was, indeed, his mistaken opinion.

He quoted Anderson's biography written by his son in 1947 -

"Sir Robert states as a fact that the man was an alien from Eastern Europe, and believed that he died in an asylum".

and of course he quotes the marginalia, too. And from these two he inferred Anderson also thought the man had died. During Anderson's lifetime, which ended 1918, one year before Aaron Kosminski died in 1919.

So what do I think? To tell you the truth, I'd never thought of it. Since Anderson didn't say it. When Macnaghten wrote he believed Kosminski
was still detained in asylum that was 1894. Anderson's own book and Swanson's comments in the margin were written later.

So let me ask you, Mike. Was this what you were inferring in your original question? That Anderson believed the man had died, even though he never said that.

Roy