Continuation of “Possibility for the Seaside Home”

[The Baron]

We don't have any document of Anderson that says Kosminski died soon after.

We don't have any document of Mcnaghten that says Kosminski died soon after.

Macnaghten went further to say "He was (and I believe still is) detained in a lunatic asylum"


TB

[Pontius2000]

As I said earlier, I believe one of the reasons that Lawende said that the suspect had the appearance of a sailor was that he was wearing a pepper and salt coloured loose fitting jacket, which was commonly worn by sailors.

I never claimed that he said the suspect was a sailor.

I wrote some minutes ago that I never wrote that he said that the suspect was a sailor.

you have said numerous times in this thread that the suspect was a blonde sailor. Not that there is any shred of evidence pointing to this, but rather that IF he were a blonde sailor, it would exclude Kosminski from being the suspect. As far as a “pepper and salt loose jacket”, you obviously mean that this was a common thing worn by people of the age of sailors, as thus certainly does not describe a sailor’s uniform and would not have been exclusively worn or available to sailors only.

Lawende was considered to be a reliable witness, who quite obviously was not seeking publicity as he actually showed no special interest in the murders when being interviewed by the police.

My understanding is that the description I have cited and quoted comes from the police record.

Lawende’s official description is about age 30, about 5 ft 8-9, rough and shabby, fair complexion and fair moustache, red neckerchief. The “appearance of a sailor” and “brown hair” are both from later descriptions attributed to Lawende and are not in his initial statement to police.

You're saying that Swanson must have known what he was talking about and that it is understandable he got something wrong about when the suspect died.

That might be credible if he hadn't been out by about 30 years.

Swanson’s marginalia occurred AT LEAST 22 years after the fact. The last official addition to the file was, I believe, toward the end of 1889 meaning that for all intents and purposes, the active investigation ended around that point. It certainly is understandable as to why some things would be misremembered. It is also odd that he would say the suspect died soon afterwards. He could have been told that and not looked into it. There are infinite reasons why he could have got that wrong. But the fact is that the investigation was over at that point and they likely would not have followed up on whether or not the suspect had in fact died.

I would suggest that the evidence suggests that what we are dealing with is some kind of myth that started a few years after the murders ended.

At the core of the myth is the idea that the murderer died soon after the last murder - that is, the murder of Mary Jane Kelly.

We have evidence that Anderson, Swanson and MacNaghton all claimed, or all thought, that the murderer died soon after the last murder.

I would suggest that that is beyond mere coincidence.

and I would guess that you are wrong. It is fact that police got onto the trail of suspects after the Kelly murder. Anderson/Swanson (nor Macnaghten) are not the only ones who claimed that the identity of the killer was definitely known, several others made the same claim. It is also fact the JtR killings ended with Mary Kelly, which happened to coincide with when the police were on the trail of certain suspects. It is also fact that the following year, the final addition to the case was made, indicating that police considered it closed.

so for there to be a “myth”, you’d have to accept that the police just happened to get lucky that the killer stopped killing- for some unknown reason- at about the same time that police began trailing a suspect/suspect(s) and not long before the police closed the case altogether. That, to me, is not believable. It is apparent that the police either absolutely knew the identity of the killer, or at the very least knew that the killer was one of a small group of suspects who all happened to be taken out of commission at about the same time (such as Kosminski, Levy, and Druitt).

The idea that the murderer escaped justice because a Jew refused to help bring him to justice is itself an echo of an old anti-Jewish libel that a Jewish mob enabled an alleged murderer - Barabbas - to go free, and turned down the opportunity to set the Son of God free.

that is nonsense. It was based on the phenomenon of mesirah, as has been pointed out. And this phenomenon is even common today, amongst other racial and ethnic groups. Many times, members of communities who consider themselves abused or oppressed will protect fellow members- even bad ones- from authorities of what they see as the oppressive group who they view as the greater of two evils.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

That was Druitt.

And Anderson didn't say it explicitly that Kosminski was dead, what his son said or didn't say is a mere hearsay, that is if the Kosminski was certainly Aaron not someone else.


TB

I know it was Druitt; that's why I said he didn't mean Kosminski.

What his son said his father thought - which was obviously based on something he had said or written - certainly counts for something.

I wouldn't call that hogwash.

[The Baron]

In Days of My Years, published in 1914, but I didn't claim that he meant Kosminski.


In his memoir, Macnaghten claimed that information received "some years after" the final murder of 1888 led him to the belief that Jack the Ripper was a man who had taken his own life at the end of that year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melville_Macnaghten

That was Druitt.

And Anderson didn't say it explicitly that Kosminski was dead, what his son said or didn't say is a mere hearsay, that is if the Kosminski was certainly Aaron not someone else.


TB

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

I would like to see where you get that Macnaghten thought Kosminski was dead or died soon after.


TB

In Days of My Years, published in 1914, but I didn't claim that he meant Kosminski.


In his memoir, Macnaghten claimed that information received "some years after" the final murder of 1888 led him to the belief that Jack the Ripper was a man who had taken his own life at the end of that year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melville_Macnaghten

[The Baron]

I would like to see where you get that Macnaghten thought Kosminski was dead or died soon after.


TB

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

he described the suspect’s clothes, which were not the uniform of a sailor, and he described the suspect as “rough and shabby”. Common sense would say that perhaps when he saw sailors on leave in the city, they’d often dress rough and shabby so he would describe this suspect’s appearance as sailors that he often sees. He certainly did not say that the suspect WAS a sailor nor did he describe anything about the suspect that coincides with him being a sailor.



Then perhaps you should go to the front page of this very website, click on the “witnesses” tab to the left, then click on the link to Lawende. There, you will find the description of the suspect having brown hair, which I quoted word for word. It was from a newspaper and the description was credited to Lawende. If you argue that it was only from a newspaper and not directly from Lawende’ mouth, the response will be that “appearance of a sailor” was also not from Lawende’s mouth.





What do you mean “according to me” he wasn’t working in the Police Department??? It is a 100% FACT that Melville Macnaghten was not working in the police department during the Whitechapel Murders. Are you now attempting to argue against known fact?

here’s some more fact: Anderson was in absentia until the double event. Warren, aside from being incompetent, resigned the day of the Kelly murder. Abberline didn’t enter the picture until, I believe, the Nichols murder. Reid and Helson were in and out of the picture as they worked other cases and had other duties. The one and only constant from the beginning to the end was Donald Swanson. It can be safely said that aside from Jack the Ripper himself, probably no other human who ever lived knew more about this case than Donald Swanson. So it would be interesting to hear how you, 130+ years removed, find Swanson’s notes to be less reliable than someone who wasn’t even working in the police at the time. Because 22+ years later, he confused which and what order asylums/work houses the suspect was admitted to, or that someone had told him wrongly that the suspect died? Those things are understandable. What he would likely NOT forget or misremember, even up to the day he died, was that in the biggest case he ever worked, a process took place in which a suspect was identified by a witness who refused to swear further, and that no other JtR murders ever took place once this particular suspect was put away for good.

As I said earlier, I believe one of the reasons that Lawende said that the suspect had the appearance of a sailor was that he was wearing a pepper and salt coloured loose fitting jacket, which was commonly worn by sailors.

I never claimed that he said the suspect was a sailor.

I wrote some minutes ago that I never wrote that he said that the suspect was a sailor.

Lawende was considered to be a reliable witness, who quite obviously was not seeking publicity as he actually showed no special interest in the murders when being interviewed by the police.

My understanding is that the description I have cited and quoted comes from the police record.

You're saying that Swanson must have known what he was talking about and that it is understandable he got something wrong about when the suspect died.

That might be credible if he hadn't been out by about 30 years.

I would suggest that the evidence suggests that what we are dealing with is some kind of myth that started a few years after the murders ended.

At the core of the myth is the idea that the murderer died soon after the last murder - that is, the murder of Mary Jane Kelly.

We have evidence that Anderson, Swanson and MacNaghten all claimed, or all thought, that the murderer died soon after the last murder.

I would suggest that that is beyond mere coincidence.

The idea that the murderer escaped justice because a Jew refused to help bring him to justice is itself an echo of an old anti-Jewish libel that a Jewish mob enabled an alleged murderer - Barabbas - to go free, and turned down the opportunity to set the Son of God free.

Whenever I read or hear researchers scratching their heads, trying to figure out the identity of the un-named, missing witness, I cannot help but think to myself, 'Can you not see why there is no trace of this witness? Because the witness never existed except in the minds of men!'

[The Baron]

"Whilst Morris looked for his lamp, Watkins noted the time as 1.45am by his own watch"

He entered Mitre Square at around 1 44, but the exact timing he did was AFTER he found the body and it was 1.45

And I don't believe any of those timings were 100% accurate.

TB

[Elamarna]

I agree with you about the reliability of timings, but I am going by the evidence.

We do not have anything else to go by.

I think I said 'about three minutes'.

I didn't say 'exactly three minutes'.

But there is a big difference between three minutes and ten minutes.

Even if Watkins was out by a minute or two relative to the clock seen by Lawende, what difference would that make?

If it was 1.46 and not 1.44, then the murder could have taken place five minutes later instead of three minutes, but I think that's unlikely.

If it was 1.42 rather than 1.44, then the murder could not have happened - or to put it another way, Watkins would have seen the murderer escaping.

Or it could be that the murderer left at 1.43 (by the clock) and that Watkins arrived at 1.45.

In that case, my estimate of 3 minutes becomes 4 minutes.

I don't see how 3 minutes can be out by much.

I agree you are using the Times given, and you said about, I am certainly not critising that.
But we need to understand those times are not reliable, they are simply guides.

Any stated time could easily be 2 or 3 minutes out, sometimes even more.
This makes research based on absolute times totally unreliable in my view.

I did a two year look at timings, for a presentation at this year's East End Conference.
You would be surprised just how unreliable public clocks are today, and that's with digital time signals.

It's in the podcast section.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Pc Watkins found the body at 1.44

Wrong, he found the body at 1.45

And smith after saying half past twelve he qualified it and said 25 minutes to one o'clock.

Subtracting minutes there and adding minutes there to make it looks dramatically different, in an era where we know all those timings were not as exact as we imagine them today, is not a good scholarship, we don't know how much it took the killer to do what he did.



Stick to the facts.


TB

I AM sticking to the facts as we know them.


Here is what Pc Watkins testified:


I was continually patrolling my beat from ten o'clock up to half-past one. I noticed nothing unusual up till 1.44, when I saw the body.


He said 1.44 - not 1.45, as you claim he said.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

I am not intending to be condesnding here, but why are you still using these timings, set to the minute?
Timing simply was not that syncronizied in 1888.
In the whole of the C5 murders only TWO times are Syncronizied, those of Lawende and Levy( they used the same clock in the Imperial Club). And their timing CANNOT be synchronised to the Time stated by Watkins.
What looks like a 3 minute gap, could easily be at least double that.

Be more flexible, that's all I am asking here.

I agree with you about the reliability of timings, but I am going by the evidence.

We do not have anything else to go by.

I think I said 'about three minutes'.

I didn't say 'exactly three minutes'.

But there is a big difference between three minutes and ten minutes.

Even if Watkins was out by a minute or two relative to the clock seen by Lawende, what difference would that make?

If it was 1.46 and not 1.44, then the murder could have taken place five minutes later instead of three minutes, but I think that's unlikely.

If it was 1.42 rather than 1.44, then the murder could not have happened - or to put it another way, Watkins would have seen the murderer escaping.

Or it could be that the murderer left at 1.43 (by the clock) and that Watkins arrived at 1.45.

In that case, my estimate of 3 minutes becomes 4 minutes.

I don't see how 3 minutes can be out by much.

[The Baron]

The important point is that NONE of these times should be seen as anything more than estimates.
True Watkins had watch, but was it for a start syncronizied to GMT?
Perhaps more important was it syncronizied to the times given by Lawende and Levy? Or even to the estimate given by Harvey, who estimated by using the nearby post office clock, and then attempting to work his timings backwards.

Completely agree, and we still cannot be 100% sure the couple seen by the three were Eddowes and her killer.


TB

[Elamarna]

Pc Watkins found the body at 1.44

Wrong, he found the body at 1.45

And smith after saying half past twelve he qualified it and said 25 minutes to one o'clock.

Subtracting minutes there and adding minutes there to make it looks dramatically different, in an era where we know all those timings were not as exact as we imagine them today, is not a good scholarship, we don't know how much it took the killer to do what he did.

Stick to the facts.


TB

The important point is that NONE of these times should be seen as anything more than estimates.
True Watkins had watch, but was it for a start syncronizied to GMT?
Perhaps more important was it syncronizied to the times given by Lawende and Levy? Or even to the estimate given by Harvey, who estimated by using the nearby post office clock, and then attempting to work his timings backwards.

[Pontius2000]

You can split hairs about the difference between the words 'description' and 'appearance', but I am the one writing 'nonsense' when I cite the witness evidence?

Lawende said the man had a fair moustache and the appearance of a sailor.

Whenever I mention the word sailor, all hell lets loose, as if the witness had never mentioned a sailor!

he described the suspect’s clothes, which were not the uniform of a sailor, and he described the suspect as “rough and shabby”. Common sense would say that perhaps when he saw sailors on leave in the city, they’d often dress rough and shabby so he would describe this suspect’s appearance as sailors that he often sees. He certainly did not say that the suspect WAS a sailor nor did he describe anything about the suspect that coincides with him being a sailor.

I have never come across any version of Lawende's description of the suspect in which the suspect had brown hair.

Then perhaps you should go to the front page of this very website, click on the “witnesses” tab to the left, then click on the link to Lawende. There, you will find the description of the suspect having brown hair, which I quoted word for word. It was from a newspaper and the description was credited to Lawende. If you argue that it was only from a newspaper and not directly from Lawende’ mouth, the response will be that “appearance of a sailor” was also not from Lawende’s mouth.

The person who according to you 'wasn't even working in the Police Department' claimed he knew what happened to the murderer.

He didn't claim that he just heard it on the grapevine in his local pub.

What do you mean “according to me” he wasn’t working in the Police Department??? It is a 100% FACT that Melville Macnaghten was not working in the police department during the Whitechapel Murders. Are you now attempting to argue against known fact?

here’s some more fact: Anderson was in absentia until the double event. Warren, aside from being incompetent, resigned the day of the Kelly murder. Abberline didn’t enter the picture until, I believe, the Nichols murder. Reid and Helson were in and out of the picture as they worked other cases and had other duties. The one and only constant from the beginning to the end was Donald Swanson. It can be safely said that aside from Jack the Ripper himself, probably no other human who ever lived knew more about this case than Donald Swanson. So it would be interesting to hear how you, 130+ years removed, find Swanson’s notes to be less reliable than someone who wasn’t even working in the police at the time. Because 22+ years later, he confused which and what order asylums/work houses the suspect was admitted to, or that someone had told him wrongly that the suspect died? Those things are understandable. What he would likely NOT forget or misremember, even up to the day he died, was that in the biggest case he ever worked, a process took place in which a suspect was identified by a witness who refused to swear further, and that no other JtR murders ever took place once this particular suspect was put away for good.

[The Baron]

Pc Watkins found the body at 1.44

Wrong, he found the body at 1.45

And smith after saying half past twelve he qualified it and said 25 minutes to one o'clock.

Subtracting minutes there and adding minutes there to make it looks dramatically different, in an era where we know all those timings were not as exact as we imagine them today, is not a good scholarship, we don't know how much it took the killer to do what he did.

Stick to the facts.


TB