Continuation of “Possibility for the Seaside Home”

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Ripperologist 128.

I have just been reading some interesting comments on that article in issue 128 at

https://forum.casebook.org/forum/rip...ist-128/page01 and onwards.



Apparently, Anderson's son, in his biography of him, wrote that Anderson shared Swanson's view that the suspect was already dead, which Aaron Kosminski was not.

How curious that, if the suspect was Aaron Kosminski, they should have made the same mistake!

That suggests that neither had inside information and that one was copying from the other's account.

One problem with Anderson's original account is that he implies that Kosminski had already been certified.

Was it usual to try to put someone who had been certified on trial for murder?


Primary sources from 1892 arguably show Anderson with no knowledge as yet of 'Kosminski', let alone of Aaron Kosminski -- let alone about a positive witness identification which turned a debacle into a near-triumph

according to Jonathan H.



In 1889, Anderson said in an interview that the murderer had not been identified.

With the passage of twenty years, his memory evidently improved.



Apparently, it was only in 1895 that Anderson (and possibly Swanson) started hinting that the murderer had been incarcerated.

According to Jonathan H, a couple of years before his memoirs were published, Anderson was showing serious signs of confusion, unable to identify correctly which party prominent politicians belonged to.


Are we expected to believe that the only two people in London who knew the real identity of the ripper were Anderson and Swanson.

Are we expected to believe that the CITY officers who allegedly kept watch after the suspect was brought back were also sworn to everlasting silence. They would have been briefed about why they were keeping observations and would have certainly known about any postive identification, and Major Smith would ceratinly have been aware of this significant development but no not a whisper from him till the day he dies: he stated the police did not have a clue.

Insp Reid goes so far as to publicly pour cold water on Andersons ID procedure and the suggestion that the killer was a Jew, and he even asks him to prove what he had written. That surely would have been the time for Swanson to have gone public and supported what Anderson had written as I am sure it would have been common knowledge.


Whoever the killer of killers were he or they were certainly not lunatics or persons like Aaron who in his final days of freedom was described as being dirty and eating out of the gutter.

I have recently studied 67 serial killer cases and have not come across anyone who you could say is on a par with Aaron Kosminski in his ways, habits and style of living etc.

Aaron Kosminski was originally found by Martin Fido and eliminated soon after by Martin as his antecedents did not match those of the Kosmniski mentioned in the MM.


(MARRIOTT)



I am inclined to exonerate the last two [Kosminski and Ostrog]

(Macnaghten Notes, Aberconway version)



It seems that neither Anderson nor Swanson had told Macnaghten about the Seaside Home identification.

Perhaps they forgot to.

[The Baron]

And the excellent article

Kosminski: An essay By Scott Nelson

https://www.jtrforums.com/forum/persons-of-interest-or-actual-suspects/aaron-kosminski/2629-kosminski-an-essay-by-scott-nelson

TB

[Scott Nelson]

Ripperologist 128.

Equally, if not more important, to this discussion: Sir Robert Anderson: A Source Analysis by Paul Begg, Ripperologist no. 100, February 2009.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Anderson said the identification took place after the suspect had been caged in an asylum. He never said the identification took place AT the asylum.

Swanson said the suspect was brought with difficulty to the seaside home. I imagine transporting an incarcerated lunatic from an asylum to a rest home would indeed require “difficulty”.

As I recall it, there is general - although not universal - agreement that the identification took place between 12 and 15 July 1890.

The Seaside Home opened in March 1890.

I don't recall anything in Kosminski's history about his being in a mental asylum in early July 1890.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

I know.

I was about to give you the same information!

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Ripperologist 128.

[Pontius2000]

Anderson said the identification took place after the suspect had been caged in an asylum. He never said the identification took place AT the asylum.

Swanson said the suspect was brought with difficulty to the seaside home. I imagine transporting an incarcerated lunatic from an asylum to a rest home would indeed require “difficulty”.

[Al Bundy's Eyes]

Thanks for your reply.

I suppose your second paragraph makes you an even bigger heretic than I am!

I have just had a look at exchanges you had here with others, including Robert House, 12 years ago.

Natalie Severn was suspicious that the end paper notes belatedly produce the name Kosminski.

I see that you have questioned why the News of the World would have failed to publish the story when they had it, if the end notes really had mentioned Kosminski by name.

Is there anything about the contents of the marginalia or end notes in their finished form that gives you doubts about their authenticity?

There's a really good article in Ripperologist by Adam Wood that goes into detail about the marginalia and Swanson's purple notes. I can't recall what issue exactly, but I'm sure someone does. It's a must read.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

I would suggest the same reason no name was given. To ensure anonymity .
To prevent possible public disorder.

You're saying that if Anderson had said where the identification had taken place, twenty years after the event, there would have been public disorder?

Why?

And if you think naming the place would have caused public disorder, why do you think accusing the Jews wouldn't cause public disorder?

[Elamarna]

In his first version, Anderson says that the suspect was already in an asylum at the time that the identification took place.

That means either that the identification took place in the asylum or that the suspect was taken somewhere else for the purpose of being identified.

The way Anderson puts it, it looks as though the identification took place in the asylum, although he doesn't say so explicitly.

When the reader says so, you say it's only his interpretation.

He misread what Anderson wrote!

Didn't Anderson realise that the way he worded it, it would look as though he was implying that the identification took place in the asylum?

What actually stopped him from saying where the identification took place?

He couldn't check with Swanson before committing pen to paper?

I would suggest the same reason no name was given. To ensure anonymity .
To prevent possible public disorder.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

In his first version, Anderson says that the suspect was already in an asylum at the time that the identification took place.

That means either that the identification took place in the asylum or that the suspect was taken somewhere else for the purpose of being identified.

The way Anderson puts it, it looks as though the identification took place in the asylum, although he doesn't say so explicitly.

When the reader says so, you say it's only his interpretation.

He misread what Anderson wrote!

Didn't Anderson realise that the way he worded it, it would look as though he was implying that the identification took place in the asylum?

What actually stopped him from saying where the identification took place?

He couldn't check with Swanson before committing pen to paper?

[Elamarna]

If the identification actually took place, as so many people seem to believe, why is it that the only two people who have ever mentioned it said it happened in different places?

Not that's just your interpretation.


You think that it is possible that Anderson didn't know that the identification took place at the Seaside Home?

He published two versions, but still couldn't get it right?

He couldn't have checked with Swanson first?

Pardon?

It's my contention that in neither accounts does Anderson say where the identification took place. He gives no information in the public domain with regards to the location or the name of the suspect.

Its your interpretation of Blackwoods that it took place in an asylum, as I said your interpretation.

Many would not agree with that interpretation .

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

If the identification actually took place, as so many people seem to believe, why is it that the only two people who have ever mentioned it said it happened in different places?

Not that's just your interpretation.


You think that it is possible that Anderson didn't know that the identification took place at the Seaside Home?

He published two versions, but still couldn't get it right?

He couldn't have checked with Swanson first?

[Elamarna]

Am I right that the original version of Anderson's writing about the alleged suspect was somewhat different from the final version?

I quote:


I will only add that when the individual whom we suspected was caged in an asylum, the only person who had ever had a good view of the murderer at once identified him, but when he learned that the suspect was a fellow-Jew he declined to swear to him.


(Blackwood’s Magazine, Part VI, March 1910)



I will merely add that the only person who had ever had a good view of the murderer unhesitatingly identified the suspect the instant he was confronted with him; but he refused to give evidence against him.


(The Lighter Side of My Official Life, Chapter IX, 1910)


It is quite clear from the original version that Anderson has the suspect in a mental asylum at the time of his identification.
That seems to suggest that the identification itself took place in a mental asylum.

That's one interpretation of the original, but it's just that ONE INTERPRETATION.

There is of course no mention of a Seaside Home.

Either Anderson got it right and Swanson imagined a Seaside Home, or Swanson knew more about the case than Anderson did, which would be amazing.

Why do you find that Amazing ?
Anderson was the head of CID , responsible for many Cases.

Swanson was specifically appointed by the then commissioner Warren to coordinate and oversee the case.
He had daily meetings with the city police.
He received all the reports from the Met police on the ground
He stayed with the case for its duration. Making the entries on the limited records that survive.

I strongly suspect that Swanson knew far more about than anyone else.

If the identification actually took place, as so many people seem to believe, why is it that the only two people who have ever mentioned it said it happened in different places?

Not that's just your interpretation.

[The Baron]

"The man in appearance strongly resembled the individual seen by the City PC near Mitre Square"


However Kosminski looked like, he was identified, and he strongly resembled the individual seen by the City PC.


TB