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Since I read Martin Fido's “The Crimes and Trials of JtR” (1994) and Robert Houses 'Scotland Yards Prime Suspect', I have always been inclined to look at Kozminski as the most likely candidate. Yet recently I have changed my mind.
In some respects one has to accept that there is a case for Kozminski given he was a suspect and we have contemporary sources stating as much at later times in their memoirs. Yet why was he a suspect?
Swanson suggests that the investigators were watching Kozminski and that shortly after he was taken to an asylum where he died. House suggests that in the post-MJK search of houses Kozminski was identified as a candidate and watched. I don't have Fido's book anymore but if I am right Fido's explanation is like the above and that JtR stopping after MJK coincides with this. Yet no one says why exactly Kozminski was being watched...
Swanson contradicts everyone who claims no one saw JtR by saying Kozminski was identified by a PC at a seaside home in Brighton. Modern views that JtR was seen seem to agree with Swanson. It appears Lewende was used as a witness right up until Sadler but there is some who view Schwartz as the witness.
What I am trying to get around is still why was Kozminski being watched? Swanson says its specific (Kozminski's Brother's house). Yet Robert House alludes to mass searches after the murder of MJK. We know from the files that investigators had many people on the ground watching other people and places. Kozminski was Jewish mentally ill with some vices with an incident several years later of brandishing a knife. Yet if Kozminski wasn't put away until years later, how could that be said to coincide with MJK being the last victim?
I believe Fido resolves this by finding another Jew David Cohen who coincidentally was put in an asylum at the same time. I believe House decides that Kozminski was in and out of an asylum to explain this. It isn't a bad explanation, but Kozminski doesn't seem to be a violent person and the only reason to suspect him is because he is a mad Jew who went to an asylum around the time MJK died.
The thing is, why watch Jews? If anyone lists all the witness accounts they can see that there is minimal mention of Jews. I would suggest that Hutchinson's detailed claim was what put investigators onto Jews much like the Wearside Jack hoax. Now imagine a Wearside mentally ill person with some vices who gets committed and the Yorkshire Ripper murders stopped. That's all they got on Kozminski it seems. Someone who matched an early profile, was a Jew and happened to be captured, along with others, within the search net as a contender. Everyone can't be watched. So they selected the mostly likely candidate. A mentally ill Jewish person with some sexual deviance. That's it.
To throw doubt on this is Swanson with his seaside identification, but so much is either garbled with him and or lost in the original files that we have a PC who won't dob in another Jew. So we bend some stuff here and there and we get the Jewish Lewende/Schwartz identifing a Jew. That works. Yet neither man claimed to have seen a Jew and even worse for the Kozminski hypothesis is that Schwartz was actively sworn at by the person with Stride who used an anti-semitic slur. Then we have the GSG and bloody apron which takes on the shape of an anti-Jewish sentiment. Fido rejects Stride as a JtR murder and the GSG. They are coincidences to him.
House accepts Stride as a Ripper suspect. He explains the racial slur as one Jew to another and gives some reasons for thinking this by referencing some Jew vs Jew slur matches at the time. He is somewhat silent on the GSG and just tells the story from an agnostic perspective. However the straighforward conclusion from accepting Stride and GSG is that JtR isn't a Jew but someone using anti-semitic communication. It just can't be Kozminski if we accept that.
The point is this. It is logically wrong to arbitrarily reject Stride and the GSG as a coincidence and then arbitrarily accept the coincidence of a mentally ill Jew going to an asylum around the time of the last murder. Yet this is exactly what seems to be case even with the contempory investigation.
The way the Swanson's witness identification makes sense to me is if an identification took place and the witness couldn't identify the suspect and the investigators felt that the witness was being untruthful and wouldn't dob in a fellow Jew, a jew who fit some sort of jewish mentally ill sexual maniac profile. Basically whoever was in charge of the Kozminski investigation seems to have been heavy on this idea of him being the killer. Swanson seems to have gone to lengths to get onto this case about Kozminski by writing up notes in books that refer to him. Does this not suggest that maybe Swanson had a pet suspect, that it was Kozminski, that he bent the truth in his witness testimony account to try and bring some closure to it all (i.e - he KNEW it was Kozminski so said what he did about the witness identification?).
So what I believe is that today it is as logically wrong as it was back then to arbitraily fit the evidence to the suspect by treating factors as a coincidence and using coincidence as a factor in placing guilt. I don't think this is hypocrisy, but more along the lines of not maintaining the same lines of reasoning throughout.
In some respects one has to accept that there is a case for Kozminski given he was a suspect and we have contemporary sources stating as much at later times in their memoirs. Yet why was he a suspect?
Swanson suggests that the investigators were watching Kozminski and that shortly after he was taken to an asylum where he died. House suggests that in the post-MJK search of houses Kozminski was identified as a candidate and watched. I don't have Fido's book anymore but if I am right Fido's explanation is like the above and that JtR stopping after MJK coincides with this. Yet no one says why exactly Kozminski was being watched...
Swanson contradicts everyone who claims no one saw JtR by saying Kozminski was identified by a PC at a seaside home in Brighton. Modern views that JtR was seen seem to agree with Swanson. It appears Lewende was used as a witness right up until Sadler but there is some who view Schwartz as the witness.
What I am trying to get around is still why was Kozminski being watched? Swanson says its specific (Kozminski's Brother's house). Yet Robert House alludes to mass searches after the murder of MJK. We know from the files that investigators had many people on the ground watching other people and places. Kozminski was Jewish mentally ill with some vices with an incident several years later of brandishing a knife. Yet if Kozminski wasn't put away until years later, how could that be said to coincide with MJK being the last victim?
I believe Fido resolves this by finding another Jew David Cohen who coincidentally was put in an asylum at the same time. I believe House decides that Kozminski was in and out of an asylum to explain this. It isn't a bad explanation, but Kozminski doesn't seem to be a violent person and the only reason to suspect him is because he is a mad Jew who went to an asylum around the time MJK died.
The thing is, why watch Jews? If anyone lists all the witness accounts they can see that there is minimal mention of Jews. I would suggest that Hutchinson's detailed claim was what put investigators onto Jews much like the Wearside Jack hoax. Now imagine a Wearside mentally ill person with some vices who gets committed and the Yorkshire Ripper murders stopped. That's all they got on Kozminski it seems. Someone who matched an early profile, was a Jew and happened to be captured, along with others, within the search net as a contender. Everyone can't be watched. So they selected the mostly likely candidate. A mentally ill Jewish person with some sexual deviance. That's it.
To throw doubt on this is Swanson with his seaside identification, but so much is either garbled with him and or lost in the original files that we have a PC who won't dob in another Jew. So we bend some stuff here and there and we get the Jewish Lewende/Schwartz identifing a Jew. That works. Yet neither man claimed to have seen a Jew and even worse for the Kozminski hypothesis is that Schwartz was actively sworn at by the person with Stride who used an anti-semitic slur. Then we have the GSG and bloody apron which takes on the shape of an anti-Jewish sentiment. Fido rejects Stride as a JtR murder and the GSG. They are coincidences to him.
House accepts Stride as a Ripper suspect. He explains the racial slur as one Jew to another and gives some reasons for thinking this by referencing some Jew vs Jew slur matches at the time. He is somewhat silent on the GSG and just tells the story from an agnostic perspective. However the straighforward conclusion from accepting Stride and GSG is that JtR isn't a Jew but someone using anti-semitic communication. It just can't be Kozminski if we accept that.
The point is this. It is logically wrong to arbitrarily reject Stride and the GSG as a coincidence and then arbitrarily accept the coincidence of a mentally ill Jew going to an asylum around the time of the last murder. Yet this is exactly what seems to be case even with the contempory investigation.
The way the Swanson's witness identification makes sense to me is if an identification took place and the witness couldn't identify the suspect and the investigators felt that the witness was being untruthful and wouldn't dob in a fellow Jew, a jew who fit some sort of jewish mentally ill sexual maniac profile. Basically whoever was in charge of the Kozminski investigation seems to have been heavy on this idea of him being the killer. Swanson seems to have gone to lengths to get onto this case about Kozminski by writing up notes in books that refer to him. Does this not suggest that maybe Swanson had a pet suspect, that it was Kozminski, that he bent the truth in his witness testimony account to try and bring some closure to it all (i.e - he KNEW it was Kozminski so said what he did about the witness identification?).
So what I believe is that today it is as logically wrong as it was back then to arbitraily fit the evidence to the suspect by treating factors as a coincidence and using coincidence as a factor in placing guilt. I don't think this is hypocrisy, but more along the lines of not maintaining the same lines of reasoning throughout.
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