Aaron or not

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Jeff



One piece of information Swanson did not reveal Jeff was how Kosminski became a suspect, a pity this, but to be fair his marginalia in Andersons book was for his eyes only, although I'd guess that if truth be known he knew full well that one day the marginalia would become comon knowledge.

Personnaly I doubt whether Aarons family would have informed on him, as Anderson pointed out the Jews were a close knit community, adverse to turning over any of their number to British justice, although I know someone is going to provide an instance where Jew shops Jew, mebbe not on second thoughts.

all the best

Observer

Thinking about it if BOTH the DRUITT and the KOSMINSKI families arrived at Scotland Yard to denounce Monty and Aaron respectively as Jack the Ripper,
then its quite possible that this was when the difficulties arose for Anderson , Macnaghten and Swanson......especially if there were other families queuing up and jostling for space in Scotland Yard to denounce their family members .This may well have been the time when Anderson with his "all Jews look the same" notions began to develop his Polish Jew mix up-----I never thought of that one before........

[Observer]

Hi Jeff

Hi Observer

One point that I have always agreed with Stewart 'Totally' on is the suggestion that Kosminski is Swanson's suspect not Andersons.

The pieces just fit together better for me that way.

Anderson sifts through the various suspects put foreward, picks up on Swansons Idenification..and convinces himself..'we new who it was'

It explain why Swanson creates the marginalia in the first place...

But the point you raise is fair..given that Swanson believes he has his man, why only bring Schwartz foreward in an attempt to identify the killer? Why not every witness?

For me Swanson has to be opperating on other information...

There must be a specific reason why Berner Street? why Schwartz?

and why Aaron kosminski?

And I cant help thinking what if Aarons own family had approached Swanson and put him forward as a suspect? That to might tick a lot of boxes?

The question is did Swanson have information that we do not..

And i think that highly probable.

Yours Jeff

One piece of information Swanson did not reveal Jeff was how Kosminski became a suspect, a pity this, but to be fair his marginalia in Andersons book was for his eyes only, although I'd guess that if truth be known he knew full well that one day the marginalia would become comon knowledge.

Personnaly I doubt whether Aarons family would have informed on him, as Anderson pointed out the Jews were a close knit community, adverse to turning over any of their number to British justice, although I know someone is going to provide an instance where Jew shops Jew, mebbe not on second thoughts.

all the best

Observer

[Jeff Leahy]

No, and you'd have to be particularly stupid and/or purposefully misreading my statement to claim I said that.

That's where he gets into trying to claim that a witness described as being related to the City PC and being near Mitre Square was actually someone in Berner Street completely unrelated to any City police investigation, and so forth and so on.

‘Begg inists that the person referred to as the "City PC" who witnessed someone in "Mitre Square" as being Schwartz, who was not a PC, not in the City, and nowhere near Mitre Square…What does this means then?

That Begg insists that there wasn’t a City PC witness but that the witness was Schwartz?

What do you mean by saying, ‘That's where he gets into trying to claim that a witness described as being related to the City PC and being near Mitre Square was actually someone in Berner Street completely unrelated to any City police investigation, and so forth and so on.’

Begg never says anything remotely like this?

What planet are you on. Do you actually own a copy of the Facts? Are you so filled with hate and personal vendetta that you have finally snapped beyond help...

This is going to be a very long weekend. Indeed. Have you a copy of your book ready?

Norder has finally lost the plot

Yours Jeff

[Dan Norder]

If the Marginalia is to be taken literally then the timescale of events would suggest that the identification took place sometime around January 1891. But we have no hint in the press around that time that there was a major breakthrough in the Ripper case.

But if we instead take it as something with details distorted by time, we do have a number of events that fall right around that time and shortly after.

Kosminski (a mad Polish Jew) is locked up, Coles (last of the Whitechapel murder victims) is killed, Sadler (who was staying at the Seamen's Home) is brought in as a suspect in her murder and also potentially for the others, he is positively identified by someone (also from the Seamen's Home) who later turns out to not be trustworthy, they also bring Lawende in (Jewish City police witness near Mitre Square) to try to identify him (which he does not), and then eventually Sadler gets released free and clear. Later we then have people claiming that Kosminski was locked up and that he had been positively identified by a Jewish witness in a Seaside Home but that he refused to testify because Jews were just like that and, tah-dah, that was the end of the Whitechapel murders.

[Dan Norder]

Are you trying to tell me that Paul Begg beleives Schwartz to be the CITY PC?

No, and you'd have to be particularly stupid and/or purposefully misreading my statement to claim I said that.

No it is NOT generally accepted that Lawende is the witness

Generally accepted means that the majority of experts on a topic believe it. It most certainly is generally accepted that the witness was Lawende. Sugden, Evans, Rumbelow all believe it, for starters, and those conclusions are widely accepted by other authors and researchers. You seem to believe that anything Begg says is by default what everyone says, when that is clearly not the case. Of course that's clearly what Begg wants people to believe, and that's exactly why his books are misleading and unreliable.

'IF' Lawende was the man who identified Kosminski, why would the police knock on his door some weeks later and say "excuse me Mr Lawende, I know that you positively identified Mr Kosminski as Jack the Ripper last week but would you come down to the station and look at a different man just incase you were wrong and he is also Jack the Ripper?"

And that's exactly where Begg's assumptions about what really happened fall flat. Begg for no logical reason assumes that Anderson's claims that a witness positively identified a particular Jew as the Ripper and then refused to testify were 100% true and accurate, and then Begg is forced to distort all other known evidence about the case to make it fit his conclusions. That's where he gets into trying to claim that a witness described as being related to the City PC and being near Mitre Square was actually someone in Berner Street completely unrelated to any City police investigation, and so forth and so on.

A much more reasonable conclusion is that Anderson's claims were wrong on that point, just as they can be and have been proven to be wrong on other points. If there had been a positive identification of any reliable sort that was recanted they would have found a way to make it stick, and other police figures like Abberline, Macnaghten and so forth would have known about it and not made statements that directly contradict the idea that it ever happened.

All of Begg's claims and theories come down to the idea that Anderson and Swanson can be trusted to be accurate on exactly the one thing that proves Kosminski to be the Ripper but that anything else that gets in the way of that conclusion must be wrong (and wrong in a particular convoluted way that is twisted to try to support Anderson).

[Carrotty Nell]

Unlike some posters I don't have a problem with Kosminski as a strong suspect based on his character, appearance etc. One thing that does trouble me though is the lack of any trace of the supposed investigation into him in the contemporary press. If the Marginalia is to be taken literally then the timescale of events would suggest that the identification took place sometime around January 1891. But we have no hint in the press around that time that there was a major breakthrough in the Ripper case.

Of course the Police could have kept their Kosminski investigation completely secret for whatever reason and released no information about him to the press. But even so it is odd that no reporter got so much as a whiff of it. And the Sadler investigation was made pretty public.

[Stewart P Evans]

Levy

Obviously my comments about Levy reffer to the following paragraph in the link I made:
As Lawende testified at the Eddowes Inquest on 11 October, Levy made a strange remark to his companion, Harris, just before passing the man and woman at the entrance to Church passage. Levy said, ‘Look there, I don’t like going home by myself when I see those characters about.’19 In response to the coroner’s question, ‘Was there anything about them [the man and woman] or their movements that attracted your attention?’ Lawende answered, ‘No, except that Mr. Levy said the court ought to be watched, and I took particular notice of a man and woman talking there.’20 (Italics and bracketed information added.) This exchange is interesting because it suggests to me that Lawende would not have taken any notice of the man and woman talking had Levy not drawn Lawende’s attention to them in the first place. On 9 October The Evening News had this to say about Levy, four days before his scheduled inquest testimony, ‘Mr Joseph Levy is absolutely obstinate and refuses to give the slightest information and he leaves one to infer that he knows something, but that he is afraid to be called on the inquest.’ Levy’s refusal to give any information to the press was no doubt ordered by the police, who had likewise tried to censor Lawende’s description of the man before and during the inquest. The second part of the newspaper quote is more nebulous and may well reflect the fact that Levy did indeed know something very important, but that he wasn't giving information to the police.
But as you say there is no hard evidence that Levy lied..to my knowledge..
Which is why I believe Schwartz the best of the bunch as Swanson's witness.
Anyway we will just have to wait and see what the "men with 'No' peers" turn up..
Many thanks Jeff

This idea that Levy lied in his evidence and actually knew the suspect was current long before any Internet site paraded it. It was first floated by Paul Begg back in his 1988 book and when he discovered that Levy acted as a referee to one Martin Kosminski in his application for naturalisation back in 1877 Paul actually thought that he had found Jack the Ripper. However, it was a different family and the euphoria soon evaporated. That has not stopped many others picking up on this point and pursuing a similar theme. It shows the power that popular Ripper books can exercise.

[Jeff Leahy]

Yes many thanks for your kind words. And I'm not certain at all that Kosminski was JtR, just that I think it likely he was Swanson's identified suspect, which are two vary different positions. And off course personal opinion.

Obviously I have followed your very useful posts on Anderson on another thread.

There is so much to balance up. And I always welcome your input.

Obviously my comments about Levy reffer to the following paragraph in the link I made:

As Lawende testified at the Eddowes Inquest on 11 October, Levy made a strange remark to his companion, Harris, just before passing the man and woman at the entrance to Church passage. Levy said, ‘Look there, I don’t like going home by myself when I see those characters about.’19 In response to the coroner’s question, ‘Was there anything about them [the man and woman] or their movements that attracted your attention?’ Lawende answered, ‘No, except that Mr. Levy said the court ought to be watched, and I took particular notice of a man and woman talking there.’20 (Italics and bracketed information added.) This exchange is interesting because it suggests to me that Lawende would not have taken any notice of the man and woman talking had Levy not drawn Lawende’s attention to them in the first place. On 9 October The Evening News had this to say about Levy, four days before his scheduled inquest testimony, ‘Mr Joseph Levy is absolutely obstinate and refuses to give the slightest information and he leaves one to infer that he knows something, but that he is afraid to be called on the inquest.’ Levy’s refusal to give any information to the press was no doubt ordered by the police, who had likewise tried to censor Lawende’s description of the man before and during the inquest. The second part of the newspaper quote is more nebulous and may well reflect the fact that Levy did indeed know something very important, but that he wasn't giving information to the police.

But as you say there is no hard evidence that Levy lied..to my knowledge..

Which is why I believe Schwartz the best of the bunch as Swanson's witness.

Anyway we will just have to wait and see what the "men with 'No' peers" turn up..

Many thanks Jeff

[Stewart P Evans]

Witnesses and Suspects

So I think we should dismiss Levy..even though I find Butchers Row interesting. And also Robert Sagers (http://www.casebook.org/police_officials/po-sagar.html) and Henry Cox (sorry cant find a link to Coxes statement which is probably more important).
And again Levy does seem to link , Kosminski and Hyam.
But lets dismiss Levy, even though its apparent that it is he who pionts out the couple to Lawende.
All I was saying here is that a deffence council would point out a 15 minute gap, assuming that if Pipeman did exist..(which as you say isnt proven) because Pipeman left at the same time as Schwartz. So there is a problem with both Schwartz and Pipeman (if he exists)
You state that your conclusion, in common with Paul Begg, 'is that there must have been more evidence.' Paul was tossing that one my way many years ago and I just don't accept it. If there had been 'more evidence' then we would surely have mention of it somewhere - there is none.
Agreed if you were being Beggesque..
But there are other Kosminski theorists other than Begg.
I personally believe that Swanson had other information and his witness was Schwartz. But I cant prove nothin'
Yours Jeff

The Harry Cox account was first discovered by Nick Connell when he and I were writing The Man Who Hunted Jack the Ripper. It first appeared in that book (in 1999) and was also included in the Ultimate Sourcebook.

In my opinion there is absolutely no doubt that Lawende, not Levy, was the only Duke Street witness later used, he obtained a half-decent view of the alleged suspect. To suggest it was Levy would involve 'wangling' of the official reports and inquest statements - and I'm not into that. It is nice to see that you dismiss Levy as the City witness. Also I'm not so sure that 'its apparent that it is he who points out the couple to Lawende.' The official record actually says, "I said when I came out to Mr. Harris, 'Look there, I don't like going home by myself when I see those characters about.'" Lawende stated that he 'walked a little further from the others.'

I have already pointed out that a defence counsel would major on the apparent 15 minute gap between the sighting and discovery of the body. In fact, Swanson pointed it out in 1888. So nothing new there.

You appear to have misread, or misunderstood, my last paragraph as I am pointing out that it is you saying, like Paul Begg, that 'there must have been more evidence'. I don't think there was - isn't that clear enough for you?

Yes, there are 'other Kosminski theorists other than Begg', but they all did their groundwork on the works of Paul Begg, and to a lesser degree Martin Fido, and some of them sing from his hymn sheet. However, there are some outstanding pursuers of Kosminski doing sterling, and relevant, research. People like Chris Phillips, Rob House and Scott Nelson who have few peers.

As I have said before, you are perfectly entitled to your own opinions and beliefs, and I am not going to try and browbeat you into other ideas. But if I spot flawed reasoning or dodgy 'facts' expect me to respond accordingly.

Certainly in adopting 'Kosminski' as your suspect, if you must have one, you have a valid subject, unlike the fantasy suspects such as PAV, Gull, Maybrick and a host of others.

[Jeff Leahy]

http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/rip-ckl.html

Just thought i'd through that link into the decussion with regard to Levy.

However as you say.

If the witness had known Kosminski, and it was Kosminski he saw, there would have been no identifcation carried out because actually knowing someone and recognising them is a totally different thing to identifying a total stranger whom you have seen only once. Of course the weakness of Lawende lies in the fact that his identification of Eddowes was inadequate (he saw only her back) and he stated that "I doubt whether I should know him again."

So I think we should dismiss Levy..even though I find Butchers Row interesting. And also Robert Sagers (http://www.casebook.org/police_officials/po-sagar.html) and Henry Cox (sorry cant find a link to Coxes statement which is probably more important).

http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/rip-polishjew.html

And again Levy does seem to link , Kosminski and Hyam.

But lets dismiss Levy, even though its apparent that it is he who pionts out the couple to Lawende.

RE: Which leaves either Schwartz or Pipeman...neither of whose testimony actually will tally with estimated time of death.

Yes i appreciate that this isnt very well worded..sorry about that.

All I was saying here is that a deffence council would point out a 15 minute gap, assuming that if Pipeman did exist..(which as you say isnt proven) because Pipeman left at the same time as Schwartz. So there is a problem with both Schwartz and Pipeman (if he exists)

You state that your conclusion, in common with Paul Begg, 'is that there must have been more evidence.' Paul was tossing that one my way many years ago and I just don't accept it. If there had been 'more evidence' then we would surely have mention of it somewhere - there is none.

Agreed if you were being Beggesque..

But there are other Kosminski theorists other than Begg.

I personally believe that Swanson had other information and his witness was Schwartz. But I cant prove nothin'

Yours Jeff

[Stewart P Evans]

Simplistic

Yes thanks for that Stewart...
So just following what we are agreed on....(ie Kosminski is Swansons suspect).
For some reason Swanson is at his desk, twirling his fingers with no new leads on the case, nothing for certain since Mary Jane Kelly, or perhaps he is toying with the reports on Alice McKenzie, July 1889.
All of a sudden he decides to take a suspect being watched by another force down to somewhere in Kent...(poss Sussex) and confront the suspect with one of four men..
Schwartz, Lawende, Levy or Pipeman...
But as Stewart has already pionted out a defence council would have made pritty short work of Lawende who didnt have a good look at Eddows and Levy (even if he did know Kosminski) because he had already denied he saw anything...
Which leaves either Schwartz or Pipeman...neither of whose testimony actually will tally with estimated time of death (I'm happy to take further input from anyone here) And Schwartz doesnt actually claim to have witnessed the murder, although to be fair, Swanson may have had a better idea than us what Schwartz actually did see..
But thats rather beyond the point being made...surely Swanson went to a lot of trouble to confront 'witness' with 'suspect'...WHY?
Surely he must have known the problems this evidence would have in court, yet he still went ahead...?
My conclusion is that there must have been more evidence. I cant help wondering if inside information had arrived on his desk that morning from somewhere else. Something that would have triggered his interest into discovering more about Kosminski?
Yours Jeff

Sorry, but aren't you being a wee bit simplistic here. Yes, I accept that Kosminski is the suspect that Swanson is talking about in the endpaper annotations he apparently made in the Anderson book, subject to the caveats that have been explained. Calling him 'Swanson's suspect' could be a trifle misleading as he is ostensibly talking about Anderson's suspect - subject to the previously explained caveats. If all is correct about the annotations it cannot really be gainsaid as the words "Kosminski was the suspect" are written there - so isn't it a bit obvious.

I note a Beggesque turn of phrase in the words "For some reason Swanson is at his desk, twirling his fingers with no new leads on the case..." Not at all like your usual prose. I do not accept that the identification took place at all as described, I suspect Swanson/Anderson deviency and I have described this in Scotland Yard Investigates. If you are quoting from my dissertation on the Seaside Home story then it is not what I believe actually happened. I did, in fact, state at the time that I wrote that piece, many years ago, that it was written based on the assumption that both Swanson and Anderson were being as accurate as possible and giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Further, I do not consider that the man lighting a pipe in Berner Street was ever identified, let alone used as a witness. A reading of the police reports should make that obvious. Also if you had read my previous posts you would see that I have already stated that none of the known witnesses would have stood up very well to defence cross-examination. This was recognised by the police at the time. Despite that it is apparent that Lawende was used in the failed attempt to identify Sadler (and later Grant) as the Ripper.

If the witness had known Kosminski, and it was Kosminski he saw, there would have been no identifcation carried out because actually knowing someone and recognising them is a totally different thing to identifying a total stranger whom you have seen only once. Of course the weakness of Lawende lies in the fact that his identification of Eddowes was inadequate (he saw only her back) and he stated that "I doubt whether I should know him again."

Despite all this, as I have said, Lawende was apparently used with Sadler (1891) and Grant (1895) with no good result in either case and despite a claimed positive identification in the second case. Perhaps the police thought that if confronted with a witness from a Ripper crime Sadler (and later Grant) may have collapsed and admitted the crimes. I see that you mention the 'testimony' of 'Pipeman' which sounds a bit odd to me as there is no testimony of 'Pipeman.'

You say "surely Swanson went to a lot of trouble to confront 'witness with 'suspect'...WHY?" But this rather presupposes that all is hunky dory and above board with the annotations and the word of Anderson - which I don't think it is. But, assuming total correctness on the part of both men, we are dealing with a major undetected, multiple murder enquiry here and I should have thought that they would have gone to extreme lengths in an attempt to get anyone who might be their man - as witness the attempted identifications of Sadler and Grant as Jack the Ripper. Police evidence often encounters problems in court - it is the nature of the beast, but that does not stop them gathering all the evidence they can.

You state that your conclusion, in common with Paul Begg, 'is that there must have been more evidence.' Paul was tossing that one my way many years ago and I just don't accept it. If there had been 'more evidence' then we would surely have mention of it somewhere - there is none. Any theorist can say 'there must have been more evidence' - but it means nothing unless there is something to support that contention. And, of course, there would have been no reason why Swanson should not have mentioned it in the strictly private notes he made in the book - he did not mantion anything else at all.

[Jeff Leahy]

Of course, a confrontation is regarded as a much less valuable form of identification than picking a suspect from a parade of a dozen or more men.

Yes thanks for that Stewart...

So just following what we are agreed on....(ie Kosminski is Swansons suspect).

For some reason Swanson is at his desk, twirling his fingers with no new leads on the case, nothing for certain since Mary Jane Kelly, or perhaps he is toying with the reports on Alice McKenzie, July 1889.

All of a sudden he decides to take a suspect being watched by another force down to somewhere in Kent...(poss Sussex) and confront the suspect with one of four men..

Schwartz, Lawende, Levy or Pipeman...

But as Stewart has already pionted out a defence council would have made pritty short work of Lawende who didnt have a good look at Eddows and Levy (even if he did know Kosminski) because he had already denied he saw anything...

Which leaves either Schwartz or Pipeman...neither of whose testimony actually will tally with estimated time of death (I'm happy to take further input from anyone here) And Schwartz doesnt actually claim to have witnessed the murder, although to be fair, Swanson may have had a better idea than us what Schwartz actually did see..

But thats rather beyond the point being made...surely Swanson went to a lot of trouble to confront 'witness' with 'suspect'...WHY?

Surely he must have known the problems this evidence would have in court, yet he still went ahead...?

My conclusion is that there must have been more evidence. I cant help wondering if inside information had arrived on his desk that morning from somewhere else. Something that would have triggered his interest into discovering more about Kosminski?

Yours Jeff

[Stewart P Evans]

Identification

Yeah sorry Stewart I meant identification (or supposed identification) not line up.

Thank you for that clarification. In Jack the Ripper The Facts Paul Begg refers to a line-up as follows (page 353) -

"The police usually asked people on the street to attend an identity parade, but we must assume that there were not many low-class Polish Jews strolling along the pavement outside the convalescent home from whom twelve or so volunteers could have been found for a line-up, and a low-class Polish Jew is otherwise hardly likely to have blended in with a group of recuperative policemen."

However, what he fails to take into consideration is the fact that an identity parade was not the only form of identification - there was also identification by confrontation (one-to-one) which is the more likely form to have been used in the case being described by Anderson. Indeed Anderson's own words are, "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."

Of course, a confrontation is regarded as a much less valuable form of identification than picking a suspect from a parade of a dozen or more men.

[Jeff Leahy]

City police witness or not, they were trying to identify a suspect they believed to be responsible for the Met murders also - the City witness was used for Sadler. What ID are you talking about as a lineup?

Yeah sorry Stewart I meant identification (or supposed identification) not line up.

[Stewart P Evans]

Suspect

Lawende was also a City Police witness, the ID was a MET line up, he simply does not make sense...
Jeff

City police witness or not, they were trying to identify a suspect they believed to be responsible for the Met murders also - the City witness was used for Sadler. What ID are you talking about as a lineup?