Letīs talk about that identification again

[Fisherman]

Crazy kelts belong in asylums, Lynn!

Fisherman

[lynn cates]

crazy quilt

Hello Edward. Thanks.

"'Piece together' implies the pieces fit together snugly like a jigsaw, to create a harmonious picture."

Umm, I was thinking more along the lines of the "crazy quilt."

Cheers.
LC

[Jonathan H]

If a witness really pointed at a suspect and said that's the man, and the administrative and operational heads of the police agreed, it would be a very famous moment.

No matter what you did to swear everybody to secrecy, it would leak.

Like a sieve.

Everybody would know.

Actually from 1910, when the story first appears -- at least with a Jewish witness and a Jewish suspect -- it was not a secret.

Anderson did not treat it as a secret he was finally revealing.

This strongly suggests to me, and others, that the Seaside Home tale is not literally true because other significant police (Smith, Macnaghten, et al) would have also, inevitably, known about it.

Plus the tale, especially Swanson's version, is so self-servingly satisfying: eg. others are blamed, we were triumphant and efficient, and the suspect was dead anyhow so the lack of co-operation by the witness was nullified anyhow. The murderer would never have made it to trial -- which provides a satisfying ending.

An ending we can see is untrue.

Behind this tale, which I think originates entirely with Anderson, is Lawende [perhaps] affirming to Grant in 1895, but it went nowhere at the same moment that Anderson was briefed about the Polish Jew, and then told his theory to Major Griffiths.

After fifteen years Lawende's yes to a suspect who could not be charged merged with the Polish Jewish suspect in Anderson's fading memory.

What? This couldn't have happened?

Anderson could not mix it all up that badly?

In 1908 Anderson gave an interview in which he confused a Liberal Home Sec. with a Tory one -- confused which one had put him under pressure in 1888, which sounds impossible (he confused the pipes from the Kelly and McKenzie murders too).

Self-servingly, a Tory himself, Anderson unfairly, mean-spiritedly blamed a Liberal, the party he regarded as letting the nation down with it's socialistic policies.

That Liberal, Harcourt, may have stuck in his memory about the Ripper not just because he had been Home Sec. in 1886, but because he was Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequor in 1895, the no. 2 spot in the Liberal party at the same time that Anderson may have first learned about 'Kosminski' and a witness said yes to a prime suspect.

[robhouse]

I was assessing the whole Seaside home ID in four lines including a question. I didn't put that in speech marks for a reason. Don't change what I've written, and then accuse me of 'putting words in the mouth of the witness '.

These are the words of Anderson and Swanson, not mine -



'he refused to give evidence against him'



'his evidence would convict the suspect'

Evidence is given in court, evidence can only be given in court, anywhere else it is just a statement.

Did you even read what I wrote? I never denied that his evidence would convict, nor that he refused to give evidence.

RH

[Lechmere]

Lynn
'Piece together' implies the pieces fit together snugly like a jigsaw, to create a harmonious picture.
Whereas I rather think you mean upwards of three different suspects, identifications and stories were jumbled together to create a Frankenstein's monster of a Seaside Home ID.

[Damaso Marte]

The Jew could have been acting for reasons of ethnic or group solidarity: religion could have had absolutely nothing to do with it.

[RivkahChaya]

If some rabbi actually advised the witness not to testify, then that rabbi must have been willing to somehow adjudicate the case with a rabbinical court. I think there would be some record of that.

Aside from the fact that I doubt very much a rabbi would be willing to take this responsibility on, I've never heard the barest whisper of anyone within the Jewish community at the time discussing how they are going to manage JTR. It could be a record of convincing his family to civilly commit him, somehow, or notes of an investigation that satisfied the rabbinical court (three rabbis) that the man was already secured in an institution somehow, but a rabbi isn't going to say "Don't testify, just let him run the streets to keep killing."

I think the "perfect witness who won't testify," is largely myth. There may be something behind it, like a very imperfect witness the police wished were better. But I find the idea that a Jew would simply refuse to testify, and leave it at that, implausible at best.

[Wickerman]

Were I a juror, I would agree with you, but there would be sufficient doubt to not convict.

I'm scratching my head here because I really don't understand how Swanson's words....."suspect was identified"...."murdered would have hanged".....can be taken to mean anything other than Swanson believed this man was the murderer....unless we're looking to discredit the Kosminski suspect.

Swanson's choice of words is not difficult to follow. He could hardly write "suspect would have hanged", you must be guilty, therefore you are by defacto the murderer, to hang.

Swanson is not calling the suspect a murderer, he is saying the evidence would convict the suspect thereby changing him into "murderer", and subsequently, hang.

However relevant the marginalia notes are, are entirely dependent on when this ID took place. Seeing as how the date is up in the air, with a best possible estimate of July 1890, 20 months after Kelly's murder, what possible evidence could the police have at this late date to provide a solid case?

Lawende's own admission that he could not identify the man again makes any subsequent contribution from him in an ID 20 months later, distinctly dubious from a legal perspective.

There's a great deal of wishful thinking going on here.

Regards, Jon S.

[lynn cates]

language game

Hello Edward. Thanks.

"Do you actually mean to suggest 'muddled together' rather than pieced together?"

Umm, denotationally the same; connotationally, a no-no.

Cheers.
LC

[Mr Lucky]

Now do you see what I am getting at. We simply cannot say that the man simply stated "he's the murderer but I'm not giving evidence in court."
RH

I was assessing the whole Seaside home ID in four lines including a question. I didn't put that in speech marks for a reason. Don't change what I've written, and then accuse me of 'putting words in the mouth of the witness '.

These are the words of Anderson and Swanson, not mine -

‘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.’ - Sir Robert Anderson

'he refused to give evidence against him'

'because the suspect was also a Jew and also because his evidence would convict the suspect, and witness would be the means of murderer being hanged which he did not wish to be left on his mind.’ - D.S. Swanson

'his evidence would convict the suspect'

Evidence is given in court, evidence can only be given in court, anywhere else it is just a statement.

[Jonathan H]

Well, of course because that certainty is exactly hos Anderson psoke and wrote.

Anderson writes to the Jews to mollify them that there was no doubt the murderer was a Jew, but not because he was a Jew.

The evdience?

He had been positively identified, no ifs or buts -- like the Marginakia -- and he was driven insane by [he alludes to] masturbation.

I think Swanson accepted all this, but his onyl source was Anderson.

How did Macnaghten know what they did not?

[Lechmere]

Ron
Fleetwood is correct. Within the text there is no room for doubt over the identification or the consequences from that had the witness stepped forward.

[Lechmere]

Lynn
Do you actually mean to suggest 'muddled together' rather than pieced together

[lynn cates]

piece work

Hello Edward. Thanks.

Well, maybe not if 2 or 3 stories have inadvertently been pieced together.

Cheers.
LC

[Fleetwood Mac]

No, but being identified as a man who was seen talking to a woman, who turns up dead 5 minutes later, is circumstantial evidence suggesting guilt. It certainly is suspicious, and I think most rational people would naturally assume that the man Lawende saw was Eddowes' killer.

RH

Were I a juror, I would agree with you, but there would be sufficient doubt to not convict.

I'm scratching my head here because I really don't understand how Swanson's words....."suspect was identified"...."murdered would have hanged".....can be taken to mean anything other than Swanson believed this man was the murderer....unless we're looking to discredit the Kosminski suspect.