Let´s talk about that identification again

[Garry Wroe]

Garry
“Smith, Abberline and Littlechild effectively dismissed the identification”.
Did they even refer to it?

Not explicitly, Lechmere, which is why I used the word 'effectively'. But Abberline was said to have discounted the notion that the Whitechapel Murderer had been incarcerated in an asylum, Littlechild expressed scepticism with regard to Anderson's 'solution', Macnaghten rejected it in favour of Druitt, and Smith responded with barely concealed contempt. On balance, therefore, there seems to be little reason to suppose that there existed a solid evidential link between Aaron Kosminski and Jack the Ripper.

[Howard Brown]

Rob:
You're correct. He was at his father's funeral.
Alan Sharp, author of JTR & The Irish Press, revealed that information at the 2006 Ripper Conference in Baltimore.

[robhouse]

Interestingly Anderson stated that door to door searches were made while he was away. They were door to door enquiries and I believe they took place when he had returned from leave.

That is not correct. For part of the time the house-to-house search was ongoing, Anderson was in Ireland I believe, at his father's funeral... if I remember correctly. There was also another house-to-house search in the vicinity of Berner Street on Oct 1-2 (dates are not exactly known as far as I am aware)... this was while Anderson was out of the country. He returned I think around October 9.

* Disclaimer: This post is from memory... forgive any lapses.

[Lechmere]

I take Anderson’s ‘powers such as the French Police possess’ reference was a self serving excuse for his failure.
It could mean anything – torture, arrest and lengthy detention on vague suspicion or the systematic searching of property
Interestingly Anderson stated that door to door searches were made while he was away. They were door to door enquiries and I believe they took place when he had returned from leave.

Jonathan
It is the author of the annotations who is more confused. Anderson didn’t really say very much about the ID.
“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.”
Just going on this, the witness could have bumped into the suspect in the street and could have told the police about this afterwards. Or the person who saw him may have been a City PC!

But then this version is more detailed but again doesn’t mention a Seaside Home.
‘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.’

Anderson was desperate to prove that Mylett wasn’t a Ripper victim. He discounted Mackenzie.
Besides any genuine evidential reasons, there are two possible motives for this need (in the higher ranks anyway) to believe that Kelly was the last.
One is that they thought that their pet suspect was either dead or incarcerated.
The other is that they wanted to scare to be over as it was harmful to their reputations and more generally tarnished the public’s perception of the Police.

Garry
“Smith, Abberline and Littlechild effectively dismissed the identification”.
Did they even refer to it?

Stephen
It is impossible to square the circle with the ID unless you add and subtract from Anderson’s writings and the annotations, and turn a blind eye to such glaring errors such as not knowing that the caged and banged to rights mass murderer was not dead.

[Jonathan H]

Hence the theory, and variations of, that Anderson is sincerely confusing and conflating either Pizer and Vioelena (sic) in 1888 or Lawende and/or Sadler in 1891, and/or Lawende and Grant in 1895.

For it is quite a coincidence that Aaron Kosminski was 'safely caged' around the time of the 'final' Jack murder of a young and pretty Unfortunate, and just days later a Jewish witness 'confronted' a Ripper suspect and said no.

Swanson in 1901 may have respectfully queried Anderson how he, Swanson, was unaware of a positive identification of 'Kosminski', and was told -- again sincerely but mistakenly -- that this was because it had taken place outside of London (Anderson mis-recalling Sadler's Seaman's Home as the Seaside Home).

[Garry Wroe]

Well, Stephen, since Smith, Abberline and Littlechild effectively dismissed the identification, it couldn't have been as decisive as Anderson would have had us believe.

[Stephen Lee]

What annoys me about all this is that something must have happened to id him yet we don't know much in the way of facts.
And who attended this id? If the witness clearly identified him what were the other people in the room thinking? Were they privy to what was going on?

This was a huge story. I find it hard to believe that the people in the knows family members wouldn't have found out in secret. A few years later someone would have went to the newspapers to make some cash. The whole thing makes little sense.

[Garry Wroe]

Referring to the idea that other police departments weren't burdened with the same regulations? I kind of thought that was a connection to the French gendarmes, though I don't recall where I read it...and yes, there was no real explanation.

More of Anderson's smoke and mirrors, I suspect, Michael.

[Garry Wroe]

For much of the 19th century, France was a police state -- under either Napoleon (1799 to 1815) or his nephew Napoleon III (1848 to 1871).

Thus France, even when a Republic, had a police-judicial system which was much more directed towards state power rather than individual rights, let alone liberty.

Many thanks, Jonathan. I've seen similar interpretations before and have always construed them to mean that Anderson was hinting that the murderer escaped conviction on a legal technicality. The problem as I see it, however, is that, trusting to Swanson's version of events, Kosminski was at liberty at the time of the Seaside Home identification and thus legally sane. In other words there was nothing to prevent his arrest either in Brighton or as a consequence of the City investigation that commenced upon his return to his brother's house. This suggests to my mind that, beyond the eyewitness identification, there never was any evidence linking Kosminski to the Whitechapel Murders - hence Anderson's moral rather than evidential certainty regarding the matter.

[The Good Michael]

It would be interesting to know precisely what Anderson meant when stating that the case would have been resolved had English investigators been possessed of those powers enjoyed by their foreign counterparts.

Referring to the idea that other police departments weren't burdened with the same regulations? I kind of thought that was a connection to the French gendarmes, though I don't recall where I read it...and yes, there was no real explanation.

Cheers,

Mike

[Jonathan H]

Police State

For much of the 19th century, France was a police state -- under either Napoleon (1799 to 1815) or his nephew Napoleon III (1848 to 1871).

Thus France, even when a Republic, had a police-judicial system which was much more directed towards state power rather than individual rights, let alone liberty.

Anderson is right, in theory, that a diagnosis of madness wold not have stopped them from arresting 'Kosminski', his whole family, every person who might have helped him and throwing away the key.

Also, Anderson maybe alluding, somewhat, to the entrenched anti-Semitism of French society which had led to the momentous miscarriage of justice known as the Dreyfus Affair which brought the country to the brink of collapse and civil war.

Of course that involved the false conviction of an innocent Jewish officer for espionage -- and they knew he was innocent and still railroaded him. On second thoughts perhaps Anderson is not ...

[Garry Wroe]

The explanation makes sense for understanding what Anderson meant. It doesn't mean Anderson wasn't mistaken. The idea of ID and retraction seems to be the only viable option in interpreting what Anderson seems to have been saying. The guilt of Kosminski is a separate matter.

It would be interesting to know precisely what Anderson meant when stating that the case would have been resolved had English investigators been possessed of those powers enjoyed by their foreign counterparts.

[Bridewell]

The annotations start with the word ‘because’.
Because of what? The Wonderful Wizard of Oz?
It is obvious that the ‘because’ refers to the refusal of the witness to give evidence. It explains why the witness refused to give evidence.

‘he refused to give evidence against him, because the suspect was also a Jew’.

It could not be clearer, but the annotator expands further:
‘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.’

I agree with Edward.
(Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible!)

[Bridewell]

Different things make sense to different people. And for different reasons.

Does that make sense?

The best,
Fisherman

Yes! (Does to me anyway).

[Bridewell]

I find it significant that the suspect is named -- 'Kosminski' just like Macnaghten does -- yet the witness is not.

That was my thinking too. The only reason I can think of for naming the (unconvicted) suspect but not the witness would be the possible consequences for the witness of being identified:- i.e. named as someone who had been able to identify the killer but refused to testify. That wouldn't have been a concern if the witness had died, disappeared from the scene or become otherwise unreachable. Lawende, at least, was still alive.