Witness Testimony: Albert Cadosche

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

No because Chapman lies bleeding in the yard and her killer either still in the yard or climbing fences to make good his escape. Surely it must have been Chapman and her murderer seen by Long otherwise we have two couples hanging around number 29 looking for somewhere discreet to go. The evidence just seems so strong.

So who was the murderer? We have a description. It may not be the description we want but that's how it works in real life.

NW

In real life, the police asked Lawende, who had seen a fair man aged about about 30 and with the appearance of a sailor, to try and identify, in turn, two men who were themselves sailors.

They did not ask Long to try to identify a dark man in his 40s.

[New Waterloo]

Very good comments from all and yes its true I don't read all the comments, sometimes just skim through so fair point AP that perhaps I am not considering everything. I suppose I am trying to move things along. If we accept the evidence of Long and Cadosch then we can start to look at the description of the offender and whether he fits in with any individuals we know of etc etc.

If we consider Long and Cadosch as unreliable then where do we go. I suppose losing Cadosch as a witness doesn't make much difference as we know Chapman was murdered in the yard near the fence. Nothing new there.

Losing Long is far more serious as if her evidence is believed then she is a very important part in the jigsaw and establishing the identity of JTR.

NW

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

I think everyone knows my position on the killer, and to a degree Long's description supports that view; yet for many years I dismissed her description, and undervalued her statement, not because it was NOT the description I wanted, but because it was just too much what I wanted( ignoring age. Which is I suggest very hard to judge, and only applies to some of those covered by the generic Anderson's suspect anyway).

The only named persons I have so far seen suggested as Anderson's suspect are Aaron Kosminski, who was 22 when the series of murders began, and David Cohen, who was about 23, both of whom were about half the estimated age of Long's suspect.

It may be difficult for a witness to judge a person's age, but mistaking a person of 23 for a person in his 40s seems far-fetched.

Sagar's fictional 'smartly-dressed man of Jewish appearance' can hardly be Anderson's 'low-class Polish Jew' who was not of Jewish appearance.

Harry Cox's Jewish suspect, who was 'about five feet six inches in height, with short, black, curly hair' and 'occupied several shops in the East End' does not seem to have been a 'low-class Polish Jew' who was not of Jewish appearance, either.

The fact that Long did not have 'a good view of the murderer,' as well as the fact that she was not Jewish, rule her out as Anderson's witness.

There really seems to be nothing to connect Long's suspect with Anderson's suspect, if the latter even existed.

[A P Tomlinson]

I am not sure that I agree with this. Do I think it's POSSIBLE that he made up the memory of that morning or confabbed an entire event from memory scraps. Sure. But I think it's more likely that he was unwilling to testify that he was running late for work or simply didn't know exactly what time it was and didn't figure it mattered one way or the other. While some amount of time from the morning yard events to his learning of what had transpired would obviously have passed, I don't know that enough would have passed to thoroughly re-write his memory of that morning. At most we're talking about 10-12 hours? And while noises from the yard next door might have been normal, a woman saying "No" is going to be ear-catching if only from a gossip/interest point of view. It's possible of course, but I would lean more towards he just didn't know or didn't care to testify as to what time he was passing that clock and went with his usual "concept" of when he was passing or would have been on any other day.

Just so I'm clear, I don't agree with it either.
If there is vaguery from him, I'm more in the camp of him not wanting to have to elaborate too much in public about his... medical issues... and that he related a more typical time scale for his daily travels, which amounts to the same thing you are saying about tardiness. (But I can't prove that so... in this discussion, it has to fall in at an equal level of probablity to auditory hallucinations brought on by being told that a murder had happened...)

I think that unless you have sound and sensible grounds to suggest otherwise, and if Occams Razor is cutting a clean line in one direction, then the most obvious solution is the one you start from.
Applying a largey baseless series of, "Ah, but what IF..." and "Maybe this, that or the other happend and that caused... X, Y, Z..." conditions without any genuine grounds beyond, "well, there is a slight possibility..." makes it a tentative theory at best, and complete make-believe at worst.
I don't want to relitigate Cross/Lechmere on this thread, but that is all that THAT theory is. A story, dressed up in supposition, baseless extrapolation and a drive to squeeze the evidence into a predetermined shape.

The point of this thread was, allegedly, to test Albert Cadosche's reliability as a witness against a series of psychological studies that cast doubt on witness memory. None of the markers, indicators, triggers or inciting effects described in the scientific reports linked can be (or at least so far have been) ascribed to Albert without some series Cirque du Soleil levels of contortionism going on to stretch the limits of the conditions described, in order to apply them to a man who said that he heard something bump into his fence when he was getting ready to go to work that morning.
In doing so, it has followed the path of every other witness discussion on Chapmans murder... the reliability of Victorian pathologists, Long's ability to recognise faces, and veered inevitably toward the purpose of discredting three particular witnesses whose testimony puts her death at later in the morning than some theories woudl like.
Thankfully we've not got bogged down in Richardson.

I keep saying this but I end up dragging myself back in, but until someone starts applying the science to the subject, and saying why any of the specific aspects of the "Misinformation Effect" or any of the other linked studies apply to Cadosche, beyond "Well.. they might apply to anyone, and you can't prove they didn't" I'm done.

[Elamarna]

The only named persons I have so far seen suggested as Anderson's suspect are Aaron Kosminski, who was 22 when the series of murders began, and David Cohen, who was about 23, both of whom were about half the estimated age of Long's suspect.

It may be difficult for a witness to judge a person's age, but mistaking a person of 23 for a person in his 40s seems far-fetched.

Sagar's fictional 'smartly-dressed man of Jewish appearance' can hardly be Anderson's 'low-class Polish Jew' who was not of Jewish appearance.

Harry Cox's Jewish suspect, who was 'about five feet six inches in height, with short, black, curly hair' and 'occupied several shops in the East End' does not seem to have been a 'low-class Polish Jew' who was not of Jewish appearance, either.

The fact that Long did not have 'a good view of the murderer,' as well as the fact that she was not Jewish, rule her out as Anderson's witness.

There really seems to be nothing to connect Long's suspect with Anderson's suspect, if the latter even existed.

My mention of Anderson's suspect was in passing in regards to the point NW made that people may not like the descriptions they have. It was no mentioned to take the thread in the direction of general debate on the subject of Anderson's suspect , such would I believe be Off Topic.

Of course we disagree on The whole issue of Anderson's suspect, and I have decided not to debate it with yourself as I consider neither of us are likely to change our views.

Steve

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

My mention of Anderson's suspect was in passing in regards to the point NW made that people may not like the descriptions they have. It was no mentioned to take the thread in the direction of general debate on the subject of Anderson's suspect , such would I believe be Off Topic.

Of course we disagree on The whole issue of Anderson's suspect, and I have decided not to debate it with yourself as I consider neither of us are likely to change our views.

Steve

It was not my intention 'to take the thread in the direction of general debate on the subject of Anderson's suspect' nor to debate with you 'the whole issue of Anderson's suspect' nor to debate whether what Anderson wrote is believable.

New Waterloo suggested that Long's suspect was a plausible suspect and you then suggested that he was plausible as Anderson's suspect.

My main point is that he is not.

[Abby Normal]

It was not my intention 'to take the thread in the direction of general debate on the subject of Anderson's suspect' nor to debate with you 'the whole issue of Anderson's suspect' nor to debate whether what Anderson wrote is believable.

New Waterloo suggested that Long's suspect was a plausible suspect and you then suggested that he was plausible as Anderson's suspect.

My main point is that he is not.

They are both plausible suspects. Why couldn’t the man long saw be koz and also the ripper?

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

They are both plausible suspects.

Why couldn’t the man long saw be koz and also the ripper?

Firstly, because Kosminski was 22 years old, about half the age of Long's estimate of the man she saw.

Secondly, because one can reasonably assume that Kosminski would have been attending synagogue that morning, as it was the holiest Sabbath in the Jewish calendar.

Why would he have selected the holiest Sabbath of the year on which to commit the only murder he committed on a Sabbath?

Thirdly, because Anderson's witness is supposed to have seen something incriminating.

What would a Jewish witness be doing in the back yard of 29 Hanbury Street?

[Fiver]

Firstly, because Kosminski was 22 years old, about half the age of Long's estimate of the man she saw.

Secondly, because one can reasonably assume that Kosminski would have been attending synagogue that morning, as it was the holiest Sabbath in the Jewish calendar.

Why would he have selected the holiest Sabbath of the year on which to commit the only murder he committed on a Sabbath?

Thirdly, because Anderson's witness is supposed to have seen something incriminating.

What would a Jewish witness be doing in the back yard of 29 Hanbury Street?

Long's age estimate points against Kosminski being the man she saw, but you have been arguing that human perception and memory are fallible, especially in witnesses for the Chapman case. Yet here you seem to be insisting that Long was completely accurate in her estimation of the man's age.

We have no idea if Kosminski was an observant Jew. The holiest Shabbat is Yom Kippur. In 1888 it was from sundown Friday September 14 to sundown Saturday September 15, a week after Chapman's murder.

Nothing about Anderson's witness disproves that Kosminski was the Ripper. The only thing we know about the suspect is that he was Jewish and Kosminski was Jewish.

Nobody has suggested there was a Jewish witness in the back yard of 29 Hanbury. It's also irrelevant to whether Kosminski was the Ripper.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Long's age estimate points against Kosminski being the man she saw, but you have been arguing that human perception and memory are fallible, especially in witnesses for the Chapman case. Yet here you seem to be insisting that Long was completely accurate in her estimation of the man's age.

I am certainly not insisting that Long was completely accurate in her estimation of the man's age.

But there is a big difference between 22 and about 44.

We have no idea if Kosminski was an observant Jew.

We do have an idea.

He refused to handle money on the Sabbath.

The holiest Shabbat is Yom Kippur. In 1888 it was from sundown Friday September 14 to sundown Saturday September 15, a week after Chapman's murder.

The holiest Sabbath in the Jewish calendar is the Sabbath of Repentance, which occurs shortly before Yom Kippur every year.

The fact that Yom Kippur fell on a Sabbath in 1888 is coincidental.

Nothing about Anderson's witness disproves that Kosminski was the Ripper. The only thing we know about the suspect is that he was Jewish and Kosminski was Jewish.

We know that Kosminski refused to handle money on the Sabbath.

We also know that the Hanbury Street murder occurred on a Sabbath.

We also know that it occured on the holiest Sabbath in the Jewish calendar.

That argues against his having committed the Hanbury Street murder.

Nobody has suggested there was a Jewish witness in the back yard of 29 Hanbury.

Elamarna himself stated that Anderson's witness can be presumed to have seen something incriminating.

If Long's suspect was the murderer, then he must have been seen by Anderson's witness somewhere, in circumstances that incriminated him.

If there was no Jewish witness in the back yard of 29 Hanbury Street, nor in 13 Miller's court, then where was he?

[Fiver]

We know that Kosminski refused to handle money on the Sabbath.

We know he gave Shabbat as an excuse to not pay a fine for an unmuzzled dog. Which doesn't tell us if he was observant, let alone if he was the Ripper.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

We know he gave Shabbat as an excuse to not pay a fine for an unmuzzled dog. Which doesn't tell us if he was observant, let alone if he was the Ripper.

You wrote:

We have no idea if Kosminski was an observant Jew.

and I replied:

We do have an idea.

He refused to handle money on the Sabbath.

That does not tell us for certain that he was observant, but it means we do have an idea.

There is nothing to suggest that the Kosminskis were irreligious, and it was customary for Whitechapel Jews to attend synagogue.

It is therefore reasonable to deduce that Aaron did too.

[Fiver]

If Long's suspect was the murderer, then he must have been seen by Anderson's witness somewhere, in circumstances that incriminated him.

If there was no Jewish witness in the back yard of 29 Hanbury Street, nor in 13 Miller's court, then where was he?

Anderson never said that his witness was a witness for the Chapman murder or the Kelly murder. All we know is that both the witness and the suspect were Jewish. Top theories are are that the Jewish witness was Lawende, for the Eddowes murder, or Schwartz, for the Stride murder.

We have no idea if the Jewish man seen by Anderson's Jewish witness was the Ripper. We have no idea if he was the same man seen by Long. Plenty of men were suspected of being the Ripper.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

Anderson never said that his witness was a witness for the Chapman murder or the Kelly murder. All we know is that both the witness and the suspect were Jewish. Top theories are are that the Jewish witness was Lawende, for the Eddowes murder, or Schwartz, for the Stride murder.

The problem is that neither Schwartz nor Lawende saw anything so incriminating that a prosecution for murder could have depended on it.

And another problem is that it is obvious that both Schwartz and Lawende described Gentile suspects.

We have no idea if the Jewish man seen by Anderson's Jewish witness was the Ripper. We have no idea if he was the same man seen by Long. Plenty of men were suspected of being the Ripper.

I agree.

And we have no idea whether any such Jewish man existed, was seen at the scene of any of the murders, or was seen by any Jewish witness.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I don’t recall Schwartz using the word Gentile? Or anything about the man’s nationality?