|
 |
 |
|
|
|
** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
Archive through 23 November 2002
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Suspects: Specific Suspects:
Later Suspects [ 1910 - Present ]:
Cohen, David:
Why the Polish Jew is a very shaky theory:
Archive through 23 November 2002
Author: Martin Fido
Sunday, 05 November 2000 - 11:37 am |        | Hi Scott,
I'm not aware of anyone having checked Broadmoor's records for a Kosminsky-esque suspect. I can guarantee from my own work that no one of that or a similar name and appropriate age died in Broadmoor between 1888 and 1960. I guess the reason for not checking would be that nothing in Anderson (when I did my original work) or Swanson (when others came to improve on it) suggested that chummy had been convicted of any crime.
The Stepey Union workhouses are a fearfully complicated tale which I worked on from a mass of documentation produced by Keith Skinner ten years ago, and then returned to him. I honestly can't remember any detail now except to say that the A-Z summarises what appeared to be the position from a variety of contemporary records.
I'm unlikely to respond to new postings for a couple of weeks, as I'm now engaged on work with a rather tight deadline. Sorry I couldn't be more useful.
All the best,
Martin |
Author: Scott Nelson
Sunday, 05 November 2000 - 11:29 pm | | I guess I'm kind of at a crossroad(s) here. Does Adam Wood or anyone else have any info on how this dilema of Workhouse records can be resolved? Did consolidation result in the loss of "Stepney" records? Herein, I believe, lies the documented "truth" of the Polish Jew Suspect, which I would be only to grateful to research (Damn, being an American interested in this Case!!)
To Caz: Thank you so very much for your support and help with my recent queries :-). |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Monday, 06 November 2000 - 03:40 am | | To Scott,
No problem. Sorry I can't be of more help to you.
Good luck with the research.
Love,
Caz |
Author: David M. Radka
Monday, 06 November 2000 - 08:17 pm | | Scott,
I wish I knew something about the workhouses to give you. I sometimes think I'm too selective in Ripperology, in my old age, and miss things. Please let me know anything that I can help you with.
David |
Author: Warwick Parminter
Thursday, 09 November 2000 - 03:26 pm | | I've been reading up about David/Aaron Cohen and Aaron Kosminski. Their ages, their situations, their Jewishness, their types of insanity, their first names, all make it seem possible (to me) that they were one and the same man, there is a hint of it in the A to Z. One is Andersons suspect, the other is Macnaghten's. The main difference between the two is that Cohen was detained Dec 88 and supposedly died in 89, Kosminski was detained 1890 and 91 and died in 1919. If they are one, surely those two Victorian buffers should have compared suspects, come to some agreement, and got their facts straight?. You see, I'm thinking that Victorian public were treated the same as the year 2000 public by the authorities, "AUTHORITY IS NEVER WRONG". Was Cohen released in secret in 89, and re detained as Kosminski in 1890?. That way you have two suspects free at the right time, when in actual fact there was only one! While saying that, is it possible that a man like Cohen/Kosminski, suffering from the type of insanity they/he was suffering from, could have committed these murders? They were clever killings,-- could they have been committed by near homicidal idiots!. Gacy, Bundy, and Dahmer were clever men, worse than the Ripper, but they were caught, could an idiot do what they couldn't? An idiot like Cohen/Kosminski wouldn't have reasoned that he must stop his victims from screaming, he would have loved them to!, and if he managed to get as far as killing Eddowes, could he have reasoned his way through it without being caught?. With the Kelly murder, if it had been a madman like Cohen/Kosminski, I think Kelly's body would have been in a bigger mess, and I think he would have been caught, I don't think he would have even thought of escaping after that!
If the Ripper was a man aged 28 to 30 why did he only kill wornout 40 odd yr olds?. If he was a man who enjoyed doing these murders, why didn't he go for 20 odd yr olds?. It's as if he was getting rid of the useless ones, and time spent on each murder says he couldn't have enjoyed it that much.There is one other thing I've thought on, knowing how weird and twisted killers can be, when Eddowes body was found, the body and intestines were smeared with feculent matter. It's taken for granted that the Ripper cut into her large intestine and let out the waste, I suppose that can be proved?. What if it wasn't Eddowes bowel waste,-- in showing his contempt for the type of women he was killing, what if it was the Ripper's!!.
Rick |
Author: David M. Radka
Thursday, 09 November 2000 - 05:22 pm | | When you gotta go, you gotta go, I guess. Even the Ripper had to, you know. Puts it all in perspective...
David |
Author: Martin Fido
Friday, 10 November 2000 - 08:26 am | | Hi Rick,
I don't think the Cohen=Kosminski hypothesis will stand up. Their death certificates have been known as long as they have, and despite thriller writers, modern witness protection programmes, and occasional snippets of Paul Feldman's wilder thinking, there is absolutely nothing to suggest that such documents were ever faked in Victorian times. Additional documentation about their burials has also been traced in research which Paul Begg (mainly) and I (once) followed out. It's never been published because the results - (who signed papers getting them placed in burial grounds, etc) - proved extremely boring and led nowhere. Their asylum records show that their types of madness were completely different: Cohen's an exceptionally violent and self-threatening mania; Kosminski's hallucinated voices telling him what people were thinking and advising him not to accept food from others, accompanied by no lunatic violence (except, possibly, the one alleged occasion of threatening his sister with a knife, and one of threatening hospital staff with a chair when they wanted to bath him. The records don't make it clear whether his hatred of bathing was insane or just peculiar).
If you can get hold of Maxim Jakobowski and Nathan Braund's 'Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper', I think it contains the clearest account of why I think - (which is VERY different from saying have established!) - that Nathan Kaminsky, who disappears from the records entirely after the spring of 1888, may actually have been 'David Cohen'.
Martin Fido |
Author: Martin Fido
Thursday, 17 May 2001 - 07:37 am | | Just one thing seems to have gone unanswered on this board. RJP asked quite a while back whether the equanimity with which Matthews and the police saw Lipski hanged, despite public protest, doesn't argue against their covering up their suspicion that the Ripper was Jewish the following year.
As one expects from RJP, it's a very good question, and offering an answer doesn't mean it's disposed of and we shouldn't hold it in mind as a reservation. The two cases were diametrically different though, weren't they? In Lipski's case, a lot of the public doubted whether he was really guilty, and this is what exercised Matthews dreadfully as he pondered whether to order a last minute reprieve or stay of execution, until Lipski's confession the night before he was hanged resolved the issue. Although the use of Lipski as an antiSemitic epithet (at least according to Abberline) indicates that there was some hostility to him in the neighbourhood, this wouldn't be necessarily or absolutely antiSemitic, as Miriam Angel was Jewish, too, as were the two journeymen Lipski accused of having carried out the murder while waiting to see him. So we had a Jew convicted of murdering a fellow Jew and pleading that two other Jews were actually responsible. There was no cross-racial element. The wider public, as I understand it, was on Lipski's side and opposed to a possible miscarriage of justice by the execution of a man who, it seemed, might be a co-victim.
The Ripper case was quite different. Gentile women were being very horribly murdered by a man whom some of the surviving women in danger believed could be identified as Jewish. This allegedly stirred up intense antiSemitic feeling in the neighbourhood and a constant fear on the part of the police that it might deteriorate into rioting, on the grounds that 'No Englishman wold commit crimes like these.' Or Irishman, one imagines, given the demographic composition of the neighbourhood! (Incidentally, while we have on-the-spot accounts of serious disturbances relating to 'the white-eyed man' and the arrest of 'Squibby', it has always interested me that I don't know any such contemporary accounts of Jews being threatened. I am relying on Chaim Bermant's historical narrative - and he is, of course, a deeply respected scholar with access to th local Yiddish newspapers that I don't have - coupled with my own observation that the only trace of a police 'cover-up' as long alleged by Stephen Knight and similar theorists, was the obvious police determination to conceal the fact that Anderson's office, at least, retained the suspicion that the killer was a local Jewish immigrant long after Pizer's clearance had furnished the excuse to drop the publication of this suspicion. In support of this determination, I would cite Warren's published statement that Juwes didn't mean Jews in any known language - (an irrelevant and misleading comment, as neither he nor any other policeman ever gave a moment's thought to its meaning anything else in misspelled English!) - and Major Smith's firm statement that all shochet's knives had been examined and proved that the Ripper could not have used one, and the decisive change of Hutchinson's signed testimony to police that the man he saw was 'Jewish-looking' to read 'foreign-looking' in the press reports. Which, of course, gives one furiously to think when seeing that other witnesses, whose original statements to the police have not survived, are also quoted in the press as saying 'foreign' or 'foreign looking'. Golly! This parenthesis has become longer than Leavis's!)
We certainly know, from Andrews' presence at Goulston Street demanding that the graffitto be erased before traders appeared, that the local police on the ground definitely did fear antiSemitic disturbances. And all antiRipper disturbances were liable to turn into antiPolice demonstrations. (Remembr that Warren was burned in effigy at this time). And so I have no difficulty in accepting that the men who had cheerfully ushered Lipski to the gallows in 1887 did their best to conceal the fact that they thought the Ripper was Jewish in 1888. Indeed, if the agreed part of Anderson and Swanson's evidence is true, and a witness who had seen and identified the Rippe refused to swear to his identification because he didn't want to incriminate a fellow Jew, then antiSemitic demonstrations would be perfectly understandable and, I'm sure, justified in the eyes of many policemen. Who were, nonetheless, sworn to keep the peace and prevent public disturbances. (Of course this provocation would be ex post facto: the fear of antiSemitism seems to have been at its highest in September and October. But bearing in mind Monro's reflection that the Ripper should have been caught, though he wasn't, one might wonder whether the 'hot potato' to which he referred was the possibility that the public might ever learn that he'd been in police hands and identified, only to have all possibility of exposing him blocked by the Jewish witness's refusal to testify against a fello-Jew. I don't suggest it WAS so - I can see a number of objections. But I note that it MIGHT have been so).
So RJP's question is good, and I'll bear it in mind. But I don't think it presents a massive hurdle, or lends any justification to the misleading and highly unhistorical title of this board!
With all good wishes,
Martin Fido |
Author: Jim Leen
Thursday, 17 May 2001 - 02:49 pm | | Hello Martin,
"And so I have no difficulty in accepting that the men who had cheerfully ushered Lipski to the gallows in 1887 did their best to conceal the fact that they thought the Ripper was Jewish in 1888."
I can follow your reasoning in this matter but I have some difficulty with it. For one thing, who was hiding whom from whom? (Eh?)
We could reasonably argue that, to avoid civic disturbance, the upper echelon of the Met decided to conceal JTR’s religion from the gentlemen of the fourth estate. But we would have to accept that the top officers would brief their men to be on the lookout for a dazed looking Jew. After all, it would be self-defeating to purposefully conceal a ready-made description to their own men.
And there lies the rub. How long would it take before a PC let it slip to his friends/family/etc, that the police were secretly looking for a Jew but, wink wink, keep it on the QT. Not only would it be the worst kept secret in London, the situation would have perhaps exacerbated an already fraught position.
I note that you also mention, “…So we had a Jew convicted of murdering a fellow Jew and pleading that two other Jews were actually responsible...”
Doesn’t this totally contradict Anderson’s statement, unless of course the Silent Witness’ reticence can be explained by the inter-racial nature of the crimes.
On the note of the Seaside Home Identification, knowing that Anderson was nothing less than an unqualified bigot, was it his assumption that the Silent Witness refused to testify because of a shared religion. Or did the alleged witness explain himself so. I’m sure you can realise the significance of either event.
Thanking you
Jim Leen |
Author: Martin Fido
Thursday, 17 May 2001 - 03:21 pm | | Hi Jim,
It is my own belief that the Met top brass had so little confidence that their undderlings would keep away from the press that they simply kept them underinformed and left them to pursue every possible kind of lead. (Cf Abberline's ignorance of Annie Chapman's injuries). And, indeed, until the ID (whether it was at the Seaside Home or, as Anderson's words imply, in the asylum) that would also be the most professional thing to do. It would be quite irresponsible to pull back other lines of enquiry because a day and a half's study of the infrmation sent in from the ground aparently only showed up the alleged Jew suspect as a recurrent item.
“…So we had a Jew convicted of murdering a fellow Jew and pleading that two other Jews were actually responsible...” actually refers to the Lipski case. Anderson was in the Home Office and not Scotland Yard at the time, and I'm not aware that he ever expressed any opinion on it.
And Anderson, you say, was 'nothing less than an unqualified bigot'. Fair enough as regards his antiCatholicism. But really a serious misrepresentation of his attitude to Jews.
With all good wishes,
Martin F |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Thursday, 17 May 2001 - 10:10 pm | | Dear Jim,
You asked about my views on the Blood Libel.
If you haven't seen them, they are on the
thread about the Letter of September 17th.
Jeff |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Thursday, 17 May 2001 - 10:15 pm | | Dear Jim,
Sorry, it was on the thread about Seaside
House, not the Letter of September 17th.
Jeff |
Author: Jim Leen
Friday, 18 May 2001 - 09:23 am | | Hello Everybody,
Martin, I'm intrigued by your view but I'm still not sure if I'll be buying a subscription!
Did the Met top brass really treat their command with such disdain? If so, perhaps this would explain Abberline's ignorance of Annie Chapman's injuries.
"...So we had a Jew etc.." of course relates to Lipski. But the point I was trying to make was that someone on the force would surely have been able to connect events of the preceeding year and relate it to the Silent Witness situation.
With regard to the Seaside Home saga, there is the possibility it happened. But did Anderson assume that the refusal to testify was on religious grounds when there may have been other reasons for the silence.
Do you think it is possible that events transpired as described but the motives were perhaps confused?
Jeff, I'll start investigating the post just now.
Thanking you and trusting you have a nice weekend.
Jim Leen |
Author: Martin Fido
Friday, 18 May 2001 - 10:36 am | | Hi Jim,
Now let me see if I can sort out what I think you 'ought' to buy, and what is absolutely a matter of free choice.
It's purely my own speculation that the top brass didn't trust the boys on the ground to keep away from hacks. But we know from Dew that he at least disapproved of and resented the order to do so (though I think he was far too deferential to break the ruling). Abberline, on the other hand, may well have talked to the press, as I think did Thick. I base this guessing on the pretty full and favourable coverage both got, with Abberline acknowledging what he didn't know on the one hand, and at least letting pass the misleading observation that he was 'in charge of the case' on the other. Noting, too, that he claimed he ws about to write to the Pall Mall Gazette in 1901 (long after his retirement, of course) when they forestalled him by approaching him. And Thick gets a remarkably consistently good press at a time when 'the police' are rather under fire, and is one of the officers cited at the end of September as still taking seriously the suspect originally named by certain Crossingham's denizens in the early stages of the case. So who told the press that? But there's no pressure on you to agree with me over all that.
In re Lipski, I don't really see why anyone should have connected the two as they were diametrically opposed. In the Lipski case there was public concern that a Jew might be going to hang unjustly. In the Ripper case there was police concern that suspicion of a Jew might lead to antiSemitic rioting. Are you agreeing with me that there are clear signs of withholding the suspicion from the press, but attributing it to a fear that there might again be a rush of sympathy for the perpetrator if he turned out to be Jewish? Not that there is anything pressing you to agree when I'm only saying 'I don't really see why...'
On the Seaside Home or asylum ID - SOMETHING must have transpired. Anderson was scrupulously honest to the point of being a bit of a bore in his self-examination over the rights and wrongs of misleading criminals with half-truths. (By 'scrupulously' I mean, of course, that he had the sort of scruples that don't seriously worry most people: not that he Could Never Tell a Lie. But I don't think there can be the slightest doubt that he was quite incapable of the sort of reckless, irresponsible mendacious boasting of which Stephen Knight accused him). Swanson was writing a private note as a personal comment or aide-memoire, and it's quite inconceivable that he would have been lying, either. I mean, lying to himself?! For no conceivable advantage?! Anderson can be shown to have a shaky memory of cases which preceded his joining the Met (at least, he mixes up Constance Kent and Penge murders once). Otherwise he has never been shown to have a shaky memory. Swanson's family recalled him as keeping all his marbles perfectly util his death. So why do they contradict each other? My suspicion is that there were two IDs and Swanson may not have attended the one in the asylum, which could account for his not being as sure as Anderson that the ID proved the case. (I.e. a witness could have made an instant and positive ID of a suspect in the asylum, observed by Anderson and not Swanson. And the same or another witness could have made a much less positive ID of another suspect in the Seaside Home, observed by Swanson, who thereafter thought this was what Anderson was describing. 'Could have...', 'could have...', 'could have...' - it's horribly thin, I know. But we are looking at a major puzzle in the historical record. And I don't put this forward as more than a 'suspicion'). Still, in the Blackwood's Magazine version of his memoirs, which he altered slightly in the Ripper passages, and the Ripper passages only, Anderson does say, like Swanson, that the witness's reason for refusing to swear to his identification was because the suspect was a fellow-Jew. Swanson's repetition of this is one reason for assuming that he didn't know of the variant readings in the earlier version. Anderson did not ever give the second reason Swanson remembers: that the witness didn't want to be responsible for the suspect's death. This again, suggests to me that there must have been an ID of another suspect, since Anderson's firm statement that the ID took place after the suspect was in the asylum not only completely contradicts Swanson's rather bizarre story, but carries the clear implication that the suspect couldn't even have been put on trial, let alone convicted and hanged. But we're dealing with the really mysterious fact that two men who would, under normal circumstances be seen as excellent historical witnesses, unwittingly contradict one another. This has to be dealt with in some way, and it is my belief that those who throw their hands in the air and say, 'We can't take either of them seriously if they don't agree' are historically irresponsible, given the demonstrable nature and positions of the two men; and the doubting rejectors are often (though not invariably) motivated by the urgent need to get them out of the way and make space for an alternative theory. But how you explain to yourself the problem will depend entirely on how you approach history. Paul Begg and I have taken different directions ever since the marginalia appeared: he assuming that Swanson must be given priority because he gives more details and a name which is echoed in Macnaghten, and I assuming that Anderson must be given priority since he cannot be shown to have made any mistakes while Swanson definitely includes erroneous material. It is, of course, sheer icing on the cake for me that Swanson's most egregious errors happen to fit David Cohen and not the man he names, and I had already suggested that the two men had been confused by the police before Swanson's marginalia emerged.
I'm not sure whether you've abandoned the accusation that Anderson was a bigoted antiSemite. If not, in this case and this alone, I should have to insist that you read some of his theological writing and examine his relations with Chief Rabbi Adler before I took your opinion seriously. (Stroppy old devil I can be sometimes, can't I!)
All the best,
Martin |
Author: Scott Nelson
Friday, 18 May 2001 - 11:31 am | | Hi Martin - I'll agree with you that there were possibly two separate identifications that took place (I came to that conclusion myself), one at the Seaside Home, the other in the asylum. Did they both involve the same suspect? The same witness? (recalling Anderson said ..."the ONLY person who ever had a good view of the murderer unhesitatingly identified the suspect the INSTANT he was confronted with him" and this statement being altered from a previous one, where a witness 'LEARNED' the suspect was a fellow Jew - my Caps)? And which event may have occurred first, the Seaside Home ID or the Asylum ID?
Thanks for indulging me. Any input from Paul? |
Author: Martin Fido
Friday, 18 May 2001 - 01:43 pm | | Hi Scott
I'm glad I have some company on the terrifying quicksand of suggesting two possible IDs. But that is as far as I'd really dare go with speculation at present. The permutations can be worked out. Same suspect same witness, with a doubtful ID at the Seaside Home followed by his release (as Swanson said) and then a positive ID once he was behind bars. Same witness different suspects. Same suspect different witnesses. Different suspects different witnesses. We don't have any evidence to support any of these (or even your and my brave speculation that there might have been two IDs). Just the general pointer toward same suspect same witness - maybe even same occasion - lying in the FACT that Swanson and Anderson both say the witness refused to take a final step because the suspect was a fellow Jew. Paul Begg is going to descend on us any minute, from a great height, demanding to know how we can fly in the face of the only general pointer we've got....
I would say that I can't believe Swanson's story of the suspect being let go after such a positive ID as Anderson describes. And this leads me to believe - (all right, I'm risking it. letting you know where my speculations lead me. But I was inveigled into this by conversation, and it's not something I should ever publish as a fre-standing essay. Imagine me saying all this over a pint of beer and waiting for you to put up a better theory...) - as I was saying before I interrupted myself, I'm inclined to suspect that Cohen was ID'd first and Anderson was privately satisfied that this settled the question. But he couldn't overrule other people in the Commissioner's Office who yielded to the power of the press or outside pressure from weighty citizens. And so other ID occasions like that of Grainger and Sadler took place (as we know). If these used the same witness, and he was the naturally tentative Mr Lawende, he would, I suppose, have been mightily astonished that the police kept showing him new faces after he may have thought he'd cautiously identified one... or two...! Or maybe he thought he was bound to be called back until Judgement day because he'd declined to swear to his original ID. Or two different IDs...! On this reading, the Kosminski ID was probably undertaken at the behest of the City Police. (But why, then, did the Met have anything to do with it at all if Lawende was the witness? Enter Paul Begg to say, 'Always told you it was Schwartz!' before dismissing all our conversation as fantasy, anyway!)Whatever the identifying witness now says, however, Anderson doesn't think it outweighs the earlier ID of Cohen in the asylum; doesn't press the witness and, most importantly, doesn't give a toss if Kosminski is returned to the care and control of his brother, where the City Police can watch him to their hearts' content (as they do until they know he's been locked up. This end of the story has always struck every disinterested police officer who'e heard it as quite fantastic: letting an identified perp in a case this big go home because the witness wouldn't play ball!). Swanson, unaware that the earlier asylum ID is the one Anderson believes in, thinks this is the one. Nor does Anderson - notoriously 'discreet', which seems to have meant retaining central information to himself but dropping fragments and titbits of gen to all and sundry - ever have occasion to disabuse him of the idea. But Anderson notes the fact when Cohen dies and he tells Swanson the Ripper's snuffed it, and Swanson is thereafter convinced that Kosminski is dead. The idea that the top brass think the Ripper has croaked in the loony bin even reaches Abberline, but he thinks it's really a load of old cobblers. Nor does Littlechild seem to know any detail to confirm or deny Anderson's beliefs. I really can't see any explanation but a secretiveness-with-suggestive-hints-and-fragments-of-the-truth-dropped, stemming from Anderson - (and secretiveness was said by outsiders who knew him to be part of his character, even when their own writing seems to contain plums of information that may have come from him) - to explain why the 'real' story, whatever it may have been, shows up with incomprehensible garbling as soon as we reach Swanson's level. But this is ALL speculation. Justified because the documents don't make sense as they stand. But being justified in trying to work out a scenario doesn't mean that Don Rumbelow's declaration of faith need be false: 'The truth must be simpler than that!'
Now buy another round, relight your pipe, and tell me how /i{you'd} make it all come together...
All good wishes,
Martin |
Author: David Cohen Radka
Friday, 18 May 2001 - 08:55 pm | | Martin,
If the identification didn't result in a prosecutable case against the suspect, it would seem to me reasonable that the police would let the suspect go home, especially if there were family available who could take care of him and prevent him from killing further, and if to boot he were so dilapidated mentally and physically that it would be beyond all peradventure that he should go back to killing. I don't see why it's hard to believe the police would release this particular identified perp under these circumstances, and indeed I can't see how they'd have any recourse to handle it another way. It was the Met police to start with who'd snuck the witness past the City police just to get the identification--wouldn't they want to get themselves rid of him as quickly as possible if they couldn't proceed?
Now, if we can believe this unusual scenario from Swanson, shouldn't we elevate him to near-equal status with Anderson concerning what was said? Granted Anderson would know more than he, but it seems Anderson had been candid and truthful with him. So if Swanson writes it in the marginalia, why should we bet against it?
David
PS By the way, IMHO this is by far the most revealing discussion you've engaged on these boards so far, and I would like to compliment you on it. |
Author: Martin Fido
Friday, 18 May 2001 - 11:04 pm | | Trouble is, David - the trouble with the whole approach I permitted myself to elaborate in chatting to Scott - the trouble is, that it already seems to have got you putting forward something that has only ever been a speculation of mine as though it were something close to a fact. 'It was the Metropolitan Police to start with who'd snuck the witness past the City police just to get the identification...' I know I originally proposed this. But it's only a theory ; a conjecture; a guess; only one of the ways round the problems presented by Swanson's remarks about the suspect being taken 'with difficulty'... Suppose the difficulty in arranging the interview was that Lawende didn't want to have anything to do with it from the start? Or Schwartz's wife persuaded him not to go, and they had to hire interpreters to sort things out? Or Cohen had to be taken, kicking and screaming with mania all the way to the Seaside Home where - by golly, Macnaghten was right all along! - the City PC who had seen him near Mitre Square was convalescing from pneumonia? Of course, I think my scenario is tighter and explains more of the problems. (Though not all, because however one cuts it there would seem to have been a definite ID at a Seaside Home which Swanson believed was the one Anderson thought decisive, and yet it ws succeeded by the release of the perp).
I guess it's really police officers you have to talk to about the likelihood of letting a positively identified perp go in a case like this, just because the witness goes coy. It wouldn't matter how enfeebled the guy looked, nor how reliable and law-abiding and responsible his family: he'd only got to strike once more and, as soon as it was known that he had both been in custody and identified, heads would have rolled at the top and careers would have been forever blighted at the bottom. Pensions would be at risk - and that's like warning a police officer that hell is yawning at his feet, especially in the days when very few people indeed had retirement pensions! I'd really incline to look at it the other way round, and say that the fact that Swanson knew of a suspect being released after what looked like a positive ID had been quirkily withdrawn strongly suggests in itself that somebody senior to Swanson had, for some reason, already decided that the ID was wrong. Which would follow if Anderson had been convinced by a prior ID of Cohen in the asylum, and didn't really care what happened to Kosminski now. (Though even that would have been taking a helluva risk. And if the released suspect really was Aaron Kosminski, which seems extremely likely given the reference to the brother in Whitechapel; and if the ID really did take place 'shortly' before he was taken to the asylum, then surely Cohen must have been dead by that time? There was over a year between his death and the final incarceration of Kosminski. So we have to assume that Anderson knew that his suspect was dead, and either passed it on to Swanson or learned it with him, and yet Swanson never found out that this death had occurred before the ID he thought had persuaded Anderson of the suspect's guilt. But then, Swanson, thought Kosminsky was dead at a time when he had another nine years to live. So what on earth did Swanson know, and what did his misinformation come from? It's all hugely difficult, yet the difficulty doesn't arise rom any stupidity or mendacity or, as people who should know better have speculated, geriatric rambling and self-justification by two silly old men.)
I think almost any cop would say that using pressure as close as you were allowed to come to beating the excremental matter out of the witness would have been reasonable to get Jack the Ripper off the streets and out of the papers. A lot of Amrican cops in the 1930s would, I'm sure, have thought the witness deserved a taste of the rubber hose, and they would surely have tried to beat a confession out of the perp if they had a clear ID withdrawn for no good reason, and everything else fitted. I really mean it when I call Swanson's story bizarre in its own right, as well as demonstrably erroneous.
But that's only my take on it. Paul Begg would probably agree with much - maybe all - of what you say.
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Scott Nelson
Saturday, 19 May 2001 - 01:45 am | | Hi Martin & David,
This seems more perplexing than the Diary Board debate. What a challenge! Perhaps Paul is busy. OK - here goes (all speculation of course): Maybe Kosminski should be included in the picture from start to finish. What I mean by this is consideration of three police official's recollections collectively. Lets bring in Macnaghten. Admittedly he was inaccurate about Druitt, but perhaps was accurate on all the details about Kosminski because he was citing information directly from police reports. What I'm suggesting is that everything Macnaghten, Swanson and (Anderson) told us about Kosminski could have been "factual". We may be assuming a wrong suspect, a wrong witness or a wrong time period for the detention and incarceration....? Macnaghten said Kosminski went to an asylum about March 1889. Which asylum was this? We don't know, but it's assumed to be Colney Hatch because Swanson said so and because that's where Aaron K. went (although much later). Question: could there be a different asylum that was meant, like Surrey, for example?
So Kosminski may have been incarcerated in another asylum several months after the murder of MJK, maybe even ID-ed by a witness in Anderson's presence. But then he could have been released shortly afterwards. Knowing he was positively ID-ed by a witness, who 'learned' he was a fellow Jew who wouldn't provide the evidence, he is run "a-ground" for about two years until his mental state deteriorates to the point where he is considered dangerous to his family. So he's taken to the Seaside Home (in Hove), say in early 1891. There, the same witness who identified him two years previously (or a newly found accomplice?) in the asylum "instantly" recognizes him, but (still) refuses to give evidence against him. This would explain the witness'es fear of the suspect hanging if he testified. If it was a different witness, he may not have been told that the suspect was previously confined in an asylum (negating Swanson's marginal note).
Anderson, who possibly wasn't present at the Home, didn't tell Swanson, who was, about the suspect previously being in an asylum. But Anderson would have also been aware of the Seaside Home ID. This may be why Swanson ammends Anderson's commentary in his book without seemingly questioning the details of the Seaside Home ID. So the suspect is taken back to his brother's house and watched for a short time by the City CID (because the brother's house was in the City boundary - Butcher's Row?). He's then taken to "Stepney" Workhouse in Bromley, then to Colney Hatch (but maybe only for a short period of time - "sent") and later confined in some sick asylum (Bromley?) where he dies. Swanson, I think implied that the suspect was 'sent' to Colney Hatch in the same breath he wrote that he was 'sent' to the Workhouse. And the suspect could have died between Feb. 1894 (when Macnaghten said he was alive) and May 1895 (when Swanson told the PMG he was dead) - an ingenious observation made by Paul Begg in .."the Uncensored Facts".
Caution: would police release a JtR suspect after a witness had positively ID-ed him? Yes. They may have done so, not once, but twice. If we can believe this scenario, once under the care of his family when he was possibly released from the asylum (be it Stone, Surrey or Totting....?), the second time when he was released from the Seaside Home to the care of his brother, while watched by police. None of this would appear to directly involve David Cohen nor Aaron Kosminski.
I don't know what to believe at this point or what circumstances to consider. I made initial attempts to consider an "alternaive Kosminski" and to weigh the circumstances as to David Cohen possibly being the City Suspect that police watched in Butcher's Row. I'm at the point of giving up... but not before undertaking record searches in London, including the Surrey Asylum, the Jew's Homeless Shelter on Leman St. and the Jewish Convalescent Home in Brighten, not to mention the Stepney Workhouse files (which may have been misplaced or lost). I've kept a careful inventory of everything (published) that's been searched so far. As a well-known researcher told me, "You are following well-trodden research paths, although it is nice to tread there yourself..who knows what an extra set of eyes will uncover...
Sorry for the long and boring post |
Author: Martin Fido
Saturday, 19 May 2001 - 09:01 am | | This is far shorter than you deserve, Scott, but I've got a plane to catch today.
1. Note that asylum records always included 'when and where' a patient had previous treatment. When compulsory photography was introduced in 1892 they realized that a guy who'd been in and out of asylums five times had used different names and never before been spotted as one and the same. They now entered all his treatment. Kosminski, as Don Rumbelow pointed out to me when we first met, had a sane and cooperative family. So we can accept what the records say about him as kosher. He didn't have any previous treatment in Surrey or any other provincial asylum.
2. If Anderson really did think Aaron Kosminski was the Ripper, accepting an ID shortly before AK's final incarceration, then I'd have to wash my hands of him in this case. I suppose you could postulate that he thought AK was going to go on to a secure asylum afer his first stay in an infirmary, but then you have te explain why he didn't follow up to find if this was so, and where ion earth the belief that he had died in the bin came from.
You deserve more, but I'm sorry I'm really pushed!
All the best,
Martin F |
Author: Jim Leen
Saturday, 19 May 2001 - 10:27 am | | Hello Martin,
Stroppy old devil, you? Never!
I've seen you on the telly and I wouldn't say you were old!
Thanking you etc
Jim Leen |
Author: Jim Leen
Tuesday, 22 May 2001 - 01:32 pm | | Hello Everybody,
Martin, pedant that I am it must be stated that I have never actually accused Anderson of anti-Semitism. I'm far too polite for that. I'll leave the implications to one of Anderson's contemp(t)oraries Major Smith.
After re-reading the post that you kindly replied to, I realise a certain ambiguity lingers and that you perhaps drew your inference from the motives I alluded to. I was concerned with the reasoning behind the witness reticence only. That is, did he refuse to testify because of reasons which were later attributed to religious beliefs.
In Anderson's defence, to the charge of anti-Semitism, you stated that he had a friendship with Dr. Adler. Would this relationship not have been used to rectify the situation or at least confirm the rationale behind the silence?
Yet the whole Seaside Home story still seems improbable to me because it is so secretive. If we were to form a logical, step by step process, many more people than Anderson and Swanson would be involved in the identification. Too many for the event to be relegated as an aside and an historical footnote. Furthermore, though I can't claim any great knowledge, would an identification not require a parade?
On re-reading The Swanson Marginalia I note that the City CID kept the suspect under surveillance. For this to happen I can only presume that the suspect fell under City jurisdiction. Unless, of course, the top brass of the Met had so little faith in their own officers that they asked the neighbours to take over the case.
So that's my position. Although I'm disinclined to believe the Seaside Home episode I feel that Diemschutz is the Silent Witness.
In other words, I don't quite know what to believe!
Thanking you
Jim Leen |
Author: Martin Fido
Saturday, 26 May 2001 - 08:40 am | | Hi Jim,
Some of my 'recent' television appearances have been reshowings of film taken 10 or 12 years ago - myself when young. If I don't look fat and greying-haired, then it's not the way I am now!
I think there would have been the most almighty rumpus if anyone in the police (from top to bottom) had called in Dr Adler and given him extremely sensitive information in the hope that he might change the witness's mind. In point of fact, he was explicitly grateful to the police for their efforts to 'pretend' that the chalked word Juews or Juwes couldn't have meant 'Jews'.
I don't think that the Met would have asked the City to undertake obbo for them under any circumstances. All one can briefly say about the Swanson marginalia is that we can be certain from his known character and the circusmtances of their inscription that they describe something he believed to be true, and he must have had either personal knowledge or what he saw as reliable information on which he based it. But that his completely inaccurate description of Kosminski shows that he had got at least some parts of it wrong. And the entire narrative he recounts is bizarre and implausible. From there on, it's your interpretation or mine or anyone else's.
All good wishes,
Martin F |
Author: Jon
Saturday, 26 May 2001 - 06:24 pm | | Martin
'Au contraire'.
Detective Inspector Robert Sagar had been assigned to represent the City police at nightly gatherings of the heads of the Metropolitan detective force at Leman Street Police Station, throughout the period of the murders.
This came to light in a press report published in 1905.
Now, as to what joint excercises, if any, resulted from the regular gatherings is anyone's guess, but we might be allowed to presume a degree of professional collaboration at street level. Sagar would hardly be sent to be simply a 'fly on the wall'.
I don't think its unreasonable to suggest some degree of collaboration between the two forces, especially after the Mitre Square murder.
Regards, Jon |
Author: David Cohen Radka
Sunday, 27 May 2001 - 12:21 am | | Jon,
That wouln't imply that Sagar would know what Anderson knew, or thought he knew.
David |
Author: Martin Fido
Sunday, 27 May 2001 - 07:01 am | | Hi Jon,
Yes, we know that co-operation between the forces was both ordered by the Home Office and felt by Dew to be cordial at ground level. We also know that it was felt at top level that the City wasn't sharing anything with either the Met or the Home Office. It doesn't change my opinion that although a certain amount of overt ground-crossing would take place (as spontaneously happened on the night of the double murder, since Mitre Square is so close to the border and Goulston Street is in Met territory) the forces respected each other's boundaries too much to actually have one set up full or thorough surveillance on the other's territory. Note, for example, that the region of the Met's big house-to-house firmly respects the City boundary.
All the best,
Martin |
Author: Jon
Sunday, 27 May 2001 - 10:28 am | | Hello Martin
Your assumption "the forces respected each other's boundaries too much to actually have one set up full or thorough surveillance on the other's territory." is worded to imply such surveillance was done without the knowledge or approval of the governing force, this is not what has been proposed.
On the contrary, the suggestion that both forces collaborated with full mutual approval is what has been suggested.
The Swanson note "On suspects return to his brother's house in Whitechapel he was watched by police (City CID) by day and night." is not written as a complaint but as a matter of fact statement.
And in view of your acceptance of the fact that co-operation was expected between the City & Met., by the H.O., I cannot understand your reluctance to accept mutual planning or joint action, should a situation arise. And that these would be with full mutual approval, if not actual assistance.
The Met's big house-to-house search was first proposed by J.W. Ellis (M.P.) I believe, on Oct. 3rd, and his suggestion was to throw a cordon of half a mile around the centre(?) and search every house. It was E. Ruggles-Brice who re-interpreted this letter to "around Whitechapel".
In The Times, Oct. 8th it was reported:
"Sir Charles Warren has sent every available man into the East-end district. These, together with a large body of City detectives, are now on duty, and will remain in the streets throughout the night"
The decision was from the Home Office and had nothing to do with observing local political boundaries, it had everything to do with Whitechapel as the focus.
I'm sorry, I do not grasp the distinction you are making in favour of spontaneous cross-boundary searches as opposed to mutually planned surveillance. In my opinion there is justification for both.
Regards, Jon |
Author: Jon
Sunday, 27 May 2001 - 12:06 pm | | as a P.S. to the above....
Does anyone have any exact details as to the location of Butchers Row ?
Inspector Robert Sagar said:
"we had good reason to suspect a man who worked in Butchers Row, Aldgate. We watched him carefully."
The only locations I can find for this address are:
Butcher Row DEPTFORD & NEW CROSS [1899]
Butcher Row SOUTHWARK [1899]
Butcher Row, Aldgate / Spitalfields E1 [1997]
Butcher Row, Poplar E14 [1997]
Butcher Row, St James, STEPNEY [1862]
Butcher Row, St Nicholas, GREENWICH [1862]
Butcher Row, Westminster [1749]
Butcher's Row, Westminster [1749]
Butchers Row, St Nicholas Deptford, GREENWICH [1881]
....and none appear to have a 'City' address.
Though I cannot determine if Butchers Row, Aldgate was in the City or not.
The interview of ex-Detective Inspector Harry Cox of the City Police might relate the same surveillance, and he mentions the fact that he was one of a group of City Detectives in plain clothes, occupying a house opposite the suspect, and also that they followed him to Leman Street, where he entered a shop, afterwards following down towards St. George's in the East end.
City surveillance on Met. turf was apparently undertaken as the situation required it.
Regards, Jon |
Author: Martin Fido
Monday, 28 May 2001 - 05:00 am | | Hi Jon,
My wording musthave been terrible, as I meant the reverse of what you suggest. Moving surveillance (like the moving fan-out search across the streets from Mitre Square which took Halse to Goulston Street) might mean that operational police on the ground crossed the boundaries freely. But I don't beieve that stationary obbo on a fixed location like 'his brother's house in Whitechapel' would, or probably could be authorized by the two Commissioners. The City Police were responsible to the Lord Mayor, whose writ did not extend to Whitechapel, so if (for example) there were any formal complaints from the public about their operation he would have found himself having to talk to the Met's superior authority the Home Secretary, and everything could have bogged down in discussions between the Lord Mayor and the Whitehall mandarins. Not to mention the new local politicians of the new London County Council who were ambitious to bring the Met under their own control: something the Met and the Home Office both resisted fiercely.
Informally and without authorisation, on the other hand, as Donald Rumbelow told me when we first met to discuss the newly emerged Swanson marginalia, in a case with this much prestige attached, both forces would have poached on each others territory without hesitation. This was his immediate reaction to my puzzled query about why the 'City CID' were watching a man based in a Whitechapel property.
Butcher[s'?] Row, Aldgate was, I believe, a section in, off, or parallel to Aldgate High Street, and therefore part of the City's territory. (Viper will probably know).
The Harry Cox incident reflects my belief about not stopping a moving surveillance with the words, "Oh dear, he's gone into the other force's jurisdiction. We'll just have to let him go and send a note to Leman Street saying a suspicious guy we were following has crossed their boundary".
With all good wishes,
Martin |
Author: The Viper
Monday, 28 May 2001 - 08:49 am | | Martin,
It is my understanding that the term Butcher's Row referred to Aldgate High Street, and that in particular the term was applied to the southern side of that road, which ran between Jewry Street and Mansell Street. (West of Jewry Street the thoroughfare was plain Aldgate and east of Mansell St. it became Whitechapel High St).
As late as 1840 there were 27 butchers' shops on the southern side of AHS. Until the early 19th century the term Butcher's Row was certainly common currency, though I don't know whether it was ever official. The name is a legacy from the late Middle Ages. In those days there was a tax on bringing live animals into the City of London - perhaps an early attempt to keep dirty, smelly industries out of the Square Mile. Apparently the tax was chargable at the old City gate. So sheep and cattle were walked up the main road from Essex and slaughtered just outside the gates in order to avoid paying the tax, hence the meat trade flourished here in the Aldgate Bars. Carcasses were carried through the gates where there were plenty more butchers at work.
The whole of Aldgate High Street fell within the City of London Police's jurisdiction.
I wonder if you could help me on a similar theme please Martin, (or anybody else who happens to be reading this). As you will be aware there were a number of areas known as 'liberties' in existence in London. One such liberty was located just south of the AHS area where the old Nunnery of St. Clare was located (covering an area around Minories and Mansell St.) The liberty was only abolished in 1894. Would that area have been policed by the Met. or by the City of London force? In this discussion there has been some debate about the different forces monitoring suspects on each other's territory, so the point may be pertinent.
Similarly, do you happen to know if the City of London was responsible for policing Southwark, south of the River Thames? In 1888 Southwark was still part of the City of London. Thanking you in anticipation.
Regards, V. |
Author: Martin Fido
Monday, 28 May 2001 - 03:23 pm | | Hi Viper,
Thanks for the help on Butcher's Row. That's what I thought (large part of south side of Aldgate High St) but I didn't want to risk it from memory.
A liberty surviving as a Liberty until 1894? You astonish me! Are you sure it survived in 'Liberty' from the governance of the City fathers, unlike the Liberties of (say) Blackfriars or the Tower, and wasn't just an area that had by chance retained the name although only historians remembered where the former two were? I should certainly have expected it to come under the Lord Mayor: I can't see the Crown bothering itself with retaining the overall authority as it presumably had done after the reformation when the old liberties were gradually taken over by rich laiety.
(For anyone mystified as to what in God's name Viper and I are rabbitting on about, certain institutions like monasteries or some prisons were given local administrative authority over their own immediate neighbourhoods in pre-modern times. And this 'liberty' was not immediately annulled when the monasteries were closed down at the Reformation. This allowed, for example, indoor theatres to get set up in the old Liberty of Blackfriars, when the puritan Mayor and Aldermen of London would have prohibited them in Elizabethan and Jacobean days. And when the rather rich residents of the Liberty objected to the noises of audiences letting out, they had to complain to the Lord Chamberlain (a court official who was also patron of the players) because the Lord Mayor's writ didn't cover them any more.
By the Ripper's time the Liberty of the Tower had certainly come under the City fathers again, and I should strongly expect the Liberty of the Nuns Minoresses to have done so as well.
Southwark had definitely reverted to Metropolitan status, if, indeed, the Lord Mayor ever had any power over it - ('The Borough' had long been so administratively independent that the Bankside theatres went up there even before the Blackfriars theatres). Keith would know for sure which alphabetical Division of the Met covered Southwark.
All the best,
Martin |
Author: Jon
Monday, 28 May 2001 - 07:34 pm | | Martin / Viper
Thankyou Gentlemen, I had often wondered if I was the only one here in Ripperville who was not sure of the location of the Butcher's Row of Sagar's memoirs.
I guess it is too much to expect that Swanson's City CID suspect & Sagar's surveillance could be of the same occurance?
Have all the business addresses been located for the Kosminski family?, Butcher's Row must have had other business's other than Butchers.
Any chance of turning up a census for Butcher's Row?
Regards, Jon |
Author: The Viper
Tuesday, 29 May 2001 - 03:54 am | | Jon,
There will most certainly be Census details in the public domain for Aldgate High Street in 1881 and 1891. I don't have much time for the next 2-3 months, but it would be an easy project for somebody else on the boards if you tell them exactly what you're after.
Martin,
Thanks for your comments. Firstly, re-Southwark; it was covered by M Division of the Metropolitan Police. In fact, as so often, the information is here at the Casebook:-
Introduction to Metropolitan Police
Where the Liberty of the St. Clare Minoress without Aldgate is concerned, it will have to be a separate project on my part to investigate its precise status some time. The only indication I have to hand at present is this, taken from Weinreb and Hibbert's London Encyclopaedia. "In 1894 the Minories lost its privileges as a liberty by order of the Queen in Council." Also, the largescale OS map reproduction of Aldgate in 1873 (Alan Godfrey sheet 7.67) contains a line marked "Boundary of the City and County of the City of London" among a mass (or should that read mess?) of the other civic boundaries. If that line is what I believe it to be, the boundary definately zig-zagged over Mansell St. and covered a large section of the backstreets between it and Minories (including part of the pavement in the latter). It is for these reasons that I had hitherto taken the area of the old Liberty to come under H Division of the Met. Police. However, I stand to be corrected about the fact, so any further thoughts you may have are welcome.
(Fortunately the situation is much clearer today because the City boundary runs straight down the centre of Mansell Street and no question of liberties arises).
Regards, V. |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Friday, 01 June 2001 - 07:10 pm | | I hope you don't mind, but I have a bit of personal experience regarding my job with the
New York State Crime Victims Board, and the various police departments in New York City, that
might illustrate that the issues of City Police
v. Metropolitan Police still can exist in fairly
recent (and supposedly more sensible times).
In my job at CVB, I have to get police reports on
every crime that is the basis for a claim for
compensation. Now what happened here occurred
about a decade ago, and certain reforms five years
ago should have ended this particular mess. A
young teenager was stabbed outside an apartment
house in a low-rent project. These apartments
happen to have police assigned to them. At the
time, the police unit that took care of the
apartment houses was the housing police. Ten
years ago, if I needed to speak to whoever handled
a housing police matter, I needed the telephone
number for the housing police unit handling that
project. These housing police units were aware
of local regular police precincts, and the regular
police would get involved in investigating serious
crimes. But both housing police and regular police were real sticklers regarding the areas
of their control. I was trying to get the correct
police report on this stabbing. It turned out that the stabbing was on the sidewalk, exactly
at the border between housing and regular police
limits. As a result, although there were reports
of the incident, it turned out that neither the
regular nor housing police had assigned any
detective to investigate the stabbing, and so
we did not know why the teenager was stabbed!
Both police groups said it was a matter for the
other to investigate!
Another, more common problem, is when the crime
occurs at the geographic point where several
precincts meet. Then one has to pin down the
exact spot location (northside, southside, eastside, westside) where the crime happened,
in order to (hopefully) get the correct precinct.
I have had cases where five precincts so met, and
I had to trace the report and investigation through all five.
Jeff |
Author: stephen stanley
Saturday, 02 June 2001 - 12:17 am | | Jeff,
This fascinates me!!!what happened if someone committed a crime on the Pavement,then ran into the building? My mind is boggling at the possible ludicrous permutations.
Steve S. |
Author: Jeff Bloomfield
Sunday, 03 June 2001 - 08:11 pm | | Stephen,
You asked a really question - but I cannot answer
it. Given the simple-mindedness of the two
police departments, one can guess that the
perpetrator would have not been chased. By the
way, the reform I mentioned was that the housing
police were incorporated into the regular police.
They had been kept seperate because the housing
police were paid by the Federal Government. The
idiocy of this situation was closed only when the
Clinton Administration agreed to it.
Jeff |
Author: Goryboy
Friday, 22 November 2002 - 10:01 am | | Martin, Viper, David, Jim & Scott:
Please resume this discussion. Martin's discussion in one of his posts here is among the most revealing I've read anywhere, re the Kosminksi/Kaminsky/Cohen theory:
"Swanson knew of a suspect being released after what looked like a positive ID had been quirkily withdrawn strongly suggests in itself that somebody senior to Swanson had, for some reason, already decided that the ID was wrong. Which would follow if Anderson had been convinced by a prior ID of Cohen in the asylum, and didn't really care what happened to Kosminski now. (Though even that would have been taking a helluva risk. And if the released suspect really was Aaron Kosminski, which seems extremely likely given the reference to the brother in Whitechapel; and if the ID really did take place 'shortly' before he was taken to the asylum, then surely Cohen must have been dead by that time? There was over a year between his death and the final incarceration of Kosminski. So we have to assume that Anderson knew that his suspect was dead, and either passed it on to Swanson or learned it with him, and yet Swanson never found out that this death had occurred before the ID he thought had persuaded Anderson of the suspect's guilt. But then, Swanson thought Kosminsky was dead at a time when he had another nine years to live."
This explains why Swanson, in a marginalia to himself got Kosminsky's dates of admittance and death wrong. It also shows that Anderson didn't merely "think he knew," to paraphrase Littlechild.
Please please please continue this discussion. You gentlemen have probably forgotten more than I'll ever know and I do appreciate the exchange here.
All best,
John |
Author: David Radka
Saturday, 23 November 2002 - 12:05 am | | 'Swanson knew of a suspect being released after what looked like a positive ID had been quirkily withdrawn strongly suggests in itself that somebody senior to Swanson had, for some reason, already decided that the ID was wrong.'
--This is totally Mr. Fido's assessment. Anderson states in his autobiography that the ID was a definetly ascertained fact, and no other police official states that the ID was wrong. An acceptable explanation as to why Kosminski was released is simply that the witness disavowed testimony, destroying Anderson's case against him.
'Which would follow if Anderson had been convinced by a prior ID of Cohen in the asylum, and didn't really care what happened to Kosminski now.'
Swanson states that the ID took place in the Seaside Home, not an asylum, and further that the withdrawal of the ID related to this particular identification, not to any prior one in an asylum. The Kaminsky/Cohen incarceration is to Fido what the Littlechild letter is to Evans. Both Ripperologists try to make the case fit ex post facto an element that each has respectively antecedentally decided is the key to the solution.
Swanson was likely never closely involved with the identification, because he has got specifics wrong concerning the suspect, but has got general information correct. This indicates that he was told what went on in outline form by Anderson, on a need-to-know basis. I believe Swanson says the suspect died because Anderson wanted him to think that, in order to wall him off from finding out anything more about the identification.
That Mr. Fido ends his piece above in paradox shows his righteousness--he shows what he doesn't know, he doesn't try to cover it up.
Further discussion on this board by cognoscenti figures would be appreciated.
David |
Author: Stewart P Evans
Saturday, 23 November 2002 - 03:32 am | | David,
This topic appears destined to be discussed ad infinitum. The reasons for this are patently clear; the story is lacking in specific detail, it has no official corroboration in surviving records, there are conflicting elements in the story, there are no other sources for the story (besides Anderson and Swanson), and so on.
Having really debated all that I can on this topic in previous posts there seems little point in doing so yet again. Such debate becomes circular and speculative. It is to be noted that the two leading Ripper authorities who espouse this theory, Martin Fido and Paul Begg, cannot even agree with each other on the identity of the suspect indicated. Even the identity of the 'witness' involved is argued about.
The sketchy details of the identification supplied by Swanson (in the 'marginalia') describe what is essentially an irregular method of identification and to say that it was done on a 'need to know basis' is a total nonsense so far as any regular police or identification procedures are concerned. Ergo, to suggest that Swanson, a Chief Inspector, would know of it, whilst a more senior officer, Macnaghten, would not, is a total nonsense. Such identifications involve others also, escorts for the suspect, custodians of buildings (location of the 'id' and the place of detention of the suspect), families and the 'witness' himself. Are we to believe that all the parties involved remained totally silent in subsequent years after such a momentous 'identification'? In a case of such gravity such a witness could not simply 'refuse' to give evidence, he could be subpoenaed to do so under oath.
It should also be borne in mind that in cases where an identification fails and the suspect is released, or not proceeded against, there is obviously no other hard evidence against them. In Anderson's words, "...the only person who 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."
Even this does not make sense in view of the fact that no murder was ever witnessed. The nearest we have is the attack on Stride which leads Paul to speculate that the witness was Schwartz.
However, the fact that Thomas Sadler was suspected of being 'Jack the Ripper' on his arrest for the Coles murder in February 1891 and was subjected to an identification, undoubtedly by Lawende, which failed, leaves us with further problems. For if the Metropolitan Police saw fit to use Lawende on this occasion, which they did, then he would also have been used in any other attempted identification. Conversely if there was another witness such as Schwartz, then he would also have been used in the attempt to identify Sadler.
As regards 'seaside homes', as well as the police convalescent home there was also a Jews' Seaside Home, but I don't know what date it was first established.
Best Wishes,
Stewart |
Author: Billy Markland
Saturday, 23 November 2002 - 01:28 pm | | Stewart, this partial quotation from your post of 11/23 at 3:32 a.m., "Such identifications involve others also, escorts for the suspect..." caught my attention. While looking through the State Department papers, I have noticed that the Metropolitan police were meticulous in record keeping of expenses occurred during a case. If a police escort for a witness did travel to Seaside Home, there should be an expense report. The question is, did any of those types of records survive?
Thanks for all your dedication, patience and damned hard work!
Billy |
|
|
|
|
