Jack the Ripper: The Secret Police Files

by Marriott, Trevor

  Nevill Swanson’s reasons for refusal were twofold. Firstly he stated that he was still standing by the results of the previous handwriting tests as being conclusive proof that Donald Swanson had written all of the annotations. Secondly he stated that the book was old and in poor condition and he didn’t want it handled unnecessarily.

  In the summer of 2012 two new matters arose regarding the marginalia. The first being the fact that Nevill Swanson made public that he was intending to sell all Donald Swanson’s letters and papers including Anderson’s book containing the marginalia. I did make him what I believe to have been a fair price for this book, however it was declined. He stated it was his intention to put the collection into an auction at the end of October. My sole aim for acquiring the book was to have it re-examined. It then became public knowledge that Patricia Cornwell had expressed an interest in buying the book complete with annotations and donating it to The Metropolitan Police Crime Museum. However, at the time of writing all Donald Swanson’s books and letters still remain unsold and are in the possession of Nevill Swanson who now has a dedicated website on which he is inviting prospective buyers of any of Donald Swanson’s items to contact him direct.

  The second issue was that Nevill Swanson had apparently agreed to co-operate in a written article about Donald Swanson and the history of the marginalia, which was being jointly written by Ripper researcher Keith Skinner and Adam Neil Wood the editor of an online Ripper publication titled, “Ripperologist”. Nevill had allowed Adam access to all of Donald Swanson’s papers and also gave him full access to Dr. Davies’ first unpublished full report.

  I spoke to Adam who knew of my concerns surrounding the authenticity of the marginalia and he assured me that when published the article would conclusively prove that the marginalia was genuine and he told me, I quote, “You will then be the only person on the planet that does not believe it is totally genuine”. I also asked if Dr. Totty’s report in full would be also published and he stated that only “extracts” which had been provided to him by Paul Begg were to be published. Adam kept very quiet about the article and its contents and I was later to find out why.

  I waited in great anticipation for the publication of the article, which came out on October 10th 2012 and what surprises there were. The main surprise was a re-examination of the marginalia by Dr. Davies. He had been approached by Adam Wood and asked to conduct a second examination on the marginalia. This was a surprise especially as Nevill Swanson and a number of other researchers had gone on record over the years suggesting that the two original handwriting expert’s reports conclusively proved the marginalia to be authentic.

  To facilitate a re-examination Dr. Davies was provided with other newer samples of Swanson’s writing, namely Swanson’s address book, and letters written by Donald Swanson to family members dated 1909, 1918, and 1923 all signed by Donald Swanson. Dr. Davies was also provided with a photograph of a carbon copy of a letter written by James Swanson and dated 27th September 1987. This was also to be used for comparison purposes in an attempt to negate the suggestion that James Swanson had in some way been involved in the writing of some or all of the marginalia.

  From my past involvement with handwriting experts over the years, I am aware that for examination and comparison purposes they prefer free-flowing continuous samples of handwriting, as you would find in letters. The address book submitted in my opinion would not be a good control sample to use simply because the entries would have been made over a number of years, the entries would have been short and there would be differences in the handwriting. Dr. Davies even confirms that the entries in the address book were made over a lengthy time period but he has himself attempted to identify those which were relevant to the time period, which he has sought to use.

  The photograph of a carbon copy of James Swanson’s handwriting from 1987 would have created a major problem for Dr. Davies due to it being a photograph of a carbon copy of a letter and as previously stated originals are preferred before a definitive expert opinion could be given and ever relied upon. So any opinion given by Dr. Davies in respect of that document is questionable.

  On 24th September 2012 Dr. Davies completed his report on his examinations. He upgraded his 2006 conclusion, stating, “There is very strong support for the view that the notes towards the bottom of page 138 in Donald Swanson’s copy of The Lighter Side of My Official Life and the notes on the last leaf in this book were written by Donald Swanson.”

  Commenting on the crucial writing and the suggestion made by some researchers that the line, “Kosminski was the suspect” had been added by someone in later years, Dr. Davies wrote, “I have concluded that there is no evidence to support the view that the final line on the last leaf of the book was added much later to a pre-existing text. I have also found no evidence to support the view that this line was written by Jim Swanson.”

  In relation to the last part I refer back again to the control sample used for this purpose and have to question as how Dr. Davies can make such a sweeping statement based on what he had to use for comparison purposes.

  In relation to Dr. Davies report I find it strange he does not refer to the comparison samples individually but simply in concluding refers to them collectively. In addition I also have to ask why Dr. Davies did not make any direct comparisons with the new control samples of letters submitted. After all, these were dated 1909, 1918, and 1923. To my mind this would have been valuable in determining the change, if any, of Swanson’s handwriting over the years before comparing each one of them individually with the marginalia.

  To many researchers this new report will now erase any doubts they have about its authenticity. However, in my opinion I personally feel that the results are still inconclusive. If you compare the findings of Dr. Davies there is one paragraph which is almost identical in both reports, part of that paragraph reads, “There is very strong support for the view…” my interpretation of that suggests to me that it cannot be conclusively proved beyond a reasonable doubt taking into account the reasons put forward for the changes in some of the handwriting.

  To support the view that the marginalia is genuine and to explain the differences in the handwriting referred to by Dr. Davies in his first report, he along with the writers of the article make reference to several letters written by Donald Swanson in later years. One cited is dated August 1923 and is to Swanson’s grandson Donald in which he apologizes for the shaky writing, which he states, “his hand shakes paralytically”. Now in 1923 he would have been 75 and he died the following year in 1924. There is no suggestion that in 1910 when according to James Swanson, Donald wrote the marginalia he suffered from any writing impairment caused by any affliction or illness.

  In his latest report Dr. Davies clearly makes significant mention of this 1923 letter and would appear to seek to rely on Swanson’s affliction at that time as a probable explanation for the differences in some of the handwriting, which he has referred to in both reports. However. in 1910 when according James Swanson, Donald wrote the annotations he was not suffering from any affliction or illness, which would have affected his handwriting.

  In his finding Dr. Davies reports:

  “I found nothing that I would consider to be direct evidence of copying in the questioned writing. In order for the questioned writing to have been produced by copying the following circumstances would be required:

  1) The copier would need access to considerable amounts of Donald Swanson’s writing from the relevant time.

  2) The copier would need to have access to the book.

  3) The copier would have to have been someone with a very high skill at copying; such people are rare.”

  As has been documented it has been suggested by some that James Swanson could have had some involvement in the writing of the marginalia, that is why Dr. Davies was asked to try to negate that suggestion. In referring to Points 1-2 above James Swanson for one would certainly fit those criteria. The written annotations are very short and would not take ver
y long for someone with practice to master the technique and of course anyone committing forgery would automatically try to conceal their own handwriting.

  The last and important part to the marginalia states “Kosminski was the suspect” it should be noted that in 1981 when James Swanson agreed to sell the story to The News of The World, the story was to be written by reporter Charles Sandell. His typewritten article has been found and published and in that he makes no mention of that last line in the marginalia “Kosminski was the suspect.” I find that strange as that last line is the most important part of the marginalia because it names the suspect, and I would have expected it to have been included in his article.

  Now I have to ask why it was not. Was it an omission on Sandell's part, or was it a case that the last line was not there in the marginalia at that time? If that was the case that might explain why The News of The World article never got published, because the name Kosminski was already in the public domain. In the 1987 article published by The Telegraph, the line “Kosminski was the suspect was mentioned as being part of the marginalia.

  In another document, which Sandell sent to his news editor prior to him formulating his intended article, he does include a line which reads, "The Yard Detective names the man as Kosminksi, a Police Jew” In the absence in his final article of the all-important "Kosminski was the suspect," Sandell can only have been told that Donald Swanson said, "he was a Polish Jewish immigrant called Kosminski," for there is nothing else in Charles Sandell's transcription of the marginalia to substantiate such a claim.

  Many years previous I along with many others first challenged the authenticity of the marginalia, both in part and in total. I questioned the reliability of the two forensic reports, which were in existence but had not both been published in their entirety. I now feel I was totally right to challenge these as many researchers had accepted their reliability as conclusive proof. As I have said previous that was clearly not the case, had that been the case then there would have been no need to request Dr. Davies to re-examine the marginalia. In my opinion the results of his first examination were inconclusive and did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Donald Swanson wrote all of the marginalia. Having closely scrutinized the results of his second examination I am still of the same opinion. In his 2006 report he concludes:

  “I have therefore concluded that there is strong evidence to support the proposition that Swanson wrote the questioned annotations in the book “The lighter side of my life”.”

  In his 2012 report he concludes:

  “There is very strong support for the view that the notes towards the bottom of page 138 in Donald Swanson’s copy of The Lighter Side of My Official Life and the notes on the last leaf in this book were written by Donald Swanson.”

  Note the words “strong support” that in my opinion is a long way from being able to say positively and unequivocally.

  If the marginalia is not totally authentic and all of the annotations were not written by Swanson but another, and that another sought fit to invent this seaside home identification and add Kosminski’s name to the story, that might be best described as the stroke of a genius.

  For someone to invent such a story knowing that it could not be proved or disproved simply because it never took place in the first instance, and when doubts were cast surrounding this scenario and other researchers were looking for corroboration to the story, what better explanation to put forward by those who believe it to be authentic than to fall back on the lost, missing, stolen or destroyed files explanation. A perfect scenario if that were in fact the case.

  I have no hidden agenda, as some would suggest with regards to the marginalia. From my perspective this is just another part of this 125-year-old mystery, which I needed to re-examine as part of my overall ongoing long and protracted reinvestigation. My objective as an investigator is to seek the truth and feel I was justified in raising the valid arguments having regard to the inconclusive results obtained by Dr. Davies, and my handwriting expert who questions the handwriting of the marginalia. In addition, one has to consider the questions marks that hang over the make-up and content of what is contained within it.

  As I have previously stated, much of which went against all known and accepted police methods of the time. It is also fact that there has never been any corroboration to what is written in the marginalia regarding the identification and the events that followed thereafter save for that loosely described by Anderson.

  I should also mention again at this point that the name Kosminski first appeared in the Macnaghten memorandum written in 1894, Macnaghten was senior in rank to Swanson, and had such an important breakthrough in this case had have happened in 1891, as has been described in the marginalia, I would have expected Macnaghten to have been aware of it and to have documented it in his memorandum. This fact alone coupled with Macnaghten then in The Aberconway Version exonerating the Kosminski referred to, in my mind, casts a major doubt about the marginalia.

  Knowing the concerns I had and the contradictory evidence I held, I was disappointed that Adam Wood and Keith Skinner did not ask me to be a part of the re-examination by Dr. Davies, had they done so perhaps a number of issues and concerns that there still are could have been discussed and perhaps alleviated at that stage, instead of now being left up in the air.

  Having regards to the concerns I had with Dr. Davies’ current report I made several attempts to arrange an interview with him so that I might discuss my concerns with him and invite him to answers many important questions on issues which it would appear have not been fully addressed. To date he has failed to acknowledge or reply to any of my correspondence.

  I will still continue to campaign for a new more in-depth independent handwriting examination to be conducted and also the additional forensic graphite-dating test. Sadly I now feel that neither will be achievable due to where the book containing the marginalia may end up, although if Patricia Cornwell does acquire the book then perhaps with all her financial resources and contacts within the world of forensics she may see fit to have those tests carried out, so this mystery within a mystery can be finally solved.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CARL FEIGENBAUM - AKA CARL ZAHN/ANTON ZAHN

  So in my opinion, having eliminated many of the likely and prime suspects I asked myself many times who the killer could have been. Was he a tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggarman or thief? It is probably true to say that, over the years, representatives of all of these walks of life and many occupations besides have been suspected. I’ve always believed that, should the truth ever come out, the killer would be revealed as someone who did not fall under suspicion at the time and has not been mentioned by any researcher to date. After investigating the aforementioned suspects and satisfying myself that none of them was Jack the Ripper, this conviction was even stronger.

  For a long time I looked at the possibility that the killer could have been a merchant seaman. I could find nothing to suggest that the police had pursued this specific line of enquiry at the time with any diligence. This was strange and suggested to me that they were perhaps very blinkered in their approach to solving the murders. They should have seen, after the double murders on 30th September that a pattern was beginning to form. In short, since the St Katherine’s Dock and the London Dock were so close to the murder locations, they should have looked at the possibility that the killer could be a merchant seaman. Ships use docks, prostitutes are attracted to docks, and merchant seamen seek out the prostitutes when their boats dock.

  It is also a known fact that Whitechapel had more than its fare share of prostitutes. Between 30th September and 8th November police had ample opportunity to explore this line of enquiry in greater detail, had they done so, after Mary Kelly’s murder they would have been in a position to take positive action with regards to this particular line of enquiry.

  In view of my suspicions I decided to broaden my lines of enquiry to try to ascertain if there was any other Ripper-like
murders in other parts of the world. I came across unconfirmed newspaper reports of a string of murders of prostitutes in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua. These murders supposedly took place within a ten-day period in January 1889. All the victims were reported having been killed and mutilated in similar fashion to the Whitechapel victims. All of the crimes were unsolved.

  In addition, I discovered the murder of a female, which occurred in October 1889 in the German seaport town of Flensburg. The reports stated that the victim was killed and mutilated in Ripper-like fashion, with no one being apprehended. The merchant seaman theory was now becoming a reality, with the dates of the murders all fitting into a pattern suggesting the same killer could have been responsible for all the murders, and that killer could have in fact been a merchant seaman.

  I then refocused on the Whitechapel killings. My first line of enquiry was to try to establish the details of any boats docked in London Docks and St Katharine’s Dock on the dates of the murders, to see if any of them were berthed on all the murder dates between August and November 1888. These two docks were the nearest to Whitechapel.

  After combing through thousands of maritime records I discovered that a German merchant vessel belonging to the Norddeutsche Line and registered in Bremen, named the Reiher was berthed in St Katherine’s Dock on all the murder dates save for September 30th. The reason it was not there on that date was the fact that it had been taken out of service for a time following a collision in the River Thames previously. However, another vessel the Sperber from the same line was there on that date. Furthermore, the Reiher was also there on the date of the Alice McKenzie murder on July 17th 1889. The records also show that two merchant vessels from the same line were also there on the date of the Frances Coles murder 13th February 1891. So now the investigation was moving towards the possibility that the killer could have been a German merchant seaman, but could I identify him?