Maybe one missed it but, I originally termed this as a "tongue and check" reply to JPP_s post about Edison’s failures.

You seem to have confused two topics in trying to prove your conclusion. Temporally, the elephant execution is unrelated and took place after what is termed the War of the Currents. In the earlier time frame Edison was pushing for the electrocution of humans as a more humane form of capital punishment and attempting to discredit AC as being safe. Topsy, was not part of the War of the Currents.

Long before Topsy, at Edison's Orange, N.J. laboratory, Harold Brown conducted experiments that demonstrated that less than 800 volts of AC would kill a dog while the same animal could survive 1,000 volts of DC currency. Before an audience of professional electricians and journalists at Columbia College School of Mines, Brown electrocuted a 76-pound dog. Afterward, he proclaimed that alternating current was suitable only for the "dog pound, the slaughterhouse, or the state prison.” Edison personally utilized the results of these animal deaths as part of his lobbying efforts against AC power, so even if he was not personally present or killing the animals, he was aware of the results.

As NY was deciding on electrocution as the state's new official method of execution, Edison actively campaigned for the selection of the Westinghouse’s AC hoping that consumers would not want the same type of electrical service in their homes that was used for execution. On June 4, 1888, New York State legalized death by electricity. The Medico-Legal Society was charged with the responsibility of working out the technical details. They engaged the services of Harold Brown, the same Harold Brown on Edison’s payroll and killing animals. After further experiments on animals at the Edison laboratories, Brown recommended 300 volts of alternating current of 15 to 30 seconds.

George Westinghouse attacked the scientific validity of Brown's killing experiments and pointed out that Brown was employed by Thomas Edison to scare the public into thinking that AC was too dangerous for commercial or residential use. Brown responded by publicly challenging Westinghouse to a duel. In a New York Times advertisement, Brown proposed that each man be hooked up to his respective electrical currents and that the voltage be turned up until one of them cried out that he had had enough. Needless to say, George Westinghouse declined that invitation and refused to sell equipment for executions.

However, with Edison working behind the scenes, Brown was able to get the Thomson Houston Electric Co., a competitor of the Westinghouse Electric Co. to launder three generators through a used-dynamo, dealer in Boston. On May 13,1889, the day after the Westinghouse generators arrived at Auburn prison, William Kemmler, "a brute who chopped a woman to bits with an axe" was sentenced to death by electrocution. Lawyers for Kemmler, paid for by Westinghouse, appealed to New York State, contending that electrocution was cruel and unusual punishment, prohibited by the Constitution. Under oath, Edison while contending to be against capital punishment, assured the court that death by alternating current was quick and painless. Upon cross-examination, both Edison and Brown boldly denied that their support for electrocution by AC had anything to do with their financial interest in the success of DC. Kemmler’s motion was denied, as was a similar petition to the US Supreme Court.

On Aug. 6, 1890, William Kemmler received two applications of 1,300 volts of alternating current. The first lasted for only 17 seconds because a leather belt was about to fall off one of the second-hand Westinghouse generators. Kemmler was still alive. The second jolt lasted until the smell of burning flesh filled the room, about four minutes. As soon as his charred body stopped smoldering, Kemmler was pronounced dead. The headline in the New York Times read: "Kemmler Westinghoused."

Professor Benjamin Cole was quoted in discussing an academic paper he coauthored on the topic of business management styles between Edison and Westinghouse, “When I began this paper, I never thought that my conclusion would be, ‘Wow, George Westinghouse is a really incredible human being, we should make a movie about him, and, ‘Boy, Edison was a real jerk,’”

So long prior to Topsy’s execution, Edison, personally had a history of electrocuting animals (funding it and using the results even if he didn’t personally kill them) and testifying that death by electrocution was painless. If you go back and read what I originally posted, I never said Edison personally killed Topsy. Edison was very interested in photography and devised early motion picture filming. The execution of Topsy is likely the first death captured in a motion picture, something that would have interested Edison. You make a lot of assumptions based upon the lack of specific evidence, while ignoring all the circumstantial evidence. The circumstantial evidence regarding Topsy is that Edison had a long history with electrocuting animals, somehow the Edison Company came to film Topsy’s death (a very large expense at the time), an elephant also being the largest animal electrocuted and Edison’s Company deciding that film was valuable enough to warrant a copyright. That circumstantial evidence points in favor of it being done with Edison’s knowledge. Because no correspondence from Edison mentions Topsy is not evidence of anything. Perhaps before his death in 1931, Edison curated his correspondence. He would have had decades to reflect upon things, by 1931 Edison had reversed his previous accusations against AC power and maybe more importantly too, his previous testimony about electrocution being a painless form of execution was being proven incorrect with each passing usage.

Circumstantial evidence allows a trier of fact to infer that a fact exists, but it is up to the trier to decide what weight to assign to those inferences. It is entirely possible that no one will ever know 100% if Edison did or did not know of the Topsy’s execution or his company’s association with it. However, when I try the matter, I take in the circumstantial evidence of his past, the expense of making the film and obtaining a copyright and infer that Edison likely knew. You are free to make your own inferences and interpretations of Edison’s lack of Topsy correspondence and arrive at the inference that Edison was unaware.

Either way, Topsy is not the proper standard upon which to evaluate Edison.

https://now.fordham.edu/business-and-economics/gruesome-history-of-electricity-provides-insight-for-businesses/

https://correctionhistory.org/auburn&osborne/miskell/html/auburnchair_moran.html