Criminologist Prof David Wilson

[Penhalion]

Thank you, Errata. Very well put.

[jason_c]

Whoever the murderer was he was not trying to just kill people. As far as we know was trying to kill specific people. Namely female prostitutes. Whilst Kosminski's lack of violence while under observation counts against him as JtR it does not rule him out. It's not as if Kosminski was handed a knife and allowed access to a prostitute in a controlled experiment at Colney Hatch.

Im also wary of over analyzing Kosminski's mental health records. Apart from a few broad conclusion there is little we can truly know. Our knowledge of his mental health illness is patchy at best.

[The Good Michael]

So given that Kosminski was psychotic during his incarceration, given that he had lost the ability to foresee the consequences of his actions, and given that when a person is psychotic there is no filter between what they want to do and what they actually do... did he exhibit the signs of a killer?
It isn't about whether or not he violent when he was in control of his faculties. That doesn't tell us anything. As you say, many serial killers aren't violent when they aren't killing. It's whether or not he was trying to kill people when he wasn't in control of his faculties that is the benchmark. If he wasn't trying to kill people in the asylum, odds are he wasn't killing people when he was on the outside.

Psychosis doesn't always manifest itself with a violent act. It appears to me that Kosminski became withdrawn and that is the flight path he took. Gacy was possibly schizophrenic and he was a harmless prisoner despite killing at least 33 young men. Dahmer was completely harmless, though he didn't live long enough in prison for a complete look at him. Catatonia, violence, withdrawal...all these things can happen when psychotics are incarcerated. As we can see that Kosminski wasn't given any treatment for his psychosis (meaning: drugs), it probably isn't even valid to compare him with modern prisoners with mental illness. We just can't know what he was like in the asylum. We can guess that his threatening action with a knife wasn't something simple. His sister must have believed he was going to kill her, or that this episode was one in a long line of observations that was the final straw. Kosminski was much worse than dismissers give him credit for, in order for his family to abandon him.

Mike

[lynn cates]

violence

Hello Michael. Thanks. Of course, Aaron neither demonstrated nor related any incidents of violence whilst under observation.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

cycle

Hello Edward. I think the pro-Kosminski camp will claim that the cycle had ended some time after "MJK."

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

dissertation

Hello Errata. Your post should be included in the dissertation section.

Perfect.

Cheers.
LC

[The Good Michael]

Hello Michael. Thanks. Of course, Aaron neither demonstrated nor related any incidents of violence whilst under observation.

Cheers.
LC

I believe I said that. The same as Dahmer, Gacy, and a host of others.

Mike

[Penhalion]

We appear to be making the assumption hat JtR killed prostitutes because he had a particular animosity towards them ('down on whores' and all that). We don't know if that is true or not. They might just be easy targets. Most women in that age would not easily go to a dark secluded area with a man. These women would not only go, they had already scoped out the best (darkest, least likely to be disturbed) places and could lead the man to them. Combine that with poor health/weakness and inebriation and you have the perfect victim. Maybe all JtR needed was vulnerability.

[Cogidubnus]

That's a very salient point Penhalion...added to all the other things we don't know about the Whitechapel Murders, first and foremost should surely be "why?"

All the best

Dave

[Barnaby]

Thanks, Errata, for making the point much better than me.

Is there another case where a serial killer has a mental breakdown - for lack of a better word - and is arrested not for a murder or related behavior but because he can't function in society, and only later it is discovered that he is a serial killer?

I would think that as his mental deterioration progressed, his compulsions would intensify. Perhaps it would get to the point where he couldn't hold it together enough to even solicit an unfortunate, but even then I'd think you see him clumsily attempt a knifing and get caught or perhaps engage in Ed Gein like behavior and get caught.

To play devils advocate, today we have antipsychotic meds, and so we may not see how quickly and to what extent the mental condition of some schizophrenic serial killers deteriorates.

[Errata]

Thanks, Errata, for making the point much better than me.

Is there another case where a serial killer has a mental breakdown - for lack of a better word - and is arrested not for a murder or related behavior but because he can't function in society, and only later it is discovered that he is a serial killer?

I would think that as his mental deterioration progressed, his compulsions would intensify. Perhaps it would get to the point where he couldn't hold it together enough to even solicit an unfortunate, but even then I'd think you see him clumsily attempt a knifing and get caught or perhaps engage in Ed Gein like behavior and get caught.

To play devils advocate, today we have antipsychotic meds, and so we may not see how quickly and to what extent the mental condition of some schizophrenic serial killers deteriorates.

Off the top of my head I can't think of anyone, but it's important enough to the discussion at hand that I'm researching it. So I'll get back to you about that. My instinct is to say no, but I have zero facts backing that up.

Very few serial killers are actually what we would consider to be insane. I mean, they're serial killers, so clearly they ain't right, but even with a couple of diagnoses under their belt, they aren't crazy. Most are lucid, calm, able to explain their behavior in a cogent way, able to control themselves. Regardless of their past actions, once caught they appear to understand that the game is up, and settle down into a relatively quiet and stable life in prison. They were never raving lunatics. They were killers.

So the few truly mentally ill serial killers we have are very different. Richard Chase, and Herbert Mullin come to mind. These guys were not okay. Both Chase and Mullin had been in and out of psychiatric hospitals all their lives. Both were released despite their diagnosis and prognosis. Both were known to be dangerous. Both killed while psychotic. Both of these killers are more spree killers than serial killers. They started and were caught in a matter of months. They worked fast, and killed quite a few people in so short a time. Both were identified pretty easily. And it was the fact that they killed so quickly that they were not identified almost immediately. Their murders also don't show any ritualistic or compulsive components. They didn't kill the same way every time, there were very few commonalities in victims. These guys were out of control.

To put it in perspective to a more famous serial killer, These guys are not Ted Bundy in California. These guys are more Ted Bundy in Florida.

As to what a deteriorating psychotic serial killer would do once he start completely losing control... it would depend on why he was doing what he was doing. Mental illness is in many ways very predictable. Name a reason he kills and I could give you the logical shifts, but there are a LOT of reasons to kill.

We actually have a great deal of information on Schizophrenia and how it works, how it progresses. Remember that while we have antipsychotics, Schizophrenia is a structural issue. The brain is literally collapsing. And there is no medication for that. We can slow it, but we can't stop it. And it's only recently that there have been treatments other than sedatives. As for psychotics, most don't receive treatment until they are full blown. People don't go see shrinks really ever. They certainly don't do it when their brain is telling them they are fine even when they are clearly not. Most people who start having symptoms never see a doctor until they are no longer legally competent and someone else forces them into treatment. So we know the evolution of psychosis. We know how fast it can move and why.

If Jack the Ripper lost control the way Chase and Mullin did, you would expect to see that kind of frenzied attack. And many of those attacks would be successful. I don't know what that would look like, because he would focus on what was really important to him. If it was just that prostitutes needed to die, you might see him just taking a hammer to their skulls. If he needed the uterus, you would expect to see a much messier extraction, with no extraneous mutilations. If it was blood he wanted, you would see much more cutting or flaying. Ritualized cannibalism would result in straight bites on the body. When Bundy was in Florida, he focused on causing pain and terror. The rest of his murder ritual was just unessential. That's what you would look for. A frenzy where the details and the extraneous are gone, focusing only on the most important thing.

[Pontius2000]

I agree with the "Kosminski or someone like him" sentiment to an extent. But i maintain that there is not one shred of evidence to say that he was NOT JtR.

From what little we know of him, it's pretty clear that he was either schizophrenic or bi-polar, or both. So it's assuming a lot to say that he was "harmless".

I've been a cop for 13 years and worked several years before that in a mental hospital while majoring in psychology. So I've met and dealt with a lot of schizophrenics and bi-polars. And while they are certainly not all serial killers or even overly violent, everyone I've ever dealt with- EVERYONE, without any exception- has displayed SOME level of aggression. They don't walk around salivating or talking to the stereotypical 'voices' in their heads but when their manic episodes set in, you know it. It's like a completely different entity has taken them over. Some will just stare at you and clench their fists, some will pace and posture, some will mumble or sneer at you, and some will try to fight you. But not one schizophrenic or bi-polar that I've ever met and seen in their manic states have ever made me think, "this is a completely harmless person". Then just as quickly as the mania sets in, they can snap out of it and appear to be a completely normal person.I've long felt that the demon possession/exorcist stuff from the old days was those people's way of trying to make sense of schizophrenia and bi-polar.

If you throw in a psychopathic personality, which is cultivated more from environment and experience, then you've got problems.

We have no problem believing Kosminski was schizophrenic. And if you've read much of the pogroms and how poor 19th century Jews were treated, you'd agree that it wouldn't be a stretch to believe that Kosminski may have developed a psychopathic personalilty. And no matter what you want to believe or what you may interpret from 100+ year old medical records, a schizophrenic with a psychopathic personality IS a downright dangerous person.

After he Kosminski was institutionalized, the "trigger" would no longer be there....he would not have had close, private access to women. And definitely no access to the easiest targets...desperate prostitutes. So there's no reason to think that he would've continued with the exact same behaviors as he'd displayed on the outside. On the outside, we're told he ate trash from the street. Did he continue to eat trash after being institutionalized? Did Jeffrey Dahmer continue to kill and cannibalize young men after being imprisoned?

[Lechmere]

You describe someone who periodically gets into an uncontrollable schizophrenic condition who can turn murderous.
But could someone in the grip of an uncontrollable schizophrenic condition realistically successfully carry out multiple stealth killings and remain undetected while doing them?
Such killer usually get apprehended after their first killing because they are careless for their own security.

[Errata]

You describe someone who periodically gets into an uncontrollable schizophrenic condition who can turn murderous.
But could someone in the grip of an uncontrollable schizophrenic condition realistically successfully carry out multiple stealth killings and remain undetected while doing them?
Such killer usually get apprehended after their first killing because they are careless for their own security.

It's not even about carelessness in the end. Schizophrenia does not occur in bursts. It's days, and as the disease progresses, months and even years without lucidity. They couldn't remotely blend in. And if the disease was what caused him to kill, then there would be multiple attacks in a short time frame. It's a structural disorder. No action or inaction can end an episode. It ends when it ends.

[Pontius2000]

You describe someone who periodically gets into an uncontrollable schizophrenic condition who can turn murderous.
But could someone in the grip of an uncontrollable schizophrenic condition realistically successfully carry out multiple stealth killings and remain undetected while doing them?
Such killer usually get apprehended after their first killing because they are careless for their own security.

JtR, in my opinion, got away with the crimes due more to sheer dumb luck than anything else. The book I just read (is Tom Westcott the right name?) demonstrates how the police were pulled in a hundred different directions while the crimes were committed. They just happened to not be looking in the killer's direction when he killed.

Even in modern times, with modern police capbilities, the only thing that caught the Son of Sam was that he happened to be given a parking ticket near one of the murder scenes. Scotland Yard received no such lucky break, or either didn't act on it.