Motives for Druitt and Kosminski?

[martin wilson]

Hello all
i'm not a psychiatrist but re-reading Dr Houchins medical certificate, it seems to me to be a classic case of paranoid schizophrenia.
In my opinion!
The more I read about Aaron the more I am convinced that the only threat he represented was to the stitching of his trouser buttons.
Religious mania was suggested on another thread, Orthodox Judaism seems to be mostly about hats and being nice to people.
Once you start on jewish mysticism however, all roads to lead three people, William Robert Woodman,William Wyn Westcott and Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers,freemasons all who founded the Hermetic Order Of The Golden Dawn in March 1888.
Casebook doesn't do occult,no doubt for outstandingly good reasons, but Woodman was a police surgeon albeit 60 in 1888 and Westcott was a coroner,Doctor of Medicine and Master of the Quautor Coronati lodge 1893-1894, a lodge founded by,amongst others, Walter Besant,brother in law of Annie,and Charles Warren.
I think it at least interesting.
In my opinion!
All the best.

[lynn cates]

different

Hello Colin. Thanks. That was my take as I recall having read that somewhere. I also seem to recall that Poland was indeed different in that regard from the UK.

Cheers.
LC

[Bridewell]

Barber Surgeons

Hello Phil. Thanks. The idea--as I have heard it--is that the barber had some surgical training. (I make a terrible Kosminsiite.)

Cheers.
LC

Hi Lynn,

Until the early 19th century barbers were known as barber-surgeons and did, in some cases, carry out surgical procedures:

http://brainblogger.com/2011/05/06/from-haircuts-to-hangnails-the-barber-surgeon/

That was no longer the case in the UK by the time of the Whitechapel Murders. I'm not sure about Poland though.

Regards, Bridewell.

[Jonathan H]

To Kensai

Fair enough if you think Druitt ridiculous, but an answer was provided at the start of this thread -- as to why his own family believed him to be the Ripper.

Montie told them he was 'Jack', or he confessed to somebody credible to the family who told them -- or at least told the older brother -- and the latter never stopped believing this ghastly notion to be true, even after the McKenzie murder, the Coles murder, and the arrest of Sadler.

Not even after Sir Robert began claiming it was a locked-up, insane foreign Jew.

[kensei]

I don't think Druitt or Kosminski had a motive and I absolutely do not think either of them was Jack the Ripper. Druitt, presented as suspect number one, has always, from the very beginning, seemed ridiculous to me. The main reason for his consideration as the Ripper seems to be that his family suspected he might be, and when I've asked why they thought so I've never really gotten an answer. Admittedly, I did early on consider Kosminski to be a good suspect but have changed my mind since learning more about him. Kosminski would have been a weird guy to meet. Once the fear of the Ripper had settled over the East End, I doubt many prostitutes would have gone down dark alleys with him.

[Jonathan H]

To C-4

Yes, that is good point but it is one that Sir Melville Macnaghten, a police chief of the time would also have known, and did know.

Yet he believed in Montague Druitt's probable culpability for the Whitechapel murders (for five of them) to the total exclusiuon of all other suspects from about 1891 to his death in 1921. He propagated a veiled version of this story (and debunked the alternate Polish Jew suspect) for the public from 1898.

[Beowulf]

Hello Beowolf,

Many thanks! Apart from the fact that this group or syndicate did this in organised crime style, and the fact that a pair did this with masses of time in better lighting,have you not realised that if you think that something has never been done before, its always the Chinese who did it FIRST.

Sorry- but that comparison doesnt cut it. Good though it was.
Too many disimilarities. Time being the main one. More Kelly than Eddowes?

Best wishes

Phil

Lol. Yes, they invented noodles and fireworks, but...we all took the credit

Actually, they are finding out now that the Chinese were quite excelled in building techiques...but that is another subject.

But to your point: "how someone known in his profession to be at their best when NOT cutting into the skin would know, using an unfamiliar tool, a knife, how to cut, how deep to cut, where to cut, how to cut away to locate a hidden organ,(a kidney), carefully cut through an unknown depth of fatty tissue in order to clear the way for that organ to be removed, dissecting it with the precision so that the renal artery is severed in a precise way and all done whilst in a hurry, under pressure and in very poor light, all from a front entry cut in the first place- which most surgeons I have seen say is notoriously difficult?"

Better lighting, yes, time yes but a kidney is covered in a membrane, you have to know where to look. These boys had no surgical training, no medical training and yet cut out a kidney anyhow. Point being, who knows how they learned, but it's obvious they did.

Can't rule out Kosminski based on the fact that you figure "a man used to using no more than a barber's razor and a pair of scissors being able to weild an instrument he never used in his everyday life defies logic and belief"...because others have with less to vouch for their know-how.

If these guys hadn't been caught would you be saying they couldn't be the murderers, because they worked in an auto parts store?

[Phil Carter]

Hello Beowolf,

Many thanks! Apart from the fact that this group or syndicate did this in organised crime style, and the fact that a pair did this with masses of time in better lighting,have you not realised that if you think that something has never been done before, its always the Chinese who did it FIRST.

Sorry- but that comparison doesnt cut it. Good though it was.
Too many disimilarities. Time being the main one. More Kelly than Eddowes?

Best wishes

Phil

[Beowulf]

Hello Lynn,

Perhaps an expert would care to explain the connection between a street shop barber shaving a man's face and 'elementary knowledge' of surgical skill?
In addition to this 'elementary knowledge of surgical skill' I ask how someone known in his profession to be at their best when NOT cutting into the skin would know, using an unfamiliar tool, a knife, how to cut, how deep to cut, where to cut, how to cut away to locate a hidden organ,(a kidney), carefully cut through an unknown depth of fatty tissue in order to clear the way for that organ to be removed, dissecting it with the precision so that the renal artery is severed in a precise way and all done whilst in a hurry, under pressure and in very poor light, all from a front entry cut in the first place- which most surgeons I have seen say is notoriously difficult?

I could understand a medical student, a butcher even, having 'elementary knowledge' of surgical skill, but a man used to using no more than a barber's razor and a pair of scissors being able to weild an instrument he never used in his evesyday life defies logic and belief.

On top of all this, we are supposed to believe that the man with mental demons in his head retained what is quite frankiy amazing cool and calm when performing this feat.

If Kosminski really did do this, he must have been one heck of a barber! So why the lack of work as such?

Best wishes

Phil

We don't know all that occurred in Kosminski's life, though. What he knew and had done prior to 1888.

I was reading about two Chinese serial killers who seemed to know how to remove a kidney and eat it, even though their previous job was only selling auto parts.

"Shen Changyin and Shen Changping started a business selling Lanzhou auto parts but it didn’t go very well. Faced with severe financial loss, they teamed up with three women (victims who promised to get them more victims if they spare them) and embarked on a new business model – serial killers. Within less than a year – between June 2003 and August 2004 – the five had killed 11 prostitutes whose livers and/or kidneys they cut out and cooked as food."

http://www.bestgore.com/tag/shen-changping/

http://www.danwei.com/serial-killers-in-china/

How'd they know how to do that after selling auto parts? Evidently there is more to their lives than that.

Don't tell me these guys didn't have demons in THEIR heads. Obviously, something was amiss.

[Trevor Marriott]

Hello Lynn,

Perhaps an expert would care to explain the connection between a street shop barber shaving a man's face and 'elementary knowledge' of surgical skill?
In addition to this 'elementary knowledge of surgical skill' I ask how someone known in his profession to be at their best when NOT cutting into the skin would know, using an unfamiliar tool, a knife, how to cut, how deep to cut, where to cut, how to cut away to locate a hidden organ,(a kidney), carefully cut through an unknown depth of fatty tissue in order to clear the way for that organ to be removed, dissecting it with the precision so that the renal artery is severed in a precise way and all done whilst in a hurry, under pressure and in very poor light, all from a front entry cut in the first place- which most surgeons I have seen say is notoriously difficult?

I could understand a medical student, a butcher even, having 'elementary knowledge' of surgical skill, but a man used to using no more than a barber's razor and a pair of scissors being able to weild an instrument he never used in his evesyday life defies logic and belief.

On top of all this, we are supposed to believe that the man with mental demons in his head retained what is quite frankiy amazing cool and calm when performing this feat.

If Kosminski really did do this, he must have been one heck of a barber! So why the lack of work as such?

Best wishes

Phil

Hi Phil

You have forgot to mention that he is supposed to have done all of this with a knife with at least a six inch blade.

[Jonathan H]

Macnaghten's proxy, Sims, claims in 1907 that the Polish Jew suspect had worked in a hospital in Poland.

Since Macnaghten mixed fact and fiction there is no reason to think that this is literally true.

In fact, it is Macnaghten trying to beef up a weak suspect, if a real suspect at all?

[lynn cates]

basic medical training

Hello Phil. Thanks. The idea--as I have heard it--is that the barber had some surgical training. (I make a terrible Kosminsiite.)

Cheers.
LC

[Scott Nelson]

If Kosminski really did do this, he must have been one heck of a barber! So why the lack of work as such?

He "accidently" cut too many faces, Phil. He was forced out of the barber business.

As for Druitt, he was simply trying to imitate his friend, Newland Smith.

[Phil Carter]

Hello Phil. To answer the second question, I am given to understand that AK would have picked up at least elementary surgical skills as a barber.

Cheers.
LC

Hello Lynn,

Perhaps an expert would care to explain the connection between a street shop barber shaving a man's face and 'elementary knowledge' of surgical skill?
In addition to this 'elementary knowledge of surgical skill' I ask how someone known in his profession to be at their best when NOT cutting into the skin would know, using an unfamiliar tool, a knife, how to cut, how deep to cut, where to cut, how to cut away to locate a hidden organ,(a kidney), carefully cut through an unknown depth of fatty tissue in order to clear the way for that organ to be removed, dissecting it with the precision so that the renal artery is severed in a precise way and all done whilst in a hurry, under pressure and in very poor light, all from a front entry cut in the first place- which most surgeons I have seen say is notoriously difficult?

I could understand a medical student, a butcher even, having 'elementary knowledge' of surgical skill, but a man used to using no more than a barber's razor and a pair of scissors being able to weild an instrument he never used in his evesyday life defies logic and belief.

On top of all this, we are supposed to believe that the man with mental demons in his head retained what is quite frankiy amazing cool and calm when performing this feat.

If Kosminski really did do this, he must have been one heck of a barber! So why the lack of work as such?

Best wishes

Phil

[Beowulf]

If it was Kosminski then I think it would be an attempt to release the anxiety of a mind imprisoned in mental illness, expressed as misdirected and frustrated sexual drives.