Cohen Questions..........?

[Barnaby]

I am only somewhat familiar with the David Cohen/Kaminsky theory and so I reread the relevant suspect pages. One thing that struck me as incredibly strange is that he died from "exhaustion from mania." If this occurred, it would incredibly rare. Excluding suicides and accidents, people with bipolar disorder do not die in manic episodes, or immediately afterward. I suppose it might be strenuous on the heart, but Cohen was reasonably young. The closest thing I can come up with is a stimulant overdose, which certainly produces manic symptoms and can produce heart failure. But this obviously wasn't the case here.

The behavioral description could fit a paranoid schizophrenic, someone with bipolar disorder, or even someone with pervasive developmental/intellectual disabilities (the self-injurious behavior resonates with this). But none of these would explain his death.

I'm thinking that the most likely explanation that would explain both this aberrant behavior and his rather rapid decline is a brain tumor. Does anyone know if an autopsy was performed?

[Errata]

I am only somewhat familiar with the David Cohen/Kaminsky theory and so I reread the relevant suspect pages. One thing that struck me as incredibly strange is that he died from "exhaustion from mania." If this occurred, it would incredibly rare. Excluding suicides and accidents, people with bipolar disorder do not die in manic episodes, or immediately afterward. I suppose it might be strenuous on the heart, but Cohen was reasonably young. The closest thing I can come up with is a stimulant overdose, which certainly produces manic symptoms and can produce heart failure. But this obviously wasn't the case here.

The behavioral description could fit a paranoid schizophrenic, someone with bipolar disorder, or even someone with pervasive developmental/intellectual disabilities (the self-injurious behavior resonates with this). But none of these would explain his death.

I'm thinking that the most likely explanation that would explain both this aberrant behavior and his rather rapid decline is a brain tumor. Does anyone know if an autopsy was performed?

Exhaustion death is pretty rare, but up to about the 60s there was nothing people could do about it. It's a classic death with a rare kind of mania, but what we are likely talking about here is a death due to the sheer toll not sleeping takes on the body over a period of months or years. And this is beyond insomnia. This is total sleep deprivation occasionally broken by collapse into an exhausted sleep without a REM period. It's incredibly scary. And incredibly taxing on the body. Death is typically from a stroke or heart attack. And of course any physiological problems already present are going to hasten death. It's certainly possible that someone with a heart murmur could live a long and productive life, but without sleep they don't have a chance. Without any kind of treatment it doesn't particularly matter how young and healthy a person is. The effects on blood pressure alone are more than enough to cause death after one year.

And of course, we aren't talking about someone who is receiving the finest medical care available. All things considered he is probably malnourished and any physical problem or illness is being ignored in favor of staying the hell out of his way. And there likely was abuse. It's a bad recipe for continued survival.

[Errata]

Very constructive, Errata! Thanks for taking the time to post that. I'm glad that you're at least not ruling Cohen out as a suspect. I will have to defer to your superior knowledge on the matter, unless someone is willing to challenge your assertions. Just out of curiosity, do you mind telling me what your background is?

Some who has been diagnosed with a mental illness since the age of 8, medicated since 10, about 10 years wondering why the hell me and then about 6 years of school to figure that out, and then running groups and services for the mentally ill.

[Merry_Olde_Mary]

<< If he was in fact Schizophrenic it's entirely possible for him to be asymptomatic up until his 30s. >>

I was watching some documentary on schizophrenia (and if it was on youtube, it has to be true!) and I thought they mentioned that if someone had not presented schizophrenic symptoms in their teen years, it's not going to crop up later in life.

I guess this isn't actually the case?
.

[DJA]

Not the case.

[Merry_Olde_Mary]

Oh god....so we're all still in danger, and could go off any minute.

Great.
.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

What is the likelihood of JtR coming from the close knit Jewish
community? How many Jewish serial killers has history produced?

It was noted by many writers of that period that violent crime - in particular, violence against women - was rare among Jews in the East End of London.

I have invited readers to come up with even one recorded case of a Polish Jew attacking a Gentile woman in the East End of London in the late nineteenth century, but no-one has.

One poster complained that I was setting the criteria too narrowly.

What about attacks from 1900 onwards, he asked.

I am still waiting for him to come up with such a case even under his relaxed criteria.

The fact that my challenge has yielded no serious candidates, as well as the fact that there is no recorded case of a Jewish serial killer in British criminal history, as well as the fact that there is no recorded case of a Polish Jewish serial killer anywhere, as well as the well-documented fact that violent crime (particularly against women) was a rarity in the Jewish community - all these facts have been dismissed by posters as being irrelevant because, so they say, the murderer could still have been Jewish.

But what they do not concede is the fact that it is very unlikely that the murderer was a Polish Jew, as alleged by Anderson.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

According to Anderson and Swanson, the only people to have reviewed ALL the evidence at the time, the murderer was a low class Polish Jew living locally, of which there were very many at the time (only one of whom was guilty).

That is not correct.

Macnaghten, who reviewed ALL the evidence at the time, did not believe that the murderer was a low class Polish Jew.


The big question is why Anderson believed the murderer to have been a low class Polish Jew.

The answer is not, as is so often assumed, that he had evidence to support his allegation.

He never even referred to any evidence - and neither did Swanson.

The answer is that Anderson claimed that the murderer had to be a Polish Jew, even in the absence of any Polish Jewish suspect, simply because - according to him - only Polish Jews would have protected the murderer.

His case was evidently based on prejudice and not on actual evidence.

The sightings seem to endorse this.

That is not correct.

The only sighting considered by the police likely to have been of the murderer was of a man described as being rough-looking, having a fair moustache, and having the appearance of a sailor.

That is about as far from a description of a typical East End Jew as you could have got.

That he was or was not a Jew is entirely irrelevant.

It is very relevant to the case.

The only reason it was suspected in the first place that the murderer was Jewish was the existence of an anti-Semitic stereotype, according to which Jews murdered and mutilated Gentile women or children.

There were cases of Jews being accused of such murders in Europe, Russia, and the Middle East in the 19th century.

As far as I am aware, in all such cases the defendants were ultimately cleared by the authorities of any wrongdoing.

The question I would posit is why Anderson's allegation is taken seriously when it is obviously based, like the original allegations, on prejudice.

As i have pointed out many times before, the Whitechapel Murders case was not the only murder case in which Anderson alleged that the murderer was a Jew, in spite of the fact that the best eyewitness evidence in the case was that the murderer had fair hair.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

I'm happy to go with this 'Cohen' fella being JTR. All I know is that police must have had a damn good reason for believing this guy was their man, other than 'It had to be a Jew'.

Where is the evidence that the police had a damn good reason for believing that Cohen was their man?

According to Macnaghten, Warren, Abberline, Reid and Smith, the murderer was not even Jewish.

According to Swanson, the murderer's name was Kosminski.

According to Anderson - if Swanson is to be believed - the murderer's name was Kosminski.

No-one by the name of Cohen even gets a mention - and there is no evidence that Kosminski ever went by the name of Cohen. His alternative surname was Abrahams.

Anderson did indeed state that 'It had to be a Jew' - more specifically, a Polish Jew.

It still surprises me that almost everyone seems to have missed this point.