The insane medical student - a police theory from 1894

[Simon Wood]

Hi Chris,

Sorry, I misunderstood you.

This is a fascinating thread, but other than enjoying the urban legend aspect of these reports I don't believe any value should be attached to them as they are all little more than Chinese whisper variants of the basic premise contained in Macnaghten's memorandum–

"A much more rational theory is that . . . he immediately committed suicide, or, as a possible alternative, was found to be so hopelessly mad by his relations, that he was by them confined in some asylum."

Here we see circumvention of the legal system by dint of a family privately incarcerating one of its own. And we see a progression over the years by this particular suspect variant moving up the social ladder from being of good family to blue-blooded aristocrat. Throw in a doctor, a Polish Jew and a Russian and we have the genesis for all variations on the most popular theories. Add to this the fact that many people, including retired policemen, further added to the confusion by claiming an intimate knowledge or dramatic connection with the case and it soon becomes apparent we're on a fool's errand. Truth was the victim in the stampede for a slice of the JtR pie.

Put all the stories together, pick them all apart and we'll still not be left with anything of worth. Those who knew the truth weren't telling. Instead they left the world a tangle of lies, half-truths, rumours and evasions. And a damn fine job they made of it.

Who and, more importantly, why is the real matter for our consideration.

Regards,

Simon

[Chris]

Frederick Cunliffe-Owen's social status was just fine. His mother, Jenny Von Reitzenstein, daughter of Baron Fritz von Reitzenstein of Prussia, and his wife, Marguerite Countess du Panty-et-de-Sourdis, had impeccable pedigrees.

Sorry - I meant exaggerating the social status of the suspect (from "of good family" to "blue-blooded"), not exaggerating his own.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Chris,

Frederick Cunliffe-Owen's social status was just fine. His mother, Jenny Von Reitzenstein, daughter of Baron Fritz von Reitzenstein of Prussia, and his wife, Marguerite Countess du Panty-et-de-Sourdis, had impeccable pedigrees.

Regards,

Simon

[Chris]

Here is an extract from an article written by Frederick Cunliffe-Owen, under the nom-de-plume "Ex-Attache", published in the Butte Weekly Miner on 2 December 1897 and posted on jtrforums.com by Howard Brown and Chris Scott:
Incidentally it may be mentioned that it was at Broadmoor that the blue-blooded perpetrator of the Whitechapel murders is now admitted by the authorities to have breathed his last, and it is likewise to Broadmoor that will be consigned without trial the well-born and hitherto successful member of the bar whose homicidal mania has now been ascertained by the police to have led him to perpetrate the mysterious murder of Miss Camp, on the Suburban London railroad, last spring, and likewise to put to death in an equally unaccountable fashion a young woman whose body was found some six weeks ago at Windsor. It is probable that his true name will be kept from the public precisely in the same way as that of the author of the "Jack the Ripper" series of murders.

Whether it fits in with some or all of the above reports, I'm not sure, but there are obviously some points of contact. It's particularly close to Forbes Winslow's version of the story, which describes the suspect as being "of good family", and (in one article, in 1898) as having died in Broadmoor. The theme of the Butte Weekly Miner article is the secrets of aristocratic families, so the author may have been exaggerating his reported social status a bit.

[Bailey]

I checked the Lyttelton Times (31 January 1895, p. 6), and the article published there, under the title "THE REAL RIPPER", contains nothing beyond what was quoted by the Timaru Herald the following day. Above that article was one on the Saunderson case, and above it at the head of the column was this:
"[FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENTS.]
LONDON, Dec. 14."

That's the same date given by the Tuapeka Times in attributing an almost identical report to the "EVENING STAR'S CORRESPONDENT". I suppose the likelihood is that the report originated with a news agency.

I haven't as yet had a chance to do much about looking into this, but I guess that's one less step

B.

[Chris]

if we may credit the following paragraph from the last letter of the London correspondent of the Lyttelton Times.

I checked the Lyttelton Times (31 January 1895, p. 6), and the article published there, under the title "THE REAL RIPPER", contains nothing beyond what was quoted by the Timaru Herald the following day. Above that article was one on the Saunderson case, and above it at the head of the column was this:
"[FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENTS.]
LONDON, Dec. 14."

That's the same date given by the Tuapeka Times in attributing an almost identical report to the "EVENING STAR'S CORRESPONDENT". I suppose the likelihood is that the report originated with a news agency.

[Chris]

It solves a puzzle I've been interested in for a number of years, since John Ruffels sent me two reports from an Australian newspaper, the Koroit Sentinel, from 1900 and 1901. Those reports were virtually identical to one which Chris Scott later found in an American newspaper from early 1895:
http://casebook.org/press_reports/ba...er/950117.html
In connection with young Saunderson's insane crime and the Kensington stabbings the authorities have been extremely alarmed lest another Jack the Ripper scare should seize upon the popular mind. This led them recently to make the important announcement that they have reason to believe that the author of the Jack the Ripper crimes has been several years in his grave.

An identically worded report appeared a few weeks earlier - on 23 December 1894 - in the Duluth News Tribune.

[Chris]

I really have no answers to this at all. I assume that you think there was actually an "insane medical student suspect" who was not Aaron Kozminski. It is certainly possible.

That seems likely to me, unless this report is a press invention or a rumour that has been embellished beyond recognition.

Smith's anecdote is obviously a bit muddled, but we do know that in the Autumn of 1888 the police investigated three insane medical students, two of whom were said to have been traced, while the third (John Sanders) was said to have gone abroad about two years previously (he had actually gone into an asylum, and was apparently still there at the time of the murders). It could be that Smith's story relates to one of those who were traced (and presumably eliminated). It's difficult to see how suspicion against any of them could have revived in 1894, though.

[Jeff Leahy]

Many thanks for clarifying that. Pirate

[robhouse]

Hi Chris,

I too am skeptical about making such a connection as you suggest, but just thought I would put these points forward since there are at least some interesting parallels. Mainly, I keep thinking of the coincidence that thes July 1890 reports came at the same time Kozminski was first brought to the workhouse... and that this date has often been suggested as a likely time for the identification. I am personally not convinced that this was when the identification took place anyway.

As to your last point... it is indeed interesting. I wonder how much these theories about an insane medical student were based on the fact that the police seemed convinced that the Ripper did have medical knowledge... in other words, they were looking for exactly that type of suspect.

I really have no answers to this at all. I assume that you think there was actually an "insane medical student suspect" who was not Aaron Kozminski. It is certainly possible.

Speaking of Henry Smith, he wrote

"After the second crime I sent word to Sir Charles Warren that I had discovered a man very likely to be the man wanted. He certainly had all the qualifications requisite. He had been a medical student ; he had been in a lunatic asylum ; he spent all his time with women of loose character, whom he bilked by giving them polished farthings instead of sovereigns, two of these farthings having been found in the pocket of the murdered woman. Sir Charles failed to find him. I thought he was likely to be in Rupert Street, Haymarket. I sent up two men, and there he was ; but, polished farthings and all, he proved an alibi without the shadow of doubt." - From Constable to Commissioner

How does this fit in I wonder? If at all....

RH

[Chris]

It is of course unknown if Aaron Kozminski was employed in a hospital in Poland... it certainly seems like it is possible, but there is no evidence of this apart from the above statement. Indeed, the Klodawa Book of Residents (undated entry) gives Aaron Kozminski's profession as "tailor". Presumably, and naturally, Aaron would have learned the trade from his father along with his two brothers Woolf and Isaac. Of course, it does not appear that Aaron kept up with this since he was later listed as a "hairdresser."

So IF, and its a big if.... If Kozminski was "employed in a hospital in Poland," presumably it was after being employed as a tailor, and probably after the death of Aaron's father in 1874... in other words, between the ages of 8 and 15... which seems plausible. But again, there is no evidence of this.

Still, it is interesting to me given the statement "He was a lunatic, and learnt the butchering trade in his father's shop, had become a medical student on his father's death"... would be interesting if instead of "the butchering trade," it said "the tailoring trade."

I would be very sceptical about trying to link the Walthamstow and Leyton Guardian story to Aaron Kozminski, as there are so many points of disagreement - the suspect lived somewhere linked by tram-rails to the murder area (Aaron almost certainly lived within that area); his father had a butcher's shop there (Aaron's father was a tailor who died in Poland); he threatened to "rip up" his mother (Aaron's mother was not in England in 1889); he was committed to a private asylum by July 1889 (Aaron was not committed until 1891). I don't think that can work.

On the wider point of whether Aaron could be linked to the stories about an insane medical student, again I am sceptical. Even if he had served some kind of apprenticeship in a hospital in Poland - which we have no indication of apart from the Sims article of 1907 - he had left Poland in 1881. Presumably his most recent employment before 1891 had been as a hairdresser, though we know he hadn't worked for some years before his committal in 1891. Even allowing for the belief that the murderer had medical training, it would seem very unnatural to refer to him as a "medical student" in those circumstances.

But on the subject of the insane medical student theory, isn't it interesting that in that 1907 article Sims has ended up with the three suspects all being doctors/former medical students who have been in asylums? In particular, could it be that the beliefs that Druitt had been in an asylum, and that Kozminski had been a medical student, and perhaps even that Druitt was a doctor, owed something to the theory that the Ripper was a medical student in an asylum?

[Chris]

Thanks to Rob and Chris for posting details of the story about a medical student from July 1890. It seems quite possible that this relates to the same suspect. At the moment I have a trial subscription to www.genealogybank.com , and thought it would be worth checking for further reports. The same story does turn up in seven other American newspapers between 24 and 30 July, including the New York Herald of 25 July:


An obvious difficulty with the story is the claim that the police had been holding the suspect in secret for some time while they prepared a case against him. I'm not sure whether we're meant to think he had been charged with some other offence in the meantime, or what.

[Jeff Leahy]

I would be intregued to know why you believe Kosminski might have been refered to as a Medical student?

Or am I miss understanding what you appear to be saying?

Yours Pirate

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=506

[robhouse]

I had not seen this earlier version... so the version in the Galveston Daily News in July 29, 1890 was clearly copied from an earlier source... the Fort Wayne Weekly Sentinel being several days earlier for one. It seems strange to me that these were reported in US papers... one wonders how the news would have travelled. I imagine there must be other references to the same story... perhaps in Halifax newspapers?

"the sister connection calls to mind the Crawford letter..." - I have always thought the very same thing.

"But as early as October 1888 Forbes Winslow was quoted as theorising that the Ripper was a medical student who had become diseased." - yes, I had seen that also. It don't know if Winslow's theory c. 1888 has anything to do with the later reports of the insane medical student suspect, or with Kozminski for that matter.... but I could be wrong.

This whole matter seems difficult to decipher. I have some thoughts on it all, but I will hold them back for now. What do you guys think (Chris P, Chris S, etc)? What's your interpretation so far, if any?

Rob H

[Chris Scott]

An early version of the "medical student" story is below. This one has always intrigued me - the sister connection calls to mind the Crawford letter...
But as early as October 1888 Forbes Winslow was quoted as theorising that the Ripper was a medical student who had become diseased.
Chris

Fort Wayne Weekly Sentinel
Indiana, USA
24 July 1890

JACK THE RIPPER!
Is a Medical Student and is Under Arrest in London - A Chain of Evidence Woven About Him
Halifax, July 24.
A Halifax lady, at present visiting a distinguished London official, writes to friends here that Jack the Ripper is under arrest in that city and has been for some time. The Ripper, she says, is a medical student and his arrest was made on the strength of information given by his sister. The authorities have kept the matter the strictest secret in order to work up a case against the man. The chain of evidence is very complete. This information, though startling, is vouched for by the writer of the letter, who accidentally came into possession of the facts.