The insane medical student - a police theory from 1894

[Phil Carter]

Chris,

True, I was just looking at the time line re the marginalia, but of course see you point about Swanson.

And re the predating of Macnaughten's chosen candidates, others at Scotland Yard may well have ascribed veracity to this suspect, even if Macnaghten didnt.

The medical student reference is intruiging in Macnaghten's mind though. Like you, I thought first of Druitt, then Kosminsky.

best wishes

Phil

[Chris]

Phil

Unfortunately I don't think we can conclude much from this about who Swanson's theory might have concerned. There seem to have been so many theories buzzing around that we can't conclude "Swanson couldn't have meant Kozminski" just because a few months earlier the press were told "it was a medical student".

What I think is worth bearing in mind is that if this report did originate as early as December 1894, then the supposed delivery of the crucial evidence "a year ago" would probably have predated the Macnaghten Memorandum (February 1894). Yet this "insane medical student" was not among Macnaghten's chosen candidates. That seems to demonstrate that even if this theory did really emanate from Scotland Yard, it was far from being one that all of Scotland Yard subscribed to.

[Phil Carter]

Hello Chris,

Thank you for posting this. I think we were both onto the thing about the same time... you were probably there before I was I would imagine.

The interesting things here for me is the date of the "dying" of the suspect..

"......His friends at last discovered the horrible truth, and had him confined in a private asylum. When he died a year ago the evidence in their possession was submitted to Scotland Yard, and convinced them they had at last found the genuine 'Ripper....'"

Now that article was dated 1.2.1895, so 1894, someone dies, presumably in an asylum.

...and the fact that Swanson and the marginalia are now under question, as it seems clear from this that Kosminski might not be the man Swanson meant after all... in which case... that part of the marginalia ....

best wishes

Phil

[Chris]

Here is perhaps another version of the same story from five years later - though in this case the author of the article thinks the culprit is still alive.

Wanganui Herald, 13 January 1899
[http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi...H18990113.2.12 ]

THE CRIME WAVE.

EVERY now and again the world is horrified by the discovery of hideous crimes in different and often widely-separated countries. Those committed in the heart of London some years ago by the mysterious "Jack the Ripper" are still unavenged. It is said the perpetrator was, as suspected at the time, an insane medical student, and that he is now the inmate of a lunatic asylum in England. Whether this latter is true or not we cannot say, but the probabilities are that if he is, there is no proof of his having committed the numerous atrocities which so frequently horrified people in London at their perpetration. If there were, he would doubtless have been arraigned on the charge of murder, and the evidence in support thereof made public, even if the jury had to return a verdict declaring the prisoner insane, and, therefore, a fit subject for restraint, during her Majesty's pleasure, in a lunatic asylum for criminals.

[The article continues to mention the Deeming and Butler atrocities and a recent triple murder at Gatton in Queensland.]

[Chris]

The following press story was posted by Phil Carter late last year (http://forum.casebook.org/showpost.p...94&postcount=9), but I thought it deserved its own thread.

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.

At first I wondered whether this might refer to Druitt. Later I wondered whether it might relate to the Pall Mall Gazette's report in May 1895 - that "The theory entitled to most respect, because it was presumably based upon the best knowledge, was that of Chief Inspector Swanson, the officer who was associated with the investigation of all the murders, and Mr. Swanson believed the crimes to have been the work of a man who is now dead." - and to the statement in the Swanson Marginalia that Kozminski died soon after being committed to Colney Hatch.

The interesting thing is that apparently it refers not to Druitt or to Kozminski, but to another suspect entirely.

Further details appear in three articles from New Zealand newspapers indexed in Google's News Archive Search database - in the Timaru Herald of 1 February 1895 (http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi...D18950201.2.10), the Taranaki Herald of 4 February 1895 (http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi...H18950204.2.17) and the Tuapeka Times of 6 February 1895 (http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi...T18950206.2.27). These three articles are virtually identical. Phil posted the version from the Taranaki Herald. Below is that from the Timaru Herald, which includes some introductory sentences expressing scepticism about the story.

... Towards the end of last year another murder of the same class was committed at Kensington, the alleged perpetrator being a young man named Saunderson, who has now been pronounced insane. Many people in London believed him to be "Jack the Ripper," and some of the newspapers took that view. It appears, however, that they were wrong; that is to say, if we may credit the following paragraph from the last letter of the London correspondent of the Lyttelton Times. What seems to cast some doubt upon his story is the great difficulty which the friends of the medical student referred to in the paragraph would have experienced in hushing the matter up and hurrying the man into a private asylum. It also appears strange that when, as alleged, the facts all came to the knowledge of the London police a year ago, they did not let the public know through the newspapers that "Jack the Ripper" had at length been got rid of by death. Here is what the correspondent says:-

"The Kensington murder having, in a small way, revived the 'Jack the Ripper' scare, the authorities have thought it well to acknowledge - what many have long suspected - viz., that the mysterious hero of the Whitechapel horrors is dead. The Sun, you will recollect, made a rare to-do over the supposed discovery of this assassin some months back, but the police quietly pooh-poohed its wonderful yarn. The Sun's maniac undoubtedly posed as the 'one and original Ripper,' who, like the Christy Minstrels, had 'never performed out of London,' and his admiring relatives warmly supported his claim. The police, however, pointed out that there were self-confessed Rippers in every asylum in Great Britain. The character is a favourite one even yet with madmen, as Saunderson's case shows. When, however, the statements of these self-confessed 'Jacks' were examined they invariably went to pieces, and the Sun's allegations proved no exception to the general rule. They looked plausible enough in print, but half the testimony proved unreliable and the rest was obviously invented. The real Jack, it seems, belonged, as many suspected all along, to the medical profession, or rather was a student. His friends at last discovered the horrible truth, and had him confined in a private asylum. When he died a year ago the evidence in their possession was submitted to Scotland Yard, and convinced them they had at last found the genuine 'Ripper.'"

[Timaru Herald, 1 February 1895]

The version in the Tuapeka Times differs from that in the Taranaki Herald only in details of punctuation, except that it includes the attribution "FROM THE EVENING STAR'S CORRESPONDENT. LONDON, December 14", confirming that the story originated late the previous year. Apparently this doesn't refer to the London "Star" - at least, I was unable to find a version of the story in the Star of 14 December or thereabouts.