Kosminski..why the big secret ?

[spyglass]

If Mcnaghten and Anderson really did know the identity of JTR ( Kosminski )
wouldnt it be safe to assume then that the likes of Abberline and other senior investigating officers would have been made aware of this?
Also, wouldnt it have been in the police's intrest to let the people and press know that they had at last caught their man concidering all the criticism they had been under, why keep it secret ?

[Natalie Severn]

Hello Spyglass,
This has always been my point of view.If the police had known so would we.It was too sensational a story to have been kept underwraps---to no purpose whatsoever,so it seems.
For Robert Anderson to select as Jack the Ripper a man who spent nearly thirty years in an asylum and from the very start was considered by his examining doctors there not to be any kind of danger to others,beggars belief.
He was not,could not,have been a paranoid schizophrenic as some would have us believe.In his entire history there is no original [police] record of violence, no hospital record of violence- save for once in his thirty year stay when he picked up a chair to hit out at someone.
A confused, deluded but ultimately harmless man such as Aaron Kosminski was ,was much more likely to have suffered from early dementia,than paranoid schizophrenia .And from 1894 onwards until 1919 his diagnosis was dementia at Leavesdon.
Yes,he could have suffered from "simple schizophrenia" a harmless form of the illness but for him to have been Jack the Ripper it would,I am afraid,have had to be the paranoid form of schizophrenia and there is no evidence of that.
The theory was rubbished at the time of Sir Robert Anderson"s assertions in 1910 by the Chief Commissioner of the City of London Police, Sir Henry Smith---who called Sir Robert's assertions "reckless" and added that NOBODY KNEW who the Ripper was or where he lived ,either in 1888 or 20 years later when Sir Robert claimed he knew.Inspector Abberline also claimed nobody knew,as did Walter Dew and most of the other police around at the time such as Inspector Reid.
Its a whole lot of addle headed nonsense.
All the Best,Spyglass,
Norma

[Phil Carter]

Hello spyglass,

Some suspect that the Anderson/Macnaughten comments were said as a bluff to explain the never ending questions why the police never caught the murderer. It was also, some believe, an attempt by Anderson to keep his reputation as high as possible with regard to his record.
Others also believe that Anderson had other agendae, and that his real level of concentration during the Whitechapel murders, was the Fenian problem.
I am at this present moment in time, of that persuasion.
MacNaughten's 3 suspects, are, in my view, poor excuses, all plucked up after the events. This is shown by his mentioning of Ostrog, who thanks to Philip Sugden, has been shown to be nowhere near Whitechapel at the time of the killings, thereby raising a huge question as to the professional manner and basis thereof in which MacNaughten presented his three suspects to the world.

best wishes

Phil

[spyglass]

Kosminski...why the big secret

Many thanks Natalie and Phil for your insights.
And of course it would seem highly unlikely that Mary Kelly would allow a crazed lunatic into her lodgings no matter how hard up for cash she was and especially with the murderer still on the loose .
Although Paull begg has always seemed to me to favour Kosminski from all the suspects, and he knows his stuff.

[DVV]

Hi Spyglass,

Mary allowed a crazed lunatic into her lodgings, but he wasn't Kosminski, and she was very fond of him.

Amitiés,
David

[Chris]

If Mcnaghten and Anderson really did know the identity of JTR ( Kosminski )
wouldnt it be safe to assume then that the likes of Abberline and other senior investigating officers would have been made aware of this?
Also, wouldnt it have been in the police's intrest to let the people and press know that they had at last caught their man concidering all the criticism they had been under, why keep it secret ?

I think the Macnaghten memorandum itself makes it clear that the police didn't know the identity of the murderer in 1894 (though Macnaghten seems eventually to have convinced himself that Druitt was the man). Whatever claims were made later, we are really dealing with theories, not "definitely ascertained facts", and we have to try to judge them on such evidence as we have, rather than accepting them on trust.

[spyglass]

Thanks DVV
Yes i get your point, obviously she did let a lunatic into her lodgings, but not one that was obvious to the eye. Kosminski draws an image of a bent over drooling imbecile with knuckles dragging along the ground.
Im guessing the lunatic you refer to is mr Barnet.

[DVV]

Hi Spyglass,

agreed about Kosminski.
I was referring to Fleming who was Mary ex-fiancé and spent his last 28 years in the loony bin.
Had Macnaghten known that, certainly his suspect wouldn't have been Druitt.

Amitiés,
David

[Jeff Leahy]

If I were you guys I'd take a long look at the Hammersmith Nude Murders.

And ask myself why still no one Knows the identity of the killer. Even though the police clearly claim to have a suspect. Although some ex-policeman disagree about that suspect.

Fore there is truely nothing new under the sun. They new, they know. We know?

Pirate

[Uncle Jack]

Anderson turned a simple opinion and stated that it was a fact, which it wasn't. Phillip Sugden's excellent breakdown of the Kosminski theory in The Complete History of Jack the Ripper shows, or at least should show, to all of us that Kosminski was not the Ripper and neither was Druitt or Ostrog.

[Phil Carter]

Adam,

Well said and Amen!

best wishes

Phil

[DVV]

Hmmm, there are several threads on the same subject, it seems...

Amitiés,
David

[spyglass]

Thanks Pirate Jack.
I remember reading about that case along time ago, I will go away and refresh my memory, Although was'nt that case known with another name as well ?

[Tom_Wescott]

If Mcnaghten and Anderson really did know the identity of JTR ( Kosminski )
wouldnt it be safe to assume then that the likes of Abberline and other senior investigating officers would have been made aware of this?
Also, wouldnt it have been in the police's intrest to let the people and press know that they had at last caught their man concidering all the criticism they had been under, why keep it secret ?

Hi spyglass. Abberline was aware of these suspects but thought there was nothing to them. Of course, Abberline retired in 1892, so anything he might have learned after that would not be first hand knowledge.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Dave James]

Anderson turned a simple opinion and stated that it was a fact, which it wasn't. Phillip Sugden's excellent breakdown of the Kosminski theory in The Complete History of Jack the Ripper shows, or at least should show, to all of us that Kosminski was not the Ripper and neither was Druitt or Ostrog.

Hi all,
For what it's worth...(good song by the way!),
If anyone entered the premises, it was:
a) with Mary
b) someone with the key

Mary needed money to pay the rent, she wouldn't be feeling charitable, she had already turned down Huch, so a drooling loopyfruit would be even lower down the list.
Would this drooling loopyfruit have the key to her gaff?
Exit Kosminski - 'nuf said.
All the best
Dave