Wouldn't Anderson Have Been Informed of Kosminski's Death?

[c.d.]

I have never really liked the idea that top Scotland Yard officials simply put Jack the Ripper (Kosminski) in an asylum, shook hands all around on a job well done and then went and had a few pints. You would think that there would have been numerous visits to question him in order to hopefully get a confession, determine the number of his victims, whether he had confederates or if there were some political motive to his actions etc. If this were the case, I would expect that some of the asylum staff would have become suspicious and start to suspect that this was no ordinary inmate and then the cat would be out of the bag.

I would also expect that Anderson would have given instructions to asylum officials that he be informed of any significant events with regard to this particular inmate. Surely Kosminski's death would have been reported to him. Now I know that Anderson's memoirs were written some twenty years after the fact but wouldn't you expect him to remember Kosminski's death so soon after his incarceration (if this were in fact the case) along with the accompanying frustration that further information regarding the murders was now now lost to them? It just seems very strange that he got so significant an event wrong if indeed the suspect was truly Aaron Kosminski.

c.d.

[Harry D]

Then we have Martin Fido's theory that "David Cohen's" real name was Nathan Kaminsky and they mixed it up with Kosminski. Were the police officials really that lax to not even ascertain the name of the most notorious killer in the country?

[c.d.]

Hello Harry,

I am willing to cut Swanson a little slack on possibly getting the name wrong after all those years more so than Anderson apparently getting his facts wrong if the suspect was actually Kosminski.

c.d.

[Pierre]

I have never really liked the idea that top Scotland Yard officials simply put Jack the Ripper (Kosminski) in an asylum, shook hands all around on a job well done and then went and had a few pints. You would think that there would have been numerous visits to question him in order to hopefully get a confession, determine the number of his victims, whether he had confederates or if there were some political motive to his actions etc. If this were the case, I would expect that some of the asylum staff would have become suspicious and start to suspect that this was no ordinary inmate and then the cat would be out of the bag.

I would also expect that Anderson would have given instructions to asylum officials that he be informed of any significant events with regard to this particular inmate. Surely Kosminski's death would have been reported to him. Now I know that Anderson's memoirs were written some twenty years after the fact but wouldn't you expect him to remember Kosminski's death so soon after his incarceration (if this were in fact the case) along with the accompanying frustration that further information regarding the murders was now now lost to them? It just seems very strange that he got so significant an event wrong if indeed the suspect was truly Aaron Kosminski.

c.d.

Kosminski was never hypothesized as being Jack the Ripper. Just a "suspect".

[Paddy]

Sir Robert Anderson died on 15 November 1918 so would never have been told of Kozminskis' death as it was after this date...

Pat.....

[Paddy]

Once Kozminski was put in Asylum I am sure they would not allow the police to question him. They would not be able to pass information on to the police either because he was deemed insane. Just like when the police wanted to question Isenschmid and the Asylum at Bow refused to allow them.
Pat.....

[Mayerling]

I have never really liked the idea that top Scotland Yard officials simply put Jack the Ripper (Kosminski) in an asylum, shook hands all around on a job well done and then went and had a few pints. You would think that there would have been numerous visits to question him in order to hopefully get a confession, determine the number of his victims, whether he had confederates or if there were some political motive to his actions etc. If this were the case, I would expect that some of the asylum staff would have become suspicious and start to suspect that this was no ordinary inmate and then the cat would be out of the bag.

I would also expect that Anderson would have given instructions to asylum officials that he be informed of any significant events with regard to this particular inmate. Surely Kosminski's death would have been reported to him. Now I know that Anderson's memoirs were written some twenty years after the fact but wouldn't you expect him to remember Kosminski's death so soon after his incarceration (if this were in fact the case) along with the accompanying frustration that further information regarding the murders was now now lost to them? It just seems very strange that he got so significant an event wrong if indeed the suspect was truly Aaron Kosminski.

c.d.

Two ways (I can think of) about how to look at possible discovery and fallout of the secret.

1) Kosminski was placed into the asylum by his family with some unobtrusive police official looking at it being done (to make sure it was done), and without all of the big shots like Anderson showing up to give the game away.

2) Anderson and the full pressure of the Yard and Home Office being put on the keeper of the asylum (maybe we should call him "Dr. Seward" after the asylum head in "Dracula") to quash any inquiries by his staff into the patient's (call him Kosminski, Kaminski or even "Renfield") background.

Either way such pressure would have probably worked.

Jeff

[Paddy]

I also think the Jewish board would have had involvement in protecting him. When I say protecting I mean protecting him as an ill man that is suspected but not proven to be Jack. They would consider him very vulnerable I would have thought...
Pat.....

[Jonathan H]

The theory I proposed in my book, and which I stand by, is that the then Chief Constable Macnaghten deliberately misled Dr Robert Anderson in about the middle of 1895 (in the aftermath of a witness allegedly affirming to William Grant as the Mitre Square suspect) to believe that "Kosminski" was deceased. This inevitably misled Donald Swanson, who is reported as claiming that the likeliest suspect was dead -- and reportedly said so in 1895.

Swanson further confirmed this erroneous belief in his annotations of Anderson's 1910 memoirs. Anderson's son claimed that his father believed that the killer was an "alien" who had died after being sectioned (in fact, Aaron Kosminski outlived Anderson by a year).

Whereas an argument can be mounted, based on the scraps we have, that Macnaghten was well aware that "Kosminski" was alive long after being sectioned.

How could one police chief know that this suspect was alive and the other believe he was long deceased? Part of the reason is that the two chiefs detested each other, so there is office politics and one-upmanship involved (and this rivalry and detestation extended into their competing memoirs too, in which neither directly mentions the other.

Mostly I think Macnaghten was seeking to protect the true identity of the Ripper from his boss -- whom he not only disliked he also did not trust to be discreet, with good reason as it turned out -- and so he handed him one that would appeal to his sexual, class and sectarian prejudices.

What we have is two Scotland Yard chiefs who both believe they have identified the fiend, albeit both solutions could never be tested by due process, and whom both believed were deceased -- but only one suspect was dead and it was not Anderson's.

[c.d.]

Sir Robert Anderson died on 15 November 1918 so would never have been told of Kozminskis' death as it was after this date...

Pat.....

Yes, poor wording on my part. I should have said been informed of the death of the suspect he mentioned in his book if in fact he died shortly after being committed.


c.d.

[Paddy]

Apologies from me CD...I should have read it more too......Pat..

[TomTomKent]

Hello Harry,

I am willing to cut Swanson a little slack on possibly getting the name wrong after all those years more so than Anderson apparently getting his facts wrong if the suspect was actually Kosminski.

c.d.

This seems most likely to me. There was a suspect, in an asylum, whose details were described in the marginalia, but whose name was confused by Swanson with Kosminski. The names (if not other details) could have been confused with Klosowski by Abberline.

If the man Swanson had in mind was Cohen, Levy, or somebody else (sorry I don't remember death dates off the top of my head), I would not begin to speculate.

But I think Swanson had no reason to lie on the Marginalia, he was writing from memory, years after the fact, of the few important details that would stick in his mind. Getting a name muddled, especially muddled with a name that would have cropped up in the deluge of names and false trails, and especially with a name that sounds close to it, is forgivable, given the somewhat fluid nature of human memory.

[S.Brett]

I don´t think that Kosminski was only a "suspect"!

Swanson: "...and witness would be the means of murderer being hanged which he did not wish to be left on his mind..."

Mary Berkin (Swanson´s granddaughter): “From what I heard I gathered that Grandfather had been in charge of the case, knew who was the perpetrator but couldn't bring him to justice without the co- operation of one who might have had knowledge of the suspect's movements. That someone was a fellow Jew who declined on religious grounds. The 'proof ' was that the crimes ceased when the suspect was sent away from London.”

Anderson: "I will only add that when the individual whom we suspected was caged in an asylum, the only person who had ever had a good view of the murderer at once identified him" and "I will merely add that the only person who had ever had a good view of the murderer unhesitatingly identified the suspect the instant he was confronted with him."

Swanson and Anderson spoke about a "murderer" and "perpetrator", not only about a suspect.

Griffiths: "One was a Polish Jew, a known lunatic, who was at large in the district of Whitechapel at the time of the murder, and who, having afterwards developed homicidal tendencies, was confined in an asylum. This man was said to resemble the murderer by the one person who got a glimpse of him-the police-constable in Mitre Court."

Sims: "The first man was a Polish Jew of curious habits and strange disposition, who was the sole occupant of certain premises in Whitechapel after night-fall. This man was in the district during the whole period covered by the Whitechapel murders, and soon after they ceased certain facts came to light which showed that it was quite possible that he might have been the Ripper. He had at one time been employed in a hospital in Poland. He was known to be a lunatic at the time of the murders, and some-time afterwards he betrayed such undoubted signs of homicidal mania that he was sent to a lunatic asylum." and "Both these men were capable of the Ripper crimes, but there is one thing that makes the case against each of them weak.
They were both alive long after the horrors had ceased, and though both were in an asylum, there had been a considerable time after the cessation of the Ripper crimes during which they were at liberty and passing about among their fellow men."

Griffiths:

"Concerning two of them the case was weak, although it was based on certain colourable facts"

Sims:

"but there is one thing that makes the case against each of them weak.They were both alive long after the horrors had ceased, and though both were in an asylum, there had been a considerable time after the cessation of the Ripper crimes during which they were at liberty and passing about among their fellow men." ((Btw.: Impossible für David Cohen)

The series of murders came to an end when Kosminski was caged in an asylum (Macnaghten´s "about march 1889"?).

One could think that Swanson and Anderson (maybe Cox and/or Sagar) first thought that this is "the proof" (and that the ID at the Seaside Home took place later, Anderson: "I will only add that when the individual whom we suspected was caged in an asylum...").

It seems to me that this was not a proof for Macnaghten: "They were both alive long after the horrors had ceased, and though both were in an asylum, there had been a considerable time after the cessation of the Ripper crimes during which they were at liberty and passing about among their fellow men" (Sims). Kosminski was in an asylum ("about march 1889", "sent away from London", Macnaghten/ Mary Berkin) and after this he was at liberty and passing about his fellow men and no other murders took place. And that made the case against Kosminski weak. Very possible that Kosminski was in and out of an asylum (outside London) before he was sent to Colney Hatch. The Seaside Home Identification took place when he was an inmate of that asylum outside London.

See also:

Sagar:

"a man, who, without doubt, was the murderer Identification being impossible, he could not be charged. He was, however, placed in a lunatic asylum, and the series of atrocities came to an end."

“There was no doubt that this man was insane, and after a time his friends thought it advisable to have him removed to a private asylum. After he was removed there were no more Ripper atrocities."

Cox:

"…but from time to time he became insane, and was forced to spend a portion of his time in an asylum in Surrey… It is indeed very strange that as soon as this madman was put under observation, the mysterious crimes ceased, and that very soon he removed from his usual haunts and gave up his nightly prowls…"

If Aaron Kozminski is Kosminski, before he was sent to Colney Hatch he temporarily was an inmate of a private asylum in Surrey if Sagar and Cox also spoke about Kosminski.

About suspect's Death:

Scott Nelson:

"The main point to ponder is Swanson's (and Anderson's) statement of the suspect's death. This is not mentioned once, but three times, once by Anderson and twice by Swanson. The most quoted instance is the Pall Mall Gazette description of 7 May 1895 by Swanson that he believed the crimes to be the work of a man who was by then dead. If all we had was this single report that one senior police official believed the Ripper was dead, it would be easy to dismiss it, especially since it was "belief", not recorded fact. But Swanson goes on to reiterate this "belief" years later in his marginal notes to Anderson's book where he states rather matter-of-factly "...he was sent to Stepney Workhouse and then to Colney Hatch and died shortly afterwards." And finally, we have Anderson himself, who was reported by his son, Arthur Anderson, to have stated as a fact the man was an alien from Eastern Europe, and believed that he had died in an asylum. And Aaron Kosminski was still alive after Anderson's death in 1918. But did Anderson merely recall information passed on to him by his subordinate, Swanson? For the most part, probably yes. But I think that in the case of something as important as the death of the JtR suspect, he (Anderson) would have been personally involved in the assessment of the circumstances surrounding this event, assuming it actually happened in his lifetime, and not merely relying on hearsay. There is even the report that Detective Inspector Edmund Reid believed that the killer had died prior to 1896: "The mania was of a nature which must long ago have resulted in the death of the maniac - an opinion that is borne out by the best medical experts who have studied the case". Perhaps the final word concerning the suspect's death could be cited from James Monro, Assistant Commissioner of the CID during the Ripper Murders, "the Ripper was never caught, but he should have been". I believe this means that Monro believed the Ripper was dead or at least was out of the public spot-light and was never brought to justice. This fits what Anderson and Swanson both said about Kosminski. Having worked in the secret divisions of the CID and having been a liaison to the Home Office, Monro, even though he resigned as Commissioner in 1890, would have had much information about the investigation of which many MET policemen were never made aware."

"The mania was of a nature which must long ago have resulted in the death of the maniac - an opinion that is borne out by the best medical experts who have studied the case".

Did the police believe that Kosminski death was quite close when he was brought to Colney Hatch? What would have been the reasons for this assumption?

In February 1891, did the police officers see a dying Kosminski and medical experts told them Kosminski only has a few months left to live? But he was lucky and survived?

Another thing:

Is David Cohen really identical with Aaron Davis Cohen? Is there a chance that Aaron Davis Cohen was in fact Aaron Kozminski? They changed the name of Aaron Davis Cohen to David Cohen perhaps they first got the wrong man.

Aaron Kozminski December 1889:

“I goes by the name of Abrahams sometimes because Kosminski is hard to spell."

His brothers Isaac and Woolf were Abrahams.

What if, Autumn 1888:

“I goes by the name of Davis Cohen sometimes because Lubnowski- Cohen is hard to spell."

His sister Matilda was a Lubnowski, Lubnowski- Cohen, Cohen and he had a cousin with the name of Jacob Cohen (see Colney Hatch admission).

If Kosminski is hard to spell, then, would also be hard to spell Lubnowski.

Macnaghten 1894:

He was (and I believe still is) detained in a lunatic asylum about March 1889

Perhaps inspired by Macnaghten, Swanson could have written to Colney Hatch asking for an young Jewish man, a Davis Cohen, who was seriously ill. But there was only a David Cohen who died in Colney Hatch (Btw.: Aaron Kozminski was transferred to Leavesden in April 1894). And again, the wrong man?

Pure speculation as always.

Karsten.

[Abby Normal]

IMHO opinion it probably went down like this:

Kosminski was brought to the attention of police by a family member or maybe a doctor around the time that he was put in an asylum. probably precipitated by him threatening his sister with a knife.

a crazy jew threatening a women with a knife was probably enough for the police to want to check it out.

that man was Aaron Kosminski.

since he was already in an asylum it was "with difficulty" for the police to set up the ID with Lawende, who the police took seriously and who also attended the eddowes inquest, more than likely the witness.


Lawende thought it might be the man he saw, but "couldn't swear to it."

with Andersons preconceived notions about the killer being a jew, his boastful nature, and years to mis remember the events and boost his ego and the public that he had caught the ripper, he came to believe that kosminski was the man.

swanson came to believe it too, but probably not as strongly as Anderson.
"and suspect knew he was identified"... "Kosminski was the suspect."

MM also heard about this suspect and included him in the memorandum.


boom. done. No convoluted theories, mixed up suspects or other nonsense.
just the (somewhat) simple truth.

[Rainbow]

At least Kosminski smells like a suspect

Not like that one who was playing card on a box that contains his wife... the players there couldn't smell anything at all ...



Rainbow°