Plausibility of Kosminski

[Roy Corduroy]

Hi Jonathan,

This is very interesting. Your expanding on SYI per the purported "ID" and other things, too. Thank you.

Referring to Kosminski's family you said

that his family were certain this really was 'Jack the Ripper'.

A certainty? There is the Crawford letter, if it is interpeted that way. I didn't know of anything else.

Roy

[Jonathan H]

You're quite right to reign me in on that one. I wrote it as if it is an established fact and it is certainly not.

It is an inference I draw from Macnaghten, a very mercurial source to say the least.

In the 'Aberconway Version', which I think he composed in 1898 to show Major Griffiths, he writes:

'... or, as a less likely alternative, was found to be hopelessly insane by his relatives, that they, suspecting the worst, had him confined in a lunatic asylum ...'

In the official version written in 1894 it is pretty much the same line except that 'likely' has been beefed up to 'alternative' because, by 1898, he is selling the Major on the 'Drowned Doctor', and 'a lunatic asylum' was originally downplayed as 'some asylum'.

The medical records on Kosminski, found in the ground-breaking work by Dr Martin Fido, do not suggest that the doctors were ever aware that they were treating a major Ripper suspect.

Also, George Sims writes in his "Lloyds Weekly" Ripper article of 1907 that Kosminski lived alone, which contradicts what Anderson wrote in his memoirs and I side with the police chief on that one.

Though Sims does have it absolutely correct, I think, that the [un-named] Kosminski only came to police attention when the murders had stopped. That's true if you think the last Ripper murder was Coles, before they discovered Kosminski's existence [or Druitt for that matter].

The overarching point is that Sims is saying that Kosminski was not a contemporaneous suspect and I think this is spot on.

Sims also writes in 1907 that the beat cop, who never existed, got a look at this Polish Jew 'some time later' and thought the resmemblance was strong. My theory is that Swanson read this and knew it was wrong. That there was no beat cop witness of Kosminski?! It was Joseph Lawende who saw a youngish man with Catherine Eddowes.

But, at that moment, Swanson's memory failed him, I think, and he superimposed Lawende denying Sadler onto Kosminski, creating a Lawende seeing the Polish Jew suspect, 'some time later' at the Seaside Home, and refusing to testify against the Fiend. Since by then Swanson was convinced -- perhaps correctly -- that this WAS the Fiend then Lawende must have been unhelpful? Why?

Because it was a fellow Hebrew? Yes, that must be it.

Therefore, where does the claim that Aaron Kosminski was 'Jack' originate?

It does not seem to have come from the police investigation of 1888 to 1891.

It does not seem to have come from Kosminski's doctors.

That leaves the Kosminski family.

Why on Earth would they tell the police, especially after they had committed their family member? They probably didn't.

It leaked, sometime after the police had made fools of themselves saying that Sadler was a good fit for the Ripper, and they could not even nail him for the Coles murder.

My theory is that when Anderson rages against the Jews he shows not only sectarian prejudice [which to be fair he denied in print] but is also half-remembering not that Polish Jews protected a fellow Pole, but that Kosminski's FAMILY had the gravest suspicions, and did not come forward.

There is a suggestive clue in that Macnaghten does not seem to know Kosminski's first name, and nor does Swanson -- and Anderson is no help here.

To me that may mean that Aaron Kosminski was never officially investigated at all. There was no reason to as, being in an asylum, there was no arrest that could be made.

Nevertheless, verbal information arrived [from an alert beat cop?] which was so hot, and perhaps true, that these senior police slotted it away in their heads but not on paper, not in a file. This was because there was an embarassment factor -- that Polish Jewish family, who knew that their member was the killer, had out-played them.

When Macnaghten wrote the official, 1894 version of his Report in preparation for a Home Office question about the Cutbush potential-scandal he could not remember Kosminski's first name -- and neither could Swanson. There was no file to check. It had to be left off.

Macnaghten played down Kosminski in that version [eg. no police witness] writing that there was 'no shadow of proof ...' when the real reason they had not arrested this 'suspect' is that it was too late.

A generation later, Swanson's desperate scribblings are an attempt to clean up, and make much stronger and more plausible, a story he half-invented [though not deceitfully] which his boss has somewhat botched in his memoirs. But Anderson's 'mistake' is the truth I think. Kosminski was already in an asylum and out-of-reach.

Lastly, the Crawford Letter is more likely to be referring to Kosminski than Druitt but there is just not enough we have on it, or about it, not even a date, to be sure of much of anything.

[lynn cates]

Kosminsli family and Crawford

Hello Jonathan. I wonder if Aaron's family would have had access to Crawford?

Cheers.
LC

[Roy Corduroy]

Good question Lynn. Crawford served on a sweating system committee for the government, so I suppose that is the possible link. As Jonathan says, there's not much there one way or the other.

I see Jonathan, the "suspecting the worst" as per family suspicion. But as you say, that could be just padding. Maybe they didn't give anything away to the police at all. Thanks again.

Your idea about how McNaghten might have come to fudge the dates and so forth to make the Kosminski details more "contemporary" - if so, he made young Mr. K sound like he was ... David Cohen. But that's another fork in the road.

Roy

[Roy Corduroy]

Therefore, where does the claim that Aaron Kosminski was 'Jack' originate? It does not seem to have come from the police investigation of 1888 to 1891. It does not seem to have come from Kosminski's doctors. That leaves the Kosminski family.

Interesting.

When Macnaghten wrote the official, 1894 version of his Report in preparation for a Home Office question about the Cutbush potential-scandal he could not remember Kosminski's first name -- and neither could Swanson. There was no file to check. It had to be left off.

I like that part.

Roy

[Roy Corduroy]

A leak. You've used that term several times, Jonathan. A rumor. A suspicion. A worrisome feeling by his own family or those around him. That could be how he came to police attention, and well after the fact. At the time when he became mentally unstable.

A local man, with a bolt hole(s), supported by family. A burden, possibly, without much of a work history. Well, you know what they say - An idle mind is the devil's workshop.

Again, enjoy your ideas a lot. Thanks for sharing.

Roy

[Jonathan H]

Thanks Roy for your encouraging words.

In answer to Lynn, hello.

Look, from growing up religiously watching "Upstairs, Downstairs", "The Duchess of Duke St.", "Fall of Eagles" and "Edward VII", which I believe were broadcast on something called 'Masterpiece Theatre' on PBS in the States, the one thing you see again and again about the British ruling class system was that the nobs really ruled.

As in, it being upper class was a job and an obligation to manage problems and issues which welled up from the blighted masses below.

Crawford had been involved in official good works in the East End. I think it entirely plausible that a frightened member of a poor, Polish family contacted him via some middle-class worthy, to plead for help over the 'Jack the Ripper' horrors, and that he, in his turn, would pass this plea along to another member of the elite: Dr Anderson.

But we just do not have enough to even have a probability that this is the case regarding the Crawford Letter.

Somehow senior police learned of Kosminski's existence and the Head of CID and the operational head of the case were gobsmacked by what they learned, and went to their respective graves believing that this was 'Jack'.

In my opinion that makes Kosminski an extraordinary Super-suspect and, unlike the one I favour -- Montie Druitt -- he can be placed in the location of the crimes [even the bizarre Tumblety bizarrely admitted to frequenting the East End].

The usual reasons given for saying that Kosminski is an unlikely suspect means -- in my opinion -- that you are actually looking through the telescope from the wrong end.

David Cohen is more likely to be the Ripper in terms of his capacity for violence and in terms of being taken, and dying soon after the Kelly murder.

True, but assuming no suspect confusion here, Anderson and Swanson [and Macnaghten] knew this and yet whatever they knew about Kosminski totally trumped Cohen as a suspect.

Kosminski is an odd serial killer in that, assuming the police had no knowledge of him between 1888 and 1891, why did he stop after Kelly?

True, but those senior police would have also had to face that question -- and still two of them absolutely believed it was Kosminski.

I think they only learned of his existence after Feb 1891. The Ripper had stopped in late 1888 and ... what? Got better? His halting his murderous reign certainly had nothing to do with the police.

Would it not be better to point the finger at a Cohen, or Cohen himself -- very safely dead! And thus not point the finger, even naming themselves, at the Mad Pole in a minimum security Nuthouse wherein he might start becoming lucid -- and telling the doctors what chumps he had made of the Bobbies? Some poorly paid hospital attendant could then sell that scoop to the tabloids ...

But again, despite all of that awkwardness, all of the potential for it to later come out that the police in the field, like Abberline, had never heard of this suspect -- and why would they have? -- Swanson and Anderson went with Kosminski?

When the Cubush scandal threatened to emerge in 1894 Macnaghten named Kosminski -- though he craftily backdated his incarceration. [In the version seen by Griffiths, in 1898, Macnaghten cheerfully admits that Kosmimski is probably still alive -- which to me blows the Cohen-confusion theory to pieces]

This suggests strongly, to me, that what they learned [what Macnaghten silkily calls 'other circumstances'] was so incriminating that they had no choice but to believe -- rightly or wrongly -- that this was indeed the Fiend.

A man who was never on their radar, and could never be arrested.

These two, painfully embarrassing aspects were then buried in the years ahead under 'no shadow of proof' [Mac], and the Polish Jewish community protected one of their own, and a Super-witness lets us down for sectarian reasons, and the Super-suspect was soon after dead anyhow [Anderson and Swanson].

No wonder the aging Swanson may have overlayed Sadler AND Cohen onto Kosminski.

But again, what makes Kosminski seem unlikely is exactly what makes the historical argument for his guilt stronger because Swanson and Anderson could have dismissed him for the same reasons -- but did not.

All they had to do with such a supposedly weak suspect is never mention him, never acknowledge him. Instead Anderson and Swanson
HAD to mention him, and HAD to acknowledge him, and HAD to risk future ridicule due to him -- because for them he WAS 'Jack the Ripper'.

My guess, Roy, and that's all it is, is that the Kosminski family did not have just a suspicion. They had a belief. This was passed onto Swanson who passed it onto Anderson who agreed with it.

As in, Aaron came through the door on the night of a murder, brandishing a knife with blood all over him, and claimed that he was the Angel of Death, purging the world of female filth, and so on. His brother, or the entire frantic, fearful family, from then on watched him like hawks, and it stopped his murderous rage -- for two years.

Then he threatened his sister with a knife and that was it for this sleepless, exhausted family who were aghast that the volcano was yet again about to erupt, and this time not against a stranger -- against a mere, Gentile whore -- but perhaps in frustration at the cage his own family had become.

Or, Aaron just had a complete breakdown; eating from gutters and masturbating in public -- and they committed him.

Days later there was another 'Ripper' murder of Frances Coles on Feb 13th 1891.

Is that just a coincidence?

In the sense that Kosminski exits the scene forever, followed days later by a wild goose chase for another man entirely as the Ripper, and then not quite three years later Kosminski's name appears for the first time in an official police document written by the Deputy Head of CID?

Did the Sadler arrest trigger a pious, conscience-stricken member of the Kosminski family to contact the police to say that there was no need to keep hunting the Fiend? He won't bother anybody again, so please don't hang some innocent man. Don't put that on our conscience too!

As Paul Begg so aptly writes there is so little we know, and probably can ever know.

On the other hand, Anderson, briefed by Swanson, both thought they knew and they were there.

To which of course Littlechild -- who was also there -- wrote to Sims in 1913 that Anderson 'only thought he knew'.

[Scott Nelson]

Yeah, you're probably right Jonathan.

[Jonathan H]

Thank-you Scott, that's very generous.

[msblack]

Kosminski no JtR

Thanks Roy for your encouraging words.

In answer to Lynn, hello.

Look, from growing up religiously watching "Upstairs, Downstairs", "The Duchess of Duke St.", "Fall of Eagles" and "Edward VII", which I believe were broadcast on something called 'Masterpiece Theatre' on PBS in the States, the one thing you see again and again about the British ruling class system was that the nobs really ruled.

As in, it being upper class was a job and an obligation to manage problems and issues which welled up from the blighted masses below.

Crawford had been involved in official good works in the East End. I think it entirely plausible that a frightened member of a poor, Polish family contacted him via some middle-class worthy, to plead for help over the 'Jack the Ripper' horrors, and that he, in his turn, would pass this plea along to another member of the elite: Dr Anderson.

But we just do not have enough to even have a probability that this is the case regarding the Crawford Letter.

Somehow senior police learned of Kosminski's existence and the Head of CID and the operational head of the case were gobsmacked by what they learned, and went to their respective graves believing that this was 'Jack'.

In my opinion that makes Kosminski an extraordinary Super-suspect and, unlike the one I favour -- Montie Druitt -- he can be placed in the location of the crimes [even the bizarre Tumblety bizarrely admitted to frequenting the East End].

The usual reasons given for saying that Kosminski is an unlikely suspect means -- in my opinion -- that you are actually looking through the telescope from the wrong end.

David Cohen is more likely to be the Ripper in terms of his capacity for violence and in terms of being taken, and dying soon after the Kelly murder.

True, but assuming no suspect confusion here, Anderson and Swanson [and Macnaghten] knew this and yet whatever they knew about Kosminski totally trumped Cohen as a suspect.

Kosminski is an odd serial killer in that, assuming the police had no knowledge of him between 1888 and 1891, why did he stop after Kelly?

True, but those senior police would have also had to face that question -- and still two of them absolutely believed it was Kosminski.

I think they only learned of his existence after Feb 1891. The Ripper had stopped in late 1888 and ... what? Got better? His halting his murderous reign certainly had nothing to do with the police.

Would it not be better to point the finger at a Cohen, or Cohen himself -- very safely dead! And thus not point the finger, even naming themselves, at the Mad Pole in a minimum security Nuthouse wherein he might start becoming lucid -- and telling the doctors what chumps he had made of the Bobbies? Some poorly paid hospital attendant could then sell that scoop to the tabloids ...

But again, despite all of that awkwardness, all of the potential for it to later come out that the police in the field, like Abberline, had never heard of this suspect -- and why would they have? -- Swanson and Anderson went with Kosminski?

When the Cubush scandal threatened to emerge in 1894 Macnaghten named Kosminski -- though he craftily backdated his incarceration. [In the version seen by Griffiths, in 1898, Macnaghten cheerfully admits that Kosmimski is probably still alive -- which to me blows the Cohen-confusion theory to pieces]

This suggests strongly, to me, that what they learned [what Macnaghten silkily calls 'other circumstances'] was so incriminating that they had no choice but to believe -- rightly or wrongly -- that this was indeed the Fiend.

A man who was never on their radar, and could never be arrested.

These two, painfully embarrassing aspects were then buried in the years ahead under 'no shadow of proof' [Mac], and the Polish Jewish community protected one of their own, and a Super-witness lets us down for sectarian reasons, and the Super-suspect was soon after dead anyhow [Anderson and Swanson].

No wonder the aging Swanson may have overlayed Sadler AND Cohen onto Kosminski.

But again, what makes Kosminski seem unlikely is exactly what makes the historical argument for his guilt stronger because Swanson and Anderson could have dismissed him for the same reasons -- but did not.

All they had to do with such a supposedly weak suspect is never mention him, never acknowledge him. Instead Anderson and Swanson
HAD to mention him, and HAD to acknowledge him, and HAD to risk future ridicule due to him -- because for them he WAS 'Jack the Ripper'.

My guess, Roy, and that's all it is, is that the Kosminski family did not have just a suspicion. They had a belief. This was passed onto Swanson who passed it onto Anderson who agreed with it.

As in, Aaron came through the door on the night of a murder, brandishing a knife with blood all over him, and claimed that he was the Angel of Death, purging the world of female filth, and so on. His brother, or the entire frantic, fearful family, from then on watched him like hawks, and it stopped his murderous rage -- for two years.

Then he threatened his sister with a knife and that was it for this sleepless, exhausted family who were aghast that the volcano was yet again about to erupt, and this time not against a stranger -- against a mere, Gentile whore -- but perhaps in frustration at the cage his own family had become.

Or, Aaron just had a complete breakdown; eating from gutters and masturbating in public -- and they committed him.

Days later there was another 'Ripper' murder of Frances Coles on Feb 13th 1891.

Is that just a coincidence?

In the sense that Kosminski exits the scene forever, followed days later by a wild goose chase for another man entirely as the Ripper, and then not quite three years later Kosminski's name appears for the first time in an official police document written by the Deputy Head of CID?

Did the Sadler arrest trigger a pious, conscience-stricken member of the Kosminski family to contact the police to say that there was no need to keep hunting the Fiend? He won't bother anybody again, so please don't hang some innocent man. Don't put that on our conscience too!

As Paul Begg so aptly writes there is so little we know, and probably can ever know.

On the other hand, Anderson, briefed by Swanson, both thought they knew and they were there.

To which of course Littlechild -- who was also there -- wrote to Sims in 1913 that Anderson 'only thought he knew'.

You seem to know alot more about Kosminski than I have read thus far. Tell me could he read and write in English?

[Jonathan H]

I have no idea whether he could read and write in English.

My guess is no.

Are you alluding to the Goulston St. Graffiti?

Macnaghten thought this was the only clue left behind by the killer. But then he believed it was Montie Druitt, an English, Gentile, Gentleman like himself.

The graffiti could just as easily have already been there and have no connection to the case.

Just to be clear, I don't claim to 'know' anything at all.

I favour the theory that Macnaghten knew everything, but I can also appreciate and argue that he knew almost nothing either -- or at least nothing accurate.

I am just trying to come up with theories which link together critical but contradictory and incomplete sources.

When I make suppositions I am trying to be clear that I am doing just that.

To create an historical through-line without loose ends [or not many].

After all, we are not talking about trying to figure out who these police were talking about? We are not trying to match a profile to various candidates.

Since 1910 [Anderson's Memoirs] and 1965 [Macnaghten Report -- Anberconway Version] and 1975 [Macnaghten Report -- Official Version] and Martin Fido in 1987 [Kosminski's medical records] and the same year the Swanson Marginalia -- we know. [I realize that Dr Fido came to a different conclusion]

We know that from Anderson and Swanson [and to a much lesser extent Macnaghten] the Polish Jew suspect was Aaron Kosminski.

He is thus a major suspect to be Jack the Ripper, by virtue of being 'the one' for these two senior policemen.

In a sense with 'Jack the Ripper' we have the beginning of the story, the Whitechapel Murders 1888 to 1891.

Then we have ... the end of the story. For certain senior policeman 'Jack' was this Polish Jew, who was institutionalized.

What we are missing is the middle of the story, of which we have only glimpses. It is the glimpses I am trying to give form to. To turn them into links. But they remain just mine and others' speculations.

To repeat, the Head of Scotland Yard and the operational head of the Ripper police were convinced that it was a Polish Jew suspect, and Swanson named him as 'Kosminski' which matches the second suspect in Macnaghten's Report both the 1894 and 1898 versions [in the latter Kosminski is allegedly young in 1888, which is another match].

These sources are very strong because of who they are and their connection to the mystery. Their weakness is that, despite being primary sources, they are late [Edwardian Era], the two senior policemen are writing in non-official documents, and have an inevitable bias towards making themselves look as good as possible for public consumption [though the Marginalia is a private annotation].

The timing of Kosminski's incarceration matches the 1891 police Ripper hunt for Sadler -- which surely they would not have done if they already believed the Fiend to be incarcerated.

Thus the medical records, in terms of timing, match the primary sources about the investigation into the Coles murder, and then the emergence of the 1894 Macnaghten Report -- official archived version. In that Report, Macnaghten implies that the suspicion regarding this suspect originated not the cops but from within the insane man's family.

For Anderson and Swanson, I think, the mystery was not WHO the Ripper was, but rather the bureaucratic fog which had to be deployed to smother the embarrassing revelation that Kosminski was not a contemporaneous suspect [hence Abberline in 1903 not only dismissing the 'locked-up lunatic' suspect, but also being completely unaware that his tabloid adversary, George Sims, is repeating what he has learned from Major Griffiths -- who learned it from Anderson and Macnaghten!]

[Abberline2]

One thing that puzzles me about Kosminski is that many who dismiss him as a candidate for JtR do so on the grounds that he was a peaceful imbecile, no signs of being violent apart from threatening his sister's life with a knife and attempting to hit an asylum attendant with a chair. So, why am I puzzled ?

The biannual reports from Colney Hatch state that:

18 Feb 1891 - difficult to deal with

9 Jan 1892 - At times (note the plural) excited and violent. It is this entry that speaks of the chair incident but it clearly states that there were a number of occasions when Kosminski was violent.

It has to be said that the reports are extremely brief, just a few sentences.

The Leavesden Asulym biannual reports are equally brief but often refer to Kosminski as being "excitable", "obstinate", "troublesome" ......

The lack of specific detail in these six monthly reports makes it impossible to know exactly what was meant by such terms. How are such words are to be interpreted ? Those who have used the reports to suggest Kosminski's passivity have little more by way of detail from the reports to support their view as there is to contradict it. Nevertheless, it does't seem that Kosminski was not always quite as passive during his asylum confinements as is often assumed.

Another interesting aspect of this is that serial killers often commit murders that are of increasing violence (which would put Martha Tabrum's killing in a different conext if we accept her as a Ripper victim) culminating in what they fantasise as the ultimate killing. Thereafter, they cease to commit more murders and often become dull, morose, idolent, untidy .... all which apply to Kosminski at least by 1894 if not earlier.

I raise these points only in the interest of debate and would welcome your commenst/observations.

[robhouse]

Abberline2,

I agree with your points here. I do not see that Kozminski's asylum records give an impression that he was harmless. The phrase "harmless imbecile" is frequently used in dismissing Kozminski as a suspect, but I do not think it is in any way accurate.

As I have posted before, Kozminski was clearly not an "imbecile" as has been oft repeated. This has been repeated so many times that it seems to have "become true" in the minds of readers. Almost everyone who has written on Kozminski has described him as an imbecile. But it is simply false, as can be proven quite easily.

RH

[Observer]

Hi Rob

The total extent of my knowledge of Kosminski results from reading Martin fido's book on the subject. A question, has anything came to light of late regarding Kosminski's state of mind during the Autumn of 1888?

Observer

[Jeff Leahy]

THere is no knew information.

However the way modern thinkers approach the subject has advanced beyond recognition. Understanding of schizophrenia is nothing like advice given to experts in the 1980's.

Pirate