Plausibility of Kosminski

[JtRMordke]

(First post! )

I am also extremely eager to see what Rob House has put together for this new book about Aaron Kozminski - I think out of all the suspects and little evidence they have, and what he has so painstakingly managed to pull out of Kozminski's life and habits, he certainly seems the most likely for being the Ripper. I am particularly interested in any recovered evidence and documents confirming events that were retold in the memoirs, as this would be an extremely exciting find to support this.

[Jonathan H]

Is 'Kosminski' as much of a non-starter as Ostrog?

Macnaghten gives the impression in 'Aberconway' that 'Kosminski' was possibly sectioned because his own 'family, suspecting the worst ...', is demonstrably false.

That Aaron Kosminski was incarcerated, rather, because of a mental breakdown which involved not threatening a prostitute with a knife, but a family member.

Thus Mac exploited and remade this poor man into his own 'Kosminski'.

He backdated his incaceration, which happened after Mac had been a police administrator for nearly two years, to put it closer to the 1888 Kelly murder -- though not too close --and he implied a familial suspicion.

I think that the assumption that: Macnaghten had Druiit, but Anderson preferred Kosminski; two unlikely Ripper suspects which were in some kind of rough equipoise, is perhaps mistaken.

There is no evidence that Anderson ever knew about Druitt, and therefore did not choose one suspect over another, as he remained ignorant about the drowned barrister.

Plus, this puritanical police chief had never heard of the chronic masturbator until years after 1888, or even 1891. In his 1892 interview, for example, he seems quite oblivious to an identified fiend.

There is no evidence that anybody saw the official version of Mac's 1894 report (certainly not Douglas Browne). Instead in 1895 Swanson, after a successful witness identification of a Ripper suspect (Grant via Lawende) went nowhere, is saying that the fiend was deceased. In the same year Anderson tells Griffiths that he has a plausible theory about a caged lunatic who was incarcerated very soon after the Kelly atrocity.

Of course, Aaron Kosminski was not deceased then, or when the marginalia was scribbled in 1910 -- or even up until 1919. Nor was he incarcerated soon after Kelly, after being on the prowl for mere weeks.

In 'Aberconway' Mac further redacted 'Kosminski' into 1888 by making him possibly seen by a beat cop, a reversal of the real ethnic identities of witness and suspect with Eddowes.

Do you see what I mean?

It's fiction, all of it, like the rubbish about Ostrog being a Ripper suspect, and carrying surgical knives, and hating women, and so on.

'Kosminski' is almost entirely a fictional construct, from a real person who had nothing whatsover to do with the Ripper investigation. The real lunatic rendered unrecoverable to the press or even to his own family, if they read about the Polish Jew suspect in Griffihs, Sims and/or Anderson.

A construct which Anderson seems to have fallen for, perhaps because he had a pre-conceived notion about the Ripper being a Polish Jew, hidden by his recalcitrant community.

So, in 1895 Macnaghten gave him one?

[John Malcolm]

First impression is that this last post has to be one of the most demented I've ever encountered here within these particular "factual" debates. But it has just occurred to me that this absurdity is simply an exercise in the art of comedy, and I've fallen completely for the joke...I feel stupid for even attempting to rationalize it.

[Jonathan H]

That's not a counter-argument, at all, but the speed and the degree to which insult and sarcasm are deployed is always instructive.

[lynn cates]

accurate summary

Hello Jonathan.

"It's fiction, all of it, like the rubbish about Ostrog being a Ripper suspect, and carrying surgical knives, and hating women, and so on."

Now that's what I call CONCISE.

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

"It's fiction, all of it, like the rubbish about Ostrog being a Ripper suspect, and carrying surgical knives, and hating women, and so on."
Now that's what I call CONCISE.

Don't wish to highjack this thread, but Lynn, come on, you at least should know that Ostrog in the MM is a mixup with Le Grand.

[lynn cates]

evidence

Hello Maria.

"Ostrog in the MM is a mixup with Le Grand."

Any precise evidence for this?

Cheers.
LC

[Phil H]

Hello Maria.

"Ostrog in the MM is a mixup with Le Grand."

Any precise evidence for this?

Cheers.
LC

Can I second that request for evidence please?

I half-expect to be told before long that Le Grand was Mary Ann Connelly, alias "Pearly Poll"!!

Phil

[Phil H]

I've followed all the trends over the years: The Mad Doctor (Matters et al); the toff in cape and top hat (various); the Jewish sochet (Odell); the mad doctor reivivus as Druitt (Cullen, Farson) the post-Watergate conspiracy theories (Knight and others); and the emergence of Kosminski c 1988.

I have favoured various of those, but if "Jack" ever existed, and at least for Nichols, Chapman, Eddowes, I tend to believe that - if not Kosminski himself - the murderer was someone like him. By that I don't necessarily mean Jewish (though I don't rule that out) but someone poor, obscure and probably certifiable even before he began his bloody work.

Unless (and I have not ruled this out) the "top cops" of the day were deliberately laying false trails, it is clear that there were mistakes made in relation to Kosminski (either of identity, or detail). I was - back in 1987 when his book first came out - successively confused and then fascinated by Martin Fido's proposal of a mix-up of identities/names and that particulars of one man had been attached to another.

The work of others, over the years, has tended to make a mix-up a difficult position to hold. But Swanson, writing in a context that was likely to have a limited circulation, appears specifically to endorse his old boss's view. This cannot just be rationalised away. So I am left with little alternative but to accept that Kosminski was a genuine suspect around the time of the crimes.

The only other possibility I can think of, and its is purely speculative, is that we lack a whole set of information which was available to Anderson and Swanson, and which if we had it would reconcile their statements with what we know. But we cannot advance on such a basis.

So, I regard a man known as "Kosminski" as plausible because he was named at the time and in terms of his class, location, mental state etc. fits the bill of JtR better than any other I have found. But how we relate "Kosminski" (without forename) to the individual Aaron Kosminski is a subject that continues to perplex me. The recent book (which I like enormously) does not help on this.

Just my sixpen'rth,

Phil

[mariab]

Ostrog vs. Le Grand

Like with most of the JTR case, only circumstantial evidence: Ostrog's MO as described in the MM fits Le Grand to a t (experienced with knifes, having violently mistreated women) while it completely contrasts with Ostrog's real MO, plus both of them used the con name Grand/Grant and were criminally active in France. Late next week I hope to be researching tribunal/criminal records in Paris for Ostrog and (just in case) Le Grand. For the latter I might already have located a French police report about him being under surveillance by both the London and the Paris police, but it's still unclear if it's him. Working on it.
With apologies for the brief highjacking of this thread.

[Abby Normal]

Macnaghten gives the impression in 'Aberconway' that 'Kosminski' was possibly sectioned because his own 'family, suspecting the worst ...', is demonstrably false.

That Aaron Kosminski was incarcerated, rather, because of a mental breakdown which involved not threatening a prostitute with a knife, but a family member.

Thus Mac exploited and remade this poor man into his own 'Kosminski'.

He backdated his incaceration, which happened after Mac had been a police administrator for nearly two years, to put it closer to the 1888 Kelly murder -- though not too close --and he implied a familial suspicion.

I think that the assumption that: Macnaghten had Druiit, but Anderson preferred Kosminski; two unlikely Ripper suspects which were in some kind of rough equipoise, is perhaps mistaken.

There is no evidence that Anderson ever knew about Druitt, and therefore did not choose one suspect over another, as he remained ignorant about the drowned barrister.

Plus, this puritanical police chief had never heard of the chronic masturbator until years after 1888, or even 1891. In his 1892 interview, for example, he seems quite oblivious to an identified fiend.

There is no evidence that anybody saw the official version of Mac's 1894 report (certainly not Douglas Browne). Instead in 1895 Swanson, after a successful witness identification of a Ripper suspect (Grant via Lawende) went nowhere, is saying that the fiend was deceased. In the same year Anderson tells Griffiths that he has a plausible theory about a caged lunatic who was incarcerated very soon after the Kelly atrocity.

Of course, Aaron Kosminski was not deceased then, or when the marginalia was scribbled in 1910 -- or even up until 1919. Nor was he incarcerated soon after Kelly, after being on the prowl for mere weeks.

In 'Aberconway' Mac further redacted 'Kosminski' into 1888 by making him possibly seen by a beat cop, a reversal of the real ethnic identities of witness and suspect with Eddowes.

Do you see what I mean?

It's fiction, all of it, like the rubbish about Ostrog being a Ripper suspect, and carrying surgical knives, and hating women, and so on.

'Kosminski' is almost entirely a fictional construct, from a real person who had nothing whatsover to do with the Ripper investigation. The real lunatic rendered unrecoverable to the press or even to his own family, if they read about the Polish Jew suspect in Griffihs, Sims and/or Anderson.

A construct which Anderson seems to have fallen for, perhaps because he had a pre-conceived notion about the Ripper being a Polish Jew, hidden by his recalcitrant community.

So, in 1895 Macnaghten gave him one?

Hi JH
No I don't think AK is a "non-starter" like Ostrog or any kind of made up suspect. I think AK suspecthood is all pretty simple in the big view.

Mac and Anderson both probably learned of AK through Swanson who was in charge of the case. Swanson probably learned of AK either through the family or the workhouse Dr/staff or perhaps both. The incident of the knife was a crime so maybe the family notified the police about it and perhaps that was the last straw that led the family to beleive they need to get rid of the burden of AK either through the police (prison) or through the asylum.

Once Swanson learns of AK, they probably went back through there house to house seach lists and find him. Now they beleive he is a viable enough suspect to set up an ID. And after the ID and its difficulty and results AK is now permanently(but obviously not perfectly) in their minds as a serious suspect.

I beleive at the time AK was a legitamite suspect in their minds-but just one of several, but over the years grew in the mind of Anderson to the point of an "ascertained fact". All the other stuff is mistakes from faulty memory and wishful thinking and having to have something, anything to provide as an answer.

Could he have been JtR? maybe
Was he JtR? probably not
Is he still one of the best suspects we have? yup.

[Jonathan H]

To Abby Normal

Could Aaron Kosminski have been the Ripper? Of course. I have tried to argue that very theory in a published article.

I just wish we had more of everything, esepcially about 1895.

My reading of the available sources is that until that neither Anderson nor Swanson had any knowledge, let alone certainty about a Polish Jew suspect.

Pizer, and his dodgy witness, had troubled them in 1888, and in 1891 and 1895 they had wheeled out their best Whitechapel witness, Lawende, to 'confront' sailor suspects, one of whom had been with a Ripper victim before she was murdered, and the latter had been caught trying to kill a prostitute.

Therefore the only consensus to that moment was that 'Jack' was a Gentile sailor, or at least dressed like one. Sure enough Lawende apparently affirmed to the second one.

And it went ... nowhere.

That acute frustration, I think, is one of the contributing stands in the memory DNA which led to the entire disappointing mess becoming the much more satisfying tale as sprung by Anderson in 1910 -- and not before that date with a positive witness identification.

I disagree with you about the evolution of the Polish Jew suspect.

I think that in 1895, and not before, Anderson learned of the existence of 'Kosminski' and considered the case closed, there and then. He, and Swanson, were also misled to believe that this man was deceased.

Almost immediately Anderson and/or Swanson began telescoping the events of 1888 (including Pizer), and 1891, and 1895, into a single, coherent tale which takes place in 1888, or just after. This happened partly because of the coincidence of Kelly and Coles both being young and attractive victims.

I do agree with you that Aaron Kosminski came to police attention, or rather Macnaghten's attention when he, somehow, learned that the wretch had been sectioned in Feb 1891. In his memoirs Mac claims he was sifting through Ripper letters on his first day. It is hard not to believe he was not also looking through the house-to-house list, or some such document with local names on it.

In 1894, he redacted this non-suspect into 1888/9, though the Report was seen by nobody, then he informed Anderson of this 'suspect' in the aftermath of the Grant disappointment, then he further redacted 'Kosminski' into an eye-witness account in the version he showed Griffiths and Sims.

Is there any evidence of Macnaghten so blithely turning facts into fiction regarding the Ripper? On another thread I put ten examples which went unchallenged.

Here I would simply point out that he misled Griffiths and Sims into believing that the police were efficiently and exhaustively hunting down an English physician who took his own life. In his memoirs he admitted that this was not true.

Tom Divall in his 1929 memoirs claimed that Mac told him that the Ripper had fled to the States and died in a lunatic asylum. Again, not according to 'Days of My Years'.

Thus if Divall is correct then Macnaghten misled him with this Tumbelty-Druitt-Kosminski mutation. He misled a colleague he liked, and who liked him back. Imagine, therefore, what he would be capable of telling to a colleague he totally despised?

[Tom_Wescott]

you at least should know that Ostrog in the MM is a mixup with Le Grand.

Oh goodness.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[mariab]

Oh goodness.

Sorry. But Tom, please believe me that I came to this conclusion independently from you, without knowing that you had thought of this too.
Still, strictly historically, it's your idea.
Now kill me for mentioning it.

[Tom_Wescott]

No worries. I certainly don't want to talk about the Grand one on a Kozminski thread, but I eluded to the Ostrog/Le Grand connection in my Le Grand essay published at the first of this year. I've done myself no favors talking about such theories without presenting my evidence, as I've found it's led some to the conclusion that I have 'suspectitus', i.e. I see Le Grand everywhere and cannot separate theory from fact. Not the case at all. But I'm pretty sure my evidence for Le Grand and Joseph Aarons having orchestrated the Lusk 'From hell' hoax will be one of those rare 'ah hah!' moments in Ripperology. OOPS, there I go eluding again!

For the record, I feel there are very, very few suspects who remain viable after all the research that has been done, and certainly the Koz is one of them. Right now I'd place him at number two on a list of two. A third potential breakthrough might come from Trevor Marriot's efforts, which I find quite exciting.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott