Plausibility of Kosminski

[robhouse]

Hello Tom,

It is one thing to say Hollywood presents a distorted image of schizophrenia... fair enough. But it is no better to counter such an impression with equally distorted notions about schizophrenia (or specifically, schizophrenic serial killers).

Schizophrenia can manifest gradually, and it often presents different severity of symptoms in different people. Some schizophrenics are comparatively high functioning, some are disorganized and low functioning. People tend to post sweeping generalizations such as "schizophrenic people are not violent." While true in some sense, this is also misleading. This is like saying the vast majority of people are not violent. So what does that tell you? Anyway, recent research suggests a slightly higher rate of violent behavior among people with schizophrenia, especially when there is co-morbidity with psychopathic traits.

I have done a bit of research into actual schizophrenic serial killers. There are many striking similarities between murders committed by schizophrenic serial killers and the Ripper's murders. Most notably these are along the lines of post-mortem mutilation (targeting the sexual organs, abdomen and breasts) and cannibalism.

(Both David Berkowitz and Peter Sutcliffe likely faked insanity.)

Rob H

[PaulB]

I tend to exclude Macnaghten from the equation, Paul, because he had no direct involvement in the investigation. Anderson, on the other hand, made statements which clearly imply a collective thinking with regard to the killer’s social status, ethnicity, religion and mental state. For example: ‘And the conclusion we came to was that he and his people were certain low-class Polish Jews …’ Also: ‘And the result proved that our diagnosis was right on every point.’

Hi Garry,
Macnaghten was not directly involved in the investigation, but you appeared to be arguing that the investigation was misled by Anderson's belief that the murderer was a "sexual maniac". I was merely pointing out that Macnaghten also thought Jack the Ripper was a "sexual maniac" and I suggested that this it may have been the general police view at that time of what a serial killer was.

That it was assumed that the Ripper was a poor immigrant Jew may have misdirected the investigation, but it remains to be seen whether that was Anderson's conclusion or one reached by others during his absence abroad and adopted by him when it proved correct. It is also unlikely to have been the exclusive view of the police, but just one of many suggestions.

So either Anderson misrepresented the situation, or two or more senior investigators analysed the crimes and formulated a number of definite conclusions regarding the killer. But frankly, Paul, I’d be astonished if they hadn’t. This was (and is) standard police procedure, and despite some of the criticisms that have been levelled at them, these men were not incompetent. They were simply hunting a quarry who was beyond their collective experience.

I don't see that we disagree about any of that, but as Stewart has made clear with regard to Massey, Anderson does not appear to have been above misrepresentation.

Macnaghten said a lot of things, Paul, most of which were either conjecture or blatantly untrue. But he did name three men whose details were clearly contained within the case files. And what do we find? Whilst two were incarcerated lunatics, the third was a suicide who was thought to be going mad. The two lunatics, coincidentally, were said to have been misogynists. The suicide was described as having been ‘sexually insane’.

Yes.

But that is precisely my point, Paul. The best that can be hoped for is that a micro-analysis of Anderson’s written output will result in one of two conclusions. Either Anderson probably told the truth, or Anderson probably lied. In other words, it will provide no definitive answer. Even if Anderson probably told the truth, where does that leave us? It certainly does not confirm that Kosminski was the Whitechapel Murderer. He might have been the victim of misidentification, for example, perhaps even a malicious identification. If nothing else, we know that the identification was crucial in the case against Kosminski. It must have been, otherwise all hopes of a conviction would not have been lost when the witness refused to sign a statement. Thus if the identification was flawed, so was the case against Kosminski.

History is all about probabilities, but analysis of what Anderson said is not intended to confirm that Kosminski was Jack the Ripper, it is intended to help us understand why Anderson thought he was.

Again, I applaud you for the work you have done in attempting to resolve the Anderson issue, but at the same time I do feel that it is a lost cause. Rightly or wrongly, Paul, I feel that psychology is key in any evaluation of Kosminski’s suspect status. And on that basis, Kosminski is a nonstarter.

Well, it depends on what the cause is that is lost. You might be right if I was arguing that "Kosminski" was Jack the Ripper, although without knowing the reasons why Anderson believed what he did we can't say whether they might necessitate a revision of the psychological profile of "Kosminski" (indeed, it is not 100% certain that Aaron Kosminski was the "Kosminski", so we might be discounting Anderson because we've wrongly identified his suspect) . However, I am not claiming that "Kosminski" was Jack the Ripper, I am trying to learn why Anderson thought he was. Likewise why Macnaghten thought Druitt was the murderer, why anyone thought Ostrog was, or why Tumblety was suspected.

That Aaron Kosminski is a non-starter on the basis of his psychological profile is also why Martin Fido, way back in the mists of time of 1987, dismissed him, concluded that Anderson would never have suspected him, and stayed with his original conclusion that Anderson's suspect was David Cohen. I disagreed with Martin that Anderson wouldn't have suspected a "harmless lunatic"; I think he could have done and thus been wrong in his claim that Jack the Ripper had been identified.

[Stewart P Evans]

How on earth...

...
It was not a mystery to Macnaghten. The element Mac concealed from Bradford and Asquith, though they never saw the 'Report', was that the fiend was long dead before the poilice had ever heard of him. And, it was all handed to Macnaghten on a plate -- it was not a field investigation.
...

How on earth can you say 'they never saw the 'Report'.'?

It was never intended for transmission any further than internally at New Scotland Yard to the Commissioner. Given all the known facts surrounding this memo it seems pretty obvious, to me anyway, that Bradford (it was for his information) saw it and it was laid by.

Having received this information regarding the murders, suspects, and the status of Cutbush, Bradford would be in a position to respond to any Home Office query. And he may well have done, verbally, at a briefing session.

It amuses me how non-police oriented commentators get involved in wild theorising about these documents and speak as if what they preach is gospel.

[Stewart P Evans]

Good Morning...

Good morning Paul...

[PaulB]

Yes yes yes is that the best excuse you can come with for all of these shenanegans and the non compliance of a specific request from the current owner which I can tell you was made to the owner after all of this took place.

It's the reason, Trevor, not an excuse, although it is understandable that you want to represent it as one.

[Stewart P Evans]

Telling you something

For your information I have further contacted Mr. McLaren to which he has failed to respond. I also know of one other researcher who has also made a written request but has not yet received a reply.
It seems like all the outside sources which the cartel seek to rely on to endorse their theories clam up when approached by other researchers. I really have to wonder why the cartel dont want certain things made public.

A failure to reply might be telling you something.

Again, there is no cartel and there are no 'certain things' that someone doesn't want made public about this (at least to my knowledge there aren't) and I really cannot understand the fuss.

[PaulB]

For your information I have further contacted Mr. McLaren to which he has failed to respond. I also know of one other researcher who has also made a written request but has not yet received a reply.

It seems like all the outside sources which the cartel seek to rely on to endorse their theories clam up when approached by other researchers. I really have to wonder why the cartel dont want certain things made public.

Trevor, allow your imagination to run riot for a moment. Let's suppose that there isn't a cartel and that nobody is interested in keeping things secret, but that people don't like the way you operate and were seriously upset by your public insinuation that Keith was a thief, and that consequently they don't want to help you at all. And let us also allow our imaginations to soar and suppose that these people think you are just after getting publicity for yourself as the fearless champion of Ripperology, beating down the doors of the Special Branch to make the ledgers public and twisting the arm of your imagined Mafia-like cartel to release other papers. Let's suppose that you really have p....d people off so badly that that is what has happened.

In many ways it is a hypothesis that makes far more sense than there being a group of researchers not making information available. I mean, Chris has made tons of information available here, he made all those photographs of Swanson available here, and he began to make Jim Swanson's correspondence with the News of the World available here, until you popped up to insinuate that the material was emerging because you had shaken the tree.

[PaulB]

Good morning Paul...

Good morning, Stewart :-)

[Jonathan H]

No, I don't think anybody saw the offical version of the Macnaghten Report.

As Simon very astutely astutely pointed out, Macnaghten began briefing an alternate version to Griffiths in 1898. He could do this so blithely -- and quite falsely call it a 'Home Office Report' -- because it was an unknown document without any status, and thus he was not breaching any official or bureaucratic confidences and/or procedures. At last not technically.


Mac briefed the very same author, Major Griffiths, who back in 1895 claimed that Anderson had said that there was a good locked-up lunatic suspect.

This was the same author who in 1896 claimed that there was a theory at the Yard that the murderer was some kind of 'Jakyll and Hyde' but there was not a shred of proof for it.

And not two years later the Major disseminated to the public the scoop that there was a specific and promising doctor suspect with a dual personality who, exactly like Stevenson's fictional protagonist/antagonist is middle-aged and has pals, but no family, and who takes his own life as the net closed.

Anderson in 1895 said the case might be solved, and in 1898 Macnaghten -- via a proxy -- agreed but claimed than an alternate (and unknown) Ripper suspect was better then the Polish Jew.

One interpretation of these sources is that of rivalry.

[Stewart P Evans]

Okay...

No, I don't think anybody saw the offical version of the Macnaghten Report.
...

Okay, let's get this right.

In February 1894 a series of newspaper reports appear in the Sun newspaper in which it is alleged that an inmate of Broadmoor asylum is one and the same as 'Jack the Ripper'. The series culminated, on February 19, 1894, with a talk with the radical MP Henry Labouchere and the reporter suggested the Sun had made the case for a public investigation and asked if Labouchere agreed. Labouchere replied, "Yes; if I were Mr Asquith I should select a clever officer to look into the matter. He would do so carefully, for I suppose that the reward still remains..."

We do not know, but can only suppose, that Commissioner Bradford would be very aware of this and want to know what was going on, who Cutbush was, and could he really have been the murderer. And, lo and behold, on 23 February 1894 (immediately after this article) Macnaghten pens, on official notepaper, the facts concerning the Sun article, Cutbush, the Whitechapel murders, and the police suspects, such as they were.

As an internal memo providing information there would be no case file with regard to it, there would be no specific action required, thus no minuting required, and no official date stamping as it was internal, between the Chief Constable's office and the Commissioner's office, and not received from an outside source or agency (which would need stamping).

And what happened to this memo? Well, specifically we don't know (how could we?) but we do know that it remained within the confines of the offices of the Metropolitan Police hierarchy and was eventually archived in file series MEPO 3/141, the same series in which the missing suspects file had been lodged. However, this is a different series of files to that in which the files on the actual murders were lodged which was series MEPO 3/140. So, from the day it was written, 23 February 1894, (as far as we can tell) until the whole series of files were moved to the Public Record Office, the memo stayed at the Yard.

Now you are saying that Macnaghten wrote this seven-page document (for his own amusement?) and no one else saw it. Sorry, I don't trade in wild assumptions or fairy tales.

[Stewart P Evans]

Pre-formed ideas...

...
As Simon very astutely astutely pointed out, Macnaghten began briefing an alternate version to Griffiths in 1898. He could do this so blithely -- and quite falsely call it a 'Home Office Report' -- because it was an unknown document without any status, and thus he was not breaching any official or bureaucratic confidences and/or procedures. At last not technically.
...

Personally I think that you and Simon have your own pre-formed ideas and agendas.

However can you say that 'Macnaghten began briefing an alternate version to Griffiths in 1898'? You cannot possibly know that. You cannot assume that the differences were deliberate rather than sloppiness, mistakes taken from the draft version (which we know Macnaghten retained) or merely cavalier writing. At the dizzy heights these 'gentlemen' senior police officers operated they tended to do what they pleased. No one was likely to challenge them, or be informed enough to challenge them.

[Stewart P Evans]

Flippant

...
Mac briefed the very same author, Major Griffiths, who back in 1895 claimed that Anderson had said that there was a good locked-up lunatic suspect.
This was the same author who in 1896 claimed that there was a theory at the Yard that the murderer was some kind of 'Jakyll and Hyde' but there was not a shred of proof for it.
And not two years later the Major disseminated to the public the scoop that there was a specific and promising doctor suspect with a dual personality who, exactly like Stevenson's fictional protagonist/antagonist is middle-aged and has pals, but no family, and who takes his own life as the net closed.
...

Ooh how I hate the flippant references to Macnaghten as 'Mac', very unprofessional. I suppose you think it is rather clever to do that.

Yes, Anderson was touting a 'homicidal maniac...committed to an asylum' theory in 1895, that shouldn't be a surprise, it was the main police suspect idea in Macnaghten's memo of the preceding year. What you fail to appreciate is how cavalier these popular crime writers could be with their material. And how often they published conflicting material. A sort of 'journalistic license' I suppose. They often gave the public what they thought the public wanted.

[Stewart P Evans]

All I know

...
Anderson in 1895 said the case might be solved, and in 1898 Macnaghten -- via a proxy -- agreed but claimed than an alternate (and unknown) Ripper suspect was better then the Polish Jew.
One interpretation of these sources is that of rivalry.

'Anderson in 1895 said the case might be solved.' Really, just where did he say that?

All I know is that in 1895 Griffiths (using the pseudonym 'Alfred Aylmer') wrote that Anderson had 'a perfectly plausible theory that Jack the Ripper was a homicidal maniac, temporarily at large, whose hideous career was cut short by committal to an asylum.'

You write, 'And in 1898 Macnaghten -- via a proxy [Griffiths again] -- agreed but claimed that an alternate (and unknown) Ripper suspect was better than the Polish Jew.'

All I know is that in 1898 Mysteries of Police and Crime by Major Arthur Griffiths, London, Cassell and Company Limited, was published in two volumes and included, on pages 28-29 in the introduction, a reference to "Jack the Ripper" with information quite obviously drawn from Macnaghten's notes.

In this account the reference to Druitt (unnamed) runs (inter alia), 'The third person was of the same type, but the suspicion in his case was stronger, and there was every reason to believe that his own friends entertained grave doubts about him. He also was a doctor in the prime of life...' etc.

The three cases are presented as 'suspicions' only and it was all qualified by the statement that 'It is at least a strong presumption that "Jack the Ripper" died or was put under restraint after the Miller's Court affair, which ended this series of crimes.'

There should be little doubt that there was 'rivalry' between Anderson and Macnaghten, as we may also deduct that there was no love lost between them. I have detailed this elsewhere. But I think that the fact that the two men, patently, did not agree on the probable identity of the murderer merely highlights the fact that the police did not 'know' who he was and did not have a worthwhile clue as to his identity.

[Trevor Marriott]

Trevor, allow your imagination to run riot for a moment. Let's suppose that there isn't a cartel and that nobody is interested in keeping things secret, but that people don't like the way you operate and were seriously upset by your public insinuation that Keith was a thief, and that consequently they don't want to help you at all. And let us also allow our imaginations to soar and suppose that these people think you are just after getting publicity for yourself as the fearless champion of Ripperology, beating down the doors of the Special Branch to make the ledgers public and twisting the arm of your imagined Mafia-like cartel to release other papers. Let's suppose that you really have p....d people off so badly that that is what has happened.

In many ways it is a hypothesis that makes far more sense than there being a group of researchers not making information available. I mean, Chris has made tons of information available here, he made all those photographs of Swanson available here, and he began to make Jim Swanson's correspondence with the News of the World available here, until you popped up to insinuate that the material was emerging because you had shaken the tree.

Now I am a fearless champion now thank you for the compliment.

Now unless I have missed it I havent seen any correspondence between Swanson and the News of The World which contained the actual name Kosminski

Isnt it the case that you and others who to be fair do have expert knowledge of much surrounding the mystery and have led the cause from the 1960`s and are highly respected,all of you all have been sitting at the top of the ripperology tree since then, suddenly find that in the ensuing years there have been major advances in the world of technology with the internet opening up many more
research options than there were in the 1960`s.

Ripperology has also seen many more researchers who are equally as qualified and as knowledgable as you and others activeley participate in trying to solve the mystery. By trying to prove or disprove facts which you and the other old guard have sought to rely on all these years

As a result the theories and writings of you and those other early researchers are now being serioulsy questioned and the fact is you dont like it and cant handle it. As a result you duck and dive when questions are put to you about major issues which impinge of your views. You continuosly answer a question with a question thus avoiding the original question.

In addittion Martin Fido another one of the old guard as knowledgeable as he is has beenleft floudering in the water with Kosminski and Cohen.

Its now Autumn when the leaves fall from the trees. What will we be left with a handful of Ripperologists clinging onfor dear life at the top for fear of falling and damaging their egos.

Ripperology is now an even playing field you have to accept that everyone elses views and theories are just as worthy of consideration as yours and the rest of you cartel members and followers.

You say about me banging on The Special Branch door well someone had to do it didnt they.Crimes are not solved sitting behind a desk. And there is still new material out there but to find it you have to get off your backside and do the leg work.

As far as The SB quest was concerned, the end result was not what was expected, However all was not in vain because we got the names of new suspects from the registers. Names which no one seems to want to mention,despite being all being on a par with other suspect names also from police records. You have the "Machangten three" I have the "Forgotten four"

In the course of gathering evidence for the tribunal other new evidence from official files was uncovered which in my opinion now eliminates many of the suspects.

At this time I do not propose to disclose that. However It will be made public in due course unlike others I am happy to share with the community the results of new research.

[Chris]

For your information I have further contacted Mr. McLaren to which he has failed to respond. I also know of one other researcher who has also made a written request but has not yet received a reply.

It seems that in repeatedly saying that the owner of the document wished it to be made public, you've only been telling us half the story.

It's a great pity that the atmosphere has been poisoned to such an extent that the text hasn't been published here, as Keith Skinner and the owner originally wished. But at least it is going to be published.

Now, you've implied often enough that the owner's wishes should be respected. I think that's a very good idea. Certainly nothing is going to discourage others from cooperating with researchers, than people like Christopher McLaren and Nevill Swanson being dragged into public arguments of this kind.