discussion of Aaron Kosminski's psychological profile

[GregBaron]

Dangerous Dual Condition...

Very interesting stuff Rob and more than I knew about schizophrenic serial killers. I simply didn't think in general they could exhibit the control necessary to avoid detection. Did these killers you mentioned appear to murder during periods of lucidity? Were there drugs or alchohol available that might have afforded them temporary relief from their demons? When we think of schizophrenia we think of a drooling, stinking, masturbating maniac as Kos is described. In modern days the screaming, dancing vagrant on the corner comes to mind. Maybe the descriptions of Kos's condition are after a final breakdown has occurred so that maybe it was a gradual process where an at times in control psychopath eventually broke down into complete psychosis at which point incarceration took place. I think this idea could bring Kosminski back into the wheelhouse for many. Boy I wish we knew more about him.




Greg

[JtRMordke]

GregBaron - The point you made about Kozminski's description for the asylum being after his mental collapse is exactly what I thought. If he was the murder (which in all likelihood he is), then I presume he wasn't acting like this during the time of the murders, so let's just say he is Jack for a moment. He appears normal enough to gain the trust of the prostitutes to go off with him and therefore think he is genuinely after the service. If we imagine what effect the savage murdering could do to the brain, by the time we get to that of Mary Kelly, he was most likely facing the prospect of mental collapse and he becomes 'burnt out.' Although drugs nowadays tend to treat this problem to an extent and a modern example is difficult to use, go to an asylum say maybe twenty years ago and we would see people acting as shadows of who they were, in a similar way described as Kozminski. And I agree - I wish there was more documented on this guy.

[GregBaron]

Gradual Breakdown...

I agree with you JtRMordke except on one important point. I don't believe the maniacal killing had any effect on the brain of the killer. Schizophrenia is truly a chemical disease and therefore why medication is so effective. Psychopathy on the other hand is incurable. The psycopath wanted
to murder and mutilate but once the chemical disease asserted itself, this was no longer possible. Schizophrenia typically begins to show itself in the early 20's. I don't know how old Kos was but I find this thinking very intriguing. Your point about MJK is well taken however as this seems
more the overkill one might expect of a completely delusional schizophrenic than the perversions of your garden variety psychopath. This makes the impending book on Kosminski even more compelling...



Greg

[JtRMordke]

Oh, thank you of informing me of that! (Shows how little I know of Schizophrenia) I may have worded that a little bit wrong too, since what you speculated on is exactly the sort of thing I meant! Thank you again for pointing that out!

And concerning Aaron - I know that he would have been 23 at the times of the murders, which is when the schizophrenia would have been present, and I believe the incarnation reports into the asylum said that he had been insane for five years. Remembering that this is a couple of years after the murders, this would tie in nicely with the age when schizophrenia begins to develop.

[robhouse]

Hello Greg,

One thing I am learning is that the manifestations of schizophrenia are quite varied, in terms of severity and symptoms. It is really unknown how severe Kozminski's symptoms were, especially at the time of the murders. The disease is degenerative, so it would start out in rather small ways and get worse over time. The most severe form of schizophrenia is the disorganized type (which means basically a complete disintegration of thought processes, inability to form thoughts or sentences, etc.) Less severe is paranoid schizophrenia. But there is no clear border between such categories... instead the symptoms vary on a case by case basis, etc. In short, it is hard to say how Kozminski would have acted at that time, or how he would have seemed to others. I have read that paranoid or less severe schizophrenics sometimes retain more of their mental abilities, and are better able to hide their symptoms from others. So this is a big gray area.

Likewise, Kozminski himself is often characterized in a way that seems a bit skewed. As you write "we think of a drooling, stinking, masturbating maniac." This is indeed how Kozminski is frequently characterized, but is it really accurate? Quite probably it is not.
RH

[GregBaron]

Koz cover up?

I agree with you Rob. Even though the DSM-IV is very rigid and clinical in its delineations I think the reality is a bit more muddled. Kosminski’s age in the Fall of 88 is right on the button for when these symptoms often begin to assert themselves. His deteriorating condition could explain a lot. The idea of 2 mental illnesses in 1 person I find fascinating. Talk about a witches brew.

This begs the question which may be worthy of another thread. I wonder about the likelihood of Kosminski’s family protecting him. Suppose they suspected and then truly found out after MJK. Maybe he staggered in and his sister saw some blood and guts or something. From here on they may have kept him on lockdown as his condition worsened, maybe only occasionally allowing him out for a dogwalk under supervision. Finally he was in such a state that incarceration became mandatory. Of course this is wild speculation on my part but it makes for some fascinating conjecture.

If Koz guilty he would have certainly exhibited signs of psychopathy before the murders began. I wonder how much his family or others knew or how much he may have kept hidden? I know almost nothing about this character and look forward to your book Rob.


Greg

[JtRMordke]

Interesting point! I too was wondering about this quite a lot, since even though it's clear that the Ripper did manage to limit the amount of blood sprayed on his clothing, not being completely spotless would have been inevitable. And I can imagine he would have been pretty darn drenched after the events of MJK. I would have assumed they kept him under their total guard and must have found reason to protect him and others from his mania if (but I would think they must have been aware) they found out that he probably was the Ripper. There are cases in families where none of them come forward to report the murderer because they want to protect their own and those they love, so chances were, making sure Kozminski wasn’t left alone unsupervised would have become top priority and lock down on him made highly likely so that he didn’t do it again.
An interesting story suggesting that the family were aware he was the Ripper (If this accounts for his family) was that of the Batty Street lodger and the bloody shirt. From what I remember correctly, the man who gave her the bundle of shirts which contained the shirt with fresh blood on the cuffs was a foreigner and a Ladies Tailor which we know his 'brother' Woolf was. If Aaron was residing with Woolf, his shirt winding up in there would have been highly logical and the suspicions of this story were covered up by the statement, ‘there was an accident with the lodger.’ I may be wrong, but if this is Woolf we are talking about, maybe the family were aware of this and tried to cover it up, since the explanation seems quite unrealistic for what is described of the shirt and appears to be more of a frantic excuse to cover up possibly Aaron. Again – this is speculation, but a possibility.

[robhouse]

Hi Jtrmordke

I discuss this Batty Street lodger scenario in my book. Actually, both of Aaron's brothers were ladies tailors... Isaac Abrahams and Woolf Abrahams. Quotes from two separate articles claimed that the suspect in question lived "on the premises" with a ladies tailor, "within a radius of a few hundred yards from the scene of the Berner-street tragedy." It was also said that the suspect "lived some time ago with a woman, by whom, he has been accused"... and that "the suspected assassin is “shadowed.”"

Isaac's home was about 300 yards from Dutfield's Yard, and I have wondered if the "premises" mentioned may refer to the tailoring workshop that was in Isaac's backyard. The woman mentioned might have been either Aaron's sister (who lived directly across the street from Isaac), or one of Aaron's two sisters-in-law.

Of course, if this suspect was indeed Aaron Kozminski, then this would mean that the police suspected him much earlier than is usually proposed.

RH

[JtRMordke]

Hi Rob!

This is making your book even more intriguing! I must say, it's been my most sought after book I have ever come across, since I am fascinated by Aaron Kozminski.
(I have to ask, since I have read both versions of this on Casebook, who really were his biological siblings? At first I read that they Betsy, Matilda and Isaac who he followed to Whitechapel, but now there is suggestion that his real brother was Woolf and Betsy was only a sister in law. It would be helpful to find out the truth since I have been creating a series of light hearted comic sketches based on Kozminski being the Ripper and his 'behind the scenes' action involving living his family.)

Back on topic - I don't think I have come across reading those articles before and that information you have pulled from them is extremely well connected to what we know of Kozminski and where he could have been living. Since the police did door to door searches in a selected area and the houses of Aaron's possible residence were covered, he would have almost certainly been picked up upon. Also, this applies to the statement found in the memorabilia that, 'There were many incidences connected to this man that made him a strong suspect.' I assume we are missing some evidence against Kozminski as well, since the certainty of the top men on the case is quite remarkable, unless of course they became cocky in their old age.

[Errata]

I agree with you Rob. Even though the DSM-IV is very rigid and clinical in its delineations I think the reality is a bit more muddled. Kosminski’s age in the Fall of 88 is right on the button for when these symptoms often begin to assert themselves. His deteriorating condition could explain a lot. The idea of 2 mental illnesses in 1 person I find fascinating. Talk about a witches brew.
Greg

To be fair, the DSM-IV is extremely rigid for the purpose of standardizing disease for the benefit of insurance companies. Which we all appreciate since it means that we get coverage for a great deal more problems than we used to. And it is still filled with "not otherwise specified" conditions. Even the DSM contributors would tell you that the reality is far more complicated.

One of the reasons that schizophrenia doesn't work for me is the general lack of remorse from the violent schizophrenic. And it makes sense. Schizophrenics act in logical and well thought out ways within their delusions. If an alien from a warring faction comes to kidnap you, or if god tells you to eliminate all of his enemies, then of course you kill them. It is perfectly logical. The fact that the alien kidnapper is in fact your father in law, or the enemies of god are people who don't pay attention in church doesn't signify. In bouts of lucidity there may absolutely be attempts to hide what you have done, but during the schizoid interval people are remarkably honest. Even proud. And in the few cases where the delusion requires secrecy from the sufferer (god says not to tell) they are very open about the fact that they are not allowed to discuss something.

It is quite possible for Kosminski to have a swirling mess of problems. I myself have racked up about a dozen diagnoses over the years. Only three signify. But the described violence with the woman who presumably was his sister makes perfect sense to me, and is in fact quite common. Clearly he had delusions about food and bathing. If someone tried to force him to eat something he considered unclean, he would lash out. Either to escape, or because this well intentioned person is clearly trying to kill him. It happens with OCD as well. We know not to do these things now, but they were doing it to patients as recently as the 70s. In these cases it does not mean the sufferer is violent. It is self defense, and would not in any way signal that the patient was dangerous. You don't throw surprise parties for people with PTSD, and you dont try to force a schizophrenic to abandon a delusion. You also don't start rearranging the belongings of someone with OCD, but thats a different story.

[robhouse]

Hi JtrMordke,

Aaron Kozminski had two brothers (Isaac Abrahams and Woolf Abrahams) and one sister Matilda who was married to Morris Lubnowski (aka Lubnowski-Cohen, and later just Cohen).

All siblings were born with the name Kozminski... they changed their name to Abrahams after arriving in London. It was originally assumed that Betsy was Aaron's sister. This is because Betsy's maiden name was Kozminski... she was in fact Woolf's first cousin. Thus it was assumed that Betsy was Aaron's sister and Woolf was Aaron's brother-in-law, when in fact the opposite is true.

This was only clarified recently.

[JtRMordke]

Thank you for that update Rob! I would have hated to think that I was carrying round the wrong information on the case and wanted to be certain!


Of that it is clear that Kozminski's 'higher beings' and informing 'instinct' gave him direct instructions about his food and drink perhaps being poisoned and the fact that he must not bathe, and later in the asylum records there was an etched out statement (possibly going into too much detail since this was only meant to be brief) about him being protected by the Russian embassy, but other than that, god knows what else his delusions were telling him. The knife scene with his sister does indeed sound like an act of self defence, and most probably is, but what is significant is that it shows his comfortableness to use a knife, and 'he took up a knife and threatened the life of his sister' tells us that maybe this was a rather vicious sort of attack that might have been intersected. The way it is written and the lack of background knowledge attached to this leaves us only to guess as what the situation was really about here and we can never be certain with it.

[Chris]

This is because Betsy's maiden name was Kozminski... she was in fact Woolf's first cousin.

I think she was probably the daughter of Woolf's first cousin, wasn't she?

[robhouse]

This is what happens when I write from memory...

You are quite right... although I think even this was never 100% certain.

The assumption is as follows:

Abram Kozminski's brother was Moziek Hersz Kozminski
Moziek's son was Kazryel Szlama Kozminski (this would be Woolf's first cousin)
Brucha Kozminski was Kazryel Szlama's daughter.

I think the confusion came from Kazryel's wife being listed as Pessa Lux on one document, and Ryfka on Brucha's birth certificate. So either he married twice, or Pessa and Ryfka are the same person, or there are two different Kazryel Szlama Kozminskis.

Rob

[robhouse]

Looking back over that stuff, it is indeed odd that there were apparently two different people both named Abram Josef Kozminski... unless I am remembering this incorrectly. Anyhow, I am getting off topic.

Rob