discussion of Aaron Kosminski's psychological profile

[Jonathan H]

To Marlowe

I agree with you, to a large extent.

That Swanson only uses the last name, just like Macnaghten, might be because this suspect begins with the latter and not the former.

Furthermore, that Mac exploited Aaron Kosminski -- a family more commonly known by another name -- who was a poor, mentally ill local, a Polish Jew, who masturbated chronically, who had threatened a relative with a knife, and who was sectioned in early 1891.

Perhaps not wanting to use Pizer, an 1888 debacle, in the suspects' section of his report, Mac refashioned and elevated Aaron, maybe only the most minor of suspects, into 'Kosminski'; with added details that the 'suspect' hated harlots, and had very strong homicidal tendencies. Mac critically backdated his incarceration to March 1889, and in the alternate version of his report which was disseminated to the public, he even had him maybe seen by a beat cop with the fourth victim.

'Kosminski' was thus, arguably, fictitious window-dressing; completely unrecognizable to his family and community, and untraceable by the press and even Anderson if he had tried to get more details from the asylum -- and why would he have risked such exposure?

I base this theory on the way that Macnaghten ruthlessly dropped the Polish Jew suspect altogether from his memoirs, and also in the same tome claimed that there had never been a strong eyewitness to 'Jack' -- let alone a positive witness identification.

[Chris]

Again, there is no proof whatsoever that "Aaron" was "Kosminski", the suspect. NONE. I cannot believe how irresponsible this community has been when it comes to this subject. To write articles and books pretending that such a connection has been made when the only "proof" these people have is probability.

No. What you call "the community" has been anything but irresponsible. What's happened is that individual researchers have gone to the trouble of checking the records where 'Kosminski' the suspect would appear, and have found only one person of that name - Aaron Kozminski. As I have said, there is no other Kozminski who remotely fits.

If you think the identification is wrong - if you think there was another man called Kosminski who fitted the police accounts better (or indeed fitted them at all), it's up to you to explain why he left no trace in the relevant records.

[Jonathan H]

To Marlowe

The point you raise is pertinent, though I do not think it 'irresponsible' of anybody, just a matter off trying to interpret contradictory sources.

Aaron Kosminski and 'Kosminski' match just enough for the latter to be a variation of the former, but are different enough to suggest that wires have been crossed, either consciously or unconsciously.

For example, Martin Fido could not reconcile Anderson's suspect with Aaron Kosminski and believed that the explanation for the contradictions must lie in a later confusion between David Cohen and Aaron Kosminski, which created 'Kosminski'.

[Chris]

Aaron Kosminski and 'Kosminski' match just enough for the latter to be a variation of the former, but are different enough to suggest that wires have been crossed, either consciously or unconsciously.

But in what way are they different - I mean in terms of hard facts that can be verified?

I can see two differences.

Firstly, Swanson says that 'Kosminski' was sent to Stepney Workhouse, whereas Aaron Kozminski was sent to Mile End Old Town Workhouse. That is certainly a discrepancy, but as discrepancies go it's about as understandable as it could be, because MEOT Workhouse was actually in Stepney.

Secondly, Swanson says that 'Kosminski' died shortly after being committed to Colney Hatch. Aaron Kozminski did not die until 1919 - 28 years after being committed. Obviously that is a very significant discrepancy. But if the suggested explanation is that researchers have picked the "wrong" Kozminski, then that can be checked very easily by looking for other men named Kosminski/Kosminsky/Kozminski/Kozminsky who died shortly after 1888.

In fact there was only one such man: Abram Kosminski, who died aged about 40 in St George in the East in 1893. Researchers have known about him since at least the early 1990s and he has been thoroughly researched. As far as I know, no point of resemblance to 'Kosminski' whatsoever has been found.

Unless I'm missing something, this Abram was the only male Kosminski who would have been an adult in 1888 whose death was registered in England and Wales in the three decades following the Whitechapel murders. In fact the first such man who died was Aaron himself, and there were no more until after Swanson was dead himself.

[Jeff Leahy]

For example, Martin Fido could not reconcile Anderson's suspect with Aaron Kosminski and believed that the explanation for the contradictions must lie in a later confusion between David Cohen and Aaron Kosminski, which created 'Kosminski'.

To be fair to Martin Fido he was looking for a more violent individual probably based on the perceived medical opinion of the period (70's-80's).

Today it has been excepted by modern experts that Schizophrenics can become dangerous for short periods (known as psychotic episode) and that they can be quite harmless once removed from the environment that created it..

That doesnt make Aaron JtR. It simply creates a possibility, given what little is known, that a hebophrenic Schizophrenic could possibly have committed the murders.

Pirate

[Jonathan H]

The discrepancies -- all self-serving, as a debacle is now a near-triumph -- are 1) that the suspect died shortly after, 2) that no more murders happened after he was identified/incarcerated, and 3) that all these events happened at the end of 1888 and/or early 1889.

No way they happened as late as 1891, and yet that is when the historical Aaron Kosminski was sectioned.

(Also we have no evidence that Aaron hated harlots, or was a danger to all women, and the only source for this, Macnaghten, is in question to say the least -- nor that 'Kosminski' worked in a hospital in Poland which Sims claimed in 1907, again a Mac source-by-proxy)

And, 4), biggest discrepancy of all, that Aaron Kosminski was the subject of a spectacularly successful 'confrontation' with a recalcitrant Jewish witness.

I subscribe to the theory that this event never happened, and therefore this is yet another, if not the biggest, 'discrepancy'; in fact alarmingly it appears to be, according to Anderson and/or Swanson, the clinching factor -- and it probably never happened?

Which would leave Aaron Kosminski, apparently the inspiration for the semi-fictional 'Kosminski', about where Macnaghten puts him in his memoirs -- completely obliterated, eg. not worth fussing about.

That is one way of making sense of the sources. It is by no means the only way.

[Chris]

OK, it's fair enough to point out Macnaghten's date as another apparent discrepancy (though, as we've discussed, there might well be other explanations of that). But that makes it no easier to argue that there was another Kosminski who would fit the police accounts better. If anything, it makes it harder.

But you don't seem to be arguing that Aaron is the "wrong" Kosminski anyway, which is what Marlowe was suggesting above.

[Jonathan H]

That's right.

Mac derived 'Kosminski' from Aaron Kosminski, for sure.

He chose him, I think, because he was not a Ripper suspect -- at least not to Macnaghten who believed the fiend to have been Druitt -- and he used this poor wretch's profile, and that of another non-Ripper suspect, Michael Ostrog, to fill a list of alleged 'police' suspects in 1894, and later in an alternate version 1898 wherein they were beefed up (hates harlots, seen by cop; carries knives, violent to women, etc).

One is a giveaway, two suggests a split, but three make for a list.

[Roy Corduroy]

Jonathan, speaking of Macnaghten you said -

'Kosminski' was thus, arguably, fictitious window-dressing;

By that same reasoning 'Druitt' could easily be window dressing too. After all, Henry Richard Farquharson, MP, was sued for lying about someone else. Let's say-

(1) Farquharson lied about Druitt

(2) Macnaghten either- (a) fell for it hook line and sinker, or (b) knew it was a lie but used it anyway.

Roy

[Marlowe]

There are many descrepancies, some are subtle, but very important. I just saw a recent article in the NY Post, and it was a mess, really. It contained the typical sloppiness I expect to see from the "Aaron was Kosminski" school. Mistakes, poorly argued, misleading. The average reader has no idea what junk they're being fed.

[Chris]

Marlowe

Your attempts at provocation aside, the question remains.

If you're suggesting that there may have been a different Kosminski who fitted the police description better, why has he left no trace in any of the records in which he should appear - in the admissions registers of Stepney Workhouse and Colney Hatch? And where is the record of his death?

[Errata]

For arguments sake:

Is it possible that Kosminski as a suspect was a filing error? Several pages on some other guy getting mixed in with Kosminski?

It is not inconceivable that Kosminski would have some kind of record with the Police, public nuisance issues for example... It seems that the information WE have on Aaron Kosminski and his eventual fate do not come from police files. And it wouldn't if Kosminski was only ever a catch and release, the Police would make no effort to track his eventual fate.

However police seem to have quite a bit of information that is both detailed, and flat wrong about Aaron Kosminski. So what are the odds that the information is so detailed and considered so reliable because there is something in Kosminski's file that contains that information? Something that isn't actually him, but some guy getting shoved in the wrong folder?

[Marlowe]

Chris,

That answer may be found in my question to you. Why didn't Swanson and Macnaghten use the suspect's full name? Do you think that happened merely by chance? Two separate men using only one name, why?

[Jonathan H]

To Roy

Yes, you're right, the whole report(s) could be a careful deflection away from the real, middle-aged doctor suspect of 1888, as Littlechild was trying to make Sims realize in 1913.

Or Mac fused Tumblety and Druitt together for the sake of a better tale for Scotland Yard, but once they are separated both fall apart as minor and/or unlikely.

Stewart Evans has made the strong argument that in the single, official document on file at the Yard, Mac described Druitt as really nothing much. That this should be regarded as his true opinion about this suspect, not what he later told cronies or inflated for publishers.

My provisional judgment, based on a revisionist interpretation of Mac's simultaneously cagey and yet candid memoir, is that he sincerely and completely believed that Druitt was the fiend -- from 1891 to his death thirty years later.

I do not think that Mac would have trusted anything the upper class twit and fellow Old Etonian Farquharson told him, not without thorough checking.

I do think that Macnaghten knew everything about Druitt.

[Chris]

Marlowe

If you can suggest an answer to my question, I'll be interested to hear it, but I'm not going to play games.