Is Kosminski the man really viable?

[Wickerman]

Very much appreciated Phil, thankyou.

All the best, Jon S.

[Errata]

Errata
If Aaron Kosminski was committed as a means of incarcerating him due to a lack of evidence that would stack up in court then:
(1) I would expect to find some hint of this in his existing medical notes.
(2) I would expect the police to keep close tabs on him in case he was released as ‘cured’. It is clear that Swanson knew nothing of his fate once interred.
(3) This would smack of a dreadful French type of quasi legal practice.

Yeah, and I don't think it did happen. Well, see I'm thinking about it, and I'm a little torn. Except not.

I just want to say that since my old laptop blew up, I can't find anything anymore, and it's bugging the crap out of me that I can't just look this stuff up from my file thingy, because I no longer remember where I found the information in the first place. So everything I now say may be based on the lies of my own head. Moral of the story, Back up everything.

Moving on. It is my recollection that Kosminski cooperated with his admittance to a certain degree. I can't remember if it was to the workhouse, or to the asylum, but he was comprehensively interviewed, and described his hallucinations and delusions. So it's not like the guy was totally sane. But Kosminski did not have a record of any kind of public masturbation. The public didn't report it, the family didn't report it. They talked about his thing with food, his time on the streets, the threatening a sister, nothing about masturbation. Houchin (who yes was a police surgeon. Also the name of the back alley abortionist in one chapter of some wretched mystery I am reading, thus why it didn't sound right. My apologies) doesn't mention it. But self-abuse shows up on his intake notes at... Leavesdon I think? Which was maybe 5 years after the murder, and three years after admittance? So that seems a bit sudden. However, compulsive masturbation was one of the first, if not the first, condition treated by shock therapy (not ECT). Which should shed some light on how serious they considered this behavior.

And to a certain extent, we have to wonder why he was never let out. He was mostly fine on the outside. He had a bad stretch. No question. But they let out people with mania. He wasn't violent, he was capable of taking care of himself in the facility, he did spend some of his time not in the best of mental health, but I don't recall anything in his case notes that would result in him being kept locked up. I don't think his hallucinations were persistent, even if they were a somewhat regular feature of his illness. If he was a compulsive masturbator, that alone may have been enough to keep him in. But they would have dealt with him differently. It was not uncommon for such people to die of sepsis in asylums, because they were forced to wear what amounted to metal chastity belts to keep them from touching themselves. Surely such a device being used rates a mention in the notes. I think "self-abuse" is literal here. He wasn't eating, he wasn't bathing, he wasn't sleeping. He admitted that he was punishing himself with this bizarre behavior as a way to cure an illness. He was abusing himself. In a fashion that had he been doing it to someone else he would have been jailed for a very long time.

So where does the masturbation come in? Anderson says it. Well, he says "solitary vices". Seemingly about Kosminski. But there's nothing in his record about it. He didn't even get punished for it for the almost 30 years in an asylum. I've also never seen "self-abuse" in medical records of any kind referring to masturbation. Nowadays it is used in conjunction with cutting. In the 40's it meant self flagellation, literal physical punishment. Nor have I ever seen it in Victorian era records, and I've seen two references to "Priapism" which by the modern definition I don't think anyone ever went to an asylum for. The ER maybe... The only time I have heard self abuse mean masturbation in any official capacity is this hilarious 50's era anti homosexuality short film with an earnest but fake doctor they showed High School Boys in gym class.

Which leads me to one of three conclusions. Anderson said that the guy was a chronic masturbator to ridicule him, which really doesn't seem his style. He in fact meant that the suspect was a chronic masturbator, and he wasn't talking about Kosminski. Or he read "self-abuse" on the intake form and misinterpreted it. Despite the fact that he says that this was known about the suspect before an identification was ever made.

Now here comes the conspiracy theory portion of the evening.

Which would make you wonder why he was reading Kosminski's intake form. Not the commitment order, the intake form. That technically he should not have had access to. On the other hand, if you are going to claim that the suspect was an insane Polish Jew, there's no better way to find one than to comb through intake forms for someone who might fit the bill. It might also explain why no one remembered the suspects fate correctly, since they only found out about it several years after the fact. Maybe they even thought that these particular symptoms meant that he was in fact their man. But if this happened, then there becomes two reasons Kosminski might not have been released. The first being that he never stopped being a danger to himself. I'm sure any records of his weight would prove that true or false. The second is that the director of the facility was told that he was Jack the Ripper, and not to let him out. Since he had been in there for several years with no violence, it may have seemed unnecessary to make some general announcement to the staff.

Personally I think it's a different guy, but I like to be a conspiracy theorist for a few minutes a day. It keeps me sharp.

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

The article quoted in post 596 can be found here:-

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2198674/?page=8

Back in 2008 Dan Norder transcribed the entire article which I will repost for discussion purposes....(i.e. not implying I agree......)

Dan Norder
04-30-2008, 07:25 PM
And, for those who prefer to read straight text instead of scans of papers, here's the transcription of the article taken from Wolf's column:

The Scotsman
Wednesday, 14 November, 1888.

THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERS

Whenever a savage homicide is committed, for the perpetration of which no adequate motive can be suggested, the public mind reverts to the theory of insanity as the only one affording a possible explanation. Doubtless a diagnosis arrived at by a process of exclusion is warrantable when we have the full data of a case before us; but in the absence of full information, such a process is liable to be misleading. Before any theory of madness can be accepted in a given case of crime, however atrocious and revolting the circumstances connected with it may be, it is well in the interests of justice, to weigh the evidence of all the circumstances against the well ascertained facts of the natural history of insanity.

The hideous details of the Whitechapel series of murders have, it might be said, naturally led to the conclusion that they must have been committed by a maniac. I venture to point out that there are many circumstances connected with these crimes which militate against the opinion. I base my remarks on “clinical” observations, personal and otherwise, of cases of what is falsely termed “homicidal mania.” In point of fact, there is no such thing as homicidal mania per se – that is to say, no case has ever been placed on record in which the sole evidence of insanity has been an impulse to kill; the homicidal tendency has never been known to exist apart from other manifestations of brain disease or defect. There are certain acute forms of insanity in which it is known to be a pretty frequent concomitant, and in certain chronic conditions a desire to kill or injure is not uncommonly met with. The public mind should be disabused of the idea of an insanity whose only characteristic is an impulse to kill. The scientific and practical view of the position is that the so-called homicidal impulse is merely an incident in particular cases of aberration. It is manifestly impossible to enter here on a description of the various forms of insanity in which the homicidal tendency occurs; I shall therefore confine myself to enumerating the leading characteristics of murders committed by insane persons, and relate them as far as possible with the reported incidents of the Whitechapel crimes:

(1.) In the very large proportion of cases the act is distinctly impulsive – there is an entire absence of premeditation or forethought, whether as regards the method of commission or the avoidance of detection. The crime may be entirely motiveless, or it may be the result of some accidental irritation acting on the mind of a person whose power of control over his will is partially or wholly in abeyance.

(2.) Many cases are on record in which there cannot be a shadow of doubt that the lunatic has carefully premeditated and deliberately laid his plans for the perpetration of murder, stimulated by delusion, by an insane feeling of revenge, or by a desire to remove from the world relatives who he believes are implicated in the same misery which pervades his own existence. In such cases forethought extends only up to the period of the commission of the crime; his purpose effected, he commits suicide, he gives himself up to the police, or he runs and hides himself, the attempt to escape being of the most feeble kind, possessing none of the characteristics of a prearranged scheme.

(3.) Instances are pretty numerous of persons in the earlier stage of melancholia confessing to their physician a desire to commit suicide or homicide, the latter tendency being much less frequent than the former, in the proportion, roughly speaking, of 1 to 50. In such cases, however, it often happens that the suicidal tendency is concealed, and this may also be the case as regards the homicidal impulse. But in all instances in which the case has culminated in murder, the lunatic either commits suicide or gives himself up to justice.

(4.) There are cases of recurrent insanity in which homicidal tendency may be evinced; but in all such the symptoms of depression or excitement are so manifest as to call for special supervision.

(5.) There are cases of an acute transitory character; but here again general madness is manifest.

(6.) We have lastly a class of cases more difficult to deal with than any of the preceding. Every asylum physician is aware that a considerable number of insane persons discharged from lunatic hospitals because their symptoms are longer so overt as to render their further detention legally warrantable, retain a residuum, so to speak, of insane mental action. To all outward appearance their walk and conversation present no evidence of aberration, or they may be but slightly eccentric. Nevertheless, the taint of delusion, or a moral or an intellectual “twist,” or a certain general slight instability, may be constantly or occasionally manifest to those acquainted with the cases. This is of comparatively small importance when the patient is surrounded by friends, but our criminal records bear evidence that in the friendless, unstable waif the delusional element may gather strength, and be followed by criminal action.

Now I think that there can be no doubt that with the five classes of cases first spoken of the Whitechapel murders have nothing to do. Were I constructing for myself an imaginary case of lunacy, the subject of which might be the perpetrator of the series of crimes under consideration, I should select him from the sixth class, and picture to myself a person partially recovered from insanity, retaining a residual delusion connected with the class of persons who have been the victims, and desirous of satisfying an insane revenge. But my idealisation would not stand the test of relation with the general characteristics of insanity. It is all but impossible for any one who has worked among the insane to imagine a lunatic possessed of steadfast, persistent determination applied to acts committed at long intervals of time, and characterised by forethought applied to their perpetration, and to evasion of their criminal consequences, each individual act calling for a nervous courage without which failure would be certain, a general promptitude and cleverness suited to exigencies as they arise, and a steady reticence. It would not be hard to imagine the commission of an isolated act of this character by an insane person, but the whole circumstances of the commission of these crimes, save one, are outside insanity. If they have been committed by a lunatic, his is a case which in this country is without parallel or precedent. I have said the circumstances of these crimes are outside insanity, save one; that circumstance, of course, is the horrible nature of the act. But are we to deduce insanity from the revolting nature of a crime alone, when all the other circumstances point away from it? Why should we underestimate the power of strong human wickedness and overestimate that of weak human insanity? For my own part, I can more easily conceive these crimes being the result of savage wickedness than of insane mental action. There is a conciseness in the first idea which there is not in the second. Moreover, there is an incentive to wickedness productive of crime analogous to those now under consideration, which only those very intimately acquainted with the dark records of medical jurisprudence know of. This is not the place to speak of it, and I only allude to it in order to indicate that there are incentives to crime unappreciable by the great mass of the community.

JOHN BATTY TUKE.

[Roy Corduroy]

I just read the book again. Rob House (and Chris Phillips and a lot of people helped) Rob actually BENT OVER BACKWARDS to show all sides of the argument, the pros and the cons, the anomolies, of how some statements lined up, some didn't, etc. And still managed to stay on track.

The book also has the most up to date information on the family, and Aaron's role in his family, along with a simple visual chart, which makes the relationships, the marriages, the name changes and so forth clear. Something which speaking for myself I had struggled mightily with. Until now.

Roy

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

I should think that 90% of the Ripper community (which does in fact extend beyond these boards) would agree that the 'Ripper murders' were not the work of a lone psycho-sexual nut.

Point of clarification - you're not suggesting that the 90% are working off a premise of a killer acting with collaborators, are you? (Not that that is a bad notion.....)

[Casebook Wiki Editor]

Exactly. And AK was not by a long chalk, of this catagory of "madmen". He did not have that self control. His incarceration in the asylum and its records show a totally different type of lunatic to the "crazy", "knowing", self-serving types. AK was an imbecile of sorts. A weak lunatic.

I thought Rob House went to pretty great lengths to explore/debunk the issue of what "imbecile" meant in terms of categorizing various forms of mental illness in the context of the day. What part of his analysis do you disagree with, Phil?

[robhouse]

I thought Rob House went to pretty great lengths to explore/debunk the issue of what "imbecile" meant in terms of categorizing various forms of mental illness in the context of the day. What part of his analysis do you disagree with, Phil?

I did. But I expect Phil has not picked up on that yet.

[Beowulf]

When I use the word 'undoubtedly' I mean just that. I would never think what you all think by it.

I find that the same reasoning as when one emphasize's they are innocent therefore someone says they must be guilty.

I have always thought that the oddest way of reasoning. It's just weird. gee, just think of the Salem Witch trials and the people protesting their innocence. By the same reasoning they all were rightly hung.

[harry]

'Committed while the balance of his/her mind was disturbed'.Perhaps that legal definition,often used by judges,more closely describe JTR.The interpretation being,I assume,that the killer was sometimes,but not always,of sound mind.

[John Bennett]

The ‘Definitive’ documentary was excellent – just as the CSI Whitechapel book is.
However both undoubtedly suffer from institutional suspect bias. Which is also no doubt unintended.

I think you'll find that the CSI book has no suspect bias whatsoever.

[Chris]

It is very hard to explain an odd feeling Chris.

Thanks. It was just that it sounded for a moment as though we might have gone back to the bad old days of "hypothetical scenarios" about documents having been faked with the collusion of Ripperologists. I hope the article by Adam and Keith has finally put paid to that sort of thing.

Perhaps you can now adress and comment upon the Dr. John Batty Tuke article?

I have no strong feelings about it, and I'm sure others are far better placed to comment. (As I've said, on the whole I am sceptical about the likelihood of Aaron Kozminski's having committed the murders.)

[Chris]

Now, I had thought that the doctor who transferred him was from Mile End. I really don't know why a Police surgeon would be called in to transfer an "inmate" of a workhouse to an asylum. Kos wasn't in any sort of custody.

Those from Mile End Old Town poor law union were normally certified by Dr Houchin at that time. (My notes say that he signed all the reception orders I could see - though unfortunately I didn't note how many I checked.)

The other thing to bear in mind when considering the possibility that the police somehow arranged for him to be committed is that he had previously been admitted to the workhouse "Qy Insane" seven months earlier, in July 1890, but had been returned to his family.

[Bridewell]

Contemporary

Contemporary only means "at the same time". To what extent would you wish to change the meaning, and for what reason, bend the meaning to admit whom?

Hi Jon,

Oxford English Dictionary: Contemporary - belonging to same time; of same age.

I haven't sought to bend the meaning; nor have I sought to do so in order to 'admit' anyone. The point I seek to make, perhaps not very well, is that if only 'contemporary' suspects are considered, we need to be clear about what we mean by 'contemporary'. Contemporary only with MacNaghten's five victims? Contemporary with any of the Whitechapel Murders? If we can't say with certainty (and we can't) when the 'Jack the Ripper' murders began and ended, how is it possible to say that Kosminski was not a contemporary suspect? Yes, the first definite reference to Kosminski as a suspect is in the MacNaghten Memoranda of 1894, but he has to have been suspected prior to that date in order for the MM to have been written in the first place.

For the record, I agree that it has yet to be established as a 'definitely ascertained fact' that Kosminski was a contemporary suspect, because we don't know for certain when he first became a suspect. On the balance of probabilities, I would argue that it was no later than the date of his admission to the Mile End Old Town Workhouse, as I think it unlikely (though admittedly not impossible) that a man would become suspected after disappearing from public view.


Regards, Bridewell.

[Fisherman]

Bridewell:

"... we don't know for certain when he first became a suspect. On the balance of probabilities, I would argue that it was no later than the date of his admission to the Mile End Old Town Workhouse, as I think it unlikely (though admittedly not impossible) that a man would become suspected after disappearing from public view."

This is where I think another linguistically interesting snippet from Sir Robert Anderson applies. Here it is - and it is dated 1892, well after Kosminskis´ taking his final leave of society outside the asylum doors:

"I sometimes think of myself as an unfortunate man, for between twelve and one on the morning of the day I took up my position here the first Whitechapel murder occurred.” He here displayed victim photographs, “There is my answer to people who come with fads and theories about these murders. It is impossible to believe they were acts of a sane man – they were those of a maniac revelling in blood."

Now, if Anderson already had decided on Kosminski - why does he say that it is impossible to believe the deeds were the acts of a sane man? Why does he not - once again - make it simple and say that they were the work of a certified lunatic, as was shown by the photos?

I think that what we have here is Anderson looking at the Kelly pictures and arriving at the conclusion that no sane man could be responsible. He is horrified by the sight, and fends his nausea off by convincing himself that whoever did this, it could certainly not have been a sane man. Some of the "theories and fads" that had been presented would have pointed to people who were sane, but Anderson would not have anything of it - it was impossible to believe once one had seen the photos, something he was privy to, but not the ones who suggested sane men as the culprit. If they had seen what Sir Robert had seen, then they would absolutely not ...

This is how I read the passage - very much in line with the "undoubtedly insane" business. It is a parallel, using the same sort of privately reached conviction language.

The police were hunting high and low for this type of suspect, I would suspect - and Kosminski fit the bill on the surface of things. A lunatic, indulging in unmentionable sexual vices (masturbation, that is ...) and a Polish Jew to boot. Bingo!

Somebody may have gone to great lengths to keep Anderson happy, rounding off the rough edges and chipping away the unwanted bits and pieces on the Kosminski monument. He really is a very poor fit for the Ripper´s role. Stealthy, cunning, strong, quick and lethal one day, and unable to strike a Colney Hatch caretaker with a chair two or three years later ...

The best,
Fisherman

[Chris]

Now, if Anderson already had decided on Kosminski - why does he say that it is impossible to believe the deeds were the acts of a sane man?
...
This is how I read the passage - very much in line with the "undoubtedly insane" business. It is a parallel, using the same sort of privately reached conviction language.

Surely you aren't implying that Anderson still hadn't "decided on Kosminski" by 1904?