Is Kosminski still the best suspect we have?

[Harry D]

Hello, Trevor.

Is it still your belief that Feigenbaum was the Ripper?

[Trevor Marriott]

Hello, Trevor.

Is it still your belief that Feigenbaum was the Ripper?

Carl Feigenbaum should not be ruled out from being concerned in one or more of the murders by reason of his antecedents

It is now clear that all of the murders were not committed by the same hand and that there was no Jack the Ripper in the form we have been led to believe.

It is clear that three of the murders were committed in Ripper like fashion by an unknown killer whose name could have been Jack John or Fred !

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jack-Ripper-...revor+marriott

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ripper-A-Cen...revor+marriott

[Chris]

Trying to link John Pizer to the murder of Chapman simply because they found a leather apron near the body and someone suggested Pizer was known as leather apron, and worked with long sharp knives in the leather trade.

That's quite wrong. The Leather Apron scare and the interest of the police and others in Pizer pre-dated the murder of Annie Chapman.

[Trevor Marriott]

That's quite wrong. The Leather Apron scare and the interest of the police and others in Pizer pre-dated the murder of Annie Chapman.

He was arrested on Sept 10. Two days after the Chapman murder. Clearly the need to arrest him became more urgent following the murder of Chapman and the finding of the leather apron

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jack-Ripper-...revor+marriott

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ripper-A-Cen...revor+marriott

[Monty]

No the ones who are building facts are those who suggest that the police had enough evidence to make that person a suspect and that evidence was never disclosed.

Clearly we know there was no other hidden evidence otherwise it would have been disclosed in some way shape or form over the ensuing years, and the statements made by the police officials corroborates that.

We give the police in 1888 to much credit. Sure they did the best they could but their means of crime detection was based on three principles

Catching someone in the act
Having enough witnesses who saw the crime being committed
Having a suspect who would make a full confession

Now take a look at examples of their mindset in 1888.

Trying to link John Pizer to the murder of Chapman simply because they found a leather apron near the body and someone suggested Pizer was known as leather apron, and worked with long sharp knives in the leather trade.

Believing that by taking a photograph of a victims eyes it would show the last image that the victim saw.

Some suggesting using blood hounds at a crime scene when half of London had walked over the scene.

You can now see where the opinions came from about suspects i.e.

Aaron Kosminski a man living in Whitechapel who threatens his sister with a knife.

George Chapman a resident of Whitechapel a barber using cuthroat razors

there are many more.

So you can see how easy it would have been for these officials to have looked on some of these as suspects.

Now in modern times researchers have gone into a feeding frenzy with some of these names mentioned, and in some case elevating some to prime suspect status, and now they wont accept that the status of suspects they talk and write about is poorly deserved.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jack-Ripper--Secret-Police-Files-ebook/dp/B00F4QS0H0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1415193145&sr=8-2&keywords=trevor+marriott

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ripper-A-Cen...revor+marriott

Swanson clearly states that Kosminski was a suspect. He had been in the force at least 30 year by the time he stated that, experience enough to know what it took to label a suspect.

The modern method is no better than the one used in 1888, due to the fact that there no further evidence has come to light concerning the arrest, if he was arrested that is.

Pizer was investigated as he should have been, a good job done. Are you stating he should have been left alone?

The police never believed photographing the eyes of the dead brought forth the image of the killer, that is an unsupported myth, and one any informed student of the case is aware of.

Bloodhounds were (and still are in New York) a useful tool. However even Brough doubted their use for these murders. None the less, they were experimental, and were not intended for use in the manner you presume. You need to read the file to comprehend the intention.

Again, you are completely unaware of what methods were used. However, fear not, my book shall educate you.

Monty

[Chris]

He was arrested on Sept 10.

I'm not talking about the date of his arrest.

[Trevor Marriott]

Swanson clearly states that Kosminski was a suspect. He had been in the force at least 30 year by the time he stated that, experience enough to know what it took to label a suspect.

The modern method is no better than the one used in 1888, due to the fact that there no further evidence has come to light concerning the arrest, if he was arrested that is.

Pizer was investigated as he should have been, a good job done. Are you stating he should have been left alone?

I am not saying that. he was a person on interest who needed to be spoken to and was, and eliminated.

The rest coincidentally couldn't be interviewed because they were eithere dead or in jail, Now how convenient is that when you are drawing up a list of suspects. Pick some who cant defend themselves and because you are a senior officer everyone will listen, and take notice, and believe.

Well with MM and Swanson it all went tits up didnt it ?

The police never believed photographing the eyes of the dead brought forth the image of the killer, that is an unsupported myth, and one any informed student of the case is aware of.

No more unsupported that the opinions of officers concerning suspects

Bloodhounds were (and still are in New York) a useful tool. However even Brough doubted their use for these murders. None the less, they were experimental, and were not intended for use in the manner you presume. You need to read the file to comprehend the intention.

Again, you are completely unaware of what methods were used. However, fear not, my book shall educate you.

Monty

I am fully aware thank you but you like so many cant seem to come to terms with the interpretation of a suspect and what it takes for someone to be a real suspect.

It doesn't matter what the dogs were intended for, the point is that someone wanted to use them. What are blood hounds trained for tracking a scent !

"The bloodhound is a large scent hound originally bred for hunting deer and wild boar, but also used from the Middle Ages onwards for tracking human beings, and now most often bred specifically for that purpose.

This dog is famed for its ability to discern human odors even days later, over great distances, even across water. Its extraordinarily keen sense of smell is combined with a strong and tenacious tracking instinct, producing the ideal scent hound, and it is used by police and law enforcement all over the world to track escaped prisoners, missing people, lost children and lost pets"

So what were they wanting to use them for skydiving demonstrations !

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jack-Ripper-...revor+marriott

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ripper-A-Cen...revor+marriott

[Trevor Marriott]

I'm not talking about the date of his arrest.

I know you are not, and I am talking about the mindset of the police as to how he came to be a suspect !

[Abby Normal]

We may not be in command of the full details but the primary reasons for suspecting Kosminski are known...

This man became insane owing to many years indulgence in solitary vices. He had a great hatred of women, specially of the prostitute class, & had strong homicidal tendencies: he was removed to a lunatic asylum about March 1889. There were many circumstances connected with this man which made him a strong 'suspect'.

The primary reason for suspicion was that he was insane and a masturbator. Hmmm. What are we to make of that...
Then there is the bit about hating women. I have always suspected that was a reference to homosexuality.
Strong homicidal tendencies? If true this is not given reference in Aaron Kosminski's medical records indeed it is explicitly contradicted.
removed to a Lunatic Asylum not long after what Macnaghten thought as the last murder - although Aaron Kosminski wasn't.

And of course Macnaghten was inclined to exonerate him anyway.
Given the primary reason for suspicion I think we can say that we are in a better position to evaluate his guilt that the late Victorian police with all their prejudices and misconceptions - when their case was very clearly not primarily based on any criminal evidence or crime scene information.

Hi Lech

Then there is the bit about hating women. I have always suspected that was a reference to homosexuality.

But he adds-especially prostitutes-so I don't see how that's connected to a belief about being a homosexual. but it could I suppose-there is just no evidence they thought he was gay.

Strong homicidal tendencies? If true this is not given reference in Aaron Kosminski's medical records indeed it is explicitly contradicted.

This probably comes from him threatening his sister with a knife.

There were many circumstances connected with this man which made him a strong 'suspect'

This is probably related to the ID.

[Harry D]

One question about the ID: If the witness had been brought to the Seaside Home specifically to identify a Ripper suspect, and was said to have immediately recognised him (Kosminski?) but refused to testify, why wouldn't the witness have simply lied and said he wasn't the same man?

[Fisherman]

To Fisherman

What you misunderstand--which William Le Queux did get in 1899--is that Macnaghten is launching a propaganda offensive.

A very effective one.

e.g. The police were not clueless as we had three (count 'em--three!) major suspects, one of which was just like "Jekyll and Hyde" (Major Griffiths had specifically denied this two years earlier.)

To the discomfort of the better classes the pair of Russian swill are sidelined in favor of one of their own-- an English gentleman!

Why then didn't the police arrest the mad doctor?

Well, his "friends" only had a suspicion and so the cops arrived too late (Sims will amplify this element into cops who are too late by a few hours. In 1905 Guy Logan will go even further with his melodrama by having a posse of cops observe from the riverbank as the Macnaghten-figure wrestles with the Druitt-figure on a bridge over the Thames).

Behind all this deflective data is the truth that we can get a better handle on than Edwardians: Kosminski was harmless (as Old Etonian Macnaghten knew that masturbation did not send people into spasms of ultra-violence), Michael Ostrog the defiler of beloved Eton had been cleared by late 1894, and Druitt, a young barrister and not a middle-aged medico, was not not arrested due to a lack of evidence but the lack of a pulse.

His 1914 memoir is much closer to the truth, because it matches other primary sources:

'Although, as I shall endeavour to show in this chapter, the Whitechapel murderer, in all probability, put an end to himself soon after the Dorset Street affair in November i888, certain facts, pointing to this conclusion, were not in possession of the police till some years after I became a detective officer.

At the time, then, of my joining the Force on 1st June 1889, police and public were still agog over the tragedies of the previous autumn, and were quite ready to believe that any fresh murders, not at once elucidated, were by the same maniac's hand. Indeed, I remember three cases - two in 1888, and one early in 1891, which the Press ascribed to the so-called Jack the Ripper, to whom, at one time or another, some fourteen murders were attributed-some before, and some after, his veritable reign of terror in 1888. ...

The man, of course, was a sexual maniac, but such madness takes Protean forms, as will be shown later on in other cases. Sexual murders are the most difficult of all for police to bring home to the perpetrators, for motives there are none ; only a lust for blood, and in many cases a hatred of woman as woman. Not infrequently the maniac possesses a diseased body, and this was probably so in the case of the Whitechapel murderer ...

... I do not think that there was anything of religious mania about the real Simon Pure, nor do I believe that he had ever been detained in an asylum, nor lived in lodgings. I incline to the belief that the individual who held up London in terror resided with his own people ; that he absented himself from home at certain times, and that he committed suicide on or about the 10th of November 1888, after he had knocked out a Commissioner of Police and very nearly settled the hash of one of Her Majesty's principal Secretaries of State.'

There is mixture here of candour and deceit, of fact and fiction. e.g. Warren did not resign over the Whitechapel murders whilst Druitt really was a lodger. Despite the hyperbole about the Ripper being omnipotent against the forces of the state, candour arguably wins out.

Furthermore Macnaghten's evocative description of [the un-named] Druitt as "Protean"; as a killer virtually undetectable because he could deploy multiple faces--barrister, teacher, cricketer--with slippery ease is spot on.

First - I donīt misunderstand it, Jonathan. I can see how you argue your case, and I have much respect for your efforts. I just donīt agree!

I like the bit where MacNaghten says that a killer of the Ripper ilk would be a motiveless one; clearly, Mac has insights that some of the 1888 coppers lacked, and I salute him for that.

What I donīt salute him for is having found out who the Ripper was. I donīt think he did.

The best,
Fisherman

[Lechmere]

The question isn't whether or not Kosminski was regarded as a suspect by a least some policemen involved in some way or another at some point.

It is whether he is the best suspect.
His suspect status hangs on him being identified as a suspect by senior policemen.
When identifying him they gave reasons.
These reasons cannot be glossed over - they are the main reasons for suspicion. To try and seek solace in unmentioned reasons is false thinking on a grand scale. If the reasons given are glossed over, wished away or brushed under the carpet - which Kosminski advocates tend to do - it just underlines the weekness of his case.

[Chris]

I know you are not, and I am talking about the mindset of the police as to how he came to be a suspect !

Yes, and clearly his "coming to be a suspect" can have nothing to do with a leather apron at the scene of Annie Chapman's murder, because the day before that murder the police were already making a careful search for him:
The inquiry has revealed the fact that a man named Jack Pizer, alias Leather Apron, has, for some considerable period been in the habit of ill-using prostitutes in this, and other parts of the Metropolis, and careful search has been, and is continued to be made to find this man in order that his movements may be accounted for on the night in question, although at present there is no evidence whatsoever against him.

The night in question, of course, was the night of Nichols's murder.

[Fisherman]

The question isn't whether or not Kosminski was regarded as a suspect by a least some policemen involved in some way or another at some point.

It is whether he is the best suspect.
His suspect status hangs on him being identified as a suspect by senior policemen.
When identifying him they gave reasons.
These reasons cannot be glossed over - they are the main reasons for suspicion. To try and seek solace in unmentioned reasons is false thinking on a grand scale. If the reasons given are glossed over, wished away or brushed under the carpet - which Kosminski advocates tend to do - it just underlines the weekness of his case.

Bingo.

If the killer WAS identified, it predisposes that there was a hush-hush surrounding it, so that nobody should be able to find out the name. Nevertheless, the bigwigs that did the identifying were so pumped up by their own importance that they felt a need to gab about it anyway. And once they DID, they gave away a glaring ignorance about the suggested suspects.

It makes no sense whatsoever.

Nor does it make sense that the police would sit around doing nothing when one man after another gave away one suspect after another IF the killer HAD been plucked. If the Ripper was apprehended, the only clever thing to do would be to inform the police, down to the last PC about it, not necessarily disclosing the name if they feared legal actions, but nevertheless. It would save themselves the embarassment of flaunting their inability to agree with each other, and it would ensure that no policemen went on crusades of their own with the aim to catch the killer.

I dislike the argument that history demands that we place the contemporary suspects at the top of the list. The self same history tells us that the police got it very wrong in many cases, and we can be certain that men that were pointed a finger at were actually innocent, like Ostrog. So why not embrace history from that angle - the practical one - instead from the ideological angle?

The best,
Fisherman

[Abby Normal]

One question about the ID: If the witness had been brought to the Seaside Home specifically to identify a Ripper suspect, and was said to have immediately recognised him (Kosminski?) but refused to testify, why wouldn't the witness have simply lied and said he wasn't the same man?

Because the witness probably said something along the lines of -it could be him but I cant swear to it. Which with the passage of time, andersons wishfulness, boastful nature and prejudice- morphed into-the witness wouldn't swear to it because he was a jew.
All things considered, its rather obvious this is what happened. At least to me anyway.