Aaron or not

[Natalie Severn]

There are a number of statements in your last post Christine.But lets just discuss whether there were any signs from hospital records of Kosminski"s condition being due to schizophrenia


Here is an "overall" look at the Kosminski who Kosminski"s brother in law ,The doctor at Colney Hatch and Jacob Cohen described in or around 1890/1891-taken from Hospital records:


Work Record:
He had refused to work for many years-so no work record to speak of

Personal habits:
Picking up food from gutters and eating it,refusing to eat from hands of others.Inappropriate-one assumes- masturbation-euphemistically called self abuse in hospital records

Personal hygene:
He is very dirty and will not be washed

and continuing from Colney Hatch 1891,register of admissions

Form of disorder:
Mania

Symptoms of disorder:
Incoherence

There is the following comment from his hospital records:
He declares he is guided and his movements altogether controlled by an instinct that informs his mind,he says that he knows the movements of all mankind,he refuses food from others because he is told to do so,and eats out of the gutter for the same reason

additional admission casenotes include;
On admission the patient is extremely deluded.As mentioned in the certificate he believes all his actions are dominated by an instinct.This is probably aural hallucination........
These to my mind suggest some form of schizophrenia-see synopsis of main features taken from Oxford Medical Dictionary 2000 ,two or three threads back.

Next,when you assert that other" illnesses" or "drug-related" conditions are more likely to have been the cause of the Whitechapel killings,I agree that that may well be so,although I would strongly disagree over a Manic depressive person being the more likely to have been the killer than a paranoid schizophrenic.Ditto a drug crazed individual since the disorientation caused by the drug or hypomania mania would have been likely to cause recklessness of a different order than that of the Whitechapel killer in which case there was a clear combination of risk taking and either pre-planned escape and/or methodical timing ,the risk taking being only within certain parameters of time and place that allowed for avoidance of capture.
However,returning specifically to the description of Aaron Kosminski,who we do not know was the Whitechapel killer,only Anderson has stated that a Polish Jew was the Whitechapel killer,and his description of this Polish Jew matches up with a Kosminski whom Macnaghten states had "solitary vices" etc .But Anderson provided no proof,no name,no evidence that would stand up in a court of law .
As I state above,upon admittance to Colney Hatch in 1891, the symptoms Kosminski evidenced most strongly suggest,in my view, that he suffered from schizophrenia and episodes of psychosis.Had his condition been due mainly to drug abuse,he would not have been confined to an asylum for thirty years .
I might suggest here that the Whitechapel murderer could have had a Schizoid personality, and that it may be nearer the mark to envisage a "schizoid"-ie pre-psychotic/pre-schizophrenic personality at work in Whitechapel.
It"s reckoned that Adolph Hitler had a "schizoid " personality,which under sufficient stress CAN give way to schizophrenia.But he didnt kill himself he gave only the orders to kill.By the million.

[Carrotty Nell]

I have a lot of respect for Rob's stance on AK. I would like to ask Rob though to offer an explanation for why Kosminski stopped after Kelly when he was at liberty for another 2 years. And if the explanation is that he was under strict surveillance from October 88 to February 91, does it not strike you as odd that no news reporter so much as got a whiff of it during all that time?

The possibility that Kosminski was the Batty Street shirt washer and was under surveillance from around that time does however offer up an interesting interpretation of Swanson and the difficulty the Kelly murder and the Jewish witness poses under these circumstances. What if Swanson did not regard Kelly as a Ripper victim? Many modern theorists do discount Kelly on various grounds arguing that hers was a domestic perpetrated by someone with a personal relationship with her such as Barnett or Fleming who deliberately tried to make it look like the Ripper. I might add that I do not hold this view myself and as far as I am concerned if Kosminski was under surveillance from October then he is out of the reckoning. Period.

But perhaps Swanson was of this view, retrospectively if not contemporaneously. If this was the case, the Marginalia should be read as follows. Kosminski (the Ripper) stopped after the double event because he knew that Lawende (or Levy, or Schwartz) had got a good enough look at him to recognise him again. 'And after this identification no more murders of this type ' is the author's way of distinguishing between the Ripper murders which he attributes to Kosminski and the murder of Kelly which he believes was by other hands.

[Christine]

Christine,
I have been posting on this site for quite a long time now and have previously explained the background to my understanding of schizophrenia.My mother worked for twenty years in a large Psychiatric Hospital in the North West as an Art Therapist.She worked almost exclusively with people suffering from schizophrenia and was supported in that work at all times by Consultant Psychiatrists as well as psychologists and Occupational Therapists.I also worked in that department,for a much briefer time period, with people suffering from the illness and attended lectures and seminars on the illness and its manifestations.So I am aware of the ways in which it can manifest itself.
I do not dispute that schizophrenia can only be diagnosed by a psychiatrist after consultation with the patient.That is really taken for granted in this discussion I would have thought,and as you would know if you had read my previous posts from some time back.Neither do I dispute that many people who have suffered from schizophrenia did not become violent,even in the past before modern drugs could keep the worst of the illness under control.
Nontheless when Aaron Kosminski was admitted to Colney Hatch, his case notes contain the following statement: "He declares that he is guided and that his movements are altogether controlled by an instinct that informs his mind,he says that he knows the movements of all mankind,he refuses food from others because he is told to do so,and eats out of the gutter for the same reason"-dated 6th February 1891 .
There are typical schizophrenic psychosis and being "deluded","hearing voices", "being guided and having ones movements controlled by an outside force" are pretty characteristic -----and very common moreover.
Also ,schizophrenia does have a distinct psychopathology and a distinct course.It can therefore be distinguished from the other mental illnesses.Auditory hallucinations in particular are actually "heard", and Schizophrenia remains the most prevalent and pernicious of all mental illnesses.
The reason we are interested in the type of illness that progressed the way it did during the course of Aaron"s incarceration in lunatic asylums for some 30 years, is to try to determine whether or not his pathology in any way matches up with the serial killer"s who was given the name Jack the Ripper.
And ,actually,it is possible.Because,like it or not,in the name of some fanatical 'calling" or "ideal"or in obediance to some "command killing" the paranoid schizophrenic can convince themselves that bloodshed is trivial and some pretty horrendous murders we read about in the press or on TV have been committed by this type of personality.
But what concerns us here,and what we do not know ofcourse, is whether the type of illness Aaron Kosminski had was "paranoid schizophrenia" or whether he simply had a form of schizophrenia, because the difference is important.To me it looks like he did suffer from delusions and schizophrenic psychosis over many many years,and there are some hints of paranoia in his concerns about his food and water -but whether or not he was actually paranoid is much less certain.Anyway,I would be interested to know whether you are a practitioner yourself Christine?
Best
Norma

Well, I am back from the (computer) dead.

First, I am not a practitioner, just someone who has had personal reasons to look into some of these illnesses.

The only reason I made the post at all is because I see people repeatedly assuming that it is proven that Kosminski was schizophrenic. It's even been claimed that 19th century terms like "lunatic" are identical to schizophrenia. I would assume that someone in a violent mania (just as an example) would be classed as a lunatic. Although I don't deny that some form of schizophrenia is the most likely explanation, there are other scenarios.

Hearing voices--actual auditory hallucinations, not just imagining what someone might say--is not unique to schizophrenia. Drug use is the most common reason, but also there are many sorts of brain injuries that can cause someone to hear voices. Curiously, hearing impaired people sometimes hear voices. And occasionally a person hears voices for no obvious reason. This is probably a mild form of schizophrenia, but it's distinguished from real schizophrenia because in this case the person is otherwise rational and functional.

Mania is not associated with actual auditory voices, but can be associated with delusional commands. On the other other hand, psychotic depression can be associated with actual auditory voices.

Other disorders, like some forms of autism, are associated with irrational, paranoid, ritualistic, and often anti-social behaviors, including inappropriate masturbation.

Paranoid behavior can be associated with drug abuse (reference James Maybrick), mania, depression, and even actual distress. If I had to live in Whitechapel in 1888, I'd be worried about the food and water too.

I don't dispute that many schizophrenics become violent. However they are not usually extremely dangerous to others because they have a hard time forming coherent plans. A voice might tell them "The next woman you see is the devil! Kill her!" and, lacking a weapon, they try to throttle the woman to death. That kind of more or less random compulsion does not fit well with the Ripper crimes.

The onset of his illness at about age 24 is consistent with schizophrenia, but it's also consistent with drug abuse, and its also a typical age when young men get strong enough to be a match for their older brother-in-laws. In other words, it's the age when a lot of men who are not schizophrenic get into trouble.

If Kosminski was not schizophrenic, the most likely causes of his illness would be drug abuse, and/or some sort of brain damage or bipolar disorder (manic depression). All of these could fit what little we know about him, and all of these are more likely to have been associated with the Whitechapel killer.

Finally we have claims both that Kosminski was not dangerous, and that he was incarcerated after attacking his sister with a knife. That sounds contradictory to me. I speculate that Aaron was violent and potentially, dangerous, but that the family managed him for as long as possible. They may have given it up when they realized that the police seriously suspected him of murder, and they may or may not have suspected him themselves.

Don't misunderstand--I don't know everything, and I doubt I even know everything there is to know about Kosminski. However, I'm unwilling to conclude he was schizophrenic based on the evidence.

[robhouse]

I just wanted to post some quick info on the connection between schizophrenia and violence. According to this (http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/180/6/490) and other articles on the subject , it seems that the idea that there is no link between schizophrenia and violence is a misconception based on theories which have been refuted within the last 30 years. I am just posting a few excertps, but the whole article is interesting to read.

"Until the early 1980s the consensus was that those with schizophrenia were no more likely than the general population to be violent. New epidemiological evidence has emerged, however, that has radically challenged this view.

Three studies using slightly different methodologies have drawn similar conclusions. In the first, 644 patients with schizophrenia followed for up to 15 years on a police register, were found to be four times more likely to have committed a violent crime than the general population (Lindqvist & Allebeck, 1990).

The second study compared the rate of criminal convictions among 538 incident cases of schizophrenia with that of non-psychotic psychiatric controls matched for age and gender (Wessely et al, 1994). Male patients with schizophrenia were twice as likely as men with other mental disorders to have a violent conviction. This was despite the control group containing a substantial minority of individuals with psychiatric disorders with an established association with crime. Women with schizophrenia were also significantly more likely to be convicted of violent crime than controls.

In the third study, Mullen et al (2000), in Australia, studied two groups of patients with schizophrenia first admitted in either 1975 (before major deinstitutionalisation) or 1985 (when community care was becoming the norm). Compared with general population controls, both groups were significantly more likely to be convicted for all categories of criminal offending, except sexual offences. Those with comorbid substance abuse accounted for a disproportionate level of offending. The increased number of convictions in those with schizophrenia in the 1985 group compared with the 1975 group seemed to reflect a general increase in offending in those of a similar age, gender and place of residence. As such, the shift to community care was not marked by any significant change in relative rates of conviction in schizophrenia. The effect of community care on risk of violence in schizophrenia requires further study. One study examining homicide statistics in the UK has reported little fluctuation in the numbers of people with mental illness committing homicide between 1957 and 1995 and a 3% annual decline in their contribution to the official statistics (Taylor & Gunn, 1999).

Studies estimating the prevalence of schizophrenia in individuals who have committed violent acts
Numerous studies have estimated the prevalence of schizophrenia among prison inmates. Despite problems of unstandardised diagnoses and the frequent absence of comparison data among the general population, the evidence suggests an over-representation of those with schizophrenia among offender populations.

Taylor & Gunn (1984), using validated diagnoses, studied the psychiatric status of male prisoners remanded to a prison in south London. Nine per cent of those subsequently convicted of non-fatal violence and 11% convicted of fatal violence had schizophrenia, which are substantially higher prevalences than would have been expected in the general population for the same area (0.1-0.4%).

Teplin (1990) compared the prevalence of schizophrenia among 728 male prisoners with that of the general population. The prevalence in the jail population (2.7%) was found to be three times higher than that of the general population (0.91%) after controlling for socio-demographic factors.

Eronen et al (1996), in a study of 693 people convicted of homicide in Finland, found schizophrenia to be associated with an 8-fold increase in homicide by men and a 6.5-fold increase by women.

Wallace et al (1998), in a study of individuals convicted of serious offences in Victoria County, Australia, searched for evidence of a psychiatric contact on the county psychiatric register. Those with schizophrenia were found to be over four times more likely to be convicted of interpersonal violence and ten times more likely to be convicted of homicide than the general population.

...

Two factors appear to discriminate those with schizophrenia at increased risk of committing violent acts: comorbid substance abuse and acute psychotic symptoms.

...

A further study revealed that specific threat/control override symptoms largely explained the relationship. These threat/control override symptoms represent experiences of patients feeling that people are trying to harm them and experiences of their minds being dominated by forces outside their control. These results have been replicated subsequently (Swanson et al, 1990, 1996, 1997; Link et al, 1998). The data in these studies, however, have been criticised for being retrospective, having been gathered for other purposes and having weak measures of delusions and violence."

In other words, the mind being dominated by forces, like command voices, being a predictor for viiolent behavior has been noted in studies, but this conclusion seems to be somewhat controversial and debated. - RH

[Natalie Severn]

RJ,You are possibly right.
Maybe Anderson did know but in all seriousness my own view of Anderson is that he was only a few steps behind Kosminski in terms of" unusual behaviour"-substitute Kosminski"s recorded "obstinacy" for Anderson"s "inflexibility" -over his loyalist cause, Polish Jews , the Rose Mylett case etc and the two are not that far apart .And dont forget his later mindset took off on a very offbeat Christian Fundamentalist trajectory !Chapters of his texts read like he believed he had some kind of a divine calling-you know---did he believe the message arrived to him in"audible tones"???
Anyway, it seems to me there was a lot of "wishful thinking" underlying Anderson"s assertions and I cant see him as actually "knowing" who the Ripper was myself---or as Littlechild perceptively put it , maybe he "thought" he knew -
...it was an extraordinary claim Roger,but I dont think Anderson was the sort of man who gave much a damn,if he thought he was right he would say so and not worry much about the backlash-as happened over landing Monro in the dirt over his "confessions" about The Times articles.But-will return to it in a day or two----
Cheers
Norma

[rjpalmer]

That should read "Painting a one-dimensional image of Anderson is not going to solve the case..."

[rjpalmer]

Anderson"s memoirs,or memories, contain numbers of "inaccuracies".He wrote that "having decided to spend the last week of his "holiday"-in Paris,he arrived in the French capital on the night of the double murder,and that when the next day"s post brought an urgent summons for him to return to London,he did so.But a letter he wrote to one of the dailies in April 1910 states he was on his way home from Paris on the night of the double event.

Stating the Ripper was identified is HARDLY the same thing!!! Listen, Nats, I'm not telling you to believe Anderson, nor to plump for Kozminski. I'm saying use a little psychology.

Everybody in England knew the Ripper case was not solved. The Met had suffered amazing embarrassments.

Yet here is Anderson stating --IN PRINT-- while his subordinates are alive and could contradict him that the case was solved. Unless he was brain dread he must have known this would cause a sensation. And THAT, in itself, is extraordinary. And do recall that some of the other extraordinary statements Anderson stated in his book were true..... A former informat (FF Millen) had been involved in the Jubilee Plot.. Anderson himself HAD written to Times on Parnell & crime. Painting a one-dimensional image of Anderson is going to solve the case. He was more complex than you give him credit, and I think what is going on in 1910 is complex.

This is not a man making a 'mental error' it is a man making an extradordinary claim.

[Natalie Severn]

I reckon that the Wentworth St route is the most likely, Rob.
Let"s not forget that the Colney Hatch records have him down as being able to read and write [in English].As a result of being interrupted outside the Berner Street Club he speeds off to Aldgate, meets up with Kate ,murders Kate in Mitre Square and completes his mutilations.He uses the apron piece to clean himself and lies low for a bit,waiting for an opportunity to escape from the area.Maybe he his quite near to where the apron piece was found,in Goulston Street,where he had stopped because he knew the area a little .The black facia in Goulston Street ,provided a likely surface for him to chalk something up ,namely the message about Jews and blame.So he neatly and carefully writes his messsage.Then he moves on home.

[robhouse]

A little more on the "getaway" route. Please refer to the following map:

http://www.roberthouse.com/getaway.jpg

If we assume that Aaron is JTR, and he has just committed the Eddowes murder, what routes could he then take to get back to the Greenfield St area? In any case, he must at least cross, if not walk along, Aldgate High Street/ Whitechapel High Street.

On the map, blue indicates the most direct route, but as has been pointed out, walking along Whitechapel High Street is a pretty dumb getaway route for a murderer as it is such a main thoroughfare. So I think he would want to be on this street for as short a time as possible. So either he goes southeast, towards Mansell Street, Great Alie St or he goes north and goes along Wentworth Street.

If he goes south, he will have to cross (or even walk along) Aldgate High Street. The murderer would have probably instinctively avoided this main street at this time.

The most direct realistic option would be the one outlined in red, along Wentworth st, and then crossing Whitechapel High Street by going through the alley that is directly across from Fieldgate St. Of course, it is possible that the Ripper went another route, even more northerly, but my feeling is that he would want to get home as soon as possible.

I think this is pretty clear. If Aaron is the Ripper, then the most direct route that avoids the main High Street, is Wentworth Street, which would take Aaron by Goulston Street.

Rob H

[Chris]

I'm a little hazy on the details, but didn't the relatively recent discussion over the unmuzzled dog incident introduce the possibility that Kosminski lived in the Cheapside area at the time of the murders, rather than Whitechapel? The area encompassing Carter Lane, St. Pauls and Cheapside seems an odd place to dog-walk and gutter-forage if you actually lived in Greenfield Street or Sion Square.

Well, that was December 1889, but it does open up the possibility of an association with the central part of the City of London. But my feeling is that both of Aaron's brothers were probably living somewhere around Greenfield Street at the time of the murders.

One other complication is that in two of the reports of the dog incident, Aaron is stated to have given a false address as well as a false name. I suspect that - as with the confusion over his surname - this wasn't an attempt to deceive, but an indication that he may have lived in more than one place.

[Chris]

How do you know that Eddowes murderer was not travelling in a Northerly direction up Goulston Street, and continued travelling North, up Bell Lane perhaps?

We don't, and it may well be that the murderer was heading for the area around Commercial Street.

But to be a devil's advocate, I think the route Rob has indicated would be a fairly natural one for someone heading for the Greenfield Street area and wishing to avoid the main street. One could easily continue down Old Montague Street, turn right into Great Garden Street, and cross the Whitechapel Road to reach Fieldgate Street.

[Observer]

Hi Chris, and Jeff

How do you know that Eddowes murderer was not travelling in a Northerly direction up Goulston Street, and continued travelling North, up Bell Lane perhaps?

I doubt, if Sion was his destination, he would travel as far as Goulston Street in order to cut around back on to Whitechapel high Street/Road.

He could have had an agenda of course, and intended to write that graffiti in that doorway, but now I'm just being fanciful.

all the best

Observer

[robhouse]

Hello Observer,

Here is a map showing the basic concept of the getaway. Granted, this is from my 1st Ripperologist article, which is now somewhat outdated. Kozminski's address is still unknown, but it was quite possibly (or probably) in Greenfield St. And if not, then it was still most likely in that general vicinity... Greenfield St, Yalford St, etc. But we still don't know it. It was definetly NOT 3 Sion Sq. In any case this map illustrates the basic point Chris makes above. If you want to avoid the main road after committing a murder, you go along a side st, i.e. Wentworth St

Rob H

[Ben]

I'm a little hazy on the details, but didn't the relatively recent discussion over the unmuzzled dog incident introduce the possibility that Kosminski lived in the Cheapside area at the time of the murders, rather than Whitechapel? The area encompassing Carter Lane, St. Pauls and Cheapside seems an odd place to dog-walk and gutter-forage if you actually lived in Greenfield Street or Sion Square.

[Chris]

And yes, the whereabouts of Kosminski at the time of Eddowes murder is unknown, but if he was not living in Sion Square at the time, then I'd be looking North of the Whitechapel High street/Whitechapel Road.

On the other hand, it's easy to forget that the area of Mile End Old Town where members of Aaron's family lived is actually north of Mitre Square. The most direct route would have been eastwards along Aldgate High Street, but if the killer wanted to avoid the main street, there would have to be a considerable detour either to the north or the south. As Mitre Square itself was to the north of the main street, the northern option might have seemed more natural.