Aaron or not

[Jeff Leahy]

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?

Can I just add the possibility given to me...

Schizophrenics illness go through waves over periods of time...called Psychotic Episodes.

These episodes last typically 12 to 16 weeks. Almost the exact period of time known as the Autumn of terror...ie Martha Tabram to MJK.

The suffer may have made a period of recovery after this..

The next psychotic episode may have made it impossible for the sufferer to function...ie when the madia resumed he was unable to function as Jack The Ripper...

Jack The Ripper only existed...in a very real sense, for a very short period of time...his first 'Psychotic Episode'

Yours Jeff

[Dan Norder]

Norder, no matter how hard I try, I can't help you.

The problem is that there are very few people in this field who have such a low level of understanding of the case, or the world in general for that matter, where your idea of help would actually be an improvement.

[Jeff Leahy]

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.

Thats odd Christine, because my brother who is in charge of mental health in South East Essex, and who sections people on a daily basis and is an expert in the area, had know problem reaching the conclusion having been given Aaron's Asylum records.

[c.d.]

Thank you, Rob.

As far as surveillance of Kosminski goes, I guess the question is when did it take place? If it took place during the period of time when the murders took place, it must have been pretty piss poor surveillance.

c.d.

[robhouse]

Hello RJ Palmer,

You mention that Monro "piped in" about Anderson's theory:

"Monro and Swanson (the latter two in private)"

What is the source for Monro's statement. Can you post the quote? Thanks.

Rob H

[robhouse]

Carrotty Nell,

Yes, I cannot offer up any explanation for why Aaron committed no other murders after Kelly (unless of course McKenzie).

Some possible explanations are that he was aware the police were onto him, so he stopped. Also, the police may have been conducting surveillance on him, perhaps on more than one occasion.

Also, there is the possibility that he was in an asylum, such as a private asylum, and that the record of this has yet to be found.

I really don't know.

Rob H

[robhouse]

"I have to plead ignorance here. What was the bloody laundry incident?"

Hello CD,

Please see my post #233 at http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=810&page=24

Rob H

[robhouse]

Varqm,

Yes, I am beginning to think that the surveillance was known only to a select few higher up police officials and members of the Home Office. Anderson and Swanson would have known, also Macnaghten and Matthews. Other lower offials would have been aware of Kozminski as a suspect, such as Abberline for example.

Note that Swanson, Matthews and Monro never made any public statements about this, or contradicting Anderson. And if the Met really believed they knew the identity of the Ripper, it may have been considered a state secret... both because they could not convict in the absence of legal proof, and also because revelation of the killer's identity would have sparked more anti-semitism.

This is perhaps why Swanson underlined Anderson's sentence "it would ill-become me to violate the unwritten rule of the service"... because Swanson saw the irony in Anderson's stament here... because Swanson was well aware that (as John Malcolm says) "the "traditions of my old department" did in fact suffer because Sir Robert spited his fellow policemen by letting the cat half out of the bag..."

Swanson also noted in the marginalia (as is rarely if ever pointed out) that the author of the Dear Boss letter was "known to Scotland Yard head officers of CID” underlining the word “head” twice." Although this is not at all about Kozminski, it does indicate that certain facts were known to "head officers" only. Again, perhaps another implicit reference to Anderson's letting info out of the bag, when he should not have done so.

Rob H

[c.d.]

I have to plead ignorance here. What was the bloody laundry incident?

c.d.

[robhouse]

Carrotty Nell,

Here is my current thinking on this. IF Aaron comes to the attention of the police after the bloody laundry incident, the police would have questioned him, questioned his relatives. This would have been in the beginning of october, say around October 7. Statements printed in newspaper reports say that "The very place where he lodges is asserted to be within official cognizance." and "The accused is himself aware, it is believed, of the suspicions entertained against him. " Also it is possible that a woman, possibly a relative like his sister, or a sister in law, informed the police about him:

"If the man be the real culprit, he lived some time ago with a woman, by whom he has been accused. Her statements are, it is stated, now being inquired into. In the meantime the suspected assassin is "shadowed."

To me this brings the Earl of Crawford letter into the discussion, as I mentioned.

Then, we have this from the Echo October 20:

"The police complain that their work is increased, and morbid excitement created, by the statements made as to alleged arrests and an important character. "

"There is a clue upon which the authorities have been zealously working for some time. This is in Whitechapel, not far from the scene of the Berner-street tragedy, and the man is, indeed, himself aware that he is being watched; so much so, that, as far as observation has gone at present, he has scarcely ventured out of doors. "

The first statement seems to be saying that the police are complaining that the newspaper reports (such as those I cited) are making it difficult for them to carry out their investigations. In other words, the police would rather the public (and the suspect himself?) were not aware of their observations, and that they were allowed to carry on in secret, as detectives like to do.

Nine days later, we have this interesting article in the Echo, October 29:

"The man who was recently suspected - a resident of Batty-street, near where Lipski lived - has been exonerated. Though certain suspicious circumstances needed explanation, his innocence has been established.

"The theory that the murderer of these unfortunate women is a lunatic is now dispelled by the opinion given to the police by an expert in the treatment of lunacy patients. Had the criminal been deranged, it is thought as almost certain that fresh crimes would have been perpetuated by him. "If he's insane," observed the medical authority, "he's a good deal sharper than those who are not."

This is quite interesting. First it says that the man who was recently suspected has been exonerated, and it also says he lived in Batty street. Then it goes on to dispell the theory that the murderer is a lunatic (which presumably Aaron was at this time.)

Now to my mind, if the police is watching a suspect, and an important suspect, then the Echo and other papers get wind of this and start snooping around and printing articles about it... the police are not going to be to happy about this situation as it makes their investigation much more difficult. At this point the Police may have made a statement to the press that the suspect is exonerted... just to get the newspapers off the scent. And would they say, "Oh yes, the suspect lived in Greenfield St"? No they would not. BECAUSE, a) this would alert the suspect himself that "I knew they were watching me", and also b) the police would not want the press and the public to know they were watching a house in Greenfield St. So they say oh yeah, he lived in Batty St. This is also possibly the reason they make the statement about the murderer not being "a lunatic" and that "If he's insane, he's a good deal sharper than those who are not." Police have done similar types of things in other serial killer cases.

Ex- City detective Harry Cox wrote in 1906, "We had many people under observation while the murders were being perpetrated".

My interpretation is as follows:

Aaron comes to the attention of the police in early October, and he is considered a serious suspect. But the police probably were looking at many suspects at this time, and so Kozminski was only one of many "possibles".

He is looked into, watched, etc, but the police have nothing to go on, no real evidence, the suspect rarely goes out of the house etc. The surveillance on him peters out. But Aaron is still a suspect.

I do not think this is the surveillance that Swanson refers to, nor do I think the identification took place at this time.

The same basic logic goes for the woman who informed or "accused" him. This would have been one of many such incidents. As the Echo reports on Oct 10:

VOLUNTEERED INFORMATION
The authorities are greatly harassed by the multitudinous letters pointing to "clues" in this or that locality. Sometimes seventy or eighty written communications and telegrams from all parts of the country arrive at the East-end District Police Office in one day. Certain of the writers have boldly incriminated individuals, and have offered to give full information, with the addendum that they hope to share in the reward

So my basic theory is that the police became aware of Aaron at this time, watched him for a while, but he was only one of many suspects, and that Swanson's identification and the following surveillance DID NOT happen at this time, but happened much later.

Rob H

[rjpalmer]

Norder, no matter how hard I try, I can't help you. You're stuck in the shallow end of the pool, but until you grow above the 4' 2" piece of tape on the wall, the lifeguard aint going let you into the deep water. Sorry, mate; but in the meantime have fun with those water wings.

[robhouse]

Natalie,

Just to play devil's advocate here for a second, I think it is important to note that Kozminski's medical certificate says "He is melancholic, practises self-abuse. "

I actually sent Aaron's info to a mental health worker and she said she believed the best guess is Schizoaffective disorder

"a psychiatric diagnosis of a neurobiological illness. It describes a condition where symptoms of a mood disorder and symptoms of schizophrenia are both present. A person may manifest impairments in the perception or expression of reality, most commonly in the form of auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions or disorganized speech and thinking, as well as discrete manic and/or mixed and/or depressive episodes in the context of significant social or occupational dysfunction." - from Wikipedia.

I think it is clear that he had symptoms indicating schizophrenia, but he may have also been depressive.

As a side note, "self abuse" or the "solitary vice" was commonly thought of as a cause of insanity and other diseases.

"It was primarily during the 1700s and 1800s when masturbation was first associated with mental and physical deficiencies. Some prominent physicians, scientists, philosophers, and religious leaders believed that illnesses such as insanity, vision and hearing problems, epilepsy, mental retardation, and general health problems were caused by self-stimulation. In fact, over 60% of medical and mental illnesses were blamed on masturbation.[1]

The fear of masturbation was so great that throughout the world, extreme preventative measures were instituted including the use of mechanical restraints, genital surgery, and physical discipline.[2] By the 19th century the cereal magnate John Harvey Kellogg declared "sex for anything but reproduction" to be "sexual excess." Kellogg and others began advocating routine circumcision of males as a deterrent to masturbation.

The term, spermatorrhea, was even invented to explain nocturnal emissions, as no man was willing to admit to masturbating. Between 1856 and 1932, the U.S. Patent Office, awarded 33 patents to inventors of anti-masturbation devices."

http://www.afraidtoask.com/masturbate/History.htm

Rob H

[Dan Norder]

Yet here is Anderson stating --IN PRINT-- while his subordinates are alive and could contradict him that the case was solved.

And they did, as did Smith, who was not his subordinate.

Unless he was brain dread he must have known this would cause a sensation.

There already had been a sensation... one that had forever tainted his public perception. He just put some spin on it to try to lessen the sting.

And do recall that some of the other extraordinary statements Anderson stated in his book were true.....

That's always a pretty silly argument no matter how many times people pull it out: "Look, some of what this person claimed was actually true, so even the things that reliable evidence clearly contradicts must also be true... and meanwhile all sorts of inconvenient but well established facts must be false or else this whole argument is bullocks, and I'll never admit to that, now will I?"

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

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence in order to be taken seriously, not lackluster evidence, and certainly not evidence that points strongly against those extraordinary claims.

[rjpalmer]

Natalie - Hi. Regarding Sir Bob, I think you & I are on about as different wave lengths as two people can possibly be who still basically agree. The difference is that you are interested in what might be called the 'truth value' of Anderson's drooling schitzophrenic Polish Jew theory. Not me. I'm not interested in whether or not it is true; I'm interested in that Anderson was insisting that it was true. Thereby hangs a tale. What interests me more than the drooling Jew theory is that, sometime around 1907-1910, Anderson felt the need to place (excuse the coarse languge) his 'nipple in a ringer' by insisting the Ripper had been caught. And lo and behold, as soon as he does the skeletons come rattling out of the closet. Major Smith immediately pipes in; the Jewish Chronicle gets in on the act; Macnaghten has to throw in his own two cents, as do Abberline, Reid, Littlechild, and, of course, Monro and Swanson (the latter two in private). This, to me, is very suggestive. It suggests, for one thing, that there was trouble in River City. Do you know the song? Trouble. Right here in River City. Trouble with a capital T that rhymes with D and that stands for drool.... Imagine it as the Littlechld Letter sung to the tune of a 1950s American musical.

[Varqm]

OK, I will answer this question...

Well, I dont think I have ever written this before, but I will now say that I do believe it is likely that Aaron was Jack the Ripper. I base this on my own personal interpretation of the facts of the case and the what is known of Aaron Kozminski's life. But I cannot come to this conclusion based on analysis alone... part of it is based on intuition and a gut-feeling. Yes, there are inconsistencies, but there is too much smoke for there not to be a fire. Also, in my researching him, I have never found anything that has been a powerful strike against him being JTR, but I have found things that have supported the theory of his being Jack. I think that further research may make the argument stronger. But yes, I do think he was probably Jack the Ripper.

Rob,

Can you explain a bit on why the majority of other senior officials, some who actually worked on the streets, did not believe it was Kosminski or a Polish Jew ?
Do you believe Swanson , Mcnaughten or Andersson have more information than the rest ? Or were even present at the identification ?