Replacing Aaron Kosminski with Jacob Levy?

[Scott Nelson]

Had Fido found any example of Kaminskis changing their name to Cohen?

Hi Barron, not Kaminski, but Fido/Begg found that Aaron's sister, Matilda and her husband Morris, changed their name from Lubnowski to Lubnowski-Cohen, then to just Cohen. Chris Phillips and Pat Marshall discovered that Jacob Cohen, who gave information to admitting authorities on Aaron's committal to Colney Hatch Asylum, was a Kosminski. He was the brother of Betsy Kosminski, married to Aaron's brother Woolf Kosminski (Abrahams). It is thought that Woolf and Betsy were distant cousins who shared the same Polish last name.

Also I want to point that not the whole Family needed to change their last name, quite the opposite, if this theory has any merit, the family would have wanted to distance themselve from the suspect, so using a name that was not directly linked to them, other than Kosminski or Abraham, in the same fashion John Doe was used elsewhere for example.

This could have happened in the case of David Cohen, who had no recorded family. If the admitting workhouse and asylum had no previous knowledge of his European last name, he would have been listed by his current name. If both names were known, he would have been listed as "AKA" or "otherwise"....

[Trevor Marriott]

This could have happened in the case of David Cohen, who had no recorded family. If the admitting workhouse and asylum had no previous knowledge of his European last name, he would have been listed by his current name. If both names were known, he would have been listed as "AKA" or "otherwise"....

Fido later suggested that the now-known Aaron Kosminski had been wrongly named by the authorities in 1889 following his detention and the entries in both The Marginalia and the Macnaghten Memorandum could refer to Polish Jews David Cohen aka Aaron Davis Cohen or Nathan Kaminsky who could be one and the same. David Cohen was admitted to Stepney Workhouse on December 21st 1888 having been found wandering the streets unable to care for himself. He was later transferred to Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum where he remained until his death in October 1889. Whilst in the asylum he showed signs of violence towards his fellow inmates and as a result, was segregated. Fido suggests that the authorities could not establish his true identity on arrest and therefore gave him a “John Doe” name of Cohen, which Fido suggests was common practice. However, I can find no official records to show this was common practice. This name was used from time to time by immigration authorities both here and in New York.

However, Fido’s suggestion doesn’t stand up to scrutiny because Cohen had a known address of 86, Leman Street, Whitechapel, and was known to be a tailor, so formally identifying him, in my opinion, should not have been a major problem. Furthermore, there was a due process of law in 1888 with regard to dealing with insane persons and lunatics.

Following an arrest under The Lunacy Act and after being taken to a workhouse, a person could only be lawfully detained for three days and then had to be taken before a justice to determine whether that person should be released or further detained. The Justice of the Peace had the power to authorize a doctor to carry out a full mental assessment.

Having regard to the time he is alleged to have spent incarcerated I would have expected the workhouse and asylum authorities, and the police to make some attempt to identify an allegedly nameless man under their care. After all, this unidentified man Fido suggests was given the name Cohen must have been somebody’s son, father or brother and for that person to suddenly disappear without any further trace is almost unimaginable, and I am sure the family of such a man would be activley seeking him out.

As has been documented there were two other murders in Whitechapel, which the police believed to have been the work of the Ripper. The first was Alice McKenzie in July 1889 and the second was Frances Coles in February 1891. These facts alone, along with other evidence and documents I will discuss in due course, in my opinion, eliminate David Cohen or Nathan Kaminsky and Aaron Kosminski from suspicion of being concerned in the Whitechapel murders. Martin Fido’s suggestion that the police mixed the names up and were not sure of his true identity thereby naming him Cohen as was standard practice does not stand up to scrutiny. This renaming was a practice used by USA immigration authorities at the time. I can find no evidence to show that it was used by the police or asylum or workhouse authorities at this relevant time period in this country.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[The Baron]

This is where I find Nathan Kaminski interesting

Macnaughten's grandson Gerald Donner had a copy of the memoranda which was seen by Phillip Loftus in the 1950's. Loftus did not take a copy of the memorandum, and could only recall that it described (i) Michael [sic] John Druitt ... (ii) a feeble minded man who stabbed girls with nail scissors (either Cutbush or Coldicott) and (iii) a Polish cobbler nicknamed Leather Apron.

Nathan was the only one of the three who was described as a boot maker!

The Theory assumes that the name Kosminski by the police was incorrect.

What if the opposite was right, that he was Nathan Kosminski, and the name Kaminski was incorrect, that can explain why Fido didn't find any trace of the man later.



The Baron

[rjpalmer]

Hi RJ,

I think it would have been the police who made the mistake because of the 2-1/2 year period between the confinement of Cohen and Aaron Kosminski.

Fido's theory has a paradox that has never been resolved.

If David 'Kozminski' or 'Kaminsky' Cohen was identified, caged in an asylum, and dead by October 1889, that means Anderson and Swanson had their man.

So why are the police investigating Aaron Kozminski for the same murders roughly two years later if the case had already been solved?

[The Baron]

Fido's theory has a paradox that has never been resolved.

If David 'Kozminski' or 'Kaminsky' Cohen was identified, caged in an asylum, and dead by October 1889, that means Anderson and Swanson had their man.

So why are the police investigating Aaron Kozminski for the same murders roughly two years later if the case had already been solved?

Furthermore, when did Cohen, if he was the suspect, return to his brother house and have been watched by day and night?!

And why did Macnaghten think, if Cohen was the suspect, that he was still alive in 1894?

Between Aaron Kosminski and David Cohen my money is on the former.


The Baron

[Scott Nelson]

So why are the police investigating Aaron Kozminski for the same murders roughly two years later if the case had already been solved?

As strange as it may seem, in late 1888 there may have been two Aaron Kosminskis walking around Whitechapel, Aaron David Cohen and Aaron Kosminski. Anderson and Swanson got their man, Aaron David Cohen, who may have had the European last name of Kosminski. The former hairdresser, Aaron Kosminski wasn't under police suspicion until a couple of years later, but this was a brief misremembering/mix-up by some MET officers, including Macnaghten, because Cohen (Kosminski?) was already dead and the murder of Frances Coles brought renewed concern that the Ripper may still be at large.

Macnaghten thought Kosminski went to an asylum about March 1889, but this could have been a garbled story of Cohen being returned to the asylum after an identification proceeding. And Macnaghten thought Kosminski was still alive in 1894, mistaking the hairdresser Aaron Kosminski, because both Cohen and Kosminski went to Colney Hatch roughly two years apart, the former before Macnaghten joined the MET.

I expanded on all these conundrums ten years ago in my Cohen article in Ripperologist, including additional bits from Griffiths, Sims and the Coram knife, as well as an attempt to shoehorn Cohen into the Swanson Marginalia.

[Scott Nelson]

Fido later suggested that the now-known Aaron Kosminski had been wrongly named by the authorities in 1889 following his detention and the entries in both The Marginalia and the Macnaghten Memorandum could refer to Polish Jews David Cohen aka Aaron Davis Cohen or Nathan Kaminsky who could be one and the same. David Cohen was admitted to Stepney Workhouse on December 21st 1888 having been found wandering the streets unable to care for himself. He was later transferred to Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum where he remained until his death in October 1889. Whilst in the asylum he showed signs of violence towards his fellow inmates and as a result, was segregated. Fido suggests that the authorities could not establish his true identity on arrest and therefore gave him a “John Doe” name of Cohen, which Fido suggests was common practice. However, I can find no official records to show this was common practice. This name was used from time to time by immigration authorities both here and in New York.

Hey Trevor, a couple of things. Cohen was sent to Whitechapel Union Workhouse on December 7, 1888 directly from the Thames Police Court. He was described as a lunatic wandering at large. He spent two weeks in the workhouse, not three days. He was then sent to Colney Hatch on 21 December.

Fido later abandoned both ideas that Cohen was actually Nathan Kaminsky and that David Cohen was a "John Doe" type of name given to uncommunicative persons. His name was established in the police court as Aaron Davis(d) Cohen. There was an "N. Cohen" (victim of assault) who failed to appear with Aaron David at the court, and who may have been a relative. On both the workhouse and Colney Hatch admission registers there are no relatives listed for David Cohen. In fact, when his death certificate was finally completed (in January 1890) the registerer simply carried over the same information, including his age, from the year before without modifications.