Ep. #28- Kosminski Was The Suspect

[robhouse]

Hello Jeff,

Well, Chris looked quite a bit to see if he could find any record of an admission in a private asylum, but none was found for either Kozminski or Abrahams. I was left feeling that the search was not quite complete, but I was always a bit confused on this topic. I think the admission records are now centrally located for the most part, but I think that for some reason, Chris's search would not have included pauper inmates. I think that the private asylums took pauper patients to sort of handle the overflow of patients from the county asylums. Or something like that... (?)

Hello Chris, yes I noticed the date on that article as well. I have just been listening to the podcast and I cringe every time I hear myself make a mistake.

Rob

[Sam Flynn]

Luckily for me,the brilliant Sam helped me along

I'm grateful if I've been able to help you, Anna - albeit I should point out that such help as I could offer would not have been in the context of Paul Begg's views on the Ripper case. For what my opinion is worth, and for the record, I can say with all sincerity that I hold Paul's books on the case in the highest regard. They are very well-written, absorbing, and are certainly among those that I have most enjoyed over the years - indeed, I return to them again and again.

[Jeff Leahy]

Hello Jeff,

Hello Chris, yes I noticed the date on that article as well. I have just been listening to the podcast and I cringe every time I hear myself make a mistake.

Rob

Actually Rob you came over very well, no worries on that front, a natural.

The odd slip always happens in these shows its part of the joy of them and you can always make corrections as I'm sure Chris Scott will tell you.

Would there have been any specifically 'jewish' related asylums? I'm sure the families first port of call on such matters would have been their Rabbi

Pirate

[Ally]

Rob,

I told you last night in chat not to listen to yourself because you will always think you sound worse than anyone else does.

To all:
I have already been told I sound like a nutter because I said I once threatened my brother with a knife. Geesh. Y'all have tame families. If I'd been holding a kleenex when he pissed me off I'd have waved a kleenex in an emphatic matter but because I was cutting up celery and had a knife in my hand....that doesn't make me violent and I didn't enact violence against my brother. But technically I was holding a knife and when you are holding a knife and arguing with someone, you are threatening them with it.

However I have been prompted to clarify my position on that since apparently I came out like a loon. Brother and sister get into it: Brother is holding a knife and he gestures with it. As I did. No one is struck, no one is hit, no one is cut. However, being that Aaron was already perceived as a nutter, this incident was taken much more seriously than my wrangling with my brother. It might have been the last straw, and even though there was no real inherent violence since the sister was not harmed and there is no indication of Aaron actually ever using actual violence against anyone, perhaps the family used this as an excuse to relieve themselves of the burden.

This was the point I was trying to make. So ...clarifying what I meant.

[Sam Flynn]

because I was cutting up celery and had a knife in my hand....

...I became a knife-wielding celerial killer!

(Sorry, slipped into a parallel vegetable universe there. It happens from time to time.)

[Ally]

Seriously, there needs to be a fine for puns. Those who make them should be required to suffer like those forced to endure them.

[Jeff Leahy]

Seriously, there needs to be a fine for puns. Those who make them should be required to suffer like those forced to endure them.

I'm not certain that Sam could aford the fines

Seriously the point with regards to Aarons mental condition is very difficult because as was pointed out in the Podcast 'we know so little'

While I except your point Ally about the knife. ie it doent mean much in itself.

On the other hand it is possible that Aaron could have been responcible.

ie. His condition and symptoms are consistent with Schizophrenia.

But rather than saying he was JtR it simply leaves a possibility.

No more than that.

And again I must stress that Schizophrenics on the whole are completely harmless..my brother stresses that there must have been other factors like alcohol..environment etc..schizophrenia alone does not give an answer..

a combination could make Aaron 'jack' in 1888 and harmless there after, but then again its only a possible..thats all.

The JtR murders are unique they can not be compared with any other crime.

(To be honest its only really the placing for the organs at the MJK murder scene that has always made me wonder on the killers mindset.)

Its unfortunate that there wasn't more time I'd liked to have treid to twist my brothers arm into coming on and talking about schizophrenia..he does work in the feild on a daily basis...and he's much more informed than me on the subject.

Pirate

PS Rob made an excellent point to me when we met, its not so much the evidence for Kosminski but that nothing has come along to dismiss him..?

is that right Rob?

[Natalie Severn]

What makes Kosminski so very unlikely in my opinion is that not only did Anderson claim he was the ripper 22 years after the events and just as he needed some publicity for his autobiography in 1910, but that he claimed to have taken part in such a peculiarly secret and unlawful episode with this mentally ill man.This it appears was some sort of identification ,again apparently,many years after the actual event .Indeed the most likely witness [Lawende],of this event, complained he couldnt even rememberit properly at that time-let alone many years later .
None of the rest of what he said makes much sense either-Kosminski didnt die soon after admittance for example,his records suggest a harmless chap with delusions about receiving orders from above- not the monster of sexual depravity so vividly foaming and thrashing away in Anderson"s imagination.

Moreover no other senior police officer is on record as having officially or unofficially agreed with Anderson [Swanson"s marginalia makes him sound clearly rather baffled about Anderson"s claim]-the only other police chief known to have Kosminski on his suspect list, Macnaghten, claimed Druitt to have been rather more likely to have been the ripper.

[Jeff Leahy]

Hi Nat

I'm very teird and off to bed but I thought we had been over the fact that it is unlikely that Lawende was the witness..for the reasons Paul Begg gave.

Pirate

[The Good Michael]

Rob House.

You did an excellent job. You didn't commit to anything, but only prsented your findings and beliefs based upon those findings. The folks on the panel really had nothing to say in the way of refutation, though I suspect some of them may have wanted to find things to argue about. You made a strong case without showing obstinacy and surety, and that is an excellent thing.

Cheers,

Mike

[Stewart P Evans]

Aaron Kosminski

I think that a better title for this thread would have been 'Aaron Kosminski Was the Suspect'. There is no doubt, surely, that Anderson's Polish Jew was Macnaghten's 'Kosminski'?

[Natalie Severn]

Because of difficulties with my computer I havent heard Rob"s presentation but I"ll look forward to doing so soon.
Jeff,
Whether it was Lawende or Schwartz ,the police chief Macnaghten dismissed ALL of claims by anyone to have been able to accurately identify the ripper, claiming noone got a good view of the ripper,"unless it was the beat PC in Mitre Square".His certain belief is supported forcefully by several other policemen as well as yet an another police chief, also around at the time, Henry Smith.
If Paul Begg knows something none of these 1880"s policemen and police chiefs did,then we need to hear it.
Best
Norma

[Jeff Leahy]

Hi Norma

Paul's point was to do with Lawende being used as a witness in the sadler ID.

Pirate

[Robert]

I should have joined this thread earlier. Far too late now to get my carrotid artery pun in. Bugger!

[Stewart P Evans]

Schwartz and Lawende

Swanson on Schwartz as a witness - "...account must be taken of the fact that the throat only of the victim was cut in this instance which measured by time, considering meeting (if with a man other than Schwartz saw) the time for agreement & the murderous action would I think be a question of so many minutes, five at least, ten at most, so that I respectfully submit it is not clearly proved that the man that Schwartz saw is the murderer, although it is clearly the more probable of the two." (the other being seen by PC Smith).

Swanson on Lawende as a witness - "...Mr. Lamende [sic] states that he could not identify the man, but also the woman stood with her back to him, with her hand on the man's breast, he could not identify the body mutilated as it was, as that of the woman whose back he had seen, but to the best of his belief the clothing of the deceased, which was black was similar to that worn by the woman whom he had seen. and that was the full extent of his identity."

Neither of these witnesses inspire confidence and any defence counsel would make short work of them in a court of law. Add to that the fact that the alleged identificaton of Kosminski was carried out over two years later it would have been totally worthless for a conviction. This, indeed, makes a total nonsense of Anderson's claims which are impossible given that it can't be proved that either of them saw the killer, Anderson was talking in terms of a 'definitely ascertained fact.'

However, as to which witness was used the record, such as it is, favours Lawende as we are told in the Daily Telegraph report of 18 February 1891 that it was he whom was used in the failed identification of Sadler (just a week after Aaron Kosminski was banged up). There are deeper considerations here.