Kosminskical Thoughts

[erobitha]

Ok pardon my ignorance please and I may be misinterpreting this but are you saying he flat knew who the ripper was but wouldn't say? For instance, there's a killer called the Doodler. He was killer of gay men in the 70's. I won't get all up into that case but there reaches a point where all the reading basically says that they knew who the Doodler was, to this day the case is "unsolved" but more than one source says that the authorities knew who the Doodler was but no one would come forward and testify against him because that would "out" them as gay and cause them issues. The assumption is that they didn't have enough evidence without their testimonies to charge him on their own so it just went cold.
That's what reading what you wrote made me think of. That Swanson knew who the Ripper was but declined to say for this reason or that. But then I could be totally misreading Am I right or could you clarify?

I don't know is the short answer. I don't know why he did that.

No-one has been able to explain adequately why did he leave marginalia notes in one book, with the addition of extra information of the jewish testimony element? Surely if he knew all this already what was the point of the notes? Koz was well dead by then, yet Swanson never spoke about this publicly. Why then and why like that? For whose benefit was it for?

To me it is very strange behaviour. Swanson is arguably the one police office who had access to all information across all key stakeholders.

[clark2710]

The focus of Kosminski really channels through one main source and that is Donald Swanson. He was the central conduit for all information passing through the Met, Home Office and even the City of London police. In Anderson's book, where he gives clues but does not name, it is because he is referring to his friend and underling Swanson being the perosn who identified the ripper.

We now rely on the marginalia of which Swanson hismelf wrote Kosminksi's name as an endorsement of that position.

Why would he write that in the marginalia? Was it not he who led Anderson to that position? Why then the explanation of the jew not testifying against another jew information added? Perhaps he was hoping one day someone would discover it.

He always declined to speak publicly on the issue and even declined writing his memoirs. So why this sudden willingnness to share information via pages in a book about a subject that he already knew initimate details about? I ask because it is strange behaviour. Especially, if there was no other marginalia recorded in any other book Swanson owned, including the 1906 earlier book written by Anderson. Does anyone know if there was such marginalia written in those books too?

Ok pardon my ignorance please and I may be misinterpreting this but are you saying he flat knew who the ripper was but wouldn't say? For instance, there's a killer called the Doodler. He was killer of gay men in the 70's. I won't get all up into that case but there reaches a point where all the reading basically says that they knew who the Doodler was, to this day the case is "unsolved" but more than one source says that the authorities knew who the Doodler was but no one would come forward and testify against him because that would "out" them as gay and cause them issues. The assumption is that they didn't have enough evidence without their testimonies to charge him on their own so it just went cold.
That's what reading what you wrote made me think of. That Swanson knew who the Ripper was but declined to say for this reason or that. But then I could be totally misreading Am I right or could you clarify?

[clark2710]

Agreed.

After reviewing some of the other opinions and doing some separate reading I still feel as I have been about Kosminski but what has changed in my thinking (especially after talking with Ms. Diddles) that when Kosminski was in the throws of one of his fits and hearing the voices and what not that's where I'm looking and seeing ok no way he's the Ripper...however, he was a barber, he did clean up well enough to operate in some aspects of everyday life despite eating out of the gutter and so on. So one MAY think that although the psychiatric notes of the day on Kosminski describe him as unruly, unkept, hard to deal with, etc...that's not to say that he didn't or couldn't pull off cleaning up really well to do the slayings....if that makes sense

[Scott Nelson]

And, if the police truly did learn something after the murders then why do various officers hold different opinions on who the killer was?

Because a few higher-ups at Scotland Yard had strong suspicions (not hard evidence) and chose not to share with other officers?

I really don't know why certain others would have been kept out of the loop. I've suspected the suspect's family had something to do with limiting the spread of suspicions.

[erobitha]

The focus of Kosminski really channels through one main source and that is Donald Swanson. He was the central conduit for all information passing through the Met, Home Office and even the City of London police. In Anderson's book, where he gives clues but does not name, it is because he is referring to his friend and underling Swanson being the perosn who identified the ripper.

We now rely on the marginalia of which Swanson hismelf wrote Kosminksi's name as an endorsement of that position.

Why would he write that in the marginalia? Was it not he who led Anderson to that position? Why then the explanation of the jew not testifying against another jew information added? Perhaps he was hoping one day someone would discover it.

He always declined to speak publicly on the issue and even declined writing his memoirs. So why this sudden willingnness to share information via pages in a book about a subject that he already knew initimate details about? I ask because it is strange behaviour. Especially, if there was no other marginalia recorded in any other book Swanson owned, including the 1906 earlier book written by Anderson. Does anyone know if there was such marginalia written in those books too?

[Wickerman]

Wickerman, I am starting to agree with you in that anyone that looks at the asylum notes on how Kosminski behaved, how difficult a patient he was, and so on....it's hard to believe that he could pull off the Ripper killings...having said that, he has the Crazy so to speak but his version of crazy just doesn't fit how the Ripper pulled off his killings. If that makes sense? In my opinion

Agreed.

[Wickerman]

Did something happen in the intervening time to focus attention on Kosminski?

Which is always a reasonable question, but a question does not make a suspect.
And, if the police truly did learn something after the murders then why do various officers hold different opinions on who the killer was?

[Scott Nelson]

Anderson, writing late in October 1888 admitted that there was not a clue against anyone, yet in his memoirs he swears that he suspected Kozminski.

Did something happen in the intervening time to focus attention on Kosminski?

[caz]

dam i look good hee hee

I bloody don't, Abby, but if this was DJA's way of saying I can be extremely witty, I'll take that every time over looking good at my age.

[Abby Normal]

dam i look good hee hee

[DJA]

[caz]

The exquisite taste of Palmer's Wit. Served extra dry. Nice.

Trouble is, some people can be extremely witty, while unwittingly being all over the place with their subject matter.

[clark2710]

His grave looks pretty intact to me; here it is on the site Find a Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/...aron-kosminski But I do seen your point.

I have a southern family, mix that with how I was raised and so on yeah

[clark2710]

Witnesses always describe a suspect around middle-age, say 30-45?, whereas Kozminski in 1888 was only a young 23 years old.
Many choose to counter this fact by saying age is not always easy to judge. True, yet all the victims who were described by someone who didn't know them underestimated their ages, they did not overestimate.
This implies people in general looked younger in gaslight.
If people looked younger than their true age by gaslight, then a 23 year old murderer would have been described as a teenager, so that counter argument simply doesn't work.

Kozminski was clearly too young to be the Whitechapel murderer.

Anderson, writing late in October 1888 admitted that there was not a clue against anyone, yet in his memoirs he swears that he suspected Kozminski. The truth appears to be that he clearly did not in October 1888. And, following the next murder Scotland Yard did not conduct their investigation focused on lunatics like Kozminski. Their 'lunatic' phase occurred early on in the murders, by the time of Millers Court they were looking for someone of a higher class.

Kozminski, as a suspect is a waste of time.

Wickerman, I am starting to agree with you in that anyone that looks at the asylum notes on how Kosminski behaved, how difficult a patient he was, and so on....it's hard to believe that he could pull off the Ripper killings...having said that, he has the Crazy so to speak but his version of crazy just doesn't fit how the Ripper pulled off his killings. If that makes sense? In my opinion

[Wickerman]

Here's my issue with Aaron being the Ripper. The Devil is in the details. If you are to take the eye witnesses, at least some of them, as having caught a glimpse of the Ripper here's the thing...The Ripper was viewed as neat and well put together, where Kosminski was described as unkept and dirty, wouldn't be washed, and so on....The Ripper was thought to have a somewhat rich anatomical knowledge and Kosminski, while I've read in some places that he had some anatomical knowledge, none of them seem to fit the description of how versed the Ripper would've been.....

Witnesses always describe a suspect around middle-age, say 30-45?, whereas Kozminski in 1888 was only a young 23 years old.
Many choose to counter this fact by saying age is not always easy to judge. True, yet all the victims who were described by someone who didn't know them underestimated their ages, they did not overestimate.
This implies people in general looked younger in gaslight.
If people looked younger than their true age by gaslight, then a 23 year old murderer would have been described as a teenager, so that counter argument simply doesn't work.

Kozminski was clearly too young to be the Whitechapel murderer.

Anderson, writing late in October 1888 admitted that there was not a clue against anyone, yet in his memoirs he swears that he suspected Kozminski. The truth appears to be that he clearly did not in October 1888. And, following the next murder Scotland Yard did not conduct their investigation focused on lunatics like Kozminski. Their 'lunatic' phase occurred early on in the murders, by the time of Millers Court they were looking for someone of a higher class.

Kozminski, as a suspect is a waste of time.