Aaron Kosminski
Encyclopedia
Aaron Kosminski was an insane Polish Jew who was a suspect in the Jack the Ripper
murders. He emigrated to England from Poland in the 1880s and worked as a hairdresser in Whitechapel
in the East End of London
, where the murders were committed in 1888. From 1891, he was institutionalized in an asylum.
Police officials at the time of the murders named one of their suspects "Kosminski" (without a forename), and described him as a Polish Jew in an insane asylum. Almost a century after the final murder, the suspect "Kosminski" was identified with Aaron Kosminski, but there was little if any evidence to connect him with the murders, and the reasons for his inclusion as a suspect are unclear. Possibly, Kosminski was confused with another Polish Jew of the same age, such as Aaron Cohen, who was a violent patient at the same asylum.
. His parents were Abram Jozef Kozminski, a tailor, and his wife Golda née Lubnowska. In 1882, at the age of 17, he emigrated to England, and embarked on a career as a barber in the Whitechapel district of the East End of London. Whitechapel was an impoverished slum that had become home to many Jewish refugees who were fleeing pogrom
s and economic hardship in eastern Europe and Tsarist Russia. His sisters, brother and widowed mother also left Russia and lived in Whitechapel.
On two occasions in July 1890 and February 1891, Kosminski was placed in Mile End
Old Town workhouse
because of his insane behaviour. On the second occasion, he was discharged to Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum
, where he remained for the next three years until he was admitted on 19 April 1894 to Leavesden Asylum
. Case notes indicate that Kosminski had been ill since at least 1885. His insanity took the form of auditory hallucinations, a paranoid fear of being fed by other people that drove him to pick up and eat food dropped as litter, and a refusal to wash or bathe. The cause of his insanity was recorded as "self-abuse", which is thought to be a euphemism for masturbation. His poor diet seems to have kept him in an emaciated state for years; his low weight was recorded in the asylum case notes. By February 1919, he weighed just 96 pounds (43.5 kg). He died the following month.
district of the East End of London
were linked together in a single police investigation known as the "Whitechapel murders". Seven of the victims suffered a slash to the throat, and in four cases the bodies were mutilated after death. Five of the cases, between August and November 1888, show such marked similarities that they are generally agreed to be the work of a single serial killer, known as "Jack the Ripper
". Despite an extensive police investigation, the Ripper was never identified and the crimes remained unsolved. Years after the end of the murders, documents were discovered that revealed the suspicions of police officials against a man called "Kosminski".
An 1894 memorandum written by Sir Melville Macnaghten
, the Assistant Chief Constable
of the London Metropolitan Police Service
, names one of the suspects as a Polish Jew called "Kosminski" (without a forename). Macnaghten's memo was discovered in the private papers of his daughter, Lady Aberconway, by television journalist Dan Farson in 1959, and an abridged version from the archives of the Metropolitan Police Service was released to the public in the 1970s. Macnaghten stated that there were strong reasons for suspecting "Kosminski" because he "had a great hatred of women ... with strong homicidal tendencies".
In 1910, Assistant Commissioner
Sir Robert Anderson claimed in his memoirs The Lighter Side of My Official Life that the Ripper was a "low-class Polish Jew". Chief Inspector Donald Swanson
, who led the Ripper investigation, named the man as "Kosminski" in notes handwritten in the margin of his presentation copy of Anderson's memoirs. He added that "Kosminski" had been watched at his brother's home in Whitechapel by the police, that he was taken with his hands tied behind his back to the workhouse and then to Colney Hatch Asylum, and that he died shortly after. The copy of Anderson's memoirs containing the handwritten notes by Swanson was donated by his descendents to Scotland Yard
's Crime Museum
in 2006.
In 1987, Ripper author Martin Fido
searched asylum records for any inmates called Kosminski, and found only one: Aaron Kosminski. Aaron may have lived close to the sites of the murders. The addresses given in the asylum records are in Whitechapel, and Isaac Kozminski, who may have been Aaron's brother, resided at 76 Goulston Street in 1891. The Ripper's victims were all murdered within walking distance of Goulston Street, and a bloodstained piece of one of the victim's clothing
was found there. The description of Aaron's symptoms in the case notes indicates that he was a paranoid schizophrenic, and known paranoid schizophrenics include serial killers such as Peter Sutcliffe
. Macnaghten's notes say that "Kosminski" indulged in "solitary vices", and in his memoirs Anderson wrote of his suspect's "unmentionable vices", both of which may match the claim in the case notes that Aaron committed "self-abuse". Swanson's notes match the known details of Aaron's life in that he reported that the suspect went to the workhouse and then to Colney Hatch, but the last detail about his early death does not match Aaron, who lived until 1919.
Anderson claimed that the Ripper had been identified by the "only person who had ever had a good view of the murderer", but that no prosecution was possible because both the witness and the culprit were Jews, and Jews were not willing to offer testimony against fellow Jews. Swanson's notes state that "Kosminski" was identified at "the Seaside Home", which was the Police Convalescent Home in Brighton
. Some authors express skepticism that this identification ever happened, while others use it as evidence for their theories. For example, Donald Rumbelow
thought the story unlikely, but fellow Ripper authors Martin Fido
and Paul Begg thought there was another witness, perhaps Israel Schwartz
, Joseph Lawende
, or a policeman. In his memorandum, however, Macnaghten stated that "no-one ever saw the Whitechapel murderer", which directly contradicts Anderson's and Swanson's recollection. Sir Henry Smith, Acting Commissioner of the City of London Police
at the time of the murders, dismissed Anderson's claim scathingly in his own memoirs written later in the same year, calling it a "reckless accusation" against Jews. Edmund Reid, the inspector in charge of the investigation initially, also challenged Anderson's opinion. There is no record of Aaron Kosminski in any surviving official police documents except Macnaghten's memo.
In Kosminski's defence, he was described as harmless in the asylum. He once brandished a chair at an asylum attendant in January 1892 and he threatened his sister with a knife, but these two incidents are the only known indications of violent behaviour. In the asylum, Kosminski preferred to speak his native language, which indicates that his English may have been poor, and that he was unable to persuade English-speaking victims into dark alleyways, as the Ripper was supposed to do. The five killings that are most frequently blamed on the Ripper ended in 1888 but Kosminski was still at large until 1891, and his slight build does not match the descriptions of men seen with the victims shortly before their demise. In the final analysis, there is no more evidence against Kosminski than against the other hundred or so named Jack the Ripper suspects.
Another Polish Jew proposed as a suspect in the Jack the Ripper murders was Aaron Davis Cohen or David Cohen, whose incarceration at Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum
roughly coincided with the end of the murders. He was committed on 12 December 1888, about one month after the murder of Mary Jane Kelly
on 9 November. He was described as violently antisocial, exhibited destructive tendencies while at the asylum, and had to be restrained. He was the same age as Kosminski, and died at the asylum in October 1889. Author Martin Fido
suggested in his book The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper (1987) that the name "David Cohen" was used by the asylum as a simple name for an inmate whose true name (Kosminski or Kaminsky) was too difficult to spell or easily misunderstood. Fido identified Cohen with "Leather Apron", a Polish Jewish bootmaker blamed for the murders in local gossip, and speculated that Cohen's true identity was Nathan Kaminsky, a bootmaker living in Whitechapel who had been treated at one time for syphilis. Fido was unable to trace Kaminsky after May 1888, and records of Cohen begin that December. Fido suggested that police officials confused the name Kaminsky with Kosminski, resulting in the wrong man coming under suspicion. As with Kosminski, the asylum case notes say he spoke only Yiddish.
The implication is that Kaminsky's syphilis was not cured in May 1888 but in remission, and he began to kill prostitutes as an act of revenge because it had affected his brain. However, Cohen's death certificate makes no mention of syphilis but gives the cause of death as "exhaustion of mania" with phthisis, a then prevalent form of pulmonary tuberculosis, as the secondary cause. Kaminsky might have died as an "unknown" as hundreds of people did each year in the late 19th century. That would account for Fido's inability to find a record of his death in England and Wales during the probable period of his life.
Nigel Cawthorne
dismissed Cohen as a likely suspect because in the asylum his assaults were undirected, and his behaviour was wild and uncontrolled, whereas the Ripper seemed to attack specifically and quietly. In contrast, former FBI criminal profiler John Douglas
has asserted in his book The Cases That Haunt Us that behavioural clues gathered from the murders all point to a person "known to the police as David Cohen ... or someone very much like him". Using criminal profiling techniques Douglas and Roy Hazlewood concluded that the Whitechapel murderer would have been someone of Kosminski's or Cohen's age, marital status and social class who exhibited erratic or irrational antisocial behaviour and who lived close to the scenes of the murders.
John Pizer was another Polish Jew who worked as a bootmaker in Whitechapel. Police Sergeant William Thicke arrested him on 10 September 1888 on suspicion of being "Leather Apron". Thicke apparently believed that he had committed a string of minor assaults on prostitutes, and he did have a prior conviction for a stabbing offence. The investigating inspector, however, reported that "there is no evidence whatsoever against him", and he was cleared of suspicion when it turned out that he had alibis for two of the murders. He was staying with relatives at the time of one of the murders, and he was talking with a police officer while watching a spectacular fire on the London Docks
at the time of another. Pizer successfully obtained monetary compensation from at least one newspaper that had named him as the murderer.
Jack the Ripper
"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the...
murders. He emigrated to England from Poland in the 1880s and worked as a hairdresser in Whitechapel
Whitechapel
Whitechapel is a built-up inner city district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, London, England. It is located east of Charing Cross and roughly bounded by the Bishopsgate thoroughfare on the west, Fashion Street on the north, Brady Street and Cavell Street on the east and The Highway on the...
in the East End of London
East End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
, where the murders were committed in 1888. From 1891, he was institutionalized in an asylum.
Police officials at the time of the murders named one of their suspects "Kosminski" (without a forename), and described him as a Polish Jew in an insane asylum. Almost a century after the final murder, the suspect "Kosminski" was identified with Aaron Kosminski, but there was little if any evidence to connect him with the murders, and the reasons for his inclusion as a suspect are unclear. Possibly, Kosminski was confused with another Polish Jew of the same age, such as Aaron Cohen, who was a violent patient at the same asylum.
Life
Kosminski was born in the Polish town of Kłodawa, which was then in the Russian EmpireRussian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
. His parents were Abram Jozef Kozminski, a tailor, and his wife Golda née Lubnowska. In 1882, at the age of 17, he emigrated to England, and embarked on a career as a barber in the Whitechapel district of the East End of London. Whitechapel was an impoverished slum that had become home to many Jewish refugees who were fleeing pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
s and economic hardship in eastern Europe and Tsarist Russia. His sisters, brother and widowed mother also left Russia and lived in Whitechapel.
On two occasions in July 1890 and February 1891, Kosminski was placed in Mile End
Mile End
Mile End is an area within the East End of London, England, and part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is located east-northeast of Charing Cross...
Old Town workhouse
Workhouse
In England and Wales a workhouse, colloquially known as a spike, was a place where those unable to support themselves were offered accommodation and employment...
because of his insane behaviour. On the second occasion, he was discharged to Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum
Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum
Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum was an early psychiatric hospital located in Colney Hatch in what is now the London Borough of Barnet. The hospital was in operation from 1851 to 1993....
, where he remained for the next three years until he was admitted on 19 April 1894 to Leavesden Asylum
Leavesden Mental Hospital
Leavesden Mental Hospital was founded in 1870 on the outskirts of Abbots Langley by the Metropolitan Asylums Board as the Metropolitan Asylum for Chronic Imbeciles. At the same time the St Pancras Union Workhouse established an Industrial School across the road. In 1920, the asylum was renamed the...
. Case notes indicate that Kosminski had been ill since at least 1885. His insanity took the form of auditory hallucinations, a paranoid fear of being fed by other people that drove him to pick up and eat food dropped as litter, and a refusal to wash or bathe. The cause of his insanity was recorded as "self-abuse", which is thought to be a euphemism for masturbation. His poor diet seems to have kept him in an emaciated state for years; his low weight was recorded in the asylum case notes. By February 1919, he weighed just 96 pounds (43.5 kg). He died the following month.
Jack the Ripper suspect
Between 1888 and 1891, the deaths of eleven women in or around the WhitechapelWhitechapel
Whitechapel is a built-up inner city district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, London, England. It is located east of Charing Cross and roughly bounded by the Bishopsgate thoroughfare on the west, Fashion Street on the north, Brady Street and Cavell Street on the east and The Highway on the...
district of the East End of London
East End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
were linked together in a single police investigation known as the "Whitechapel murders". Seven of the victims suffered a slash to the throat, and in four cases the bodies were mutilated after death. Five of the cases, between August and November 1888, show such marked similarities that they are generally agreed to be the work of a single serial killer, known as "Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper
"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the...
". Despite an extensive police investigation, the Ripper was never identified and the crimes remained unsolved. Years after the end of the murders, documents were discovered that revealed the suspicions of police officials against a man called "Kosminski".
An 1894 memorandum written by Sir Melville Macnaghten
Melville MacNaghten
Sir Melville Leslie Macnaghten CB KPM was Assistant Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police from 1903 to 1913....
, the Assistant Chief Constable
Chief Constable
Chief constable is the rank used by the chief police officer of every territorial police force in the United Kingdom except for the City of London Police and the Metropolitan Police, as well as the chief officers of the three 'special' national police forces, the British Transport Police, Ministry...
of the London Metropolitan Police Service
Metropolitan Police Service
The Metropolitan Police Service is the territorial police force responsible for Greater London, excluding the "square mile" of the City of London which is the responsibility of the City of London Police...
, names one of the suspects as a Polish Jew called "Kosminski" (without a forename). Macnaghten's memo was discovered in the private papers of his daughter, Lady Aberconway, by television journalist Dan Farson in 1959, and an abridged version from the archives of the Metropolitan Police Service was released to the public in the 1970s. Macnaghten stated that there were strong reasons for suspecting "Kosminski" because he "had a great hatred of women ... with strong homicidal tendencies".
In 1910, Assistant Commissioner
Assistant Commissioner
Assistant commissioner is a rank used in many police forces across the globe. It is also a rank used in revenue administrations in many countries.-Australia:...
Sir Robert Anderson claimed in his memoirs The Lighter Side of My Official Life that the Ripper was a "low-class Polish Jew". Chief Inspector Donald Swanson
Donald Swanson
Chief Inspector Donald Sutherland Swanson was born in Thurso in Scotland, and was a senior police officer in the Metropolitan Police in London during the notorious Jack the Ripper murders of 1888.-Early life:...
, who led the Ripper investigation, named the man as "Kosminski" in notes handwritten in the margin of his presentation copy of Anderson's memoirs. He added that "Kosminski" had been watched at his brother's home in Whitechapel by the police, that he was taken with his hands tied behind his back to the workhouse and then to Colney Hatch Asylum, and that he died shortly after. The copy of Anderson's memoirs containing the handwritten notes by Swanson was donated by his descendents to Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, UK. It derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became...
's Crime Museum
Black Museum
The Black Museum of Scotland Yard is a famed collection of criminal memorabilia kept at the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police in London, England. The museum came into existence sometime in 1874, although unofficially. It was housed at Scotland Yard, and grew from the collection of prisoners'...
in 2006.
In 1987, Ripper author Martin Fido
Martin Fido
Martin Austin Fido is a university teacher, true crime writer and broadcaster. His many books include The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper, The Official Encyclopedia of Scotland Yard, and The Murder Guide to London.After leaving Balliol College, Oxford in 1966 where he had been a...
searched asylum records for any inmates called Kosminski, and found only one: Aaron Kosminski. Aaron may have lived close to the sites of the murders. The addresses given in the asylum records are in Whitechapel, and Isaac Kozminski, who may have been Aaron's brother, resided at 76 Goulston Street in 1891. The Ripper's victims were all murdered within walking distance of Goulston Street, and a bloodstained piece of one of the victim's clothing
Goulston Street graffito
The Goulston Street graffito was some writing on a wall that was found beside a clue in the Whitechapel murders investigation. The Whitechapel murders were a series of brutal attacks on women in the Whitechapel district in the East End of London that occurred between 1888 and 1891...
was found there. The description of Aaron's symptoms in the case notes indicates that he was a paranoid schizophrenic, and known paranoid schizophrenics include serial killers such as Peter Sutcliffe
Peter Sutcliffe
Peter William Sutcliffe is a British serial killer who was dubbed "The Yorkshire Ripper". In 1981 Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering 13 women and attacking seven others. He is currently serving 20 sentences of life imprisonment in Broadmoor Hospital...
. Macnaghten's notes say that "Kosminski" indulged in "solitary vices", and in his memoirs Anderson wrote of his suspect's "unmentionable vices", both of which may match the claim in the case notes that Aaron committed "self-abuse". Swanson's notes match the known details of Aaron's life in that he reported that the suspect went to the workhouse and then to Colney Hatch, but the last detail about his early death does not match Aaron, who lived until 1919.
Anderson claimed that the Ripper had been identified by the "only person who had ever had a good view of the murderer", but that no prosecution was possible because both the witness and the culprit were Jews, and Jews were not willing to offer testimony against fellow Jews. Swanson's notes state that "Kosminski" was identified at "the Seaside Home", which was the Police Convalescent Home in Brighton
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
. Some authors express skepticism that this identification ever happened, while others use it as evidence for their theories. For example, Donald Rumbelow
Donald Rumbelow
Donald Rumbelow is a British crime historian, former Curator of the City of London Police's Crime Museum., two-time chairman of Britain's Crime Writers' Association, and author of the book The Complete Jack the Ripper...
thought the story unlikely, but fellow Ripper authors Martin Fido
Martin Fido
Martin Austin Fido is a university teacher, true crime writer and broadcaster. His many books include The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper, The Official Encyclopedia of Scotland Yard, and The Murder Guide to London.After leaving Balliol College, Oxford in 1966 where he had been a...
and Paul Begg thought there was another witness, perhaps Israel Schwartz
Israel Schwartz
Israel Schwartz was a Hungarian, apparently of Jewish descent, who in 1888 claimed to have witnessed an assault on a London woman that is believed to be tied to the Jack the Ripper slayings....
, Joseph Lawende
Joseph Lawende
Joseph Lawende born in Warsaw, Poland, a cigarette salesman, is, with Israel Schwartz, among the most discussed of witnesses in the series of murders committed by the notorious Jack the Ripper in Whitechapel in London in 1888....
, or a policeman. In his memorandum, however, Macnaghten stated that "no-one ever saw the Whitechapel murderer", which directly contradicts Anderson's and Swanson's recollection. Sir Henry Smith, Acting Commissioner of the City of London Police
City of London Police
The City of London Police is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement within the City of London, England, including the Middle and Inner Temple. The service responsible for law enforcement within the rest of Greater London is the Metropolitan Police Service, a separate...
at the time of the murders, dismissed Anderson's claim scathingly in his own memoirs written later in the same year, calling it a "reckless accusation" against Jews. Edmund Reid, the inspector in charge of the investigation initially, also challenged Anderson's opinion. There is no record of Aaron Kosminski in any surviving official police documents except Macnaghten's memo.
In Kosminski's defence, he was described as harmless in the asylum. He once brandished a chair at an asylum attendant in January 1892 and he threatened his sister with a knife, but these two incidents are the only known indications of violent behaviour. In the asylum, Kosminski preferred to speak his native language, which indicates that his English may have been poor, and that he was unable to persuade English-speaking victims into dark alleyways, as the Ripper was supposed to do. The five killings that are most frequently blamed on the Ripper ended in 1888 but Kosminski was still at large until 1891, and his slight build does not match the descriptions of men seen with the victims shortly before their demise. In the final analysis, there is no more evidence against Kosminski than against the other hundred or so named Jack the Ripper suspects.
David Cohen
Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum
Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum was an early psychiatric hospital located in Colney Hatch in what is now the London Borough of Barnet. The hospital was in operation from 1851 to 1993....
roughly coincided with the end of the murders. He was committed on 12 December 1888, about one month after the murder of Mary Jane Kelly
Mary Jane Kelly
Mary Jane Kelly , also known as "Marie Jeanette" Kelly, "Fair Emma", "Ginger" and "Black Mary", is widely believed to be the fifth and final victim of the notorious unidentified serial killer Jack the Ripper, who killed and mutilated prostitutes in the Whitechapel area of London from late August to...
on 9 November. He was described as violently antisocial, exhibited destructive tendencies while at the asylum, and had to be restrained. He was the same age as Kosminski, and died at the asylum in October 1889. Author Martin Fido
Martin Fido
Martin Austin Fido is a university teacher, true crime writer and broadcaster. His many books include The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper, The Official Encyclopedia of Scotland Yard, and The Murder Guide to London.After leaving Balliol College, Oxford in 1966 where he had been a...
suggested in his book The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper (1987) that the name "David Cohen" was used by the asylum as a simple name for an inmate whose true name (Kosminski or Kaminsky) was too difficult to spell or easily misunderstood. Fido identified Cohen with "Leather Apron", a Polish Jewish bootmaker blamed for the murders in local gossip, and speculated that Cohen's true identity was Nathan Kaminsky, a bootmaker living in Whitechapel who had been treated at one time for syphilis. Fido was unable to trace Kaminsky after May 1888, and records of Cohen begin that December. Fido suggested that police officials confused the name Kaminsky with Kosminski, resulting in the wrong man coming under suspicion. As with Kosminski, the asylum case notes say he spoke only Yiddish.
The implication is that Kaminsky's syphilis was not cured in May 1888 but in remission, and he began to kill prostitutes as an act of revenge because it had affected his brain. However, Cohen's death certificate makes no mention of syphilis but gives the cause of death as "exhaustion of mania" with phthisis, a then prevalent form of pulmonary tuberculosis, as the secondary cause. Kaminsky might have died as an "unknown" as hundreds of people did each year in the late 19th century. That would account for Fido's inability to find a record of his death in England and Wales during the probable period of his life.
Nigel Cawthorne
Nigel Cawthorne
Nigel Cawthorne is an Anglo-American writer of fiction and non-fiction, and an editor.He has written more than 80 books on a wide range of subjects and has contributed to The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph Daily Mail and The New York Times...
dismissed Cohen as a likely suspect because in the asylum his assaults were undirected, and his behaviour was wild and uncontrolled, whereas the Ripper seemed to attack specifically and quietly. In contrast, former FBI criminal profiler John Douglas
John E. Douglas
John Edward Douglas , is a former special agent with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation , one of the first criminal profilers, and criminal psychology author.-Early life:...
has asserted in his book The Cases That Haunt Us that behavioural clues gathered from the murders all point to a person "known to the police as David Cohen ... or someone very much like him". Using criminal profiling techniques Douglas and Roy Hazlewood concluded that the Whitechapel murderer would have been someone of Kosminski's or Cohen's age, marital status and social class who exhibited erratic or irrational antisocial behaviour and who lived close to the scenes of the murders.
London Docks
The London Docks were one of several sets of docks in the historic Port of London. They were constructed in Wapping downstream from the City of London between 1799 and 1815, at a cost exceeding £5½ million. Traditionally ships had docked at wharves on the River Thames, but by this time, more...
at the time of another. Pizer successfully obtained monetary compensation from at least one newspaper that had named him as the murderer.