Kosminski Murder Case

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Between 1888 and 1891, eleven women were murdered in the Whitechapel District and the East End, London. Five women who were murdered between August and November, 1888, were prostitutes who were killed in similar ways. Their murders are thought to be the work of a single killer known as ‘Jack the Ripper’. These women had their throats cut and in four cases, the bodies were mutilated after death. The deaths were investigated by Victorian Police and the head of this investigation was Inspector Frederic Abberline. Despite an extensive police investigation, the killer has never been identified and the murders remain unsolved. Several years after the final murder, documents were uncovered which reveal police suspicions against a man known as "Kosminski". Kosminski was named as a suspect by Melville Macnaghten and former Chief Inspector Donald Swanson. Although a first name was not provided, it is believed that this suspect is Aaron…show more content…
He emigrated to London and resided in Whitechapel, where many of the murders took place. Possibly due to the anti-Semitism of this time, Kosminski is considered to be a strong suspect by the two highest ranking officers involved in the investigation, Anderson and Swanson. Kosminski was immediately identified as the murderer by a witness who later refused to testify against a ‘fellow Jew’. For this reason, Kosminski was not charged. Aaron Kosminski displayed some signs of insanity in the late 1880’s and was admitted to Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum in February 1891. He was said to have had a great hatred of women and displayed strong homicidal tendencies, as well as Schizophrenia, delusions and paranoia. However, while in this asylum, Kosminski’s insanity did not take the form violence, but rather auditory hallucinations, a paranoid fear of being fed by other people, and a refusal to wash or bathe. Kosminski was transferred to Leavesden Asylum in 1894, where he died in

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