House

[Hikari]

I'm passing that article on to Herlock Sholmes, although it's almost 4 years old and he may have already seen it.  If I recall, Kosminski is his favored candidate.    The evidence is compelling, and Kosminski has certainly been a name in the mix since Day 1.  He had means and opportunity; a barber would study anatomy since barbers used to also practice as surgeons, though in the Victorian era, that was coming to an end.  But those with few means, like the denizens of Whitechapel, would more likely go to a barber for first aid or rudimentary dentistry than seek out a doctor they could not afford.  It seems the working girls of Whitechapel were all afraid of Aaron.

He is very young to fit the profile of a serial killer, went through extremely disorganized periods of insanity for which he was periodically institutionalized, and IIRC lived with family . . ?  'Jack' seemed to be pretty methodical until going off the rails with the 'From Hell' letter and the final atrocities done to Mary Jane Kelly.  Could be him; if he were locked up again permanently or committed suicide it would explain why Jack stopped his devilish work.  Aaron would not have been able to pass as a gentleman customer, which is how I always assumed Jack got close to his victims.  The identity of Jack is known only to himself and God, not that I think he's hanging out with God in the afterlife but rather the other place.  Aaron looks good for it, as much as anyone does.  I was never in favor of Walter Sickert as the doer, largely on account of his status as a visiting American . . I think these crimes were definitely committed by a Whitechapel native or someone who knew the district like the back of his hand.  Maybe was even known to his victims, or some of them.  Sickert (aptly named) was a voyeur who was drawn to grotesque subjects . . he loved to paint crime scenes, I gather.  If it were him, I'd suppose he'd want to kill indoors for privacy so he could then paint his handiwork.  'Jack' did not seem interested in that but he did enjoy staging tableaux for others to see.

It's Jack's continuing anonymity plus the additional touches he made to what would otherwise have been fairly unremarkable knifings of vulnerable women that lends him such a mythos as the greatest murdering monster of all time.  It might be arguable that the 20th and 21st centuries have produced far more prolific monsters . . Manson, Dahmer . . the guy who inspired 'Psycho', Bundy, et. al . . and most recently, the killer in Idaho who apparently nearly decapitated one of his victims.  Sometimes Jack's legacy can seem almost tame in comparison (save poor Mary Jane). 

[HerlockSholmes]

On 12/4/2022 at 8:34 PM, Carol the Dabbler said:

That would appear to be another nod to Holmes -- "Jack" is a nickname for "John," and "Red Jack" was another name for Jack the Ripper, whose crime spree occurred during the Holmes era.

A DNA study of residue on the shawl of one of the Ripper's victims is now claimed to point the finger straight at one of those under suspicion at the time -- but other geneticists say that, although it's intriguing, not enough of the methodology has been published for the study to be considered conclusive.

 

Hi Carol,

Yes the shawl evidence is not considered very strong. We also have to consider the back story. It was claimed that it was taken by PC Amos Simpson who the family claim (I believe) discovered the body of Catherine Eddowes. The first issue is that Simpson was a Metropolitan Police Offices and the body was discovered in the City of London which had, and still has, it’s own police force. They claimed that he was on ‘special duty’ which isn’t impossible but there’s no evidence for it. And even though the police didn’t use modern day methods it’s hardly likely that he’d have been able to have taken crime scene evidence. Finally, and most importantly, Simpson definitely didn’t discover the body. It was discovered by a PC Watkins who then sent a nearby night watch man for assistance and we know which officers arrived until the doctors got there. No mention of Simpson in the entire case.

The suspect, Kosminski, is a ‘possible,’ but the shawl is a bit of a red herring.

[HerlockSholmes]

19 hours ago, Hikari said:

I'm passing that article on to Herlock Sholmes, although it's almost 4 years old and he may have already seen it.  If I recall, Kosminski is his favored candidate.    The evidence is compelling, and Kosminski has certainly been a name in the mix since Day 1.  He had means and opportunity; a barber would study anatomy since barbers used to also practice as surgeons, though in the Victorian era, that was coming to an end.  But those with few means, like the denizens of Whitechapel, would more likely go to a barber for first aid or rudimentary dentistry than seek out a doctor they could not afford.  It seems the working girls of Whitechapel were all afraid of Aaron.

He is very young to fit the profile of a serial killer, went through extremely disorganized periods of insanity for which he was periodically institutionalized, and IIRC lived with family . . ?  'Jack' seemed to be pretty methodical until going off the rails with the 'From Hell' letter and the final atrocities done to Mary Jane Kelly.  Could be him; if he were locked up again permanently or committed suicide it would explain why Jack stopped his devilish work.  Aaron would not have been able to pass as a gentleman customer, which is how I always assumed Jack got close to his victims.  The identity of Jack is known only to himself and God, not that I think he's hanging out with God in the afterlife but rather the other place.  Aaron looks good for it, as much as anyone does.  I was never in favor of Walter Sickert as the doer, largely on account of his status as a visiting American . . I think these crimes were definitely committed by a Whitechapel native or someone who knew the district like the back of his hand.  Maybe was even known to his victims, or some of them.  Sickert (aptly named) was a voyeur who was drawn to grotesque subjects . . he loved to paint crime scenes, I gather.  If it were him, I'd suppose he'd want to kill indoors for privacy so he could then paint his handiwork.  'Jack' did not seem interested in that but he did enjoy staging tableaux for others to see.

It's Jack's continuing anonymity plus the additional touches he made to what would otherwise have been fairly unremarkable knifings of vulnerable women that lends him such a mythos as the greatest murdering monster of all time.  It might be arguable that the 20th and 21st centuries have produced far more prolific monsters . . Manson, Dahmer . . the guy who inspired 'Psycho', Bundy, et. al . . and most recently, the killer in Idaho who apparently nearly decapitated one of his victims.  Sometimes Jack's legacy can seem almost tame in comparison (save poor Mary Jane). 

Sorry Hikari, I missed this post. Yes, Kosminski is a valid suspect but, like all suspects, doubts abound. There was an alleged ID parade which Sir Robert Anderson mentions in his book but it’s mentioned nowhere else so we can’t confirm it. He said that the witness wouldn’t identify him because he was a fellow Jew, but again, there’s just no evidence for this. Anderson’s subordinate was Donald Swanson, and in his copy of Anderson’s book (discovered in the 80’s) he’d pencilled in the margin “Kosminski was the suspect.”

Its intriguing but there’s just not enough to convict. Like all suspects, 99% of whom are absolute nonsense. People who were simply alive at the time. We’ve had Sickert (as you’ve mentioned) Sir William Gull, Lewis Carroll, Vincent Van Gogh, Dr. Barnado, Frank Miles, Francis Thompson (poet) and even Arthur Conan Doyle!!! Eventually they’ll simply run out of men.

In my opinion the only 3 that are worthy of much attention are Kosminski, Montague John Druitt and William Henry Bury. Followed by perhaps 5 or 6 lesser ones, then close to 200 ‘no chances.’

[Carol the Dabbler]

19 hours ago, HerlockSholmes said:

The suspect, Kosminski, is a ‘possible,’ but the shawl is a bit of a red herring.

Now I'm trying to figure out how DNA testing of residue on the shawl would match Kosminski's family (or even come close) -- short of out-and-out fakery of one sort or another....

Of course we don't know everything that happened that night.

 

[HerlockSholmes]

On 12/7/2022 at 5:47 AM, Carol the Dabbler said:

Now I'm trying to figure out how DNA testing of residue on the shawl would match Kosminski's family (or even come close) -- short of out-and-out fakery of one sort or another....

Of course we don't know everything that happened that night.

 

They tracked down his descendants but the science is inconclusive.

The guy who bought the shawl is the same guy who recently claimed to have found the skull of Keith Bennett (victim of Brady and Hindley) on Saddleworth Moor. It wasn’t. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

10 hours ago, HerlockSholmes said:

They tracked down his descendants but the science is inconclusive

Yeah, I know.  But if the shawl is a fake -- well, OK, if I wanted to create "evidence" that whats-his-name was the Ripper, I guess I'd get an old shawl in a second-hand shop, track down one of his descendants, ask them to um, amuse themselves with the shawl, then do the DNA test using a different descendant's DNA (because even mitochondrial DNA presumably mutates over time) so it won't be *too* close a match.

 

[Inspector Baynes]

Hum. 
In the "for what it's worth' department--(Paul Harvey)--I've started watching Columbo from S1 E1.  

Not much depth to it, but I've always liked the bumbling genius.  And I've not seen them all by far. 
More of a '1 person show' than many others have been too, which keeps the depth down a bit.
Anyway, between BBC Sherlock and Columbo, those are my 2 'go to' shows for now. 

I could never get into House.  He is almost as caustic as Judge Judy, and I don't like eating 'caustic' as a main meal.
Between that and his psychoses, I chose to leave him to others.

[Hikari]

On 12/8/2022 at 3:02 PM, HerlockSholmes said:

They tracked down his descendants but the science is inconclusive.

The guy who bought the shawl is the same guy who recently claimed to have found the skull of Keith Bennett (victim of Brady and Hindley) on Saddleworth Moor. It wasn’t. 

Herl, 

I attended a virtual presentation on the Ripper last night that I think you really would have enjoyed.  It was by our new Ripper expert on Heygo. I tried to send you the link but having recently changed my Google password for work reasons, it wasn't letting me access my Google mail from my phone app.  Frustrating.  Anyway, it was a very good talk.  He presented contemporaneous newspaper articles and drawings of the time along with books and marginalia created by various primary investigators in the case.  The Assistant Chief Superintendent favored Montague Druitt, the schoolteacher who suicided right after the last Ripper killing but whose body was not found until 7 weeks later.  It's a wonder they were able to make an identification.  Despite such a high-ranking proponent of his, if that's the right word. Mr. Druitt lived miles away in Kent and the only 'proof' of his guilt was in killing himself within days of the Kelly murder.  Most likely he was despondent over having been let go from his position as a schoolmaster due to being homosexual.  There's an idea in the popular mind that Saucy Jack was a gentleman or at least was able to present himself as one, and Druitt is one of the few suspects that fits the bill . . but I rule him out, poor man.

The favored suspect of the lead detective, and I suppose, our presenter was a man identified as a Polish Jew with at least one eyewitness at the Elizabeth Stride scene.  There were three men who could have plausibly seen the doer in that case but they refused to give up one of their community to the police.  Further complicating matters is the possibility that Liz Stride was not actually the first of a double-header of Jack murders the same night but was actually done for by another killer.  Apparently the knife was dull . . our Jack took great pride in a sharp knife and seems to have brought one to the second murder of the evening, that of Catherine Eddowes.  The fact that Long Liz was not tampered with like the others could point to the killer being interrupted, perhaps by the three gentlemen who were passing . . or perhaps she wasn't completely butchered because Jack didn't do her.  Copycat opportunist?  If Martha Tabram is added to the Canonical 5 as the first, then we still have the same number of victims, just in a slightly different formation.  I am agnostic, though it doesn't seem like Jack would've forgotten his favorite knife to do the Stride job.  Martha, killed in August months before the others was not dissected, but she was stabbed 37 times.  Practice run, maybe?  Our two Heygo Ripperphiles seem to think so.

But the identity of the 'Polish Jew' at this scene is hazy.  Last night was the first time I learned that there were at least 6 extended Jewish families in the district with the surname 'Kosminski'.  Aaron was not even formally identified with a first name in the case notes . . just a 'Kosminski' was listed.  Aaron was a weirdo, but it might have been his father or a brother or uncle or another family altogether.  There is another man . . a Nathan Kaminsky . . who apparently is also known as 'David Cohen' who is also in the frame, who died in Colney Hatch institution shortly after the events of 1888.  Aaron Kosminski was committed to the same institution but didn't die until 1919--and with a birthdate of 1865, was 33, not 23 at the time of the murders.  I have routinely read Aaron's age listed as 23, so it seems that even some of the investigators conflagrated these two names.  But I can only find a birthdate of 1865 for Cohen as well, meaning that the two men were nearly the identical age.  Seems that '23' is an erroneous age.  That is very young to both have established oneself in business and have already become a full-fledged serial killer.  Early 30s fits better . . but what are the chances that *two* Polish Jewish men of the same age residing in Whitechapel would be subject to intermittent bouts of homicidal mania, and would both have professions which were germane to Jack's skill set--one a barber, the other a tailor? 

Hmm . . tailors would carry chalk as a matter of course, which kind of makes Cohen look good for the Goulston Street graffito if nothing else.

It seems pretty unlikely that even these desperate women would have willingly gone with either of these madmen as a potential customer likely to have money.  And in Kosminski's case, his refusal to ever wash or bathe must have meant you could smell him coming from a mile away.  Neither of these guys would have been able to keep up the pretense of being paying customers able to lure the women to the kill spots, and would have had to forcibly abduct them.  Not out of the realm of possibility but several of the victims were reported to have been speaking to a man dressed more like a gentleman.  Could have been another unrelated customer, of course.  Nothing remotely gentleman-like about either Aaron or David aka Nathan.  It's rather a let-down if it's either of them, if I'm honest.  Those poor ladies are just as dead, but the lore of a crafty toff down on wh*ores slumming in Whitechapel and meting out his idea of justice and slipping back into his milieu of high society . . perhaps even the highest echelon . . is captivating in a perverse way.  There's a whole mythos built up around Jack because, foremost, he succeeded in eluding capture.  If he was banged up in Colney Hatch the whole time, taken from the dregs of the streets, it's deflating.  I suppose that in 30+ years of incarceration, Aaron Kosminski might've let his identity as the Ripper slip, if it had been him.  No indication that that ever happened.

Just like with the Moscow Idaho police department, I feel I owe the Metropolitan police of H division and their command an apology.  Given the primitive nature of forensics at the time and the overwhelming, chaotic nature of the crimes and the potential suspect and witness pool, they did astoundingly well.  2000 people looked at, 300+ interviewed . . all those man-hours.  Like Moscow PD, it seems they very likely had their perpetrator in their sights very early on, but they weren't able to bring any charges.  It'll be different for the so-called Idaho Ripper.  That's what he'd like to be remembered as at any rate.  He's as arrogant as he was inept.  Idaho has the death penalty and I hope they get to use it.

[Hikari]

On 1/5/2023 at 5:30 PM, Inspector Baynes said:

Hum. 
In the "for what it's worth' department--(Paul Harvey)--I've started watching Columbo from S1 E1.  

Not much depth to it, but I've always liked the bumbling genius.  And I've not seen them all by far. 
More of a '1 person show' than many others have been too, which keeps the depth down a bit.
Anyway, between BBC Sherlock and Columbo, those are my 2 'go to' shows for now. 

I could never get into House.  He is almost as caustic as Judge Judy, and I don't like eating 'caustic' as a main meal.
Between that and his psychoses, I chose to leave him to others.

Welcome, Inspector Baynes!  It's not often any more that we see new faces around here.

You're right about House--his caustic charms do wear quite thin relatively quickly.  I've been revisiting the series and my impression on a rewatch is that it's not as good as I remember . . it can seem pretty contrived, and House's tics and misanthropic tendencies only get more cartoony as the series wears on.  I really do not believe that anyone who was that big of a arschbole to patients and colleagues would get to retain his position as department head of a major metropolitan research hospital, no matter how brilliant.  Sherlock Holmes took the initiative of becoming self-employed so he can do as he likes but Greg House is a man under authority, as much as he resists that authority.  The problem is that his field of medicine is by its nature collaborative; House needs entire teams of Others to assist him in doing his work.  He must envy Sherlock Holmes a great deal.  I'm up to Season 3 which ushers in a particularly good run of episodes as House meets his match in a police detective played by David Morse.  House is particularly rude to this detective when the man presents himself at the clinic with an ailment and owing to his misuse of a rectal thermometer, House makes a dedicated enemy.  Soon he finds himself arrested for driving his motorcycle under the influence of narcotics, his stash of Vicodin is confiscated and the world of pain is just beginning for his colleagues who are going to have to lie for him in a court of law.  Yeah, House's appeal as a character was pretty well exhausted by the end of Season 3 but they dragged it out for another 5 seasons with diminishing returns.

I wonder if you would like The Mentalist with Simon Baker.  Baker plays a man who occasionally pretends to be a bumbling genius but the bumbling is a bit of an act.  I find his character Patrick Jane to be be more of a true homage to Sherlock Holmes than Greg House, because as Patrick, Simon captures the charisma which SH possesses when he's on good form, doing what he loves to do . .solving puzzles.  Even when he's witty, House never exudes anything like joie de vivre.  

[Inspector Baynes]

5 hours ago, Hikari said:

I wonder if you would like The Mentalist with Simon Baker

Thanks for the welcome.

I did rather enjoy The Mentalist when I watched it, which I confess wasn't all the time.  It had a certain charm to it.  For some reason I was never drawn to go back and 'fill in all the gaps' or watch it first to last.  Not sure why.  It was certainly more palatable than House.  Maybe if I give it another go...

As I watch Columbo again, I'm finding I enjoy him less than I remembered. 
Of course, he's a 'reverse take' on the norm, since we know the whodunit from the beginning and we're watching him put the pieces together, knowing where he's going to end up.  Takes a bit of the 'mystery' out of the mystery.  And though I still like how he handled the character, that too gets a little old after awhile.  Like reading serial books or watching Hallmark movies...cookie cutter. they're all the same. 

Oh well.  They serve their purposes. 

 

[Hikari]

17 hours ago, Inspector Baynes said:

Thanks for the welcome.

I did rather enjoy The Mentalist when I watched it, which I confess wasn't all the time.  It had a certain charm to it.  For some reason I was never drawn to go back and 'fill in all the gaps' or watch it first to last.  Not sure why.  It was certainly more palatable than House.  Maybe if I give it another go...

As I watch Columbo again, I'm finding I enjoy him less than I remembered. 
Of course, he's a 'reverse take' on the norm, since we know the whodunit from the beginning and we're watching him put the pieces together, knowing where he's going to end up.  Takes a bit of the 'mystery' out of the mystery.  And though I still like how he handled the character, that too gets a little old after awhile.  Like reading serial books or watching Hallmark movies...cookie cutter. they're all the same. 

Oh well.  They serve their purposes. 

 

In the mode of The Mentalist meets Columbo with a bit of Sherlock Holmes thrown in for good measure, may I suggest Jonathan Creek? That is a British detective series that started in the late '90s and kept on with intermittent specials until 2015 or so.  The show underwent a number of cast changes during its run so I can only wholeheartedly recommend the first three seasons, but this show was a charming little discovery.  I'm not sure where it's available for streaming presently but you might find it on BritBox.  I watched in on DVD back when Netflix was a DVD-by-mail subscription.  The show is named for its eponymous detective played by Alan Davies.  Jonathan is a retiring young man who lives in a windmill and engineers stage illusions for a living.  Like Sherlock Holmes, he is more comfortable with his solitary work than mingling with a lot of people, and often wears a signature coat.  His line of work makes him into a useful consulting detective when it comes to unraveling the threads of 'locked room' mysteries--most often murders--which have taken place under seemingly impossible conditions.  He's got a more extrovert friend in wordsmithing business--investigative journalist Maddie Magellan (Caroline Quentin), who gets the duo involved in these cases.  Maddie is the 'Watson' of the partnership, I guess, but she's a lot more pushy and less deferential to her star detective than was Watson.  Series creator David Renwick was trying for a 'Columbo' vibe, he said . . the cases could get dark but were mostly in a more lighthearted vein, with some zany humor.  The protagonist is a bit different than we normally see in this genre.  A magic trick engineer who is aces at sleight of the mind. Good chemistry with the leads. Quentin left after 3 seasons to head up her own procedural show, Blue Murder.  JC carried on with different co-stars but it was never the same.  Quentin's show was good too . . sort of British version of The Closer, with an elite Manchester murder squad headed up by a female Det. Superintendent.  Short form, hour long episodes.  More lighthearted than Prime Suspect.

Then of course, there's my favorite British detective series bar none, New Tricks.  I envy the viewer who gets to start at the beginning with those.  Incidentally, David Renwick's first choice for Jonathan Creek, Nic Lyndhurst, appears in the last two seasons of that show.  I liked his character on NT, but I think Alan Davies was the best choice in the end for the earlier series.

[Inspector Baynes]

Terrific (in its current, not original meaning) input.  I'll jot these down and see what I can find.