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Speaker 4: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 4: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 4: written about them Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every
Speaker 4: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 4: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 4: host journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 5: Good Evening an investigation into the man Scotland Yard thought
Speaker 5: but couldn't prove, was Jack the Ripper. Dozens of theories
Speaker 5: have attempted to resolve the mystery of the identity of
Speaker 5: Jack the Ripper, the world's most famous serial killer. Ripperologist
Speaker 5: Robert House contends that we may have known the answer
Speaker 5: all along. The head of Scotland Yard's criminal investigation department
Speaker 5: at the time of the murders thought Aaron Kozminsky was guilty,
Speaker 5: but he lacked the legal proof to convict him. By
Speaker 5: exploring Kasminsky's life, House builds a strong circumstantial case against him.
Speaker 5: Showing not only that he had means, motive, and opportunity,
Speaker 5: but also that he fit the general profile of a
Speaker 5: serial killer as defined by the FBI today. The first
Speaker 5: book to explore the life of Aaron Kosminsky, one of
Speaker 5: Scotland Yard's top suspects in the quest to identify Jack
Speaker 5: the Ripper, combines historical research and contemporary criminal profiling techniques
Speaker 5: to solve one of the most vexing criminal mysteries of
Speaker 5: all time. The book draws on a decade of research
Speaker 5: by the author, including trips to Poland and England to
Speaker 5: uncover kas Minsky's past and details of the case. Includes
Speaker 5: a forward by Roy Hazelwood, a former FBI profiler and
Speaker 5: a pioneer of profiling sexual predators. Features dozens of photographs
Speaker 5: and illustrations, building a thorough and convincing case that completes
Speaker 5: the work begun by Scotland Yard more than a century ago.
Speaker 5: This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to
Speaker 5: know who really committed Jack the rippers heinous and unforgettable crimes.
Speaker 5: The book that we're featuring this evening is Jack the
Speaker 5: Ripper and the Case for Scotland Yard's prime Suspect, with
Speaker 5: my special guest, ripperologist, journalist and author, Robert House. Welcome
Speaker 5: to the program, and thank you for greeting this interview.
Speaker 6: Robert House, Thanks Dan, thanks for having me on the show.
Speaker 6: I've been a fan for a while, so happy to
Speaker 6: be on.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much. A great book. This did not
Speaker 5: come out this year, so maybe you can tell us
Speaker 5: what year that came out. But let's talk about how
Speaker 5: you came to this story, your background. I mentioned you're
Speaker 5: a ripperologist, so tell us the amount of time that
Speaker 5: you dedicated to this studying this case, and before we
Speaker 5: talk about what you did in the pursuit of the
Speaker 5: main suspect and how you came to find that about
Speaker 5: that information and make that determination. So to give us
Speaker 5: a little bit of background on yourself and as a ripperologist,
Speaker 5: and tell us then about how you came to endeavor
Speaker 5: to write this incredible book and do the research necessary
Speaker 5: to do this.
Speaker 6: Sure, So I'm a you know, I'm a graphic designer
Speaker 6: by trade, so everything I've done in the area of
Speaker 6: researching Jack the Ripper has been done in my spare time,
Speaker 6: you know, kind of as a hobby. I initially got
Speaker 6: interested in it around the year two thousand and you know,
Speaker 6: at the time, I was honestly just reading a bunch
Speaker 6: of history books, not specifically true crime, you know, just
Speaker 6: history books in general. And I just, you know, somewhat
Speaker 6: randomly picked up a book on Jack the Ripper by
Speaker 6: Philip Sugden, and it's called The Complete History of Jack
Speaker 6: the Ripper, I believe, and it's you know, it's a
Speaker 6: really great book. And you know, I just got sucked
Speaker 6: into the mystery of the case, like so many other
Speaker 6: ripperologists have done. But there was, you know, there was
Speaker 6: this one particular suspect that I became interested in, and
Speaker 6: this is Aaron Kosminsky, Who's the suspect I wrote my
Speaker 6: book about. You know, Sugden effectively dismissed him as a
Speaker 6: viable suspect in the Jack the Ripper case. And the
Speaker 6: more that I thought about this, the you know, the
Speaker 6: the more problems I started to see in in his argument,
Speaker 6: I guess, I would say, you know, and the more
Speaker 6: I thought about Aaron Kusminsky, he just seemed actually like
Speaker 6: he was a very good fit for Jack the Ripper.
Speaker 6: So I started doing, you know, just a little bit
Speaker 6: of research in my spare time, mostly pretty much all online.
Speaker 6: I started reading a lot of other books on serial killers,
Speaker 6: and you know, the real so the real break in
Speaker 6: my own research came when basically I discovered Aaron Kusminsky's
Speaker 6: genealogical records in Poland. You know, Aaron Kuzminsky has been
Speaker 6: known as a suspect in the case since nineteen eighty
Speaker 6: seven when he was discovered by Martin Fido, but very
Speaker 6: little was known about him. Very little is still known
Speaker 6: about him, in fact. But you know, at the time,
Speaker 6: it was known that he came from Poland, but you know,
Speaker 6: almost nothing was really known about his family or you know,
Speaker 6: where he was from. So I did this search for
Speaker 6: his genealogical records in Poland, and it was you know,
Speaker 6: I just submitted a search request. At that time, I
Speaker 6: did not travel to Poland, so I submitted a search
Speaker 6: request in the Polish archives, you know, and to do so,
Speaker 6: I had to have a pretty good idea of where
Speaker 6: in Poland he was from, because Poland is divided into
Speaker 6: Gubernia's and the their archives are not centrally you know,
Speaker 6: digitized or anything like that. So I had to you know,
Speaker 6: submit this request, have it translated into Polish, and you know,
Speaker 6: I found these records and then from there we got
Speaker 6: you know, the names of all his siblings, the names
Speaker 6: of his parents, and that led to subsequent discoveries in
Speaker 6: in England because we were then able to search, you know,
Speaker 6: for records of his siblings for example, and you know,
Speaker 6: that led to a bunch of other things. And so
Speaker 6: you know, I was doing this research in my spare
Speaker 6: time for you know, five or six years, and I
Speaker 6: discovered a lot of information about Aaron Cosminsky that had
Speaker 6: not been previously known. So I decided to write a book,
Speaker 6: and the book came out in twenty eleven. That's basically
Speaker 6: it in the nutshell.
Speaker 5: Now, I want to ask you. You mentioned Martin Feedo,
Speaker 5: so let's talk about who he is. And again we
Speaker 5: just glossed over what happened in nineteen eighty seven. That
Speaker 5: was a new development for ripperologists. And tell us how
Speaker 5: Aaron Kosminsky's name came up in nineteen eighty seven as
Speaker 5: a result.
Speaker 6: Yep, So I'm going to jump back a little bit
Speaker 6: to nineteen ten. The main reason that Aaron Kosminsky such
Speaker 6: a prime suspect in the case is because because in
Speaker 6: nineteen ten, Robert Anderson, who was the head of the
Speaker 6: criminal investigative investigation department at Scotland Yard, wrote a autobiography
Speaker 6: in which he stated that, contrary to popular belief, the
Speaker 6: police actually knew the identity of Jack the Ripper, but
Speaker 6: in the book he did not name the suspect. He
Speaker 6: said out of you know, concerns for being sued for
Speaker 6: libel and you know, really because he said the reputation
Speaker 6: of his department would suffer because the police don't tell
Speaker 6: tales out of school. There are various other reasons why he,
Speaker 6: you know, wouldn't name a suspect in a case like this.
Speaker 6: But he never named the suspect. And in the eighties,
Speaker 6: the grandson of the person who was actually the head
Speaker 6: of the Jack the ri Investigation at Scotland Yard, who
Speaker 6: worked under Anderson, was a man named Donald Donald Swanson,
Speaker 6: and his grandson discovered that Swanson had owned a copy
Speaker 6: of this book. And in the book where Anderson declined
Speaker 6: to name the suspect, Swanson actually wrote the suspect's name
Speaker 6: in the margin in pencil, and he wrote Cosminsky, but
Speaker 6: he only gave the last name. So Martin Fido in
Speaker 6: nineteen eighty seven, you know, Martin Fider is a well
Speaker 6: known riperologist, and he decided to try to discover a
Speaker 6: person named Cosminsky in the asylum records because Anderson stated
Speaker 6: that Cosminsky, you know, was insane and ended up in
Speaker 6: an insane asylum. So Martin Fido did a search through
Speaker 6: the asylum records and he only discovered one Cosminsky, and
Speaker 6: that was Aaron Minsky.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 6: Ironically, Fido dismissed Aaron Kuzminsky as a viable suspect almost immediately,
Speaker 6: which I've always found to be, you know, incredibly odd
Speaker 6: because you would think that the person who discovered him
Speaker 6: him would want to, you know, sort of take the
Speaker 6: credit for solving the case once and for all.
Speaker 4: But that wasn't.
Speaker 6: That wasn't what happened, And Martin Fido came up with
Speaker 6: a sort of an alternate theory. I won't go into
Speaker 6: the details, but that's how Aaron Kuzminsky's name came to
Speaker 6: be known. So he's his name's really been known since
Speaker 6: the eighties.
Speaker 5: What was the reasoning for Fido dismissing Chris Minsky after
Speaker 5: he had discovered Kuzminsky? What was his rationale?
Speaker 6: So his rationale and most people's, uh, you know, the
Speaker 6: common reason that Aaron Kusminsky has dismissed is because people
Speaker 6: say a he was an imbecile. He's commonly described as
Speaker 6: being an imbecile because well, it's really because he he was.
Speaker 6: He was he was initially entered into Colney Hatch County
Speaker 6: Asylum and then he was transferred to a place called
Speaker 6: Leavesden Asylum for imbeciles. That that was reason one. Reason
Speaker 6: two is that there's a there's a document written by
Speaker 6: a police surgeon who certified Aaron Kasminsky is insane. I'm
Speaker 6: sorry now his his admission record to Colney Hatch states
Speaker 6: that he's not violent because there was an entry on
Speaker 6: the form that said, you know, is is this person violent?
Speaker 6: And he wrote now, So those are the two main
Speaker 6: reasons really why he's dismissed and why FIDO dismissed him.
Speaker 6: But there are other aspects of his asylum records that
Speaker 6: also led them to dismiss him as well. For example,
Speaker 6: the person who certified him is insane wrote down, among
Speaker 6: the reasons that he goes about in the gutter and
Speaker 6: eats food out of the gutter, you know, things like that.
Speaker 6: He was also his asylum record also states that he
Speaker 6: was a compulsive masturbator that was given us the reason
Speaker 6: for insanity in fact. So, you know, all these things
Speaker 6: added up to, you know, sort of paint a picture
Speaker 6: that was very different from the way most people picture
Speaker 6: Jack the Ripper when they think of him. You know,
Speaker 6: he thought of as being this cunning sort of super villain,
Speaker 6: and here you have Erin Cosminsky, who's a you know,
Speaker 6: Jack the Rippers also commonly thought of as being you know,
Speaker 6: sort of an upper class person, at least that's how
Speaker 6: he's portrayed in films like the Johnny Depp film. You know,
Speaker 6: he's he's portrayed as an aristocrat or sometimes as a doctor.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: So here you have Aaron Cosminsky who was unemployed, lower
Speaker 6: class immigrant who is insane, you know, going about in
Speaker 6: the streets picking up food out of the gutter, and
Speaker 6: said to be both an imbecile and not dangerous. So,
Speaker 6: you know, the more I actually looked into some of
Speaker 6: these things, I realized that, you know, a lot of
Speaker 6: these arguments are actually quite weak, because, for one thing,
Speaker 6: he was not an imbecile. The term was actually you know,
Speaker 6: a strictly defined legal and medical term in the nineteenth century,
Speaker 6: which meant the equivalent of what we would now call,
Speaker 6: you know, a mentally retarded person. But the fact, the
Speaker 6: fact is that the imbecile asylums took in both people
Speaker 6: who were legally defined as imbeciles and also people who
Speaker 6: were legally defined as lunatics. The main reason, you know,
Speaker 6: a person would end up in a so called imbecile
Speaker 6: asylum was if he was deemed to be untreatable. So,
Speaker 6: you know, Aaron Kosminsky almost certainly had schizophrenia, you know,
Speaker 6: so the doctors at the time would have determined that
Speaker 6: he was untreatable. Uh, and hence he was transferred to Leivesden.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: The part about not being violent is also somewhat contradicted
Speaker 6: by his his asylum records, in which it states that
Speaker 6: he was at times violent.
Speaker 5: He actually.
Speaker 6: Threatened to attack one of the asylum attendants at one point,
Speaker 6: and it's also documented in his record that he attacked
Speaker 6: his own or he threatened to attack his own sister
Speaker 6: with a knife.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 6: But you know when he you know, when these forms
Speaker 6: are being filled out, uh, you know, they're they're asking
Speaker 6: probably his brother, who was the person who brought him
Speaker 6: to the workhouse, too to be seen by doctor. You know,
Speaker 6: they would have asked his brother, you know, is he violent?
Speaker 6: Brother said no, and he simply filled that in the form,
Speaker 6: you know, which is a perfectly normal response. And you know,
Speaker 6: you can picture the same thing could have been said
Speaker 6: of Ted Bundy or Gary Ridgeway if they were you know,
Speaker 6: being entered into you know, entered into some form. You know,
Speaker 6: somebody who knew Bundy would have said he's not violent. So,
Speaker 6: you know, these these objections to Aaron Kusminski start to
Speaker 6: sort of fall apart, and the more you look at him,
Speaker 6: he actually fits the you know, what you would what
Speaker 6: you would think Jack the Ripper was actually like. And
Speaker 6: once those objections are gone, then you see that the
Speaker 6: case against him is actually quite strong, although very little
Speaker 6: is still known about him as a person.
Speaker 5: To be honest, you did extensive research like no one
Speaker 5: else has. As you mentioned about Aaron Kazminsky. It's himself
Speaker 5: and his family background as much as you could find,
Speaker 5: and so there's some extrapolation or inferences, but basically incredible
Speaker 5: amount of information. But before we get to that, what
Speaker 5: I found was interesting is the again, we really do
Speaker 5: a great job of vividly describing Poland and Europe before
Speaker 5: we get to Britain, and then describing Britain. But I'd
Speaker 5: never heard, you know, this other background for Kazminsky. But
Speaker 5: what was interesting before we get to that, is to
Speaker 5: explain how important they thought masturbation was to insanity at
Speaker 5: that time, just to sort of give the listener some
Speaker 5: idea of the mindset at that time.
Speaker 6: You know, to really understand what was going on, you
Speaker 6: have to understand that insanity was very poorly understood. You know,
Speaker 6: it was starting to be understood a little bit better
Speaker 6: towards the end of the nineteenth century, which is the
Speaker 6: read we're talking about, but you know, there was very
Speaker 6: little treatment for it. There was very little understanding of schizophrenia,
Speaker 6: which you know, at the time was referred to as
Speaker 6: you know, something else could have been referred to as
Speaker 6: dementia praycox or you know, mania, something like that. But
Speaker 6: you know, so you know, in the Victorian era, you know,
Speaker 6: masturbation was commonly thought to cause not just insanity, but
Speaker 6: you know, all sorts of physical ailments which now we
Speaker 6: look upon as you know, being rather silly. But you
Speaker 6: know that that is entered in his record as being
Speaker 6: the cause of insanity. You know. One thing I pointed
Speaker 6: out in my book is that, you know, the the
Speaker 6: FBI's Behavioral Study Studies Unit, this group of kind of
Speaker 6: serial killer experts that includes John Douglas, Roy hazel Wood.
Speaker 6: You know, they conducted extensive interviews with serial killers in
Speaker 6: I believe the nineteen eighties to you know, sort of
Speaker 6: start to have some kind of you know, data based
Speaker 6: understanding of serial killers. They could look at them, you know,
Speaker 6: kind of in a statistical manner, and you know, so
Speaker 6: they're looking at common traits of serial killers. And I
Speaker 6: believe they interviewed thirty seven known serial killers, and one
Speaker 6: of the you know, highest, one of the most common
Speaker 6: traits I think it was, you know, eighty eighty percent
Speaker 6: or something was compulsive masturbation.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: So although people kind of joke about this, you know,
Speaker 6: when they're you know, sort of making fun of Aaron
Speaker 6: Kusminski is a suspect, you know, it's actually a predict
Speaker 6: you know, not a predictor, but it's a you know,
Speaker 6: it's very common trait among serial killers.
Speaker 5: Let's talk about and also what I want to mention too,
Speaker 5: that did you found as well to disprove the imbecile
Speaker 5: argument or dismissed this imbecile argument because for all official
Speaker 5: records he was considered not an imbecile but an actual lunatic.
Speaker 5: And you found that information, which is a big distinction.
Speaker 6: So you want me to go into that a little
Speaker 6: bit more, well, I mean, if you like, sure, yeah,
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, to I really read quite a
Speaker 6: bit about the history of you know, both insanity and
Speaker 6: lunatic asylums in England specifically, you know, and like I said,
Speaker 6: there was really very little treatment for people who were
Speaker 6: insane in the nineteenth century, and you know, for the
Speaker 6: most part, people who ended up in insane asylums were
Speaker 6: mostly managed really, you know, was not much of a
Speaker 6: sense of treating them because they didn't have any sense
Speaker 6: of what they could do, so you know, it was
Speaker 6: a lot of sort of restraint. Towards the end of
Speaker 6: the nineteenth century they started using chemical restraint. But the
Speaker 6: you know, the sort of taxonomy for how insane people
Speaker 6: were categorized was quite primitive, and you know, there was,
Speaker 6: you know, like I said, legally speaking, three broad categories
Speaker 6: for insanity. One was lunatic, another one was imbecile, and
Speaker 6: the third one was person of unsound mind, which it's
Speaker 6: actually quite unclear what that really meant. I looked into it,
Speaker 6: and I read one person who who did a pretty
Speaker 6: extensive study of asylum records, and he couldn't really tell
Speaker 6: that there was any you know, determining factor between lunatic
Speaker 6: person of unsound mind. But you know, it shows, it shows,
Speaker 6: you know, to an extent, the brutality with which these
Speaker 6: people were treated. That you know, people who were you know,
Speaker 6: mentally retarded effectively were just lumped together with insane people.
Speaker 6: They were all you know, kind of put put in
Speaker 6: these places and you know, treated really quite badly. So
Speaker 6: for me to understand what an imbecile asylum was, you know,
Speaker 6: required me looking quite a bit into the history of
Speaker 6: asylums in England.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: The fact was that the the asylums were overcrowded, and
Speaker 6: you know, the doctors towards the end of the nineteenth
Speaker 6: century they did start to think that think more about
Speaker 6: ways of treating people who were insane, but for the
Speaker 6: cases that they determined to be untreatable, they would just
Speaker 6: sort of shuffle the person off to a you know
Speaker 6: what in my book I call sort of an overflow container,
Speaker 6: you know, just get them out of here and send
Speaker 6: them off to that other place where they just can
Speaker 6: be basically managed. And so the imbecile asylums really.
Speaker 5: Were.
Speaker 6: You know, they housed both imbeciles and lunatics, and you
Speaker 6: know they were kind of designed to have only people
Speaker 6: who were non violent as well people who are considered harmless.
Speaker 6: But then you know that distinction also fell away and
Speaker 6: they just started taking anybody. Really, there was massive overcrowding
Speaker 6: in these places.
Speaker 5: So you do an incredible job of talking about the
Speaker 5: atmosphere and the environment at the time in Poland that
Speaker 5: likely shaped or did shape Aaron Kosminsky's future mindset. And
Speaker 5: so what you have is Poland in the late eighteenth century,
Speaker 5: and you talk about how weak in Poland had been
Speaker 5: because of Russia and Prussia and Austria, and so tell
Speaker 5: us about as you do start in seventeen seventy two
Speaker 5: and talk about the atmosphere and the environment and the sentiment.
Speaker 5: So tell us about that.
Speaker 6: You know, I won't go too much into the history
Speaker 6: of it. You know, to be honest, I'm not I
Speaker 6: wouldn't consider myself to be an expert in you know,
Speaker 6: the history of Poland in the eighteenth century. But you
Speaker 6: know it was a very weak country at the time,
Speaker 6: and the you know, these three bordering countries Russia, Prussia,
Speaker 6: and Austria effectively had a treaty that was designed to
Speaker 6: you know, weak in Poland, and you know, ultimately the
Speaker 6: country was basically liquidated and you know, broken up and
Speaker 6: divided between those three countries. So you know, in doing so,
Speaker 6: Russia took over what had been you know, a large
Speaker 6: part of eastern Poland. And you know, at at the
Speaker 6: same time they you know, that meant that a lot
Speaker 6: of Jewish people in Poland were sort of absorbed into
Speaker 6: the Russian Empire, and you know, throughout the nineteenth century,
Speaker 6: you know at you know, at that time, Russia was
Speaker 6: a very toxic and anti semitic atmosphere for Jews, who
Speaker 6: are really treated as you know, second class citizens with
Speaker 6: limited rights. You know, they were sort of confined to
Speaker 6: an you know, geographic area called the Pale of Settlement
Speaker 6: and within that, you know, they were restricted to only
Speaker 6: work in certain trades, travel was restricted, and you know,
Speaker 6: there were there was there were all sorts of sort
Speaker 6: of legal legal means of I guess, you know, keeping
Speaker 6: them an oppressed, sort of under class in the country,
Speaker 6: you know, and at the same time there was you
Speaker 6: know anti Semitism that extended, you know, right from the top,
Speaker 6: you know people you know, the Czar and people like
Speaker 6: that down to you know, the peasants. So you know,
Speaker 6: it was a horrible atmosphere for the Jews. And you know,
Speaker 6: as I write about in my book, in the you know,
Speaker 6: middle and late nineteenth century, there were you know, periodic
Speaker 6: outbreaks of programs in in western Russia against the Jews.
Speaker 6: The particular one that led to the emigration of the
Speaker 6: Kosminski family was after the assassination of the Czar in
Speaker 6: eighteen eighty one. You know, he was a fascinated by
Speaker 6: a group of I don't know if I want to
Speaker 6: call them anarchists. They were actually people who are trying
Speaker 6: to establish as sort of a democratic republican Russia by
Speaker 6: overthrowing the czar. Well, he was assassinated anyway in the
Speaker 6: street by assassins who came out and threw bombs at him.
Speaker 6: And you know, the Jews were scapegoaded by several newspapers,
Speaker 6: although they had nothing to do with it really, and
Speaker 6: this led to the outbreak of you know, massive riots
Speaker 6: across you know, a large area of western Russia against
Speaker 6: the Jews, and they were you know, extremely violent. It's
Speaker 6: it's hard to really imagine the scenario, but you know,
Speaker 6: the depictions that I've read in newspapers are you know,
Speaker 6: really horrific. People being killed, you know, tossed into you know,
Speaker 6: houses being burned down and bodies being tossed into the
Speaker 6: burning flames, and babies being thrown out of windows, and
Speaker 6: I mean just horrific descriptions. And so this led to
Speaker 6: you know, a massive wave of Jewish refugees fleeing Russia
Speaker 6: and going west. A lot of them ended up going
Speaker 6: to America, and a lot of them ended up going
Speaker 6: to London, you know where This is where the Cosminskis went. So,
Speaker 6: you know, Aaron Kazminsky went emigrated to London with his
Speaker 6: with his brother and sister, his earlier his older brother
Speaker 6: had already gone there about ten years earlier. And you know, also,
Speaker 6: as I read about in the book, the the the
Speaker 6: sentiment towards Jews in the East End got quite anti
Speaker 6: Semitic and violent as well, because they were you know,
Speaker 6: kind of resented, as you know, immigrants competing for jobs.
Speaker 6: There was high unemployment in London at the time.
Speaker 4: So you know.
Speaker 6: Throughout the decade. The Cosminski's arrived in about eighteen eighty one,
Speaker 6: the jack the Ripper murders were in eighteen eighty eight,
Speaker 6: and you know, between those two periods, the anti Semitism
Speaker 6: really was on the rise and it was really at
Speaker 6: a breaking point just just at the time the Ripper
Speaker 6: murders began. So you know, like I, like I said,
Speaker 6: very little is known about Aaron Cousminsky. You know about
Speaker 6: the quality of his family life and you know, things
Speaker 6: like that, but you know, this is the general environment
Speaker 6: that he experienced, you know, so you have to consider
Speaker 6: when when when the family emigrated to London, he would
Speaker 6: have been sixteen years old, and you know, just experiencing
Speaker 6: that level of anti Semitism and hatred and being surrounded
Speaker 6: by violence. You know, I sort of speculate in the
Speaker 6: book is the type of environment that can you know,
Speaker 6: lead a person to develop the level of hatred that
Speaker 6: you know serial killers do.
Speaker 5: With that, you talk about what Aaron Kosminsky could have
Speaker 5: witnessed in that you said it was there were frequent
Speaker 5: rapes from the Russians against the Jews. So he had
Speaker 5: sisters that were in their twenties and a mother. So
Speaker 5: he could have you said, could have experienced that kind
Speaker 5: of violence, even rapes of his own sisters or mother,
Speaker 5: or at least known of rapes or witnessed other violence,
Speaker 5: sexual assaults and all kinds of other violence before he left.
Speaker 5: And like you say, then he gets back to London
Speaker 5: and it's the same kind of anti semitic again, hatred
Speaker 5: and violence again. You talk about the profiling, and you
Speaker 5: get in this book and you talk about the geographical
Speaker 5: profiling as well. So talk a little bit more about
Speaker 5: the the profiling of what you learned from the profile
Speaker 5: in terms of comparing it to the information that you
Speaker 5: did have about Kaminsky's at least environment and the extrapolation
Speaker 5: of likely how he did grow up.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, you know, so some of this comes
Speaker 6: from the the you know, the the study that the
Speaker 6: FBI did that're referred to earlier where they sort of
Speaker 6: list common characteristics of serial killers and those include things
Speaker 6: like unemployment. You know, Aaron Kusminsky was unemployed. Uh, includes
Speaker 6: instability of residence which means, you know, a lot of moving,
Speaker 6: and you know, the speculated that that you know, keeps
Speaker 6: a person from developing attachments to people, you know, and
Speaker 6: Cousinsky obviously, you know, emigrated. He was a refugee coming
Speaker 6: to a strange place where he didn't speak the language.
Speaker 6: You know. Lack of a father figure is often cited.
Speaker 6: Aaron Kusminsky's father died when he was nine years old.
Speaker 6: It's unknown how you know, but he was really raised
Speaker 6: in a family that would have been, you know, as
Speaker 6: I say in the book, dominated by females, his older
Speaker 6: sisters and his mother. The only other male in the
Speaker 6: house was his brother, who was a few years older.
Speaker 6: But his older brother had left, you know, in the
Speaker 6: eighteen seventies. Then there's, as I said before, compulsive masturbation,
Speaker 6: you know, so things like that. Cosminsky, you know, matches
Speaker 6: all these characteristics. There's also, you know, just as I
Speaker 6: said before, you know, this sort of toxic and hateful
Speaker 6: atmosphere generally that he you know, was raised in. You Know,
Speaker 6: something that I researched more after the book was published
Speaker 6: actually was specifically about the the type of serial killer
Speaker 6: that Jack the Ripper was. You know, the FBI refers
Speaker 6: to this type of killer as a post mortem mutilator,
Speaker 6: because his primary interest really was in mutilating bodies after death,
Speaker 6: so you know, unlike had Bundy.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 6: You know, Bundy was would be considered a sadistic serial
Speaker 6: killer because he drived pleasure from sort of torturing his victims.
Speaker 6: Or you know, Jack the Ripper was not this type
Speaker 6: of killer. You know, he actually killed his victims quite quickly,
Speaker 6: but then you know, performed extensive mutilations, probably cannibalism. And
Speaker 6: you know, this type of killer is often you know, insane,
Speaker 6: by which I mean schizophrenic. Not always, but if you
Speaker 6: look at schizophrenic serial killers and they're quite rare, they
Speaker 6: often commit crimes that were quite similar to Jack the Ripper.
Speaker 6: You know, I say they're quite rare because some of
Speaker 6: the people who are considered generally to be schizophrenic serial
Speaker 6: killers may well have been faking it. I'm thinking of Berkowitz,
Speaker 6: possibly Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper. But if you look
Speaker 6: at people who are you know, clearly schizophrenic serial killers,
Speaker 6: people like Richard Chase, Herbert Mullen, you know, their crimes
Speaker 6: were quite disorganized, uh, and you know, often involved mutilation
Speaker 6: of the bodies after death, cannibalism and things like that.
Speaker 4: So you know, just in.
Speaker 6: You know, kind of across the board. Aaron Kusminsky fits
Speaker 6: with I think the type of killer you would be
Speaker 6: looking for generally.
Speaker 5: How did Sir Robert Anderson and Donald Swanson come to
Speaker 5: their conclusions with m with their in Kris Minsky. Yeah, so.
Speaker 6: The the police would have known quite a bit more
Speaker 6: about Aaron Cosminsky than we know today because they almost
Speaker 6: certainly interviewed him, questioned him. Probably they must have interviewed
Speaker 6: his family members, and there would have been some kind
Speaker 6: of suspect file on him that's now been lost. So
Speaker 6: what has survived is just these little snippets of you know,
Speaker 6: documents that mention him.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: The short answer to your question is, it's not really
Speaker 6: known why Anderson came to the conclusion that Aaron Kuzminsky
Speaker 6: was Shack the Ripper, but he seemed quite definite about it.
Speaker 6: The way he puts it in several different interviews is
Speaker 6: he said it was a moral certainty, which is actually
Speaker 6: a legal term that kind of means in a nutshell,
Speaker 6: it means we couldn't prove it legally, But he was
Speaker 6: convinced anyway that Aaron Cozminsky was Jack Thripper. You know,
Speaker 6: that said the surviving documentation on him comes from you know,
Speaker 6: Anderson's book, The Swanson. Swanson's writings in the margin of
Speaker 6: the book, which is referred to as the Swanson Marginalia,
Speaker 6: you know, fills in some of the gaps. And then
Speaker 6: there's a document called the McNaughton Memoranda, which was written
Speaker 6: by another detective at Scotland Yard, sort of summarizing some
Speaker 6: of the top suspects in the case. In that he
Speaker 6: says that Cousminsky had a great hatred of women, especially prostitutes,
Speaker 6: and you know, he had homicidal tendencies. But probably the
Speaker 6: most important thing that's known anyway is that Aaron Kusminsky
Speaker 6: was act He identified by a witness. Anderson writes about this,
Speaker 6: but very little is known about it. You know, it's
Speaker 6: not really known who the witness was, although most people
Speaker 6: think it's a person named Joseph Lowand or Lavender. I'm
Speaker 6: not exactly sure how to pronounce the name. It was
Speaker 6: a he's he was a Jewish person, and he declined
Speaker 6: to He declined to testify in court as to the identification.
Speaker 6: You know, Anderson writes that he refused to testify against
Speaker 6: a fellow Jew or I'm sorry, Swanson wrote that, but
Speaker 6: you know, I mean to be honest, it's not really
Speaker 6: known why he refused to testify, although I've always imagined
Speaker 6: that it could just be that he was not really
Speaker 6: one hundred percent sure about the person he was he saw.
Speaker 6: But you know, Anderson does say that he was positively identified,
Speaker 6: and that Cousminski himself sort of knew that he had
Speaker 6: been identified. In other words, he somehow reacted at the
Speaker 6: time to indicate perhaps, you know, guilt, something like that.
Speaker 6: But so it's not known exactly what happened, but for
Speaker 6: some reason, Anderson became convinced that this was the person,
Speaker 6: you know, I often I often think of as a
Speaker 6: comparison what happened with Gary Ridgway, when the head of
Speaker 6: the Green River Task Force was, you know, absolutely convinced
Speaker 6: that Gary Ridgeway was a Green River killer. But they
Speaker 6: couldn't prove that either, despite the fact that there was,
Speaker 6: you know, really a mountain of circumstantial evidence that linked
Speaker 6: Ridgeway to the Green River, but they just did not
Speaker 6: have the evidence that would have been required to convict
Speaker 6: him until they got the DNA evidence. And I suspect
Speaker 6: that something similar may have happened in this case where
Speaker 6: they had a lot of circumstantial evidence, but Anderson was
Speaker 6: a lawyer, so he knew that probably whatever they had
Speaker 6: was not going to be sufficient to convict.
Speaker 5: Now you do extensive research. What I found one of
Speaker 5: the most profound parts of the book is that you
Speaker 5: look into this insanity claim that the Kuzminsky was insane,
Speaker 5: and then find out when officially it looks like he
Speaker 5: was institutionalized and the conditions under therein on which he
Speaker 5: was institutionalized with family members. So tell us what you
Speaker 5: did uncover in that area.
Speaker 6: I mean, as far as how he became, how he
Speaker 6: ended up in the institution. Yeah, you know, so, like
Speaker 6: I said, he he had he was schizophrenic almost certainly
Speaker 6: if you if you read the descriptions, you know, he's
Speaker 6: described as having auditory hallucinations. He he heard the voice,
Speaker 6: which he describes as an instinct that informed him of
Speaker 6: the movements of all mankind. He claimed, you know, sort
Speaker 6: of that he could. He claimed that this voice told
Speaker 6: him not to drink water out of the tap and
Speaker 6: not to eat food that was given to him. And
Speaker 6: this explains why he was, you know, looking for food
Speaker 6: in the gutter. You know, Schizophrenia is a degenerative disease,
Speaker 6: and you know, nowadays it's treatable with drugs, but at
Speaker 6: the time it was completely untreatable. So, uh, you know,
Speaker 6: Aaron Kusminsky's insanity would have, you know, come on kind
Speaker 6: of slowly, I guess, and by the time he's been
Speaker 6: in the asylum for you know, twenty years, he's really
Speaker 6: he really had degenerated to the point where he's you know,
Speaker 6: mumbling and incoherent and things like that. But you know,
Speaker 6: it was said that his the first signs of insanity
Speaker 6: started in eighteen eighty six, which was, you know, two
Speaker 6: years prior to the murders. He was basically he was
Speaker 6: basically brought to a place called Mile End Old Town
Speaker 6: Workhouse by his brother, you know, to to determine whether
Speaker 6: he was insane basically, you know. So it's important to
Speaker 6: note that his family had him committed basically and he
Speaker 6: and this he was brought to the workhouse. See it's
Speaker 6: it's almost two years after the last Ripper murder, so
Speaker 6: there is a gap there where there are no murders,
Speaker 6: and people have asked wires and no murders, you know,
Speaker 6: during during this time when he was out on the streets,
Speaker 6: but he was brought to the workhouse, and then he
Speaker 6: was released from the workhouse.
Speaker 5: Uh, and.
Speaker 6: Then he was brought back six months later, and at
Speaker 6: that time he was looked at by a police surgeon
Speaker 6: who determined that he was insane, and at that point
Speaker 6: he was committed to Colney Hatch Colny Hatch Lunatic Asylum,
Speaker 6: and then he stayed there for three years, and then
Speaker 6: he was transferred to Leivesden and he stayed there for
Speaker 6: the rest to his life, and he lived to the
Speaker 6: age of fifty four and died in nineteen nineteen. You know,
Speaker 6: Swanson writes, for example, that he was brought to the
Speaker 6: workhouse with his hands tied behind his back, So he
Speaker 6: was clearly brought there against his will. And it's been
Speaker 6: speculated whether the police were sort of involved in having
Speaker 6: him committed. You know, I don't want to go off
Speaker 6: too much into the realm of speculation here, but you
Speaker 6: have to wonder if you're in this situation where you believed,
Speaker 6: you know who Jack the Ripper was, but you couldn't
Speaker 6: really do anything legally, you know, is it possible that
Speaker 6: the police sort of facilitated a situation where he could
Speaker 6: be admitted to an asylum that he would never be
Speaker 6: released from to sort of you know, it was a
Speaker 6: sort of a solution to the problem that they would handle,
Speaker 6: you know, quite discreetly as a matter of fact. So
Speaker 6: there are, in my opinion, several indications that whatever happened
Speaker 6: with Aaron Kosminsky was kept pretty quiet in the police department,
Speaker 6: you know, which makes sense at least in my mind,
Speaker 6: given you know, the level of anti Semitism that there
Speaker 6: was in London. You know, there's almost the outbreak of
Speaker 6: riots at the time of the murders because the Jews
Speaker 6: were again blamed, and you know, the police in fact
Speaker 6: destroyed one of the key pieces of evidence, which is
Speaker 6: the Gulston Street graffito, because they were worried that that
Speaker 6: was going to lead to anti Jewish riots. So, you know,
Speaker 6: it's entirely possible if you're looking at a situation where
Speaker 6: you have a Jewish suspect, that the police would not
Speaker 6: want that to get out in any way. So, you know,
Speaker 6: I personally believe that they they they covered up what
Speaker 6: happened with Aaron Kuzminsky, you know, even if they couldn't
Speaker 6: prove that he was the killer. I think that they
Speaker 6: didn't want any kind of word to get out about
Speaker 6: him as a suspect. And you know, there are little
Speaker 6: snippets of things here and there that I believe support
Speaker 6: that theory.
Speaker 5: In keeping with that thought, though, I thought that when
Speaker 5: in the book, when you talked about the Jewish witness,
Speaker 5: didn't the Jewish witness to Kusminski at least say that
Speaker 5: it was a possibility that they were interested in not
Speaker 5: having that kind of riot ensue if this witness that
Speaker 5: was jew regardless of him coming forward, the perpetrator was Jewish,
Speaker 5: and with the Jewish anti Semitism already, is that not
Speaker 5: valid or at least possibly valid, that that witness even
Speaker 5: though he id'd because Minsky didn't in afterthought thought maybe
Speaker 5: not a great idea.
Speaker 6: It's entirely possible. I suppose, you know, there are actually
Speaker 6: even some Jewish sources who argue the same point effectively.
Speaker 6: You know, I personally believe that it may have been
Speaker 6: sort of a combination of that, combined with really you know,
Speaker 6: I mean, witness This type of witness identification is notoriously difficult,
Speaker 6: you know, notoriously faulty, I mean false identifications are you know,
Speaker 6: known to be extremely common you know, Joseph Lowand, who
Speaker 6: was probably the witness, said at the time that he
Speaker 6: would not be able to recognize the person. Again, it
Speaker 6: was dark, you know, there were quite a ways away.
Speaker 6: He only caught a glimpse of the guy, you know,
Speaker 6: And is he going to be able to identify him
Speaker 6: a year later, you know, It's highly unlikely, but it
Speaker 6: was really the best that they could do. So maybe
Speaker 6: they you know, showed you know, showed him Aaron Cosminsky
Speaker 6: and say is this the person? And he might have
Speaker 6: said it looks like him? I think, you know, But
Speaker 6: if you all of a sudden realize that you are
Speaker 6: the sort of lynch pin of the whole case, that
Speaker 6: the whole case rests on you, you may really give
Speaker 6: a second thought to whether you want to testify, especially
Speaker 6: given the you know, the situation with anti Semitism in
Speaker 6: the East End. That's more the way that I think
Speaker 6: about it.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: The one of the things that is written about this
Speaker 6: identification is that he did not want the person to
Speaker 6: be hanged, you know, based on his evidence and to
Speaker 6: have that on his conscience. Sure, you know, so there's
Speaker 6: a lot of pressure there, I think, and you know,
Speaker 6: I really doubt that he could be could have been
Speaker 6: one hundred percent in his identification anyway. Yeah, go ahead,
Speaker 6: I was going to say, I was just going to
Speaker 6: say that said, you know there was a positive identification, right, There's.
Speaker 5: No part of your investigation included the geographical profiling, which
Speaker 5: is a little bit more recent or more recent type
Speaker 5: of profiling. And but it's important as well because it
Speaker 5: can answer some questions and support your your your theory,
Speaker 5: your idea that kauz Minsky is the is the man.
Speaker 5: So tell us about what you did in terms of
Speaker 5: that investigations to the geographical profiling of Chris Minsky.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So, geographical profiling, there's many different types of it.
Speaker 6: You know, it uses sort of mathematical modeling of the
Speaker 6: crime scenes and other geographic factors of you know, the
Speaker 6: particular area where murders are you know taking place. You know,
Speaker 6: the Jack the Ripper murders all took place within walking
Speaker 6: distance of each other, you know, unlikes you know, some
Speaker 6: modern day crimes like the Yorkshire Ripper where he was
Speaker 6: driving around in a car the East end of London
Speaker 6: was you know, the Jack the Ripper was walking around
Speaker 6: the area basically looking for victims. You know, one of
Speaker 6: the most basic types of geographic profiling involves what's called
Speaker 6: circle theory, where you just simply draw a circle, the
Speaker 6: smallest circle possible that contains all the crime scenes, and
Speaker 6: then you know, use that as a sort of predictor
Speaker 6: of where the where the killer lived. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 6: this is obviously a very crude sort of method, but
Speaker 6: even doing that, you know, Cosminsky lived within half a
Speaker 6: mile aile of you know, the center of a circle
Speaker 6: that would contain all the crime scenes, and uh, you know,
Speaker 6: I I have walked around the area myself. I sort
Speaker 6: of understand the layout. I understand where the you know,
Speaker 6: where the sort of the scene was. Uh, where Aaron
Speaker 6: Cosminsky lived was comparatively, you know, kind of a residential
Speaker 6: quiet area. The part where all the sort of prostitution
Speaker 6: and the bars and all the action was happening was
Speaker 6: a little bit north of there, you know, So he
Speaker 6: may have walked up to that area and then just
Speaker 6: sort of wandered around looking for you know, victims, and
Speaker 6: then walked back home. If you you know, if you
Speaker 6: look at some of the there are some indications of
Speaker 6: you know, the route that Jack the Ripper took after
Speaker 6: the murders, the best one really is the coolest street
Speaker 6: graffito which I referred to, and basically in that case,
Speaker 6: the killer cut off a piece of Catherine Eddo's apron.
Speaker 6: Catherine Edos was the the victim in Miter Square, the
Speaker 6: fourth victim of Jack the ripper, right, and the killer
Speaker 6: cut off piece of her apron, either to wipe his
Speaker 6: hands of blood or to possibly carry away one of
Speaker 6: the organs. In that case, he took away to organs
Speaker 6: from the body. And then that rag covered with blood
Speaker 6: was discovered, you know, several hundred yards to the east
Speaker 6: of where the crime scene was, and it was left
Speaker 6: next to this piece of graffiti that you know, like
Speaker 6: I said, was became a clue said the Jews are
Speaker 6: the men that will not be blamed for nothing, which
Speaker 6: is very cryptic and difficult to understand, but you know,
Speaker 6: it gives you a clear sense of the direction that
Speaker 6: the killer walked after committing the murder, which is east.
Speaker 6: And you know, as I you know, map this out
Speaker 6: and you know, knowing the area, it's exactly the direction
Speaker 6: that Aaron Cousminsky would have walked to basically go home,
Speaker 6: because you know, in my mind he would have avoided
Speaker 6: the main thoroughfare, which is Whitechapel High Street, and he
Speaker 6: would have gone on the you know, the slightly more
Speaker 6: backstreet which ran parallel to it to the north, which
Speaker 6: was Wentworth Street, and that's you know, gone down that street,
Speaker 6: crossed over Whitechapel High Street and gone to his house,
Speaker 6: which was you know, less than a mile away. But
Speaker 6: you know, I mean that that direction that the killer
Speaker 6: walked would have been exactly the direction that Aaron Cosminsky
Speaker 6: would have walked to go home. You know, same could
Speaker 6: be said for what's often speculated was the you know,
Speaker 6: so called getaway route for the killer after committing the
Speaker 6: Nichols murder. Who was speculated that the killer uh went
Speaker 6: through a sort of an alley that led to you
Speaker 6: know again why Chapel High Street and you know, sort
Speaker 6: of over near the London Hospital. And again this is
Speaker 6: exactly rut that Aaron Cousminsky would have gone to walk home.
Speaker 6: Another another example is the murder of Elizabeth Stride.
Speaker 5: She was the.
Speaker 6: Third or fourth victim, depending on you know, who he
Speaker 6: counted as victims of Jack the Ripper and her. The
Speaker 6: crime scene there was you know, within probably less than
Speaker 6: a one minute walking distance of where Aaron Kusminsky was
Speaker 6: probably living at the time.
Speaker 5: That murder.
Speaker 6: In particular, there was a witness who saw a man
Speaker 6: actually attacking a woman right right at the location where
Speaker 6: the you know, where the body was found, you know,
Speaker 6: ten to fifteen minutes later. You there's a lot of
Speaker 6: debate among ripperologists about whether this person was Jack the Ripper.
Speaker 6: I personally believe that he probably was. And what this
Speaker 6: witness saw, the witness name was Israel Schwartz, was you know,
Speaker 6: a murder in progress. Effectively, that Schwartz testimony said that
Speaker 6: he was walking down the street called Berner Street, and
Speaker 6: ahead of him he saw a man walking the same
Speaker 6: direction but kind of stumbling as if drunk. And when
Speaker 6: the person came up to this woman, who was standing
Speaker 6: in the entrance of a courtyard, he basically attacked her.
Speaker 6: And you know, again walking down you know, south down
Speaker 6: Berner Street. This is exactly the direction that Aaron Cousmansky
Speaker 6: would have gone to get to his house, which was
Speaker 6: on Providence Street probably which was Providence Street was one
Speaker 6: block south of Berner Street, you know. So John Douglas,
Speaker 6: for example, theorized that Jack the Ripper probably went out,
Speaker 6: you know, frequently at night, hunting for victims. And he
Speaker 6: also speculated that he would drink, you know, get drunk
Speaker 6: in the bars.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: So if if Aaron Kasminsky went up to you know,
Speaker 6: Commercial Street or Brick Lane, the places where the all
Speaker 6: the pubs were, and got drunk and wandered around for
Speaker 6: a while and then was walking back home and he's drunk,
Speaker 6: you know, this is exactly the direction he would have
Speaker 6: walked to get home is down Berner Street. And this
Speaker 6: is exactly what Schwartz saw as a man walking down
Speaker 6: Berner Street, you know, in that direction who then attacked
Speaker 6: a woman who was probably Elizabeth Stride. So you know,
Speaker 6: you start to add up all these little pieces and
Speaker 6: it just like everything just kind of fits perfectly, you know,
Speaker 6: given the theory that Aaron Kusminsky was Jack the Ripper,
Speaker 6: and there are you know, there are so many little
Speaker 6: pieces like that. I if you look at any suspect
Speaker 6: in the case, the more you learn often the more
Speaker 6: you start to see that it just doesn't really quite fit.
Speaker 6: There's something that doesn't quite you know, fit with this person.
Speaker 6: He was either you know not there. You know, Walter Sickert,
Speaker 6: for example, who Patricia Cornwell wrote about it was almost
Speaker 6: certainly in France at the time of the murders. So
Speaker 6: the more you dig into these suspects, you'll find something
Speaker 6: that kind of disqualifies them, you know. With Aaron Kuzminsky
Speaker 6: has been the exact opposite. The more that I research
Speaker 6: and the more that I find out, you know, he
Speaker 6: fits exactly, He fits exactly with with you know, the
Speaker 6: with every aspect of what is known about Jack the Ripper.
Speaker 6: You know, one example, well, i'll go into just yeah,
Speaker 6: go ahead, no, go ahead. I was just going to
Speaker 6: give one example. It's just something that I found in
Speaker 6: my book. There's a sort of a famous suspect in
Speaker 6: the case, referred to as the Batty Street lodger. I
Speaker 6: don't know if you've ever heard of this person before,
Speaker 6: but it was a story that was reported in the
Speaker 6: newspaper where a lodger in a house dropped off some
Speaker 6: laundry to his landlady, and the landlady discovered blood on it,
Speaker 6: and then the police, you know, started conducting surveillance, and
Speaker 6: you know, it turns out that the story was actually misreported,
Speaker 6: but the newspaper, and this is discussed in a lot
Speaker 6: of books on Jack the Ripper, but they don't really
Speaker 6: discuss the fact that the newspapers in the following days
Speaker 6: updated the story with probably more accurate information. The fact
Speaker 6: is that there was never a lodger at all, But
Speaker 6: there was a person apparently who dropped off some laundry
Speaker 6: to a laundress who worked on Batty Street, which is
Speaker 6: just one street to the east of of Berner Street
Speaker 6: and one street north of Providence Street, where Aaron Kusminsky lived.
Speaker 6: And you know, there was a shirt that had blood
Speaker 6: on it, and she alerted the police to this, and
Speaker 6: the police arrested the person eventually and interviewed this person
Speaker 6: and released him. And you know, the newspaper reports described
Speaker 6: this person as being a ladies tailor who lived a
Speaker 6: few hundred yards from the crime scene, who worked for
Speaker 6: a West End house, you know. And this fits perfectly
Speaker 6: with Erin Kuzminsky's brother, who was a lady's tailor who lived,
Speaker 6: you know, a few hundred yards to the north of
Speaker 6: the crime scene. And this had never been noted before
Speaker 6: to my knowledge, in any Ripper book. But then it
Speaker 6: had never been known that his brothers were ladies tailors. Really,
Speaker 6: there's also the fact that but Aaron Kuzminsky's brother removed
Speaker 6: his daughter from school, and she was going to school
Speaker 6: at a place called the Berner Street School, which was
Speaker 6: directly opposite from the crime scene, and he took her
Speaker 6: out of school exactly, I think one day after the
Speaker 6: Batty Street lodger story first appeared in the newspapers. You know,
Speaker 6: so these things start to kind of add up where
Speaker 6: you you know, you can imagine I suspect that the
Speaker 6: family suspected Aaron was the killer and didn't know what
Speaker 6: to do about it, you know, but we're probably talking
Speaker 6: about it in the home, you know, kind of in
Speaker 6: hushed tones, and you know, it's the type of thing
Speaker 6: that you don't want a you know, a ten year
Speaker 6: old girl to overhear and start talking about in school.
Speaker 6: So they removed her from the school. This is you know,
Speaker 6: this is all speculation, but you know, if you look
Speaker 6: at the dates, it matches perfectly. Is a coincidence that
Speaker 6: she was removed from the school one day after, you know,
Speaker 6: this newspaper report about the Batty Street lodger. So you know,
Speaker 6: I try to avoid speculating, but you know, it goes
Speaker 6: to show you how little is actually known. But you know,
Speaker 6: like I said, these things they all start to start
Speaker 6: to they sort they sort of fit together.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: I've described it like being a jigsaw puzzle where you
Speaker 6: have very few of the pieces, but you know there's
Speaker 6: a lot of pieces missing, but you start to see
Speaker 6: the picture and everything, you know it is fitting together.
Speaker 5: Yes, it's You've done a masterful job putting that puzzle together.
Speaker 5: Before I let you go, I want to ask about
Speaker 5: the origin of some of the photos, the incredible photos
Speaker 5: that you have in your book. So tell us a
Speaker 5: little bit about all these incredible photos that are included
Speaker 5: in your book, and maybe tell us a couple of
Speaker 5: the interesting sources where you got some of these from.
Speaker 6: A lot of the photos in the book are ones
Speaker 6: that have been you know, known in Ripper you know
Speaker 6: Jack the Ripper books for a long time, you know,
Speaker 6: the photos of the victims. I also have photos of Quadova, Poland,
Speaker 6: which is where Aaron Kusminsky is from, and I you know,
Speaker 6: I traveled there myself in two thousand and eight and
Speaker 6: took some pictures.
Speaker 5: There are.
Speaker 6: Photos of the modern day locations of the streets where
Speaker 6: his siblings lived in the East End of London, which
Speaker 6: you know they look quite different now than they did then,
Speaker 6: because you know, all these old row houses were demolished.
Speaker 6: But there's a very nice photo in the book of
Speaker 6: the street where Aaron Kuzminsky's brothers lived, which is called
Speaker 6: Greenfield Street. There's a there's a there's a there's a
Speaker 6: great photo of Donald Swanson in the book that has
Speaker 6: never been published before. And I got that from his
Speaker 6: great grandson. You know, it's interesting because I also briefly
Speaker 6: had in my possession Donald Swanson's pistol because his great
Speaker 6: grandson bought it from a you know, kind of an
Speaker 6: antique gun dealer here in the US, and you know,
Speaker 6: I kind of conducted the transaction myself, and so I
Speaker 6: had I had this gun at my house and it's
Speaker 6: an old you know, it's a Tranter pistol from the
Speaker 6: eighteen eighties that's inscribed with a little you know, a
Speaker 6: stutcheon on it to Donald Swanson's very small gun actually,
Speaker 6: but it was really interesting to have that, you know,
Speaker 6: in my possession for six months or something like that.
Speaker 6: But yeah, I mean, there's there's a lot of really
Speaker 6: good photos in the book of the you know, the
Speaker 6: crime scenes. There's a photo of Aaron Kasminsky's grave that
Speaker 6: I visited, which is in the East end of London,
Speaker 6: and you know, it's the inscription on the grave is
Speaker 6: just literally deteriorating, its dissolving, which you know, as I say,
Speaker 6: is kind of fitting really for him as a person,
Speaker 6: because you know, he's just so little is known about him.
Speaker 6: It's it's it's almost like, you know, it's fitting that
Speaker 6: the inscription is disappearing almost the same way that he
Speaker 6: sort of appeared and then disappeared in history. Really. And
Speaker 6: there's other good pictures in the book. There's there's nice
Speaker 6: maps that show the layout of all the crime scenes
Speaker 6: and where he lived.
Speaker 5: Yeah, very incredible, uh, total package of this Jack to
Speaker 5: Ripper in the Case for Scotland Yards Prime Suspect. I
Speaker 5: want to applaud you for this. I want to ask
Speaker 5: you if they're for those that might be further in
Speaker 5: truested in your work and this book and anything else
Speaker 5: that you are doing. Do you have a website? You
Speaker 5: need to Facebook tell us a little bit about how
Speaker 5: my people might be able to contact you and get
Speaker 5: more information about you.
Speaker 6: I do have a Facebook page for the book, you know,
Speaker 6: Jack the Ripper and the Case for Scotland Yards Prime
Speaker 6: Suspect on Facebook. You know, the books available on Amazon
Speaker 6: and other online stores. You know, if somebody has any
Speaker 6: questions or wants to send a message, they can send
Speaker 6: it through that Facebook page and I should get it.
Speaker 6: You know, my my personal website is much more geared
Speaker 6: towards my my work as a as a designer, so
Speaker 6: there's nothing really on there right now about the case.
Speaker 6: But yeah, I mean, well, other people to buy the book.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, it's a it's a great book. And for anybody
Speaker 5: that has read anything about Jack the Ripper, this is
Speaker 5: ash talking that we really do get a pretty good
Speaker 5: idea of the best suspect according to the police at
Speaker 5: the time. And then thanks to Martin Fido and then
Speaker 5: your follow up in your incredible adventure to try to
Speaker 5: dismiss or have this person as the suspect, and you've
Speaker 5: done a great job in painting the likely Jack the
Speaker 5: Ripper and it's a fascinating book. I want to thank
Speaker 5: you very much for coming on and talking about Jack
Speaker 5: the Ripper and the case for Scotland Yards Prime Suspect.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much.
Speaker 6: Robert House Sure, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 5: You have a great night.
Speaker 6: Good night, Okay, you too, well