Author: Trevor James Loos
Wednesday, 24 January 2001 - 08:08 pm |        |
Hello,
Does anyone know about David Cohen?
Raider T |
Author: Jon
Wednesday, 24 January 2001 - 08:40 pm | |
Ok, Trevor....tell us all about David Cohen.
Please list the 10 most likely reasons why you think its David Cohen. |
Author: Warwick Parminter
Wednesday, 24 January 2001 - 08:43 pm | |
Has anyone noticed, Davidoz seems to be taking a holiday,---we are no better off!. It just proves what I said in my last post,--sigh.
Rick |
Author: Trevor James Loos
Wednesday, 24 January 2001 - 09:52 pm | |
Ok Jon, If you can list me 10 reasons why you dont think it's David Cohen, I will list my reasons why I think he is.
Raiders |
Author: David M. Radka
Thursday, 25 January 2001 - 01:14 am | |
Reasons against David Cohen:
1. Provenance, part 1. Mr. Fido locates Cohen, a Polish Jew who goes into the asylum at just the right time for the murders to end, and then points to him as the murderer. But there is no direct connection of this man to the murders.
2. Provenance, part 2. This man appears at about the same time Nathan Kaminsky, a Polish Jew, disappears. "Kaminsky" is very similar to "Kosminsky", a known Polish Jewish suspect. Therefore Kaminsky became Cohen via an understandable police mix-up. But no evidence is presented to document the mix-up.
3. Cohen was a barking madman from soon after he was picked up until his death. He did not confess. (No evidence was even brought against him, let alone verified. He likely said only one or two rational sentences to the police, and that was just as he was being arested--after that he was hopelessly insane.) But the Whitechapel murderer was not reported to be acting strangely; there is no direct connection between the behavior patterns of Cohen and that of the murderer.
I think here's enough fog to keep it interesting either way concerning Cohen.
David |
Author: Trevor James Loos
Thursday, 25 January 2001 - 01:06 pm | |
Mr. Radka, I was talking to Jon. Plus you only gave me three reasons. Kosminski has some problems. He did not die shortly after the murders, buy lived in asylums until 1919. He was dissociative but not violent, and he never gave any indication of being the Ripper.
The murders were very violent. You say Cohen was a barking madman. This is a man out of his mind. Wouldn't you be if you murdered women in that fashion? So, Dave,you think that you can tell me if someone was killing people,and it was just like the Ripper murders, you would not think that he was a madman? Also, how could Cohen communicate?
he was insane, but very violent.
"From Hell"
Jack the Ripper was a disorganized asocial lunitic.As he wrote to Lusk,
he was saying just how he felt. How were the women killed Dave? What makes you think that Cohen did not fit this profile?
Truth is the key above all.
BY SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOLE
How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?
Raiders |
Author: Christopher T George
Thursday, 25 January 2001 - 04:24 pm | |
Hi, T:
Yes you were talking to Jon but this is an open forum, so David, or anyone else who has a mind to, might legitimately answer you.
All the best
Chris George
P.S. Weren't the Raiders eliminated?  |
Author: Trevor James Loos
Thursday, 25 January 2001 - 04:33 pm | |
Why yes they were. Maybe next year. But I think that Grudz will pull it together.
My apologies.
So Chris what do you think?
Raider T |
Author: Jon
Thursday, 25 January 2001 - 07:04 pm | |
Trevor
The group as a whole might be interested in anything you can come up with that is something more than if's, but's & maybe's.
Martin has discussed Cohen with us and it is of interest to some why you feel so convinced, so I invited you to demonstrate your conviction by posing 10 reasons. If that was too much of a challenge, then make it 5, in fact any number of factual points would be of interest. Rather than push him at everybody you would do well to pose the points you find of interest and help open up some sort of discussion, unless your sole aim is to tell the group that you are right, to the exclusion of every other theorist.
Regards, Jon |
Author: Trevor James Loos
Thursday, 25 January 2001 - 07:55 pm | |
Jon
My sole aim is not to prove anyone wrong.I think that I did open up a discussion of David Cohen, to get people to talk about him more. I did not know that I was on trial here? In my opening statement I asked if anyone knew about David Cohen. I was not telling you that I knew about him, I was asking what you know. It's funny how you turn it on me,and make it sound like I don't know what I am talking about.In your statement Jon, You say"OK Trevor....tell us all about David Cohen.Now is that fair?
I ask again What do you know of David Cohen ?
Raider T |
Author: Steve Haddon
Thursday, 25 January 2001 - 08:38 pm | |
Trevor,
People aren't going to take kindly to you if you suddenly post pointless messages on just about every message board here.
It was you who trumpeted Cohen as a suspect, rather than doing what everyone else does, which is introduce themselves, say hi, then ask a nice polite question.
You are being belligerent for no apparent reason. Some people here may talk to you, because they're all very nice people. But your approach is not to be recommended in future.
Steve |
Author: Warwick Parminter
Thursday, 25 January 2001 - 08:53 pm | |
Trevor,
you ask,"what do you know about Cohen". You didn't emphasise the "you" so I presume anyone can answer. I'd say the folk posting on these boards know all that it is possible to know about Cohen, and you would know the same by reading your books.
Rick |
Author: Trevor James Loos
Thursday, 25 January 2001 - 09:02 pm | |
Hello Steve,
Look at the top at my first Question, and you will see that I did just that. Belligerent is a little much don't you think? What have I done that is so wrong? I will say that I am sorry if I offended you. As for Pointless, I am not sure that is such a pointless Question. I would like to know more information on Cohen. Would you like to discuss it more with me?
Raider T |
Author: Grailfinder
Thursday, 25 January 2001 - 10:42 pm | |
Hi Trevor
Oh dear, you seem to have jumped in at the deep-end?
Perhaps the reason for some of the above posts is your opening question?
you wrote;
Hello,
Does anyone know about David Cohen?
Raider T
"Is the Pope Catholic,? Does the Queen take a dump"?
Of course we know of Cohen, and had you taken the time to search this site you will find 77 pages of discussion on Cohen and 483 mentions of his name.
I would advise you, and all new members, to read up on the casebook (particularly the message boards) before asking anymore dumb-arsed questions.
If you have a theory on Cohen? please voice it, if not, and your questions are the result of a "cant be arsed to read through that lot" attitude to the casebook, then you should prepare yourself for more of the type of response your posts have received.
cheers
PS
"Welcome to our happy family" |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Friday, 26 January 2001 - 04:09 am | |
Hi Trevor,
Posters here are usually very kind, giving newcomers some initial guidance and info about what they could easily find by browsing through the Casebook by themselves. You got to the site ok, so we tend to presume you would have read all there is to read about the parts of the case which interest you most. I'm thick as a plank, yet I managed to do this all by myself! You can see where I'm going with all this, can't you? :-) If we think someone is bright enough to have done this, we will still usually give them the benefit of the doubt to begin with, but people's tolerance can sometimes be low, especially when it seems like a wind-up.
No one expects the Spanish Inquisition when they come here and no one should get it. But don't expect an easy ride either.
Most of all, relax and enjoy yourself. You may even find someone willing to discuss Cohen with you. I decline on the grounds that Cohen is the name of my accountant, and I get the jitters even thinking about it!
Love,
Caz |
Author: Christopher-Michael DiGrazia
Friday, 26 January 2001 - 07:50 pm | |
Trevor -
I can't give you any reasons other than those listed above for Cohen, either pro or con (though I will say in his defense that Martin Fido makes a very interesting circumstantial case for him. Whether one believes it or not is up to the individual). But I will ask you a question, if I may. In your post of the 25th, at 1.06, you wrote,
"As he wrote to Lusk, he was saying just how he felt."
What makes you think the Lusk letter is any more real than any other letter written or sent during the period of the murders? Just curious.
CMD
(who never expects the Spanish Inquisition) |
Author: Jon
Friday, 26 January 2001 - 09:03 pm | |
8 points in defence of 'David Cohen' charged with being the Whitechapel murderer.
- Cannot be certain what his real name was.
- No known address.
- Not known to carry a weapon.
- No known anticendences towards women or prostitutes.
- Whereabouts on nights of murders not known.
- No known description.
- No known history (background).
- Not known to speak English.
Anyone care to contest any of the above? (Trevor?)
Now, do we have 8 points in the case for him being Jack?
Regards, Jon |
Author: Rotter
Friday, 26 January 2001 - 09:49 pm | |
| Couldn't we say the same about Davidoz? |
Author: Jon
Friday, 26 January 2001 - 09:55 pm | |
Yeh.....but David Cohen was a nutcase......
hmm |
Author: James Harper
Monday, 26 February 2001 - 04:37 pm | |
I think it's a mistake to assume that someone described as 'barking mad' would be the right kind of person to have committed the Ripper murders...After all, people who are quite obviously 'mad' and behave in exceptionally strange ways tend to be the first suspects in such cases. Clearly the London police worked through a number of obviously insane suspects. However, in such cases of serial murder, it isn't always the obvious crazy guy that did it.
Besides, the murders seem to have been committed by someone with a definite aim, rather than some shambling lunatic that had long lost his hold on the real world.
For what it's worth, the whole David Cohen argument seems to be based on some very flimsy assumptions and plenty of 'might-have-beens'. But that's just my opinion. |
Author: Martin Fido
Tuesday, 27 February 2001 - 08:01 am | |
Dear James,
There's nothing wrong with your holding your opinion, and I'm not attempting to controvert it.
But you initial point, that nobody 'barking mad' could be on the streets uninterrupted for ten weeks bumping off ladies in dark corners is so obviously true that it has always been a part of the David Cohen case. 'Raving mania' is hardly ever seen these days, as tranquillisers will have been used to control the sufferer's stress before it reaches that point. But it used to be the classic picture of 'the madman'. In the London Museum you can see Caius Cibber's statues of a pair of 'madmen' which stood over the gates of the original 'Bedlam' (Bethlehem Hospital) in Moorgate: 'Great Colley's brazen, brainless brothers,' Pope called them. To be seen anywhere like that 'without a keeper' was to be 'a wandering lunatic' and liable to immediate arrest and hailing off to a magistrate to be committed to care in an asylum. This is what happened to David Cohen.
So the reasonable conjecture is that he had not been in this condition for very long. That some intensifying pressure intensified his mental agitation - (I postulated the increasing difficulty of getting victims safely as the police patrols in Whitechapel and Spitalfields were increased; a difficulty marked by the extending gaps between the murders) - until he snapped and deteriorated into raving mania which ensured his rapid arrest and incarceration.
Professsor Luigi Cancrini, forensic psychologist of the University of Bologna, whose previous conclusion was that the Ripper's visibly increasing tension would sooner or later turn on itself, and he was likely to have committed suicide, agreed that my pattern fitted the observable facts and psychological conclusions that could be drawn from the nature of the murders perfectly. And subsequently I discovered that when he was finally exposed and knew he couldn't talk his way out of it, Jeffrey Dahmer appeared to collapse into raving mania. I have always assumed that his remote and detached appearance in filmed court room appearances was because he was under sedation. But I don't know for sure.
Anyway, this isn't an attempt to change your mind, but just a reminder for all commentators that the initial objection you propose has always been addressed.
With all good wishes,
Martin Fido |
Author: David M. Radka
Tuesday, 27 February 2001 - 11:20 am | |
Mr. Fido,
If Cohen were the murderer, and if he felt increasingly pressured during the course of his murder series, and if this explains the increase of his violence at the murder scenes, then how did he avoid screaming and crying out when murdering the women? If he were getting crazier and crazier going from Nichols to Chapman to Stride to Eddowes to Kelly, how explain that he was observed quietly speaking with Eddowes before her murder, especially considering he'd just come from murdering Stride, where he supposedly was unexpectedly denied opportunity to mutilate her? Why didn't he start hooting and hollering when going for a swim in Kelly's entrails, or removing her heart? He certainly had enough time to get worked up then, and he certainly hooted when the police picked him up in a brothel shortly later, they having no plan to question him concerning the Whitechapel murders. It seems to me that any position on Cohen depends on his sharply turning a big corner concerning his mental health, going from being able to control himself in high-pressure situations to not being able to control himself in much lower-pressure situations, just at the time when his police records begin. But this opens the problem of his behavior just before his records begin.
It increasingly seems to me that the Cohen theory is a digital concept, not a human one. It draws together verifiable bits of evidence, making connections that seem reasonable enough on the surface. For me, however, the problem with it is what it considers the evidence to be. How can we say that the evidence concerning Cohen is evidence related to the Whitechapel murders? In virtue of what aspects of known human nature and behaviors can we reconcile the murderer's actions up to and including November 9, and Cohen's beginning very shortly thereafter?
Best Wishes Always,
David |
Author: Jade Bakys
Tuesday, 27 February 2001 - 11:33 am | |
Have you split your infinative there David.
Was Cohen known to have spoken any English? I know from reading Mr Fido's essay he gibbered on in German Yiddish, (not Mr Fido, Cohen). Cohen was quite verbally threatning (I think) I may have misinterpreted this for threatning behaviour. Is it possible therefore that he might have made verbal reference to what he (might) have done re the Whitechapel murders?
It seems like a logical progression from Anderson's statement that the Ripper was know to have been incacerated in an asylum, and not a series of impulses based on conjecture. Which is what I think you mean by digital David. I don't think the pathology of Cohen bares much weight, but the progression from Anderson through to Cohen does. |
Author: RSattherwaite
Tuesday, 27 February 2001 - 09:49 pm | |
Cohen, maybe?
Maduro, perhaps?
Alonso Maduro, Buenos Aires businessman, was also in Whitechapel area the nights of the crimes. Surgical knives were found amoung his possessions. The only source I found on this matter was from an interview with Griffith Salway from a 1930's magazine. Also, Viennese rumour cast him as the Ripper.
Have any other info. on Maduro, fellows?
Just another thought to ponder.
(Better said, another discussion to argue!)
Regards,
Rob |
Author: Martin Fido
Wednesday, 28 February 2001 - 01:40 am | |
Hi, David,
The simple answer to your first paragraph is that he didn't go ki-yiping around during and after his murders because the point of the murders was that they supplied relief from the intolerable building pressure which appeared to be leading to something terrible but unknown. (The psychologist's introduction to Brian Masters' book on Denis Nilsen is rather good on this).
On the frustrated killing of Stride, observe that I am not committed to the belief that the Ripper actually did murder her.
And comparing again with Dahmer, note that until he was completely frustrated by knowing himslf caught bang to rights, he was able to remain cool enough to entrap further victims, and in one notable case, to persuade police who had been summoned that an incipient victim was actually a masochistic lover.
I think can see what your distinction between 'digital' and 'human' evidence means. The latter, I would have thought, depends to a very considerable extent on subjective psychological asessments, which, of course play their part in deciding who the Ripper might have been. (I guess you would see it as digitally assured that Attila the Hun couldn't have been the Ripper, though he would be humanly possible; and that Cardinal Newman is ruled out on human grounds, assuming that he was not too frail by 1888 for the vigorous commission of throat-cuting). The two are inevitably intertwined in the Cohen (and probably most other) cases. So, I calculate that of all the people who claimed to know or think they knew who the Ripper was, Anderson was 'digitally' in one of the best positions to hold an opinion, and 'humanly' certain to be telling the truth as he saw it. It follows digitally that there should be a poor Polish Jew from Whitechapel in an asylum whose identification could explain Anderson's belief. Digitally, Cohen fits, and no one else does (unless you think that Anderson would have accepted an identification of Kosminski two years later as valid). Humanly, if you accept my and Prof Cancrini's view of Cohen's mental state, he could also be the Ripper. There is nothing whatever in what we know of his earlier history - (terribly little) - that can be linked with the murders. Of which named suspect can we make any such link, except in certain cases for actual or postulated presence in Whitechapel/Spitalfields? - (a virtual certainty in Cohen's case, since he doesn't appear to have had the means to be very far away, and he had the year's residence in the parish needed to make the parish take him on the rates).
Rob - It looks as though you've found an earlier and firsthand source unknown to us when we compiled the A-Z, where we offer a 1956 article, apparently deriving from Mrs Salway following her husband's death in 1952 as the earliest reference we can cite, and which alleged that Salway had only revealed the secret to her at the end of hks life. Could you give chapter and verse of the 1930s interview with Griffith himself?
Martin Fido |
Author: Paul Begg
Wednesday, 28 February 2001 - 11:39 am | |
Rob/Martin
There is an excellent article about Szemeredy and the Maduro story - really Alfonzo Maroni? - in the current (Feb) issue of Ripperologist ("The Search For Jack el Destripadore"). As ever, anyone interested in the Ripper should subscribe!!! |
Author: Jade Bakys
Wednesday, 28 February 2001 - 12:10 pm | |
Dear Jade
If anything was said by Cohen then it obviously wasn't written down for posterity, and if it was it would surley have been converted from analogue to digital by now.
Hi David
Honestly David I in no way remind you of a former girlfriend, and there was only I and Rosemary of the female specie (I think) on that board, and Rosy just don't fit the bill. You never did explain yourself. If I am wrong I bow out of your posts gracefully. If it was our very own Rosy then you just aren't keeping up with present trends, cos guess who Joseph is stalking besides ED!
|
Author: RSattherwaite
Wednesday, 28 February 2001 - 04:35 pm | |
Yes, Martin, Ripperologist cites Madero and also Adam Wood is a good source to consult. (A better source than I).
Thank you for your responses.
Regards,
Rob |
Author: stephen stanley
Wednesday, 28 February 2001 - 04:51 pm | |
Dear Martin,I take great umbrage at your unwarrented slurs on the character of Mr. Attila...He was well known as a benefactor of The Convalescent Home for Retired Barbarians and only Disembowelled other nomadic psychopaths.
Steve S. |
Author: Diana
Wednesday, 28 February 2001 - 08:50 pm | |
| I don't know if this helps much but since I work with kids that have neurological problems (autism) the school district had me attend a two day seminar this week on nonviolent crisis intervention. We were taught that a crisis starts with anxiety (at this stage we see "fidgety" behavior). The second stage is defensiveness characterized by belligerent verbalizations. The third stage (which we hope we never get to) is acting out or violence and the fourth stage is kind of a post crisis collapse into lethargy and depression. |
Author: Martin Fido
Wednesday, 28 February 2001 - 10:34 pm | |
Aw, shucks, Stephen... I must be more careful... I'll be saying something politically incorrect aboout that great philanthropist Vlad the Impaler next!
Martin |
Author: Matthew Brannigan
Monday, 05 March 2001 - 06:12 am | |
Martin,
Shame on you for even bringing into this discussion the godfather of the European wooden stake industry. |
Author: Goryboy
Friday, 22 November 2002 - 07:47 am | |
Martin,
In the 21 months since these messages were posted, have you discovered any new info, re David Cohen? I am still most intrigued by your original research into, and discovery of, both Kaminsky and Cohen. Has anything else come to light?
And what about the notion, hardly ever encountered anymore, that it might have been a different Kosminski? Not young Aaron, but a brother or cousin or some unrelated Kosminski? Since Aaron seems too pathetic and harmless a candidate for the mantle of Whitechapel Murderer, could there have been another Kosminski to whom Macnaughten and Swanson referred?
Just wondering....
Cheers,
John
P.S. I hate to fawn, but your original research into Kosminski/Kaminsky/Cohen is still a hallmark in the annals of Ripperology. I only wish I'd done it first! |
Author: David Radka
Saturday, 23 November 2002 - 01:08 am | |
Goryboy,
Mr. Fido announced that he would not be able to post during his semester's teaching duties. He may reappear here late in December.
David |
