29 Facts About Aaron Kosminski

Aaron Kosminski worked as a hairdresser in Whitechapel in the East End of London, where a series of murders ascribed to an unidentified person nicknamed "Jack the Ripper" were committed in 1888.

Aaron Kosminski was first held at Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum and then transferred to the Leavesden Asylum.

Police officials from the time of the murders named one of their suspects as "Aaron Kosminski" and described him as a Polish Jew in an insane asylum.

Still, there was little evidence to connect him with the "Aaron Kosminski" who was suspected of the murders, and their dates of death were different.

Possibly, Kosminski was confused with another Polish Jew of the same age named Aaron or David Cohen, who was a violent patient at the Colney Hatch Asylum.

Aaron Kosminski's parents were Abram Jozef Kozminski, a tailor, and his wife Golda nee Lubnowska.

Aaron Kosminski emigrated from Poland to England, arriving in or around 1881.

Aaron Kosminski probably accompanied his brother Woolf and his sister Matilda and brother-in-law Morris Lubnowski, who arrived in London in June 1881.

Woolf and Aaron Kosminski may have left Poland as a result of the April 1881 pogroms following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, the impetus for many other Jews to emigrate.

Aaron Kosminski presumably relied on his siblings for financial support, and is known to have lived with his brother Woolf at 3 Sion Square in 1890 and his sister Matilda at 16 Greenfield Street in 1891, indicating that his siblings possibly shared responsibility for caring for him and he alternated living between their family homes.

On 14 December 1889 Aaron Kosminski was fined 10 shillings at the City of London Summons Court for having a dog unmuzzled in Cheapside.

Aaron Kosminski was accused of having given the police a false name and address.

On 12 July 1890, Aaron Kosminski was placed in Mile End Old Town workhouse due to his worsening mental illness, with his brother Woolf certifying the entry, and was released three days later.

Aaron Kosminski remained at the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum for the next three years until he was admitted on 19 April 1894 to Leavesden Asylum.

Case notes indicate that Aaron Kosminski had been ill since at least 1885.

Aaron Kosminski added that "Kosminski" had been watched at his brother's home in Whitechapel by the police, that he was taken with his hands tied behind his back to the workhouse and then to Colney Hatch Asylum, and that he died shortly after.

At the time of the murders, Aaron Kosminski apparently lived either on Providence Street or Greenfield Street, both of which are close to the sites of the murders.

Swanson's notes state that "Aaron Kosminski" was identified at "the Seaside Home".

Aaron Kosminski had originally been taken into custody for threatening either his sister or the sister of a witness to his admittance with a knife, and brandished a chair at an asylum attendant in January 1892, but these two incidents are the only known indications of violent behaviour.

However, the "canonical five" killings that are most frequently blamed on the Ripper concluded in 1888; Aaron Kosminski's movements were not restricted until 1891.

Aaron Kosminski bought the shawl at auction and commissioned Louhelainen, with Dr David Miller assisting, to analyse it for forensic DNA evidence.

Edwards states that Aaron Kosminski was on a list of police suspects but there was never enough evidence to bring him to trial at the time.

Aaron Kosminski died at the age of 53 of gangrene of the leg in a London mental hospital in 1919.

Aaron Kosminski said that the DNA samples proved that Kosminski was "definitely, categorically and absolutely" the person responsible for the Whitechapel murders committed by Jack the Ripper.

Aaron Kosminski then applied unsuccessfully for a new inquest to be held on Catherine Eddowes in 2019 and again in 2021.

Aaron Kosminski was committed on 12 December 1888, about one month after the murder of Mary Jane Kelly on 9 November.

Aaron Kosminski was described as violently antisocial, exhibited destructive tendencies while at the asylum, and had to be restrained.

Aaron Kosminski was the same age as Kosminski, and died at the asylum in October 1889.

Fido suggested that police officials confused the name Kaminsky with Aaron Kosminski, resulting in the wrong man coming under suspicion.