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Jack The Ripper: The Suspects [Part 3]

Since the story of Jack The Ripper is quite long and complicated, I have divided it into three parts. This is the third part and covers a few men suspected of being Jack The Ripper.

Introduction

Jack The Ripper was never apprehended, but there have been many suspects through the years. This post covers a few of the suspects.  

Aaron Kosminski

Aaron Kosminski was born in Poland in 1865 and moved to London sometime in the 1880s. He lived with his sisters and was supported financially by them. Kosminski worked on and off as a hairdresser but went long periods without work. In the mid-80s, Kosminski started showing signs of mental illness. He was admitted to an asylum in the early 90s and suffered from extreme paranoia. He often refused to eat and bathe, and sometimes hallucinated. He died at the age of 53 in 1919 and was severely underweight at the time. It is now believed that Kosminski suffered from paranoid schizophrenia.

Kosminski became a suspect by the police, but their suspicions were not made public until investigators published their memoirs many years after the murders. One investigator describes Kosminski as a man with a deep-rooted hatred for women, and claim that Kosminski suffered from homicidal thoughts and urges. Kosminski also lived nearby the murder sites. Another indication that points to Kosminski being the killer is the fact that his mitochondrial DNA was found on a piece of clothing belonging to Catherine Eddowes, the fourth victim of Jack The Ripper. However, it is important to note that mitochondrial DNA is not a fully reliable source of identification and the samples of DNA were never peer-reviewed. A fact that points to Kosminski being innocent was his calm and harmless demeanor while institutionalized.

Seweryn Kłosowski

Seweryn Kłosowski was, just like Kosminski, born in 1865 in Poland. He emigrated to England in the mid-80s. He married several times, but his partners died under suspicious circumstances. Kłosowski was arrested and convicted of poisoning three women he had had romantic relationships with. He was executed for his crimes in 1903 at the age of 37.

There is not a lot of proof pointing to Kłosowski being Jack The Ripper. The only indications are a statement from one of his partners who was later poisoned; she claimed that Kłosowski often went out during the night around the same time as Jack The Ripper operated. He was also often violent toward women, which suggests that he disliked women. Kłosowski even tried to strangle one of his romantic partners, and she discovered a knife hidden under a pillow after Kłosowski had stormed out. Several factors point to Kłosowski being innocent of the killings attributed to Jack The Ripper. Firstly, Kłosowski poisoned his victims while Jack mutilated his victims. Secondly, Kłosowski’s victims were people he knew, whereas Jack killed strangers. Their modus operandi is wildly different, which suggests that they are not the same person.

Thomas Neill Cream

Thomas Neill Cream was born in 1850 and was a convicted killer. He went to medical school and later started working as a surgeon. Cream sometimes helped women with abortions; however, his methods were highly unsafe. He married a woman who he had almost killed while performing an abortion; this woman was supposedly his first victim. Cream killed several other women by poisoning them with chloroform and strychnine. Cream was apprehended in 1892 and was executed by hanging a couple of months later.

The hangman would later claim that Cream’s last words were “I am Jack the…”, which made people speculate that Cream was Jack The Ripper and that he intended to confess. However, no one else heard Cream say these words, and some records show that Cream was incarcerated when Jack The Ripper was operating in Whitechapel.

Montague John Druitt

There are only vague indications that Montague John Druitt was Jack The Ripper, but he is still a notable suspect. He was born in 1857 and was brought up in a middle-class family. Druitt was well-educated and graduated with a bachelor’s art degree. Druitt died in 1888 and it is believed that he committed suicide. His body was found in a river, and it was determined that he had been dead for about a month when his body was discovered. Some believe that Druitt suffered from a mental illness since several of his family members showed signs of doing so.

What makes Druitt a possible killer? Only five murders are attributed to Jack The Ripper (however, some believe that Jack killed even more women), and the killings ended when Druitt committed suicide. Furthermore, Druitt killed himself shortly after the murder of Jack’s last victim. Druitt also spent time in Whitechapel during Jack’s reign of terror.

Walter Sickert

Walter Sickert was born in 1860 in Germany but later lived in England. He quickly became a famous painter and is considered to have been a big part of the transition from impressionism to modernism.

"Childhood should be carefree, playing in the sun; not living a nightmare in the darkness of the soul." - Dave Pelzer

Christian Choate was born December 27, 1995 in Gary, Indiana to Aimee Eriks Estrada and Riley Choate.

By 2004 Aimee and Riley had seperated, and Christian, along with older sister Christina were in Aimee's custody. That soon changed when it was revealed that Aimee had sexually abused Christian. Riley was awarded custody of both children and they went to live with him, his partner Kimberly Kubani, and their nine other children.

It didn't take long for things to take a turn for the worse.

Christian was accused of hitting his niece and from then on as punishment, he was only allowed to be out of his basement room to eat and use the bathroom. Christian was also beaten multiple times a day by his father and step mother.

After months of living this way, Christian had all he could take and broke out of the home to try to run away. Unfortunately, Kimberly and her oldest granddaughter caught him.

A few weeks prior to this Kimberly had made the decision to homeschool Christian just for the fact she didn't want school staff to see the brusies that covered his body.

Kimberly had also bought a dog cage from a neighbor, which would now be where Christian would live.

For months Christan was confined to the dog cage where he would only be let out to clean the house. The rest of the time he was forced to stay in the cage to eat his two alloted packets of noodles, sleep, use the bathroom, and be constantly beaten by Kimberly and Riley.

Older sister Christina was forced to care for Christian, which meant she would also have to physically abuse him or else she too would be beaten.

By April 2009, Christian was 13 years old wearing a size 6 in children's clothes. He could no longer even chew or swallow cereal and had to wear a diaper due to his body deteriorating from the severe beatings he received daily.

Through the five years Christan lived with Riley and Kimberly it was very obvious he was being abused and yet, only one person ever reported it.

A neighbor, Lori Wingard, called child services several times. On one occasion a case worker did come to the home but, they never even went inside the home or spoke to Christian.

After April 5, 2009 neighbors were told Christian ran away. Most people who knew the family believed this or didn't seem to really care.

When Riley and Kimberly moved to Kentucky, it looked as if Christina would take Christian's place of the abused. She was not allowed to use the phone or even go to school. 

But, one day she sneaked away to make a phone call to her step-sister who lived with Aimee.

Christina told her what really happened to Christian. 

Christian had not run away, Kimberly had beaten his fragile body, killing him.

Kimberly called Riley telling him what she had done to which he said, "we'll just bust him up" when he got home.

They buried Christian in a shallow grave which they covered with lye and concrete inside their shed.

Once Aimee was told what had happened, she called the police.

After sadly finding Christian Choate's body, Riley and Kimberly were arrested.

Riley Choate was charged with felony neglect of a dependent for the extreme abuse of Christian, removal of a body from a death scene, and felony neglect of a dependent for the lack of care for Christina. He entered a plea deal and received 40 years in prison.

The situation around Sheikh Jarrah should make everyone angry. For those of you who might not know what’ going on here’s a brief breakdown:

Indigenous Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah, for a very long time, have been fighting lengthy legal battles in Israeli courts against eviction orders which aim to replace these indigenous people with illegal Israeli settlers. 

On May 7th, the illegal Israeli settlers along with courts (an apparatus of Israel’s apartheid regime) have started a campaign to illegally take over the home’s of Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah. These families were given until today (May 10th, 2021) to “reach an agreement” with the occupiers. This obviously prompted protests. The IDF has also brutally responded to these protests. Now the world is watching and global protests have started happening.

Some important things to note:

-Sheikh Jarrah belongs to the Palestinian families. It is part of the occupied Palestinian territory, and therefore any Israeli settler presence in it amounts to a war crime under international law. 

-There has been a mountain of UN Security Council resolutions demanding that Israel withdraw from East Jerusalem which Israel continues to ignore.

-This is ethnic cleansing

I know you feel hopeless but here’s what we can do:

-Support BDS (Boycott, Divestments, Sanctions) movements (What”s BDS?) Boycott Israeli products from their colonial settlements

-Understand whats happening in Palestine and the crimes of apartheid/persecution being committed by Israel. (Check out this great report by HRW on the situation) After getting an understanding. SPREAD AWARENESS. Especially in the US. This is key to combatting Evangelical propaganda and Israeli lobbyists. Do this through social media.

-Contact your local reps and pressure them to stop giving Israel military funding or any form of financial support. Fight against zionist lobbyists such as AIPAC or Christians United for Israel.

-Donate if you can. Here’s a few links. If you can add more (reputable) donation links to this, I ask that you please do. 

International Medical Corps

Palestine Children’s Relief Fund

Grassroots Al-Quds

I found this great twitter thread of donation links

Here is another

This is a start and we can honestly make change happen. I personally believe social media outrage coupled with supporting the BDS movement is a great way for you to help even by sitting at home. 

At least 12 people were murdered because of their affiliation with the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. Ten were journalists. Presumably, these terrorist attacks were retaliation for the paper’s frequent satire of religious figures, particularly those from Islam.

Maybe you find these cartoons offensive. Maybe you think it’s crass to depict the fictional assassination of a real dictator. 

That’s fine. 

Freedom of speech isn’t for benign, polite comments, or politically correct works of art. We don’t need to protect what we already agree on. Freedom of speech safeguards those who say things we might not want to hear. That we disagree with. That threaten the status quo. Because words, opinions, ideas, they’re powerful. 

If they weren’t, people wouldn’t be dead right now. 

If freedom of speech doesn’t protect inane cartoons and dumb movies from censorship, how can it protect those like Malala Yousafzai? Or citizens protesting for change? A whistleblower holding the government accountable?

Whenever fear leads a newspaper to censor an article, or a publisher to reject cartoon, or a producer to pull a film, they win. And we all lose. When we play it safe, we tell terrorists that violence works. We allow them to export their greatest weapon, censorship.

So pass these cartoons around, if only because terrorists don’t want you to see them. In honor of the journalists who were murdered for publishing what people didn’t want to hear, and the officers who died protecting them.