Chapman: a case for

[Fisherman]

Caz writes:

"Of all the arguments against Chapman, I find the change of MO thing the weakest by far and most illogical. It's akin to saying that a young man who hits his girlfriend or gets into a fist fight on just a few occasions after taking drugs can't quit the drugs and settle down over the next decade, or equally would never take up robbing a few banks or mugging a few old ladies; or someone who plays a mean game of rugby in his teens but shows no interest in playing cards would never go on to play poker in his thirties long after his last appearance on the rugby field. "

Respectfully, Caz, it is not the same at all.

To begin with you say that it has been stated that one thing could not change into another, but that is not what has been said here, at least not on my behalf – what I am saying is that it is utterly, incredibly and laughably improbable, and as such a very good reason for those who seek the Ripper to shine their lights in other corners than the one Chapman sits in.

To carry on, going from a fistfight to restraining yourself from knocking yet another guy on his head does not really come across as a good comparison to going from ripping presumably unknown women up to get at their inner organs to secretly poisoning wifes and lovers.
The only Ripper type that sits well with such a comparison would be one that killed for money. Then I would be willing to discuss it without giggling at the same time.
But I think that most people out here are quite convinced that the Ripper did what he felt an urge to do, displaying a progression, and not a decision to step down, in each killing. So there is no need or even obvious probability to believe that he shifted down gearwise after Kelly. Very much speaks in another direction, a direction of him being hindered in his task for some reason.

All the best!

Fisherman

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Caz,

Whoever killed MJK did take a dramatic shift downwards in gear immediately afterwards.

Not if he died or was incarcerated shortly thereafter. We really don't know whether he remained at liberty or not. There were certainly no more mutilation murders of anything like the same barbarity in England for decades - during one of which Kłosowski was most definitely at large. I might also point out that there don't seem to have been too many tartar-emetic poisoning cases during that period either.

So I take it you have likewise dismissed anyone else who remained free and presumably capable of ripping up women after November 9 1888 but didn't?

The key clause within your statement is "capable of ripping up women", which I think is better put as "wanting to rip up women". Almost everybody from a schoolgirl up would be capable of doing it, but let's not pretend that it's within the scope of (normal) human behaviour to want to do so. It emphatically isn't, and as an aberrant behaviour it was, and still is, extremely rare compared to the more "popular" means of disposing with someone. This, I'd argue, is the real differentiator, and I think it's a fair bet on that basis to exclude most known suspects, and most other people alive at the time - especially those who went on to kill in such a radically different manner.

Both men had the capacity for taking female human life, as and when it suited them and they got the opportunity, and in whatever way it suited them at the time. Very few ripper suspects are known to have inflicted physical harm on any woman, never mind ended one's life.

As indicated above, we all have that capacity. It's the propensity to do so, and the manner in which it was done, that's important. If we ignore that, then we may as well suspect every known killer from MJK onwards, irrespective of how they went about their business. Clearly that would be a foolish thing to do, and lines have to be drawn somewhere.

Of all the arguments against Chapman, I find the change of MO thing the weakest by far and most illogical.

Of all the arguments for Chapman, I consider the brushing-aside of the scale of change of MO to be if not completely illogical, then at least tantamount to wishful thinking.

[caz]

But I think that most people out here are quite convinced that the Ripper did what he felt an urge to do, displaying a progression, and not a decision to step down, in each killing. So there is no need or even obvious probability to believe that he shifted down gearwise after Kelly. Very much speaks in another direction, a direction of him being hindered in his task for some reason.

Dear Fisherman,

I'd be delighted if any of my posts made you giggle.

That said, I am in broad agreement with what you wrote above, except that you (and Sam) seem to be suggesting that someone or something must have hindered the ripper in his task of 'displaying a progression' pretty much immediately after Kelly's murder, or he would soon have upped his game again. I think that's debatable. We know that he never did up his game again in the ripping department, but we don't know why that was, and how much could have been down to him making a conscious decision to alter his behaviour.

Incidentally, I'm not making a case against Chapman. I'm just saying that it is my belief that the majority of serial killers, while they still have their liberty, have the same free will as the rest of us, to stop wanting to behave in one fashion or to start behaving in another. If you think otherwise, is it your belief that they should never be held accountable for their actions?

I can't agree with Sam's 'especially', since it implies that someone like Tumblety (or Barnett, Hutchinson or D'Onston for that matter) would be a far likelier suspect than Chapman, purely on the grounds of the activities they would have chosen to indulge in as retired rippers.

The advice amounts to a Viz top tip: 'Future serial killers, when your lorry is full up with mutilated victims and you can't be arsed to get a new one, a sure way to avoid suspicion 120 years later is to poison the women in your life instead of slipping quietly out of the limelight or giving them black magic'.

Love,

Caz
X

[Fisherman]

Hi Caz!

You write:

"you ... seem to be suggesting that someone or something must have hindered the ripper in his task of 'displaying a progression' pretty much immediately after Kelly's murder, or he would soon have upped his game again. I think that's debatable. We know that he never did up his game again in the ripping department, but we don't know why that was, and how much could have been down to him making a conscious decision to alter his behaviour."

Well, Caz, to begin with, I am not all that sure that I want to know what a progression after the Kelly killing would look like...! Nor can I tell how it could be achieved.

What I meant when I wrote my post, is that I think that it would be very strange if he stepped down in his activities, unless external factors forced him to.

When you suggest that stepping down could have come about as a conscious decision to alter his behaviour, I find it hard to agree. To begin with, I do not think that he set out as the Ripper following a rational, logical decision to go out into the streets to look for women to rip up. I think he succumbed to an urge that he could no longer stop, and thus he did not drive that urge himself - the urge drove him.
In such a situation, making a rational, logical decision to stop his spree would be something more or less beyond his control.
And of course, my whole disbelief that Chapman could have been Jack, rests very much on this.

"when your lorry is full up with mutilated victims and you can't be arsed to get a new one, a sure way to avoid suspicion 120 years later is to poison the women in your life"
Though you create an irony out of it, I would say yes, that is about the size of it all. If the Ripper killings were brought on by an inner urge of the killer - and I strongly believe they were - then a man who poisons a woman years after that could be regarded as a potential serial killer, and it should not be taken as a given that all his victims would have met the same type of fate. He may have pushed other women down stairs, hit them on the head and maybe even knifed them to death.
But he WOULD NOT be a probable eviscerator!

The type of killing Chapman indulged in, is all about practicalities. You need somebody out of your way, and so you look for a method to get the job done while minimizing the risk of getting caught yourself.
Things like that, emphatically, was not something that bothered Jack. There is no reason to believe that he needed his victims out of his way, and he did not go about things in a rational, practical manner.

I think, Caz, that if we actually CAN prove that the Ripper was a man who went from a frenzied, urge-driven serial killing eviscerator to a cool and calculating poisoner and indeed a serial killer in that field too, we would come up with a species of killer so rare that there is no comparison at all about in history.
The other way around, going from poisoning women, before succumbing to the inner urge to rip women up, would be extremely and utterly rare - but in comparison to going from eviscerating to poisoning it would seem like a totally credible scenario. That, I think, says it all, more or less.

The best,
Fisherman

PS. There´s a nice sense of humour added to may of your posts, Caz. You DO make me giggle at times...!