Thin argument against

[Natalie Severn]

Is that so Ben? Well then we have a serious reason to doubt his credibility.
All the same,it wouldnt surprise me to discover he was up to no good in 1888.

[protohistorian]

yes I agree why look for a sociopath in the nieghborhood? Surely lewis carrol did it! And the R. Michael Gordan award goes to Natalie!!

[Sam Flynn]

Eh? Alert! What about the Reverend Samuel Barnett? Do you know something I don't, Sam Flynn? (not in general terms, obviously..) Its a name I just came across recently in another context entirely, so I'm intrigued.

Just that the good Reverend was mixing it in Whitechapel at the time - founder of Toynbee Hall and all that, Crys

Edit: just read Fisherman's masterly explanation of where I was coming from. Cheers, Fish - spot on!

[Richard E. Nixon]

My main objection to Chapman as the Ripper is the fact that he had normal sexual relations with women. Also, I believe Chapman killed his wives because he simply wanted them out of his way. He didn't appear to get sexual satisfaction from killing them. And of course the Ripper's main objective was mutilations which didn't happen to Chapman's victims. Still, he's an interesting fellow.

[Natalie Severn]

My main objection to Chapman as the Ripper is the fact that he had normal sexual relations with women. Also, I believe Chapman killed his wives because he simply wanted them out of his way. He didn't appear to get sexual satisfaction from killing them. And of course the Ripper's main objective was mutilations which didn't happen to Chapman's victims. Still, he's an interesting fellow.

I think that as a murderer his crimes may have followed a similar pattern to his life.He lived in so many different places its difficult to keep track of him.He appears to have been interested in numerous women and "lifestyles"---at one time living with two women at once for example.Another time he had no sooner "married" the penniless, 18 year old ,Maud Marsh ,after enjoying watching the slow agonising death of the middle aged Bessie Taylor in the February of that year,joking that she was "dead" when she wasn"t to one of her friends, than he was suggesting to Florence Raynor,yet another new barmaid at his pub, that they should run away together!This had happened in 1897 when he had tired of his two year relationship with Mary Spink and he took a fancy to Alice Penfold .From the account of Mary Spink"s friend,he made sadistic jokes about her condition too as she was dying in agony.
So its possible that as was the case in general during his adult years , as a murderer he also found variety to be the spice of life--sometimes wanting to get out his surgical scissors while at others wanting to savour the sight of his women helplessly suffering at his hands.I disagree that the 5 year period his murderous behaviour from 1897 to 1902 has to reflect what he was doing in the years before that.Who knows what he got up to between his arrival here in 1887 or early 1888 and 1897 when we discover he has become obsessed with poisoning his girlfriends?He was so immensely secretive and laid so many false trails its impossible to know.
It is possible to trace his brutality though, through the years .Not for nothing did Lucy Baderski/Klosowski, his likely very first wife, flee from him in terror and from New York when ,in 1892 , he allegedly threatened to cut her head off with a knife she discovered under his pillow.Regarding his violent behaviour, Mary Spink"s body was covered with bruises and both Maud Marsh and Bessie Taylor were believed by friends to have suffered from beatings .
George Chapman had several aliases , numerous jobs as a full time barber/ a part time barber-surgeon and later a pub landlord.In fact he seems to have greatly enjoyed the "multi-tasking" that such a life demanded.