thought experiment

[Natalie Severn]

quite period = not Jack the Ripper...
yes serial killers can go years without killing, but they dont usually start killing at 40; normally much younger..

and not such a huge switch in MO either, a violent mutilator is unlikely to totally quit the violence; in favour of poisoning only, it's too much of a switch...

expect the Ripper to switch to normal style of stabbings only, or to use another weapon...but not poisoning..

the ZODIAC KILLER switched his MO as much as this, but for Chapman i think not.

I agree with you to a great extent Malcolm.However despite what it looks like, Chapman appears, on the face of it, to have only become a murderer in his late thirties.
The question therefore remains.Why did he start at such a late age?
What was he up to before that?

Mary Spink was the only wife he was able to gain from financially.The last wife ,eighteen year old Maud Marsh,was the daughter of a labourer and he had nothing to inherit whatsoever----except the noose!His previous wife to her Bessie Taylor was also without money of her own.

[Ben]

Hi Norma,

Levishon would have had no knowledge of Severin"s passive understanding of English in 1888.

Of course he would have.

He knew him and was in a position to know, and yet he makes the clear and important distinction between a Klosowski in the 1880s who spoke Polish and Yiddish, and a Klosowski who was speaking English by 1895. Surely the commonsense deduction is that he'd learned the language in the interim, most probably when he escaped the confines of his Polish community and was forced to mingle with the English. It's not a question of the level of skill involved - Levisshon knew him and observed that he was speaking English by 1895, an irrelevent and meaningless observation if Klosowski could also speak English in the 1880s.

I've never been more confident as to the simplest explanation with this one, m'afraid.

Best regards,
Ben

[Malcolm X]

I agree with you to a great extent Malcolm.However despite what it looks like, Chapman appears, on the face of it, to have only become a murderer in his late thirties.
The question therefore remains.Why did he start at such a late age?
What was he up to before that?

yes what was he up to......

you see, he didn't kill them for money; as you've said

what was he up to before then?.........i shouldn't say this and i dont want to, but i think he had killed a few times before this.

i would say in this earlier years, that he was out on the street late at night searching for women ( sex ), evidence seems to point towards this; but was he the Ripper, switching his MO in later life; to hide the murders of women that other people knew he was having relationships with..

NO, because he was not killing as the Ripper out on the streets during this later period of time..

this poisoner, is a vastly different type of killer, it's softly softly hands off; it's a coward at work....not a street luking monster!

but....yes the doubts still remain, because this monster was still evil enough to be the ripper

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Norma,



Of course he would have.

He knew him and was in a position to know, and yet he makes the clear and important distinction between a Klosowski in the 1880s who spoke Polish and Yiddish, and a Klosowski who was speaking English by 1895. Surely the commonsense deduction is that he'd learned the language in the interim, most probably when he escaped the confines of his Polish community and was forced to mingle with the English. It's not a question of the level of skill involved - Levisshon knew him and observed that he was speaking English by 1895, an irrelevent and meaningless observation if Klosowski could also speak English in the 1880s.

I've never been more confident as to the simplest explanation with this one, m'afraid.

Best regards,
Ben

But OFCOURSE Ben, he would have spoken English so much more confidently by 1895.There is no argument over that.
The argument is over whether Levishon,as a NON NATIVE speaker of English could have "assessed" another Poles proficiency in English within that specific period,1888/89.My own belief is that Levishon was talking nonsense since the two men would not,at that stage,have been talking in English to each other.Why would they when they were both Polish speakers?What are you saying anyway---that he couldnt speak a word of English in 1888?

[Malcolm X]

you see, what has always bothered me about Chapman is that, the only way to kill live in lovers that others know that you're having relationships with, and to escape detection is to poison them..... to use a knife is way too risky.

but what sways it for me; is that during this period of time, there are no more ripper style murders out on the streets, this tells me he's a poisoner only.

[Ben]

But OFCOURSE Ben, he would have spoken English so much more confidently by 1895.There is no argument over that.

But Levisshon didn't say that Klosowski could speak English "much more confidently by 1895", Norma.

He said that Klosowski spoke English in 1895, which contrasts markedly with his observations about Klosowski's spoken languages in 1889.

It has nothing to do with proficiency. It has to do with speaking a language versus not speaking a language. Levisshon lists the languages that Klosowski spoke in the early days, and they didn not include English. This, again, would be a pointless and irrelevant topic to breech at Klosowski's trail if the gist of the observation was simply that they spoke Polish and Yiddish to eachother. But no such caveat was mentioned, which meant the observation was not pointless at all.

[Natalie Severn]

But Levisshon didn't say that Klosowski could speak English "much more confidently by 1895", Norma.

He said that Klosowski spoke English in 1895, which contrasts markedly with his observations about Klosowski's spoken languages in 1889.

It has nothing to do with proficiency. It has to do with speaking a language versus not speaking a language. Levisshon lists the languages that Klosowski spoke in the early days, and they didn not include English. This, again, would be a pointless and irrelevant topic to breech at Klosowski's trail if the gist of the observation was simply that they spoke Polish and Yiddish to eachother. But no such caveat was mentioned, which meant the observation was not pointless at all.

Ben,
Whatever Levishon"s observations were about Severin"s English Language skills in 1888/9 they would not be a fair or comprehensive assessment.Nor was he qualified to do so.

Levishon was a fellow Pole,whose first language was Polish.He would not have been competent to assess Severin"s English language skills.All Levishon would have been qualified to do, would have been able to discuss his command of Polish and Yiddish in which Levishon himself was a native speaker and that is all.
I can speak French,but if a fellow Londoner met me in France,I would not speak in French with him or her,I would speak in English .Also .if that person decided to carry out a linguistic "assessment" of my speaking and listening skills in French on the basis of a few "overheard" snippets and feel themselves qualified to report on them some 15 years later as a sort of qualified expert,I would find it extremely presumptive of him or her to say the very least.

[c.d.]

I am not quite getting the language argument here. Were these ladies that had to be wooed by sonnets and rhyming couplets or was it simply a matter of holding out some money?

c.d.

[Natalie Severn]

I am not quite getting the language argument here. Were these ladies that had to be wooed by sonnets and rhyming couplets or was it simply a matter of holding out some money?

c.d.

Good point c.d.

[Howard Brown]

Just a quick comment in passing...

It would seem more probable...of the two potential scenarios to me...if a man poisoned three individuals and then went to the knife...instead of the theorization that a man ( Chapman ) killing with a knife and then going to the poison.

What say ye,folks ?

[protohistorian]

I f both served the same function, I would think they were equiprobable. If one were discovered to be be preferred, that would become the visible behavior. It becomes a matter of timing. What was known when? A poor timeline does not help. The behavior can be interpreted within statistic norms.

[Natalie Severn]

Whatever Chapman was doing up until 1895 he was not caught at it if it involved murder in any shape or form.
He had various relationships over the 15 years since he was first married in Poland --- before he was 22 or 23.His first wife arrived from Poland with their two children to confront him over his bigamous marriage to Lucy Baderski.She got short shrift. After this it was a new relationship every year or so.But we know he didnt murder everyone he had a close relationship with.In fact it wasnt even a case of a gap in the poisoning because several women he shacked up with lived to tell the tale at his trial in 1903.Nor does he appear to have murdered for financial gain because except for Mary Spink he gained nothing financially.Quite the contrary,it was he who appears to have been busy making money running barber shops or later on pubs.
So maybe he was just a very late developer with regards to his serial killing.....

[protohistorian]

Nats,if I may, he never had an intimate relationship. That is part of our understanding of Severin, he never emotionally attached.

[Natalie Severn]

I am with you ---I dont believe he did have a close relationship of that kind but he lived with women and became sexually intimate with them.He had two children,it appears in Poland when he was less than 23 and Lucy Baderski had two children with him,one of whom died as a baby.
So he got pretty close in that sense.
Best

[perrymason]

Just a quick comment in passing...

It would seem more probable...of the two potential scenarios to me...if a man poisoned three individuals and then went to the knife...instead of the theorization that a man ( Chapman ) killing with a knife and then going to the poison.

What say ye,folks ?

Moving up rather than down the murderers evolutionary chain as it were Howard? Nice logic...I agree.

All the best.