thank you

[Nemo]

I would be interested to know where you could pick up a copy of the book today

It seems to be relatively rare to me

[protohistorian]

Protohistorian writes:
"I will pick up a copy of Adams today, my hope is a careful reading will help."

The best of luck with that, Proto! Make sure you share the more interesting bits and pieces as you pick them up!

All the best,
Fisherman

You can be sure I will, I am a helper!

[protohistorian]

I would be interested to know where you could pick up a copy of the book today

It seems to be relatively rare to me

Inter library loan through the university. I recieved an email it is here.

[Shelley]

Hi Glenn,

Well please read my post again. You keep harping on the serial killer issue and leaving out the other factors.

c.d.

C.D

I was under the same impression that it was hype created about Abberline considering Chapman as a possible suspect as the Ripper, all i ended up coming accross was that Chapman was suppossed to have bumped off by poisoning his wife and a wife prior to that. So i put Chapman in the same bag as Dr Neil Cream, just a serial poisoner.Still if Chapman done in only 2 he wouldn't be a serial poisoner, also how long was his first and second wife in time frame apart?

[Shelley]

Hi Nemo!

As for
"Some serial killers have been arsonists at some point in their life."

...you are absolutely right. There is an oft-spoken of triumvirate that is supposed to be present in the CVs of many a serial killer, and that triumvirate is made up of bedwetting, cruelty to animals and setting fire to things. But we must keep in mind that these traits all belong to the childhood of the killers, and are something that is expressed in their behaviour BEFORE they enter the realms of serial killing.
There are probably exceptions to the rule. Peter Kürten is one such exception that springs to mind, but he never locked onto any specific method of killing as do most serialists; he bludgeoned, stabbed and strangled - and put fire to things. Plus he was a full-blown sadist, enjoying tormenting his victims.

Jack seems another character altogether - he is firmly locked on target methodwise, and he has no need to let his victims suffer. A swift kill, and on we go with the eviscerations. To Kürten, a dead victim was a victim spent, but to Jack a victims life was something to impassionately snuff out before he could do his thing.

So Jack is not like Kürten, Kürten is not like Chapman - and Chapman is not like Jack. Two of them were driven by desires that scorched and burnt them from the inside, consumed them alive - whereas the third was just another tediously greedy and unhealthily incompassionate little man. He does not belong to the same zoo as the others.

All the best,
Fisherman

The arson, bedwetting, Mac Donald triad ( Not triumvirate), sadistic tendencies towards animals...Is attributed to Psychopaths not serial killers.
Pyromania is more apt a term than arson, it's the basic same thing setting fires to stuff, but pyromania is a thrill derived from the perbetrator, arson is more of a protest. Kurten was into what is termed ' Zoosadism '.

[protohistorian]

You're absolutely right, Chris.

All the best

I have only read 1 Gordan book, and found it spurious. I am reading Adams now. I have not yet said Chapman WAS Jtr. My contention is, that given what we do know about the world view of Severin Klosowski, where ever he went I suspect unnatural deaths followed. I damn sure do not want an inflated body count. The fact is in Klosowski we have a man with a worldview that allows for behavior like poisoning wives. Why would you supppose ther would not be bodies along the trajectory that lead to that worldview. I got it, your not buying the arguements for Klosowski thus far, I am not holding or defending them. Additionally, why all the vitriol twards holding unorthodox positions? If conventional wisdom is so damn great, how come we are looking at a case that is unsolved over a century later. Respectfully, Dave

[caz]

Klosowski and the Ripper were undoubtadly two different personalities and two different killers who separately were attached to a specific mehtod in their own right.
And both used their individual MO:s rigidly and repeatedly even though it was risky and they didn't have to.

Hi Glenn, All,

I think people ought to be a bit wary of treating the behaviour of serial offenders in isolation from all other forms of human behaviour, as if it is somehow completely unrelated, when, like it or not, it is merely one of the more unsavoury extensions of it.

People can and do make radical changes to their behaviour without undergoing personality transplants or needing any practical reason. I didn’t suddenly, or even gradually, change into a different person because my hot drink of choice always used to be coffee, but now I very rarely fancy it and much prefer tea; or because for years I liked nothing better than to design and knit jumpers in my spare time, while now I could not work up a shred of enthusiasm over a ball of wool and a pair of needles if you paid me. I can't at this point see myself ever going back, but at the time I couldn't imagine ever losing the will to knit.

I didn’t change from coffee to tea, or give up a favourite hobby and find new ones, because of any external influence or for any practical reason. I’m exactly the same person inside, it’s only my personal tastes and behaviour patterns that have changed, and it’s all down to me and how things make me feel physically and mentally at the time.

We only see the ripper cutting female throats and mutilating their dead bodies for a very short period of time, so we have to presume he spent an awful lot more of his life doing, and thinking about doing, other things. Unless physical or mental incapacity stopped him (which covers pretty much everything from death down to a prison sentence) he must have chosen, at some point after bagging his last Whitechapel unfortunate, to replace ripping strangers with other, less overtly violent behaviour. Even if he never offended again because he came too close to being caught to risk it, that would have involved making a personal decision, of his own free will, to moderate his behaviour.

Anyone who favours a suspect who evidently ‘progressed’ to optional activities that didn’t include butchering women (eg Barnett, Hutchinson, Sickert, Stephenson, Tumblety) can hardly reject Chapman out of hand on the grounds that he wouldn’t have modified or moderated his behaviour in that way. If poisoning in the comfort of one’s own home is seen as an unrealistic scaling down of behaviour from poking about with innards in a public place, what would that make scaling things down from ripping Mary Kelly to shreds to nothing at all, or at least nothing more strenuous than keeping your head down, or talking about the old days with whoever would listen?

It´s sort of "Thanks for giving yourself away, George - one less suspect" the way I see things.

Hi Fisherman,

So are you saying that all the killer had to do to remove himself from your suspect list was to choose to modify his behaviour in a certain way? I’m assuming if this is the case, that you don’t hold the ripper responsible for anything he did, right or wrong. What do you think he was doing with himself in the aftermath of his last murder, and did he have no control at all over what he did with his time, either during or after his ‘active’ ripping period?

Love,

Caz
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