Severin and sociopathy

[protohistorian]

Consideration of murders by this person of interest in 1888 is as follows.

1. In 1903, at his capital trial, Severin displays most of the characteristics of sociopathy, and all of megalomania. He exhibits a fully formed and malignant psychpathology. Evidence since 1888 strongly intimates that this psychpathology is long term in it's development, and terminal in it's duration.
2. In Severin's case it was terminal, so we have an open ended question regarding onset and associate behaviors. Since these pathologies never appear out of nothing, we must ask ourselves, when, and with what behaviors, did the psychopathology begin in Severin. Tied to the crimes or not, the bulk of modern evidence very strongly intimates that earlier behaviors existed.

3. In 1891 while in New Jersey, his wife finds a large knife under a pillow in Severin's shop, and when she confronts him, he said he had meant to cut her head off.

4. Just 3 years after the rippings, we have Severin with a weapon secreted away, ostensibly to cut off heads.

5. Any conclusion other than there is ample evidence for considering Severin as a potential candidate is not based on evidence, the bulk of the evidence suggest strongly that Severin in the late 1880's was experimenting with cutting off heads, and low and behold, we have victim wound morphology to that effect. The onus for consideration of this candidate is not on those who support his consideration, rather on those who oppose it. With the little evidence available to us, he is quite substantially indictable in the court of public opinion.

[protohistorian]

yeah yeah, Dave's right! The evidence sure does point that way. I was expecting at least some resistance. Considering how often I hear the refrain " there's no evidence."

[Sam Flynn]

the bulk of the evidence suggest strongly that Severin in the late 1880's was experimenting with cutting off heads

How one can leap from the (alleged) threat to cut off his wife's head in 1891, to an assertion that he was "experimenting" with decapitation in the late 1880s, is an argument rather difficult to sustain, Dave.

The onus for consideration of this candidate is not on those who support his consideration, rather on those who oppose it.

How so?

With the little evidence available to us, he is quite substantially indictable in the court of public opinion.

Au contraire. With the vast amount of evidence available to us, we see that he was guilty of poisoning three of his female partners, and that the first of these crimes was committed in 1897. There is no evidence, only a heap of speculation and invented history, that ties him with the Whitechapel Murders of 1888.

[protohistorian]

he never refuted that claim at trial. By doing so he pleaded no lo contendre. Since their was no legal methodology to learn that skill, and since he did not deny having that skill or making that threat, he must have aquired the skill through experimentation. Respectfully Dave

[protohistorian]

There is every reason to believe that by 1891 he was faniliar enough with the use of a knife as a weapon, to secret one away in anticipation of using it. Being only 3 years distant in time from the rippings, one asks where did he learn it. Neck wounds on victims suggested to doctors that beheading was the intent. If one is to argue that his fatal personality onset in 1897, then one must explain how that happened, from normitive to sociopath in one step, and in a matter of month's. We are not bound by legal stricture in this forum, there is far more evidence for Severin than for Maybrick, or prince Eddie. Those individuals have been indicted, why not Severin?

[Sam Flynn]

There is every reason to believe that by 1891 he was faniliar enough with the use of a knife as a weapon

Who wasn't, though, Dave? It doesn't take much inside knowledge to know how to cut someone with a knife.

We are not bound by legal stricture in this forum, there is far more evidence for Severin than for Maybrick, or prince Eddie.

Not strictly true - there is plenty of evidence that Klosowski was a murderer, however that evidence ONLY applies to the years 1897 onwards. Before that, he's in precisely the same speculative boat as many, many others - including Maybrick and Eddie.

[protohistorian]

Are you familiar enough with a knife to keep one under your pillow in the status of a preferred weapon? As to the issue of a poisoned world view (sociopathy), Modern studies, (see the thread nonripper specific readings) clearly inform us that this condition is long in onsetting to the degree we must take note of it. Behaviors not likely to be "illeagal" preceed the fatal psychopathology. In Eggers discussion of linkage blindness he notes that it is statistically important to note that the first fatal crime of such world views that the police identify is likely not to be the first such event committed by the subject. To say that Severin's fatal pathology emerged in 1897 is to say that all studies regarding sociopathic world views is wrong. I am unwilling to do so. Respecrfully Dave

[Sam Flynn]

Are you familiar enough with a knife to keep one under your pillow in the status of a preferred weapon?

Firstly, this is only hearsay evidence, Dave. Secondly, keeping a knife under one's pillow is no sign of sociopathy. My friend, one of the finest people I know, would sleep with his father's kukri under his pillow - partly for sentimental reasons, partly for self-defence in the event of a break-in.

To say that Severin's fatal pathology emerged in 1897 is to say that all studies regarding sociopathic world views is wrong.

No study that I know of would make a diagnosis of active sociopathy on a person because they committed a radically different series of murders some 10 years later. That'd be as fatuous as blaming a murder in 1890s Linz on a 9-year-old Hitler because he became an active, if vicarious, killer some 30 years down the line.

[protohistorian]

will compile a list from Adam to demonstrate, point take. Respectfully Dave

[Natalie Severn]

[QUOTE=Sam Flynn;71315]Firstly, this is only hearsay evidence, Dave. Secondly, keeping a knife under one's pillow is no sign of sociopathy.

Sam,

Lucy Baderski was traced by Det Sergeant Arthur Neil in 1902 after Chapman"s arrest and she was able to pick out her ex husband in an identity parade.He said he had never met her etc "I dont know this woman" he said."Oh Severin,don"t say that" she said,"You remember the time you nearly killed me in Jersey City" from AF Neil ,-Forty Years of Man hunting.
AF Neil worked on the case with Godley.The metropolitan Police file on Chapman has gone missing but it is believed Lucy Baderski"s account of the threat to cut off her head with the knife hidden under the pillow was given to the Police at the time of his trial.Anyway whatever it was that caused her to flee from New Jersey on her own back to England,it was something she greatly feared about him because although he followed her two weeks later she soon got rid of him altogether-despite being up the duff with his child.

[protohistorian]

20 modern criteria for sociopathy first proposed by Clackley in 1964 and revised by Hare in 1986

1.glib/superficial charm
2. grandiose self worth
3. need for stimulation
4. pathological lying
5. conning
6. lack of guilt/remorse
7. shallow affect
8. callous
9. parasitic life style
10. poor behavioral control
11. sexual promiscuity
12. early behavioral problems
13. lack of realistic long term plans
14. Impulsivity
15. Irresponsibillity
16. failure to accept responsibility for actions
17.many short term marital relationships
18. juvenile delinquincy
19. revocation of conditional release
20. crimin versatility
Respectfully Dave

[Natalie Severn]

We know of no delinquency when he was a juvenile Dave.But my own view is ,that once he started to murder,and I believe that was earlier rather than later,he never stopped.He just changed his style in order not to get caught.I think that like a number of serial killers we learn of, he cut up and hid his victim"s bodies in all sorts of unusual places,like floor boards ,canals,the Pinchin Street railway arches, next to his barber shop in Cable Street etc .

[protohistorian]

yes some of the features are stricly modern, like conditional release, and some are lost to history, even unavailable in Adam's time. Diagnosing psycological clusters like sociopathy do not require all traits to be present, rather that clusters of traits are expressed in tandem. What we have in the case of Severin is 15 or so traits expressed over long terms of time, with others expressed for short durations of time. Considering the poor state of our knowlege, we probably cannot expect an accurate accounting like the ones modern psychiatrists use in diagnosis. These criteria were drawn up, and rely on, an accurate accounting of ones behavior to be fully effective. I submit them as a demonstration of the problem with understating the psychology of Severin when considering potential activities in the late 1880's. We cannot afford the luxury of dismissal based on the strong possibility he was rapidly developing towards a fatal pathology. The refusal to acknowlege the account of Mrs. Baderski in re the knife under the pillow, again very strongly suggests a familiarity with the knife as a weapon, and was an uncontested accusation. This being relatively close in time to the rippings needs to be a consideration. Far from conclusive I admit, but far more damning than many are inclined to grant. I am convinced that his capital crimes are not the entirety of his expressions of interpersonal violence. Respectfully Dave

[Natalie Severn]

Well it is my own view that for Chapman poison was not his method of choice.It served simply to safely rid him of his wives and fool their relatives----which he did---because sooner or later they got in his way viz when he felt the need to revert to his old habits----- like Dennis Nielsen------he needed his privacy every so often to cut up and dispose of the bodies of his victims...........

[protohistorian]

that may very well be Nats, we have no evidence to suggest the switch in methodology. It should also be remembered that characteristics 20 is criminal diversity, and the motive may only have made sense in Severin's mind. The chief problem in the behavior of persons with a poisonous world view is that what makes sense to them very often does not make sense to the outside observer. Sociopathy, by it's definition is a cumulative state, in which there are several dysfunctioning value systems working in concert. When it comes to actions of such people, they are of course using the dysfunctional values to make decisions. External observers, by virtue of not being privy to those value structures, are baffled by them. The human tendency is to substitute your own values for undefined variables. This does not work for people with multiple, dysfunctional world views. Their predictivity is slight because their potential variability is so great.