change in modus operandi

[Sam Flynn]

A young man who,by 1889 had become proprietor of two barber shops ...

...at different times, and both were located in desperately poor areas of London. Also, we don't know that he owned the Cable Street shop - he could have been managing it, and he was almost certainly renting it. Whatever, his next move up the entrepreneurial ladder was to be an assistant at, before running, a barber shop in the cellar of a slum-district pub!

In the light of the above, any illusions that he was well-off in the 1880s, to the extent of being a "la de da", should be tempered with more than a grain of salt. Or tartar-emetic, as the case may be.

[Natalie Severn]

Thanks bb for your kind comments about my article.
Thanks Mark for posting this extract from The Times which puts Levisohn"s remark in a clearer context.
From the various witnesses accounts ,including the one by Levisohn above, it appears that Klosowski in 1888 was working as a Jobbing barber in The basement of the White Hart public house,which is on the corner of George Yard where MarthaTabram was murdered in August 1888.This can link him with the MarthaTabram murder site.

He also,some time in 1888 and before the end of that year,became the proprietor of a barber shop in Cable Street as well.
Cable Street is the other side of " the railway" that Schwartz said he ran "incontinently" to, from Berner Street [when he thought he was being chased by pipeman].Its very close to the Dutfields Yard murder site.
Cable Street is also right next to Pinchin Street where the headless torso was found under the railway arch in September 1889.Klosowski"s address in September 1889 was 126 Cable Street-----just round the corner from the headless torso.

A young man who,by 1889 had become proprietor of two barber shops had things going for him money wise.He could well have spent any spare cash he had putting on the style.

[babybird67]

hi Sam and Mark

thanks very much for your points and clarification. You have helped me to see that what Levisohn said most probably meant Klosowski wasnt la di da during 1888, so you have helped me greatly.

hope you are enjoying the weekend, despite the rain

[m_w_r]

A La De Da

Hi all,

Just to clarify Levisohn's remark, here is the relevant extract from the Times, Thursday 08 January 1903.



Surely this is clear - Levisohn is saying that he lost track of Klosowski for four years or so after 1890 and, when he caught up with him in Tottenham, Klosowski had undergone a change of image, becoming a "la de da". To go along with the change of image, Klosowski had shed the trappings (Polish wife, kids) of his previous existence: in effect, he had reinvented himself. However, his image in 1903 remained that he had affected sometime between 1890 and 1894 - he had not reinvented himself in the meantime.

So - in sequence:

In the East End - Levisohn meets Klosowski (by his own estimation in 1888), keeping his acquaintance until 1890.

In Tottenham in 1894 - Levisohn meets Klosowski again, and notes his change of image, and the absence of his Polish wife and his children.

In court in 1903 - Levisohn identifies Klosowski, giving a history of their acquaintance to substantiate his identification, and noting that Klosowski still presents with the same affectations he had adopted in the "missing years" between 1890 and 1894.

Simple. The inevitable corollary is that Chapman's "la de da" image was not the one he presented in the East End in (c.)1888-1890.

Regards,

Mark

[Sam Flynn]

It doesnt stop me speculating that somebody like Klosowski could have disguised himself during the rippings with borrowed or stolen attire.

Do you think that would be possible?

It's possible, BB, but - as I pointed out to R Michael Gordon - why on earth would he bother dressing up or disguising himself? It's not as if he'd have run the risk of being identified north of Commercial Road, given that he'd certainly spent most of his brief London life well to the south of that thoroughfare. At the time of the Ripper murders, the very closest we can place him is in Cable Street, and that was at a safe distance away from nearly every one of the Ripper's scenes of crime. He'd simply have had no need of a disguise.

Remember that it's only Hutchinson's controversial description that one could reasonably describe as "la de da". Most of the other witnesses describe decidedly ordinary clothing. Ironically, perhaps, such "shabby genteel" attire might have been more in keeping with what a slum barber might have worn.

[babybird67]

hi Sam

i dont know...i am imagining English was not his first language, therefore making mistakes in meaning possible...

if you read my post above, i did say i am not stating that he did mean one or the other (ie, then as opposed to already), i am just saying it is a possibility.

It doesnt stop me speculating that somebody like Klosowski could have disguised himself during the rippings with borrowed or stolen attire.

Do you think that would be possible? Thanks for your help.

[Sam Flynn]

If Levisohn said, "oh he was la di da then", where the stress lies can make it mean either as you argue, "then" meaning not before then, or if he put the stress on "then" in a higher tone of voice, it could also mean, "he was la di da then" (ie he was la di da ALREADY by that time). It's really difficult to get this over in the written form...

Why would Levisohn use "then" to mean "already", if he hadn't once mentioned Klosowski's attire in his testimony to date? (And that goes for the Old Bailey trial as well as the earlier Magistrates' Court hearing.) Why does Levisohn only mention this in connection with counsel's specific question about what sort of man Klosowski was in 1894?

Come to think of it, what was the purpose of that question in any case? Might it have been because the prosecution wanted to show (for the purposes of identification) that the well-dressed defendant had, at some point, had the opportunity to morph from slum-barber to the dapper individual who stood in the dock that day?

[babybird67]

hi everyone

thanks to anyone who has praised my post...very kind of you.

Nats...i read your article in Ripperologist and was very impressed. Most enlightening. Klosowski is a very interesting subject, even if he was not the Ripper, but i think your point about his threats to Lucy being knife-based, and his threats later when he had got more into poisoning being poison-based, are very telling. It's almost as if, if he was the Ripper, he had shed that life like a snake sheds its skin, and had metamorphosed down to his very thoughts his method of kill. Excellent, salient points!

Sam...it's going to be difficult this because what i am going to say doesn't translate too well in the medium of text, but to get what i am saying i will have to ask you to say the phrase over in your mind.

English is a very difficult language as Nats has pointed out, and where the stress lies can alter meaning considerably.

If Levisohn said, "oh he was la di da then", where the stress lies can make it mean either as you argue, "then" meaning not before then, or if he put the stress on "then" in a higher tone of voice, it could also mean, "he was la di da then" (ie he was la di da ALREADY by that time). It's really difficult to get this over in the written form...but just try to say that line with the final word in a higher tone of expression than the rest of the line, and hopefully it will become apparent that vocal expression could have changed that sentence from meaning one thing to another. I dont say he did mean one or the other...i still don't know...but i accept that a serial killer as he was could quite easily have stolen some la di da clothes from somewhere or borrowed them, and disguised himself with them to murder in, precisely because if the Police were looking for a wealthier Ripper it would be one less suspicion to fall around him.

Hi Frank - i understand what you are saying and i agree with you about Klosowski's mind-set in that he cared for nobody but himself and used women as objects to get what he wanted, disposing of them when they no longer fulfilled his wishes.

Whether you see the Ripper as deviating from that (ohhh might the Ripper have been a deviant) and therefore impacting on Klosowski's candidacy is interesting...do you think the removal of organs was so distinctive an MO/sig (sorry still get those two terms confused...not sure if they are apt here...guidance appreciated, as always) that Klosowski could not have given them up? Could not have fulfilled his reason for ripping any other way than ripping?

Note the profusion of question marks! I never mind admitting my ignorance...if i dont admit my ignorance, how will i learn?

Can someone more knowledgeable supply the dates that Klosowski changed his name; became involved in the public house business; began to poison his first victim?

It could be, as i have seen suggested elsewhere, that the glut on MJK was enough to extinguish his desire to rip women. It's obvious he couldn't continue to rip women when he began to want to murder women he was connected with, as he would have been immediately caught.

Personally i think he was so very cold-hearted and without an ounce of appreciation of the value of life, that he developed into an even colder killer...torturing and murdering women whose bed he had shared...eking out their agony whilst taking credit from onlookers for being a devoted husband...no quick slice of the knife and agony over as with strangers (IF he was the Ripper)...his cruelty increased as he killed more...his sadism maybe increased in direct ratio to his connection with the woman...why spare strangers the prolonged suffering he later inflicted on his wives? I think it was just because he was getting further and further away from the concepts of right and wrong, conscience etc etc...i think maybe if he could have found an effective way of silencing women whilst he ripped them, he may well have enjoyed ripping them alive, but the kill was the most effective way of silencing them, which was expedient to remaining uncaught (again, IF it was him).

Re the Ripping alive, interestingly suggested in a chat room conversation with sgh, who thinks Mary may just have been alive and conscious as the ripping began....shudder...horrible thought...but maybe the suffering he saw there on her face gave him the kick that he was looking for, and led him down the road to the slow torture and death of those we know were his victims later on.

Klosowski is so interesting...how i would love to get my hands on that box at Kew...can't we have a whip-round (nearly said rip-round) and get hold of it somehow?

tc all

[FrankO]

I dont have any problem at all with the differing MO...

Hi BB,

I don't have a problem with the differing MO's either, but as far as I see it, it's a question of personality and psychology rather than a question a simple change of MO.

I mean, what the Ripper did certainly wasn't a hobby. He did it because he felt he had to. It served some psychological purpose, it (temporarily) restored some psychological imbalance. And I believe the same holds true of Klosowski, although possibly to a somewhat lesser extent. The impression I get from him is that, besides being a sadist psychopath who valued nothing but himself, he did it just because he (thought he) could and because he liked to see people suffer. This is nothing near what I see with the Ripper.

So, they did the particular (and very different) things they did, because it was of major importance to them to do the particular things they did and because it fitted their personality. That, to me, makes it far more likely that we're dealing with two different men rather than a change of MO. But that's just my take on it.

All the best,
Frank

[Sam Flynn]

Importantly too,there seems to have been an even earlier address than Mrs Radin"s at 70 West India Dock Road, it being 54 Cranbrook Street

Hi Nats.

I've responded on the following thread:

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?p=82448

[Natalie Severn]

Hello bb,
I missed your post entirely last night but having just read it through, like Caz I was pretty impressed.
Severin Klosowski was a convicted serial killer living in Whitechapel in 1888 and trying to fitting him into a neat little box labelled "poisoner" and dismissing him on account of an entrenched posotion viz a vix "MODUS OPERANDI "is inadequate and lacks rigorous investigation.The fact that he lived either close to or in some cases right on the doorstep of a number of the Whitechapel murder sites is curious to say the least .We still need to try to track his movements between the last recorded "sighting" of him in Warsaw -ie between the hospital fees he paid dated Febtuary 1887 and the court testimony of Mrs Radin and Wolf Levisohn referring to dates in Limehouse and Whitechapel ,repectively, in 1888.
Importantly too,there seems to have been an even earlier address than Mrs Radin"s at 70 West India Dock Road, it being 54 Cranbrook Street ,next to the Grand Union Canal,where one of the first torso body parts were found.
This address was found ,alongside his name Severin Klosowski ,at the front of a little Polish medical book by Inspector Godley, entitled," 500 Prescriptions for diseases and complaints".If he was actually living there in 1887 then it could have links to Ada Wilson who lived down the road from Cranbrook Street off Burdett Road as well as to the first torso murder.But ofcourse,unfortunately we still do not know exactly when Klosowski arrived in the UK or by what ship.
Best Wishes
Norma

[Sam Flynn]

Caz is absolutely correct.Levisohn could have meant -"even then" [he was la di dah] or "by then"----the meaning here,without hearing the stress, can be either.

There can only be one meaning, given the context in which the information was imparted. As I've explained, this was the one and only time Levisohn mentioned Klosowski's attire - and he was referring to his apparel in 1894, which he describes at some length.

Let's not just pick on one issue, and "semanticize" it to death, however. Consider the lowly lodgings and districts in which he lived, and the lowly jobs that he was doing for his first few years in the East End. These things are entirely consistent with a man who would hardly be in a position to afford patent leather boots, top hat and tails for quite some time.

Six years later, in Tottenham, perhaps - and certainly if his written claim that "From America I had £1,000" was even remotely true.

[Natalie Severn]

With regards to the stress put on the "then":Along with word order ,stress and intonation can ENTIRELY CHANGE MEANING in English Sam.English stands almost alone in this feature of its semantics.
Caz is absolutely correct.Levisohn could have meant -"even then" [he was la di dah] or "by then"----the meaning here,without hearing the stress, can be either.

Caz,
I will have to be quick here as I am currently having difficulty with the electrics here [Wales].One of the sockets has gone so until tomorrow the entire circuit has been switched off meaning the battery is getting low on the computer.
I follow your reasoning but I believe Chapman was a most mercurial serial killer,and a man who never stayed with any one victim, lover,job, or in any place or "project" for very long.In my opinion a man of such mobility of temperament would not have been likely to have been content to have been boringly " repeating" the same urges that governed his youth month in month out as he got older---as you yourself intimate.More likely,when or he reached satiety or "completion" - he moved on.This seems apparent in the "poisoning project" which he appears to have begun with Mary Spink in 1897 when he was over thirty.If you make a case based solely on the poisoning crimes he was executed for in 1903 and work backwards through his earlier life ,we see little evidence of a predilection for poisoning .However, he apparently did sleep with a knife under his pillow and threaten to cut his young wife"s head off with it and bury her "over there" pointing to floor boards----he didnt say to Lucy Baderski in 1892 ,------as he did to Maud Marsh"s friend and the rival for his affection in 1902," if I wanted I could give her a bit [of poison] just like that and fifty doctors would not find out"-and make a snapping motion with his fingers.Instead he coolly told Lucy that he would simply say she had "gone back to New York" if anyone asked her whereabouts.

Best
Nats

[Sam Flynn]

Or, as would seem equally possible, if not more plausible from the context you have provided:

B: “Oh he was ‘la de da’ back then too..."

If he'd referred to Klosowski being a dandy earlier in his testimony (or anywhere else, for that matter), the interpretation "he was la de da then too" would be a valid one. But he does not.

"He was la de da THEN", the "then" being 1894, is clearly the more plausible meaning in this context. The only one, in fact.

[caz]

Hi bb,

You go girl!

I realise you posted this a while ago now, and that you very sensibly reassess your views as you absorb new info - a trait that can be sorely lacking around here at times, from newbies right through to old hands, who can sometimes appear to adopt the attitude of "there's nothing I could ever learn from other posters that could possibly alter my thinking", which is not exactly the best debating tool in the box and can make it look like they are only here to claim some higher authority over everyone else.

Anyway, if you still have no problem with the differing MO then I am with you - up to a certain extent. While I don't find it terribly likely that a serial throat cutter/mutilator would give up using his knife and make a clean switch to poison, there's absolutely nothing in the human condition to suggest he couldn't do (or couldn't refrain from doing) whatever the hell he wanted, all the while no physical obstacles were put in his way, such as the hangman's noose.

The only thing I would seriously question is whether Chapman could have resisted the temptation to grab the nearest way at some point and use a knife he kept in his possession and made certain threats with, if he had used one in the past to murder and mutilate several unfortunates.

Boys and young men who regularly get into fights, or make a point of starting them, will very often quieten down as they get older and may never again resort to violence to assert their manhood, even if they used to think nothing of taking weapons with them and using them. So on the surface I can see how a violent young offender might lose the thrill of going out looking for trouble, and either stay out of bother for the rest of his life or find more passive antisocial activities like drink-driving, fathering children he has no intention of bringing up or maintaining, making a career out of stealing from the taxpayer - or even poisoning a string of wives.

If, as one poster said, it was simply Jack’s ‘hobby’ to do what he did in 1888, it’s a bit of a no-brainer that hobbies can and do change with age, and need bear no resemblance to one another, and an old one can be discarded forever, as easily as chucking away threadbare socks, or a frock that you never thought you could part with, that suddenly loses all its previous appeal. But the knife that Chapman kept for emergencies is the fly in the ointment for me, as I’m not sure the ripper could have left it only for emergencies, just as an alcoholic would be unable to leave a bottle of Scotch under his pillow untouched.

For Jack to stop of his own accord, I suspect he would have needed, first and foremost, to get rid of the knife he used - and possibly cut his arm off rather than reach for another one. The recent documentary about the Ipswich murders featured a former drug addict and friend of one of the victims, who was so shaken by the whole experience, and how close she may have come to being another victim, that she threw her crack pipe in the river and vowed to kick the habit. How easy would it have been to get another? Yet for her it was a symbol of her determination to survive and not be anyone else's victim. I hope she makes it. With the ripper the situation would be reversed - chucking his knife away as a last resort to try and stop the rot and save his wretched skin.

That said, anyone who can’t get past the big difference in MO between knife and poison must ask themselves if there is not a far greater difference between a) not harming any of the women in your early adult life, then later deciding to poison a series of them, or more to the point, when you consider some of today's 'popular' suspects, like Tumblety, Hutchinson, Barnett and so on, b) ripping up several women over a period of weeks, and then managing to stay right out of bother, criminal or otherwise, until old age finally gets you, without ripping up so much as a dodgy expense claim for your paid-off mortgage.

... that Wolf Levisohn says, of meeting Klosowski again in Tottenham (North London) in 1894: "Oh, he was 'la di da' then". NB, "he was la di da then". Levisohn is telling us that Klosowski's appearance had made quite an improvement since he'd first met him in East London in the late 1880s.

After answering questions about his earlier meetings (in the late 1880s) with Klosowski, Levisohn moves on to detail his seeing him in Tottenham, much later. He is questioned specifically about this meeting:

Q: You saw him in Tottenham? What kind of a man was he?

A: He was 'la de da' then, with black coat, high hat and patent boots. There he sits. He has not changed a bit. He has not a grey hair on his head.

... I reiterate that Levisohn said: "he was a la de da then" (this was 1894, remember). There's no mention of an umbrella, and the phrase "he has not altered since he came to England" does not get used, either. And Jon's quite right - I'm quoting the transcript of the Police Court hearing as printed in HL Adam.

Now then, Sam.

Perhaps you can help me out here, because this still looks ambiguous to me without any wider context to go by, and without knowing what kind of stress Levisohn himself put on “then” when he actually spoke the word.

Did he mean, as you insist:

A: “He had become ‘la de da’ by then [ie by 1894] and by the look of him he’s managed to keep up appearances ever since.”

Or, as would seem equally possible, if not more plausible from the context you have provided:

B: “Oh he was ‘la de da’ back then too, just as you see him now. He’s never been any different. I reckon he would have whipped out his ‘Just For Men’ the moment he spotted his first grey hair.”

The apparent reference to covering up the grey would seem a tad redundant unless the witness just meant it was typical of the man. I doubt that he was dating the demon barber’s need for personal dye jobs from 1894, before the man had hit thirty. So unless there is something else that shows Chapman had neither the means nor the penchant for being ‘la de da’ before the mid-1890s, I’d say he probably had both and Levisohn wasn't saying any different.

Love,

Caz
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