change in modus operandi

[Sam Flynn]

age description is a very tenuous matter and SK looked quite a bit older than he actually was.

How do we know that, Lynn? For one thing, the photographs don't suggest that he looked particularly older than his years in the late 1890s (we're talking about the Late Victorian era here, remember, when "young" men looked and dressed "old" to our eyes), and we really haven't a clue as to whether he did in 1888. He might have been clean-shaven, festooned in acne and as thin as a stick back then, for all we know.

[lynn cates]

age

Hello Natalie. Besides the MO change, there seems a slight disparity in age--almost 23 as opposed to the 28 or thereabouts as so often suggested. Of course, age description is a very tenuous matter and SK looked quite a bit older than he actually was.

The best.
LC

[Natalie Severn]

The whole Tumblety case is based on Constable Littlechild's letter and biased opinion towards homosexuals. Tumblety probably never lodged in Whitechapel or even set foot there. He was screwy though. I don't think the Irish or any 3rd party would rely on this homosexual party animal for anything.

Klosowski/Chapman is clearly a remorseless murderer and serial killer, which sets him apart from the other suspects. There have been other serial killers, who changed their modus operandi and choice of victims. The Boston strangler downgraded his serial murders to serial rapes, letting the victim live. Kemper murdered female hitchhickers and later murdered his own mother in a very different manner.

Hi Anna,
Well what you say is all correct but there are curious matters that may connect Tumblety with the case.For example Roger Palmer only recently discovered a Newspaper interview with Tumblety-you probably know about this-where he admitted being in Whitechapel during the murders.Not only that,the American press,for what reason we are not sure,actually named him as Jack the Ripper---or rather being thought to be JtR -in 1888.He is the only suspect to have been so named at the time.
Like Thomas Cutbush who was named/as good as-- in 1894 by the British Press in The Sun Newspaper-----I believe both Tumblety and Cutbush are still very strong suspects----they have to be discounted properly,as does Chapman/Klosowski.For all the "discounting" that goes on I have yet to see a a reason ,other than by convention or prejudice why Chapman could NOT have been Jack the Ripper.
But there have been several very thoughtful articles that I know of which tackle the viabilty of Tumblety .Very few ,if any, that consider the full circumstances that would, once and for all, allow Cutbush to be discounted and in my view none about Chapman other than people being stuck fast with an objection about the question of his Modus Operandi.
Best Anna
Norma

[miss_anna]

The whole Tumblety case is based on Constable Littlechild's letter and biased opinion towards homosexuals. Tumblety probably never lodged in Whitechapel or even set foot there. He was screwy though. I don't think the Irish or any 3rd party would rely on this homosexual party animal for anything.

Klosowski/Chapman is clearly a remorseless murderer and serial killer, which sets him apart from the other suspects. There have been other serial killers, who changed their modus operandi and choice of victims. The Boston strangler downgraded his serial murders to serial rapes, letting the victim live. Kemper murdered female hitchhickers and later murdered his own mother in a very different manner.

[Natalie Severn]

Adobe? Thanks Anna that explains it.If not this weekend when I might be too busy then next,I am going to try to arrange for Adobe to be installed so I can get You Tube.
I read the thread link Anna thanks.Tumblety would not be too old at 55 to murder,but to begin as a serial killer is certainly stretching it a bit.However there are one or two accounts of how he had "dressed the wounded"on the battlefield in the Civil War.How true they are is anybody"s guess but doing this type of on the field surgery would fit in with his claims to have worked as a kind of apprentice to a surgeon in Rochester and then having set himself up as an authority on health foods and cures for ailments.I actually believe he was some kind of spy regarding Irish American politics but for which side is anybody"s guess!I doubt he was Jack the Ripper.Maybe he and Chapman did a deal over buying and selling organs?Chapman did the extractions while 5 ft 11 inch Tumblety kept guard and smoked his clay pipe?
Cheers Anna

Norma

[miss_anna]

I am having trouble downloading your link Anna- frustrating as it looks very interesting.At the weekend I am going to download a backlog of software which might well enable the link.Meanwhile many thanks for taking the trouble to post it up.
I am interested ijn Tumblety actually for several reasons. He isnt my first choice but he is in there alright.A bit of a psychopath in my view Tumblety!

Morning Natalie!
I posted 3 times on this Tumblety thread and i don't believe he's a serious suspect.

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?p=103559#post103559

You need to have an Adobe installation or something like that for YouTube videos.

[Natalie Severn]

I am having trouble downloading your link Anna- frustrating as it looks very interesting.At the weekend I am going to download a backlog of software which might well enable the link.Meanwhile many thanks for taking the trouble to post it up.
I am interested ijn Tumblety actually for several reasons.He isnt my first choice but he is in there alright.A bit of a psychopath in my view Tumblety!

[miss_anna]

Hi Natalie!
We can only speculate what kind of mindset Klosowski/Chapman had.
This video takes a tour of Klosowski's barber shop, which was in the basement of the White Hart pub. I don't think any ripper tour would take you there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ano7hg800gU&NR=1

The Martha Tabram murder occured just a stone throw away from the White Hart pub. I believe the Tabram murder was the first ripper murder.

I don't give any credence to the video's "psychic detective" and his belief that Tumblety was the ripper. I posted recently a couple of times in the suspects/Tumblety section to dispell that nonsense!

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Anna and Lynn and Sam and all,
Hope I havent brought thread to a complete stop with the above post!
Another thought I have had since discussing the case here is whether with Chapman it wasnt really a case of changes in MO but rather that he was got his fix from death itself-like Harold Shipman appears to have done.Shipman as a GP found vulnerable elderly ladies in his practice .So rather than choosing injection as an "MO" it chose him -they were the easiest victims for him to murder as he could charm them with his "interested" visits so that before they knew it he was "administering " lethal doses of morphine to "help".But the fix seems to have been in experiencing seeing them die in the moment as they passed from life to death,not in using the instrument of death .
With Chapman"s previous 5 year experience in Poland between the ages of 15 and 20 ,working as an apprentice to a surgeon in his village,he would have seen numbers of the sick,wounded and dying in the surgery and it may have been then that began the stirrings of some sort of addiction to watching people die.His stay in Warsaw first working as an assistant surgeon at a "clinic" then at the big Praga Hospital ,seems to have been uneventful though there is a curious report amongst his documents from Poland about him "never having been convicted of any misdemeanour".
What may though have sent him over the edge was the short course in practical surgery at the Praga Hospital that he had to take in addition to his previous experience.This undoubtedly had him in attendance at operations which were still very dangerous and bloody affairs, even though anaesthetics had started to be used.There were still frequent botches with people ending up as corpses on the operating tabl;es and it took a strong stomach to persist with the qualification.You never know,it could be why he emigrated apparently very soon after qualifying in February 1887.Maybe at that point he didnt have the stomach for it either.......so he came to England to gain experience on the streets of London!

Best

Norma

[Natalie Severn]

I am not sure he was just psychopathic or sociopathic.What he seems to have been is a mixture of a silly billy type "lad" engaging in rather unconventional and unusual affairs especially for those Victorian times. Mary Spink"s landlady had decided she and her husband would challenge Mary and him about "carrying on" in their boarding house -Mary was separated from her husband and both she and Chapman were apparently unable to be prised apart kissing and cuddling on stairways and a lot more besides.So Chapman decided to placate them by telling them they had become an item and that a[ bogus] marriage had taken place with very different laws than the landlady"s since "their" marriage didnt involve any "marriage certificate".This is the scene Philip Sugden describes in his book," The Complete JtR"":....... he told the Wards they were going to Whitechapel to get married.They returned that night and Chapman,posing as a Jew, and ushering Mrs Spink into the presenceof the Wards,said, "Allow me to present you to my wife".Nobody appears to have been fooled but it was difficult to contest by the sound of it.Next thing-? they had skipped off to Hastings,apparently a place then reknowned for its illegal abortions.THey bought a barber shop there,conducted eccentric "musical shaves" for customers and bought a boat that Chapman sailed up and down with her on wearing a nautical P& O cap.
Prior to his affair with Mary Spink who he seems to have tired of fairly soon after they arrived since he tried to "court" at least one other young woman,he had had a "menage a trois" with his Polish wife Lucy-who he had actually married and a new paramour named Annie Chapman---no relation---and who quickly became pregnant which caused a big rumpus with Lucy.
So we have a man who makes up his own rules as he goes along,who likes to display the flags of different countries upside down alongside his collection of killing weapons and who is totally indifferent to the suffering caused by the agonising deaths his "wives" have to endure when he needs to kill them so he can "move on" to the next gal!
Seems to me he lived in a fantasy world all of his own making.He told people he was an American,boasted of his adventures at sea and that he was a big game hunter!The women who inhabited his world appear to have been like so many pawns in a game of Russian Roulette that he had turned on its head.

[miss_anna]

Hello Anna. I'm wondering what you consider the distinction between the 2? In some texts, sociopath is considered merely the modern analogue of psychopath.

On the other hand, I have seen some distinctions made between the 2 but have forgotten them.

Cheers.
LC

Statically 1% of the population is considered to be "psychopathic".
2% are believed to be "sociopathic", which is a less severe form.

[lynn cates]

P/S

Hello Anna. I'm wondering what you consider the distinction between the 2? In some texts, sociopath is considered merely the modern analogue of psychopath.

On the other hand, I have seen some distinctions made between the 2 but have forgotten them.

Cheers.
LC

[miss_anna]

Well Sam,I tend to think,like Anna,that all these symbols meant something to him.Its an odd thing to do to take a picture of the stars and stripes hung upside down alongside a load of lethal weapons.Had they been hung the right way up,I would have thought him rather conformist and possibly rather military minded- perhaps- but in this picture he looks as though he is enjoying his display of iconoclasm.

Iconoclasm or Nihilism! Poland was under the rule of Czarist Russia when Klosowski lived there and these 2 rebellious, anarchistic and destructive ideologies were present.

[miss_anna]

Hello Natalie and Anna. Do either of you see the classical sociopath in Klosowski? The sociopath presumably has no genuine remorse, no conscience, and yet can be charming and gracious as occasion demands.

The best.
LC

Hi Lynn!
I think Klosowski was an outright psychopath. Sociopaths are usually lawbiding and Klosowski's reptilian cruelty, beating and slowly poisoning his wives was psychopathic!

[lynn cates]

3 times

Hello Natalie. Agreed. Of course, the poor devil was none too smart trying the same MO for all his wives. The third time proved NOT to be a charm in his case.

The best.
LC