change in modus operandi

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Caz,

Why is there no problem with the concept of someone who gets satisfaction from starting fires going on to get satisfaction from strangling women, but a huge problem with a strangler going on to batter women to death, for instance?

You've given two examples whereby the violence gets more extreme - or at least, remains fairly constant - and that seems to be generally the case. The transition "violent mutilator/eviscerator ⇒ slow poisoner", however, goes firmly in the opposite direction.

Actually, if Chapman were the Ripper, it's not even as simple as that - more a case of "violent eviscerator ⇒ 9 years abstinence ⇒ slow poisoner".

A bit of a butterfly, this Chapman.

[protohistorian]

if Chapman committed some of the rippings it is mor probably, knife wielder and attacker, crimes not linked to Chapman, torturing his wife to death. Respectfully Dave

[perrymason]

I liked the Monty Python reference on your sign off Dave.....

Would people agree that Chapman can be called a Sadistic Murderer without pause?

Are the Ripper murders clearly Sadistic acts? It would appear up until the opening of their abdomens, he handles the attack and the death cut without any fanfare or time lost relishing the life being leaked out in front of him. It appears he only kills so he can cut into bodies.

I suppose categorically there is a place for a semi-sadist like this, or a sexual sadist....but is that the same as the type Chapman obviously was?

Best regards.

[protohistorian]

Well sir, I expect they were. As outside observers, they contain little to suggest such, but internally I am sure there was a sadistic component to the killer. We have no "signature" for the ripper. We have the physical after effects of his interface with the victims. Posing and organ removal have both been suggested, and to us, are very different behaviors. Within the mind of the killers however, they may reflect the same pathological "need". It was helpful for me to stop assuming a "goal" for the killer, and start observing the arrayed behaviors as singular features. Respectfully Dave

[perrymason]

Well sir, I expect they were. As outside observers, they contain little to suggest such, but internally I am sure there was a sadistic component to the killer. We have no "signature" for the ripper. We have the physical after effects of his interface with the victims. Posing and organ removal have both been suggested, and to us, are very different behaviors. Within the mind of the killers however, they may reflect the same pathological "need". It was helpful for me to stop assuming a "goal" for the killer, and start observing the arrayed behaviors as singular features. Respectfully Dave

I suppose what I was asking Dave, and thanks for taking a stab at it....isnt the type of sadist that Chapman can be categorized as likely the type we would see had tortured animals in his youth? Someone cruel in nature.

Are the Ripper acts as simplistically categorized? Might not curiosity and flat emotional characteristics...meaning devoid of compassion, pity or love of anything...be a fair model? Is it necessarily cruelty in the strictest sense...or absence of emotional responses like remorse or guilt?

Cheers Dave

[Malcolm X]

George Chapman used to be my favourite suspect, but not any more; the main thing going against him, is no more murders as JACK THE RIPPER; either in America or when he returned here.

the change in M.O to disuise the murders of his lovers/ wives is no problem for me (it makes sense to do so), it's the lack of vicious knife murders at the same time out on the streets, that tells me that he's not our man.

Chapman was a poisoner only; but i must admit that he looks very suspicious indeed and is a very strong suspect......... but this is coincidence only

[Natalie Severn]

Chapman was a poisoner only; but i must admit that he looks very suspicious indeed and is a very strong suspect......... but this is coincidence only

I dont believe Chapman was a poisoner by preference. Chapman probably only began to "poison"when he needed a practical and safe way to get rid of wives who were getting in the way of his real needs--- like knifing women"s lower abdominal organs and cutting them to pieces.
There were literally thousands of nameless women who semi vagrantly sold themselves on the streets of London in the 1880"s and 1890"s.
Like Dennis Nielsen's 26+ young male victims and Fred West"s 12+ prostitutes ,he probably lured them home or to his barber shop,killed them and in places like Hastings possibly buried them in the garden ---there is no record of any searches by police of floor boards or garden in Hastings or Cable Street though he probably got rid of a long line of corpses like Nielsen did in waterways ----rivers/canals etc and also from time to time in woodland and railway arches .

[Sam Flynn]

I dont believe Chapman was a poisoner by preference. Chapman probably only began to "poison"when he needed a practical and safe way to get rid of wives

Presumably, Nats, he spent his 9 year post-ripping "sabbatical" researching the best way to go about it.

[Natalie Severn]

Presumably, Nats, he spent his 9 year post-ripping "sabbatical" researching the best way to go about it.

Sam,
Have you ever wondered why Dennis Nielsen got away with murdering 26 young men for a time span of 8-9 years if I remember correctly?
Even the Wests got away with it for years and years.And that guy in the Ukraine got away with over 200 murders in a fairly small town.
I dont believe for one minute that Chapman stopped cutting and disposing of females methodically.Its just that either nobody ever matched such things to him as in the case of Pinchin Street not long after the ripping stopped or ever realised how many women were missing----exactly how the Wests and Nielsen got away with dozens of murders.
Cheers Sam

[Lord-z]

As others has said, I really can't see the Ripper toning down his crime. If Kelly was indeed a Ripper victim, he was escalating in violence. Even Eddowes was cut up worse than earlier victims. I think that the Mutilation was the high point of each murder for the Ripper. I just can't see him abandoning that in favour of poison.

[Natalie Severn]

As others has said, I really can't see the Ripper toning down his crime. If Kelly was indeed a Ripper victim, he was escalating in violence. Even Eddowes was cut up worse than earlier victims. I think that the Mutilation was the high point of each murder for the Ripper. I just can't see him abandoning that in favour of poison.

But thats not what I am arguing Lord-z.
I am saying that he never stopped mutilating women ---he was just never caught.The headless Pinchin Street Torso was just round the corner from his barber shop for which he was the sole proprietor.
This was in September 1889 ten months after the murder of Mary Kelly.The woman had been cut up in several different parts probably indoors, then disposed of.Another woman,Elizabeth Jackson had also been found in bits in a canal in the East End in 1888. She too was headless I believe and her stomach and other organs removed----possibly to avoid them being identified with poisoning.
Poison was just a clever way to get rid of wives who had become a liability when he needed to go out in search of a murder victim he could cut up.

Chapman changed with the wind-----but he remained a murderer.

[perrymason]

But thats not what I am arguing Lord-z.
I am saying that he never stopped mutilating women ---he was just never caught.The headless Pinchin Street Torso was just round the corner from his barber shop for which he was the sole proprietor.
This was in September 1889 ten months after the murder of Mary Kelly.The woman had been cut up in several different parts probably indoors, then disposed of.Another woman,Elizabeth Jackson had also been found in bits in a canal in the East End in 1888. She too was headless I believe and her stomach and other organs removed----possibly to avoid them being identified with poisoning.
Poison was just a clever way to get rid of wives who had become a liability when he needed to go out in search of a murder victim he could cut up.

Chapman changed with the wind-----but he remained a murderer.

Hi Natalie,

The mere fact that one Torso was created even before the 1888 killings were being attributed to a single man called Jack indicates that its likely, the Torso killer co-existed, not that he was also Jack. How do you reconcile "Canonical" Liz with that philosophy....sometimes he can steal women away completely and over days or weeks, cut them into pieces....but that time he chooses to only cut a womans throat as he heard a cart and pony approaching for a minute or two prior.

The Torso killer was cunning....but Jack was flashy, and mostly lucky I think.

I think a Torso maker is someone who over a period of time satisfies whatever urges he has to kill or destroy....so would a poisoner get his kicks,....meaning in the philosophy evident, Severins poisoning murders match the prolonged murder gratification that a Torso maker gets.

Jack gets his kicks on the spot, inside 10 minutes time.

Different animals...you need a dramatic event or some catalyst for him to become the prolonged gratification period guy...unless he is the Torso killer too.

Cheers Nats

[Malcolm X]

torso murder = hide the victim's identity, it's cold; little or no gratification...because her identity might reveal the killer or make him a strong suspect, these torsos are probably ex- lovers or even ex- wives.... but almost definitely closely related to the killer, that other people knew he was having a relationship with....or simply close friends

these could be the Ripper's lovers, but like Chapman, he cant afford to mutilate them........he can only do this out on the street.

why kill them? he probably lost his temper with them/domestic etc,``I would have cut your head off and buried you over there``... well i dont know if this was Chapman, but it could have been.

now why bother cutting her head off, if he was going to hide her in his house ? because that's a waste of time, he'd still swing on the end of a rope!

he might have meant, but not foolish enough to say..``you'd end up as a torso, dumped on the street, and i would simply tell them, you'd gone back to America``

he also has to create ``torsos`` of his ex-lovers, because ripper style murders would not hide their identity.. this is quite important and i'm surprised that i forgot to mention this...... and like Joe Barnett, the police would definitely interview G.Chapman...........

oh dear oh dear..... he's had it, because unlike Joe; Chapman has a history of violence/ cruelty to women. ...all the relatives would confirm this..

so a murderous Chapman has to create torsos of his lovers ( who dont live with him at his home), but very close ``live in lovers``, that many more people know about in his street, he has to hope to escape detection via poisoning only.... torso murders are way too risky for these women

[protohistorian]

Not nessisarily. Outside observers have a very restricted view of what "makes sense" to a sociopath. The young Severin likely had socially acceptable, or at the least, not socially restrictive outlets. If Chapman was sociopathic, he would not so much be suffering a singular programing fault such as sadism, rather he would possess several distinct and disfunctional value systems that when acting in concert, produce outrageous behavior. The statistical trend is toward sadism, but that is a matter of probabilities and not a fixed rule. Respectfully Dave

[Sam Flynn]

I dont believe for one minute that Chapman stopped cutting and disposing of females methodically.

The Ripper left them where they were, Nats - that's not disposing of them. Why the sudden shift to "discreet disposal" after November 9th, 1888? One might say that the "other" subsequent victims "just went missing" and were never reported, which is why we've never heard of them - but isn't that a stretch too far?

Given the rate at which the Ripper struck, and his apparently "local" mode of operation, we'd have seen at least some indication that something odd was going on in whichever locale Klosowski lived at any given time. The odd "missing person" is one thing, but dozens, or even scores of them over a period of 9 years would surely have caused some suspicions to arise.