change in modus operandi

[lynn cates]

dye

Hello Anna. I wonder whether his friends/acquaintances would notice the dye or else the traces if removed?

The best.
LC

[Natalie Severn]

There has been speculation that Klosowski dyed his hair. As a barber he probably knew about coloring hair. I don't know how widespread dying hair was in 1888, but the jtr witnesses, however reliable or unreliable describe the hair color differently.

I'm convinced that the ripper was legally sane and most likely a resident of Whitechapel. All this poppycock about a psychotic, raving mad ripper is nonsense as well as the freemason and royal conspiracy rants. Unfortunately ripper cult fiction makes much more money than the grim facts of the case do.

Hi Anna,
I came across a very interesting link from Le Figaro about various artists and writers living in Paris in the second half of the 19th century. It is from an"avant et apres" thread they have done showing Paris before and after Haussman.They refer to Balzac slumming it for a while in a certain section of Paris in order to write Pere Goriot -who in the book was made to "slum it" by his daughters.They discuss Dickens and his attempts to describe poverty in London and make the comment that Emile Zola, who lived in the East End in the early 1890"s, considered that the East End was not slummy at all but actually mostly very thriving and prosperous ,especially its central areas and that the only parts of it that compared in any way with the area around Les Gobelins ,pre Haussmann, were the slum alleys and courts tucked away and largely out of sight.I have seen this written about before by George Sims who said much the same thing about Whitechapel High Street.Even a large meeting of the residents of Dorset Street took issue with the bias of the middle class reporter who had spoken very badly of it in the press.
Clearly there were the most appalling slums in Whitechapel in 1888,but it is possible that like areas of London,they were only small pockets of them,as exist now in certain areas,the rest comparing favourably with many parts of London.Emile Zola commented that areas around Covent Garden in the West End and Southwark were much more pervasively slummy.

Anyway,clearly there were parts of Whitechapel that were perfectly safe and compared for very well in terms of safety with a number of places in London.
Anyway,I get the drift of your post Anna and tend to agree.

[sdreid]

The Wardlaw sisters burned a man to death then later "de-escalated" to killing another with poison.

[Fisherman]

Stan writes:

"The Wardlaw sisters burned a man to death then later "de-escalated" to killing another with poison."

Can it be argued that either method was something they used because they felt compelled to do so? Did they respond to a probable urge of seeing somebody die by way of fire - or poison?

Or did the methods just come in handy to kill?

The best,
Fisherman

[Natalie Severn]

The Wardlaw sisters burned a man to death then later "de-escalated" to killing another with poison.

Thanks for that information Stan.Serial killing of itself is a very very rare type of killing but I must say that those I have read about who have taken a long time to catch seem to do it compulsively and often.For two sisters to be at it together is interesting.Must look their deeds up Stan.Fisherman"s point is a valid one here.Was it just that they were being opportunistic?
Best
Norma

[miss_anna]

The Wardlaw sisters burned a man to death then later "de-escalated" to killing another with poison.

The Boston Strangler started with rape + murder and then later "de-escalated" to just rape. The co-ed serial killer Edmund Kemper suddenly changed his choice of victims radically, when he murdered his mother.
Serial killers are rare as Natalie confirms! They are also usually copy killers, who got the idea from another serial killer.

I'm sure this podcast, which shows that Klosowski apparently unsuccessfully tried to obtain poison in 1988 has been discussed elsewhere.

http://www.casebook.org/podcast/listen.html?id=88

It takes over an hour to listen through and i was wondering, if anyone
knows of a link that discusses Klosowski's failed attempt to obtain poison?

[Sam Flynn]

I'm sure this podcast, which shows that Klosowski apparently unsuccessfully tried to obtain poison in 1888 has been discussed elsewhere.

http://www.casebook.org/podcast/listen.html?id=88

It takes over an hour to listen through and i was wondering, if anyone
knows of a link that discusses Klosowski's failed attempt to obtain poison?

The problem is that we don't know that Klosowski tried to obtain poison in 1888 at all. It never ceases to amaze me how authors' errors, assumptions and wishful thinking can so readily mutate into "fact".

[sdreid]

Lizzie Borden tried to obtain poison in 1892 and then opted for a hatchet job when that was not forthcoming.

[Natalie Severn]

The problem is that we don't know that Klosowski tried to obtain poison in 1888 at all. It never ceases to amaze me how authors' errors, assumptions and wishful thinking can so readily mutate into "fact".

Sam,
As I have pointed out before ,Wolff Levisohn was an important witness at Klosowski"s 1903 trial for murder, viz he was a Polish compatriot, and had stated to the court that he had known Klososowki in 1888 when he was a traveller in hairdressing goods and Klosowski/Chapman was working in a basement barber shop at the White Hart Public House [on the corner of George Yard] in Whitechapel. Levisohn added, when cross questioned in court, that he had been asked by Klosowski -in 1888 soon after he met him that is----if "he could obtain a certain substance for him " which Levisohn said he refused to do,"because it could have got me twelve years"----this sounds very much like he had made a request either for an illegal substance able to bring an abortion/death of a foetus or an illegal substance able to bring about death of a person.Levisohn,like Klosowski had been trained as a Fledscher or assistant surgeon in Po0land andhad worked as an army surgeon before coming to England.He ,like Klosowski/Chapman would have therefore been likely to be familiar with drugs and known the properties of poisons and medicines.

Best

Norma

[Natalie Severn]

Stan,
Thanks for that really useful info about Lizzie Borden.
Norma

[macknnc]

The ONE thing; the major reason I have always discounted Chapman as the Ripper is:

Yes murders do change modus oprandi: knife today, poison tomorrow..okay fine...but Chapman's known murders, the ones for which he was hanged are murders which he tried to conceal. He wanted people to think his 'wives' had died of natural causes...

The Ripper hid nothing..his killings were the Victorian equilvent of putting up a neon-lit billboard and shouting "Look at what I did!" Did he want to be caught? Well you are not going to catch me getting into that...but did he make any attempt to conceal his crimes? None whatsoever.

I guess a lot of this goes back to my "reading" of the crimes and of the Ripper...Chapman wanted to get away with it...the Ripper apparently didn't care...for him, the crimes were not a means to an end, but the end itself.

[c.d.]

Hi Mack,

Chapman didn't want to get caught. Neither did Jack. Otherwise the police would have arrived on the scene to see him happily cutting away completely oblivious to the fact that he would soon be hanged.

c.d.

[macknnc]

oh I am quite sure neither of them wanted to be caught...I just think it mattered less to the Ripper...

[corey123]

Hello Mac,

No I think it mattered quite a bit.

[Rubyretro]

Hello Mac,

No I think it mattered quite a bit.

I agree with you, Corey -there are some people that think that it was only luck that JtR wasn't caught -I think that (whilst taking provocative, and 'thrilling', risks) -he made damned sure that he wasn't.