Can George Chapmam reform himself to being a calculating poisoner seven years later?.

[Wickerman]

Here we have a man who for all we know ventured to go hunting humans whenever he had a bad day. He carried with him a knife with a blade length estimated to have been 6-8 inch long. Certainly he carried the means to swiftly dispatch his chosen victim. And yet, he chose not to use it.

Quite simply, as he is posing as their client he would have no trouble making bodily contact with one hand clasped over her mouth and a swift thrust of the knife through her heart would be the most efficient means of dispatch.

Why then did he decide to render them unconscious or at least subdue them by the uncertain and challenging method of strangulation?

I suspect he used a garrott, but that's just me, however he chose to render them unconscious the question must be asked, why, especially when he is equipped with a knife, is difficult to explain.
If the mutilation was where he got his kicks, then why strangle them?, an unnecessary and distracting waste of effort. Just stab them and get on with the good stuff!
Unless, it is the act of strangulation, being face-to-face, or at least close up to hear her struggle to breathe, her gasp, the gurgle of her choking her last breath.
Perhaps this was where he obtained his 'kicks', not the subsequent mutilation.

Watching your victim die slowly and up close by strangulation is more on a par with poisoning, where you also watch your victim slowly suffer to death. In poisoning you also have power over them, you know something they don't know. It's rather like holding the cord tight, you are in control of their last few seconds alive.

The differences are not so far apart.
Why the Ripper mutilated his victims is not known, but Chapman could hardly go and mutilate his "wives" after they died, there wouldn't be a whole lot of suspects to choose from!

I don't suspect Chapman was the Ripper either (no evidence) but I'm not sure the arguments to discard him from being a suspect are completely valid. A great deal depends on what is assumed about the Ripper in the first place.

Regards, Jon S.

[GregBaron]

Killing with a knife difficult...

Wickerman,

I don't think he strangled them to death..........merely rendered them unconscious or helpless enough to slice the throat...........he may have used a chokehold which has been discussed in detail before...

I also don't think just stabbing in the heart is as easy as you might think as I think Errata's knife discussions have indicated..........also a stab to the heart leaves the mouth free so some noise or a scream would be hard to deny.....

No, I think Jack's method was the most efficient and quietest to murder in order to begin evisceration's.............I see no relationship to poison........it's not just apples to oranges but pomegranates to pineapples..........IMHO

Greg

[Errata]

I suspect he used a garrott, but that's just me,
Regards, Jon S.

Garrotte's cut 360 degrees around the neck, though not to equal depths. If he'd used a garrotte there would have been cuts extending behind the ears and probably marks on the back of the neck as well. My family let me garrotte the cooked turkey last year at thanksgiving because of a $100 bet with my dad over a bad 50's horror movie. My sister desperately wishes we were a normal family. But her husband was providing the play by play for the event, so clearly she just needs to learn how to relax

[Wickerman]

Wickerman,

I don't think he strangled them to death..........merely rendered them unconscious or helpless enough to slice the throat..

Correct, there is a fine line between rendering someone unconscious and holding them tight till they die. The killing act was the slicing of the carotid artery, they bled to death.
It is the action of holding them by the throat which is unnecessary if mutilation is the goal. Such close contact exposes the killer to being injured in the struggle, or kicked, elbowed, or scratched. There's no guarrantee that this struggle will be silent. There's every chance someone could hear her gasp or make noises while struggling.

I also don't think just stabbing in the heart is as easy as you might think as I think Errata's knife discussions have indicated..........also a stab to the heart leaves the mouth free so some noise or a scream would be hard to deny.....

One hand over her mouth, and a thrust to the heart, quite a simple operation for a man used to using a knife.

Regards, Jon S.

[Errata]

One hand over her mouth, and a thrust to the heart, quite a simple operation for a man used to using a knife.

Regards, Jon S.

It is possible, though not easy. You have to get in between the fifth and sixth rib (intercostal space if you wanna be all fancy like), and if you glance off one or the other, it could buck the knife so that it misses the heart. Doing it while standing behind someone raises the degree of difficulty quite a bit, since you have to reach around, and then you are stabbing with less force. Much easier to do it to a person already on the ground, barring that facing the victim is probably the way to go there.

Once in a blue moon, someone gets stabbed in the heart, and the knife was so thin that the cut seals itself when you pull the knife out. If that happens, you really can't move or it will open up again, but it's one of those medical oddities that spawn living dead stories. And my mom has all of these nursing stories, one of which was a guy got stabbed in the heart with a big screw, and he stuck his pen in the hole to try and save himself and it worked. But the pen was jumping in time with his heart beat and it made my mom puke.

But really interfering with the airway is the only surefire way to prevent someone from making noise.

[bolo]

Hello Errata,

But really interfering with the airway is the only surefire way to prevent someone from making noise.

my thoughts as well. Strangling them to death would have taken too long but it's good enough to quickly silence the victims and force them into a convenient position for the throat cutting.

A throat cut, too, can silence the victim in an instant but it takes a powerful and fairly accurate sweep to cut through the windpipe and/or larynx and thus the vocal cords. This can be difficult even under "laboratory conditions", let alone while standing in front of (or behind?) the victim in a dark alley or court.

Regards,

Boris

[Wickerman]

A throat cut, too, can silence the victim in an instant but it takes a powerful and fairly accurate sweep to cut through the windpipe and/or larynx and thus the vocal cords. This can be difficult even under "laboratory conditions", let alone while standing in front of (or behind?) the victim in a dark alley or court.

A quick slash across the throat appears to have been successful with both Coles & Stride, though we can't be certain if Stride had been pulled down by her scarf, but there appears to have been no attempt to suffocate/strangle/choke either of them.
I don't see the practicality of wrestling with your victim when a quick slice across the throat can by-pass all the uncertainty associated with the act of choking.
That is, unless this act of choking was what he looked forward to as part of the experience.
The idea that Jack was a strangler is not new, the subsequent mutilations only show another side of his psycholical make-up but need not be his principal means of 'release'.
Anyhow, without any indication that Chapman was anything else but a poisoner this is all academic.

Regards, Jon S.

[Abby Normal]

Here we have a man who for all we know ventured to go hunting humans whenever he had a bad day. He carried with him a knife with a blade length estimated to have been 6-8 inch long. Certainly he carried the means to swiftly dispatch his chosen victim. And yet, he chose not to use it.

Quite simply, as he is posing as their client he would have no trouble making bodily contact with one hand clasped over her mouth and a swift thrust of the knife through her heart would be the most efficient means of dispatch.

Why then did he decide to render them unconscious or at least subdue them by the uncertain and challenging method of strangulation?

I suspect he used a garrott, but that's just me, however he chose to render them unconscious the question must be asked, why, especially when he is equipped with a knife, is difficult to explain.
If the mutilation was where he got his kicks, then why strangle them?, an unnecessary and distracting waste of effort. Just stab them and get on with the good stuff!
Unless, it is the act of strangulation, being face-to-face, or at least close up to hear her struggle to breathe, her gasp, the gurgle of her choking her last breath.
Perhaps this was where he obtained his 'kicks', not the subsequent mutilation.

Watching your victim die slowly and up close by strangulation is more on a par with poisoning, where you also watch your victim slowly suffer to death. In poisoning you also have power over them, you know something they don't know. It's rather like holding the cord tight, you are in control of their last few seconds alive.

The differences are not so far apart.
Why the Ripper mutilated his victims is not known, but Chapman could hardly go and mutilate his "wives" after they died, there wouldn't be a whole lot of suspects to choose from!

I don't suspect Chapman was the Ripper either (no evidence) but I'm not sure the arguments to discard him from being a suspect are completely valid. A great deal depends on what is assumed about the Ripper in the first place.

Regards, Jon S.

Hi Wickerman
Agree somewhat with your last statement but not the whole post.

IMHO I think he may have strangled his victims to as quietly as possible render them unconscious and then cut the throat when they were immobile to kill and bleed them out. To me the mutilations and removal of organs was the thing. I dont think there is any evidence of a garrot. Plus, the logistics of using a garrot and then a knife would be to cumbersome IMHO.

In terms of slowly watching them die-I dont think JtR wanted anything to happen slowly, he wanted to strangle and get them unconscious asap.

A more apt comparison of SK to JtR might be found in SK's love of abuse to women and specifically that he physically attacked one of his wives with his hands on her and the knife was in the ready. maybe a bit of the ole jack coming out?

[Errata]

Hello Errata,



my thoughts as well. Strangling them to death would have taken too long but it's good enough to quickly silence the victims and force them into a convenient position for the throat cutting.

A throat cut, too, can silence the victim in an instant but it takes a powerful and fairly accurate sweep to cut through the windpipe and/or larynx and thus the vocal cords. This can be difficult even under "laboratory conditions", let alone while standing in front of (or behind?) the victim in a dark alley or court.

Regards,

Boris

Given the depth of the cuts around the larynx, I think it's possible he actually stabbed the throat, and pulled the knife around. Even if he didn't quite hit the vocal cords or the airway on the initial stab, the impact near those structures would have immediately caused his victims to choke, accomplishing the same thing. And by the time cut the cut was finished, the victim would likely be suffering syncope from blood loss.

Which is why I think it is possible that instead of strangling them, he struck them in the throat. Not hard enough to crush, but if you've ever been hit in the throat, (because say, you have a sibling) you know that takes a minute to recover from.

[bolo]

Hi Jon,

A quick slash across the throat appears to have been successful with both Coles & Stride, though we can't be certain if Stride had been pulled down by her scarf, but there appears to have been no attempt to suffocate/strangle/choke either of them.

There's a certain possibility that the choking marks may have been hidden by the comparatively large throat wounds.

Perhaps "choking" or "strangling" is not the proper word here. I think our man grabbed the victims by the neck to silence and subdue them before cutting their throats.

I don't see the practicality of wrestling with your victim when a quick slice across the throat can by-pass all the uncertainty associated with the act of choking.

I do, because it's actually quite difficult to hit a desired spot when doing a strong slice attack with a knife, the stronger it is, the less accurate it becomes. This makes a throat cut-only attack way more risky than a combination of choking and throat cutting.

A few years ago I made a number of experiments with an assortment of knifes and a few large pieces of veal and pork meat. My original goal was to find out how left-handed and right-handed cuts and slices look like but I also found out other interesting things in the process. I posted about this in here, sadly this was before the last big server/board crash so my posts got lost.

Anyway, the experiments showed me that if you want to silence and kill someone with only a throat cut, it has to be very well-placed, otherwise the noisy reaction of the victim will get the attacker into trouble. One inch too high and you'll hit the jaw, one inch too low and you'll slash the collar bone or upper breast region.

Of course my experiments weren't exactly scientific, perhaps someone with more training can deliver more accurate throat cuts but I still think it's a quite risky thing to do for someone in Jack's situation.

I also don't think our man really wrestled with his victims but stunned them with a quick surprise grabbing attack against the neck, followed by the death blow to the throat, that's a quick and relatively safe approach in my opinion.

If I remember correctly, there were signs of choking/suffocation in several cases ((Tabram), Nichols, Chapman (? .. don't have my books & papers handy at the moment...), Stride). In case of Eddowes and Kelly, the mutilations probably were too severe so it was impossible to tell wether they had been strangled.

Anyhow, without any indication that Chapman was anything else but a poisoner this is all academic.

Agreed, and I don't really want to derail this thread any further, so no more veal & pork slicing stuff from me from now on...

Hi Errata,

Which is why I think it is possible that instead of strangling them, he struck them in the throat. Not hard enough to crush, but if you've ever been hit in the throat, (because say, you have a sibling) you know that takes a minute to recover from.

Indeed, the recovery time for that sort of stuff is quite long, same goes for choking.

A hit to the throat sounds plausible, never thought of that.

You make a lot of good points, Errata.

Regards,

Boris

[Wickerman]

Hi Abby.

IMHO I think he may have strangled his victims to as quietly as possible render them unconscious

I'm sure he did, I think we all accept that this is what happened. What I am suggesting is that the act of strangling may have been more of a necessity for him than simply a means towards an end.

If he just wanted his victim dead - quickly, so he could get into the mutilations then strangling is not the quickest, nor the quietest, nor takes the least effort. Therefore, I wonder if he relished the act of strangling more than we recognise.

... I dont think there is any evidence of a garrot. Plus, the logistics of using a garrot and then a knife would be to cumbersome IMHO.

The suggestion of a garrott initially came from Dr Brownfield after the Rose Mylett murder.
The rationale had been that once you cut the carotid artery then your victim is essentially dead, that there is no need for the second cut. Brownfield recognised this, and over the years we had debated why the killer bothered to make that second 'round-the-neck' slice after he had obviously cut the main artery in the first place.

Most of us accepted the growing opinion that the longer 2nd cut was just part of the mutilation process. However, if Brownfield was correct and that the killer had first used a thin cord as a garrott it would leave a thin red line, as it did with Rose Mylett.
The killer of Nichols, and Chapman might have tried to hide the fact he had used a garrott by running the knife through the red line thereby hiding the evidence the garrott would leave.

The possibility exists that the killer was known as a person who carried a garrott, either by the police or by any of his associates around Whitechapel, hence he made the second cut to hide the fact.

At the end of the day we are left with a few victims who appear to show signs of being strangled yet with no obvious bruises to support such a result.
The use of a garrott, and its subsequent obscuring by the 2nd cut, tends to offer a solution to the problem.

In terms of slowly watching them die-I dont think JtR wanted anything to happen slowly, he wanted to strangle and get them unconscious asap.

Then the answer is to slash their throats like Stride or Coles, not bother with attempting strangulation, too much effort, too much time.

A more apt comparison of SK to JtR might be found in SK's love of abuse to women and specifically that he physically attacked one of his wives with his hands on her and the knife was in the ready. maybe a bit of the ole jack coming out?

Ok, but does this abuse occur indoors away from the public eye? If so then there's no problem about being heard or caught by a passer-by.
Killing a woman indoors by strangling is more of a casual affair than the rapid necessity required when you are outdoors with the possibility of being disturbed any second.

So, because Jack appeared to strangle some(?) of them then I suspect it was because it was part of his desire to see them in agony for their lives, but not with his hands, no bruises, and the forearm choke-hold is far too slow and awkward.
The garrott, which was a popular weapon/tool only 20 years before (1860's) provides the more certain and swiftest solution with the least effort. And just one sweep of the knife removes all evidence of it's use.
(Had any doctor thought to mention the condition of the hyoid bone much of our theorizing could be avoided).

But, it's only my conjecture.

Regards, Jon S.

[Errata]

Most of us accepted the growing opinion that the longer 2nd cut was just part of the mutilation process.

I dunno... I kind of attribute the longer second cut to "popular press means its true" phenomenon.

It's like all of the people who hold guns sideways like they do in the movies. There's a reason you hold some guns sideways, but most people don't know what it is, so most of them are doing it for no reason whatsoever.

It is not necessary to cut a throat from ear to ear (as I think he eventually figured out) But in every piece of fiction or lurid newspaper story people are getting their throats cut "from ear to ear" all the time. Most of them weren't in fact, but it's a good descriptive turn that dials up the horror a little bit. I bet a lot of people thought that in order to kill someone by cutting their throat, it had to be literally from ear to ear. I think Jack's initial cuts were certainly sufficient, but then he thought it had to go all the way around so he made an effort to complete the cut.

[Wickerman]

Perhaps "choking" or "strangling" is not the proper word here. I think our man grabbed the victims by the neck to silence and subdue them before cutting their throats.

Which is why I think it is possible that instead of strangling them, he struck them in the throat. Not hard enough to crush, but if you've ever been hit in the throat, (because say, you have a sibling) you know that takes a minute to recover from.

Because you both make a similar point I thought it needs to be pointed out that these women had no noticable bruises around the throat indicative of being struck or held which makes the apparent outward signs of strangulation all the more perplexing.

Anyway, back to Chapman..?

All the best, Jon S.

[Natalie Severn]

Hi All,
I am sorry not to be able to contribute to the thread much at the moment as I am really busy right now .
PC Smith described a man he saw at 12.30 am in Berner Street who was the same height as Chapman .Chapman happened to live just a few minutes away from Dutfield's Yard on the other side of the railway arches in Cable Street.I have often wondered if the man was Chapman and the newspaper parcel contained his barber and hairdressing equipment which would have been a cut throat razor for the barber shave and very sharp scissors for cutting hair---remember the tiny cuts on Catherine Eddowes eyelids-might not they have been made with the pointed ends of sharp scissors?
If he was stopped for carrying a knife all he had to say was that he was a barber and these were the tools of the trade.
Norma

[Wickerman]

Thankyou for bringing that point up Nats. The man Packer saw has been equated with the man PC Smith described.
And then we have the other well-dressed man in the Bethnal Green road, and the man Hutchinson saw, and the other well-dressed man seen up Millers Court on the Wednesday evening, and again Friday morning. All well-dressed men, all hovering around a subsequent murder site.

I have never thought of them being Chapman, but I have thought they all might have been the same man. Trouble is, I have argued against Stride being a Ripper victim, but Jack could have been right under everyone's nose, we just refused to see him.
If Chapman had never poisoned anyone ...he may have been accepted as a genuine Ripper suspect by modern theorists.

Regards, Jon S.