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

[HelenaWojtczak]

The Zodiac used a knife on some of his victims, and guns on others. I think he may have beaten someone to death as well. But the tool was really the only difference. Everything else was the same.

I think that counts.

But are the police sure that "Zodiac" carried out all the killings, despite the different MO? If they were sure, then why do people dismiss Chapman because of the different MO?

[Natalie Severn]

Returning to the topic....

Abberline, of course, was trained and working many years before psychological profiling told us that killers don't change their MO.

Are these profilers always right?

Has there ever been, in history, a serial killer who is known to have changed his MO?

Helena

I have posted on this several times Helena.Robert Napper currently serving life in Broadmoor first raped[termed by police 'virgin rapes' ] a number of women who were violently sexually assaulted.He went on to commit a horrific murder involving a young woman on Wimbledon Common stabbing her 49 times in a frenzied attack.A little while later he stalked a young mother,his notes and plans were found by police,strangled her in her hallway,police think, and then mutilated her in a way that strongly resembled the horrific mutilations believed to have been carried out by the ripper on Mary Kelly.The two murders described here were very different-one took place outdoors and was similar to the Martha Tabram murder in frenzy[MT 39 stab wounds/Wimbledon Common 49],the other murder was well planned in advance and the victim who was grossly mutilated and her daughter of four years were murdered indoors.
He did not turn to poisoning,thats true, but I think George Chapman may well have been killing in Whitechapel as far back as 1888.My suspicion is that he did obtain abortion medication from men such as Levisohn[Levisohn stated in court that between 1888 and 1890 Klosowki had asked him for some substance and he had refused as he did not want to go to prison for twelve years] -so maybe Levisohn himself did not supply him with the substance ,but from someone somewhere he did get hold of some abortion 'remedy' and some of the women who took the poisonous substance died -as was very common,and he then had to find a way to dispose of their corpses by dismemberment ---the Pinchin Street torso victim for example,found less than a hundred yards from his barber shop in Cable Street in September 1889,some 10 months after Mary Kelly's murder, was headless and has never been identified.Did he practise his knife skills on some of these corpses of [probably] homeless women in London----knife skills he had apparently had little chance to practice since the final weeks of his training , when he would have observed and assisted in the abdominal surgery in the 12 weeks he spent in Warsaw's Prago hospital----but had not been able to practice legitimately in the UK.

[ChrisGeorge]

Did he practise his knife skills on some of these corpses of [probably] homeless women in London----knife skills he had apparently had little chance to practice since the final weeks of his training , when he would have observed and assisted in the abdominal surgery in the 12 weeks he spent in Warsaw's Prago hospital----but had not been able to practice legitimately in the UK.

Hi Natalie and Helena

This brings up an interesting and somewhat perverse view of surgeons and other people involved in surgery. How many do it because they get a kick out of it? Did Klosowski go into surgery because it satisfied his needs? Could he have committed knife murders in London because he missed cutting people up?

Chris

[Natalie Severn]

My thoughts exactly Chris.Was he pining for his 'vocation'?

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi Natalie

I am just posing the question rather than actually thinking that is the way it may have happened. I should think that, normally, a surgeon or a slaughterer for that matter thinks of their occupation as being a job rather than something that gave them a thrill.

William Palmer, the Victorian poisoner, and Harold Shipman in our time were both serial killers but they did it for gain, using the tools of their profession, rather than because it gave them pleasure, though I might be wrong about them not getting some pleasure from it, even if it was in hoodwinking everyone as to what they were doing. Hmmmmm.

Chris

[GregBaron]

Frustration murders...

Hi all,

All of what you say is within the realm of possibility and there is much to suggest Chapman. Something that seems incongruous to me though is the following: Chapman was ‘getting lucky’ right and left. He apparently had a huge sexual appetite and knowing his cruelty and sadism he probably raped any woman that declined his advances. With that said, being that there was no sex in any of the ripper murders and that the nature of the mutilations indicated a ‘lust murderer’ – probably indicative of frustration, inadequacy, unfulfillment, humiliation, rage etc… Does this type of kill jive with what we know of Chapman’s over-sexed personality? Just a thought…………


Greg

[Errata]

I think that counts.

But are the police sure that "Zodiac" carried out all the killings, despite the different MO? If they were sure, then why do people dismiss Chapman because of the different MO?

Yeah they are sure it was Zodiac. The odds of two people having the same ridiculous costume are pretty slim.

The thing is, different weapons do not make different MOs. The modus operandi really begins when the person decides to kill, and lasts until the body is either dealt with or abandoned. Zodiac killed parking couples in out of the way places. His rage was centered on the female. They were blitz style attacks with elements of restraint involved (trapping them in their cars or tying them up).

Whether he used a gun or a knife, he killed the same way.

If Chapman were Jack the Ripper, that would mean that instead of escalating the violence like serial killers usually do, he ratcheted it back. Instead of hunting strangers, he started killing women he was closely tied to without their knowledge. Instead of mutilating his victims, he was taunting his victims friends and family. Less violence, riskier victim selection, gave up hunting entirely, stopped hiding, started drawing quite a bit of attention to himself., went from goal oriented to method oriented.

The MOs are not the same, the driving forces are not the same, the rewards are not the same. And that's a tough sell, to say that a man who previously got off on organs he was taking from the scene, is now getting off on tormenting his wife's friend about whether she is dead or alive. I won't say it's impossible, because when it comes to human brains I don't think that word applies, but it does seem highly unlikely, and would also seem to require a transitional phase we just don't see.

[Natalie Severn]

Yeah they are sure it was Zodiac. The odds of two people having the same ridiculous costume are pretty slim.

The thing is, different weapons do not make different MOs. The modus operandi really begins when the person decides to kill, and lasts until the body is either dealt with or abandoned. Zodiac killed parking couples in out of the way places. His rage was centered on the female. They were blitz style attacks with elements of restraint involved (trapping them in their cars or tying them up).

Whether he used a gun or a knife, he killed the same way.

If Chapman were Jack the Ripper, that would mean that instead of escalating the violence like serial killers usually do, he ratcheted it back. Instead of hunting strangers, he started killing women he was closely tied to without their knowledge. Instead of mutilating his victims, he was taunting his victims friends and family. Less violence, riskier victim selection, gave up hunting entirely, stopped hiding, started drawing quite a bit of attention to himself., went from goal oriented to method oriented.

The MOs are not the same, the driving forces are not the same, the rewards are not the same. And that's a tough sell, to say that a man who previously got off on organs he was taking from the scene, is now getting off on tormenting his wife's friend about whether she is dead or alive. I won't say it's impossible, because when it comes to human brains I don't think that word applies, but it does seem highly unlikely, and would also seem to require a transitional phase we just don't see.

Severin Klosowski aka George Chapman was a multiple addressee.He never stayed anywhere for long often moving about in the 1890"s every few months .Nobody knows what he did in the barber shops he took out on short leases.They were never searched for bodies under floor boards ,in gardens etc.
There was a murder soon after Bessie Taylor was poisoned a mile and a half up the road in 37 Dorset Street,Whitechapel.The date of the murder fell between Bessie's death and Maud's in Southwark.The young woman had picked up a man of George's height,aged about '39' in 1901/02 who she told her friend was a 'Russian'.He wore a grey cap and a scarf and had on a silver ring.He tried to disembowel her after spending the night in Dorset Street at Crossingham's[remember Annie Chapman] and she died of her injuries.
George Chapman was a multi tasker----he appears to have worked at two barber shops at the same time in Whitechapel----one under the Whitehart pub the other in Cable Street.He then went on to work as a pub landlord.
There is no reference whatever by his wives to his sex drive.19 year old Maud was desperate to get pregnant but didn't .Bessie didn't get pregnant and neither did Mary.Annie Chapman [not the murder victim]got pregnant and his first wife had two children but really there is no evidence he was particularly highly sexed---the only evidence we have about him is that he got about a lot and that he seemed to like variety.He probably liked variety when he killed.

[Ben]

Going back a bit, Levisshon stated of Klsowski in 1895 that he was speaking English then, the inference being that he wasn't speaking or couldn't speak the language before that. Before he left for the States, he was speaking Polish and some Yiddish - again according to Levisshon. If he could also speak English at the time, it would have made sense for Levisshon to have stated as much, but he didn't. This would have not have impeded his work as a barber during the early stages of his time in London, since his clientele would have been comprised largely of fellow Eastern Europeans.

[Natalie Severn]

Going back a bit, Levisshon stated of Klsowski in 1895 that he was speaking English then, the inference being that he wasn't speaking or couldn't speak the language before that. Before he left for the States, he was speaking Polish and some Yiddish - again according to Levisshon. If he could also speak English at the time, it would have made sense for Levisshon to have stated as much, but he didn't. This would have not have impeded his work as a barber during the early stages of his time in London, since his clientele would have been comprised largely of fellow Eastern Europeans.

This is very unlikely Ben as I have pointed out before.It would have taken Chapman less than a month to gather sufficient phrases to use in a barber shop.

[Ben]

I still disagree, I'm afraid, Norma.

Speaking English was simply not a prerequisite for employment in a barber shop which was patronized, in the pain, by fellow Eastern Europeans. The evidence is very much to the effect that Klosowski confined his social and business movements to that community.

[c.d.]

Hi Ben,

I don't see Chapman's alleged lack of English to be an argument against him being the Ripper. It is not like he was attempting to wine and dine high society women. All he basically had to do was stand somewhere where there was a lot of prostitute traffic, gesture in their direction and take out his wallet. It was a done deal. Where there is a will there is a way.

c.d.

[Ben]

I don't see Chapman's alleged lack of English to be an argument against him being the Ripper.

I'm afraid I do, CD.

The more reliable witnesses attested to some degree of conversation taking place between the supposed victim and her male companion (who invariably looked nothing like Klosowski, I ought also to add). It is clear, for example, that the fair moustache-sporting man observed by Lawende was engaging Eddowes in conversation, rather than simply gesticulating and pulling out his wallet.

Ben

[c.d.]

Hi Ben,

That argument assumes that those witnesses actually saw the Ripper which may or may not be the case.

Were they paying so much attention that they could say with complete accuracy just how much the man was speaking?

c.d.

[Abby Normal]

George Chapman was a known serial killer of women who lived in the area at the time of the JtR killings and had a medical and probable surgical experience and Abberline suspected him. He also seems to fit the description of witnesses.

The main thing is that he was a CHAMELION if ever there was one. He changed jobs, women, places of residence, his name, and countries like he was shedding his skin.

I really have no issue with his being able to change his MO (or have multiple deep seated psychological reasons for different MOs).
Nor do I think it impossible for him to be not only JtR but responsible for some of the torso murders as Natalie said.

My main hurdle for him being either of those killers is as Ben said, his possible lack of command of the English language and also perhaps not having lived in Whitechapel area long enough to have learned it like the back of his hand. However, I think his highly adaptable like personality would allow for him to be able overcome these hurdles rather easily if he set his mind to it.