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

[HelenaWojtczak]

Every time I read someone cite that fact that Abberline thought SK was Jack, I feel the need to point out that he never said this until AFTER SK was charged with the three poisonings. Abberline had no knowledge of SK 15 years back, in Whitechapel.

Am I right in thinking it went like this? .... Abberline is dissatisfied that he never caught JtR. The case remains a puzzle for the rest of his working life and into his retirement.

Then one day he reads in the paper (or attends a trial) of a man who has killed three "wives". Obviously, this is very unusual and so he is very interested to follow the trial. Then he reads/hears (via the witnesses) that this serial killer used to live in the Whitechapel area in 1888.

Abberline has never heard of psychological profiling. Many of the villains he dealt with over the years changed their M.O. So he's not got that to inhibit his jumping to the conclusion that he did. "Oh my goodness, thinks Abberline - in that case, this man must have been Jack the Ripper!"

This is because serial killers are extremely rare. Maybe Abberline is thinking, the chance of there being two in the same area at the same time (obviously one hadn't actually starting killing yet, but had the mindset and personality of a killer) is so remote, that it simply must have been SK.

Thoughts anyone?

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi Helena

I have long thought that what George Chapman (Severin Klosowski) has going for him as a Ripper suspect is that he was a proven serial murderer who is believed to have lived in the area at the time of the Whitechapel murders. On the other hand, what makes me uneasy about thinking he might also have been the Ripper and not just a poisoner is that there is not a jot of proof that he used a knife to do any murders.

The unfortunate thing about Natalie's line of reasoning, as with anyone else who thinks that Klosowski was the Ripper, is that you can't prove a negative. If there is no evidence tying Klosowski to the Ripper murders, speculation will never make him the murderer, although one can theorize endlessly that he bumped off all the Whitechapel murder victims and did the torso murders as well. By that way of thinking, there is no end to his capacity for evil and bloodletting.

So, yes, Helena, I believe you are correct in thinking that for Abberline the fact that Klosowski was a known serial murderer, though a poisoner, made him a candidate for having been the Ripper as well. And although Donald McCormick in his 1959 book The Identity of Jack the Ripper contrived to describe Abberline and Godley investigating Klosowski in 1888, that was only one of McCormick's many inventions.

Best regards

Chris

[Ben]

I agree entirely, Helena and Chris.

While it is easy to understand why Abberline came to endorse Klosowski as a credible suspect (i.e. for the reasons you outline), it would be a mistake for us to appropriate his line of reasoning, in my opinion.

All the best,
Ben

[Natalie Severn]

(Sigh)

(Yawn)

I have told you already that I am not referring exclusively to "profilers", who incidentally are not expected to "solve the case", but to provide guidance that will enable law enforces to make better progress. I have no idea what you're expecting me to "explain" with regard to the serial killers you've named, but I can assure you than none of them demonstrated anywhere near the sort of divergence in methods that you're proposing of Klosowski.

For the record, the 1987 profile of Chikatilo was very accurate.

But said nothing whatever that all of us didn't know already [sigh][ Yawn]

[Natalie Severn]

Abberline has never heard of psychological profiling. Many of the villains he dealt with over the years changed their M.O. So he's not got that to inhibit his jumping to the conclusion that he did. "Oh my goodness, thinks Abberline - in that case, this man must have been Jack the Ripper!"

This is because serial killers are extremely rare. Maybe Abberline is thinking, the chance of there being two in the same area at the same time (obviously one hadn't actually starting killing yet, but had the mindset and personality of a killer) is so remote, that it simply must have been SK.

Thoughts anyone?

Thanks Helena.Abberline did have Dr Bond's 'psychological' profile to read ,written the day after the murder of Mary Kelly, so it wasn't unkown .Moreover,Dr Bond's 'profile' tallies quite well with the Douglas profile written relatively recently where he ends up endorsing Kosminski as JtR.
But your final point is so important.Serial killers are very rare and the idea that two of them were in Whitechapel in 1888 is extraordinary,particularly as Colin Roberts provided statistics showing murder itself was extremely rare in Whitechapel in 1888.
Best,
Norma

[GregBaron]

Poisoning wives...

Hi,

Well Natalie, the ripper did his work in 1888 while Chapman started poisoning in 1897 didn't he? Not simultaneous serial killers. Plus it's a far cry from murdering one's wives to get rid of them to stalking strangers to murder for sexual gratification. In my mind at least.


Greg

[HelenaWojtczak]

Abberline did have Dr Bond's 'psychological' profile to read ,written the day after the murder of Mary Kelly

Hi Norma

Yes I hear what you are saying, but it's my belief that police at that time didn't set a lot of store on the newfangled quackery of psychology, and thus by extension psychological profiling.

I believe that psychological profiling is much more in our consciousness today than it was then, and much more respected and believed than 100 years ago.

It's a very different world now, and we need to bear that in mind all the time when "ripperologing".

Just because Dr Bond had an opinion on modus operandi/psychological profiling doesn't mean his professional colleagues agreed with him. He might have been thought a right crank, for all we know (do we know?)

And, clearly, Abberline DIDN'T hold much store by Dr Bond's theory, because he thought SK could have done the ripper murders AND the poisonings.

I rest my case, m'lady XXX

[HelenaWojtczak]

Hi,

to murder for sexual gratification.

ER, we don't KNOW Jack's motive.

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Norma

Yes I hear what you are saying, but it's my belief that police at that time didn't set a lot of store on the newfangled quackery of psychology, and thus by extension psychological profiling.

I believe that psychological profiling is much more in our consciousness today than it was then, and much more respected and believed than 100 years ago.

It's a very different world now, and we need to bear that in mind all the time when "ripperologing".

He might have been thought a right crank, for all we know (do we know?)

And, clearly, Abberline DIDN'T hold much store by Dr Bond's theory, because he thought SK could have done the ripper murders AND the poisonings.

I rest my case, m'lady XXX

Oh I enjoyed that Helena! I know Anderson was very 'into' him! Bond and Anderson tiptoed together to the mortuary one moonlit night after all the other doctors had gone home ,to view the corpse of Catherine [Rose] Mylett and somehow or other Dr Bond started to change his mind about Catherine's death being murder as previous to their moonlit tryst his thinking had been in line with four other doctors -including the Police Surgeon in Chief-and he only came round to Anderson's way of thinking after their little trip-----[Bond's arm was always a bit stiff after that].
But back to profilers.I agree many of them must be hugely helpful to police .But I don't believe the police go round like a lot of blinkered donkeys as a result of what a profiler may write.A good detective is probably still their most valuable resource in a murder hunt.

[Natalie Severn]

Well said Helena.We don't know Jack's motive.

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Hi Norma.

Ben has done an excellent job in responding to your posts. I pretty much agree with everything he says but I’ll add my own thoughts as well.

Inspector Abberline was a police expert and very good detective. He thought Chapman was the Ripper. So there we have a police expert of sound experience.

Had Abberline simply stated that in his opinion Klosowski was the Ripper, and left it at that, this discussion would be very different. No one would know why he thought this or what official Whitechapel Murders Investigation information he might have used to convince him of Klosowski’s guilt. Fortunately Abberline told us exactly why he came to suspect Klosowski and his reasoning proves that he didn’t know what he was talking about. He may have been a very good detective but he knew absolutely nothing about serial killings or the psychopathology of serial killers and most of the facts he used to illustrate his suspicions were wrong.

The trouble with Chapman is we know so little about what he did in terms of criminal deeds between 1887 say and 1897.

What criminal deeds? Other than the Borough Poisonings and his insurance scam there is absolutely no evidence of any criminal deeds at all.

How do we know that Chapman didn't murder numbers of homeless women during his time in these places ?

As above. Where is the evidence that he did?

So in my own opinion Chapman could have been a serial murderer who took the lives of his 'wives' solely to prevent the main business of murder ever coming to light.

Klosowski was a serial murderer: he murdered three women by poison, but again, neither you nor anyone else has provided an ounce of proof that he killed anyone else. Basically you are saying that because you theorize that Klosowski was the Ripper you can now let your imagination run wild and make up any number of murders and then use them to bolster you original theory. You aren’t using facts but fiction to support yourself.

Wolf.

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Abby Normal.

…who's to say that someone could not have the psychological reasons to kill 2 series of women in 2 different ways at different times?

Several experts in crime and criminal psychology who have written on the subject that’s who.

You, and most other posters on this site, fail to take into account the rare psychopathology that makes up the type of serial killer known as a “ripper/stabber.” These individuals are driven to do what they do for various complex psychological reasons. The Whitechapel Murderer, who ever he was, murdered, mutilated, posed the bodies of his victims for shock value and then walked away with trophies stuffed into his pockets. Murder, in this case, seems only to be an ends to a means – mutilation of the body and the collection of body parts. He did it because he had to do this in order to satisfy his aberrant psychological needs and he needed to increase the mutilations after each victim for the same reason. By the end of the murders his mental state would, apparently, have been breaking down and those around him would have likely noticed his mental deterioration. The Ripper, after all, was not sane or normal mentally. This does not fit with Severin Klosowski.

Would you look at two series of crimes of say, auto theft, an earlier series(unsolved) that the method was violent carjacking, and then a later series of auto thefts where cars were stolen with obvious meticulous planning from a car dealership (solved) and conclude that the person who committed the later series could not possibly have been the same as the first based on different M.O.? I think not, nor would any good detective.

Auto theft is not the same as murder let alone serial murder let alone serial ripper/mutilation murder. The carjacker, presumably, wasn’t compelled by his dark, inner demons to steal cars and to steal them in a particular psychologically satisfying way. You have also used M.O. here to try and make your point but have left out Signature. What if the carjacker always painted a large X in red spray paint at the scene of his crimes. This didn’t help in stealing the cars in any way and in fact it was a dangerous waste of time. If the second series of carjackings were completely unlike the first and the signature was also absent then it is highly probable that any detective would conclude that the first series of carjackings were not perpetrated by the same individual as the second.

Wolf.

[HelenaWojtczak]

In #162 Wolf puts his case most persuasively. Put like that, it all rings true to me. My belief that SK cannot have been JtR has now been ratched up another notch as a result of it.

I'd just like to add that there is a popular fantasy that JtR was an insane, bloodthirsty, homicidal maniac by night and a normal, sane, decent bloke by day, who nobody could have suspected. (I think this fantasy might be fuelled by tv "whodunnits" in which the murder is the last person one would suspect. Wolf reminds us that this cannot possibly have been the case.

Norma, why haven't you written a book about SK? I know you are busy with another project now, but why haven't you written about him instead. Does anyone know if anyone is currently writing one? I might start a new thread.

Helena

[Errata]

One has to take into account the difference between a "serial killer" and a multiple murderer.

A multiple murderer can and does easily change weapon, MO, signature, motivation, even body disposal. Take someone like Bugsy Seigel. He strangled or beat prostitutes to death as a warning (some even think the Black Dahlia) He shot people in the course of robbery, in the course of protecting others, as a hit. He stabbed, he cut throats. He did it for business, for pleasure, out of anger, or out of greed.

He is not a serial killer. He however could easily have poisoned a series of girlfriends. He was a con artist. And killing is often an extension to a con.

Jeffrey Dahmer could not have done what Bugsy Seigel did. Jeffrey Dahmer could not have killed such a variety of people in a variety of ways. They are called "serial killers" because they kill serially. Which means in order, one after another. But a series has to have commonality. It has to have a binding thread woven through. A picture of an apple, a picture of a truck, and a picture of Babe Ruth are not a series. Even if the photos were taken sequentially. A picture of a seedling, a picture of a tree, and a picture of firewood IS a series. Each picture builds on the last. And while they make sense individually, you only understand the vision when seen together.

To believe that George Chapman could commit both crimes is to believe that Jeffrey Dahmer could stop being Jeffrey Dahmer and start being Bugsy Seigel. Or probably more aptly, That Jeffrey Dahmer could become the Beltway Sniper.

[Natalie Severn]

I believe that psychological profiling is much more in our consciousness today than it was then, and much more respected and believed than 100 years ago.

This,Helena is addressed to yourself and Wolf and Errata.There is something wrong with the thread technically as I can't post except as part of your post.Will sort it tomorrow.



On psychological profiling and the efforts here to rule out Klosowski :



It seems to me people here can't see the wood for the trees! You seem to think in such rigid boxes that you have to fit the identity of the ripper into pseudo scientific theories about the motivation and method of serial killers ,which lead you to ignore the salient fact that all the while in the heart of the locality in which the murders were committed in 1888 lives one Severin Klosowski aka George Chapman,a convicted murderer of women .