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

[John G]

The block your talking about doesn't exist. Chapman can do whatever he wants, however he wants, in what ever way he wants and plainly does so as we can see.

There have been many body parts in that river as Trow explains and as has been already been explained, a serial killer can coexist with non-serial killer homicides and other crimes.

Tottenham Court Road isn't in the river! Neither was Scotland Yard! And what about Pinchin Street? Not in the river either, and the victim was obviously not killed in Pinchin Street. Obviously Torso was getting upset that JtR was getting all of the publicity!

Do you now reject Rainham and Jackson as non-Torso murders as they don't support your hypothesis either?

"Chapman can do whatever he wants"? Oh, I see, now he's Freddy Krueger!

[c.d.]

Consider BTK. Would anybody ever think that somebody who could do the things that he did would concern himself with the length of his neighbor's grass? Can we really pigeonhole these types of people and predict with 100% accuracy what they are and are not capable of?

c.d.

[John G]

Hello John G,

But they are still both killers. That point seems to get overlooked and it is far from being a minor point. And why can't a signature be changed? Yes, it is unusual but would it require violating the laws of physics like traveling faster than the speed of light? Profiling and all that it entails is far from an exact science.

c.d.

Hello C.d,

According to profilers signatures can evolve but remain "behavioural and thematically consistent" (Schlesinger et al, 2010): see post 322. There is not a single example in recorded criminological history of a violent serial killer evolving into a slow poisoner, let alone a sex/lust murderer.

As George Sims insightfully put it: "It is an absolute absurdity to argue that a cool, calculating poisoner like Klosowsi could have lived with half a dozen women and put them quietly out of the way by a slow and calculated process after being in 1888 a man so maniacal in his homicidal fury that he committed the foul and fiendish horror of Miller's Court. A furious madman does not suddenly become a slow poisoner".

JtR, clearly had a need to kill quickly and to mutilate, whereas Chapman probably enjoyed the power and control that emanated from watching his victims slowly waste away. Different personalities; different killers.

Of course, Chapman could theoretically have been JtR, but then so could millions of other people. And maybe Russell Edwards and Jari L will be proved right, and lots of people on this site, including myself, will end up with egg on their face. But somehow I don't think so! Frankly, I think Stephen Knight's Royal Conspiracy is far more likely!

May I suggest you consider Frances Thompson? He's a really serious candidate and, in my view, Richard makes a very convincing case.

[c.d.]

Hello John,

"According to profilers" -- Again, this is not an exact science and therefore it should not be treated as the word of God. This all comes from a very limited database to begin with which consists of only known serial killers. And serial killers are themselves an aberration in the population as a whole.

So while it is unlikely or improbable that Chapman could have made the switch to poison it is certainly not impossible. Profiling can't give us that certainty.

c.d

[John G]

Hello John,

"According to profilers" -- Again, this is not an exact science and therefore it should not be treated as the word of God. This all comes from a very limited database to begin with which consists of only known serial killers. And serial killers are themselves an aberration in the population as a whole.

So while it is unlikely or improbable that Chapman could have made the switch to poison it is certainly not impossible. Profiling can't give us that certainty.

c.d

Hello c.d,

No, of course not impossible. But it's probably not impossible that Sickert or Maybrick, or Cream, Gull or even Queen Victoria were JtR! Of course, the real issue here is what is plausible.

[c.d.]

Hi c.d,

No, of course not impossible. But it's probably not impossible that Sickert or Maybrick, or Cream, Gull or even Queen Victoria were JtR! Of course, the real issue here is what is probable.

Hi John,

I agree. I don't think we need to beat a dead horse here.

But in terms of probability, if we compare Cream to Chapman, Cream was in prison at the time of the murders. Compare that hurdle to Chapman who only had to put down his knife and grab a bottle of poison.

There is no physical reason that Chapman could not have made the switch to poison. Everybody will have to judge the probability of him having done so for themselves.

c.d.

[John G]

Hi John,

I agree. I don't think we need to beat a dead horse here.

But in terms of probability, if we compare Cream to Chapman, Cream was in prison at the time of the murders. Compare that hurdle to Chapman who only had to put down his knife and grab a bottle of poison.

There is no physical reason that Chapman could not have made the switch to poison. Everybody will have to judge the probability of him having done so for themselves.

c.d.

Hi C.d,

Yes, obviously, I agree. I believe it's been argued that Cream may have bribed officers to leave prison early or that he could have been replaced by an imposter! Nonetheless, I can confirm that I would rate Chapman higher than Cream on my list of suspects, particularly as Cream also has to overcome the additional hurdle that he was also poisoner. I would also rate him higher than James Maybrick, another poisoner and with no proven link to Whitechapel.

[Batman]

There is not a single example in recorded criminological history of a violent serial killer evolving into a slow poisoner, let alone a sex/lust murderer.

From the outside it might look like JtR is causing more suffering than Chapman, but its completely the opposite way around. JtR likely rendered his victims unconscious even before he used the knife. Even if he didn't its 30 second max until unconsciousness.

Chapman tortured them down to the bone over a prolonged period of time.

He is no angel. If you reject the idea he killed for money what does that say about him?

If the MO was to hurt women, its an evolution, not a reduction.

[John G]

From the outside it might look like JtR is causing more suffering than Chapman, but its completely the opposite way around. JtR likely rendered his victims unconscious even before he used the knife. Even if he didn't its 30 second max until unconsciousness.

Chapman tortured them down to the bone over a prolonged period of time.


He is no angel. If you reject the idea he killed for money what does that say about him?

If the MO was to hurt women, its an evolution, not a reduction.

Hi Batman,

I actually think this is another reason to reject Chapman. As you point out he seemed to enjoy the torment of his victims, watching them slowly die, and I agree he was effectively torturing them.

JtR was completely the opposite and dispatched his victims quickly, only mutilating them postmortem.
He clearly got no satisfaction watching them slowly suffer. Yes, I know he probably suffocated them, but that was part of his MO, not signature, to stop them crying out.

Different drives. Different motivations. Different killers.

[Batman]

Hi Batman,

I actually think this is another reason to reject Chapman. As you point out he seemed to enjoy the torment of his victims, watching them slowly die, and I agree he was effectively torturing them.

JtR was completely the opposite and dispatched his victims quickly, only mutilating them postmortem.
He clearly got no satisfaction watching them slowly suffer. Yes, I know he probably suffocated them, but that was part of his MO, not signature, to stop them crying out.

Different drives. Different motivations. Different killers.

What I have learned about MO/ritual/signatures is that there is no hard fast line that says behaviour X = MO and not signature or behaviour Y = ritual and not signature. The criteria has also been developed to accommodate new data. It isn't a science which allows for a degree of subjectivity in interpreting which behaviour falls under which criteria.

Even when the perpetrator is captured it still takes time through psychoanalysis to tease out the truth as what exactly their motives are and sometimes we are kept in the dark, deliberately about some things. For example, Bundy's secret is that he engaged in necrophilia, discovered by Keppel after long exhausting weeks talking to this guy. Keppel then applied this new data to the Green river killings. That's quite a change in motive where a lust killer like Bundy has his goal in corpse desecration. Yet if Bundy had been busted for lets say abusing a corpse, would this be enough to connect him to the other crimes by behaviour? No. It wouldn't. They didn't know this was his motive or at least part of it.

The same goes for JtR. If his motive was control over life and death of a woman with the additional outrage of mutilation to demonstrate control, he did so in a way that didn't cause prolonged pain beyond a few seconds (at least from the pathology reports they where dead before any mutilation occurred). Chapman is torturing his GFs down to emaciation that was painful. In terms of violence, Chapman is much more violent, including psychological violence, but doesn't do so in a frenzied attack, but a carefully planned poisoning where his interaction with the victim is limited physically.

It is a de-escalation in terms physical interaction between the perp and victim, but its an escalation in terms of suffering and abuse of the victim who is going through a lot more. It might not be an escalation of methodology (MO) buts its an escalation of violence in a certain sense, namely, what the victims suffered both physically and psychologically through in their degrading.

Also one could ask, could victimology alter behaviour. With JtR we believe these are stranger killings. With Chapman his victims are not strangers.

[John G]

Hello Batman,

So, in your opinion, what makes Chapman such a good candidate is that he was the antitheses of JtR, i.e. in respect of victim selection, methodology, level of violence, pain inflicted on his victims, degree of planning, motivation etc?

I don't know if I dare ask this next question but curiosity has got the better of me: What happened to the "Frankenstein's Monster" he was supposed to be assembling? I mean, wouldn't his "wives" have become slightly alarmed if they stumbled across it in, say, the shed? Perhaps that's why he had to poison them: to induce confusion so that he could manipulate their thought processes and distort their perspectives?

To summarize your position, if I've understood it correctly. Chapman starts off as Torso Killer, who morphs into Ripperstein, before finally settling for a quieter life as a sadistic Poisoner?

Yes, it's all starting to make perfect sense now!

[Batman]

Hello Batman,

So, in your opinion, what makes Chapman such a good candidate is that he was the antitheses of JtR, i.e. in respect of victim selection, methodology, level of violence, pain inflicted on his victims, degree of planning, motivation etc?

Its escalation of violence in terms of what the victim will go through both physically and psychologically. In same way we can't say that someone who pricks people is the antithesis of a lust killer who uses a knife. They are escalations.

I don't know if I dare ask this next question but curiosity has got the better of me: What happened to the "Frankenstein's Monster" he was supposed to be assembling?

That there appears to some forensic evidence linking the mutilations of Jackson to Chapman and Kelly is nothing new. There are several views that bring the torso murders into the framework, which, btw, is already in the framework of the Whitechapel murders. My idea (as far as I can tell, but will divert where there is another previous attempt at this) is that the harvesting of body parts could have been used to replace those on a corpse. If necrophilia was involved, and it may not be, but is likely if we look at a history of people who have done this (Ed Gein for example), and during a post-Frankenstein era, where a body part was dumped in the garden of a member of the "Mary Shelly" family, this has explanatory power. It answers why harvesting. It answers why torsos. It has a history. Where was this done? I would imagine at a bolt house or something like it. Possibly wherever JtR went for the missing hour between Mitre Square and Goulston St.

I mean, wouldn't his "wives" have become slightly alarmed if they stumbled across it in, say, the shed? Perhaps that's why he had to poison them: to induce confusion so that he could manipulate their thought processes and distort their perspectives?

We don't know if he stopped, paused or continued during this time. We know that if an investigation closes in on a suspect, they can stop willingly. They can also change. Your have some degree of free will to make choices right? Same thing.

To summarize your position, if I've understood it correctly. Chapman starts off as Torso Killer, who morphs into Ripperstein, before finally settling for a quieter life as a sadistic Poisoner?

Yes, it's all starting to make perfect sense now!

The thing is this. The torso murderer likely did have a place. He cut up the bodies somewhere. Is it possible that someone who can do this, can go on to kill prostitutes and harvest their parts while dumping the parts gone rotten? I don't see a block preventing it. Is it possible the same person may stop, pause and get involved in some other type of crime that involves targeting women? Sure. They do that. BTK for example paused and became an aggressive community standards enforcer targeting women and abusing female staff, who he even stalked. Can they also kill them somehow? I don't see why not. Plus Chapman's small collection of books with naked women's torsos and open abdomens is certainly not the sort of thing you want to be discovered with if people around are sniffing a possible JtR connection, right?

Like I said, the only person who put Chapman in the spotlight as a ripper candidate was none other than himself. As for change. Chapman is all that and then some more. Even went so far as to deny he was Kozminski. Maybe he even literally believed that. Certainly wouldn't be the first time someone cracked like that.

[Abby Normal]

The single biggest reason for ruling out chapman IMHO is that he would have spoken with a heavy accent. NONE of the witnesses describe a man with an accent.

I agree with CD-the drastic change in MO, though rare, is possible and serial killers have done this. But lets not also forget that he almost killed one of his wives with a knife!

I think the circumstances show he MUST be a viable candidate:

Lived in the immediate area.
Was known to be violent and abusive to women
fits the general description
Police suspect at the time.
Abberline thought it could have been him.
Had the anatomical knowledge at least, if not the medical skill.
And the Biggie for me-He is the only suspect that not only was capable of murder, but was a proven SERIAL KILLER.

By the Way Batman-I know you think Blotchy was the most likely to be the ripper. Do you think that Chapman and Blotchy were one and the same? If so, he must have dyed his hair for the Kelly murder-but I guess not that far fetched for a barber!

[Batman]

He isn't blotchy. Neither is he Astrakhan man. Too many differences. I can buy him as the sailor looking suspects though. There are fors and against him. However the arguments against him still can't paint the picture of a nice man or a good person because he was quite a cunning and evil person to put it plainly. His behaviour puts him in the frame.

Now back in the 80s, 90s and up until 2005 it was taken for granted that these people can't stop or change radically. These notions where put to bed with the capture of Denis Rader who did both. Also when Ridgway married his activities decreased significantly.

[HelenaWojtczak]

But lets not also forget that he almost killed one of his wives with a knife!

fits the general description

Police suspect at the time.

Abby, clearly you haven't read my book, as it debunks each of these three myths.

Regards,

Helena