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

[Batman]

Neither are poisons though.

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

Regards,

Helena

There are accounts of a knife and a gun. In same way there are accounts of a knife replacing a pipe in the Stride murder.

The bottom line is that knife/gun, Chapman, a known murderer of women, had likely prepared to kill someone, but was stopped short by an interruption.

Gun/knife ain't poison.

[Harry D]

I wonder what the probability is of there being two serial killers operating in the same localized area around the same period of time? That's without factoring in the Torso Killer, as well. Even state-by-state in America I read that the statistics are pretty low. Was there just a synchronicity of serial killers in the East End?

[HelenaWojtczak]

The bottom line is that knife/gun, Chapman, a known murderer of women, had likely prepared to kill someone, but was stopped short by an interruption.

No, that is NOT the bottom line. There is no evidence whatsoever that he ever prepared to kill someone with a knife.

I wrote the book so that people would stop spreading these ridiculous myths.

Sigh.

Helena

[Errata]

Most people can kill from an emotional distance. Sniper rifle, hit man, poison, even vehicular homicide. Very few can get in there with a knife. There is struggling, they are not themselves safe, it's very up close and personal, there is a lot of blood flying around as opposed to simply pooling like it ought, the could fail. It's messy and dangerous, and very personal. And there's no guarantee that even serial killers can do it. Dahmer couldn't. Many didn't. In fact most don't, because the largest group of serial killers are "angels of mercy" who specifically use drugs or poison so as to cause no pain.

The weapon a killer chooses directly relates to their relationship with their victims. If they are angry, or resentful, or sadistic they will express that with their weapon. A knife. A baseball bat. Their teeth. Poison. Chemicals. They will attack their victim with the weapon, hurt them with it, and then kill them with it. Bundy is a classic example.

If they have a positive relationship with their victim, real or perceived, they will choose a weapon that does the job quickly and quietly. The murder is a betrayal and they will soften that blow for themselves. Sometimes poison. Often drugs, smothering, drowning. These are the methods of death most often seen in child victims. The killer may want terrible, painful, traumatizing things from the child, but the death is a necessary evil. Not an end in and of itself. There are serial killers who kill what they love. Dahmer is one such. He didn't love the individuals per se, but he loved what they could be for him. And their deaths were necessary, but he did not enjoy that part.

And then there are those who kill because it's their job. Not like a hit man, but they have a mission, a goal. And death is a part of that. And it's for a higher cause. These killers have no relationship with their victims. It's not personal, though they are specifically targeted. They represent something to the killer, but they are nothing to the killer. Death in these cases is short and to the point. Guns, knives, strangling, a 2x4, whatever gets it done quickly. Because nothing can happen, the goal cannot be achieved until they are dead. But because there is no relationship, there is no need for a painful death. Berkowitz is a good example. The murders weren't really the point. The fear the murders caused was. He wasn't targeting his victims because they hurt him or enraged them, and he certainly didn't love them or care about them. They were a means to an end. Gein is another. He needed parts for his woman suit. He got parts from dead people, and his supply ran out. So he killed for it. The death didn't matter. The skin did. He got that.

The Ripper is the third kind. He doesn't hate these women, he is not a sadist, he is relatively unconcerned with pain, but what matters is that these women die. Nothing can happen until they die. Like Son of Sam, there has to be death to get what you want. Berkowitz wanted fame and notoriety he wasn't going to get with living people. Gein needed material. The Ripper could have wanted a dozen things. But the death didn't matter.

Chapman is the first. He's a sadist. Always was. He didn't kill his wives because he benefited from their death, he killed them because he benefited from their dying. Just as if he was skinning them alive. It's the dying he wanted. The suffering, the pain.

Whatever change a killer may make, weapon, victimology, whatever he may have learned, there is a reason he kills. And the reason is that he has a picture in his head that makes him happy, frankly. He needs to pursue it, he needs to get as close as possible, he revels in it. It makes him feel whole. Like an addiction. That doesn't change. Anymore than someone addicted to coke is going to be happy with heroin. Chapman liked hurting people. He liked them knowing that, and he liked the knowing that he knew they knew. He liked to control life and death. A little more poison to make a point, a little less to give them hope. That's playing God. Simply killing someone isn't playing God. It's ending a life. Manipulating every aspect of the last six months of a person's life, giving someone time, taking it away. Chapman was the orchestra conductor of killers. Jack is a single trumpet.

You don't want to be in a dark alley with either the conductor or the trumpet, but they aren't at all the same thing.

[Batman]

I wonder what the probability is of there being two serial killers operating in the same localized area around the same period of time?

Unexampled given the very small area size involved even with its population size.

[John G]

Hi Errata,

I absolutely agree that Chapman was a sadist, which JtR clearly wasn't. Moreover, as I've mentioned numerous times, there are no recorded cases that I'm aware of where a violent serial killer has transformed into a serial poisoner. The two personalities are clearly radically different.

[Scott Nelson]

Unexampled given the very small area size involved even with its population size.

Excellent. This is a fundamental rule of elementary statistics.

[Batman]

I trust Lucy, one of his abused victim who got away

No, that is NOT the bottom line. There is no evidence whatsoever that he ever prepared to kill someone with a knife.

I wrote the book so that people would stop spreading these ridiculous myths.

Sigh.

Helena

You arbitrarily reject that Lucy's statement quoted by The Chronicle was a first hand source, despite it saying its her statement.

You then bring up the blue book (published months after the Chronicle) which doesn't reference where it got its revolver story from. The Chronicle has. Lucy.

You then assumed that in fact the blue book statement is taken from some mystery source that was also used by The Chronicle. I suppose we will call this the Q-source since destroyed or whatever..

You then conclude it was an 'empty threat' despite the account having Chapman disturbed by a customer from carrying out his threat. By the way, since when do serial killers make 'empty threats'?

The Chronicle never said she testified at the court. Just she was there. You basically then call Lucy a habitual liar we shouldn't trust. Sorry, but she isn't the serial killer here with a history of abusing women. Why try to make this guy into a white knight? Go figure

[John G]

Excellent. This is a fundamental rule of elementary statistics.

Hello Scott,

Good point about statistics. Hence, there are no examples that I'm aware of where a violent serial killer, let alone a mutilator, has transformed himself into a slow poisoner. Therefore, we can easily rule George Chapman out as a JtR candidate!

[Abby Normal]

I wonder what the probability is of there being two serial killers operating in the same localized area around the same period of time? That's without factoring in the Torso Killer, as well. Even state-by-state in America I read that the statistics are pretty low. Was there just a synchronicity of serial killers in the East End?

which argues in favor of chapman being the torso killer and the ripper, does it not?

[miss marple]

Abbey dont waste your time on Chapman. Just read Helena's superbly researched book. The casebook should be as much about eliminating suspects as will as suspecting them.

Mis Marple

[John G]

Unexampled given the very small area size involved even with its population size.

Hello Batman,

I agree that we are dealing with an extraordinary explosion in the local murder rate. However, I don't see that it makes any sense to argue that Chapman, or any single killer was responsible. And, just out of interest, was Chapman even a Whitechapel poisoner? Hadn't he moved out of the area by then?

Thus, we have the Torso murders, which started in 1873, all linked by technique and the equipment used to dismember the bodies, so Chapman couldn't be responsible for those-too young.

And then we have a number of other unsolved murders: Smith (Who Dr Haslip believed was killed by the same person who killed Nichols); Haynes (killed the same day); Mylett, Mckenzie, Coles, Horsnell, Austin.

Interestingly, Smith, Horsnell, Hames and Tabram all lived with or next door to each other, at 18 and 19 George Street.

Austin, like possibly Kelly, was attacked in bed. And, like the earlier Whitechapel murders, "the focus seems to have been the anus and vagina and include a penetrating wound of the vaginal (frontal) passage extending into the abdominal cavity." (Westcott, 2014) And where did this murder take place? Dorset Street!

Might this not suggest the presence of yet another serial killer? Surely Chapman, or anyone else, couldn't have murdered all of them? Could it suggest the possibility that JtR wasn't one person but a gang? Smith, Horsnell and Haynes (and Hames, who survived) mentioned being attacked by a gang. However, Smith in particular doesn't seem to have been entirely truthful with her evidence, and no blood stains were found in the vicinity of where she says she was viciously attacked. Moreover, Inspector Reid believed she was attacked by one man.

It's all very perplexing.

[Batman]

You would think that with all these threads about the 'myths' of Chapman being expelled, that there would be better arguments than 'poisoners can't kill differently' yet its the same one being rehashed even today.

Given Chapman's young age at the TOD, given that he was stopped, not that he stopped, we have simply no idea what else he could have been capable of doing or had done. Yet we know that at the least, he murders women, serially and lived in key points around the Whitechapel and Torso murders.

Frankly the fact he had a few books and out of these one just happened to be banned and full of illustrations of women's torso's opened up should be sticking out like a sore thumb. I wouldn't mind it so much if he had a collection books and eventually we hit on a normal anatomical illustration, but this is simply not the case.

severed woman's torso illustration
severed woman's torso illustration
severed woman's torso illustration

Again anyone trying to convince me Chapman needed this from 350BC for his work is going to make me laugh.

[John G]

Chapman was 8 years old at the time of the first Torso murder. In my opinion that is a little too young to be a torso murderer. He was also living in Poland at the time, which also makes him an unlikely suspect, in my opinion.

[Batman]

Torsos and body parts have always been pulled from the Thames

Chapman was 8 years old at the time of the first Torso murder. In my opinion that is a little too young to be a torso murderer. He was also living in Poland at the time, which also makes him an unlikely suspect, in my opinion.

There is no 1st torso murder per se. Even Trow who suspects there may be a link between them all (while other writers do not, such Gordon), describes the Thames being a body part dumping area since executions where carried out along its bank in the dark ages, through to the middle ages, through to Victorian times, body parts have been pulled from the river. Even Trow ends his book by showing modern Torso's pulled from the Thames at the end and start of the 21st century. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-21365961