You can always trust the BBC

[HelenaWojtczak]

"It is written in ‘The True Face of Jack The Ripper’ that Inspector Abberline thought a Mr. George Chapman was The Ripper. Abberline questioned Lucy Baderski, Chapman’s landlady, about his nighttime activities and according to Ms. Baderski, Mr. Chapman was usually out until three or four the next morning, enough time to become The Ripper."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A2606357

[HelenaWojtczak]

Not the BBC this time, but equally hilarious to anyone who has read up about Chapman:

Severin Antoniovich "George" Klowsowski was known as a hospital attendant or "barber surgeon" (from the days where medicine and hairdressing were intertwined). He was also known as Ludwig Klosowski or "Zagowski." Again, no hard evidence connects Klosowski to the Whitechapel murders apart from a few coincidences of time and place, and the fact that he happened to be devoted to the pursuit of murdering four of his assorted wives for settlement and trust monies. For these murders, he was hung at Wandsworth Prison on 7 April 1903.

http://www.davidjschow.com/hid/hid_fromhell.html

Well, they got the date of the hanging right!

[HelenaWojtczak]

I am on a roll now!

"Klosowski would find his next job with a barber whose shop was in the basement under a public house on Whitechapel High Street, where he was working in the autumn of 1888. At this point, he was introducing himself as Ludwig Zagowski, and was interviewed multiple times by police when 35-year-old prostitute Martha Tabram—sometimes referred to as the first victim of Jack the Ripper—was stabbed thirty nine times in the early hours of the morning on August 6, 1888. The murder occurred within a stone’s throw of Klosowski’s place of employment, and it was later proven that at the time, the twenty-two year old had taken up solitary rooms in George Yard Dwellings—the very building in which Tabram was murdered (Gordon xiv)... Despite regular questioning, nothing ever came of the investigation surrounding the murder. The identity of the murderer remained unknown, and Klosowski resumed his life as usual."

http://jtrslondon.wordpress.com/page/10/

"was interviewed multiple times by police" ROFLMAO

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi Helena

Not funny, quite sad because these people have evidently swallowed the fabrications of Donald McCormick wholesale.

If in your first post you are saying that the BBC said that Melvin Harris, the author of The True Face of Jack the Ripper, claimed that Abberline investigated Chapman in 1888, that may have been a misreading of Harris, who was a leading critic of McCormick and was well aware of the writer's fabrications about the case.

Chris

[Stephen Thomas]

If in your first post you are saying that the BBC said that Melvin Harris, the author of The True Face of Jack the Ripper, claimed that Abberline investigated Chapman in 1888, that may have been a misreading of Harris, who was a leading critic of McCormick and was well aware of the writer's fabrications about the case.

It was McCormick who claimed that Abberline was involved with Chapman in 1888.

Pure invention to bolster his Pedachenko 'theory', I'd surmise.

[HelenaWojtczak]

Debra Gosling wrote a double-page spread in the Southwark News in 2003 about the life of George Godley.

Under the title Was Godley "the man who caught Jack the Ripper?" she tells her believing readers that Godley and/or Abberline interviewed Klosowski many times in 1888 and would have put money on his being Jack the Ripper. Pure invention.

The rest of the article is chock-full of irritating errors and breathtaking inventions being fed to a trusting readership who naturally believe that she has done her research and that the editor would not publish that which is not true. Also, she works for the Metropolitan Police, so she has inside knowledge and is a person of integrity and precision.

She says the women Chapman murdered were his wives, gets names and dates and small facts wrong. She even writes: quote: "Until his dying day Godley believed that Severin Klosowski was the infamous Jack the Ripper".

And this is the "historian" who Southwark Libraries cite as the expert on Chapman.

I intend to write a critique of her article addressing and correcting each of her mistakes in turn, and send it to the library at Southwark that has a file on Chapman cuttings.

I attach a snippet below.

[HelenaWojtczak]

Hi Helena

Not funny, quite sad because these people have evidently swallowed the fabrications of Donald McCormick wholesale.

If in your first post you are saying that the BBC said that Melvin Harris, the author of The True Face of Jack the Ripper, claimed that Abberline investigated Chapman in 1888, that may have been a misreading of Harris, who was a leading critic of McCormick and was well aware of the writer's fabrications about the case.

Chris

Hi Chris perhaps you could help me some here? I now have the book referenced as

Harris, M, (1994) The True Face of Jack The Ripper, Michael O'Mara Books

but I don't have a copy. So you are saying that it's not Harris that said this, but Donald McCormick in his The Identity of Jack the Ripper, and that the person misread Harris? Or they read McCormick and wrongly attributed the quote to Harris? Perhaps I should ask if anyone could check McCormic's book for me?

[Magpie]

If in your first post you are saying that the BBC said that Melvin Harris, the author of The True Face of Jack the Ripper, claimed that Abberline investigated Chapman in 1888, that may have been a misreading of Harris, who was a leading critic of McCormick and was well aware of the writer's fabrications about the case.

Chris

Hi Chris.

Irrespective of the article in question, it should be noted that this is not "The BBC said" but "It appears in H2G2" which while hosted by the BBC, is an open project much like Wikipedia.

[HelenaWojtczak]

Yes indeed. Posting this was a brief and lighthearted respite from the serious task of writing the book and I was tired and sloppy in my referencing.

Hi Chris.

Irrespective of the article in question, it should be noted that this is not "The BBC said" but "It appears in H2G2" which while hosted by the BBC, is an open project much like Wikipedia.