Chapman in America and the "ripper" killings there

[Mayerling]

I think that if I had met a murderer I would have remembered the correct details of the case (from preserving press cuttings at the time, perhaps?)

Also, just a few weeks later the story hit the press that Chapman was Jack the Ripper, so it seems odd that Chaplin does not say he "met the Ripper".

Not sure how pub landlords felt about 13 year old boys coming in for a free glass of tapwater, either.

The whole story is too suspect, in my opinion.

Hi Helena,

I agree, he probably would have dropped the Ripper's name into the autobiography too ("I knew Jack as well as H.G. and Bernard Shaw and W.R. Hearst!") Funny he does not (I seem to recall) mentioning Tom Ince, whose death on Hearst's yacht in 1924 was a mystery that Chaplin was involved in!

As for the idea of a glass of water to a strange street urchin, it is barely possible, but Chapman would have glared at the kid for the free water. Maybe that is why Chaplin recalled the incident if it happened.

Jeff

[HelenaWojtczak]

Re Chaplin --- he also mentioned Edgar Edwards and said that he was an affable old gentleman of 65 who had acquired five grocery stores by bludgeoning their owners to death.

In fact he was 44 when hanged for the murder of ONE family all at the same time, a couple and their baby.

So, Chaplin can't be relied upon at all!

Helena

[Roy Corduroy]

America

1890 US census showing immigration in New York and the country as a whole.



From the biography:

"similar murders committed in America" referred to by Abberline and others as evidence for Chapman's being the Ripper. Actually, there was only one similar murder, that of an elderly prostitute named Carrie Brown.

Brown was murdered in Lower Manhattan.

A prostitute on Avenue D in 1980.