Was Carrie Brown A Ripper Victim?

[protohistorian]

Have not yet read Gordan, I am opporating on the assumption that a killer in the condition of the one I suspect, would be very likely to take another victim, for the purpose of experimentation . If I am correct, a killer in the openly exploratory phase is on a hunt to recapture an earlier feeling he had and killing itself, nor crimes like the ones he hsd in the past are fitting his goal. In his mind, more experimentation is required. He views the recaturing of this earlier feeling as a possibility, and believes that experimentation is the most effective methodology he can employ in his quest. I was under the impression that George was in America at the time.

O.K. now 100 pages into Gordon's book on the American Ripper crimes and I would like to unconditionally distance myself from that. I think Chapman's pathology is right, but I cannot go to such elborate pains to include him. You have all been very kind in tolerating me. I need to go back to primary facts and do some re evaluation. For the record, I do not believe Chapman could or would have committed the crimes Gordan has proposed thus far. You we are kind for not using the word idiot when referring to me if that is the caliber of my expressed opinions.

[jmenges]

You can read quite a bit of R. Michael Gordon's first book, Alias Jack the Ripper, online at Google Books.

http://tinyurl.com/bnce8x

JM

[ChrisGeorge]

Christine. Chapman was connected with the Brown murder at the time of his arrest and trial in at least one London newspaper. This theory was given some credence when the Pall Mall Gazette later interviewed the retired Chief Inspector Frederick Abberline in an interview published 24 March, 1903. Abberline stated:
“....there is a coincidence also in the fact that the murders ceased in London when 'Chapman' went to America, while similar murders began to be perpetrated in America after he landed there.”

And:
“It is a remarkable thing...that after the Whitechapel horrors America should have been the place where a similar kind of murder began…”

In a follow-up interview, published on the 31st of March, 1903, Abberline also stated:
“...Seeing that the same kind of murders began in America afterwards, there is much more reason to think the man emigrated.”

In actual fact there was no series of Ripper-like murders in the brief period that Chapman lived in the United States. The closest thing was the Brown murder which was actually dissimilar to the Ripper murders in several key ways.

Wolf.

Thanks Wolf. It's hard to know what to make of this, if in fact Chapman did not arrive in America until May 1891. If he means Brown's murder, then either he had information we don't, or he was mistaken. On the other hand, this is vague enough so that it could be referring some other crime. As such we are back to the problems I mentioned before. If you allow for enough variations, there were Ripper crimes all over the place.

Hello Christine

Abberline's comments of 1903 in the Pall Mall Gazette, if accurate, are a very good illustration that you should not believe everything you read. Bear in mind that Abberline had been retired from Scotland Yard for eleven years, having submitted his resignation in 1892, then going to work for several years as a private detective for Pinkerton's Detective Agency in Monte Carlo, before fully retiring from investigative work.

While Fred Abberline was a capable, hands-on and knowledgeable detective during his time with the Met, by 1903, he was merely airing an opinion about George Chapman, and not an informed opinion either, historically or criminologically. In retrospect, his comments are off-base for the reasons we have been discussing.

Now, in the Great British Trials series, Hargrave Adam wrote in the introduction to The Trial of George Chapman (1930) about Abberline's faulty opinion, repeating the mistaken claim that there was a series of Ripper-like murders in the United States and that Chapman was likely the perpetrator of both sets of murders because the dates of his arrival in England and in the United States matched the start of both supposed crime series.

Donald McCormick in 1959 in The Identity of Jack the Ripper, took this one step by further implying that Abberline and Sergeant Godley investigated Chapman at the time of the Ripper crimes. But there is absolutely no evidence that Abberline and Godley did anything of the sort: in all likelihood, Abberline knew nothing of Chapman until 1903 when the poisoner's arrest and trial took place, and there is no indication in the police files that Chapman was questioned in 1888 or in subsequent years in connection with the Whitechapel murders.

McCormick's book is little regarded today, being acknowledged by most Ripperologists to contain fiction along with facts. See the dissertation by Melvin Harris here on Casebook which enumerates the author's fabrications.

R. Michael Gordon, as the one recent author to write extensively about George Chapman as a Jack the Ripper suspect, is the heir, if you will, of Abberline's mistakes in the Pall Mall Gazette interview, of Hargrave Adam's continuation of the retired police official's mistakes, and of Donald McCormick's apparent twisting of the truth about the alleged early investigation of Chapman at the time of the Ripper murders.

Christine, I hope this helps put Chapman's candidacy as the Ripper in a better perspective for you.

All the best

Chris

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Christine.

Abberline’s thoughts on Chapman would carry much more weight if he hadn’t gone into any detail. Had he merely said that Chapman was an excellent suspect then we would be left trying to figure out why he thought this or merely relying on his opinion as a man in-the-know. Instead, Abberline’s reasons for suspecting Chapman are amazingly uninformed. Not only does he cite a series of murders in America that never happened but he also incorrectly states that Chapman lived in George Yard when Martha Tabram was murdered and he suggests that the Ripper may have been harvesting organs for Wynne Baxter’s American doctor; a theory that was loudly discredited at the time of the murders. Other than the organ harvesting theory it seems clear that Abberline was merely basing his suspicions against Chapman on the newspaper accounts which attempted to link Chapman with the Ripper murders and on the accounts of the trial.

Having said that, however, Scotland Yard was aware of the Brown murder as not only the New York Press but also, reportedly, the NYPD had contacted the London authorities. And, as you point out, there were murders all over the place, including the US, which were sensationalised as being “Ripper-like” so Abberline might have had a vague idea that there were a series which took place during Chapman’s stay in New Jersey. However, he obviously had no real knowledge of these murders and Abberline’s thoughts on Chapman can be easily dismissed.

Wolf.

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Dave. Well, had you asked, I would have strongly advised you not to waste your money on any of R. Michael’s books; The American Murders of Jack the Ripper being particularly bad. Chapman wasn’t even in the United States when two of his supposed victims, Brown and Anderson, were killed and for the other two there were far better suspects. It doesn’t help that the book is littered with errors as well and the section on Carrie Brown is particularly bad.

Wolf.

[protohistorian]

You can read quite a bit of R. Michael Gordon's first book, Alias Jack the Ripper, online at Google Books.

http://tinyurl.com/bnce8x

JM

Thank you kindly fro the link. will resd now, no need to finish other book, it has become tripe.

[protohistorian]

Dave. Well, had you asked, I would have strongly advised you not to waste your money on any of R. Michael’s books; The American Murders of Jack the Ripper being particularly bad. Chapman wasn’t even in the United States when two of his supposed victims, Brown and Anderson, were killed and for the other two there were far better suspects. It doesn’t help that the book is littered with errors as well and the section on Carrie Brown is particularly bad.

Wolf.

hanks for the concern Wolf, but it belongs to the University. I will defineately ask when it is my dime. Respectfully

[Roy Corduroy]

There is info here on the site which could confuse people as per Klosowski/Chapman's candidacy for the Carrie Brown murder. It is in his Casebook Suspect Tab near the bottom and I quote:

"Finally we come to the subject of the "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, or "Old Shakespeare" for her affinity for quoting the author when drunk. She was murdered in a common lodging house in Jersey City, New Jersey on April 24, 1891, first strangled and then savagely mutilated."

(bold mine)

That is incorrect. She was murdered at the East River Hotel which is near the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge on Manhattan Island, pictured below. The Jersey shore is to your left, across the Hudson River by ferry.

[sdreid]

Without going too far out on a limb, the Ripper 120th anniversary will pretty much end in a couple of days.

[DRoy]

No I don't think she was a victim of "The Ripper" but I've enjoyed researching the murder none the less. Not to take away from the question of this thread but I thought I'd share this little tid bit about Frenchy. I've not heard this story before. (Sorry for the small printing)

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

The boys actual name was William Green, not "Greef," he was 16 or 17 years old, sources vary, and he had originally been arrested for stealing a horse.

Wolf.