The American murders of Jack The Ripper

[brummie]

Just came across this book on the internet: The American murders of Jack The Ripper by R. Michael Gordon, which claims to document a series of ripper style murders in New York/New Jersey at the time Severin Klosowski (aka George Chapman) was living there.Has anyone heard of this book and is it worth reading?

[Sam Flynn]

Has anyone heard of this book and is it worth reading?

I'd say not unless you've first read Sugden, Rumbelow & Evans, Begg, Clack & Hutchinson - or similarly good non-suspect-based overviews. Gordon writes very well, but pushes a particular agenda based on a single suspect. The book also majors on the American exploits of whom he believes to be Jack the Ripper (as the title suggests). The book is probably worth having in one's collection at some point, but I can't recommend it as a general, balanced history of the case.

[Dan Norder]

Wolf Vanderlinden reviewed the book for Ripper Notes a while back, giving many reasons why he thought the conclusions made in it were not supported by the evidence. If that link works you should be able to see some of them. The basic upshot, though, is that the murders being looked at have very little in common with the Ripper and there's no reason at all to think Klosowski or the Ripper had anything to do with them.

[brummie]

Wolf Vanderlinden reviewed the book for Ripper Notes a while back, giving many reasons why he thought the conclusions made in it were not supported by the evidence.

Thanks Dan the link works fine.I have always been sceptical about Chapmans ability to change MO in his killings and this seems to be another attempt to use spurious connections to make a suspect fit.

[Celesta]

Hi Brummie,

Sam's take on this is a good one. I read the book and was disappointed. I saw little that resembled actual evidence of a tie to JTR, or even evidence of a tie to Klosowski. While the murder of Carrie Brown was very Ripper-like, the other murders were not. I had a hard time fitting them into the Ripper style. Other than the fact that Chapman/Klosowski may have been there, there's little to connect the killings to either him or JTR.

I'd read the books Sam rec'd before reading this one. You can always pick this one up on ebay or something.

Best,

Celesta

[denn034]

My Opinion

Just came across this book on the internet: The American murders of Jack The Ripper by R. Michael Gordon, which claims to document a series of ripper style murders in New York/New Jersey at the time Severin Klosowski (aka George Chapman) was living there.Has anyone heard of this book and is it worth reading?

I've checked it out from the library and read it twice! My problem with it though is the Ripper style murder that occurred in England while Klosowski was in America though!

[downonwhores]

Chapman

It has been shown that Chapman was in London at the time of the Ripper murders as he owned a shop in Whitechapel at the time. I do not believe he was the Ripper though.

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

Chapman was indeed in London at the time of the Ripper murders although we are not sure as to when he actually arrived in Britain. Some sources state 1887 but there is no proof that this is correct. Whenever he arrived he apparently spent the first five months working as a hairdressers assistant to Abraham and Ethel Radin at 70 West India Dock Road in Poplar (there is some evidence that this was possibly in the summer and Autumn of 1888) but by 1889 he was listed as running his own barber shop at 126 Cable Street, St. George’s-in-the-East.

Wolf.