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

[Abby Normal]

I just want to say that both Errat and Norma make excellent points here and I am enjoying the discussion greatly, though I feel ill equppied to join in, other than to say I can't imagine that anyone who had the mentality to do what JtR did would have the mentality to stop doing it in case he got caught.

I just want to make one point though.... There is another big difference in the MO, apart from slashing versus poisoning.

It seems to me that Jack the Ripper did not care if he was caught or not. Look at the way he did the killings mostly in the open, in several cases where anyone could have spotted him either from a window or by approaching on foot. He seems to me to have been completely reckless and was only not caught because of sheer good luck.

Chapman on the other hand went to great pains not to be caught. Instead of pushing his girlfriends under a trolleybus, drowning them in the bath or suffocating them with a pillow, all of which would have brought him under immediate suspicion, he tried his darndest to make it look like natural death -- and TWICE he got away with it. If he'd left it at that, he could have lived to a great old age. He only got caught on the third.

The one thing the killings had in common was that they were needless, senseless killings of women for no apparent motive.

Hi Helena

It seems to me that Jack the Ripper did not care if he was caught or not. Look at the way he did the killings mostly in the open, in several cases where anyone could have spotted him either from a window or by approaching on foot. He seems to me to have been completely reckless and was only not caught because of sheer good luck.


I agree that he had luck on his side but disagree that he seemed not to care that he was caught. I think he cared greatly not to get caught. So much so that his fear of being caught over rode his urge to complete his mutilations on Nichols and Stride, both incidents which evidence that he was scared away by approaching people/witnesses.

The one thing the killings had in common was that they were needless, senseless killings of women for no apparent motive

Agree. And also showed a desire to manipulate, control, dominate, and murder women.

[Abby Normal]

This is one part of the Casebook that always leaves me scratching my head: laypersons, and I’m not just singling out Norma here, who believe that the opinion of experts, usually in the medical field, should be ignored because they go against the conventional wisdom of non experts. Personally I find this indefensible.

If some actual evidence could be produced that in any way supports Klosowski’s candidacy for being the Ripper that would be one thing but as there is no actual evidence we are left with statements like this:

“which lead you to ignore the salient fact that all the while in the heart of the locality in which the murders were committed in 1888 lives one Severin Klosowski aka George Chapman, a convicted murderer of women.”

Yes, convicted some several years later of poisoning three “wives” but not convicted of any Ripper-like murders. What about James Kelly? We know he was in the East End of London from around the end of June till sometime in either November or December, 1888, and he murdered his wife by stabbing her in the neck with a knife. Or William Henry Bury who also lived in the East End during the Whitechapel Murders and who murdered and mutilated his wife? Shouldn’t they be listed well above Severin Klosowski on the suspect list? Or should there actually be more evidence than mere proximity and murderous intent (which are actually the bare minimum requirements)?

One of the things ignored here is that Klosowski wasn’t just a murderer who did away with some nosy and inconvenient women, nor did he murder because circumstances forced him to it, he was a serial killer who killed using poison. He didn’t, apparently, murder for gain but for whatever thrill he got from slowly killing his victims. Let me remind everyone that this is what this board is all about: could a serial killer of the ripper/stabber kind (using a knife to quickly kill, cut and then mutilate and remove internal organs) change and become a serial killer who used poison (a slow, clean, and sadistic way to kill his victims)? The answer is no.

Wolf.

Hi Wolf
I think James Kelly and William Bury are viable candidates also and should be up there with SK, they are known murderes of women by knife, lived in the area at the time, were contemporary suspects (or at least persons of interest). I place alot of weight on suspects who show that they are capable (and proven)of murdering women.

Let me remind everyone that this is what this board is all about: could a serial killer of the ripper/stabber kind (using a knife to quickly kill, cut and then mutilate and remove internal organs) change and become a serial killer who used poison (a slow, clean, and sadistic way to kill his victims)? The answer is no.

With all due respect I think the most reasonable and accurate answer has to be "maybe".

[Natalie Severn]

I can't imagine that anyone who had the mentality to do what JtR did would have the mentality to stop doing it in case he got caught.

Hi Helena,
Read up on the BTK [bind/ torture/ kill] killer,Dennis Radar.He killed a number of women in the 70's then disappeared [stopped] and reappeared after 30 years as a respectable husband and local law enforcer in 2004.He claimed responsibility for an 8th murder committed in 1986.

Regarding risk taking:Klosowski/Chapman boasted that he could get rid of his new 'wife' 19 year old Maud, 'just like that' and 50 doctors would never find out[words to that effect] and snapped his fingers to illustrate his point.This was to a young barmaid who he apparently took a strong fancy to soon after his 'wedding'.
To Betty Taylor's shocked friend who called to see her as she lay dying he joked "she's dead!' and there are other risk taking asides he made like that.
The ripper always got away which suggests to me he planned his murders to at least some extent,so that he could avoid capture.There is no proof he killed in the open air at dead of night because he was a 'risk taker'.It may have been Hobson's choice at that stage-- as may be his choice of the most vulnerable women in Whitechapel who were worse for drink and destitute and usually homeless.
He may not have been selecting because they were 'prostitutes' but rather because they were the only ones available at that time of night -and that were an 'easy target'.
Best,
Norma

[FrankO]

It seems to me that Jack the Ripper did not care if he was caught or not. Look at the way he did the killings mostly in the open, in several cases where anyone could have spotted him either from a window or by approaching on foot. He seems to me to have been completely reckless and was only not caught because of sheer good luck.

Hi Helena,

Like Abby, I don’t agree with you here. At first glance it may seem that he didn’t care, but when you look a little closer, you’ll see that he didn’t completely do things on the spur of the moment or without any thought of the consequences.

He killed and mutilated during the nightly hours of lull, when there were as few people on the streets as possible. He was able not to give himself away right until the moment he struck and saw to it that his victims weren’t able to raise any alarm. He cut their throats in such a way that the flow of blood was directed away from him. Even while anybody could have walked into him on any given moment, he was apparently able to flee the scene without being seen or heard. And apparently he didn’t attract any attention between the crime scenes and his home. Or in between the murders.

Especially the murders of Nichols, who was found with blood still oozing from her throat, and Eddowes, whom he killed and mutilated in a tight time frame, suggest that he did keep an eye and ear open for his surroundings.

Obviously, the Ripper wasn't much of a planner, but I don’t believe it was sheer luck that kept him from being caught in at least 3 cases. But lucky, he was.

All the best,
Frank

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Wolf
I think James Kelly and William Bury are viable candidates also and should be up there with SK, they are known murderes of women by knife, lived in the area at the time, were contemporary suspects (or at least persons of interest). I place alot of weight on suspects who show that they are capable (and proven)of murdering women.

Let me remind everyone that this is what this board is all about: could a serial killer of the ripper/stabber kind (using a knife to quickly kill, cut and then mutilate and remove internal organs) change and become a serial killer who used poison (a slow, clean, and sadistic way to kill his victims)? The answer is no.

With all due respect I think the most reasonable and accurate answer has to be "maybe".

I fully agree.Not only that but these 'experts' who practise this ' pseudo science' ,just like the rest of us can only quote the ones who got caught.

[Natalie Severn]

I agree that he had luck on his side but disagree that he seemed not to care that he was caught. I think he cared greatly not to get caught. So much so that his fear of being caught over rode his urge to complete his mutilations on Nichols and Stride, both incidents which evidence that he was scared away by approaching people/witnesses.

The one thing the killings had in common was that they were needless, senseless killings of women for no apparent motive

Agree. And also showed a desire to manipulate, control, dominate, andmurder women.

Right on Abby!

[Natalie Severn]

People like Napper obviously start chipping away at what we think we know about serial killers (which as you rightly pointed out, isn't much). Which is why the whole thing is still an evolving science. We know that MO's can change. Zodiac's did, Napper's did (though that may be a slow evolution


Of course, when someone is crazy, just about everything goes out the window. If voices tell you what to do, it becomes less about what you need and more about obedience. Most people who hear voices assume that they come from a power greater than themselves. Clearly there are schizophrenic serial killers. One of the great questions is do they kill because they are schizophrenic, or are they killers who happen to be schizophrenic? No one knows. But the human mind is very predictable in some ways, and no schizophrenic has a delusion that forces him to do something he absolutely does not want to do. It may force him to do something silly or unpleasant, but he always has to be willing.

Not so sure about this Errata.Certainly Napper had childhood issues and is labelled a paranoid schizophrenic by his psychiatrists.
But I do not accept that he had much choice about his urges once he tipped into a psychosis.It may be worth considering that by far the vast number of murders of the gruesome type are carried out by people who are paranoid schizophrenics.[Which does not mean that all paranoid schizophrenics are going to become killers or even become violent].Robert Napper is both a serial killer and a paranoid schizophrenic and he has changed his style.

[Ben]

It is a fallacy to suggest that "uncaught" serial killers only remain so because they are more intelligent and/or more sophisticated than their captured counterparts. This false assumption fails to take into consideration the fact that many serial offenders are captured as a result of pure chance, or the advancement of investigative techniques (such as DNA identification) that weren't available when the "caught" serialists were committing their murders. As Wolf has observed, Bury and Kelly are considerably better bets when contemplating the plausibility of known murderers for the ripper's crimes. If experts in criminal psychology and law enforcement dismiss Klosowski outright as a credible suspect, that ought to be good enough for the hobbyists.

[Natalie Severn]

If experts in criminal psychology and law enforcement dismiss Klosowski outright as a credible suspect, that ought to be good enough for the hobbyists.

Which "experts' are these? Not only the 'experts' but apparently the man in the moon as well......!


these 'experts' being???

[I don't deny the other two are plausible suspects but they are not serial killers which Klosowski/Chapman was.

[Errata]

Not so sure about this Errata.Certainly Napper had childhood issues and is labelled a paranoid schizophrenic by his psychiatrists.
But I do not accept that he had much choice about his urges once he tipped into a psychosis.It may be worth considering that by far the vast number of murders of the gruesome type are carried out by people who are paranoid schizophrenics.[Which does not mean that all paranoid schizophrenics are going to become killers or even become violent].Robert Napper is both a serial killer and a paranoid schizophrenic and he has changed his style.

BTK actually never went more than I think five years without killing anyone. But it wasn't on the level of his previous spree, So he got away with it.

There actually aren't as many actual paranoid schizophrenic serial killers as you might think. Well, certainly not in the US. Britain may be different. Several serial killers have gotten it trotted out as a defense during their trial, but almost none of them had the appropriate symptoms, and certainly had not been diagnosed as schizophrenic before their crimes. Paranoid schizophrenia is in many ways like Bipolar disorder. Both lend themselves to spree killers far more than serial killers. Ed Gein was schizophrenic, Richard Chase, Otis Toole. Berkowitz faked it and admitted it, John Wayne Gacy faked it.

Psychotics may or may not have a choice. It depends on why they are psychotic. And psychotic is not a disease. It's a condition caused by any number of factors. Delusions are logical in their own weird way. Especially paranoid delusions. They are almost coping mechanisms for the manufactured sensory input their brain is feeding them. Paranoid schizophrenia is a little like MadLibs. Your brain tells you that you are hearing a voice, so naturally you believe it. And it's a female voice. But clearly no one else is hearing it. And there has to be an explanation. So if a divine being was speaking to you, no one else would hear it. And since it's female, it has to be the Virgin Mary. And that is the basis of the delusion. Since she isn't talking to you because she is bored, the delusion fills in the why. And then it fills in the conversation.

People who are being spied on by the CIA through the fillings in their teeth don't start out that way. They just hear something. And they can't really tell what it is. And it's because their brain is structurally failing, and their audio recognition center is sparking off for no good reason. There is no actual input. But the worse the condition gets, the more detailed the delusion. The brain is essentially lying it's pants off to keep from getting found out. Someone like me will never have the CIA delusion. I'm not into conspiracies. Never have been. I am much more likely to have a divinity inspired delusion, because I am a person of faith, and I have had relationship problems with my divinity of choice. Aliens are right out. I am absolutely convinced they have better things to do.

The personality and the proclivities of a schizophrenic decide the delusion. If they are afraid, it is a scary delusion. If they feel grandiose, it's a heroic delusion. But the delusion always attempts to cope with the trials at hand. It's why schizophrenics can be shifted off a delusion. It takes a long time, but a man who thinks he is Superman can be persuaded that he is in fact Henry V. Both characters serve the heroic delusion, but Henry V doesn't try to jump off the roof once a week.

Napper was violent before he was schizophrenic. He was a rapist before he was ever symptomatic. Which isn't to say he wasn't seriously disturbed, but he wasn't delusional until later. His delusions reinforced his desires for sexual violence. I don't know what made him a killer. But the sheer amount of damage done to his second target and her child shows that he was extremely comfortable with that amount of violence, and it makes me suspect that he had been nursing that fantasy for quite a while. He could not control the delusions. And perhaps he never would have killed were it not for them. But I suspect he wanted to. He just might now have been sufficiently detached, and therefore given tacit permission, before the delusions.

[c.d.]

Let me remind everyone that this is what this board is all about: could a serial killer of the ripper/stabber kind (using a knife to quickly kill, cut and then mutilate and remove internal organs) change and become a serial killer who used poison (a slow, clean, and sadistic way to kill his victims)? The answer is no.

Sorry, but if you preface the question with "could" then the answer is yes. It all boils down to a question of possibility versus probability. I am not aware of any profiling expert who is claiming that this somehow would violate the laws of physics like traveling faster than the speed of light. And if you insist that what Chapman did is not possible, where is the proof of that? Is there some sacred text somewhere stating this?

As for Abberline, we don't know everything on which his opinion was based. Even if it was simply a gut feeling, he was present at Chapman's trial. His opinion was shared by Godley and Neil, two other Scotland Yard detectives. Even if he got some facts wrong, I think we have to give his opinion some weight. Sugden also supports Chapman as a candidate for being the Ripper.

The bottom line is that serial killers are just like the rest of us in that their actions cannot be predicted with 100% accuracy.

c.d.

[FrankO]

I am not aware of any profiling expert who is claiming that this somehow would violate the laws of physics like traveling faster than the speed of light.

Hi c.d.,

The thing is that it has nothing to do with physics. Had it been a matter of just physics, then he would have been a viable suspect, but that simply isn’t the case.

The fact that the Ripper did what he did and when & how tell us something about him, and the most obvious is that whatever satisfied him was in the mutilations. He risked his life for these mutilations. Or as a former psychologist recently wrote on these boards:
“Bearing this in mind, it may be stated with absolute certainty that the Whitechapel Murderer’s killing episodes were an expression of his core personality, and that the essential elements of this personality had developed during his first twelve or so years of life. Subsequent milestone events such as puberty and negative life experiences would also have been important. But it is the first ten or twelve years which are critically important in the development of the aberrant personality.”

He further agrees with me that the deep-rooted psychological make-up of any person doesn't change much over time after he or she has reached adulthood. Yet, you and some others seem to believe that the psychological make-up of the Ripper did change, or isn't important. Because it’s quite obvious to me that what Klosowski did, and how, was completely different from what the Ripper did in terms of personality traits and what drove him.

So, while from a physics point of view there’s nothing that precludes that Klosowski was the Ripper, from a psychological point of view it seems a very big leap. Certainly in view of the fact that nothing links Chapman to the Ripper murders and that 9 years elapsed before Chapman began poisoning.

Sugden also supports Chapman as a candidate for being the Ripper.

I don't believe he actually does, c.d.. He wrote about Chapman: “But that does not make him a strong suspect.”, and “In his recent comments on the Ripper case Jonathan Goodman, doyen of true crime writers, hit the nail squarely on the head: ‘Of those [suspects] named, I think the least unlikely is George Chapman.’”

All the best,
Frank

[Natalie Severn]

I didn't do that 'Klosowski' did it! disassociation writ large

How do you know Chapman did not change? Up until he split with Annie Chapman,with whom he had lived in a menage a trois, he was Severin Klosowski born in Poland---though he went by other names in some of the barber shops he worked in.
However once he became George Chapman , born in America,Chapman appears to have disassociated himself completely from Severin Klosowski .He told Godley he knew nothing about this Klosowski man who did the murders.
It seems Severin Klosowski completely erased the Severin Klosowski who was born in Poland ,just as he erased his marriage to Lucy Baderski---he said he didn't know who Lucy was when she visited him in custody during his trial--there is a news article about that and it describes her incredulous response-. So for example if Severin Klosowski did commit the Whitechapel murders it had nothing whatever to do with George Chapman.Disassociation par excelllence I would say.

[c.d.]

Hi Franko,

The point is that there is nothing, as in ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, which prevented Chapman from switching to poison. You can site psychological profiling out the wazoo if you want but that does not change the fact that Chapman was quite capable of doing so. You and others might consider it a leap (and I agree it is a leap) but we can't discount the possibility. Other posters in the past have presented cases where there was a major change in M.O. No one can predict with absolute certainty what another human being will do.

As for Sugden he states (p. 465) "George Chapman could have been Jack the Ripper. We have uncovered nothing to eliminate him from our inquiry. And he fits the evidence better than any other police suspect. But that does not make him a strong suspect."

c.d.

[Natalie Severn]

As for Sugden he states (p. 465) "George Chapman could have been Jack the Ripper. We have uncovered nothing to eliminate him from our inquiry. And he fits the evidence better than any other police suspect. But that does not make him a strong suspect."

c.d.

Thanks for that quote c.d.Sugden is superb---my favourite ripper author and an excellent researcher.