The Argument For

[How Brown]

Currently, we have a thread entitled, The Argument Against, which features Francis Tumbelty and contains the individual member's views on why Dr. T. is a less than plausible suspect. Remember, even if you DO feel he was a viable suspect, you can certainly provide a reason or two why you DON'T think he was a viable suspect.

Moving right along...

This thread will feature individuals who we,as individuals, feel is worthy of more consideration as being the "veritable" Jack The Ripper.

To shake it up a little...and this thread will focus on this suspect(s) until February 1st...

The first individual we will discuss is Severin Klosowski..a.k.a, George Chapman.

Lets hear it.

[How Brown]

Let me add one on here to kick start it...

1. He was a serial killer and may have switched modus operandi.

[Robert Linford]

Adam, what happened?! Reminds me of those gallows confessions one reads about - "I am Ja -"

[Adam Went]

Hey all,

Thanks for this thread, How....you know, it's not even close to my birthday either! ;)

I'll just make a few points on here to start off with, otherwise I'll be here all night having a rant....

Basically, I believe that George Chapman is the most likely JTR suspect out of every suspect that has been named so far. In short, he is a known multiple murderer, he had a very violent streak, he had some medical knowledge...as a barber, he was used to working with sharp instruments on a daily basis, he lived in the immediate vicinity of the murders, he fits several witness descriptions....but apart from all of that and more, the most important point, in my view, is that not one, not two, but THREE police officers who were involved in the case in 1888 all named him as their favoured suspect. Those 3 are Fred Abberline, George Godley and Arthur Neil.

I've heard the argument raised before that Abberline and Godley only got carried away with their statements on Chapman being JTR because they came around the same time as Chapman's murder trial in 1903. Aside from the fact that both Abberline and Godley lived on for decades after his trial and could easily have written a different version of their thoughts, that never happened. With reputations to uphold, surely neither would have made such statements and stuck to them if they didn't seriously believe them? Even if we assume for a moment that Abberline and Godley weren't serious, what about Superintendent Arthur Neil then? He didn't write about Chapman being his favoured suspect until he wrote his memoirs in 1932, near 30 years after the trial.

It's also been said that Chapman can't be JTR because he couldn't have changed his M.O. from knife murders to poisoning murders. It's incorrect to say that a killer can't change their method, it's happened before. Aside from that, there was a gap of several years between the JTR murders and Chapman's first murder, and this time, Chapman wasn't killing strangers (assuming the victims were strangers to the killer), he was killing his wives - who's the first person that the police are going to be investigating when they discover his wife has been murdered? That's right, Chapman himself. So if he really was JTR, he had to change his MO anyway to be more discreet and try to hide the fact that he was actually poisoning his wives. It's an entirely different set of circumstances.

So, having mentioned those things, I'm yet to see a better suspect than Chapman brought to our attention - how many other suspects have all the characteristics that many of us believe JTR had that I've listed above, as well as have 3 contemporary police officers name him as the man?

More to come later....

Cheers,
Adam.

[Adam Went]

Robert:

Sorry about that...my keyboard went all spasticated.
You're pretty close with the gallows confession though, except after the keyboard stopped working I was more like: "You fu -"

Cheers,
Adam. ;)

[How Brown]

Thanks for the posting so far, Adam.

Anyone else have pro-arguments for Chapman?

[Adam Went]

How:

I'm waiting for one Glenn L. Andersson to spot this thread....he's usually lightning quick to jump on the anti-Chapman bandwagon. So let's see...

Cheers,
Adam. :)

[How Brown]

Adam:

No sir...this thread is entirely FOR the suspectworthiness of Chapman....We will deal with the counter argument one day on the "Argument Against" thread.

So Glenn and others are more than welcome to peruse this thread...but we kindly ask him and all others to resist posting counter-arguments at this time.

Thats why I established the different forums for and against a suspect.

To save myself an email, Adam...if you found the other photos you had of yourself in the gaol ( Deeming) please resend them to me. I wanted to keep my criminal file on my main man in Oz up to date.:photo:

[Adam Went]

How:

Good stuff....well maybe Glenn will still appear on here with a pro-Chapman argument. On that note, I think I just saw a pig zoom past my window... :loco:

Yeah I dug up those photos of the gaol. I'm sending them off to Chris George in a minute, so I'll CC them to you at the same time.

Cheers,
Adam. :)

[How Brown]

My brother from another mother:

Thanks Adam. When I experienced The Great Crash of 2006, I lost a lot of stuff and unfortunately your work during the time you put together the Tasmanian newspaper story for The Rip and your Deeming material went into the ether.

[How Brown]

Now we move on to another site favorite....Thomas Cutbush.

Lets hear the argument for Cutbush...and remember,just the argument for him.

[Robert Linford]

One argument would be that he was a lunatic who used his knife on women - though the only proof we have is of comparatively innocuous "jobbing."

As with all suspects, there can be no one unambiguous argument pro. It's a question of accumulating circumstantials.

[How Brown]

With Mr. Poster in mind...lets re-examine the arguments FOR George Chapman once more.

[Sam Flynn]

With Mr. Poster in mind...lets re-examine the arguments FOR George Chapman once more.
Nice one, How! I'll get the ball rolling...

He was almost certainly based somewhere in the East End of London at the time of the murders, possibly in Whitechapel itself. (I'm being fair, honestly!)

[A.P. Wolf]

Was he, Sam?
Convince me of that, please.

[Sam Flynn]

Was he, Sam?
Convince me of that, please.
I did say "almost certainly", AP. Suffice to say that Kłosowski is on record as having lived with Ethel Radin and her husband at West India Dock Road (Poplar), for whom he worked for a period of 5 months. Mrs Radin states that Kłosowski helped care for her sick baby during this time.

I have obtained a copy of the birth certificate of Solomon Radin (Ethel's babby), which shows that he was born on the 26th May 1887, his place of birth given as "70, West India Dock Road, Limehouse". Note that Ethel Radin mentions Kłosowski assisting with her baby's illness, rather than his birth - I infer from this that Kłosowski arrived on the scene after Solomon Radin was born. This would place Kłosowski in West India Dock Road - and therefore the "East End" in its broadest sense - sometime from the Summer of 1887 onwards at the very earliest.

We don't know precisely when Solomon Radin was taken ill, mind you - he might have been a good few months old, or even a year old, by the time "nurse" Severin came to the rescue. The most pessimistic estimate would thus place Kłosowski's arrival in West India Dock Road in the late Spring or Summer of 1888. In this context, it's worth noting that Kłosowski had a Polish "internal passport" which entitled him to travel back and forth to Warsaw that expired in November 1887. Also among his personal effects was a receipt for tuition fees in Warsaw, paid up to March 1887, which suggests strongly that he was still in Poland for at least the first quarter of 1887, if not later.

In her evidence at Kłosowski's trial on 16th March 1903, Ethel Radin states that she first knew him "about 15 years ago" - which, at face value, places his arrival in Poplar sometime in the 1st Quarter of 1888. Quite when he left the Radins' employment (hence the earliest date at which he arrived in Whitechapel) is a matter of considerable interest and debate. I have to say, in all sincerity, that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Kłosowski may still have been finding his way around Poplar when the Ripper murders started.

[How Brown]

Lets us now move onward and upward to the argument for....and for only...Walter Sickert.

Thanks !

[Gumshoe]

Walter Sickert - because Patricia Cornwell says so!

[How Brown]

Anyone else have an opinion supportive of the theory that Sickert may have been the Ripper?

If not, I'll put a new one up on Sunday ( The 20th ).

[Mike Covell]

I have to admit, the Camden Town stuff does make me wonder, so does the "Ripper's Bedroom" but other than that I am not so sure.

Coincidentally, there is a Sickert Portrait in Hull (theres a few actually) showing a bloke in a top hat, like the mythical view of JTR. He has a woman by the hand and is looking back, whilst hurridly walking away!!

Cannot remember the name, but they have hung it in the childrens section of the art gallery!!

I had to crouch down just to view it!!

I was made aware of the works there by numerous Hull City Council workers, who informed me "Jack the Ripper's paintings are in the Ferens Art Gallery!"

[How Brown]

Mike:

Its funny, but I just viewed a documentary I mooched out of JMenges with the "Camden Town" murder and the other one, The Ripper's Bedroom. I had the same reaction as you did when I saw it....and yet I've seen that a dozen times before in magazines or elsewhere and chalked it up to Sickert being a 19th Century Ripperologist. It did affect me a little differently this time.

Weird ain't it ?

[Mike Covell]

Art doesn't really intrest me, it rarely makes me emotional unless it's "Banksy" sticking it to the man, but when I look at the Camden Town stuff, I get shivers and goosepimples.

What ever was going on in his mind was pretty dark and disturbing, wether that makes him a killer, I am not sure.

[How Brown]

Mike:

I agree. Art isn't my bag either.

I agree that something is dark in these portraits. The documentary I watched was the Knight one from 1980...

I was trying to locate a quote from Baroness D'Orczy, this Hungarian lady, who talked about artiste types slumming through the East End during '88 or ' 89...maybe a little later, I forget. I was wondering if she met Sickert on one of these little excursions.

[A.P. Wolf]

Ah, come on boys, you just trying to be nice to Cornwell because you know the 17th September letter is genuine.

[How Brown]

This "might" appeal to A.P. Let me take a stab with this person:

What are the arguments for Thomas Cutbush being Jack The Ripper?

Is there just than one or are there several?

[How Brown]

A whole month and not one taker for Cutbush...

Oh well...lets try.... Hyam Hyams.

[How Brown]

Hmmm..

Old Hyam didn't fair too well either,it appears.:banghead:

Not to be discouraged, lets try: J.K.Stephen....either alone or in tandem.

[How Brown]

Bump up for J.K. Stephen....either alone or with an accomplice.

[How Brown]

Well then...lets try Charles Cross.

Some possible ideas, not that he is a suspect, but is he suspicious at least in this crime?

1. Finds Nichols first.
2. Is interested in a "derelict" ion pavement/sidewalk asleep. Hmmm.....
3. Police ( opinion here) probably grateful that HE found her then and that she wasn't discovered by sunrise later on when crime scene could be a real mess...not that any clues were discovered, but the police wouldn't know that until afterwards.
4. Most people on the way to work walking in the dark make a beeline to work. Not Charles Cross.

And you?