Complete History of Jack the Ripper (80 page)
Read Complete History of Jack the Ripper Online
Authors: Philip Sudgen
Critics of the theory immediately alleged a dissimilarity in character between Chapman and the Ripper. A week after his original interview Abberline responded:
‘As to the question of the dissimilarity of character in the crimes which one hears so much about,’ continued the expert, ‘I cannot see why one man should not have done both, provided he had the professional knowledge, and this is admitted in Chapman’s case. A man who could watch his wives being slowly tortured to death by poison, as he did, was capable of anything; and the fact that he should have attempted, in such a cold-blooded manner, to murder his first wife with a knife in New Jersey, makes one more inclined to believe in the theory that he was mixed up in the two series of crimes. What, indeed, is more likely than that a man to some extent skilled in medicine and surgery should discontinue the use of the knife when his commission – and I still believe Chapman had a commission from America – came to an end, and then for the remainder of his ghastly deeds put into practice his knowledge of poisons? Indeed, if the theory be accepted that a man who takes life on a wholesale scale never ceases his accursed habit until he is either arrested or dies, there is much to be said for Chapman’s consistency. You see, incentive changes; but the fiendishness is not eradicated. The victims, too, you will notice, continue to be women; but they are of different classes, and obviously call for different methods of despatch.’
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H. L. Adam, writing in 1930, tells us how Abberline followed up his theory:
Chief Inspector Abberline, who had charge of the investigations into the East End murders, thought that Chapman and Jack the Ripper were one and the same person. He closely questioned the Polish woman, Lucy Baderski, about Chapman’s nightly habits at the time of the murders. She said that he was often out until three or four o’clock in the morning, but she could throw little light upon these absences. Both Inspector Abberline and Inspector
Godley spent years in investigating the Ripper murders. Abberline never wavered in his firm conviction that Chapman and Jack the Ripper were one and the same person. When Godley arrested Chapman Abberline said to his confrère, ‘You’ve got Jack the Ripper at last!’
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The source of this information was almost certainly Godley himself for in his preface Adam expressed his gratitude to Godley for ‘much information’ received. In one particular, though, Godley’s memory undoubtedly played him false. Abberline could not have made the remark ‘You’ve got Jack the Ripper at last!’ when Godley arrested Chapman in October 1902. At that time almost nothing was known about Chapman. Besides, Abberline himself implied in his
Pall Mall Gazette
interview that he did not suspect Chapman of the Ripper crimes until the Solicitor-General’s opening address at the Central Criminal Court on 16 March 1903. I do not doubt that Abberline made such a comment at some time during the Chapman affair. But it is more likely to have been made on or soon after 19 March, when he congratulated Godley on having secured a conviction.
In 1932 the voice of ex-Superintendent Arthur Neil joined the chorus. Coming from a detective who had worked on the Chapman inquiry, the case he makes against Chapman, published in
Forty Years of Man-Hunting
, is valuable:
The Polish Jew, Kloskovski [Chapman] . . . got a job at a barber’s shop in High Street, Whitechapel. He was right on the scene of these atrocities [the Ripper murders] during the whole period . . .
The first ‘Ripper’ crime occurred in August 1888. Chapman worked in Whitechapel at this time, and was there during the whole period of these wholesale killings. ‘The Ripper,’ by the account of four medical men, was testified as to having surgical knowledge. Severino Kloskovski, alias George Chapman, had this qualification. Also it was thought, by the expert manner of the mutilations examined on the various bodies of his victims, that the ‘Ripper’ was ambidextrous, that is left- and right-handed. Chapman was seen to use his hands in this way during the time he lived in the Borough. The only living description ever given by an eyewitness of the ‘Ripper,’ tallied exactly with Chapman, even to the height, deep-sunk black eyes, sallow complexion and thick, black moustache.
Towards the end of 1888, Severino Kloskovski left Britain for the United States. The ‘Ripper’ murders had by this time ceased,
so far as London was concerned. But a series of equally terrible crimes, causing a precisely similar reign of terror, began in America. These crimes ceased when, in 1892, Kloskovski returned to this country.We were never able to secure definite proof that Chapman was the ‘Ripper’. But the strong theory remains just the same. No one who had not been trained as a surgeon and medical man, could have committed the ‘Ripper’ crimes. As we discovered, Chapman had been a surgeon in Poland, and would, therefore, be the only possible fiend capable of putting such trained knowledge into use against humanity, instead of for it. ‘Jack the Ripper’ was a cold-blooded, inhuman monster, who killed for the sake of killing.
The same could be said of Severino Kloskovski, alias George Chapman, the Borough poisoner.
Why he took to poisoning his women victims on his second visit to this country can only be ascribed to his diabolical cunning, or some insane idea or urge to satisfy his inordinate vanity.
In any case, it is the most fitting and sensible solution to the possible identity of the murderer in one of the world’s greatest crime mysteries.
Neil conceded that police inquiries failed to procure proof that Chapman and the Ripper were one. Nevertheless, ‘as every detective, and come to that, any active crime reporter, very quickly learns,’ he added, ‘there are things you cannot prove in a court of law but of which you may feel quite certain in your own mind.’
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A coterie of top detectives – Abberline, Godley and Neil – thus developed the strong conviction that Severin Klosowski, the man hanged at Wandsworth as George Chapman, was also Jack the Ripper. Were they right?
In certain respects there is no doubt that Chapman is the most promising suspect we have encountered. But before we consider his case in detail we had best clear out of the way some of the red herrings introduced into the discussion by his accusers.
The police
claim that Chapman had a black bag was true. Harriet Greenaway, one of his neighbours in Hastings, saw it and told Southwark Police Court about it in 1903: ‘Once Mrs Chapman [Mary Spink] showed me a black bag, secretly. Prisoner [Chapman] used to keep the bag.’ Why Mary should have been so furtive about the bag is not clear. But since there is no reason to believe that the Ripper possessed such an article it does not matter. Similarly, Neil’s claim that Chapman was ambidextrous is of doubtful relevance to our inquiry. For although two different weapons were used against Martha Tabram there is no persuasive evidence that the Ripper was an ambidexter. Perhaps the most patently bogus argument against Chapman, though, was one raised by H. L. Adam. He noted the Americanisms in the ‘Dear Boss’ letter and postcard and pointed out that Chapman was accustomed to use Americanisms and pass himself off as an American. Chapman certainly did sometimes pose as an American. Petitioning the Home Secretary for clemency after his trial in 1903, for example, he insisted that he was an American ‘born in 1865 in the County of Michigan USA.’ It is probable, too, that during his residence in Jersey City his speech acquired a smattering of Americanisms. Unfortunately for Adam’s argument, however, the ‘Dear Boss’ letter was penned in September 1888, more than two years
before
Chapman left for the States. In any case, as we have already learned, this letter was almost certainly a hoax.
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Even with the red herrings ruthlessly binned, an impressive array of circumstantial factors can still be alleged against Chapman.
A trained if relatively inexperienced surgeon, he possessed the medical expertise necessary to have perpetrated the Whitechapel murders.
Abberline said that Chapman lodged in George Yard. The White Hart, in the basement of which Chapman had a shop, was on the corner of George Yard and Whitechapel High Street. But Chapman did not move there until 1890. At the time of the murders he was ensconced at 126 Cable Street. This was within walking distance of all the murder sites. And Goulston Street, where the bloody remnant of Kate Eddowes’ apron was discovered, could easily have been traversed by a murderer escaping to Cable Street from Mitre Square.
Chapman’s personal circumstances mirrored those we have already deduced for the Ripper. He was in regular work. So, too, if the dates of the murders be any guide, was the Ripper. He was single. In other words, again probably like the Ripper, he was free of family entanglements. And Lucy Baderski, who met Chapman in 1889, tells us that he was in the habit of staying out late into the early hours of the morning. We have no certain knowledge of it but, ardent womanizer as he was, Chapman may well have been a regular patron of prostitutes.
There are remarkable affinities between the descriptions witnesses
gave of the Whitechapel murderer and the known appearance of Chapman. As we have noted, the murderer seems to have been a white male in his twenties or thirties, of medium height, respectably dressed and possibly of foreign origin. Chapman fits this profile. At the time of the murders he was twenty-three. He was of medium height. And even in his working clothes, as a hairdresser, he would have been expected to dress respectably. Furthermore, three of the witnesses who may have seen the Ripper (Marshall, Schwartz and Lawende) describe a man who wore a round cap with a peak, like that of a sailor, and there is no doubt that Chapman’s wardrobe once held just such a cap. In a photograph of Chapman and Bessie Taylor, taken about 1898–1900, he is clearly to be seen wearing it. If Chapman really was the Ripper he may even help to explain the inconsistency among the witnesses as to whether the murderer was a foreigner or not. Chapman was, of course, a foreigner, but one who might easily have passed for an Englishman. This was a point noted by the newspapers in 1903. ‘Although born and bred near Warsaw,’ commented one, ‘Klosowski is not in appearance a typical Russian Pole. He is an undersized man, with small, sharp features, and in repose his face does not suggest a foreigner.’
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The resemblance between George Hutchinson’s suspect and Chapman is particularly striking. Hutchinson described a foreigner of medium height, dark, very well dressed and sporting a dark moustache curled up at the ends. Any one of these details might accurately be applied to Chapman. Levisohn, it will be remembered, credited Chapman with a penchant for flashy dressing even in the early years of their acquaintanceship, testimony which suggests that the barber’s assistant was not the impoverished immigrant that many of his compatriots were.
There are some difficulties in matching Chapman with the Ripper evidence. One is age. Hutchinson thought that the man he saw was about thirty-four or thirty-five. Chapman was then twenty-three. Certainly Hutchinson may have been mistaken. The estimation of age in strangers can be exceedingly difficult at the best of times, as those of my readers who care to experiment for themselves will readily discover, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that in a dimly-lit street a man with a heavy moustache could have passed for one older than his years. But no other witness made the Ripper as young as Chapman. PC Smith’s estimate of age was twenty-eight, Schwartz’s and Lawende’s both thirty. The fact that almost all of
our Chapman material comes from 1902–3 does not help either. It is true that Levisohn, Stanislaus Baderski (Lucy’s brother) and Mrs Rauch (her sister) all testified that Chapman’s general appearance changed little during the period of his residence in England, but the fourteen-year gap between the murders and the Chapman evidence inevitably introduces uncertainties into the case against him. Did Chapman own his peaked cap in 1888, for example, or was it a relic of his nautical expeditions out of Hastings during 1896–7?
Notwithstanding such caveats, it has to be conceded that, as a whole, Chapman matches up with the Ripper evidence on appearance very well.
Some students of the Whitechapel crimes have dismissed Chapman as a serious suspect because of an alleged dissimilarity in character between him and the Ripper. In fact, as Abberline pointed out, there were also many affinities of character between the two.
Chapman, like the Ripper, had a powerful sex drive, and he was regularly violent to women. A moral oaf, indifferent to the sufferings of others, the Pole physically beat at least two of his ‘wives’, threatened one with a knife, another with a revolver, and ultimately condemned three to agonizing deaths by poison. Alone among the major Ripper suspects he was a known homicide. There must have been few men, even in late Victorian London, capable of multiple murder. The Ripper was one. Chapman was another.
In normal circumstances the Whitechapel killer’s appearance and behaviour must have been disarming and reassuring. This, according to the Solicitor-General, Sir Edward (later Lord) Carson, who led for the prosecution at Chapman’s trial, could scarcely be said of Chapman. ‘I have never seen such a villain,’ he recalled afterwards. ‘He looked like some evil wild beast. I almost expected him to leap over the dock and attack me.’
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Carson’s reminiscence is much quoted but that does not make it accurate. Had Chapman typically presented such an appearance he would never have ensnared a succession of doting mistresses and the truth, as contemporary records amply demonstrate, is that he was possessed of a remarkable capacity for ingratiating himself with those around him.
