George chapman Flashcards
Occupation
surgeon
Problem with him as suspect
One discrepancy only have I noted, and this is that the people who alleged that they saw Jack the Ripper at one time or another, state that he was a man about thirty-five or forty years of age. They, however, state that they only saw his back, and it is easy to misjudge age from a back view.
Abuse towards wife
She states that on one occasion, when she had had a quarrel with her husband, he held her down on the bed, and pressed his face against her mouth to keep her from screaming. At that moment a customer entered the shop immediately in front of the room, and Koslowski got up to attend him. She found a knife, which she hid. Later, Klosowski deliberately told her that he meant to have cut her head off, and pointed to a place in the room where he meant to have buried her.
Murder of previous wifes
He had a history of his wives mysteriously disappearing, it is thought highly likely that he murdered at least 3 women but was only charged of one
Guilty of murder
Chapman was charged with the murders of Maud Marsh, Mary Spink, and Bessie Taylor, but although evidence was submitted on all three, he was convicted only of Maud’s death on March 20, 1903. The jury took only eleven minutes to come to a decision of guilty.
Evidence
For instance, the date of the arrival in England coincides with the beginning of the series of murders in Whitechapel; 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. The fact that he studied medicine and surgery in Russia before he came over here is well established, and it is curious to note that the first series of murders was the work of an expert surgeon, while the recent poisoning cases were proved to be done by a man with more than an elementary knowledge of medicine. The story told by Chapman’s wife of the attempt to murder her with a long knife while in America is not to be ignored.
Chapman had a regular job, as did the Ripper (since the murders all occured on weekends). Chapman was single and free of family responsibility, as was the Ripper (to allow for his being out at all hours of the night). Lucy Baderski even goes so far as to say that her previous husband was in the habit of staying out into the early hours of the morning.
