A Polish immigrant who had changed his name from Severin Klosowski, George Chapman was suggested in later years as a prime suspect by Inspector Frederick Abberline, one of the officers who had been involved in the investigation of the Ripper murders. Chapman was never arrested and interviewed during this inquiry and only became a suspect when arrested in connection with the poisoning of a number of women, among them his wife. This was in 1902, long after the Ripper inquiry had been scaled down.
It appears that Chapman’s arrival in England coincided with the beginning of the murders in Whitechapel. There is also a coincidence in the fact that the murders ceased in London when he went to America. And then a similar murder occurred in America shortly after he landed there. The fact that he studied medicine and surgery in Russia before he settled in London is well established, and it is curious to note that it was suggested at the time that some of the Whitechapel murders were the work of an expert surgeon. The murders committed by Chapman in later years employed poison and displayed a more than elementary knowledge of medicine.
Chapman’s wife’s story of how he attempted to kill her with a long knife has been put forward as another reason for his being a suspect in the Ripper murders. However, we know that domestic arguments do occur between man and wife and it is fair to say that, in a crisis, threats to kill are uttered by both parties without anything going further than that. It is also fact that, in the heat of the moment, one or both parties may pick up some type of weapon, whether a household object or a kitchen knife. So I do not see in his wife’s account a reason for making Chapman a suspect.
Other similarities between Chapman and the Ripper have been suggested. Chapman had a regular job and it is suggested that the Ripper also did, since the murders all occurred at weekends. But, at the time, Chapman was single and free of responsibility for a family, so he could have worked by day and been out at all hours of the night. In fact, his ex-wife stated that, when they were married, he was in the habit of staying out until the early hours. Furthermore, if his many affairs and relationships are anything to go by, Chapman had an outrageous sexual drive. While it seems that there was no sexual motive behind the Ripper’s murders, he might be seen as a sexual serial killer in that he mutilated his victims’ reproductive organs.
Inspector Abberline did admit there was a problem with Chapman’s being the Ripper. One major discrepancy is that witnesses who stated that they saw a person they believed to be Jack the Ripper with the victims at one time or another put his age at about 35–40. None of them thought the man they saw was as young as Chapman in 1888, 23. Furthermore, Chapman was in the public eye in the East End, as he worked as a barber there, and so would probably have been easily recognised had he been in the vicinity of any of the murders
Finally I looked at the ‘similar murder committed in America’ referred to by Abberline and others as evidence that Chapman was the Ripper. This murder was that of an elderly prostitute named Carrie Brown and known as ‘Old Shakespeare’ – a nickname that derived from her penchant for quoting the author when drunk. She was murdered in a common lodging-house in Jersey City, New Jersey, on 24 April 1891, first strangled and then mutilated. I have seen photographs of her wounds and find it hard to agree that these are, as they have been described, savage mutilations. For this reason alone, there must be serious doubt that this killing is linked to the Ripper murders.
A housekeeper at the lodging-house saw the man with whom Brown entered and described him as aged about 32, five feet eight inches in height, of slim build, with a long, sharp nose and a heavy, light-coloured moustache. He was clad in a dark-brown cutaway coat and black trousers and wore an old black bowler hat with a heavily dented crown. He was described as a foreigner, possibly a German. Since it is well documented that thousands of European immigrants had flocked to America by that time, this description is not unique to Chapman. On the other hand, although far from perfect for police purposes, it does point loosely to him.
But was Chapman in New Jersey at the time of Carrie Brown’s murder? A census register shows he was still in London on 5 April and there are no records from America to establish that he was there before 24 April. The only assumption that can be made is that it was the death of their son the previous month that prompted Chapman and his wife to move to America. But they must have left London after the census register of 5 April. This would have given Chapman 19 days to move out, settle into Jersey City and murder Brown. It would have been possible.
However, on 26 April, two days after Brown was killed, police arrested an Algerian Frenchman named Ameer Ben Ali in connection with the murder. Nicknamed ‘Frenchy’, Ben Ali was well known in the district. It appears he often stayed at the hotel and on the night of the murder was in a room across the hall from the victim’s.
However, Ben Ali’s was totally different in appearance from the man seen entering the lodging-house with Brown. The Algerian was dark-skinned and not Caucasian, unlike the man seen with Brown when she checked in.
The police case against Ben Ali was that, after the departure of the man who had entered the lodging-house with Brown, Ben Ali went to her room, where he killed her and stole her money. The police case against Ben Ali rested on a trail of blood found between Brown’s room and his. He was tried, found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Later he was moved to a hospital for the criminally insane.
In 1902, Ben Ali’s sentence was quashed as the original evidence was discredited and considered unsafe. This came about as a result of information presented by several journalists who believed he had been wrongly convicted. They suggested that the trail of blood that was the backbone of the police case could have been made by journalists and the coroner at the crime scene in walking back and forth between the two rooms, thereby contaminating the crime scene. This was enough to make the conviction unsafe.
Whoever killed Carrie Brown, there are several major differences between her murder and the Whitechapel murders which, in my view, rule her out as a Ripper victim:
• Brown was killed in a common lodging-house where many people were staying and moving about at all hours of the night. None of the Whitechapel victims was killed in this type of location.
• If the person seen entering the lodging-house was the killer, he was taking a big risk. He would have known that he had been seen entering the house. He would have known that he would have been likely to be captured should Brown have screamed out at any time or made an attempt to get away.
• Brown’s throat was not cut, whereas those of all the Whitechapel victims were.
Where does this leave us with regard to the suggestion that Chapman was Carrie Brown’s killer and also a Ripper suspect? We know Chapman had medical skills and was foreign-looking and had an accent similar to those described by witnesses in his US lodging house. He lived somewhere in the East End around the time of the murders.The first series of London murders ceased once he moved to America, where Brown was killed in similar fashion. Almost everything fits except for his MO.
A pressing question is whether a savage mutilator can transform himself into a calculating poisoner seven years later. Another unanswered question is, if Chapman was the Whitechapel killer, why did he suddenly stop? Had he fulfilled his grisly intentions? Did he fear capture? If neither, why did he not continue to commit similar crimes once there? And why did he not recommence killing when he returned to Britain? As I said earlier, serial killers do not stop killing without good reason.
Criminologists and behavioural experts differ on whether murderers maintain their modus operandi. Some have stated that they can change their MO as they gain experience. My experience of murderers leads me to disagree. So I ask, if Chapman was the killer, did he change from a savage brutal killer into a passive poisoner? I don’t believe so.
Bear in mind also that Chapman was a womaniser who had a liking for young, attractive women. Would such a person have shown any interest in older, dishevelled, dirty prostitutes? I suggest not; not even for the purposes of murdering them.
Finally, I would have expected that, had the police suspected Chapman of being the Ripper, they would have interviewed him while he was awaiting execution. The visit may or may not have taken place. In any event, no meeting was recorded. If the police did question Chapman and he was the killer, he may well have unburdened his conscience before going to meet his maker.This we may never know.
So, was Chapman the killer? I suggest not. Like other suspects I have considered here, he came to notice in later years for killing a number of women, albeit by a different method from the Ripper’s. The fact that there was a similar murder in America while Chapman was known to have been there may well have caused the police to take more than a passing interest in him. However, Inspector Abberline was a well-respected officer and I am sure that if he had real suspicions about Chapman the suspect would at least have been interviewed and this would have been documented. In the absence of any such record, I can only assume there was nothing to suggest he was Jack the Ripper.
Chapman was hanged at Wandsworth Prison on 7 April 1903, having been convicted of killing his wife and several other women by poisoning them.