Severin Klosowski (1865-1903):

Also known as George Chapman, Severin Klosowski was born in Poland and apprenticed as a surgeon; he was very skilled and studied diligently. He moved to England somewhere around February 1887 and became a hairdresser’s assistant. He had a history of misogyny and violence, frequently cheating on his wives and even threatening one with a knife. Long after the Ripper murders, Klosowski definitively took the name George Chapman, and had poisoned a wife, and beaten and then poisoned two others. Chapman’s murders were discovered in 1902 and he was incarcerated and then hanged a year later.

When Chapman was convicted, Inspector Abberline apparently rejoiced in the capture of the man he believed may have been Jack the Ripper. While Chapman was certainly capable of murder, misogynistic, and lived near Whitechapel during the murders, there is some discrepancy. For one thing, Chapman was only 23 during the Whitechapel murders, much younger than the witnesses describe. Also, he had just recently emigrated from Poland, and the Ripper was described as eloquent; it is unlikely that an immigrant could achieve such fluency in English in a little over a year.

More important to some historians is the difference in the modus operandi of the Ripper’s murders and Chapman’s poisoning. The former were fast, bloody, and brutal mutilations; the latter were slow, calculated, cunning exterminations (the poison Chapman used, antimony, must be administered in low doses over a large period of time to avoid being regurgitated – all this comes from Chapman’s extensive medical knowledge). Some historians argue that the modus operandi of a serial killer would not change so drastically; others believe that different classes of women required different kinds of murder. Additionally, Chapman had grown older, and might have "learned more" about killing and decided that poisoning would be best. In the end there is no way to determine whether or not it is logical that Chapman change his means of murder so drastically.

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