Why was George Chapman a Jack the Ripper suspect?

Answer 1

By some accounts Chapman, aka Severin A. Klosowski, was working as a hairdresser's assistant a mere few yards from George Yard Buildings in Whitechapel. After the death of his infant son he and his wife relocated to America. He would return to England in the 1890's. There is one important point that should made. Chapman was a killer, but not of the same ilk as Jack The Ripper. He murdered by poison. A far cry from the brutaility of JTR, two distinctly different types of killer.

Answer 2

He was born as Severin Antoniovich Klosowski in the Polish village of Nargornak on December 14, 1865. He was 23 years old when the murders happened. Depending on your source, he either failed to become a junior surgeon or succeeded in becoming an assistant surgeon in 1886 and a qualified Junior Surgeon in 1887. There is also discrepancy concerning when he arrived in England.

The best estimate is that Klosowski immigrated to London in either late February or early March of 1887 when he entered into a career as a hairdresser's assistant in either late 1887 or early 1888, working for an Abraham Radin of 70 West India Dock Road. Apparently did well and after only five months Koslowski is next seen running a barber shop on his own at 126 Cable Street, St. George's-in-the-East. The Post Office London Directory of 1889 lists this as his address, so it is most likely that this was his residence in the fall of 1888, during the Ripper murders.

In 1890, Klosowski took a similar job in a barber shop on the corner of Whitechapel High Street and George Yard and most people considered this is significant, as Martha Tabram (killed August, 1888) was murdered in the George Yard buildings, which were only a few yards from this shop.

He then moved from assistant barber to full-fledged proprietor of the shop sometime before October 1889, when he married Lucy Baderski with the rites of a German Roman Catholic wedding. He had met her only five weeks previously at the Polish Club in St. John's Square, Clerkenwell.

This man was still legally married to his first wife, whom he had left back in Poland. She, however, seemed to have gotten wind of her husband's infidelity and moved to London in an attempt to oust Baderski. The two women appear to have cohabited for a time, until Klosowski's legal wife finally gave up and left, possibly because of the birth of her husband's and Baderksi's son in September of 1890. They moved around quite a bit, living in Cable Street, Commercial Street and Greenfield Street, respectively, until they finally immigrated to New Jersey later that year. The exact date of their emigration is not known for sure, but the last occurrence of the name in any records were in the national census of 1891, which listed them as living at 2 Tewkesbury Buildings, Whitechapel. This survey was taken in early April of that year.

After a fight, he attacked Lucy with a knife, as was reported in the Daily Chronicle of March 23, 1903. Lucy Klosowski, who was present in the Central Criminal Court, last week, did make a startling statement as to what occurred in the New Jersey shop. 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. The woman chanced to see a handle protruding from underneath the pillow. She found, to her Horror, that it was a sharp and formidable knife, which she promptly hid.

Note: Wikianswers states: -Chapman took several mistresses, who often posed as his wife, three of whom he subsequently poisoned to death. They were Mary Spink (died December 25, 1897), Bessie Taylor (died February 14, 1901) and Maud Marsh (died October 22, 1902). He administered the compound tartar-emetic to each of them, having purchased it from a chemist in Hastings. Rich in the metallic element antimony, improper usage of tartar-emetic causes a painful death with symptoms similar to arsenic poisoning-

I really don't know where did get this at. Never the less, he was considered a ripper suspect after he returned to London on first of June 1903.