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Retrospective Psychological Profiling as a Method for Analyzing Historical Serial Crimes: A Case Study of Jack the Ripper

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Zenodo
DOI
10.5281/zenodo.22036704

This study demonstrates the application of the retrospective psychological profiling method (Bukhanovsky) to a historical serial crime case in the absence of direct physical evidence. The case of Jack the Ripper (1888) is used as an illustrative case study, with the biography of George Chapman (Severin Klosowski) serving as a candidate for comparison. The psychological profile reconstructed from the five canonical murders converges with the 1988 FBI behavioral assessment (Douglas), developed independently within a different methodological tradition. Chapman's motivational pattern is interpreted through the construct of avoidant-schizoid pattern, explaining non-sexual violence as pathological objectification. The study is not an attempt at legal identification; its purpose is to demonstrate how a clinically grounded model of motivation can be applied to historical material, what conclusions follow, and what limitations such an approach entails.

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