The Suspects Part Two
Who was Jack the Ripper? More suspects.
(Click here for part 1)
Aaron Kominski
MacNaughten mentioned an unnamed Kominski as a suspect in his 1894 memo, and a former Chief Inspector also named a Kominski in a side note in a book he had read. No first name was given in either case.
It was a much later author who named Aaron Kominski, because he was the only person with that surname admitted to a mental hospital in London in the few years after the murders. However, there is no proven link between Aaron and the murders, and his mental illness was hallucinatory rather than violent. And there must be doubt about MacNaughten’s mention of a Kominski – his memo says in one place that no-one was ever named as the Ripper, and yet he also says the name Kominski was given by a witness to a murder who then refused to say any more or testify.
In recent years a book has claimed that a shawl said to have belonged to Catherine Eddowes has Aaron Kominski’s DNA on it, but there is no trail of evidence proving the shawl’s was Eddowes’, and some experts have also cast doubt on the DNA tests undertaken as well.
VERDICT UNPROVEN
Michael Ostrog
The final person named by MacNaughten, but whilst Ostrog was a fraudster, he never committed ay violent offences and it appears certain he was in jail in France at the time of the murders.
VERDICT NOT GUILTY
Thomas Cutbush
A medical student committed to Broadmoor (the secure mental hospital) in 1891 after stabbing a woman in the backside, he suffered from syphilis that led to hallucinations. In 1894 the newspaper The Sun (no relation to the modern one!) named Cutbush as the Ripper, and the MacNaughten memo was written as part of the Metropolitan Police reply to the articles, denying any link.
VERDICT UNPROVEN (Police said there was no evidence of a link)
Francis Tumblety
An American Quack medicine seller, he seems to have been linked to the murders because friends said he had a collection of preserved human wombs he showed off. He was in London in 1888 and in November was arrested, but for a homosexual act rather than anything violent.
When on bail awaiting trial, he fled back to America. The US press reported he had been arrested in London over the Ripper murders, but American police and the Met denied this, and there was never any attempt to extradite him.
VERDICT? NOT GUILTY
Frederick Deeming
He boasted he was Jack the Ripper after being jailed for murder in Australia. He had killed his first wife and four children in the UK, as well as several other people, and his second wife in Australia.
However, at the time of the Ripper murders, he was either in jail or in South Africa, so police never considered him a suspect.
VERDICT? NOT GUILTY
Joseph Barnett
Barnett was the lover of final Ripper victim Mary Kelly, and it was only after they had split up in September 1888 that Kelly returned to working as a prostitute. An obvious suspect for Kelly’s murder, police interviewed him but only for a few hours and released him without charge.
VERDICT? NOT GUILTY
Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence
Am amazing suspect, “Eddy” was the oldest son of the Prince of Wales – who later became King Edward VII – and so could in his turn have become King.
Eddy was first named in a 1962 biography of his father, based on a rumour that Dr Thomas Stowell told to author Colin Wilson in 1960. In 1970, Stowell published his own article in the Criminologist magazine. Stowell said that Eddy had caught syphilis, been driven mad and committed the murders. However, Stowell died a few days after publication and his son destroyed all his papers, so no-one can know how Stowell came to make his claims.
However, the claims are impossible. Apart from the impossibility of any member of the Royal Family being able to walk the streets at night without an escort, Eddy was away form London and seen at public appearances during the nights of all the murders.
Eddy never became King, as he died in early 1892 of pneumonia after catching flu in the pandemic of 1889-92.
VERDICT? NOT GUILTY
James Stephen
A poet and Cambridge University don, Stephen has been accused as part of conspiracy theories related to the Duke of Clarence, as he was Eddy’s tutor, and a well-known misogynist. But there is no evidence of Stephen being involved, and he had no known links to the East End.
VERDICT? NOT GUILTY
Sir William Gull
Queen Victoria’s personal doctor, Gull is famous as a suspect thanks to the movie From Hell, as part of a Masonic conspiracy. But as he was over 70 at the time and had limited movement because of a serious stroke, so even if you believe the conspiracy theory, he would hardly have been a good choice as the executioner.
VERDICT NOT GUILTY
Walter Sickert
Artist Walter Sickert made a number of paintings that depicted the Ripper murders and victims, but he was in France during most of the period of the murders.
VERDICT? NOT GUILTY
George Hutchison
Hutchison claimed to have seen Mary Jane Kelly on the night she was murdered. He told police in a statement that Kelly approached him for money. He said he then followed her and another man to her room, where he watched for 45 minutes but neither came out again. Hutchison then left.
Hutchison described the man as conspicuously dressed and “of Jewish appearance”. This was questioned by some police officers, as it was night and visibility would have been limited, through Abberline believed Hutchison. Hutchison was not called as a witness at Kelly’s inquest, which suggests police were not convinced at all, and thought Hutchison was an attention seeker.
Some modern researchers have suggested Hutchison was actually the Ripper, aiming to confuse the police, but most think he was just trying to get the press to pay him for his story.
VERDICT? NOT PROVEN
Charles Letchmere or Charles Cross
Letchmere was the man who discovered the body of Mary Ann Nichols. But a recent TV documentary suggested that Letchmere was actually the killer. The programme suggested that because of his route home from work to his home, he must have reached the site where Nichols’ body was found before he said. Letchmere also lived at the centre of the area where the murders took place, with 4 of them happening on his route from where he worked to where he lived.
Letchmere was also a butcher, so could have walked home covered in blood without suspicion.
The evidence against Letchmere is circumstantial.
VERDICT? NOT PROVEN
James Maybrick
A diary purported to be written by Maybrick was published in the 1990s. Maybrick was a Liverpool cotton merchant whose wife poisoned him. The diary contained an admission that he was the Ripper.
However the publisher of the diary, Michael Barrett, admitted he forged the diary in 1995 with his wife, though she later denied this after the two divorced. Historians have shown there are historical errors in the descriptions of the crime, and the handwriting does not match Maybrick’s handwriting in his will. And the ink used in the diary was not sold until 1974.
VERDICT? NOT GUILTY