The Suspects Mentioned in the Macnaghten Memoranda
The police interviewed hundreds of people as suspects at the time but without any success. And it wasn’t until some of the senior police officers were looking back at the case that some of the names that are still talked about began to be mentioned.
One of the documents that can make the eyes of a student of these murders light up is a document known as the Macnaghten memoranda. This was a document written by Melville Macnaghten who became Assistant Chief Constable of the Metropolitan Police in June 1889; the year after the murders.
The memoranda begins by attacking a sensational story that had appeared in The Sun newspaper about a young man called Thomas Cutbush who was charged with stabbing the rears of Florence Grace Johnson, and Isabella Fraser Anderson, in Kennington. The paper suggested that Thomas Cutbush was Jack the Ripper.
Macnaghten wrote his memoranda in part to throw scorn on this idea after which he said:
“Now the Whitechapel murderer had 5 victims -- & 5 victims only, -- his murders were
31st August, '88. Mary Ann Nichols -- at Buck's Row -- who was found with her throat cut -- & with (slight) stomach mutilation.
8th Sept. '88 Annie Chapman -- Hanbury St.; -- throat cut -- stomach & private parts badly mutilated & some of the entrails placed round the neck.
30th Sept. '88. Elizabeth Stride -- Berner's Street -- throat cut, but nothing in shape of mutilation attempted, & on same date
Catherine Eddowes -- Mitre Square, throat cut & very bad mutilation, both of face and stomach.
9th November. Mary Jane Kelly -- Miller's Court, throat cut, and the whole of the body mutilated in the most ghastly manner --
The last murder is the only one that took place in a room, and the murderer must have been at least 2 hours engaged. A photo was taken of the woman, as she was found lying on the bed, without seeing which it is impossible to imagine the awful mutilation.
With regard to the double murder which took place on 30th September, there is no doubt but that the man was disturbed by some Jews who drove up to a Club, (close to which the body of Elizabeth Stride was found) and that he then, 'mordum satiatus', went in search of a further victim who he found at Mitre Square.
It will be noted that the fury of the mutilations increased in each case, and, seemingly, the appetite only became sharpened by indulgence. It seems, then, highly improbable that the murderer would have suddenly stopped in November '88, and been content to recommence operations by merely prodding a girl’s behind some 2 years and 4 months afterwards. A much more rational theory is that the murderer's brain gave way altogether after his awful glut in Miller's Court, and that he immediately committed suicide, or, as a possible alternative, was found to be so hopelessly mad by his relations, that he was by them confined in some asylum.
No one ever saw the Whitechapel murderer; many homicidal maniacs were suspected, but no shadow of proof could be thrown on any one. I may mention the cases of 3 men, any one of whom would have been more likely than Cutbush to have committed this series of murders:
(1) A Mr M. J. Druitt, said to be a doctor & of good family -- who disappeared at the time of the Miller's Court murder, & whose body (which was said to have been upwards of a month in the water) was found in the Thames on 31st December -- or about 7 weeks after that murder. He was sexually insane and from private information I have little doubt but that his own family believed him to have been the murderer.
(2) Kosminski -- a Polish Jew -- & resident in Whitechapel. This man became insane owing to many years indulgence in solitary vices. He had a great hatred of women, specially of the prostitute class, & had strong homicidal tendencies: he was removed to a lunatic asylum about March 1889. There were many circumstances connected with this man which made him a strong 'suspect'.
(3) Michael Ostrog, a Russian doctor, and a convict, who was subsequently detained in a lunatic asylum as a homicidal maniac. This man's antecedents were of the worst possible type, and his whereabouts at the time of the murders could never be ascertained.”
Macnaghten’s three suspects still get mentioned by researchers and tour guides so they are worth a closer inspection. So we will take look at them in the next posts.
Well I hope I’ll get to meet you if you decide to take a Jack the Ripper walk. I hope you will choose to join me on my Jack the Ripper tour through Whitechapel. Thank you for checking out this post. This is Richard Walker saying goodbye.