Michael Ostrog Was A Jack the Ripper Suspect
Michael Ostrog was the third name that Melville Macnaghten put forward as a suspect in his memorandum of 1894.
Ostrog was born in Russia sometime around 1833, so at the time of the murders in 1888, he was in his mid-50s.
The FBI’s Violent Crimes Manual and other researchers say that the majority of serial killers are white males aged between 25 and 35. Which would certainly exclude Ostrog. Of course, that alone doesn’t prove his innocence.
When he was around 30 years of age, he emigrated to England and attracted police attention in 1863 when he committed a robbery at the University of Oxford. On that occasion, he was using the name Max Grief. He received a ten-month prison sentence.
Then, in 1864, just after he was released from prison, he was arrested for a series of frauds committed in Cambridge, and he served a three-month prison sentence.
He didn’t learn his lesson because in December 1864, he committed another fraud, and that got him ten months behind bars.
Then, in August 1866, he was sentenced to seven years for stealing gold watches in Maidstone. When he was released in 1873, he immediately committed more thefts.
He was taken to Burton upon Trent police station, where he pulled a gun on the police officers. This got him a ten-year prison sentence.
Released in 1883, he stayed out of prison until 1887, was arrested when he stole a trophy from a cricket match and was sentenced to six months in prison.
At this point, you might believe that either Ostrog was not cut out for the life of a criminal or he had discovered that for those living in poverty, the harsh conditions of Victorian prisons were an improvement on the harsh conditions of Victorian society at large.
He was freed in March 1888, the year of the Jack the Ripper murders.
So yes, he would have been just in time to switch from petty theft and fraud to becoming a cold-blooded killer of homeless women.
However, in 1888, he ended up in France, where he was sentenced to prison for robbery.
He returned to England, and in 1891, he was admitted to a Surrey asylum.
However, he spent the next three years again alternating between more unsuccessful criminal activity and the inevitable time behind bars.
There are no records for him after 1904, so it is believed this is when he died after an eventful three score and ten years.
Despite Melville Macnaghten’s inclusion of Michael Ostrog in his memorandum, he would seem a very unlikely candidate for the role of Jack the Ripper.
And thanks to investigations carried out by Phillip Sugden we can clear him of all suspicion.
The Complete History of Jack the Ripper by Phillip Sugden
In his book The Complete History of Jack the Ripper, Phillip Sugden writes about Ostrog’s arrest in France:
“It should be noted that the date 14 November 1888, five days after the murder of Mary Kelly, was that of Ostrog’s conviction. The conviction record does not tell us when Ostrog re-entered France that year, or even when he stole the microscope. That information might be established by further research. But crucially, it does tell us the date of his arrest by the French police in Paris - 26 July 1888.”
So Michael is off the hook. He could not have committed the five murders that took place between August 31st and November 9th 1888, because he was under lock and key in Paris from the 26th of July through to his conviction on the 14th of November 1888.
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