Madman's notes throw new light on identity of Jack the Ripper
After years of secrecy, the Broadmoor authorities have released the medical records of a Victorian madman who was suspected of being the serial killer known as Jack the Ripper. [Broadmoor is a high-security psychiatric hospital at Crowthorne in Berkshire.]
Thomas Hayne Cutbush was a strange, disturbed and violent youth who was diagnosed as insane in 1891 and remained in Broadmoor until his death in 1903. During the period when the Ripper was on the rampage in Whitechapel, east London, Cutbush was wandering the area's streets. And the Ripper, whoever he was, did not kill again after Cutbush was locked up.
Visitors to the Berkshire Records Office in Reading can inspect the 26 documents that make up the records Broadmoor kept about Cutbush, as well as the letters from Ripper investigators pleading to see the documents.
Disappointingly, the documents do not prove that Cutbush and Jack the Ripper were the same man. There is not even evidence that the Broadmoor attendants or medical staff believed he was a murderer. But there is enough to keep Cutbush on the suspect list.
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Thomas Hayne Cutbush was a strange, disturbed and violent youth who was diagnosed as insane in 1891 and remained in Broadmoor until his death in 1903. During the period when the Ripper was on the rampage in Whitechapel, east London, Cutbush was wandering the area's streets. And the Ripper, whoever he was, did not kill again after Cutbush was locked up.
Visitors to the Berkshire Records Office in Reading can inspect the 26 documents that make up the records Broadmoor kept about Cutbush, as well as the letters from Ripper investigators pleading to see the documents.
Disappointingly, the documents do not prove that Cutbush and Jack the Ripper were the same man. There is not even evidence that the Broadmoor attendants or medical staff believed he was a murderer. But there is enough to keep Cutbush on the suspect list.