Thomas Hayne Cutbush
Thomas Cutbush | |
---|---|
Born | Thomas Hayne Cutbush 29 June 1866 |
Died | 5 July 1903 | (aged 37)
Cause of death | Unspecified |
Occupation | Medical student |
Conviction(s) | Attempted murder |
Criminal penalty | Indefinite confinement in a psychiatric hospital |
Thomas Hayne Cutbush (1866 – 1903), nephew of a Scotland Yard superintendent, was a contemporary suspect for the identity of the serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, as he was accused by the British press shortly after the 1888 murders. He spent the rest of his days in detention in a psychiatric hospital, for inferring knife attacks against women.
Biography
Thomas Hayne Cutbush was born in 1866 in Kennington, a district relatively close to Whitechapel, and was 22 years old when the murders in London's East End occurred. He came from a respectable middle-class family, but his childhood was conflicted, since his father was an alcoholic who left the house when Thomas was a teenager. The young man was then taken care of by his mother and maternal aunt, very religious women who suffered from neurological disorders.
The young man showed serious behavioral problems in his initial job, from which he was almost immediately fired. In his second job, he was even worse as, infuriated, he pushed his old employer down the stairs. Once he was lost that job, Cutbush began showing extremely idle and extravagant behavior. During the day, he isolated himself in order to read medical books, and during the nights he wandered around Whitechapel, jumping near over the walls of houses in the neighborhood with astonishing speed and agility.
He was obsessed with the idea that someone was slowly poisoning him. This same compulsion was shared with his uncle, Scotland Yard Superintendent Charles Cutbush, who was later revealed to also be suffering from psychiatric disorders and eventually committed suicide in 1896.
It is presumed that Thomas contracted syphilis because of his activities with prostitutes in 1888, and from there his behavior became even more eccentric and aggressive. Before being arrested for committing serious crimes, he had already been detained due to improper and violent acts. He was locked up in the asylum in Lambeth, but that lasted only four days. Cutbush managed to escape by jumping the walls of the medical institution, once again displaying dexterity.
In 1891, he was convicted of stabbing two women in the buttocks – on two different occasions – in the middle of public roads. The victims were Florence Grace Johnson and Isabella Frazer Anderson, both from Kennington. Two years earlier, another man named Collicot perpetrated similar aggressions in the same area, and the police assumed that those attacks inspired Cutbush, who acted in a similar way.
Found responsible for these crimes by a medical board, and the doctors diagnosed him as psychotic and dangerous. After that, the British justice sentenced him to confinement and medical treatment for an indefinite period - until the patient showed signs of recovery, which he never did. His confinement was arranged for an indefinite period of time, being placed "at the order of her Majesty", according to an expression that was used at the time to describe these cases. The hospitalization was carried out in the Broadmoor Hospital.[1]
Contemporary and recent accusations
As of February 1894, the influential and sensational English newspaper The Sun accused, through a series of articles, Thomas Cutbush of being responsible for the murders consummated in London's East End. The public accusations did not give rise to the prosecution of criminal charges against the defendant, and police hierarchies even defended him, dismissing Cutbush nothing more than able to commit a single type of crime, not murder.[2][3][4]
The inmate's most noted defender was Sir Melville Macnaghten, Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard. In a famous police memorandum, he emphatically rejected Cutbush's alleged guilt and, instead, related the names of three others, outlining the reasons that led him to believe that those individuals were more plausible suspects to occupy the anonymous figure of Jack the Ripper.[5]
In more recent times, the name of Thomas Hayne Cutbush returned as a possible suspect of being the infamous prostitute killer. In 1993, author A. P. Wolf made the initial publication with the essay "Jack, the myth: A new look at the Ripper". There, the theory was offered that the police covered up the criminal's identity. The candidate proposed by the author precisely became this individual. It is argued that his anonymity as a murderer was achieved thanks to a police conspiracy, interested in not disclosing that the Ripper was a relative of a Scotland Yard Chief.[6] This hypothesis had followers, who later gave their support in later works.[7]
References
- ^ Gabriel Pombo, El monstruo de Londres: La leyenda de Jack el Destripador, Editorial Artemisa, Montevideo, Uruguay (2008), pp. 164–169.
- ^ Trevor Marriott, Jack the Ripper: The 21th century investigation, Editorial John Blake Publishing, Londres, Inglaterra, 2007, págs. 235-236.
- ^ Paul Begg, Jack the Ripper: The definitive history, Editorial Pearson Education Ltd, Londres, Inglaterra (2005), pp. 316–318.
- ^ Stewart Evans, Keith Skinner, The ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook, Editorial Constable and Robinson Ltd, Londres, Inglaterra, pp. 645–647.
- ^ Melville MacNaghten, Days of My Year, Editorial Hard Press, Londres, Inglaterra (2012).
- ^ A.P. Wolf, Jack, The Myth: A new look at the Ripper, Editorial Chivers North Amer, Londres, Inglaterra (1995).
- ^ Peter Hodson, Jack the Ripper: Through the mists of time, Editorial Pneuma Spring Publishing, Londres, Inglaterra (2011), pp. 201–202.
See also
External links
- Thomas Haynes Cutbush (suspect) on the digital site Casebook: Jack the Ripper
- Thomas and Charles Cutbush on the digital site Casebook: Jack the Ripper
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