Читать книгу The Diary of Jack the Ripper - The Chilling Confessions of James Maybrick - Shirley Harrison - Страница 13

Druitt, described erroneously as a doctor, was a barrister, but had also become a schoolteacher at Mr Valentine’s school in Blackheath by the time of the murders. He was mysteriously dismissed and was found drowned in the Thames at Chiswick in December 1888, his pockets full of stones. The body had been in the water for about a month. Macnaghten named Druitt as a suspect largely because his body was discovered soon after the Kelly murder, the assumption being that Druitt’s mental state had collapsed just before his suicide. Macnaghten also claimed that he had access to ‘private information’ that Druitt’s own family believed him to be the killer and that Druitt was ‘sexually insane’. He added that ‘the truth will never be known.’

By contrast, in 1903, Inspector Abberline of the Metropolitan Police, who had been in charge of detectives investigating the Whitechapel murders, said: ‘I know all about that story but what does it amount to? Simply this. Soon after the last murder in Whitechapel the body of a young doctor was found in the Thames but there is absolutely nothing beyond the fact that he was found at that time to incriminate him.’ Nevertheless Montague John Druitt remains among the front-running suspects.