Thomas Hayne Cutbush

Thomas Hayne Cutbush was born in 1866 in Kennington, a district about 3 miles from 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 left Thomas' mother Kate and young Thomas when he was only 2 and went to New Zealand where he married again.[1] He was an only child, his mother Kate never married again. [2] Kate and her unmarried sister Clara brought Thomas up. It has been suggested they were very religious women who suffered from neurological disorders but Kate doted on her only son. [3]

The young man showed serious behavioural 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 behaviour. During the day, he isolated himself in order to read medical books,[3] and during the nights he wandered around Whitechapel, jumping over the walls of houses in the neighbourhood with astonishing speed and agility.

He was obsessed with the idea that someone was slowly poisoning him. [3]

It is presumed that Thomas contracted syphilis because of his activities with prostitutes in 1888, and from there his behaviour 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.[4]

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 committed 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.[5][6][7]

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.[8] Sir Melville also suggested that Thomas was closely related to Superintendent Charles Cutbush,[3] who committed suicide in 1896, a few years after retiring from the Metropolitan Police, but in fact they were not related at all. [9]

In more recent times, the name of Thomas Hayne Cutbush returned as a possible suspect of being the infamous 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.[10] This hypothesis had followers, who later gave their support in later works.[11] However, given that there was no familial relationship between Thomas Haynes and Charles Cutbush these works have led people away from any truth.

• Jack the Ripper suspects

• 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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