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Frederick Deeming
By: Tanya McColgan
Published: 8 May 2024
TRUE CRIME
Readers discretion is advised. This article contains graphic content and depictions of violence or other 'adult' content.
The greatest criminal of the nineteenth century, but was Deeming the most infamous serial killer - Jack the Ripper?
Deeming a globetrotting murderer, killing two of his wives and four children, assumed multiple identities and reputed occupations which lured many into his web of lies. Captured in the small goldfields’ town of Southern Cross in Western Australia, his transfer back to Melbourne, involved a night spent at the Albany Convict Gaol.
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The devious Deeming and his sensational instalments of murders, fraud and bigotry is without a doubt a true crime narrative that makes for exceptional reading.
The greatest criminal of the nineteenth century, first became known to the world through the discovery of the body of his third wife, Emily Mather's which unravelled Deeming's decade of multiple aliases that would expose his life of crime. These revolting and vile acts would cement his name in history as one of the world's first recorded serial killers and who some suspected of being Jack the Ripper.
From The Illustrated Police News, 16th April, 1892. Copyright, The British Library Board.
The unearthing of the greatest criminal of the nineteenth century
The charismatic, Frederick Bailey Deeming (b. July 30, 1853) in Leicestershire, England deployed a career of seducer and conman with his striking good looks, blue eyes and sported a distinctive fair moustache. At age 12, he was a plumber's apprentice, by sixteen he ran away to sea and began a career of crime. A teenage Deeming found a woman, Min Cooper, dead on the front doorstep of his home in England, her throat had been cut. Deeming was a suspect in the Cooper death, a case which was never solved.
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Deeming first became known to the world, as Albert Williams, when police were called to a home at 57 Andrew Street, Windsor in Melbourne after a putrid smell was reported on the 3 March 1892. John Stamford, a butcher who owned the Andrew Street property, had let the home to Deeming under the alias Frederick Druin. Mr Druin had complained to Mr Stamford that the walls of the house were full of nail holes, and he intended to repair them with cement. Several weeks later, Mr Stamford attended the property to collect overdue rent and discovered the home was empty. He rented the property to new tenants and they reported that a vile smell was emanating from the bedroom. Two Stamford police officers were sent to investigate the home and unearthed the decomposing body of Emily Lydia Mather (30 years old) under the hearthstone of a bedroom fireplace. Her corpse was jammed inside a small cavity, then covered with cement.
A postmortem revealed that Mather's head had been severally fractured by a heavy object and her throat had been cut. The investigators used luggage tags recovered from the Andrew's property to trace the identity of Mr Druin to a German Steamship Kaiser Wilhelm II that arrived in Melbourne on December 15, 1891. The description of Mr Druin matched that of a passenger listed as Mr Albert Williams and was accompanied by a woman named Emily, believed to be his wife. The passengers of the steamship reported that Mr Williams was loud and boastful, leading the investigators to another character who had boarded a vessel bound for Perth, Western Australia on January 23, 1892, under the name Baron Swanston.
The discovery of five bodies on March, 16 1892 in Rainhill, England some two weeks after the body of Emily Williams at the Windsor home in Melbourne, coincidentally mirrored identical circumstances and unearthed a monster and the true identify of Albert Williams.
Photo (Right): Studio portrait of Emily Mathers was taken in Liverpool prior to her marriage to Deeming.
Illustration: Of the room at the Home at Windsor. The position in which the body was found.
Photo reproduced: The House in which the Windsor Murder was committed.
Source: The History of a Series of Great Crimes on Two Continents, third edition, p. 7 OMG 184, Collection of the National Trust of Australia (Victoria)
The Whitechapel Murderer - "Jack the Ripper"
In the Whitechapel district of London's East End in 1888, over the course of approximately two months a serial killer had brutally murdered five women, each victim had their throat cut and body mutilated indicating the murderer had considerable knowledge of the human anatomy. The victims were known as the “canonical five” Mary Ann Nichols (whose body was found on August 31), Annie Chapman (found September 8), Elizabeth Stride (found September 30), Catherine (Kate) Eddowes (found September 30), and Mary Jane Kelly (found November 9), all victims are assumed to have been prostitutes.
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The first victim Mary Ann Nichols was stabbed multiple times, the second was Annie Chapman who was strangled, and her uterus and part of her vagina removed. On September 30, Elizabeth Stride had her throat slashed and the same night, Catherine Eddowes had her face mutilated, stabbed, and left kidney and womb removed. The final victim was, Mary Jane Kelly, her body so badly dismembered, her left arm was partially removed, her abdominal cavity was empty, her breasts and facial features were cut off, and she was severed from her neck to her spine. Her dismembered organs and body parts were placed in different areas around the room, and her heart was missing.
The line up of Jack the Ripper suspects included Prince Albert Victor, the Grandson of Queen Victoria, Francis Tumblety who posed as an "Indian Herb" doctor throughout the United States and Canada, Aaron Kosminski, a 23-year-old Polish barber and the prime police suspect at the time and a lesser-known English native - Frederick Bailey Deeming.
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Some dozen murders between 1888 and 1892 have been speculatively attributed to Jack the Ripper, but only five of those, all committed in 1888, were linked by police to a single murderer.
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Originally known as the "Whitechapel Murderer" and the "Leather Apron" a letter was sent to the police station where the writer claimed to be the infamous serial killer, signing the note with the name "Jack the Ripper". The "Dear Boss" letter was a message allegedly written by the notorious murderer addressed to the Central News Agency of London, dated 25 September 1888, the letter was postmarked and received by the Central News Agency on 27 September. The letter itself was forwarded to Scotland Yard on 29 September.
Dear Boss,
I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they wont fix me just yet. I have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track. That joke about Leather Apron gave me real fits. I am down on whores and I shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled. Grand work the last job was. I gave the lady no time to squeal. How can they catch me now. I love my work and want to start again. You will soon hear of me with my funny little games. I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with but it went thick like glue and I cant use it. Red ink is fit enough I hope ha. ha. The next job I do I shall clip the ladys ears off and send to the police officers just for jolly wouldn't you. Keep this letter back till I do a bit more work, then give it out straight. My knife's so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get a chance. Good Luck.
Yours truly
Jack the Ripper
Dont mind me giving the trade name
Wasnt good enough to post this before I got all the red ink off my hands curse it. No luck yet. They say I'm a doctor now. ha ha
The arrest of Albert Williams aka Baron Swanston, Frederick Druin
On March 6, 1892, the prime suspect is established as the last tenant of the Andrew Street property - Albert Williams and the next day an arrest warrant was issued. Notices appeared in the Victorian Government Gazette and the Victoria Police Gazette offering a reward of £100 for information which will lead to the arrest and conviction of Albert Williams. A detailed description of Williams’ dress and manner was also included.
A coastal shipping company employee informed police of seeing a man fitting Williams’ description boarding a vessel bound for Perth, Western Australia however the man called himself Baron Swanston. Victorian Police issued a ‘warrant for the arrest of Williams’ aka Baron Swanston to every settlement in Western Australia. A description of Swanston was provided including jewellery he may be wearing, his attire including his distinctive moustache and an English accent.
In the small mining town of Southern Cross in Western Australia, the Baron had taken a job as an Engineer at the Fraser Gold Mine. The Baron was arrested by Police Constable Evan Williams at 1pm on 11 March 1892, eight days after the discovery of Emily Mathers body. Constable Williams informed the Melbourne detectives, that the man they were looking for was in lock-up in Southern Cross in the disguise of Baron Swanston. It was reported that at the time of arrest he was carrying a knife, an axe, and a black cloak. Williams aka Baron Swanston had been arrested on March 11.
Williams was taken under armed escort from Southern Cross to Perth for an extradition hearing, where he would be returned to Victoria to be tried for the murder of Emily Lydia Mather.
Furious demonstrations were made on the journey to Perth with a large crowd waiting at Perth Central Railway station, however Williams was taken off at the nearby Lord St. station and taken to the Waterside Lockup.
At the lockup, an inventory was taken of a trunk filled with Williams’ possessions. Among its contents was a silver case with “Emily” engraved on the outside with one pair of gloves inside. There also was a double photo frame containing two photos, one of Williams and a little girl and the other of a family - a father, mother and three children, a pocketbook containing a timetable of trains to and from Rainhill and St. Helen’s Junction, one small battle-axe with a very sharp blade, one master mason’s apron with an F.B.D. monogram and a book of Common Prayer with “December 26, 1889 Emily,” written on the leaf of the cover.
Williams’ extradition hearing took place on March 24, 1892, in the Perth Police Court, where he held frequent conferences with his counsel, Richard Haynes, QC and Det. Cawsey, who had sailed from Melbourne, to personally escort Williams back to trial. Williams lawyer desperately fought extradition on the grounds that his client could not have a fair trial in Melbourne as the angry mob that had formed outside the Perth courthouse demonstrated this. The extradition order was granted, and Williams was placed in the custody of Cawsey.
By the time of the arrest of Albert Williams, aliases Mr. Druin and Baron Swanston, reached the people of Victoria via the blazing headlines: “Windsor Murderer Arrested,” Det Sgt. Considine and Cawsey knew him by yet another name, only this time it was the real identity - Frederick Bailey Deeming.
Photo (above): The murder weapons found in Deeming's luggage when arrested in Southern Cross, Western Australia.
Photo (above): Detective Cawsey, Inspector Kennedy and Detective-Sergeant Considine were the Victorian police officers entrusted with the task of capturing the culprit of the Windsor murder. Cawsey led the team of police that extradited Deeming from Western Australia to face trial in Melbourne.
A brush with death
Deeming, who had just murdered his wife at Windsor, endeavoured to replace Emily by another wife carefully procured from a matrimonial agency, and later proceeded to woo a new fiancée.
Kate Rounsefell is best known for only narrowly surviving being the next victim of Deeming. Around January 12, 1892, Deeming took his passage from the Melbourne port to Sydney onboard the steamer S.S Adelaide in the name Baron Swanston and by chance met fellow passenger Miss Rounsefell, an attractive, 22 year old, English woman who was travelling from Broken Hill.
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Beginning the romance with outstanding gallantries, Deeming before the S.S Adelaide could arrive at the port of Port Jackson, he had made an offer of marriage to Kate. Miss Rounsefell declined but accepted his escort to the Wentworth Hotel for lunch and agreed to take a trip with him in the afternoon to Coogee. He loaded her with compliments, he swore he loved her faithfully, and he placed a diamond and sapphire ring of great value on her finger. Miss Rounsefell, gave her avid suitor her permission and promised, if her sister in Bathurst would consent to marrying him, she is his. The couple journeyed to Bathurst and Kate's sister, Lizzie was surprised at the proposal, but offered no objection.
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An article in the West Australian newspaper, dated May 24, 1892 under the headline "THE WINDSOR MURDER" wrote: "Deeming placed two more rings which had been robbed from the body under the hearthstone, and an opal brooch taken from the same grim hiding place. Then they talked over their future home, and Miss Rounsefell, hearing that her prospective husband was an engineer, suggested Western Australia as the colony which offered most chance of advancement to a man of such hardy and resolute temperament. Deeming caught eagerly at the idea. "
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​Deeming went ahead to Western Australia and sent for her when a home was rented and prepared. Kate was in Melbourne waiting for a ship to Perth when her sister read about Deeming's arrest in the newspapers, telegraphing her "For Gods sake go no further." Kate didn't know what she meant until seeing people gathered around a newspaper stand discussing Deeming's arrest, she fainted and was carried back to the hotel where detectives were waiting.
Photograph (above): Kate Rounsefell, reproduced in The History of a Series of Great Crimes on Two
Continents, first edition, p. 7. OMG 182, Collection of the National Trust of Australia (Victoria).
After his arrest Deeming wrote to Kate, pleading his innocence and asking her for money to pay his solicitors, instructing her to sell the jewelry he had so generously given her to meet legal expenses. Kate would later testify against Deeming at the Windsor Murder Inquest.
Oh the web, Deeming wove
In 1881, Deeming married his first wife, Birkenhead woman Marie James and they would have four children. The Deeming’s moved to Australia in 1882, where they had two daughters. Deeming worked as a plumber and gasfitter and spent six weeks in prison in Sydney in 1882 for theft, returning to gas fitting work as his own proprietor when he was released. In 1887 he found himself in trouble again on charges of fraudulent insolvency, knowing the sentence would be lengthy, he fled Sydney with his family while out on bail.
Being a family on the run, the timeline between 1887 and 1889 is unclear, but it is believed that the family returned to England shortly after their third child, a son who was born at sea in 1887. Sometime in 1888 or 1889 Frederick spent time in Cape Town, South Africa and was involved in a diamond mine scam, returning to the UK with a considerable fortune.
It appeared Marie and Frederick became estranged, and Marie settled in Birkenhead while Frederick rented in Beverley, near Hull. It is believed that Marie gives birth to their fourth child, a girl in July 1891. Soon after Frederick’s arrival in Beverley he became a suitor for the hand of Miss Helen Nelly Matheson, representing himself as Harry Lawson, a retired Australian sheep farmer. On February 18, 1890, Deeming married Helen Matheson, a bigamous marriage and deserted her shortly after their honeymoon, taking the gifts and money with him.
From Hull he went to Birkenhead, met with Marie, gave her money, and told her he was travelling to South America and would send for her and the children. His crimes had caught up with him and before he left, he swindled a jeweller in Hull and by the time he arrived in South America he was sent back and sentenced to nine-months prison.
After his release in July 1891, using the Albert Williams' alias, he posing as an officer in the British Indian Army, he rented a home called Dinham Villa, then wooed his landlady’s daughter, Emily Mather, who would become his “third” wife. Shortly before his marriage to Emily, his existing wife Marie and their four children arrived unexpectedly, and Williams told neighbours that his sister and her children were visiting him.
Photograph (above): Frederick Deeming and his wife Marie James.
A Family's Disappearance
In March 1892, Liverpool Police had been pursuing an inquiry into the disappearance of a woman and her children. The inquiry started in connection with the arrest of Williams, who was charged with murdering a woman in Windsor. Police later found Deeming had murdered his wife and children and buried them in cement under the floor of the Rainhill house he had rented using the alias of Albert Williams.
Those who remembered the Mrs “Marie” Williams in Rainhill recalled the wife as being nothing like the “Emily Williams” found dead at the house in Windsor and she was older, shorter and with a much darker complexion. It appeared that there had been two Mrs. Williams.
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With Deeming safely locked up awaiting extradition to Melbourne, the detectives set about trying to find the missing Mrs. Deeming and the children. The only lead was an invitation found in the Dinham Villa to a dinner given by Albert Williams at the Commercial Hotel in Rainhill.
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Now believing that an Albert Williams may exist, Considine and Cawsey telegraphed the Lancashire police asking them to investigate the dinner. If possible, they wanted them to find Mr. Willliams and ask him if he could shed any light on Frederick Deeming’s missing wife and young family.
Local police inquiries led them to the Rainhill newsagency, which was owned and operated by a Mrs. Mather who was the mother of Emily Williams of Windsor, Victoria. She collapsed when told of her daughter’s death.
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Mrs. Mather explained that she also ran a Rainhill letting agency. Her daughter had met Mr. Williams when he arrived in Rainhill in late October 1891. He rented a house named Dinham Villa for his employer, a Colonel Brooks, who was allegedly arriving from India shortly. The colonel never turned up.
Liverpool police who visited Dinham Villa, broke in and were confronted with yet another putrid smell. When Police defined the source of the smell, they pulled the fireplace apart in the kitchen and removed the hearthstones to find the bodies of a woman and two children, all in an advanced state of decomposition. The corpses were wrapped in oilcloth. The woman lay upon her back, while the two children were turned with their faces downward, lying one on either side of her. They found another two children embedded in cement. Marie and their daughter Bertha (9 yrs.) had been strangled, and Marie (7 yrs.), Sydney Francis (5 yrs.) and Lilla (18 months) had had their throats cut. Police found a book with the name Deeming crossed out and Williams added. Police were left with little doubt that Deeming and Williams were in the same person.
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Two men from Liverpool came forward at the inquest and identified the woman, as Marie James, and the children as being the wife and family of their brother, Frederick Deeming. The brothers provided information of their brother and that he had married Marie James in 1881. The two girls, Bertha, and Marie were born in Sydney. In the mid-1880’s the Deeming family spent some time in South Africa and their third child, a boy named Sydney, was born at sea.
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Deeming and his wife returned to England in 1890 and a baby girl named Lilla was born at Birkenhead in July 1891. After a brief stay with his brothers, Deeming and his family disappeared, obviously to nearby Rainhill, where it appeared Deeming kept their identities concealed. Having met Emily Mathers’ and having no further use for his wife and four young children, their fate was sealed, and he murdered them and concealed their bodies under the floor in the kitchen. Deeming married Emily Mather on September 22, 1891, and took his bride to Australia onboard the Kaiser Wilhelm II. Williams left yet again unpaid bills in both Rainhill and London.
Illustration (above): The Murders at Dinham Villa, Rainhill, London.
Illustration (above): The Murdered Children - Bertha (9 yrs.), Marie (7 yrs.), Sydney Francis (5 yrs.) and Lilla (18 months).
Albany Convict Gaol
At 11:00am on March 27, 1892, Williams, Cawsey, three armed police officers, and two reporters boarded the train at Midland Junction for a 250-mile overnight rail trip to Albany, where it was to meet the S.S. Ballaarat, which was travelling to Adelaide.
Due to the media frenzy of Williams arrest, the word had spread through the west that the child and wife murderer was passing through on his way to Albany and the train was met by angry crowds shouting, “Lynch him,” “drag him out” and “pull him to pieces with bullocks.” The crowd rocked the train carriage and broke a window.
At Albany, the train stopped about fifty yards from the Albany Convict Gaol and transferred to the care of the Gaol Governor, Mr. McGovern.
The following morning the detained Williams together with Det. Cawsey, Constable Williams, who had arrested him at Southern Cross and Det. Smyth from Albany would board the SS Ballaarat at 5:00am to Adelaide and then from there the group would take a train to Melbourne.
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Once inside the Albany Gaol, it is reported that Williams’s or the confident character of Baron Swanston had returned, and he proclaimed his innocence to a keen audience. He joined in games of draughts/checkers with his gaol keepers and was given a medical check-up that showed he was in good health but noted that his wrists were swallow, bruised and open wounds due to the handcuffs that were never removed. He was placed in Cell 15 for the night.
Come morning, to the disbelief of his minders, Williams was missing his most distinctive large moustache. In Williams’s prison clothes they found a piece of a glass bottle and found inside his cell the neck of a medicine bottle and a piece had been broken off the bottle and used as a razor, it also appeared the Williams had plucked most of his moustache out.
To the concern of Det. Cawsey the missing moustache made Williams look completely different and that the moustache could decide the prosecution’s case.
Photographs (above): Frederick Bailey Deeming
The trial and execution of Albert Williams
The nationwide hostility toward Williams continued and when the SS Ballaarat dropped anchor at Larges Bay in South Australia two days later, a large and aggressive crowd had already formed at the Port Adelaide wharf. Det. Cawsey, Constable Williams and Det. Smyth decided to continue the voyage to Melbourne rather than risk the prisoner being snatched and lynched on the train journey from Adelaide to Melbourne.
At 9:00 a.m. on April 2, 1892, the SS Ballaarat anchored in Port Phillip Bay and Williams was whisked away to Police Court. He was formally charged with the murder of Emily Lydia Williams (nee Mather). He was asked his real name and he refused to answer and was charged as Albert Williams.
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Deeming’s sensational murder trial in Melbourne included claims that since he had contracted Syphilis, his dead mother's ghost regularly woke him at night urging him to kill. A prison physician had also testified that Deeming told him that he had gone out several times with a revolver, searching for women that may have given him syphilis and to kill them. The trial was front page news around the globe and saw more than 10,000 people gathered near the gaol and in the streets, celebrating his death.
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The trial of Frederick Bailey Deeming began on May 2, with the accused being charged in the name of Albert Williams and found guilty of murder, despite a plea of insanity by his lawyer – Alfred Deakin, the future Prime Minister of Australia.
Six doctors examined Deeming, but not one could unequivocally confirm that he was insane. The trial lasted four days and Doctors suggested that he suffered from epileptic fits, which were recorded by his escorts from Perth to Albany. Deeming is reported to have had three seizures, one violently lasting for over an hour that attributed to his wrist wounds. It was confirmed that he was certainly infected with Syphilis that may have also impaired his cognitive functions including fantasising about his past.
Dr. Shields, the medical officer of the prison and present at the execution of Deeming, said that “I have frequently conversed with him but cannot believe anything he says.” Regarding whether the accused knew the difference between right and wrong, Shield said Deeming told him, “That stealing for example, was a matter of conscience. Murder was also permissible in certain circumstances.” He said that Deeming had told him that several times he had gone out with a revolver searching for women who had given him venereal disease, intending to kill them.’
Ignoring the advice of his own lawyer, Deeming took the stand and the public got to hear the ramblings of a cold-blooded monster and the audience was not at all disappointed. Deeming delivered his final performance with precision… “I don’t think there has ever been a man brought into court that has ever been prejudged more than I.” Deeming denied that his wife Emily was dead and showed no remorse. Deeming’s avid ego could not be silenced, and he began his boastful ways including details of his conquests and his victorious and brave expeditions to all ends of the earth, condemning everyone and everything that slighted him. His hour-long speech did not peruse the jury and the audience not only saw a man so tightly woven in his own self-importance, but a man also that committed the ghastliest acts, the man that would be known as the greatest criminal of the nineteenth century.
The last few days before he was executed rumours of his possible connection to the Whitechapel Murders in London’s East End continued, there was also rumours that Deeming had confessed to two of the Whitechapel Murders but were ignored as police believed he was trying to stall the date with the gallows.
Frederick Deeming spent his last week’s penning an autobiography of his life. English publishers offered him £1000 for the rights to his writings, but it is believed the Australian government destroyed it when he was executed and may have shed some light on the Whitechapel Murders.
Noted in the archives of the Victorian Government Gazette, dated June 3, 1892. It reads.
EXECUTION. The subjoined Certificate and Declaration touching the execution of Albert Williams, at Her Majesty’s Gaol at Melbourne – are published pursuant to the provisions of the Crimes Act 1890. W.P Firebrace, Prothonotary of the Supreme Court of Victoria.
Prothonotary’s Office Melbourne
25th May 1892.
I, Andrew Shields, being the medical officer in attendance on the execution of Albert Williams, at the Gaol of Melbourne, do hereby certify and declare that I have this day witnessed the execution of the said Albert Williams at the said gaol. And I further certify and declare that the said Albert Williams was, in pursuance of the sentence of the Supreme Court, hanged by the neck until his body was dead. Given under my hand this twenty-third day of May in the year of our Lord One thousand, eight hundred and ninety-two.
Illustration: The Windsor Tragedy - Inquest.
Source: Australasian News, Friday, 1 April 1892, p. 14. Courtesy of State Library of Victoria.
Was Deeming the Ripper?
The New York Times reported in April 1892, “Deeming has confessed to his lawyer and doctors who examined him that he committed the majority of Jack the Ripper crimes in the Whitechapel district of London.”
The mystery of Jack the Ripper taunts us more than a century later. In recent years renewed interest into Jack the Ripper has emerged and in 2019, forensic scientists claimed they have finally figured out the identity of Jack the Ripper with genetic tests published that pointed to Aaron Kosminski, a 23-year-old Polish barber and prime police suspect at the time. But critics say the evidence is not strong enough to declare this case closed. The results come from a forensic examination of a stained silk shawl that investigators said was found next to the mutilated body of Catherine Eddowes, the killer's fourth victim, in 1888. The shawl is speckled with what is claimed to be blood and semen. Other critics of the Kosminski theory have pointed out that there is no evidence the shawl was ever at the crime scene. It also could have become contaminated over the years, they say.
In recent years renewed interest into Deeming likely being Jack the Ripper, has been gaining traction as it is now believed that Deeming may have been in England at the time of the killings in 1888. The theory hinges on key similarities between Deeming and the Ripper. Jack the Ripper is believed to have detestation of sex workers, consistent with someone that may suffer from neurosyphilis, which involves, mood disturbances such as irritability, personality changes, changes in sleep habits, and forgetfulness. Late symptoms include labile mood, memory and judgment impairment, confusion, delusions, and seizures. One of the victims mutilated was Catherine Eddowes found 30 September and the last know sighting of Eddowes was at 1.35am, she was seen talking to a fair moustache man.
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A dressmaker during the time of the Windsor and Rainhill Murders, positively identified Deeming as a man she knew as Lawson, who courted her in London at the time of the Ripper Murders. Like the Ripper, Deeming liked to cut his victims throats however with the Ripper it was using surgical dissecting knives although these where not used in the murders Deeming was known to have committed, a jeweller in Melbourne claimed that shortly after Deeming arrived from England he asked to clean a pair of blood-stained surgical knives.
Illustration: The front page of The Illustrated Police News featuring sketches of two suspects (centre), October 20, 1888
With Deeming’s alleged admission in Melbourne and the Windsor and Rainhill murders committed with a similar ritual of that of the Whitechapel murders, he refused to either confirm or deny the allegations, he was the Ripper. Then there are Deeming’s alleged admissions of contracting syphilis from a prostitute and his penchant for knives.
Definitive evidence to solve the murders is elusive and is highly unlikely the case will ever be closed.