Robert Donston Stephenson (also known as Roslyn D'Onston) (20 April 1841 – 9 October 1916) was a British writer and journalist, chiefly known for having been made a potential suspect in the

Jack the Ripper Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London, England, in the autumn of 1888. In both criminal case files and the contemporaneous journalistic accounts, the killer wa ...

investigation and for his personal theory as to the identity of the murderer.

Involvement

Mary Ann Nichols Mary Ann Nichols, known as Polly Nichols (née Walker; 26 August 184531 August 1888), was the first canonical victim of the unidentified serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, who is believed to have murdered and mutilated at least five women i ...

, the first victim generally acknowledged to have been killed by '

', was found about 150 yards from the

London Hospital The Royal London Hospital is a large teaching hospital in Whitechapel in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is part of Barts Health NHS Trust. It provides district general hospital services for the City of London and Tower Hamlets and spe ...

, on 31 August 1888. Stephenson had been staying at the hospital since 26 July and left on 7 December. His profession, and his private studies of the 'occult sciences', made him take a more than average interest in the evolving murder series. At the London Hospital the murders were, as elsewhere, the major subject of conversation. After witnessing one Doctor Morgan Davies performing a demonstration of how the murderer may have been subduing and killing the victims, Stephenson found Davies' behaviour suspicious, and brought the story to George Marsh, an ironmongery salesman professing to be an amateur detective. George Marsh, on his side, found Stephenson to be the more suspicious character, and went to the

Scotland Yard Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's 32 boroughs, but not the City of London, the square mile that forms London's ...

. One of the officers, Inspector Roots, immediately recognized the suspect by description as being a man he had known for 20 years – Robert Donston Stephenson: ''"a travelled man of education and ability, a doctor of medicine upon diplomas of Paris and New York: a major from the Italian Army – he fought under Garibaldi: and a newspaper writer".'' From Roots's report it may seem that Stephenson was cleared of suspicion without further ado. According to

Maxim Jakubowski Maxim Jakubowski (born 1944) is a crime, erotic, science fiction and rock music writer and critic. Jakubowski was born in 1944 in England to Russian-British and Polish parents, but raised in France. Jakubowski has also lived in Italy and has tr ...

and Jonathan Braund "it appears that his (Stephenson's) cultured manner and eagerness to assist the police with arcane knowledge evoked their admiration rather than their suspicion". Stephenson's interest in the crimes eventually led to an article in the

Pall Mall Gazette ''The Pall Mall Gazette'' was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood. In 1921, '' The Globe'' merged into ''The Pall Mall Gazette'', which itself was absorbed int ...

, presenting his own

theory A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be s ...

about the

motivation Motivation is the reason for which humans and other animals initiate, continue, or terminate a behavior at a given time. Motivational states are commonly understood as forces acting within the agent that create a disposition to engage in goal-dire ...

and identity of the murderer, based upon the character of the crimes and a possible

clue Clue may refer to: People with the name * DJ Clue (born 1975), mixtape DJ * Arthur Clues (1924–1998), Australian rugby league footballer * Ivan Clues * Tim Cluess Arts, entertainment, and media ''Clue'' entertainment franchise * ''Cluedo'' ...

found in

Goulston Street The Goulston Street graffito was a sentence written on a wall beside a clue in the 1888 Whitechapel murders investigation. It has been transcribed as variations on the sentence "The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing". The mean ...

. According to Stephenson the murderer would have to be a practician of "black magic" as the parts removed from the victims bodies could be used for ritual purposes. Stephenson's theory also referred to a possible clue found in Goulston Street where, after the murder of

Catherine Eddowes Catherine Eddowes (14 April 1842 – 30 September 1888) was the fourth of the canonical five victims of the notorious unidentified serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, who is believed to have killed and mutilated a minimum of five women in ...

on 30 September, in

Mitre Square Mitre Square is a small square in the City of London. It measures about by and is connected via three passages with Mitre Street to the south west, to Creechurch Place to the north west and, via St James's Passage (formerly Church Passage), to ...

, a piece of her bloodied apron was left under a sentence neatly written in chalk, at the entrance of a 'model dwelling' with Jewish tenants. A written copy was taken down, registering the writing as saying'': "The Juwes are the men that Will not be Blamed for nothing"''. Two weeks later, on 17 October, after noticing that the Chief Commissioner of the

Metropolitan Police The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...

, Sir

Charles Warren General Sir Charles Warren, (7 February 1840 – 21 January 1927) was an officer in the British Royal Engineers. He was one of the earliest European archaeologists of the Biblical Holy Land, and particularly of the Temple Mount. Much of his mi ...

, had been claiming that ''"no language or dialogue is known in which the word Jews is spelled JUWES"'', Stephenson wrote a letter to the City Police, claiming that a similar word did indeed exist.

Suspected

Stephenson later fell under the suspicion of newspaper editor

William Thomas Stead William Thomas Stead (5 July 184915 April 1912) was a British newspaper editor who, as a pioneer of investigative journalism, became a controversial figure of the Victorian era. Stead published a series of hugely influential campaigns whilst ed ...

, the writer

Mabel Collins Mabel Collins (9 September 1851 – 31 March 1927) was a British theosophist and author of over 46 books. Life Collins was born in St Peter Port, Guernsey. She was a writer of popular occult novels, a fashion writer and an anti-vivisection campa ...

and her friend Baroness

Vittoria Cremers Vittoria Cremers (''Vittoria Cassini''; born c. 1859), was an Italian Theosophist. Early years Cremers was born in Pisa, Italy, and was the daughter of Italian Manrico Vittorio Cassini and his British wife, Agnes Elizabeth Rutherford. Career Cre ...

. Cremers told

Aleister Crowley Aleister Crowley (; born Edward Alexander Crowley; 12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947) was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, painter, novelist, and mountaineer. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the pro ...

that Stephenson was a doctor and had committed the Whitechapel murders as part of a magic ritual and that the sites of the murders, when joined on a map, formed a calvary cross (which is untrue). The suspicion was not merely caused by Stephenson's preoccupation with "black magic". He had been, by his own account, in love with a prostitute, and had contracted venereal disease from others. The fact that Stephenson's wife seemingly disappeared in 1886 has led to the otherwise unsupported speculation that he may have killed her. According to Jakubowski and Braund, Stephenson claimed to have killed others, and that he was keeping ties stained with human blood, as well as being the owner of candles made from human fat. Collins and Cremers' theory was later resurrected by

Richard Whittington-Egan Richard Whittington-Egan (22 October 1924 – 14 September 2016) was a British writer and criminologist, the author of ''Liverpool Colonnade'' and ''Liverpool Roundabout'', two colourful chronicles of Liverpool's historical characters, crimes and ...

in ''A Casebook on Jack the Ripper'' and subsequently developed by the author Melvin Harris in ''Jack the Ripper: The Bloody Truth'' and its two sequels. Crime writer

Colin Wilson Colin Henry Wilson (26 June 1931 – 5 December 2013) was an English writer, philosopher and novelist. He also wrote widely on true crime, mysticism and the paranormal, eventually writing more than a hundred books. Wilson called his phil ...

praised the research done by Harris but concluded it didn't prove any connection between Stephenson and Jack the Ripper. Jakubowski and Braund state that the major problem with Stephenson as a suspect is that the idea is heavily reliant on his own testimony, both as to "the depth of his heartlessness and iniquity and as to his activities". Whilst Cremers, the principal witness, was closely linked to Aleister Crowley and Stephenson's "air of mystery and his somewhat theatrical, throwaway boast of wickedness" seem to anticipate Crowley's own romancing, the statements about blood and candles may have been theatrical props specifically designed to have the effect which they had – to frighten two impressionable women. Author Ivor Edwards also named Stephenson as the Ripper in his book ''Jack the Ripper's Black Magic Rituals'' published by Penny Publishing (2001) and Blake Publishing (2002).

Dismissal

In 2007, British researcher Mike Covell received the hospital protocol from London Hospital Museum Curator Jonathan Evans that patients in the Currie & Davis Wards of the London Hospital, where Stephenson had been since July 1888, were unable to leave the premises at the time the murders occurred in the East End. Hospital protocol prevented non-patients from entering the Wards at night. Author Michael Newton dismissed Stephenson as a suspect, commenting he had "no evident link to the crimes".Newton, Michael. (2006). ''The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers''. Fact on File, Inc. p. 134. In 2011, Researcher Spiro Dimolianis noted that London Hospital night-shift rosters and practices indicate that Stephenson was not able to leave on the nights of the murders and hence could not have been Jack the Ripper.Dimolianis, Spiro (2011). ''Jack The Ripper & Black Magic: Victorian Conspiracy Theories, Secret Societies & the Supernatural Mystique of the Whitechapel Murders''.

McFarland & Company McFarland & Company, Inc., is an American independent book publisher based in Jefferson, North Carolina, that specializes in academic and reference works, as well as general-interest adult nonfiction. Its president is Rhonda Herman. Its former ...

. pp. 80–86. For example, Dimolianis has written: :With the close time frame of the discovery of the body of Annie Chapman, noted in witness and medical inquest testimony for her murder on 8 September 1888 around daybreak, it would have been impossible for Stephenson to comply with this London rule breakfast at 6 A.M. without alerting staff if he was the killer. As the murder and mutilation of Chapman is a confirmed Jack the Ripper crime, this fact alone discounts and eliminates Stephenson of suspicion for the Whitechapel murders.

Involvement

Suspected

Dismissal

References

Further reading