11:51am Friday 14th July 2006
By Faith Eckersall
IT'S taken more than 100 years but could the name of Dorset man Montague Druitt finally be cleared of Britain's most gruesome murders?
For the past century Druitt, whose grave lies in Wimborne Minster cemetery, has been a prime suspect of the Jack the Ripper killings, accused of strangling, stabbing and mutilating at least five women victims in seedy Whitechapel in 1888.
As the son of a leading surgeon, Druitt fitted the bill for those who argued that the killer's ruthless and precise methods of mutilation and organ removal suggested a medical background.
And he was also damned by the comments, written in a memorandum, by investigator Inspector Macnaughten.
After Druitt's drowned corpse was recovered from the Thames, Macnaughten said: "From private information I have little doubt that his own family suspected this man of being the Whitechapel murderer. It was alleged that he was sexually insane."
However, Scotland Yard's Crime Museum has revealed that its new chief suspect is Aaron Kosminski, a poor Polish Jew, resident in Whitechapel at the time of the slayings.
Kosminski was the prime suspect for the officer in charge of the case, Chief Inspector Donald Swanson, whose descendants formally handed over his personal papers relating to the investigation yesterday.
But the evidence against Kosminski still seems scant. He was allegedly seen near the site of one of the killings and was known to suffer with auditory and paranoid delusions.
He was incarcerated in a lunatic asylum where he eventually died in 1919, having nothing more violent recorded against him than brandishing a chair.
Despite a celebrated investigation by crime novelist Patricia Cornwell in 2002, which put the artist Walter Sickert in the frame, Druitt's name has always led a crowded field of suspects including conman Michael Ostrog, royal physician Sir William Gull, bogus doctor Francis Tumblety and Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence.
The case continues to exert a peculiar fascination more than 100 "Ripperologists" visited Bournemouth five years ago to watch the unveiling of a plaque at the Holdenhurst Road home of Inspector Frederick George Abberline, who worked on the case.
Whether they will be satisfied by the latest revelations remains to be seen. Perhaps Montague Druitt will have to wait a little longer before he can rest in peace. And so will the victims.
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