Montague Druitt was one of the men suspected of being,Jack the Ripper. Many consider Montague Druitt to be thenumber one suspect, in the ripper case.
Perhaps one of the only reasons why Druitt is considered the number one suspect in the Jack the Ripper case is down to the timing of his death. Druitt committed suicide by jumping into theThames shortly after the murder of Mary Ann-Kelly, in December 1888. Mary Ann-Kelly is the last known victim of Jack the Ripper. Part of the ripper mystery is 'why' Jack the Ripper stopped killing. Certainly it is an important piece of the puzzle to solve. However, just because Montague Drutts death roughly coincidences with the end of the ripper murders, is not enough evidence to tell us that he was the ripper.
The only reason to suggest that Druitt was Jack the Ripper was the coincidental timing of his death, apart from that, there doesn't really seem to be any evidence which suggests that he was Jack the Ripper. Which is incredible, considering many see him as the prime suspect. Druitt was only considered to be a suspect almost a decade after the ripper murders stopped. The first time that Montague Druitt was considered a Jack the Ripper suspect was in February, 1894. By Sir Melville Macnaghten. He gives us three men who he suspects as being Jack the Ripper, in his The Macnaghten Memoranda.
Druitt is the first man he lists as being Jack the Ripper. Macnaghten doesn't provide any evidence as to he believes Druitt to be the ripper. Instead, Macnaghten seems to just be speculating. This is what he writes, and why he believes Druitt to be the killer: ''I may mention the cases of 3 men, any one of whom would have been more likely than Cutbush to have committed this series of murders: (1) A Mr M. J. Druitt, said to be a doctor & of good family -- who disappeared at the time of the Miller's Court murder, & whose body (which was said to have been upwards of a month in the water) was found in the Thames on 31st December -- or about 7 weeks after that murder. He was sexually insane and from private information I have little doubt but that his own family believed him to have been the murderer.''
The only interesting thing that Macnaughten mentions is that Druitts family thought he was the ripper, but everything else he writes about Druitt provides no evidence that he was the killer. His reason for concluding that Druitt was the killer was Druitts time of death, and that he was ''sexually insane''. He could have being saying that Druitt was sexually insane because he was either thought to have been gay, or abusive towards his students. Neither accusations stand up with any evidence. We also have no evidence that Druitts family thought of Druitt as Jack the Ripper, we only have Macnaughtens word for it.
It is also worth noting that he was not considered a suspect by police at the time. The head of the ripper case, Frederick Abberline dismissed Druitt as a suspect, believing that his time of death was just coincidence. Abberlines initial theory is probably correct about Montague Druitt. There are several reasons to believe this. The main reason to believe that Druitt was not Jack the Ripper is because of a lack of evidence. The timing of his suicide seems to be the prime motivation for Druitt being a ripper suspect, however, there was most likely many men who died in the same month Druitt did. Druitts death stands out because it is so public. From what we do know about Druitt, it is probably unlikely that he was Jack the Ripper. The problem that we have with Druitt, and with all of the suspects is that there is very little, to no evidence which suggests they are the killer. If there was, we still wouldn't be speculating about who Jack the Ripper was.
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