Jack the Ripper and Black Magic

4 Suspect Dr. Roslyn D’Onston Dr. Roslyn D’Onston, alias of Robert Donston Stephenson,1 was first brought to the attention of Scotland Yard as a suspect for the Whitechapel murders by George Marsh, an unemployed East End ironmongery salesman. In his statement to police on December 24, 1888, Marsh concluded, “From his manner I am of opinion he is the murderer in the first six cases, if not the last one.” The questioning officer, Inspector Thomas Roots,2 an experienced detective with the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), did not share Marsh’s suspicions. Roots noted in his summary report of December 26, 1888, to the supervisor of the case, Chief Inspector Donald Swanson, that as D’Onston had voluntarily approached Scotland Yard, “I was under impression that Stephenson was a man I had known 20 years I now find that impression was correct.”

Upon release of the official files in the late 1970s, crime historians decided that D’Onston’s involvement, enough to generate a police file, deserved further attention. If he was not Jack the Ripper, what, then, was the nature of his interest in the murders? Why did he suggest his own tenuous suspect, Dr. Morgan Davies, in his police statement of December 26, 1888? The rediscovery of D’Onston in the Scotland Yard files (now lost) encouraged further speculation. However, neither his alibi as a patient of the London Hospital nor his plausibility as Jack the Ripper have been established. Compared to Roslyn D’Onston, wishful suspects such as James Maybrick, Walter Sickert and Lewis Carroll are rather symptomatic of novel and literary speculative treatments.

A suspect who presents himself cannot be discounted in an unsolved serial murder case.

A confirmed police suspect may later be eliminated, however, the details add to knowledge of the historic police investigation. D’Onston since 1987 has been placed on an equal historical footing with the “Macnaghten three,” Kosminski, Montague Druitt and Michael Ostrog.3 Among other nominal police suspects such as Thomas Cutbush and George Hutchinson, Roslyn D’Onston has assured himself of a claim to infamy as a Jack the Ripper suspect.

As D’Onston can be firmly placed in the East End during the murders, he remains a credible but minor suspect without further corroboration. Until the rediscovery of Chief Inspector John Littlechild’s American suspect Francis Tumblety in 1993, D’Onston remained a viable contender, despite being discounted on the tenuous grounds of his published claims and occult leanings. If one compares primary sources on D’Onston with substantial but 74