D'Onston's Police File

[auspirograph]

There is no doubt that D'Onston was interviewed by police in relation to the Ripper investigation and that he is today still considered a viable but weak contemporary suspect. There is of course no firm case yet to be made against any reasonable police candidate.

Although he was dismissed at the time of being the Whitechapel murderer, modern interest in him has been active since at least 1958 and continues sporadically. He resided in the East End at the time and is known to have taken a keen interest in the murders bringing him to the attention of Scotland Yard.

Regardless of the numerous pieces of circumstantial, secondary and theoretical sources advanced and developed for his suspect status, D'Onston's consideration as the perpetrator of the brutal crimes during the Autumn of Terror rests primarily on the following items from the known official files:

* 16th October 1888 - D'Onston writes to the City Police from his London Hospital bed. CLRO Police Box 3.23 No 390 (Corporation of London Record Office).

* 24th December 1888 - George Marsh makes a statement to Scotland Yard taken by Inspector Thomas Roots.

* 26th December 1888 - D'Onston makes a statement to Scotland Yard also taken by Inspector Roots.

* 26th December 1888 - Inspector Thomas Roots of Scotland Yard writes his summary report and forwards it with the statements of D'Onston and Marsh routinely to Chief Inspector Donald Swanson. Inspector Roots also records that both Marsh and D'Onston made statements and dismisses him as a suspect for the Whitechapel murders by way of Roots' previous acquaintance with him.


Although D’Onston’s letter to the City Police on 16 October 1888 has a file reference at the London Record Office, his Metropolitan Police documents are now missing. They were copied and noted during the 1970’s as Under MEPO 3/141, ff. 32-135 and lost before the files were deposited at the Public Record Office in the late 1980’s.

REFERENCE: The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook, Stewart P. Evans & Keith Skinner, Robinson 2001.

[Mike Covell]

"There is no doubt that D'Onston was interviewed by police in relation to the Ripper investigation and that he is today still considered a viable but weak contemporary suspect. There is of course no firm case yet to be made against any reasonable police candidate."

Even though he was in the London Hospital at the time of the muders (1)

"Although he was dismissed at the time of being the Whitechapel murderer, modern interest in him has been active since at least 1958 and continues sporadically. He resided in the East End at the time and is known to have taken a keen interest in the murders bringing him to the attention of Scotland Yard."

"Resided" name your sources Sir (??)

* [I]"16th October 1888 - D'Onston writes to the City Police from his London Hospital bed. CLRO Police Box 3.23 No 390 (Corporation of London Record Office)."[/I]

So he was in his hospital bed, not residing?

If Root's and/or Swanson seriously thought that Stephenson was a viable candidate for the role of the ripper, wouldn't they have arrested him, with a view to questioning him, and ultimatly charging him with the crimes?




Sources,
1, 1888 LH/M/1/16 and
16th October 1888 - D'Onston writes to the City Police from his London Hospital bed. CLRO Police Box 3.23 No 390 (Corporation of London Record Office).

Other than that a great presentation of the known Police Files.

Mike

[Howard Brown]

There is no doubt that D'Onston was interviewed by police in relation to the Ripper investigation and that he is today still considered a viable but weak contemporary suspect.- Mr. Dimolianis

He's not even a suspect anymore. He served a purpose and that was to draw people into Ripperology. Thank you Donston.



Although he was dismissed at the time of being the Whitechapel murderer, modern interest in him has been active since at least 1958 and continues sporadically. He resided in the East End at the time and is known to have taken a keen interest in the murders bringing him to the attention of Scotland Yard.

That and a dollar will buy a fellow a cup of coffee at the 7-11. Many people took a "keen interest" in the Whitechapel Murders at that time....in the East End and West End.


D'Onston's consideration as the perpetrator of the brutal crimes during the Autumn of Terror rests primarily on the following items from the known official files:

* 16th October 1888 - D'Onston writes to the City Police from his London Hospital bed. CLRO Police Box 3.23 No 390 (Corporation of London Record Office).

* 24th December 1888 - George Marsh makes a statement to Scotland Yard taken by Inspector Thomas Roots.

* 26th December 1888 - D'Onston makes a statement to Scotland Yard also taken by Inspector Roots.

* 26th December 1888 - Inspector Thomas Roots of Scotland Yard writes his summary report and forwards it with the statements of D'Onston and Marsh routinely to Chief Inspector Donald Swanson. Inspector Roots also records that both Marsh and D'Onston made statements and dismisses him as a suspect for the Whitechapel murders by way of Roots' previous acquaintance with him.

Thats some "consideration" considering he walked in Scotland Yard and walked back out the same day.

The bottom line, dear newbies and old heads...is that we now are looking at the "New Wave" of pro-Donston theory.

Was he a male between the ages of 8 and 80 ? Yeah.
Did he live in the East End or reside somewhere near there? Yeppers !
Did he have two legs,a head and two hands? Yowsuh !
Did he know how to write? Absolutely.
Voila ! He's a suspect.

The only thing remotely close to the word suspicious about your post here is how you don't understand what I have been providing you as well as what Mike has been demonstrating.

Had the police suspected him BEFORE he be-bopped into Scotland Yard based on what Marsh had told the cops two days prior, he would have been detained and the Roots Report would have mentioned it. It doesn't. Did they follow him? Prove it. Did they question him a couple of days later? Prove it.

If Stephenson had known how to keep his mouth shut, Marsh would have never made him a cottage industry for yahoos and charlatans intent on making a buck out of an interesting character....but not a viable suspect.

Had RDS not acted like a damned fool and made himself appear culpable to Marsh in the first place, Marsh obviously would not have hippity-hopped down to the cops and chatted with Roots at all.

Once more, Stephenson was not a suspect after December 26th,1888.

For him to be a contemporary suspect in 1888 or 1889 or any year around that time, we have to go to Cremers and Collins. Here again, he falls short.

Once more, for those interested in this joke-suspect: Mabel Collins lived for nearly 40 years after her "relationship" with RDS and not once did this woman of letters ever mention anywhere to our knowledge...one word in favor of RDS being JTR.

Until some sort of documentation is provided to prove otherwise, Cremers' memoirs are fiction. They do not exist in and of themselves, except in the O'Donnell, and were either a fictionalized account by either Mr. O'Donnell or Cremers herself as the content of the "O.D." is simply ridiculous.