New Ripper suspect's ritual killings obeyed occult decree

Whitechapel prostitutes were victims of a surgeon who studied the black arts, claims author

Amelia Hill
Sunday July 28, 2002
The Observer

Jack the Ripper was not a serial sexual killer but an occultist called Robert Donston Stephenson who terrorised London's East End while indulging in a sadistic form of Satanic worship.
According to a new book that claims to prove conclusively the identity of the mass murderer, the Ripper's true motive was to kill four prostitutes as the occult decreed and, in so doing, profane the Christian cross.

Public fascination with Jack the Ripper has barely faltered since the first murder, on 31 August 1888, when 45-year-old Mary Ann Nichols was murdered and mutilated at a spot patrolled every 30 minutes by policemen.

Three new books speculating on the killer's identity will be published this autumn, while films, including last year's From Hell, starring Johnny Depp and Heather Graham, are based on the crimes.

Patricia Cornwell, one of the world's most successful crime novelists, is working on a BBC Omnibus documentary that will conclude the killer was artist William Sickert. Her belief is based on his obsession with the subject - his depiction of what was believed to be the last murder led to speculation that he was the Ripper.

But in Jack the Ripper's Black Magic Rituals, author Ivor Edwards claims that despite being repeatedly overlooked by Ripperologists, Stephenson, alias Roslyn D'Onston, was the killer.

'Certain points in relation to these crimes have never been satisfactorily explained and, in fact, many have been ignored,' said Edwards, who has spent the past nine years investigating the murders.

'One avenue, which was never explored by the police of the day, mainly due to their ignorance, was occult ritual murder, including the doctrine that certain organs should be removed from murdered prostitutes, killed at pre-arranged sites, which were to be located at the four points of the compass.'

During his research Edwards realised that the victims were carefully laid facing north, east, south and west. 'How do you calculate the probability of finding four bodies randomly distributed in a city so that they form the precise points of a cross?' he asked.

He then did what no other researcher has done before: measure the distances from victim to victim and take compass bearings to discover if there was a pattern between the sites where the women were murdered.

'I found that by joining some of the sites together, you created two equilateral triangles; a sacred symbol which, in occult doctrine, Satan devised to be used in worship of him,' Edwards said. By joining the sites in a different way, a Christian cross was revealed.

After examining the position of the fifth and last victim, 25-year-old Marie Jeanette Kelly, Edwards realised that all the women were killed within a 500-yard radius and that, by joining the sites together, it was possible to create the Vesica Piscis, a fish-like symbol worshipped by the early Christians. By murdering his victims and leaving their bodies in that way, the killer intended a tribute to Satan.

Edwards said the organs removed by the Ripper - the heart, kidneys, genitalia and womb - were those routinely used in black magic rituals.

'Such practices were common on the west coast of Africa at the time and my suspect was known to travel to the west coast in search of occult knowledge and even went so far as to write on the subject,' Edwards said.

Stephenson, an occultist and military surgeon who lived near the site of the murders at the time they were committed, was arrested twice for the crimes but was released each time.

An exceptionally intelligent and educated man, Stephenson was obsessed with black magic and confessed to the murder of at least two people during his travels in Africa.

He was from a wealthy family but had been cast out after marrying his mother's maidservant, Anne Deary, in 1876.

After he was turned down for a job with the Metropolitan Police, the couple made what money they could through Stephenson's writings on the occult, which included One Who Knows and Tautriadelta .

Deary disappeared in 1887 and was never seen again. However there were suspicions that a dismembered body found in a river near the Stephenson's Brighton home later that year was hers.

With his wife out of the way, Stephenson spent his time in the company of prostitutes.

On 26 July 1888, he moved to London, signing himself in as a private patient at the London Hospital, Whitechapel, complaining of neurosthenia, a complaint whose cure lay in rest, fresh air and a light diet.

'Why would a man suffering with a complaint that requires nothing more than a rest move from a renowned health resort by the sea to a dirty, acrid, polluted area like Whitechapel?' Edwards asked.

He believes the reason was so he would be in a place where the police were least likely to look for a killer.

According to Edwards, Stephenson spent a month planning the murders with such precision that the police were unable to trace him and, despite partial admissions that led four friends to report him as a likely suspect to police, he remained at large, writing long articles exhibiting intimate knowledge of the murders for the Pall Mall Gazette .

In 1904 Stephenson published a book, The Patristic Gospels, which continued to explore his obsession with the world of black magic, but after that he was never heard of again. No record of his death has been found.

 amelia.hill@observer.co.uk