Although Macnaghten put Thomas Cutbush forward as a Ripper suspect, he did state: ‘No one ever saw the Whitechapel murderer; many homicidal maniacs were suspected, but no shadow of proof could be thrown on any one. 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.’
So why did he mention Cutbush?
In 1891 Cutbush was arrested and charged with maliciously wounding two women in Kennington, south London. When arrested he was found to be in possession of a long knife that he had used in his attack on the women.
Cutbush is said to have studied medical books by day and wandered about at night, often returning home with his clothes covered with mud. However, little reliance could be placed on these statements, which were made by his mother or his aunt, both of whom appear to have been of a very excitable disposition. It was impossible to ascertain his movements on the nights of the Whitechapel murders and there was no evidence to suggest he was ever in Whitechapel. The knife found on him at the time of his arrest was bought in Houndsditch about a week before he was detained.
It was thought that Cutbush also spent a portion of his day making rough drawings of the bodies of women and of their mutilation. This supposition was based solely on the fact that two scribbled drawings of women in indecent poses were found torn up in his room. The head and body of one of the women had been cut from a fashion plate and legs were added to show a woman’s naked thighs and pink stockings.
I regard the police’s suspicion of Cutbush as clutching at straws. After the main Ripper inquiry was scaled down, a number of officers still worked on the case and, as I noted earlier, these would have looked closely at anyone committing similar crimes involving a knife. Cutbush was one of a number of people interviewed for this reason. Very little is known about him, which makes it difficult even to suggest he had any motive for the killings. At the time there was nothing more than I have mentioned here to suggest he was the killer, nor has anything else come to light since, and I have no reason to suspect otherwise now.