DDT - Deambulações DeMentes Teóricas 44

The Serial Killer - Part XXIV

Thomas Neill Cream was known as the Lambeth Poisoner.A scottish-born serial killer, who claimed his first proven victims in the United States and the rest in England, and possibly others in Canada and Scotland.

 In August 1879 Kate Gardener, a woman with whom he was alleged to have had an affair, was found dead in an alleyway behind Cream's office, in Ontario, pregnant and poisoned by chloroform. Cream claimed that she had been made pregnant by a prominent local businessman but then, after being accused of both murder and blackmail, fled to the United States.

Cream established a medical practice not far from the red-light district in Chicago, offering illegal abortions to prostitutes. He was investigated in August 1880 after the death of Mary Anne Faulkner, a woman on whom he had allegedly operated, but he escaped prosecution due to lack of evidence.

In December 1880 another patient, Miss Stack, died after treatment by Cream, and he subsequently attempted to blackmail a pharmacist who had made up the prescription.

On 14 July 1881, Daniel Stott died of strychnine poisoning at his home, after Cream supplied him with an alleged remedy for epilepsy.

Using money inherited from his father, who had died in 1887, Cream sailed for England, arriving in Liverpool on 1 October 1891. He went to London and settled into lodgings at Lambeth, ridden with poverty, petty crime and prostitution.

On 13 October that year, Ellen "Nellie" Donworth, a 19-year-old prostitute, accepted a drink from Cream. She was severely ill the next day and died on 16 October from  strychnine poisoning.

On 20 October, Cream met with a 27-year-old prostitute named Matilda Clover. She became ill and died the next morning; her death was at first attributed to her alcoholism.

On 2 April 1892, after a vacation in Canada, Cream was back in London where he attempted to poison Lou Harvey (née Louise Harris) who, being suspicious of him, pretended to swallow the pills he had given her. She secretly disposed of them by throwing them off a bridge into the River Thames.

On 11 April, Cream met two prostitutes, Alice Marsh, 21, and Emma Shrivell, 18, and talked his way into their flat where he offered them bottles of Guiness. Cream left before the strychnine he had added to the drinks took effect. Both women died in agony.

The motivation for the series of poisonings has never really been settled. It has generally been assumed that Cream was a sadist who enjoyed the thought of the agonies of his victims (even if he was not physically present to witness these). However, Cream was always greedy: from the start of the series of crimes Cream wrote blackmail notes to prominent people; and the poisoning of his one known male victim, Daniel Stott, was in the hopes that Stott's wealthy widow would now share the deceased's estate with him.

Only three of these are known, but there may have been others who were approached. 

Cream's downfall came through an attempt to frame two respectable and innocent doctors. He wrote to the police accusing these fellow doctors of killing several women, including Matilda Clover. Not only did the police quickly determine the innocence of those accused, but they also realized that there was something significant within the accusations made by the anonymous letter-writer: He had referred to the murder of Matilda Clover. In fact, Clover's death had been noted as natural causes, related to her drinking. The police quickly realised that the false accuser who had written the letter was the serial killer now referred to in the newspapers as the 'Lambeth Poisoner'.

Not long afterwards, Cream met a policeman from New York City who was visiting London. The policeman had heard of the Lambeth Poisoner, and Cream gave him a brief tour of where the various victims had lived. The American lawman happened to mention it to a British policeman who found Cream's detailed knowledge of the case suspicious.

The police at Scotland Yard put Cream under surveillance, soon discovering his habit of visiting prostitutes. They also contacted police in the United States and learned of their suspect's conviction for a murder by poison in 1881.

On 13 July 1892, Cream was charged with murdering Matilda Clover. From the start he insisted he was only Dr. Thomas Neill, not Dr. Thomas Neill Cream, and the newspapers usually referred to him as Dr. Neill in their coverage of the proceedings. His trial lasted from 17 to 21 October that year. He was convicted and sentenced to death.

Less than a month after his conviction, on 15 November, Dr Thomas Neill Cream was hanged on the gallows. As was customary with all executed criminals, his body was buried the same day in an unmarked grave within the prison walls.

Billington claimed that Cream's last words on the scaffold were "I am Jack The..." Billington promoted this alleged incident as proof that he was responsible for executing the notorious Victorian serial killer Jack the Ripper. These claims remain unsubstantiated, as police officials and others who attended the execution made no mention of any such event. Records show Cream was in prison at the time of the last three Ripper murders in 1888. As he was still imprisoned at the time of the Ripper murders, most authorities consider it impossible for him to be the culprit. However, Donald Bell suggested that he could have bribed officials and left the prison before his official release, and Sir Edward Marshall-Hall suspected that his prison term may have been served by a look-alike in his place. Such notions are unlikely, and contradict evidence given by the Illinois authorities, newspapers of the time, Cream's solicitors, Cream's family and Cream himself.