MY CRIMINAL MUSEUM.

NZ Truth, Issue 122, 19 October 1907, Page 7

MY CRIMINAL MUSEUM.

BY GEORGE R. SIMS.

The Running to Earth of Neil Cream.

On the night of April 11, 1892. or rather, m the early hours of April 12, a constable whose beat lay through Stamford-street, Blackfriars, saw a man being let out of one of th-3 houses by a young woman. It was then about two m the morning.

There was a street lamp on^osite the door, and m the light of this the constable had a good view of the man's side face.

The man appeared to be about 40; he had a heavy moustache, he had on a dark overcoat and high silk hat, and he wore "-lasses.

The man walked away from the house, and turned to the right, m the direction of the Lambeth Palace road. - Three-nuarters of an hour later this constable was again m Stam-ford-street. Standing at the door of the house which he had seen the man with the .glasses leave, was a fo*r-wheeled cab. A woman, evidently m great pain, was toeing carried to the cab t>V a policeman. The constable went into the house, and m a bedroom found another woman lying face downwards, screaming and writhing m, terrible aironv. He carried her to the cab. and the two constables drove with the sufferers to St. Thomas's Hospital. In the cab '■ ' ONE OF THE GIRLS, Alice Marsh, died. Emma Shrivell, -the other girl, was able to speak. In answer to the questioning of the Constables, she said that a •gentleIrian had been to the hou 5 "- -and h.ad had supper with them. He had sent the servant out for some bottled beer and some tinned salmon. Afterwards he had given each of then three "long pills," which they had taken. The constable who had been m Stamford-street when the visitor left asked, "Was that the man with the glasses that I saw you let out at two o'clock ?" The reply was "Yes." Shrivell lingered m terrible suffering for six hours after her arrival at the hospital. The first idea when the girls were brought m, and Shrivell s^qke of the tinned salmon she had eaten, was that they were cases of ptomaine noisoning, hut it was speedily ascertained that both deaths had been caused b^ the administration of strychnine. At this time all the police had to g-o upon was that the man who had given the girls the "long pills" was k"nown to them as "Fred," that he said he was a doctor, and that he had a heavy moustache and wore glasses. From that moment the task of the detectives was to find out if a man answering this description was known +<"* nnv other unfortunate woman m the neiahhnrhood : some of whom might be able to supply fuller nariviculnrs concerning him. Inquiries m this direction were at once made, but at first without .sue- • cess. "Rut the constable who had seen "Fred" leave Stamford-street, and had been, instructed to keep a close look-out for him. had met A MAN VERY LIKE HIM. It was not considered expedient to arrest this man because he looked like the one who had come out of the house, but observation was kept upon him. A difficulty had, however, arisen. A man living m the house m which the two girls had lodged, had seen the visitor "Fred," who came to supper and had had bottled "oeer and tinned salmon sent for. This man was placed m a position where he could see the suspect pass by. The suspect was known as Dr. Neil, and lived m rooms m Lambeth Palace-road. The man looked at Neil and shook bis head. "That's not the fellow." he said. "I'm certain it isn't." But m the meantime a number of young women had been quietly warned to be careful of a man wearing glasses, who might offer them what wore called "long nills," but which were really capsules. They were on no account to swallow the things, hui were to keep m touch with the man and communicate with the police.

Among the girls asked if she had ever seen a man named "Fred," who wore glasses, had a heavy moustache, and called himself doctor, there was one who instantly exclaimed. "Yes, I have." She had seen a man like that with a girl named Matilda Clover, who died on October. '11, of delirium tremens. "But I always believed," said the young woman. "that Tilly Clover was aoisoned." The girl then told the ■jptective how one evening she had .seen this man sro into a house m Lambeth-road with Clover, and the

next day she heard that Clover was dead.

That was the first time that Matilda Clover had ever been snoken of by anyone m connection with a sup^estion of poisoning.

But there was an astonishing document pigeon-holed at Scotland Yard. On November 30, 1891 Dr. Broadbent, the- eminent physician forwarded to the authorities a letter which he had received charging him with

HAVING ADMINISTERED POISON to a girl named Matilda Clover. The writer of the letter demanded £3000 to hush the matter up.

The letter, which was signed "Malony." mentioned strychnine as the cause of Matilda Clover's . death.

Now, Matilda Clover, according to the certificate of a doctor who had been personally attending her. died of "delirium tremens and syncope." There had been no inquest, and she had been buried by the parish.

On searching at Somerset House, the nolice found the death certificate, and, singularly enough, the certificate immediately nreceding it m the book was that of another girl, who was afterwards discovered to have been poisoned by "the man with the glasses" — a girl named Donworth. Now, for the first time there was m the possession of the police the fact that a man named > "Fred," who wore glasses, had visited Matilda Clover on the night of her death, and also the fact that a few ! fijours later a doctor was hurriedly | sent for to attend to her "m a fit." I Just as a tragedy had followed the [visit of the man with the classes m the case of Marsh and Shrivel, so had a tragedy followed his visit to Matilda Colver. The doctor had given a certificate of death from "alcoholism." But there was someone i"^ although there had been no inquest and no publicity, knew shortly after Clover's death from "alcoholism" that she had been poisoned by strychnine. That someone had sent a blackmailing letter to Dr. Broadbent. An order for the exhumation of the body of Matilda Clover was "at once issued. Fourteen coffins had to be taken out of the ground above her. Although so many months had elapsed, the action of the strychnine had preserved the organs of the body perfectly, and the experts had no DIFFICULTY IN FINDING STRYCHNINE. In the meantime inquiries at the house m which Clover had died elicited the fact that the ran with the glasses had offered the girl supper m her own anartm-ent, and had sent the servant out for "two bottles of beer and a ,tin of salmon." But the blackmailing letter to Dr. Broadbent, m which knowledge of the poisoning of Matilda Clover was shown, 'had still to be traced to the suspected "Dr. Neil." This man, who said 'he was a traveller for an American drug store, was now — it was an extraordinary feature of an extraordinary case — found to be on intimate terms with an ex-detective, to whom he made some remarkable statements. He had accused a voungi medical student, who had been his fellow-lodger m Lambeth Palace-road, of having poisoned Clover, Marsh. Shrivell, and a girj named Loo Harvey.

The ex-detective, who had made Neil's acquaintance quite accidentally was naturally astonised at such statements. He made a note of them, and duly communicated with the authorities. "

But there was, so far, no nroof that Neil was himself the poisoner. His statement was that he had discovered the guilt of his fellow-lod-ger. The man who lodged m the house as Clover declared, it must be remembered, that Neil was not her visitor on the fatal night. It was- at this time, m piercing the facts together, that the nolice referred to certain blackmailing letters which had been sent to the head of the firm of W. H. Smith and Son. A girl named Ellen Donworth had been found on the night of October 13, 1831, dying m terrible agony m the Waterloo-road. The inquest showed she • had swallowed a large dose of strychnine. The writer of the letter to Mr Smith signed himself "Bayne," and DEMANDED A HUGE SUM OP MONEY to be silent, as he knew Mr Smith had poisoned Ellen Donlworth. The coroner who investigated the cases of Shrivell and Marsh had also received an extiaordinar^ letter offerinsr information as to the "poisoner." Several letters of this kind were now m the hands of the police, but

they were not all m the same handwriting.

This was a point which had to be cleared up. A detective of the Criminal Investigation Department now succeeded m becoming friendly with Neil. As a matter of fact, Neil had actually gone to him to complain that he was being followed. The detective at once offered to find out if this was the case, and became his constant visitor, and by a clever ruse obtained from Neil at his lodgings a specimen of his handwritinig. He also discovered that the handwriting of the young lady to whom Neil was en-gaped was the same as that of the letters sent to the Coroner. The paper which Neil used m his lodgings was found by his friend the detective to be of American manufacture. The watermark upon, it was "Fairford Superfine." Knowing that af-ter the death of Clover a blackmailing letter had been sent to Dr. Broadbent. it was • suggested by one of the chief officers m charge of the case, that probably the father of the young medical student accused by Neil m conversation with his friend the cx-cletec-tive, had received a similar communication with regard to Marsh and Shrivell.

The father of the voun^ man was a doctor at Barnstaple. On being visited he said that he had received a letter charging his son with poisoning certain women, and demanding money for silence, but looking upon it as the work of SOME MEDICAL STUDENT

who had a grudge against his son, he had not taken any action upon it.

He produced the letter. It was signed "W. H. Murray." The paper bore the American watermark of "Fairford Superfine." Between the murders of Clover and Donworth and the murders of Marsh and Shrivell, it was known that Neil had visited America.

The case for the police was now complete, and Thomas Neil Cream, known as Dr. Neil, was arrested. On being searched there was found to .be m one of his pockets a memorandum . of the dates of the deaths of all the women, with their initials against the date. One of -the most important witnesses against the accused man was a girl named Loo Harvey to whom, on the Eon-bankment, he had given one of his capsules, urging" her to take it, as it would at once cure her of pains from which she was suffering. The Rirl pretended to take* the capsule, and the poisoner left her. telling her that she. would soon feel the benefit of what he had given her.

One of the dramatic moments at the police court proceedings was when Loo Harvey, ■whom Neil believed to be dead, stepped forward and identified him as "Fred" who had tried to make her swallow one of his "long pills." On October 20. 1892 the anniversary of the death of his unhappy victim, Matilda Clover. Thomas Neii Cream was sentenced to death at the Old Bailey. In consequence of certain affidavits put forward by him after his sentence, a respite of seven days was granted, but on November 15 he was duly executed within , the walls of Newgate. Neil Cream, the wholesale poisoner of women, was a maniac of a PARTICULARLY DIABOLICAL KIND, the kind for which the gaDows and not the asylums is the best place. In America he committed at leasb three murders. For the third he was sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to ten years' penal servitude, a clemency on the part of the American authorities for which at least half a dozen English women paid with their lives. He killed for. the joy of killing, and the dying agonies of the women were excitements which his demoniacal form of instanity craved for.

The gratification of a mad lust of cruelty was the one object of his murders — at least on this side of the Atlantic. He had absolutely nothing else to gain by them. The blackmailing letters that he sent to wellknown people after each crime were acts of sheer insanity. In one be demanded £300,000. He was a mad monster of a peculiar type. The nearest approach we have had to him' since his execution was George Chapman, who, curiously ..lough, also poisoned a girl named Marsh. Some of Neil Cream's crimes on the other side of the Atlantic, like some of Chapman's on this side, may have had a pecuniary motive underlaying them, but by both miscreants a number of women were deliberately poisoned solely for the gratification of a monstrous instinct.

I have not dealt so much with the story of

THE NUMEROUS CRIMES of Neil Cream as with the manner m which they were brought home to him. The task of bringing him to justice was far more difficult than

may appear at first sight. It is a fact that the advisers of the Crown, m spite of the evidence m their possession, were doubtful, almost to the last, if they would be able to obtain a verdict.

The evidence m the case of Matilda Clover was not of the strongest from tlie judicial point of view, and there was a doubt at one time if the evidence m the cases of . Marsh and Shrivell might be held to be legally admissable. There was no absolute proof to give to a jury that Neil Cream poisoned Clover, and it was for the murder of Clover "and other persons" that Cream was tried at the Old Bailey.

He was not arrested for 1 - murder, but on a charge of endeavoring to extract money by threats from the doctor whose son he had accused of the crimes m the latter with the "Fairford Superfine" water mark on the paper. On the night that Cream came back to Holloway, after listening to his counsel's magnificent speech for his defence, he was so elated that he sang and danced m. his cell, and on more than one occasion, so confident was he that the case against [him would break down, that he threatened the governor of the gaol with terrible pains and penalties for daring to compel him to appear at the Old Bailey m the clothes m which he had been arrested. It has been widely published that oh the scaffold Neil Cream exclaim. Ed, "I am Jack the "just as the bolt was drawn. Apart from the. fact that no man m the last stage of furious madness, as the perpetrator of THE DORSET-STREET HORROR must have been, could have lived to embark on a totally different series of atrocities, there is a perfect alibi. During the whole period covered by the Ripper's crime's Neil Cream was m prison on the other side of the Atlantic. He arrived iv London alter his release on October 1, IS9I, and he murdered his first victim. Ellen Donworth, on the 13th ol the same month. In the photograph of the room at Scotland-yard of Sir Melville Macnaghtcn, Assistant Commissioner of Police, and the head of the Criminal Investigation Department, will be seen a framed letter hanging on the wall. That letter is the one Neil Cream sent to I>r. Broadbent. It is the one m which he proved that, although Matilda Clover had been certified as dying from alcoholic excess, the writer knew that she had been poisoned with strychnine. Previous to his departure for America, where he went soon after the Clover murder. Cream made a will, by which he left all his property to the Wung lady to whom he was engaged to be married. This vouug lady. horrified to find that she had been duped into writing certain letters for Neil, gave up the will. This will, entirely m his handi writing, was a very formidable weajpon against him ia the hands of the police." When the letter to Dr. Broadbent was compared with the will the handwriting was FOUND TO BE IDENTICAL. But for the fact that the student of criminal history is constantly faced with the stupidity of the criminal, there would be nothing more remarkable m this case than the fatuity of the man who. having murdered solely for his personal gratification, and taken every precaution, as he thought; to avoid discovery, i immediately wrote blackmailing letters m which he showed guilty knowledge of secret murder.

After the case was over Mr Justice Hawkins complimented the police on the patience, tact, and ability they had shown m unravelling the mystery of the Lambeth poisonings. The running to earth of Neil Cream was a piece of detective work of which Scotland-yard has every reason to be proud.