The Murder of James Maybrick or The Discovery of Jack the Ripper?

by Read Listen Learn

In March, 1880, the Liverpool cotton merchant, James ‘Jack’ Maybrick, was on a transatlantic liner from New York. At his side stood a pretty 18-year-old American girl, Florence Chandler. She was from a rich family; her father was a banker in Mobile, Alabama. The two had fallen madly in love and were already engaged to be married despite the large age gap: Maybrick was forty-two.

Just nine years later, Florence stood in the dock of a Liverpool court accused of the murder of her husband, James, by poison. The case was complicated in many ways. The poison said to have killed Florence’s husband was arsenic but he was already taking it on a routine basis for a medical complaint. He had often lived and worked in the south-eastern U.S., the cotton-growing region, in connection with his business. There, he had caught malaria and, at the time, one of the most effective treatments contained a lot of arsenic. Maybrick soon became addicted and then used his malaria as an excuse to dose himself with the drug. Yes, there could be no doubt that an excess of arsenic had killed him but was it just an accidental overdose?

There were other complications as well. The court trial had brought to light some ugly personal secrets. It seemed that Mr Maybrick was quite a womaniser, with mistresses on both sides of the Atlantic. Florence Maybrick had had two children with her husband but she now had a lover, another cotton merchant called Brierley. At this time in history, a married woman of social standing did not behave in this way, whatever her husband might have done. And, if they did, they did not go to public events, such as the horse-racing, and parade around with their lover on their arm. This counted against Florence Maybrick in many people’s eyes; particularly those of the judge.

In the end, the decision went against Florence Maybrick and she was sentenced to death by hanging. There was quite an outcry at this but, at the time, there was no appeals court. However, the case was specially reviewed and, in light of the judge’s obvious bias, the sentence was reduced to life imprisonment. Two years after passing his death sentence, the judge at Florence’s trial died in a mental hospital. Without doubt, he was mentally unwell at the time of the Maybrick trial.

Her case was newly re-examined in 1904, and Florence was released because of the many doubts and problems with the original trial. She returned to her native America. She never saw her two children again after her arrest in 1889. She died alone in 1941.

More than one hundred years after the death of James Maybrick, shocking new evidence emerged in the form of a diary. It appeared genuine and, though his name is not on the diary, there was enough personal information to make it clear that Maybrick must have been the author. However, the really frightening part was what the diary described: the murders of Jack the Ripper as though written by the murderer himself. Maybrick’s nickname (from boyhood) was made up of the first two letters of his first name and the last two letters of his last name, or surname, giving ‘JA – CK’.

Also, Maybrick had been addicted to arsenic which can lead some people to commit violent sexual crimes. Maybrick dressed as a gentleman at the time: witnesses near to the murders described such a ‘gentleman’ as being in the area just before the murders. Maybrick frequently travelled to London and Manchester by train, and many of his journeys coincide with the Ripper murders in London, plus two prostitutes murdered in Manchester which modern investigators increasingly ascribe to Jack the Ripper.

Jack the Ripper’s identity is a mystery still but another unsolved mystery is why the murders abruptly stopped. Serial killers, like Jack the Ripper, are unable to stop themselves from killing until they are caught, jailed for other crimes or they die. The Ripper murders stopped just before Maybrick became very ill and died. That is, the last Ripper murder was in 1888 in London and Jack Maybrick was taken ill in February or March of the following year, 1889. In April, he died.

No-one can decide or prove if the diary is a clever forgery or the real thing. Psychiatrists and graphologists have described the words written in the diary as those of a seriously dangerous person with all the hallmarks of a sick killer. In hand-writing and mental attitude, it would be hard, or impossible for a forger to reproduce this. There is also Maybrick’s watch which was found to have the nickname ‘Jack’ scratched into its gold surface and the initials of all his victims. Scientists say that the scratches were made in and around 1888 – 89 when the watch was definitely in Maybrick’s possession.

From this, comes the theory that Florence Maybrick may have begun to suspect her husband of the murders and then become certain of it. She killed him quietly to save her children from the lifelong shame that would fall on them if she went to the police. Also, the ‘Jack the Ripper’ diary, thought to be the work of Maybrick, shows that he was in a murderous rage with all women because his wife was having an affair. Perhaps Florence understood that, if everything came out, she would be blamed for driving him to his disgusting crimes, even though he had betrayed her with woman after woman since they had first married. She also would be saving the lives of any number of prostitutes in the future.

One question remaining: with quite a lot of strong evidence pointing to Maybrick as the real ‘Ripper’, why are so many experts and writers on the subject fiercely resistant to the idea? The explanation might be that they have favoured another suspect and, if it is agreed that it was someone else, they will look foolish and be unable to sell their books and articles. There is, these days, a Ripper industry which includes books, videos, articles, web sites and even walking tours of the murder sites in London. If this world famous serial killing is finally solved, millions of dollars of business will disappear for hundreds of people. There is money in not knowing who Jack the Ripper was and perhaps many people would like to keep it that way.