A collection of items relating to Jack the Ripper murders were auctioned in Exeter on 22 March. They belonged to Inspector Joseph Helson who, as Head of J Division, led the investigation into the murder of Mary Ann Nichols, often regarded as the Ripper’s first victim in 1888. The collection included a photograph of Nichols and two of a suspect, Michael Ostrog.

Ostrog had a long criminal history of theft and fraud. The police described him as a dangerous man in October 1888, following his release from a lunatic asylum in March. He was back in an asylum three years later. In June 1893, he was charged with thefts at a school, but the evidence was insufficient to prosecute. The following year he was one of three Jack the Ripper suspects named by Melville Macnaghten the Chief Constable CID of the Metropolitan Police. Macnaghten said that many homicidal maniacs were suspected. Ostrog’s insanity was regarded as faked by some experts and cured by others. In a rare display of violence he produced a revolver, after being arrested for a fraud at Eton, Macnaghten’s old school in 1873.

In June 1894, four months after Macnaghten’s memo Ostrog appeared in court charged with more frauds at Eton. Three witnesses identified him for offences committed in 1889. His claim that he was overseas was rejected and he was sent to jail for five years. Later he was released with ten pounds compensation after the French authorities confirmed his alibi. He was arrested in France in June 1888 and was not in England at the time of the Ripper murders.

Ostrog was not Jack the Ripper or a homicidal maniac. We do not know why Macnaghten considered this petty criminal as a serious Jack the Ripper suspect or why Helson chose to retain his photograph.