A biography of the famous barrister, Sir Edward Marshall-Hall suggests that serial killer Thomas Cream had an underworld double. Marshall-Hall once defended Cream on a charge of bigamy at the Old Bailey and was amazed to secure an acquittal with proof that Cream was in prison in Sydney at the time of the offence. Aware of a rumour that Cream confessed to being Jack the Ripper as he was being executed on 15 November 1892, Marshall-Hall apparently suggested that he was covering for his double.

This theory has no factual basis. The confession was not noted by the executioner or any of the attendees. Marshall Hall was called to the bar in 1883 when Cream was in prison in America. Released after the Jack the Ripper murders Cream arrived in England in October 1891. He was arrested in July the following year. He was never in Sydney and there is no record of a bigamy case at the Old Bailey involving him.  

And yet, I recently discovered another claim that Cream, a man of distinctive appearance. had a double. In 1895, Detective Sergeant McIntyre, who arrested Cream, said he saw an exact double in a public house after the execution. He also reported that an unnamed warden, who helped at the execution, claimed to have seen the double on a bus.