7. The Occultist: Roslyn Stephenson
Roslyn Stephenson was a member of one of the numerous societies in Victorian London fascinated with the occult. His essays for various periodicals pushed the ideas of necromancy and power through ritualism and became known to two women who themselves were interested in similar subjects - Victoria Cremens and Mabel Collins. Stephenson became a lover of sorts to the former and confided all sorts of information to the latter, claiming that he knew the person who was Jack the Ripper. Collins believed that Stephenson did this to imply that he was actually the killer without culpably
saying that he was. Collins remained convinced that Stephenson was Jack the Ripper up until the end of her days- claiming that although he was a patient at the London Hospital for neurasthenia, he managed to use it as his base of operations whilst he committed the crimes. This theory relies completely on the testimony on Victoria Cremens as its chief witness and furthermore to bypass the idea that as a member of an occult community the idea of playing around with the Ripper detectives may have been greatly alluring to somebody like Stephenson- who had also claimed to have killed witches in Africa. It is difficult therefore to discern whether Stephenson's claims were genuine, or a well-crafted call for attention.