Article

Thomas Neill Cream

Published Online January 24, 2008

Last Edited December 15, 2013

Thomas Neill Cream, doctor, murderer (b at Glasgow, Scot 1850; d at London, Eng 15 Nov 1892). Educated in medicine at McGill, Cream was responsible for a string of murders in Canada, the US and Britain. He was also a thief, arsonist, blackmailer and illegal abortionist.

Cream, Thomas Neill

Thomas Neill Cream, doctor, murderer (b at Glasgow, Scot 1850; d at London, Eng 15 Nov 1892). Educated in medicine at McGill, Cream was responsible for a string of murders in Canada, the US and Britain. He was also a thief, arsonist, blackmailer and illegal abortionist. Two possible Canadian victims were his wife, probably poisoned in England, and a mistress, whose body was found near Cream's London, Ontario, office. In Chicago in 1881, Cream was sentenced to life imprisonment for poisoning the husband of another mistress, and his licence to practise medicine was revoked by McGill. He was released in 1891, returned briefly to Canada, then went to England, where he embarked on a murder spree, poisoning at least 5 London prostitutes before he was arrested. Just before he was hanged in Newgate prison, he allegedly confessed to being Jack the Ripper. There has been speculation that Cream could have been responsible for some of the "Ripper" murders, though he was in an American prison in 1888, when most of the mysterious killings took place.