Dr. Thomas Neill Cream (1850-1892)
Born in Scotland in May of 1850, Cream was the oldest of eight brothers and sisters. The family moved to Canada four years later. On November 12, 1872, Cream registered at McGill College in Montreal as a medical student. He would graduate with honors on March 31, 1876.
Soon after, he was to meet a Flora Elizabeth Brooks, whose father own a prosperous hotel in Waterloo. She soon became the victim of an unwanted pregnancy, and Cream took it upon himself to perform his own abortion, nearly killing Brooks. Her father was understandably enraged, and insisted they marry, which Cream did on September 11, 1876. The next day he left for England, where he registered as a graduate student at St. Thomas's Hostpital in London. He also obtained a qualification from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons at Edinburgh.
Cream returned to Canada a few years later, and, undaunted by his previous mishap, began a career as an abortionist. His reputation was quite promising until the body of a young chambermaid named Kate Gardener was discovered at Cream's office, a bottle of chloroform lying beside her. Luckily for Cream, he was not charged with murder, despite the harrowing evidence against him.
Perhaps finally rustled by his near-escape, he took his business into Chicago, but his murderous tendancies again began to show. In August of 1880, Julia Faulkner died under mysterious circumstances, and Cream was arrested on charges of murder -- he escaped conviction again.
When Cream wasn't murdering women and aborting babies, he took it upon himself to market his own person elixir to combat epilepsy, and soon acquired quite a following by a number of patients who swore by the treatment. One of them, a railway agent named Daniel Stott, made the mistake of sending his wife to Cream's office for regular doses of the drug. Julia Stott received much more from the good Doctor than just medicine on each of her visits, and when her husband finally became suspicious of the affair, Cream decided to add a bit of strychnine to the medicine. Mr. Stott died on June 14, 1881, and had it not been for a move of grand stupidity by his killer, Cream would have gotten away "Stott" free.
Originally, Stott's death was attributed to epilepsy, but for some reason Cream wrote to the coronor stating that the pharmacist was responsible for his death, and requested an exhumation. The coronor dismissed the letter, but the D.A. went on a limb and ordered the body to be exhumed -- strychnine was found in his stomach and Dr. Cream's luck finally ran out. He was imprisoned in the Illinois State Penitentiary at Joliet.
Dr. Thomas Neill Cream
Although it was a life sentence, Cream was released on good behavior on July 31, 1891. He took a quick trip to Canada to collect an inheritance of $16,000 and left for England, eventually to end up in the South London slums.
Only two days after his arrival, he met a prositute named Matilda Clover, who was later to die from nux vomica poisoning. The same fate befell an Ellen Donworth. But as in his first two murders, Cream was uncharged.
After a short break from his murders (and an even shorter attempt at love with a woman named Laura Sabbatini), Cream was to poison two women: Alice Marsh and Emma Shrivell. He would again have escaped detection, had it not been for another unexplicable action: he took it upon himself to accuse his neighbor of the two murders, even going so far as to try his hand at extortion. He said that he had incriminating evidence again a Joseph Harper, and that for no less than 1,500 pounds he would not share his knowledge with the police. Harper refused, and Cream soon lost interest in the attempt.
Yet he refused to forget about the murders -- he soon bragged to others about his vast knowledge on the two murders, even going so far as to take a John Haynes on a tour of the murder scenes! He then did the same to a Mr. McIntyre, who turned out to be a police sergeant, and began surveilance on the doctor. Furthermore, a P.C. Cumley (who had seen Cream with the two girls on the night of their deaths) happened to come upon this "tall gentleman with cross-eyes and bushy whiskers" and also began to watch him. His attempts to blackmail Harper were soon revealed to police, and Cream was finally arrested.
He was charged and found guilty of the death of Matilda Clover, and was sentenced to hang on November 15, 1892. It was there that he would perform his last (and perhaps most inexplicable) action -- he is said to have uttered "I am Jack..." as the noose fell taut and squeezed the life out of his body. As the Ripper murder scare was still in full force, the immediate assumption was that Cream had confessed to being Jack the Ripper.
http://www.casebook.org/suspects/cream.html