Mike Covell’s Blogg

Part 1 of a series of badly researched press reports on Stephenson!

THE ARGUS 

Source http://archive.theargus.co.uk/2002/8/1/153130.html 

Jack the Ripper Linked to Brighton

From the archive, first published Thursday 1st Aug 2002.

Jack the Ripper plotted the black magic murders of his victims from a Brighton pub, a new book claims.

Satan-worshipping Robert Donston Stephenson has been named as the mystery killer who has eluded historians just as he did the police 114 years ago.

Author Ivor Edwards also accuses Stephenson of preparing for the Ripper killings in London’s East End with a murder in a Brighton hotel.

“Just thrown up in my mouth but managed to swallow it…..!”

Stephenson, a trained surgeon, was living above The Cricketers pub in Black Lion Street, Brighton, in the first half of 1888.

“Trained surgeon, surely this must mean a trained Sturgeon, seeing as the murder sites supposedly make a big fish symbol”

The pub was a well-known haunt for prostitutes, Stephenson’s preferred company.

“And the evidence for this is to be found were?  Robert D’Onston Stephenson was never seen with a prostitute, heard discussing prostitutes, or has ever written about prostitutes!”

It was also Stephenson’s last home before his move to Whitechapel in east London on July 26, 1888. Just days later, the first of the Ripper’s prostitute victims was found dead in a side street.

Mr Edwards’ book, Jack The Ripper’s Black Magic Rituals, explains how the murderer’s motive was to violate the Christian cross by the way he killed and positioned his prostitute victims.

The first victim was 45-year-old Mary Ann Nichols, whose mutilated body was found on August 31, 1888.

Between then and November 9 four more women were found dead within a mile area - Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catharine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly.

All five victims were prostitutes and all were horrifically mutilated. The Ripper removed their hearts, kidneys, genitalia and wombs.

Many have assumed the killings were sexually-motivated.

But Mr Edwards says police at the time and historians since have overlooked signs of occult ritual murder.

Mr Edwards realised the first four victims were carefully laid facing north, east, south and west.

He found joining the sites together created two equilateral triangles, a sacred symbol used in occult doctrine to worship Satan.

Adding in the site of the fifth discovery he concluded the murders were planned on a map according to an ancient geometric symbol called vesica piscis.

This was a fish-like sign worshipped by the early Christians.

 ”So why is the killer said to be an Occultist then?”

Mr Edwards said the organs the Ripper removed were those often used in black magic rituals. For example, a prostitute’s uterus would be used in candles.

“Cite your sources sir?”

He said: “He wanted to bring into play supernatural forces and manipulate them to his own ends through the occult. He thought this ritual would give him power.”

Stephenson, also known as Dr Roslyn D’Onston, wrote extensively about the murders for the Pall Mall Gazette under the alias Tau Tria Delta.

His article referred to a process by which a sorcerer could obtain “the supreme black magical power” by following a similar course of action to Jack the Ripper.

And he said the Ripper murders marked the points of a profaned cross over London.

“And a dagger, and a giant fish, and a walking stick, and a fire poker,……”

He was arrested at least twice in connection with the murders but was released without charge.

“He was NOT ARRESTED at all!  He was accused of bein a murderer by a pseudo detective but nothing came of it!” 

But Mr Edwards also sheds light on another of Stephenson’s alleged murders.

Edmund Gurney, a psychic researcher, received a letter in June 1888 urging him to travel to Brighton. He left without telling family or friends the reason.

He checked into the Royal Albion Hotel in Black Lion Street on June 22, 1888, but was found dead the following morning with a chloroform pad over his face. The coroner’s verdict was accidental death.

But Mr Edwards claims Gurney was murdered because he was investigating Madame Bravatsky, a well-known occultist and friend of Stephenson.

“They became friends much later than this, again no sources are cited”

Mr Edwards said: “Gurney died of an overdose of chloroform, a drug Donston Stephenson was known to carry and was addicted to.

“He was staying just a two-minute walk from the hotel. I’m saying there’s a very strong possibility he murdered Gurney.

“And what about everyone else in a two minute radius?  After all Brighton was a very popular spa town and seaside resort in the Victorian Period”

“The day after the inquest he left Brighton and moved to London, which is when the Ripper murders started.”

“Train must have been slow then!  There was a lengthy period of time between the inquest and the date Robert D’Onston Stephenson was admitted into the London Hospital”

Stephenson, then aged 47, signed himself in as a private patient at the London Hospital in Whitechapel.

“He Never signed himself in, a quick look through the Hospital Minutes books reveals the Hospital was suffering financially, any hangers on were sent elsewere!”

He was there for 134 days from July 1888 to December 1888, covering the period of the five murders.

Stephenson complained of neurosthenia, a condition whose main symptom is excessive fatigue.

The cure lay in rest and fresh air.

But Mr Edwards, 56, questions why Stephenson would move from a healthy seaside resort to dirty east London.

“Because his brother was living in Islington, because Robert D’Onston Stephenson’s wife was still living in Islington, and because he was ill and needed treatment”

He also suspects Stephenson killed his wife, Anne Deary, the previous year.

“ppffft….sorry just spit my mouthful of tea at the computer screen!  If this is the case, why did he nter on the 1888 entry of the London Hospital that he was still married? Not to mention she was alive and well, and died at a much later date!”

Stephenson had been ostracised by his wealthy family after marrying Deary, his mother’s maidservant, in 1876.

“So thats why his father went to the wedding, because he didn’t want anything to do with him!”

Deary disappeared in 1887 and was never seen again.

“See above!”

There were suspicions a dismembered body found in a canal near their Brighton home that year was hers.

“Brighton home!!, this is a new one, even to me!  This possibly refers to the Torso washed up in an area along Regents canal?  Anyway as deary was still alive, she is hardly going to be a torso is she!!”

Stephenson published a book called The Patristic Gospels in 1904 but then disappeared without trace. No death certificate has been found.

“Except it has, and so has his grave!”

Mr Edwards himself was a career criminal for 30 years, notching up convictions for burglary and robbery.

“Robbery, is that taking something without the owners consent?  Does that exist in the publishing world?”

He said: “My time in prison means I’ve met many killers and has given me more of an insight into their minds.”

“………..”

Cuttings and pictures about the Ripper are on display above the bar in The Cricketers.

Mr Edwards’ book goes on sale next month, published by Blake Publishing.