The Freemason Conspiracy Theory
If Maybrick was Jack the Ripper, the cessation of the murders is easily explained. He died on May 11, 1889, just six months after the last canonical killing. His wife, Florence, was convicted of poisoning him with arsenic and she spent 14 years in prison.
Bruce Robinson, writer and director of the cult classic movie, ‘Withnail & I,’ is convinced that the police force was guilty of collusion, rather than incompetence as was assumed at the time. He has thoroughly researched the case over the last 17 years and focused on the actions of Sir Charles Warren, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, and lead investigator of the Ripper Murders.
While Warren didn’t hurry to the scenes of the first two crimes, he rushed to the discovery of the third and fourth victims, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes. Police found graffiti at the scene which said: “The Juwes are not men to be blamed for nothing.” According to Robinson, Warren ordered the removal of the offensive graffiti, not because of fear of an anti-Semitic backlash, but because he was trying to hide the identity of the killer.
Robinson is adamant that Jack the Ripper was a psychopath protected by the Victorian state because he was a member of the freemasonry; as was Warren. Even if the police chief didn’t know who the Ripper was, he certainly realized that the man was a fellow mason. Robinson furthers his theory by pointing out that the symbols carved on the bodies of the victims were all parts of the Freemasonic Ritual.
The dramatist continued by explaining that ‘Juwes’ was not a misspelling of ‘Jews.’ Instead, it was a pun on a story central to Masonic mythology. In the tale, King Solomon has three treacherous Jews named Jubela, Jabelo, and Jubelum executed; the trio was also known as the Three Ruffians. Robinson says that Warren knew the message was from a fellow Mason. However, Robinson believes the killer wasn’t James Maybrick; it was his brother, Michael, a popular Victorian-era singer and composer.
The Mystery Lives On
As detailed as Robinson’s research undoubtedly is, skeptics dismiss the entire Masonic Lodge Conspiracy as fanciful nonsense. Regarding the possibility that James Maybrick was Jack the Ripper, the story surrounding the discovery of his diary is almost as big a mystery as the murders themselves. The truth is, the diary has never been conclusively proven as real or a hoax; especially since Barrett retracted his earlier confession.
So-called Ripperologists can make a good case for several suspects, but equally, skeptics can cast enough reasonable doubt on all of them. In reality, it’s unlikely that the killer’s real identity will be ascertained; that’s what makes the Jack the Ripper tale such an enduring mystery.