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Was Melbourne killer the realJack the Ripper? 
English immigrant Frederick Deeming is one of the most remorseless murderers Australia has ever seen. But was he also history’s most infamous killer — Jack the Ripper?
Deeming, under the alias Albert Williams, emigrated to Melbourne in December 1891 with his second wife Emily Mather.
The pair rented a house in Andrew Street in the suburb of Windsor. Soon after they moved in, Deeming bought cement and tools from a nearby store under the name Mr Drewn.
Those tools had a dastardly purpose. Deeming used a hatchet to murder his wife on Christmas Day and then buried her under the fireplace before covering the body in concrete and disappearing.
In March the house owner was showing a prospective tenant the property when they noticed an awful smell. After excavating the fireplace the body of Emily was found.
Police worked out who the last tenants were and issued a warrant for the arrest of Albert Williams before finding out their suspect’s real name was Frederick Deeming.
The gruesome nature of the crime captured the attention of the public. Melbourne's The Age newspaper was the first to link it to the Ripper's Whitechapel murders in London.
“
THE  AGEMarch 5, 1892
From the outset a suspicion of insanity is almost suggested and a tinge of the Whitechapel murders is hinted. The body hacked and mangled, the cool manner in which the cementing was carried out...
Deeming was the most wanted man in Australia, but he didn’t go to ground. He instead took on a new identity — Baron Swanston — and began pursuing a new love interest.
Southern Cross
He was tracked to Western Australia and arrested in the mining town of Southern Cross before he was brought back to Melbourne to front court.
Rainhill
When Deeming was being transported news broke from England that the bodies of his first wife and four children had been found buried in a villa in Rainhill, just east of Liverpool.
These new facts raised interest in the case to an unprecedented level, with much of the public now convinced Deeming was in fact Jack the Ripper.
His trial, while only lasting three days, was a sensation. Deeming contributed to this by claiming his dead mother’s ghost regularly woke him and urged him to kill women.
It was believed Deeming made the claims in the hope he would be spared execution by the jury on the grounds he was insane.
The ploy didn’t work. Deeming was found guilty of murdering Emily Mather and was hanged on May 24, 1892 at Old Melbourne Gaol.
Whether Deeming was Jack the Ripper remains conjecture. He reportedly confessed to his lawyer and doctors that he was the infamous killer, but he never made admissions to police.
At the time, London police didn’t consider him a genuine suspect and doubted he was in England at the time of the Ripper slayings.
Words: Christopher TalbotProducer: Andrew Piva																																								

Original URL: https://www.heraldsun.com.au/web-stories/free/herald-sun/was-melbourne-killer-frederick-deeming-also-jack-the-ripper