Thomas Neill Cream

Dr. Thomas Neill Cream (27 May 1850 – 15 November 1892), also known as the Lambeth Poisoner, was a Scottish-born serial killer, who claimed his first proven victims in the United States and the rest in England, and possibly others in Canada and Scotland<!-- as mentioned in Early Life below -->. Cream, who poisoned his victims, was executed after his attempts to frame others for his crimes brought him to the attention of London police.

Unsubstantiated rumours suggested his last words as he was being hanged were a confession that he was Jack the Ripper—even though he was in prison at the time of the Ripper murders.

Early life

Born in Glasgow, Cream was raised outside Quebec City, Canada, after his family moved there in 1854. He attended McGill University in Montreal and went to study medicine at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, London in 1876; he had an added incentive for crossing the Atlantic to England, since he had just married Flora Brooks, whom he had impregnated and almost killed while aborting the baby: the bride's family forced him to the church at gunpoint. Flora died, apparently of consumption, in 1877, a death for which he would later be blamed.

Murder in Ontario

Cream went to London in 1876 to study at St. Thomas' Hospital and later qualified as a physician and surgeon in Edinburgh in 1878. He then returned to Canada to practise in London, Ontario. In August 1879 Kate Gardener, a woman with whom he was...
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