Michael Ostrog (1833-19??)

"Mentioned for the first time as a suspect in the Macnaghten Memoranda {by Sir MelvilleMacnaghten^?}, which said the following of him in 1894:

Michael Ostrog, a mad Russian doctor and a convict and unquestionably a homicidal maniac. This man was said to have been habitually cruel to women, and for a long time was known to have carried about with him surgical knives and other instruments; his antecedents were of the very worst and his whereabouts at the time of the Whitechapel murders could never be satisfactorily accounted for. He is still alive.

Source: Casebook: Jack the Ripper

Essential dates (from Casebook webpage):

• 1863: While using the alias Max Grief (Kaife) Gosslar, Ostrog committed theft at Oxford college, and was soon after sentenced to ten months in prison.
• 1864: Convicted at Cambridge, sentenced to three months in prison. In July, appeared in Tunbridge Wells under the name Count Sobieski. Imprisoned in December of 1864, sentenced to eight months.
• 1866: Acquitted on charges of fraud, January 1866. On March 19th, stole a gold watch and other articles from a woman in Maidstone. Committed similar thefts in April. Arrested in August, sentenced to seven years in prison.
• 1873: Released from prison in May. Committed numerous other thefts, and subsequently arrested by Superintendent Oswell in Burton-on-Trent. Produced a revolver at the police station and nearly shot his captors.
• 1874: Convicted in January of 1874, sentenced to ten years in prison.
• 1883: Released from prison in August, 1883.
• 1887: Arrested for theft of a metal tankard in July. Sentenced to six months hard labor in September 1887. Listed as suffering from "mania" on September 30th, 1887.
• 1888: Released, March 10 1888, as "cured." Mentioned in Police Gazette, October 1888, as a "dangerous man" who failed to report. Sentenced to two years imprisonment in Paris for theft, November 18th, 1888.
• 1891: Committed to the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum.
• 1894: Charged for an 1889 theft at Eton.
• 1898: Charged in Woolwich for theft of books.
• 1900: Imprisoned for theft of a microscope at London Hospital, Whitechapel. Known to be partially paralyzed by this time.
• 1904: Released from prison and entered St. Giles Christian Mission, Holborn. Nothing further is known of Ostrog after this time.

Why exactly Macnachten should have suspected this poor man is unclear, apart from the facts that (a) he was foreign, and (b) he was insane.

-- ChrisLehrich^? - 29 Dec 2004

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