The Mad Russian

"JACK THE RIPPER" A RUSSIAN.

A Russian newspaper, in an article on the Whitechapel murders, expresses the belief that the perpetrator of these dreadful crimes is a Russian named Nicolai Vassilyeff, of whose past career it gives the following details. Vassilyeff, who was born at Tiraspol in 1847, was a student at the Odessa University, and having become a fanatical Anarchist, he migrated to Paris in the seventies, where he shortly afterwards became insane, and was placed under restraint. Before being lodged in an asylum, however, Vassilyeff, whose mania appears to have been that fallen women could only atone for their sins and obtain redemption by being killed, murdered several unfortunates in Paris under conditions somewhat similar to those of the Whitechapel crimes, and on his arrest, his insanity having been proved, he was placed in a criminal lunatic asylum. This happened 16 years ago, and Vassilyeff, or the mad Russian as he was called, remained in the Paris asylum until shortly before the first Whitechapel outrage, when he was dismissed as cured. He is then said to have proceeded to London, where for some time he lived with the lower class of his fellow countrymen. After the first Whitechapel murder, however, Vassilyeff was lost sight of, and the Russian residents in London believe that their insane countryman is no other than the murderer.

Source: The Mercury, Saturday December 1, 1888, Page 6