Edward Buchan
Rodger Barber, in an article for Criminologist magazine - autumn 1990, DID JACK THE RIPPER COMMIT SUICIDE wrote, 'The sudden cessation of the crimes after the murder of Mary Kelly is explained by the killer having committed suicide'.
Edward Buchan was born on 19 November 1859, at 37 Robin Hood Lane, Poplar, which was a distance of some three miles from Whitechapel, and lived there with his mother, father and older sister, and was said to have been a shoemaker, or store dealer, who killed himself on his birthday, 19 November 1888. The 19 November was also, co- incidentally, the day of Mary Kelly's funeral. The East End News 23 November reported, 'A determined case of suicide occurred in Poplar on Monday morning. A marine store dealer, named Edward Buchan, aged 29 years, cut his own throat with a knife. It appears that shortly after ten o'clock a sister of the man heard a strange noise, and on entering the back shop, saw Buchan in the act of cutting his throat . She raised the alarm and the father came to her assistance and attempted to take the knife from the man's hand, but failed, cutting his own severally in the attempt. A doctor was at once summoned, but Buchan died shortly after, he had nearly severed his head from his body, he had been strange in his manner for sometime'. Apart from his suicide occurring on the day of Mary Kelly's funeral, there is nothing to link him to the Whitechapel murders.
