| Jack the Ripper: A Suspect Guide |
This text is from the E-book Jack the Ripper: A Suspect Guide by Christopher J. Morley (2005). Click here to return to the table of contents. The text is unedited, and any errors or omissions rest with the author. Our thanks go out to Christopher J. Morley for his permission to publish his E-book.
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In an article in Empire News 23 October 1923 a student of criminology wrote, 'Every head of police knows that Jack the Ripper died in Morris Plains lunatic asylum in 1902'. The article goes on to say, 'He was sent there from Jersey City in 1899 and was for a time employed in the infirmary of the institution. He was not a permanent, he had fits of insanity, the man was not a Russian, he was a native of Norway and had no knowledge of surgery. He was a simple sailor suffering from an incurable disease. He had all the weird superstitions of his race, and on one occasion I heard him scream out in the night, calling on God to have mercy upon his soul. Two people came to see him, an old sweetheart, Olga Storsjan, and his sister, who gave her name as Helen Fogelma. She told me of how he had done some terrible things in London. She showed me cuttings from the London and New York press, which he kept in a trunk, many of the passages were underscored and marginal noted in sarcastic vein, and gave an insight into the workings of the madman's brain. His sister told me that in his native town of Arendel he was known as a good-living youngster who's passion was for the sea. She had lost sight of her brother until 1898 when he came to see her, he was in rags and worn to a skeleton. He stayed with her at 324 East 39th Street for some months and would read over and over again the cuttings relating to the Ripper crimes'.
Olga gave information to the police and Fogelma was arrested and committed to the asylum. On his deathbed, Fogelma, is supposed to have confided to Rev. J. Miosen, the pastor of a Nestorian church in New York, that he was the Whitechapel murderer.
Interesting as this story is, we do not unfortunately know enough about Fogelma to say with any certainty how much truth there is in the story relating to him. There are no records to show he ever existed, and there is also no evidence, nor records, of the Rev. J.Miosen. Though the name Fogelma is rare and often credited as Norwegian in origin, there is a possibility it may actually be Scandinavian.
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