Frederick News - 28 September 1888

LONDON'S MYSTERIES
John Fitzgerald Says He Committed One of the Whitechapel Murders
POLICE DON'T BELIEVE HIM

London, Sept. 28.
A shabby, unshaved, half drunken man has given himself up to the police and said he wanted to make a confession of the killing of Annie Chapman, the last victim in the atrocious series of the Whitechapel murders.

He gave his name as John Fitzgerald, a bricklayer, and made a full confession. He asserted that he was the murderer of Annie Chapman, and lived in Handbury (sic) street, Whitechapel. What he said further is reserved by the police, who refuse positively to divulge other facts.

Fitzgerald was immediately taken into custody and placed in one of the cells. He was not, however, charged in the usual way, being merely detained. The Scotland Yard men are pumping him now.

It is said that he cannot even fix the date of the murder, and the detectives are inclined to doubt his story, although there seems to be no good reason for his remarkable confession.