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Thomas Neill Cream (27 May 1850 – 15 November 1892), also known as the Lambeth Poisoner, was a Scottish-Canadian medical doctor and serial killer who poisoned his victims with strychnine. Cream murdered up to ten people in three countries, targeting mostly lower-class women, prostitutes and pregnant women seeking abortions. He was convicted and sentenced to death, and was hanged on 15 November 1892. A popular rumour suggested that Cream's last words were a (false) confession that he was Jack the Ripper – but official records show that he was in prison in Illinois at the time of the Ripper murders. Early life Thomas Neill Cream was born in Glasgow on 27 May 1850. Cream's family moved to Canada, then still a dominion of the British Empire, until 1854; he was raised outside Quebec City. Cream attended the now-defunct Lachute Academy before becoming a student at McGill University in Montreal, graduating with an MDCM degree in 1876. His received his post-graduate training at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School in London, and in 1878 obtained additional qualifications as a physician and surgeon in Edinburgh. Cream then returned to North America seeking to practise in a community in need of physicians; after a brief experience in Des Moines, Iowa, he relocated to London, Ontario. In 1876, while living in Waterloo, Quebec, Cream met and courted a woman named Flora Brooks. When Brooks became pregnant a few months later after Cream had promised to marry her, he attempted to perform an abortion but failed. With Brooks left severely ill, Cream attempted to escape to Montreal but was caught by Brooks' father, who forced him to return and to marry her. The day after the wedding, Cream left for England to continue his medical education. The Brooks family never saw or heard from him again. Brooks herself almost fully recovered but died of consumption in 1877. Murders London, Ontario Cream returned to North America in 1878 and established a medical practice in London, Ontario. He was charged under Ontario's Medical Act with practising without a license and later pleaded guilty. However, this did not deter patients from visiting his office. In 1879, Catharine Hutchinson Gardner was found dead in a privy behind Cream's office at 204 Dundas Street. She was pregnant and had been murdered with a handkerchief soaked in chloroform. Cream had refused to help her with an abortion, instead urging her to accuse a local businessman of being the father. Cream claimed Gardner had threatened to poison herself when he had not agreed to perform the abortion, and that she had written him a letter in which she named the businessman as the father. However, Gardner's family and roommate denied that she had written it, as the signature and handwriting on the letter did not match her own, and it was dismissed as forgery. Despite rumours and overwhelming evidence against Cream, authorities took no further action and the case was never solved. Chicago Cream established a medical practice not far from the red-light district in Chicago, offering illegal abortions to prostitutes. He was investigated in August 1880, after the death of Mary Anne Faulkner, a woman on whom he had allegedly operated; he escaped prosecution due to lack of evidence. In December 1880, another patient, Miss Stack, died after treatment by Cream, and he subsequently attempted to blackmail the pharmacist who had filled the prescription. In April 1881, a woman named Alice Montgomery died of strychnine poisoning following an abortion in a rooming house barely a block from Cream's office. The case was ruled a murder but never solved. The location, time period, and method make Cream a likely suspect. On 14 July 1881, Daniel Stott died of strychnine poisoning at his home in Boone County, Illinois, after Cream supplied him with an alleged remedy for epilepsy. The death was attributed to natural causes, but Cream wrote to the coroner blaming the pharmacist for the death after he again attempted blackmail. This time, Cream was arrested, along with Mrs Julia A. (Abbey) Stott, who had allegedly become Cream's mistress and procured poison from Cream to do away with her husband. She turned state's evidence to avoid jail, laying the blame on Cream, which left him to face a murder conviction on his own. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in Joliet Prison. Daniel Stott's friends erected a tombstone at his grave, which reads: "Daniel Stott Died June 12, 1881 Aged 61 Years, poisoned by his wife and Dr Cream." Cream was released in July 1891. Governor Joseph W. Fifer had commuted his sentence after Cream's brother pleaded for leniency and allegedly bribed the authorities. London Using money inherited from his father, who had died in 1887, Cream sailed for England, arriving in Liverpool on 1 October 1891 (three years after the Jack the Ripper killings had been committed). He went to London and took lodgings at 103 Lambeth Palace Road. At the time, Lambeth was riddled with poverty, petty crime, and prostitution. On 13 October 1891, Ellen "Nellie" Donworth, a 19-year-old prostitute, received two letters from Cream, and agreed to meet him. He offered her a drink from a bottle. She became severely ill that night and died from what was later found to be strychnine poisoning. During her inquest, Cream wrote to the coroner under the pseudonym A. O'Brien, Detective, offering to name the murderer in return for a £300,000 reward. He also wrote to W. F. D. Smith, owner of the W H Smith bookstalls, accusing him of the murder and demanding money for his silence. On 20 October, Cream met a 27-year-old prostitute named Matilda Clover, and offered her pills, instructing her to take four before bed. She began experiencing violent, painful spasms later that night, and died two hours later. Her death was assumed to be heart failure due to alcohol withdrawal. Cream, under the name M. Malone, wrote a letter to the prominent physician William Broadbent, claiming to have evidence of his involvement in Clover's death and demanding £25,000 for his silence. Broadbent contacted Scotland Yard, and they set a trap for the blackmailer when he would come to collect the money. However, no one was caught. On 2 April 1892, after a vacation in Canada, Cream returned to London, where he met Louise Harvey (née Harris), a prostitute. He offered her two pills, insisting she swallow them right away. Harvey, suspicious of him, pretended to swallow the pills he had given her but secretly threw them from a bridge into the River Thames. On 11 April, Cream met two prostitutes, Alice Marsh, 21, and Emma Shrivell, 18, and spent the night with them in their flat, then before leaving offered them three pills each and a can of tinned salmon. Both women died later that night from strychnine poisoning. Capture Through his blackmail letters, Cream succeeded in drawing close attention to himself. Not only did the police quickly determine the innocence of those accused, but they noticed something t.... Discover the Dr Bill Thomas popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Dr Bill Thomas books.