Syracuse Post Standard
New York, USA
10 April 1905
AGED MAN CONFESSES WHITECHAPEL MURDERS
Believed by Police a Victim of Hallucinations
New York, April 9.
An elderly man, gray, bent and apparently suffering from lack of proper food, who said he was Charles Y. Hermann of London, England, has been committed to Bellevue Hospital for examination after he had in the Tombs Police Court confessed to having committed a series of barbarous murders in London.
"I want to unburden myself," he cried, raising an emaciated hand appealingly. "I want to get it out of my mind. I am a cold, heartless, bloodthirsty murderer.
"I was born in Cairo, Egypt. My mother was a native of that city. My father was a non commissioned officer in the British army.
"About fifteen years ago I fell into living a dog's life in Whitechapel, London. An evil spirit seemed to take possession of me, and I stole and afterward murdered.
"I seemed to do it for some secret joy that was in it. It seems so horrible now that I want to be sent back to England to be punished as I justly deserve to be. And just think, I've been dodging them for years."
The police say that the famous Whitechapel murderer Hermann thinks he is, was a physician, who died ten years ago in an insane asylum in Sussex, England. They believe Hermann is a victim if hallucinations.
