Dr. Thomas Neill Cream

Dr. Thomas Neill Cream

Dr. Thomas Neill Cream, he was a Scottish which was born in Glasgow May 27, 1850. He was raised outside Quebec City, Canada, after his family moved there. He was a student at McGill University in Montreal and St Thomas's Hospital Medical School. Cream had an extra incentive for crossing the Atlantic to England, since he just got married to a woman named Flora Brooks, whom he had impregnated and almost killed while aborting the baby. His wife's family forced him to the church at gunpoint.

Cream was also known as the Lambeth Poisoner. He was a serial killer who claimed his first proven victims in the United States and the rest in England. Cream then was executed after his attempts to frame others for his crimes brought him to the attention of the police in London.

Thomas Neill 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 (one of Cream's illegal patients), but he escaped prosecution due to small amount of evidence.

A few years later, Cream was caught, and on July 13, 1892, he was charged with murdering Matilda Clover. From the start he insisted he was only Dr. Thomas Neill, not Dr. Thomas Neill Cream, and the newspaper usually referred to him as Dr. Neill in their coverage of the proceedings. His trial lasted from 17 to 21 October that year. He was convicted and sentenced to death.