Rory Jack Thompson

Jack Newman (10 May 1942 – 18 September 1999), better known by his birth name Rory Jack Thompson, was an Australian CSIRO scientist and murderer.

In September 1983, he was charged for murdering his wife, Maureen Thompson, in their Hobart, Tasmania, home and after dismembering her body, he dumped the remains down a toilet. He was not sentenced to serve in prison on the grounds of insanity, but instead, was detained in a hospital attached to the Risdon Prison Complex for an unspecified period of time.

Thompson wrote an autobiography in 1993 providing stories of his early life and the subsequent murder. On 18 September 1999, several months after he attempted an escape, Thompson was found dead in his hospital cell after he hanged himself using a shoelace. His suicide, along with that of five other Risdon Prison inmates, prompted an inquest on the prison's procedures.

Soon after the move, Maureen Thompson filed for divorce. This is not the first time Thompson had murderous thoughts, he admitted in his autobiography that he had once contemplated the murder of his first wife in order to gain custody of his eldest daughter. The next day, the investigators visited Maureen's house and found evidence of violence. During investigations of the house's sewer system the coroner, Dr. Royal Cummings, found 60 pieces of unidentified body parts and another 23 identified parts. Several days later, the investigators found Maureen's severed head in Lenah Valley.

As a result of his arrest, his two children were taken in by Maureen's sister, Kathleen Marchant, to California and they adopted the last name Marchant. As they grew up, they were prohibited to contact Thompson, however, it was known that he allocated all earnings from his autobiography sales to his children's trust fund.

Throughout his detention, he applied twice to the Medical Health Review Tribunal to be declared sane. The tribunal had also suggested his release, but all attempts were declined by Tasmania's government. In 1994, Thompson legally changed his name by deed poll to Jack Newman. Thompson's attempt to escape resulted in him being placed in a maximum-security prison. As a consequence, it is reported that Thompson suffered depression and was referred to Dr Alan Jager, one of the prison hospital's resident psychiatrists. On 18 September 1999, Thompson was found dead in his cell after hanging himself using a shoelace.

His death, along with the deaths of five other inmates under Dr Jager's supervision in less than a year, prompted the Magistrates Court Tasmania to initiate an inquest into the prison hospital's psychological department. The inquest concluded that Thompson's suicide was due to the carelessness of the prison officers in both supervising a prisoner with suicidal tendency and responding to Thompson's death. It was also found that there were insufficiencies in the hospitals' practices in inmate mental health care, such as giving Thompson a cell with numerous suspension points and failure in notifying his psychiatrist about his health information.

Published scientific works

Thompson, R. (1982). A potential- flow model of turbulence caused by breaking surface waves. Journal of Geophysical Research, 87(3), 1935 Thompson, R. (1983). Set-up of Sydney Harbour by waves, wind and atmospheric pressure. Australian Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 34 (1), 97 Thompson, R., & Edwards, R. J. (1981). Mixing and water-mass formation in the Australian Subantarctic. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 11(10), 1399-1406 Freeland, H. J., Boland, F. M., Church, J. A., Clarke, A. J., Forbes, A. M. G., Huyer, A.... White, N. J. (1986). The Australian Coastal Experiment: A search for coastal-trapped waves. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 16(7), 1230-1249 Thompson, R. O. R. Y. (1987). Continental-shelf-scale model of the Leeuwin Current. Journal of Marine Research, 45, 813-827