Dr. Thomas Neill established a relationship with a refined lady named Laura Sabbatini. He had met her on an excursion to Hertfordshire. He had decided that it was time for a man in his position to acquire a respectable, pretty wife whom he could show off in society. He had asked for her hand in marriage and his proposal had been accepted. But the marriage would have to wait. In November, 1891 he received a telegram from his family asking him to come home for the final disbursement of his father’s property. Kissing her goodbye at the Liverpool docks, he boarded the S.S. Sernia on the 7 January, 1892. He planned to return to London soon. And return he did.
By the 2 April, he had taken up a suite at Edward’s Hotel in Euston Square, and a week later resumed residency at his old address of 103 Lambeth Palace Road. It was as if he’d never been away. He made immediate contact with the Sabbatinis at their home in Berkhamstead, Hertfordshire, and over a course of Sundays he even accompanied them to church services. He may have been the perfect gent in the grassy suburbs of Hertfordshire, but, in London, he was the psychotic evil night stalker.