Stephen Knight

Born in Hainault in Essex as Stephen Victor Knight, he attended West Hatch Technical High School, at nearby Chigwell. He was not successful academically, and after leaving school at 16 Knight went to work as a salesman for the London Electricity Board in Chigwell. At 18 he got a job as a reporter on the Ilford Pictorial before moving to the Hornchurch Echo. His book Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution (1976) suggested that the Ripper murders were part of a conspiracy between Freemasons and the British Royal Family, a claim which is not accepted by historians. Nevertheless, the book became a bestseller, and was the inspiration for several works of fiction, among them the film Murder by Decree (1978) by Bob Clark and the graphic novel From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell. The Brotherhood (1984) was published at a time when Freemasonry was coming under increasing scrutiny in the United Kingdom. Knight's last book before his death was The Killing of Justice Godfrey, exploring the death of Edmund Berry Godfrey in 1678, which had caused widespread anti-Catholic sentiment in England. In 1983 he became a religious follower of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and, as a part of this interest, took the name Swami Puja Debal. He began to experience epileptic seizures in 1977, and in 1980 was discovered to have a brain tumour while taking part in a documentary for the Horizon television series. The tumour was removed, but returned in 1984. Stephen Knight died in July 1985 at the age of 33 while staying with friends at Carradale in Argyllshire. He was buried there.