Man in the Attic

Spoiler alert!

Inspector Warwick tells performer Lily, referring to theories about Jack the Ripper, "The favorite one is that he's a maniac who kills at random."
Lily's uncle William: "Well he may not kill at random, but he's not sane. You're a medical man Mr. Slade. Would you say he's sane?" (0:31)

Pathologist Slade tells Lily about his mother, "and when she finally left him for a young rich Frenchman my father killed himself, not with a gun, with absinthe, with a thousand green glasses of absinthe." (0:43)

Lily tells Warwick about Slade's mother. "She died an alcoholic in the slums of Whitechapel." (1:07)

Slade appears to drown himself in the river. (1:20)

What support can you find for an insanity defense? Is Slade a psychopath?

absinthe | suicide

Based on the novel by Marie Belloc-Lowndes: