Some modern authors suggest that Druitt was dismissed because he was a homosexual or pederast and that may have driven him to suicide. One speculation is that the money found on his body was going to be used for payment to a blackmailer. Others, however, think that there is no evidence of homosexuality and that his suicide was instead precipitated by a hereditary psychiatric illness. His mother suffered from depression and was institutionalised from July 1888. She died in an asylum in Chiswick in 1890. His maternal grandmother committed suicide while insane, his aunt attempted suicide, and his eldest sister committed suicide in old age. A note written by Druitt and addressed to his brother William, who was a solicitor in Bournemouth, was found in Druitt's room in Blackheath. It read, "Since Friday I felt that I was going to be like mother, and the best thing for me was to die."