The real identity of Jack the Ripper is arguably the most famous unsolved case of all time. He was an unidentified English serial killer that preyed on poor, destitute women who worked as prostitutes around the slums of London's East End, specifically in the Whitechapel district.
And while he was only active for ten short weeks, with only five official victims attributed to him, Jack's crimes - and Jack himself - would have a significant impact on the 20th century and beyond. He gave the world a glimpse of humanity's very dark and horrible side, capable of inflicting pain and death by the most gruesome methods.
In the late 19th century, East London and specifically the Whitechapel district, was an impoverished section of the city, riddled with disease, crime, murder and death. Many women were forced into prostitution to survive and often left unprotected from beatings and murder. However, in 1888, a string of gruesome killings shocked London and, eventually, the rest of the world.
Directed by: David Wångstedt
And while he was only active for ten short weeks, with only five official victims attributed to him, Jack's crimes - and Jack himself - would have a significant impact on the 20th century and beyond. He gave the world a glimpse of humanity's very dark and horrible side, capable of inflicting pain and death by the most gruesome methods.
In the late 19th century, East London and specifically the Whitechapel district, was an impoverished section of the city, riddled with disease, crime, murder and death. Many women were forced into prostitution to survive and often left unprotected from beatings and murder. However, in 1888, a string of gruesome killings shocked London and, eventually, the rest of the world.
Directed by: David Wångstedt
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TVTranscript
00:00:00Just let me know.
00:00:25In the late 19th century
00:00:27the city of London was the largest in the world.
00:00:30A sprawling metropolis and a melting pot for trade, finance and people.
00:00:36But in the autumn of 1888
00:00:38an horrific story emerged from the capital's east end.
00:00:42A story so dreadful it sent shockwaves around the world.
00:00:47One after another, destitute women of the east end
00:00:50fell victim to a vicious killer known as Jack the Ripper.
00:00:54Despite an extensive manhunt and a few close calls
00:00:58the Ripper was never caught.
00:01:00Instead, the murders came to an abrupt end
00:01:03and left behind one of the greatest mysteries in the annals of crime.
00:01:09Jack the Ripper
00:01:22In the east end of London there's a district known as Whitechapel.
00:01:27In the late 19th century, Whitechapel was known for its overcrowded slums
00:01:32where many of the capital's poor and unemployed had taken refuge.
00:01:36Day and night, an army of policemen would constantly patrol
00:01:40this labyrinthine network of dim-lit streets, courts, and alleys.
00:01:46One such place was a narrow passage known as George Yard.
00:01:51Near the north entrance of this passage
00:01:53was a residential complex known as George Yard Buildings.
00:01:58It was the morning of August the 7th, 1888
00:02:01when an upstairs tenant named John Reeves headed out for work.
00:02:05Upon reaching the first floor landing
00:02:07Reeves encountered the body of a woman lying upon her back in a pool of blood.
00:02:14Horrified by the sight, he stumbled down to the street below in search for help.
00:02:20Constable Thomas Barrett was the first officer on the scene.
00:02:24He was soon joined by Dr. Timothy Killeen who conducted a brief examination.
00:02:29The woman had been stabbed 39 times, primarily in the chest and abdomen.
00:02:35Dr. Killeen estimated that she had been dead for, quote,
00:02:38about three hours, thus placing the time of death at approximately 2.30 in the morning.
00:02:45The woman had likely been attacked where she was found
00:02:48as no blood was found beyond the staircase landing.
00:02:51But this was strange as none of the tenants in this crowded building
00:02:55had heard a single cry for help or a disturbance of any kind.
00:02:59One exception was Amy Hewitt, a tenant who claimed to have heard a lone cry of murder.
00:03:06But this was early in the evening of August the 6th
00:03:09and the scream had emanated from outside the complex.
00:03:12Hewitt further explained...
00:03:14The district around here is rather rough
00:03:16and cries of murder are a frequent, if not nightly, occurrence.
00:03:22The victim was eventually identified as 39-year-old Martha Tabram.
00:03:26Tabram was a mother of two and had separated from her husband many years prior.
00:03:31Her last known address was 19 George Street,
00:03:34a common lodging house less than 300 meters from the site of her death.
00:03:40Tabram had made a living through prostitution
00:03:42and one of her associates was a woman named Marianne Connolly.
00:03:46Connolly testified that, on the evening of August the 6th,
00:03:49she and Tabram had been out drinking with two soldiers.
00:03:53Then, shortly before midnight, the party of four had separated.
00:03:56Connolly took her client into Angel Alley
00:03:59while Tabram guided hers into neighboring George Yard.
00:04:03It was the last time she saw Tabram alive.
00:04:07Barely two hours later, Constable Barrett had spoken to a soldier
00:04:11loitering near the north entrance of George Yard.
00:04:14The soldier had told Barrett that he was, quote,
00:04:16"...waiting for his mate, who had gone away with a girl."
00:04:20Half an hour later, Tabram is presumed to have died.
00:04:26Both Connolly and Barrett were called upon to identify the soldiers.
00:04:30But all those accused could provide an alibi.
00:04:33One had been at home with his wife,
00:04:35another at an army base,
00:04:37and yet another in a completely different part of the city.
00:04:40This was enough for Inspector Edmund Reed,
00:04:42the lead investigator on the case,
00:04:44to abandon this line of inquiry.
00:04:46Connolly and Barrett, having both picked out the wrong men,
00:04:49they could not be trusted again as their evidence would be worthless.
00:04:54Even if a soldier had been responsible,
00:04:56no one could deduce a motive.
00:04:58The people of Whitechapel might have been accustomed to
00:05:00The people of Whitechapel might have been accustomed to crime and violence,
00:05:04but the sheer brutality of this attack
00:05:06was as frightening as it was confounding.
00:05:21These were the concluding remarks delivered at the final inquest,
00:05:24held on August the 23rd.
00:05:27Only a week later,
00:05:29things would go from bad to worse.
00:05:45On the morning of August the 31st,
00:05:47a man named Robert Paul left his home on Foster Street and headed for work.
00:05:54After making a right turn into Buck's Row,
00:05:57he spotted a man standing in the road.
00:06:01The man turned around to face him and said,
00:06:07The stranger was named Charles Cross,
00:06:09and he too had been on his way to work when he first caught sight of the woman.
00:06:15The two men now cautiously approached.
00:06:17The woman's hands were cold to the touch,
00:06:20and Cross believed she was dead.
00:06:22Paul, however, thought he could sense faint breathing.
00:06:26But instead of seeking immediate help,
00:06:28Cross and Paul were more concerned about being late for work.
00:06:31As such, they quickly resumed their morning commute,
00:06:34hoping to notify a policeman along the way.
00:06:38Fortunately, Constable John Neal was just around the corner.
00:06:43Neal was equipped with a lantern
00:06:45and found the woman lying on her back with a deep cut across the throat.
00:06:49The wound was still bleeding and parts of her body were still warm.
00:06:52He was soon joined by Constable John Thain,
00:06:55who was sent at once to fetch a nearby doctor.
00:06:59Upon his arrival, shortly after 4 o'clock,
00:07:01Dr. Rhys Llewellyn estimated at
00:07:08In other words, Cross and Paul had likely found the woman
00:07:11mere minutes after she was killed.
00:07:15Furthermore, three officers had patrolled the vicinity
00:07:18just a few minutes prior.
00:07:21Constable Neal had last inspected Box Row at approximately 3.15.
00:07:26So too had Sergeant Henry Kirby,
00:07:28whereas Constable Thain had merely passed the end of the street.
00:07:32None of whom had seen nor heard anything amiss.
00:07:37Upon the body's removal to the mortuary,
00:07:39a shocking discovery was made.
00:07:41Apart from two incisions in the throat,
00:07:43the woman had also been
00:07:47No organs had been removed,
00:07:49but Dr. Llewellyn found
00:07:54He also believed that the killer possessed
00:08:04The victim was quickly identified.
00:08:06Her name was Marianne Nichols
00:08:08and she had turned 43 just five days before the murder.
00:08:12Nichols had at least six children
00:08:15and her last known address was a common lodging house
00:08:18on 56 Flower and Dean Street.
00:08:22On the night of her death,
00:08:24Nichols had been turned away from a lodging house on Thrall Street
00:08:27as she lacked the funds to pay for a bed.
00:08:30Seeking to raise the money through prostitution,
00:08:32Nichols had then ventured down Osborne Street
00:08:35before meeting her friend Ellen Holland.
00:08:37The two of them shared a brief exchange,
00:08:40but Nichols was visibly drunk.
00:08:42When they parted ways around half-past two,
00:08:45Llewellyn saw Nichols staggering eastward along Whitechapel Road.
00:08:49Barely an hour later, she was found dead.
00:08:55Apart from the body itself,
00:08:57the killer had left nothing in their wake.
00:08:59No blood trail, no murder weapon, no witnesses.
00:09:03Inspector Joseph Helsen, the lead investigator on the case,
00:09:06stated that
00:09:08not an atom of evidence can be obtained to connect any person with the crime.
00:09:13While the Nichols case ground to a screeching halt,
00:09:16its similarities with the Martha Tabram case had not gone unnoticed.
00:09:20In both cases, the attack had been needlessly ferocious
00:09:24and there was no discernible motive.
00:09:26Both victims were prostitutes of roughly the same age
00:09:30and moved in the same circles.
00:09:32The only meaningful difference was their injuries.
00:09:36Tabram had been repeatedly stabbed,
00:09:38whereas Nichols had suffered multiple slash wounds.
00:09:41Differences aside, the prevailing assumption
00:09:44was that the same deranged individual had committed both murders.
00:09:48A conviction that would only grow stronger in the days that followed.
00:10:06Chapter 2 – John Richardson
00:10:22As the sun was rising on September the 8th,
00:10:24a man named John Richardson was on his way to work.
00:10:28At a quarter to five, he made a quick stop at 29 Hamburg Street.
00:10:34He went through the entrance and out the back door
00:10:38by way of a cramped hallway.
00:10:44Richardson then sat down on the backyard steps
00:10:47before grabbing a knife to trim a vexing piece of leather from his boot.
00:10:51Once satisfied, he left the building and shut the front door behind him.
00:10:56About an hour later, a third-floor tenant of the same address,
00:11:00John Davis, plodded downstairs and into the hallway.
00:11:04The front door was now wide open,
00:11:06but the one in the back was closed.
00:11:08When Davis went to open it,
00:11:10he found the bloodied remains of a woman
00:11:12lying on her back just below the steps.
00:11:16Inspector Joseph Chandler was the first officer on the scene.
00:11:20After a brief inspection, he sent it once for a medic.
00:11:24Dr. George Phillips arrived at half past six
00:11:27and found the woman, quote,
00:11:29"...terribly mutilated."
00:11:30The throat had been, quote,
00:11:32"...desevered deeply,"
00:11:33whereas the abdomen had been, quote,
00:11:35"...entirely laid open."
00:11:36The intestines had been, quote,
00:11:38"...lifted out of the body and placed by the shoulder of the corpse."
00:11:42The body was then conveyed to the mortuary
00:11:45while Inspector Chandler and Dr. Phillips
00:11:47conducted a sweep of the backyard.
00:11:49Most of what they found belonged to the tenants of the building,
00:11:52but just below the resting place of the woman's feet
00:11:55they found a small piece of cloth and two combs.
00:11:59The items had likely belonged to the victim,
00:12:01but it seemed to Dr. Phillips
00:12:03that they had been deliberately positioned
00:12:05and arranged by the killer.
00:12:10The post-mortem revealed that two brass rings
00:12:13had been forcefully removed from the victim's left hand.
00:12:17These rings were nowhere to be found.
00:12:21Portions of the victim's abdomen had also gone missing,
00:12:25including the womb.
00:12:27Dr. Phillips believed that, quote,
00:12:29"...the mode in which these portions were extracted
00:12:31showed some anatomical knowledge."
00:12:33This point was greatly expanded upon at a subsequent inquest.
00:12:37"...the injuries had been made by someone
00:12:39who had considerable anatomical skill and knowledge.
00:12:42There were no meaningless cuts.
00:12:44For instance, no mere slaughterer of animals
00:12:46could have carried out these operations.
00:12:49It must have been someone accustomed to the post-mortem room."
00:12:54The victim was quickly identified as Annie Chapman.
00:12:58Chapman's date of birth is a bit uncertain,
00:13:00but she was roughly 47 at the time of her death.
00:13:04She had at least seven children,
00:13:06but was tragically only survived by two.
00:13:09Her last known address was a common lodging house
00:13:12at 35 Dorset Street.
00:13:16On the night of her death,
00:13:17Chapman had been denied accommodations
00:13:19as she lacked the funds to pay for a bed.
00:13:22She was escorted off the premises by the night watchman,
00:13:25who then saw her vanish into a nearby alleyway.
00:13:28What happened to Chapman over the next few hours, nobody knows.
00:13:32Her whereabouts during this time is a complete mystery.
00:13:36But unlike the two previous cases,
00:13:38a witness in the Chapman case
00:13:40might have caught a glimpse of the killer.
00:13:44At half past five on the morning of September the 8th,
00:13:46a woman named Elizabeth Long
00:13:48spotted a man and a woman conversing outside 29 Hanbury Street.
00:13:53Long was positive that the woman she'd seen was Annie Chapman.
00:13:57But the man had stood with his back towards Long,
00:13:59so she never saw his face.
00:14:01Long did, however, manage to overhear a fragment of their conversation.
00:14:06The man had posed the question,
00:14:07-"Will you?"
00:14:08to which the woman responded,
00:14:10-"Yes."
00:14:12Now, a lasting point of contention in the Chapman case
00:14:16is the time of death.
00:14:18According to Dr. Phillips, when he arrived at 6.30,
00:14:21Chapman had been dead for, quote,
00:14:23-"at least two hours."
00:14:25That would place her death at around half past four.
00:14:29But according to Long, she saw Chapman alive a full hour later.
00:14:35Then there's the testimony of John Richardson.
00:14:39Richardson was the son of one of the tenants in the building.
00:14:42At a quarter to five, he made a routine check-up on the door to the basement,
00:14:46which had previously suffered a break-in.
00:14:48When he found it secure, he sat down on the backyard steps
00:14:52to trim a piece of leather from his boot.
00:14:54Even though he sat mere centimeters from the murder site,
00:14:57Richardson did not see a body.
00:15:00He was adamant on this point.
00:15:02-"I could not have failed to notice the deceased if she had been there."
00:15:07To muddle the timeline even further, there's the testimony of Albert Kadosh.
00:15:11About twenty minutes past five,
00:15:13Kadosh had gone through the backyard of 27 Hanbury Street
00:15:17when he heard voices coming from nearby.
00:15:19They were barely audible, however,
00:15:21and Kadosh had only made out the word,
00:15:23-"No."
00:15:24A few minutes later, he heard something falling against a wooden fence,
00:15:28dividing the two yards.
00:15:31There's no one way to untangle this web of contradictions,
00:15:36but Dr. Phillips did concede the possibility that he'd miscalculated.
00:15:41That, quote, -"the coldness of the morning and the great loss of blood,"
00:15:45had skewed his opinion, which was largely based on the warmth of the body.
00:15:49So, presuming that Dr. Phillips did miscalculate
00:15:53and the recollections of Long and Kadosh were off by a few minutes,
00:15:57that would place Chapman's death at around 5.30 in the morning.
00:16:04By this point, the dim light of dawn would have provided the tenants of 29 Hanbury Street
00:16:09an unobstructed view of the murder site,
00:16:12some of whom had even slept with their windows open.
00:16:15In spite of this, the killer managed to evade detection
00:16:19and even made time to arrange the victims' possessions.
00:16:28As the tally of victims gradually mounted, the public grew increasingly anxious.
00:16:33They were not only frightened by the murders but frustrated with the police
00:16:37and their perceived incompetence.
00:16:40Even across the pond were the efforts of the police fiercely criticized.
00:16:44The London Police and Detective Force is probably the stupidest in the world.
00:16:50What these mocking quotes and illustrations failed to capture
00:16:54were the overwhelming odds stacked in favor of the perpetrator.
00:16:59The police were up against someone who seemingly struck without motive,
00:17:02someone who left no murder weapon, and few witnesses.
00:17:06On top of that, the East End was severely overcrowded while the police were understaffed.
00:17:12As one newspaper put it...
00:17:14A man in the East End of London is a grain of sand,
00:17:17as invisible and almost as much beyond identification amid the masses.
00:17:23At no point would this become more apparent than during the events of September 30th.
00:17:30September 30th
00:17:42On September 29th, a routine Saturday meeting was held at the Socialist Club on Burner Street.
00:17:48When the meeting came to a close around midnight, all but a few members returned home.
00:17:53Those who remained proceeded to drink and socialize.
00:17:56Half an hour into September 30th, Joseph Lave stepped outside to get some fresh air.
00:18:02Lave used the side entrance leading into Dutville's yard and lingered for about ten minutes.
00:18:08Moments after Lave had gone back inside, Morris Eagle accessed the building via the same entrance.
00:18:14He too was a member of the club and had just returned after escorting a woman home.
00:18:19Neither of them noticed anything unusual.
00:18:23Twenty minutes later, the sound of a horse and carriage could be heard trotting down Burner Street.
00:18:28The driver was Louis Diemschutz, the steward of the clubhouse.
00:18:32When Diemschutz drove into Dutville's yard, his pony abruptly veered to the left.
00:18:37When he looked down to his right, he thought he could discern something in the darkness.
00:18:41Diemschutz stepped down from his barrel and, after lighting a match,
00:18:45could see a woman lying on her side against the wall.
00:18:49Without even knowing if she was, quote, drunk or dead, Diemschutz rushed inside the club to check on his wife.
00:18:56When he found her safe and sound, he alerted the other members and a small crowd soon gathered outside.
00:19:01They could now see that the woman's throat had been, quote, fearfully cut.
00:19:06And that, quote, a stream of blood was trickling down the yard.
00:19:13Eagle, Diemschutz, and a few others promptly dispersed to find a policeman.
00:19:18While a growing crowd of bystanders waited for authorities to arrive,
00:19:22there was no sign of the perpetrator.
00:19:27But across the city, less than a kilometer to the west,
00:19:31an even more ghoulish discovery was about to be made.
00:19:36At half past one of the same morning, Constable Edward Watkins patrolled an open space known as Mitre Square.
00:19:44Watkins' beat would take him through the square about once every 13 minutes and, on this occasion, it was deserted.
00:19:51But in the time it took Watkins to complete another rotation, Mitre Square was turned into a crime scene.
00:20:01I next came in at 1.44. I turned to the right.
00:20:05I saw the body of a woman lying there on her back.
00:20:08I saw her throat was cut and her bowels protruding.
00:20:13The stomach was ripped up.
00:20:15She was lying in a pool of blood.
00:20:21Dr. George Siqueira and Dr. Frederick Brown soon converged upon the scene.
00:20:26They found terrible injuries inflicted upon the woman's face, throat, and abdomen.
00:20:31The intestines had been, quote, drawn out to a large extent and placed over the right shoulder.
00:20:37Among the many lacerations to the face, Dr. Brown noted that, quote,
00:20:41the lobe and auricle of the right ear was cut obliquely through.
00:20:45Based on their expert opinions, coupled with the testimony of Watkins,
00:20:49the woman had died within minutes of her body being found.
00:20:58Back in Burner Street, Dr. Frederick Blackwell and Dr. George Phillips had reached the same conclusion.
00:21:04The woman in Dutfield's yard had died within minutes of her body being found.
00:21:09But unlike previous victims, she had only suffered injuries to the throat.
00:21:14There were no abdominal mutilations or anything else by which to connect the attack to the others.
00:21:23But the murder in Dutfield's yard and the one in Mitre Square
00:21:27were separated by less than 1 km and some 45 minutes.
00:21:32This allowed for a chilling possibility.
00:21:35It was suspected then, as it continues to be today,
00:21:38that when Diemschutz came clattering through the gateway, he unwittingly interrupted the murder.
00:21:45The killer may even have become trapped inside Dutfield's yard
00:21:48because the gate on Burner Street was the only point of entry.
00:21:52Perhaps they saw an opportunity to escape when Diemschutz then rushed inside the club.
00:21:57From there, it would have taken them less than 15 minutes to reach Mitre Square.
00:22:02Plenty of time to hunt for another victim.
00:22:05But it must be emphasized that this is pure speculation.
00:22:09There is no evidence to suggest the two murders were even connected.
00:22:16The woman in Dutfield's yard was identified as 44-year-old Elisabeth Streid.
00:22:21Streid was a Swedish immigrant who'd lived in London for over two decades.
00:22:26Following the death of her husband, she had made a living through prostitution.
00:22:31Her last known address was a common lodging house at 32 Flower and Dean Street.
00:22:38On the night of her death, Streid had been seen by quite an abundance of witnesses.
00:22:42First, she was seen in the company of a, quote,
00:22:45"...respectably dressed man around 11 o'clock."
00:22:48About a quarter to midnight, Streid was seen talking to a man who was, quote,
00:22:52"...decently dressed and had the appearance of a clerk."
00:22:56Then, only a few minutes before the murder,
00:22:59Streid was seen in the company of a man by Constable William Smith.
00:23:02The man was carrying a small parcel wrapped in newspaper
00:23:06and was of, quote, "...respectable appearance."
00:23:10It's unclear whether these descriptions are of the same person
00:23:14or if Streid accosted multiple clients as the night progressed.
00:23:18There were other witnesses, some less credible than others,
00:23:22but the one that really stood out from the rest was Israel Schwartz.
00:23:28About a quarter to one, Schwartz had been walking down Berner Street.
00:23:32As he came up on Dutwell's Yard, he witnessed a man throwing a woman to the ground
00:23:36in front of the entrance.
00:23:38The woman had, quote, "...screamed three times, but not very loudly."
00:23:43Schwartz would later identify this woman as Elizabeth Streid.
00:23:48Schwartz did not try to intervene but opted instead to simply cross the street.
00:23:53That's when he spied a second man on the opposite side who was lighting a pipe.
00:23:58The man who attacked the woman then appeared to address this second man
00:24:02by shouting the name Lipsky.
00:24:05The pipe smoker then proceeded to follow Schwartz before eventually breaking away.
00:24:13When taken at face value, this story appears to suggest that the killer had an accomplice.
00:24:19An accomplice by the name of Lipsky.
00:24:21This was indeed the interpretation of some government officials.
00:24:25But Inspector Frederick Abberline, one of the lead investigators on the case,
00:24:29had a very different interpretation.
00:24:32You see, the name Lipsky had gained notoriety in 1887
00:24:36when a Jewish man by the name of Israel Lipsky was convicted of murder.
00:24:41Owing to the publicity of that case, the surname Lipsky had become an anti-Semitic slur.
00:24:46Abberline therefore deduced that the man who shouted Lipsky
00:24:50was directing an insult at Schwartz, who was described as having a
00:24:54quote, strong Jewish appearance.
00:24:56The man with the pipe, meanwhile, may have been an innocent passerby
00:25:00who became frightened along with Schwartz.
00:25:03Whether Abberline's interpretation is correct, it's doubtful we'll ever truly know.
00:25:09Nevertheless, Schwartz's account is compelling
00:25:12as he conceivably witnessed the moment when Elizabeth Stride was attacked.
00:25:18Back in Mitre Square, a large crowd of spectators had ascended upon the scene.
00:25:23All driven by their morbid curiosity to get a glimpse of the body.
00:25:28The post-mortem revealed that the killer had extracted a few organs
00:25:32including the womb and left kidney.
00:25:35According to Dr. Brown, this extraction required, quote,
00:25:39a good deal of knowledge, which he likened to that of a butcher.
00:25:43By contrast, Dr. Sequeira did not find any signs of, quote, great anatomical skill.
00:25:50The woman in Mitre Square was identified as 46-year-old Catherine Eddowes.
00:25:55Eddowes had at least five children, but after escaping her abusive husband,
00:25:59she had become estranged from her family.
00:26:02Her last known address was a common lodging house at 55 Flower and Dean Street.
00:26:09On the night of her death, Eddowes had been out drinking.
00:26:12She got so drunk that, around half past eight,
00:26:15she was found lying on the sidewalk in Aldgate High Street, surrounded by a crowd.
00:26:20The commotion attracted a few officers, who then escorted Eddowes to a nearby police station.
00:26:28There, she remained locked in a cell until one o'clock in the morning.
00:26:37After being released from jail, Eddowes was likely spotted in the company of a man,
00:26:41in the vicinity of Mitre Square.
00:26:47Only one of the three witnesses, Joseph Lavenda, had paid close attention to the couple.
00:26:53The man had the appearance of a sailor and wore a, quote,
00:26:56reddish handkerchief around his neck.
00:26:59While Lavenda did identify the woman as Catherine Eddowes, he never saw her face.
00:27:04Nevertheless, this sighting was only made some ten minutes
00:27:08before Eddowes' body was discovered by Constable Watkins.
00:27:12What's so incredibly tragic about the Eddowes case
00:27:15is how narrowly the killer escaped justice.
00:27:18First of all, the only private residence in Mitre Square
00:27:21was occupied by a policeman and his family.
00:27:25They had slept right next to an upper-floor window overlooking the murder site.
00:27:30Second of all, a night watchman and retired policeman
00:27:33had been cleaning a warehouse with an earshot of the murder site.
00:27:37He would routinely hear the footsteps of patrolling officers
00:27:41yet heard nothing at the time of the murder.
00:27:44Finally, Constable James Harvey had glanced into Mitre Square
00:27:49at roughly 20 minutes to 2.
00:27:51That's right in between the sighting by Lavenda and the body's discovery.
00:27:56Harvey should have had an unobstructed view of the murder site
00:28:00yet he failed to notice anything suspicious.
00:28:03Was it too dark?
00:28:05Was the killer standing just a few meters away cloaked in shadow?
00:28:10Did one or more witnesses get the time wrong?
00:28:16While the killer did ultimately escape, they did not do so without leaving a trace.
00:28:21Shortly before 3 o'clock, a bloodstained piece of cloth
00:28:24was found near the entrance to a building a few blocks to the northeast.
00:28:28It proved to be a ripped portion of the apron worn by Eddowes.
00:28:32The patch had evidently been torn off and then discarded by the killer upon their escape.
00:28:39Now, on the wall above this patch of apron, someone had written a message.
00:28:44The Jews are the men that will not be blamed for nothing.
00:28:49To this day, both the meaning and the author of this message remain in doubt.
00:28:55Was it written by the killer?
00:28:57Was it an attempt to cast suspicion upon
00:28:59or even away from the Jewish community?
00:29:03Was it completely unrelated to the murder?
00:29:10Similar questions would soon be raised by a few letters.
00:29:14Letters which had supposedly been written and posted by the killer.
00:29:20Chapter 1. The Murder of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes
00:29:27Three days before the murder of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes,
00:29:31the Central News Agency of London received a letter in the post.
00:29:35The author of which claimed responsibility for the recent murders
00:29:38and to be planning for the, quote, next job.
00:29:42Then, in the aftermath of the two killings, the same agency received a blood-smeared postcard.
00:29:48It contained details about the atrocities, which the author described as a, quote, double event.
00:29:53On the off-chance that the letters were genuine, the police decided to make them public.
00:29:58The hope was that someone would recognize the handwriting.
00:30:01Unfortunately, no one ever did.
00:30:04Instead, it merely served to advertise the name with which the letters had been signed.
00:30:10Opinions on the letters' authenticity were divided back then and continue to be today.
00:30:16Most notably, the Dear Boss letter had promised to, quote,
00:30:19clip the lady's ears off and send them to the police.
00:30:22The police never received such a package and neither of the two victims had had their ears removed.
00:30:28But you may recall that the right earlobe of Eddowes had been, quote, cut obliquely through.
00:30:34Was this a botched attempt by the killer to keep their promise?
00:30:38Or was it merely one of numerous lacerations with no connection to the letter?
00:30:44The contents of the letters notwithstanding,
00:30:46modern linguistic analysis does suggest that they were penned by the same hand.
00:30:51So, hoaxes or not, the authors were likely one and the same.
00:30:57However, the handwriting bore, quote,
00:30:59However, the handwriting bore, quote,
00:31:08Now, the publication of the letters inspired an onslaught of copycats.
00:31:12Agencies all over London were soon inundated with correspondents imitating the other two.
00:31:17But at least one of them might have been genuine.
00:31:20Not because of the contents of the letter, but rather the contents of a box with which it was delivered.
00:31:27On October the 16th, a man named George Lusk received a small package in the post.
00:31:33Lusk was the chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee,
00:31:36a small group of local tradesmen who sought to identify the killer.
00:31:41The package consisted of a letter and a cardboard box containing half a kidney.
00:31:48The doctors who examined the kidney all agreed that it was human.
00:31:52But whether it was the same left kidney removed from the body of Eddowes
00:31:56could not be determined.
00:31:58It could, for instance, have been an elaborate hoax by a medical student
00:32:01or someone with access to human organs.
00:32:04The author of the accompanying letter, meanwhile, insisted that the kidney did belong to the victim
00:32:09and that they had fried and eaten the other half.
00:32:14A popular theory at the time, and one that still is today,
00:32:17was that some of the letters had been fabricated by the press.
00:32:21According to Chief Inspector John Littlechild, the letters were, quote,
00:32:27Assistant Commissioner Robert Anderson dismissed the letters as, quote,
00:32:34Meanwhile, Chief Constable Melville McNaughton thought he could discern the, quote,
00:32:41There are a few candidates for who this journalist might have been
00:32:45but there is no solid evidence against any one of them.
00:32:49Whether it was a hoax by an enterprising journalist or the genuine prose of the Ripper,
00:32:54the letters did nonetheless receive widespread attention.
00:32:58They commanded space in virtually every newspaper
00:33:01and dominated much of the public discourse throughout October.
00:33:05A month which passed without a single atrocity bearing the signature marks of Jack the Ripper.
00:33:12Perhaps it was finally over.
00:33:15It is pretty certain that the monster has become frightened
00:33:18and has suspended his horrible work for the present, if not for good.
00:33:24The Ripper
00:33:40On the morning of November the 9th,
00:33:42a merchant and property owner named John McCarthy was going through his bookkeeping.
00:33:47McCarthy was the landlord of Miller's Court
00:33:50and the tenants of Room 13 had fallen behind on their rent.
00:33:55McCarthy sent at once for his assistant, Thomas Boyer,
00:33:58to collect the money at the quarter to eleven.
00:34:09After knocking twice without response,
00:34:11Boyer went around the corner to peer through a window.
00:34:14But his view was obstructed by a coat or curtain
00:34:17so Boyer had to reach through a broken window pane to pull it aside.
00:34:21That's when he saw the severely mutilated body of a woman
00:34:25lying upon a bed in the corner of the room.
00:34:31Miller's Court was soon crawling with police.
00:34:34But the door to Room 13 was locked and had to be forced open with a pickaxe.
00:34:39What they found inside was truly the stuff of nightmares.
00:34:44The sight we saw, I cannot drive away from my mind.
00:34:47It looked more like the work of a devil than of a man.
00:34:50The whole scene is more than I can describe.
00:34:53I hope I may never see such a sight again.
00:34:56Dr. George Phillips described the body as
00:34:59cut all to pieces.
00:35:01Dr. Thomas Bond described the woman's face as
00:35:04hacked beyond recognition.
00:35:06The abdomen had been
00:35:07emptied of its viscera
00:35:09while the throat had been
00:35:10"...severed all round down to the bone."
00:35:13The body had been monstrously disfigured
00:35:16with loose organs dispersed all around it.
00:35:19The room itself was sparsely furnished
00:35:22and offered little in the way of clothes.
00:35:24Two tables, one or two chairs, and a small cabinet.
00:35:28Amongst the ashes of a fireplace,
00:35:30the police found patches of burned clothing.
00:35:33Had the killer tried to dispose of evidence?
00:35:35Or had it merely been used for warmth and light?
00:35:39The victim was identified almost immediately.
00:35:42Her name was Mary Jane Kelly
00:35:44and she was the tenant of 13 Millers Court.
00:35:47But nearly everything about Kelly's life
00:35:49is shrouded in mystery.
00:35:51She was presumably of Welsh or Irish descent
00:35:55and in her mid-twenties,
00:35:56making her the youngest victim by far.
00:35:59But given that no matching records
00:36:01of a Mary Jane Kelly have been found,
00:36:03it's probable that she was using a fake identity.
00:36:06In any case, Kelly had not been living alone.
00:36:09Up until a few days before the murder,
00:36:11she had cohabited with a man named Joseph Barnett.
00:36:15They had only separated on October 30th
00:36:17because Barnett disapproved of Kelly's prostitution
00:36:20and the people with whom she associated.
00:36:24But they did see each other again.
00:36:26On the evening of November 8th,
00:36:28Barnett paid Kelly a visit.
00:36:30Upon his arrival, he found Kelly in the company of a woman
00:36:33who was just about to leave.
00:36:35Unfortunately, there are conflicting accounts
00:36:37about who this woman was,
00:36:39when Barnett arrived,
00:36:40and how long he stayed.
00:36:42If we choose to believe Barnett,
00:36:44he arrived at some point between 7 and a quarter to 8
00:36:47and left before 9 o'clock.
00:36:51Shortly before midnight,
00:36:52Kelly was spotted in the company of a man
00:36:54by her neighbor, Mary Ann Cox.
00:36:57When Cox passed the couple,
00:36:59they were about to enter Kelly's room.
00:37:01Cox bid Kelly goodnight,
00:37:03but she was, quote,
00:37:04very much intoxicated,
00:37:06and barely able to respond.
00:37:08Once they had gone inside,
00:37:10Cox could hear Kelly singing.
00:37:12When Cox then left the court about an hour later,
00:37:15Kelly could still be heard singing.
00:37:19By 2 o'clock, Kelly had apparently ventured back outside,
00:37:23for she was spotted by a man named George Hutchinson.
00:37:26The two of them were supposedly well-acquainted,
00:37:29and Kelly had asked if he could spare a few coins.
00:37:31But Hutchinson was broke,
00:37:33and Kelly was desperate for money,
00:37:35so they soon parted ways.
00:37:38Moments later,
00:37:39Hutchinson observed Kelly being accosted
00:37:41by a well-dressed man.
00:37:43The two of them had a seemingly jovial interaction
00:37:46and began walking north.
00:37:48Hutchinson found it suspicious
00:37:50that such a well-dressed man would
00:37:52seek the company of a woman like Kelly.
00:37:54As such, when the couple passed him by,
00:37:56he scrutinized the man's appearance.
00:37:59He was, for instance,
00:38:00carrying a pair of gloves in his right hand
00:38:02and a small parcel in his left.
00:38:06Hutchinson decided to shadow the couple
00:38:08as they proceeded to Miller's Court.
00:38:10Before they vanished up the court,
00:38:12the man handed Kelly a red handkerchief
00:38:15and she had supposedly told him,
00:38:17All right, my dear. Come along.
00:38:19You will be comfortable.
00:38:22Hutchinson remained in the vicinity until 3 o'clock,
00:38:25but neither Kelly nor the man reappeared.
00:38:29At roughly the same time, Cox returned home.
00:38:32In stark contrast to the loud singing
00:38:34upon her last departure,
00:38:36Cox was now struck by the complete absence
00:38:38of sound and light from Kelly's room.
00:38:42Finally, at approximately 4 o'clock,
00:38:44a tenant above and a woman across from Kelly's room
00:38:48heard cries of murder.
00:38:50The voice was that of a woman
00:38:52and it appeared to emanate from nearby.
00:38:54Meanwhile, other denizens of the court
00:38:56heard no screams at all.
00:39:00According to Dr. Bond, Kelly died
00:39:02between 1 and 2 o'clock in the morning.
00:39:05Dr. Phillips placed the time of death
00:39:07a few hours later.
00:39:09But some witnesses were quite adamant
00:39:11that they had seen or even spoken to Kelly
00:39:14as late as 8 or 10 o'clock in the morning.
00:39:17Keep in mind that her body was discovered
00:39:19at a quarter to 11.
00:39:22These contradictions are difficult to reconcile
00:39:25and the precise time of death eludes us to this day.
00:39:30Mary Jane Kelly
00:39:36Mary Jane Kelly is typically regarded
00:39:39as the Ripper's final victim.
00:39:41Along with Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman,
00:39:44Elizabeth Stride, and Catherine Eddowes,
00:39:46she is part of the canonical five.
00:39:49The five victims most likely
00:39:51to have been slain by the same hand.
00:39:53Martha Tabram might have been a victim
00:39:55of Jack the Ripper, but opinions are divided.
00:39:59The same is true of at least a handful of other cases.
00:40:04Even the canonical five are not without controversy,
00:40:07so the total number of victims is a matter of debate.
00:40:12Presuming that Kelly was indeed the final victim,
00:40:15one has to wonder why.
00:40:17Why did the murders come to such a sudden end?
00:40:20Did the Ripper give in to fears of being caught?
00:40:23Were they imprisoned for a different crime?
00:40:26Perhaps they succumbed to an illness
00:40:28or committed suicide?
00:40:30Could they have migrated to another country?
00:40:33Perhaps they deliberately changed their modus operandi
00:40:36to confuse the police?
00:40:39The possibilities are virtually endless,
00:40:42which means there is no shortage of suspects.
00:40:54Following the murder of Mary Ann Nichols,
00:40:57rumor began to circulate that someone called Leather Apron
00:41:00was in the habit of abusing prostitutes.
00:41:04The name quickly made its way into the press
00:41:06and soon enough it became synonymous with the killer.
00:41:09In fact, Leather Apron was the predominant pseudonym
00:41:12before Jack the Ripper.
00:41:15But the man identified as Leather Apron
00:41:18was soon cleared of all suspicion.
00:41:20His real name was John Pizer
00:41:22and he was in a different part of London
00:41:24on the night when Nichols was attacked.
00:41:27This misguided manhunt is somewhat emblematic
00:41:30of the whole investigation.
00:41:32The police pursued even the most tenuous of leads
00:41:35due to a lack of evidence and mounting pressure from the public.
00:41:39They interviewed thousands, investigated hundreds,
00:41:42and developed numerous theories along the way.
00:41:44In the words of Inspector Frederick Abberline,
00:41:47"...theories. We were lost almost in theories.
00:41:50There were so many of them."
00:41:53In an effort to narrow down the search,
00:41:55the police used a primitive form of criminal profiling.
00:41:59The idea was to analyze the available evidence
00:42:01to try and gauge what sort of person had committed the crimes.
00:42:05This profile was prepared by Dr. Thomas Bond
00:42:08and he described the Ripper as a strong, middle-aged man
00:42:11with an inoffensive appearance who dressed respectably.
00:42:15Bond's most controversial assessment
00:42:17was that the killer possessed, quote,
00:42:19"...no scientific nor anatomical knowledge."
00:42:22This stood in direct opposition to the opinions of his peers,
00:42:25most of whom ascribed the Ripper
00:42:27with at least a basic understanding of anatomy.
00:42:31Based on the witness accounts, the Ripper was a man of average height
00:42:35with a medium to stout build in his late 20s to mid-30s.
00:42:40He wore dark clothes, including a hat of some sort,
00:42:43and had a mustache.
00:42:45But this sort of aggregation or tabulation of accounts
00:42:48can be quite deceptive.
00:42:50Not only are many details inconsistent,
00:42:52but they could be describing entirely different people.
00:42:55For all we know, none of the witnesses ever laid eyes on Jack the Ripper.
00:43:01So much is up for debate that one can build a case against almost any suspect.
00:43:05Some have even entertained the possibility that the Ripper was a woman
00:43:09or possibly a man disguised as a woman.
00:43:12While Jill or Jackie the Ripper is an interesting theory,
00:43:16it has failed to achieve any widespread support.
00:43:21What is rarely in dispute is that the Ripper was either a resident of
00:43:25or otherwise familiar with the East End.
00:43:28After all, he managed to narrowly evade capture on multiple occasions,
00:43:32which implies intimate knowledge of byways and patrol routes.
00:43:36He likely had some form of employment
00:43:39as the murders were committed around weekends and public holidays.
00:43:43And he may have had some degree of anatomical knowledge.
00:43:47With this unshakable profile in hand,
00:43:50let's take a closer look at a few suspects.
00:43:53The question is, where do we even begin?
00:43:57According to criminal profiler and FBI special agent John Douglas,
00:44:02the Ripper was not only a local but was likely interviewed by the police.
00:44:07If Douglas is correct, the Ripper might be someone we've already met.
00:44:11Either a witness or a person close to one of the victims.
00:44:16What about John Richardson, the witness in the Chapman case
00:44:19who sat down on the backyard steps to trim a piece of leather from his boot?
00:44:24Richardson was indeed suspected by the police
00:44:27but they found, quote, not a shred of evidence against him.
00:44:32His mother also lived on the premises, so he had good reason to be there.
00:44:42What about George Hutchinson, the witness who followed Mary Jane Kelly
00:44:47after she was accosted by a well-dressed client?
00:44:51Hutchinson never clarified his motivation for shadowing the couple.
00:44:55He merely stated that he was surprised to see a man so well-dressed
00:44:59in the company of a woman like Kelly.
00:45:01Was he surprised because he was concerned?
00:45:04Was he jealous?
00:45:06Was it about money?
00:45:07After all, Hutchinson was broke and the client appeared to be wealthy.
00:45:11Perhaps he waited outside the court with the intention of mugging this well-dressed client.
00:45:19There are many question marks surrounding Hutchinson.
00:45:22He has never been positively identified, so next to nothing is known about his life.
00:45:27This makes it very difficult to build a strong case against him.
00:45:31Hutchinson was interrogated by the police
00:45:34but ultimately convinced Inspector Frederick Abberline that he was telling the truth.
00:45:40But not every witness attracted such attention from the police.
00:45:44Take, for instance, Charles Cross, the man who discovered the body of Marian Nichols.
00:45:51Charles Cross
00:46:03On the morning of August 31, Charles Cross left his home on Doveton Street and headed for work.
00:46:13When he turned into Buck's Row, he happened upon the body of Marian Nichols.
00:46:20Moments later he was joined by Robert Paul and events transpired as previously described.
00:46:28Despite his proximity to the crime, Cross appears to have escaped suspicion from both the press and the police.
00:46:35He was evidently seen as the innocent passerby that he appeared to be.
00:46:40But in recent years, that perception has been challenged.
00:46:44The argument is that Cross was in the act of committing the murder
00:46:48when he was interrupted by the approaching footsteps of Paul.
00:46:52Cross then concealed the murder weapon and portrayed himself as someone who just found the body.
00:46:57The injuries inflicted upon Nichols would be consistent with an interruption
00:47:01as they were less severe than those of later victims.
00:47:05What's interesting about Cross is that he likely testified under a false name.
00:47:10He claimed to be employed as a carman and his address was given as 22 Doveton Street.
00:47:16But surviving records show that in 1888, this address was occupied by a man named Charles Lechmere.
00:47:23Lechmere was also employed as a carman and on at least one occasion
00:47:28went by the name Charles Cross as it was the surname of his stepfather.
00:47:34It is now widely believed that Charles Lechmere was the man who appeared at the inquest
00:47:39and that he assumed the name of his stepfather when he testified.
00:47:43His motivation for doing so has been the source of much speculation.
00:47:48Was he trying to conceal his identity or was it merely a force of habit?
00:47:53After all, contemporary examples of people doing the exact same thing are not difficult to find.
00:48:01The most compelling evidence against Lechmere is that his morning commute between home and work
00:48:07roughly coincides with the time and place of the murders.
00:48:13Except for the murders of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes, who were killed on a Sunday.
00:48:19The only day when Lechmere would have been free from work.
00:48:22Not only that but all the murders were committed around weekends and public holidays.
00:48:28Why would a man who supposedly timed the murders with his morning commute gravitate towards days of rest?
00:48:36In any case, Lechmere's mother lived a few blocks south of Burner Street.
00:48:41The neighborhoods around which is also where Lechmere spent his childhood.
00:48:45As such, it's speculated that Stride and Eddowes were killed after Lechmere paid a late-night visit to his mother.
00:48:53While he claimed to be employed at a delivery firm known as Pickford's, there are no surviving records of his employment.
00:49:00If he did work for Pickford's, there is a fair chance that he delivered meat
00:49:05and would thus have been exposed to slaughter and blood on a daily basis.
00:49:10Lechmere remained in East London until his death in 1920 at the age of 71.
00:49:16While there is no evidence of Lechmere ever being suspected by the police,
00:49:20it is difficult to believe that he was completely overlooked.
00:49:24Many case files have not survived, so any doubts investigators might have had could have long since disappeared.
00:49:32Now, a witness who definitely attracted attention was Joseph Barnett.
00:49:41Joseph Barnett
00:49:47Joseph Barnett was the man who lived with Mary Jane Kelly up until a few days before the murder.
00:49:53He and Kelly had supposedly met around April of 1887 and they eventually moved to 13 Millers Court.
00:50:00Barnett was employed as a fish porter but, for reasons unknown, he lost his job between July and August of 1888.
00:50:08From that point onwards, the couple struggled to pay rent and Kelly resorted back to prostitution.
00:50:15Now, those who believe that Barnett was the Ripper view his loss of employment as a turning point.
00:50:21The argument is that Barnett was so overcome with guilt and anguish for driving Kelly back to prostitution
00:50:28that he went on a murder spree.
00:50:30Murdering one local prostitute after another in a desperate attempt to frighten Kelly off the streets.
00:50:38While most of this is pure speculation, it is true that Barnett disapproved of Kelly's prostitution.
00:50:44You may recall that Barnett separated from Kelly on October the 30th
00:50:48because he disliked the prostitutes with whom she associated.
00:50:52Kelly never went on the streets when she lived with me.
00:50:55She would never have gone wrong again and I should never have left
00:50:59if it had not been for the prostitutes stopping by the house.
00:51:02This might further explain why Kelly was the Ripper's final and most viciously mutilated victim.
00:51:09The implication being that Barnett felt rejected by Kelly and wanted revenge for the breakup.
00:51:14According to Barnett, he did pay Kelly a visit on the evening of November the 8th
00:51:19but they had parted on quote, friendly terms.
00:51:22He then supposedly went home, played a card game until half past twelve, before going to bed.
00:51:29Now, Kelly is presumed to have died in the early hours of November the 9th
00:51:33so Barnett could have returned to Miller's Court sometime after midnight.
00:51:38While the police did subject him to four hours of interrogation,
00:51:42Barnett was ultimately released without charge.
00:51:48Then there's the matter of the locked door.
00:51:51When the police arrived at Miller's Court, they had to force the door open with a pickaxe.
00:51:56This raised an important question.
00:51:58How did the killer lock the door behind him?
00:52:02According to Barnett, the key to room 13 had been missing for some time.
00:52:06Because of this, he and Kelly would quote,
00:52:09open the door by reaching through the broken window.
00:52:12The door was said to be equipped with a quote, catchlock
00:52:15and evidently locked itself upon being closed.
00:52:18If that's true, mystery solved.
00:52:22But even if the door was not self-locking, there's still an obvious solution.
00:52:26All the killer would have had to do is observe Kelly using the window trick
00:52:30and then employ that same technique to fasten the door upon leaving.
00:52:35But those who favor Barnett as the Ripper offer yet another solution.
00:52:39The key never went missing.
00:52:41Instead, Barnett is said to have stolen the key and then used it on the night of the murder.
00:52:47These solutions are all equally valid and it's impossible to know which one is correct.
00:52:53There is a slight variation of this theory which states that Barnett did murder Kelly
00:52:58but was not the Ripper.
00:53:00Instead, he merely emulated the Ripper to deflect attention away from himself.
00:53:05Once again, this is pure speculation,
00:53:08but the murder of Kelly did somewhat differ from the rest in that it was committed indoors.
00:53:14Barnett remained in the East End until his death in 1926 at the age of 68.
00:53:21While it's only natural for suspicion to fall upon witnesses and acquaintances,
00:53:25Victorian detectives did pursue other lines of inquiry.
00:53:29One prominent theory was that the Ripper suffered from insanity
00:53:33and the prime suspect in that category is Aaron Kosminski.
00:53:44The Whitechapel murders investigation was overseen by numerous high-ranking officers
00:53:49within the Metropolitan Police.
00:53:51One of them was Assistant Commissioner Robert Anderson.
00:53:54Upon his retirement, Anderson repeatedly and unequivocally stated
00:53:58that Jack the Ripper had been identified.
00:54:02There was no doubt whatever as to the identity of the criminal.
00:54:06Without disclosing the name of the suspect, Anderson described him as a
00:54:10low-class Polish Jew who was
00:54:15He'd been identified by a witness who was described as
00:54:22This unnamed witness had supposedly refused to testify
00:54:26because the suspect was
00:54:30I am almost tempted to disclose the identity of the murderer,
00:54:34but no public benefit would result from such a course.
00:54:37While Anderson never revealed the name of the suspect,
00:54:40his colleagues were a bit more forthcoming.
00:54:42Chief Inspector Donald Swanson revealed that his surname was
00:54:48Yet another high-ranking officer, Melville McNaughton,
00:54:51described Kosminski as a
00:54:57Surviving records show that an Aaron Kosminski
00:55:00was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in 1891.
00:55:04Aaron was indeed from Poland, he was Jewish,
00:55:07and had lived in Whitechapel.
00:55:09He suffered from auditory hallucinations
00:55:11and a paranoid fear of being fed by others.
00:55:14He was trained as a barber but had
00:55:20It's unclear when his mental health began to decline
00:55:23but upon being institutionalized, Aaron was deemed to be harmless.
00:55:27He was
00:55:29and
00:55:32Only on rare occasions would he get
00:55:37However, before his confinement,
00:55:39Aaron had once threatened his sister with a knife.
00:55:42The case against him largely hinges upon the claims
00:55:45made by Anderson, Swanson, and McNaughton.
00:55:48Especially the claim that an unnamed witness
00:55:51identified a suspect named Kosminski.
00:55:54But the descriptions of that suspect
00:55:57are not entirely consistent with Aaron Kosminski.
00:56:00For instance, McNaughton stated that the suspect had been
00:56:07Aaron was first confined in 1891.
00:56:10Swanson wrote that the suspect had been
00:56:16Aaron was still alive at the time and
00:56:18spent nearly three decades in psychiatric care.
00:56:21As such, it is possible that the suspect Kosminski
00:56:26was someone other than Aaron Kosminski.
00:56:29It's also possible that these inconsistencies
00:56:32were mere lapses in memory.
00:56:34After all, these events were recounted years or even decades after the fact
00:56:39and McNaughton even confessed to writing solely from memory.
00:56:44Regardless of the suspect's true identity,
00:56:47Anderson was the only one who seemed convinced of his guilt.
00:56:50McNaughton ultimately favored a different suspect
00:56:53and stated that
00:57:00Inspector Edmund Reed was of the same opinion.
00:57:15So when Anderson wrote that there was
00:57:20he merely expressed his personal opinion.
00:57:23There was in fact ample doubt and no consensus amongst the police.
00:57:29But in recent years, Aaron Kosminski has been resurrected as a prime suspect
00:57:34due to a controversial DNA analysis.
00:57:37Okay, so back in 1888, acting sergeant Amos Simpson
00:57:41is said to have stolen a blood-stained shawl from the crime scene of Catherine Eddowes.
00:57:46This shawl was then passed down from one generation to the next
00:57:50before being submitted for DNA testing in 2011.
00:57:54DNA samples were extracted from the shawl
00:57:56and then compared against maternal descendants of Eddowes and Kosminski.
00:58:01In both cases, it was a match.
00:58:04If the subsequent news coverage is to be believed,
00:58:07the mystery has now been
00:58:14But as you can imagine, it's never quite that simple.
00:58:18First of all, the provenance or chain of custody of the shawl is severely lacking.
00:58:23There is no evidence of a shawl being found at the crime scene
00:58:26nor is there any evidence of Simpson ever being at the crime scene.
00:58:30Furthermore, a destitute woman like Eddowes is unlikely to have owned such an expensive item.
00:58:36Second of all, the type of DNA used to identify Eddowes and Kosminski was mitochondrial DNA.
00:58:43This type of DNA is passed down through the female line and is not unique to any one individual.
00:58:49Thousands can share the same mitochondrial DNA
00:58:52which means it can't be used to pinpoint a specific person.
00:58:55In the words of a geneticist
00:59:01So to say that the mystery has been definitively solved is widely inaccurate.
00:59:06There's still plenty of room for doubt.
00:59:09So to recap, a suspect named Kosminski was identified by an unknown witness.
00:59:15This was enough to convince at least one senior officer of his guilt.
00:59:19That suspect may have been Aaron Kosminski.
00:59:22A man who was largely non-violent but once threatened his sister with a knife.
00:59:28Aaron can neither be incriminated nor eliminated by the DNA evidence.
00:59:33He spent the rest of his life in psychiatric care and died in 1919 at the age of 53.
00:59:42Kosminski was not the only suspect advanced by a high-ranking officer.
00:59:46A completely different suspect who still falls into the same category is Francis Tumblety.
00:59:53Two days before the murder of Mary Jane Kelly
00:59:56an American physician named Francis Tumblety was arrested in London.
01:00:01As you can probably tell from this photograph, Tumblety was quite an eccentric character.
01:00:06He was born in Ireland around 1833 but was raised in the United States.
01:00:11From an early age, Tumblety gained a reputation for being a medicaster
01:00:15or a doctor of medicine.
01:00:18From an early age, Tumblety gained a reputation for being a medicaster or a quack doctor.
01:00:23He engaged in all sorts of medically dubious practices
01:00:26and advertised himself as the Indian Herb Doctor.
01:00:30He promised to cure anything from dyspepsia and scurvy to cancer and blindness
01:00:35using nothing but medicinal herbs.
01:00:38When he was not posing as a doctor, Tumblety was busy running from the law.
01:00:43He was either accused or convicted for crimes like theft and assault,
01:00:47attempt to induce a miscarriage, and manslaughter of a patient.
01:00:51He was even implicated in the assassination of US President Abraham Lincoln
01:00:56but was ultimately cleared of suspicion.
01:00:59Now, in the early 1860s, Tumblety is alleged to have hosted a lavish dinner party in Washington.
01:01:05Only men were invited to this dinner and Tumblety had supposedly expressed fierce hatred of women.
01:01:11Furthermore, he showcased a cabinet in his office
01:01:14in which he stored a vast collection of jars filled with anatomical specimens.
01:01:19Some of which were said to contain the wombs of, quote, every class of woman.
01:01:26In 1869, Tumblety ventured across the Atlantic and visited England for the first time.
01:01:31By his own admission, he roamed the streets of London until he became familiar with every part of it.
01:01:37He advertised himself as the Great American Doctor and had a few skirmishes with the police.
01:01:44After a few more voyages between the Old World and the New,
01:01:47Tumblety found himself in London in the autumn of 1888.
01:01:51The purpose of his visit and whereabouts at the time of the murders are completely unknown.
01:01:56Tumblety never stayed in one place for long and made frequent use of false names.
01:02:01There is a story of a mysterious lodger leaving behind a bloodstained shirt
01:02:06near the murder site of Elizabeth Stride.
01:02:08This supposedly happened on the night of the murder
01:02:11and some believe that this lodger was Francis Tumblety.
01:02:14But there is no firm evidence of that and the entire incident is fraught with uncertainty.
01:02:23What we do know is that Tumblety was arrested in London on November the 7th.
01:02:27According to the press, as well as Tumblety himself,
01:02:30he was arrested on suspicion of being Jack the Ripper.
01:02:34Two days later, Mary Jane Kelly was found brutally murdered
01:02:38and it's unclear whether Tumblety was still in custody or had already been released on bail.
01:02:44Nevertheless, he was ultimately charged with four counts of gross indecency
01:02:49which had nothing to do with the murders.
01:02:52But Tumblety had no intention of standing trial.
01:02:55Instead, he made his way across the English Channel,
01:02:58boarded a steamship under a false name, and fled back to America.
01:03:02He was pursued by detectives and kept under surveillance,
01:03:05but his offenses were, quote,
01:03:07"...not extraditable."
01:03:09As such, Tumblety remained in the United States and never returned to England.
01:03:16So to recap, Francis Tumblety was a misogynistic medicaster
01:03:20who was in London at the time of the murders.
01:03:23He even showcased a collection of wombs
01:03:25and the Ripper did indeed extract the womb from two of his victims.
01:03:29I mean, he sounds like the perfect suspect.
01:03:32Perhaps a bit too perfect.
01:03:35There is no doubt that Tumblety was in London in 1888
01:03:39but the claim that he was a misogynistic collector of human body parts
01:03:43is extremely dubious.
01:03:45It can be traced back to a single article from December of 1888
01:03:49featuring an interview with a man named Charles Dunham.
01:03:52Dunham had a long history of spreading misinformation
01:03:55and has been described as a pathological liar, a forger, and a conman.
01:04:00He was even convicted of perjury.
01:04:02As such, there is every reason to believe that this story is a complete fabrication.
01:04:12Furthermore, Tumblety was both older and taller
01:04:15than the men described by most witnesses.
01:04:17Tumblety was said to be, quote,
01:04:20...who liked to dress in flamboyant and militaristic outfits.
01:04:23It's difficult to imagine a tall, pompous American
01:04:27sneaking around the streets of Whitechapel virtually undetected.
01:04:31On the other hand, it's unclear which, if any, of the witness accounts can be trusted.
01:04:38Then there's the matter of the rings.
01:04:40You may recall that two brass rings were stolen from the body of Annie Chapman.
01:04:45It's suspected that the rings were taken by the Ripper to be kept as trophies.
01:04:50Now, upon his death in 1903, Tumblety left behind a quite impressive estate.
01:04:55But among his many valuable possessions were a pair of inexpensive imitation rings.
01:05:01Could they have been the same rings taken from the body of Chapman?
01:05:05It's possible.
01:05:07It's also impossible to prove.
01:05:11John Littlechild
01:05:13Chief Inspector John Littlechild regarded Tumblety as a, quote,
01:05:17...very likely suspect.
01:05:19And it's not difficult to see why.
01:05:22If the many rumors about him are to be believed,
01:05:24Tumblety had both opportunity and motive to commit the murders.
01:05:28But therein lies the problem.
01:05:30Much of what we know about Tumblety is founded upon unsubstantiated rumors.
01:05:35Tumblety himself was an attention-seeking charlatan
01:05:38with no qualms about lies and deception.
01:05:41With a suspect like that, one can never be certain where the lies end and the truth begins.
01:05:57To theorize about the identity of Jack the Ripper is to navigate a minefield of hearsay,
01:06:02sophistry, and contradictions.
01:06:04Entire encyclopedias have been dedicated to the compilation of suspects.
01:06:08And with every passing year, they seem to grow ever more expansive.
01:06:12Even though there are hundreds of potential suspects,
01:06:15only a dozen or so are worth more than a brief consideration.
01:06:19Some of the more sensational contenders include famous authors and artists,
01:06:23as well as high-ranking officers and members of the royal family.
01:06:27But these grand conspiracies and elaborate deceptions
01:06:31seem hopelessly contrived against the sheer simplicity of a suspect like Charles Lechmere,
01:06:37an unassuming delivery man on his way to work.
01:06:41Personally, I remain unconvinced that Jack the Ripper has even been identified as a suspect.
01:06:47The few covered in this video are probable candidates,
01:06:50but it's still possible to make persuasive arguments against them.
01:06:54The same is true of all those left out by necessity.
01:06:58None of them can offer anything more than ambiguity and circumstance.
01:07:03With a suspect pool in the hundreds, that might seem improbable.
01:07:07But London was the largest city in the world.
01:07:10Home to the largest port in the world.
01:07:13It was a city of millions, with a large population of poorly documented drifters.
01:07:19It's not difficult to imagine one lowly sailor, butcher, medic, soldier, barber, merchant, porter...
01:07:29...blending into the slums of Whitechapel like a grain of sand.