Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Jack the Ripper

Episode Date: February 7, 2021

In 1888, the city of London was terrorized by its most infamous serial killer. Anywhere between 5 and 11 murders were committed over a three-year period in the Whitechapel area of London, and the crimes have never been solved. In the decades since then, a cottage industry has developed of amateur sleuths who have tried to determine the identity of this killer, that the newspapers dubbed Jack the Ripper. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1888, the city of London was terrorized by its most infamous serial killer. Anywhere between five and 11 murders were committed over an 18-month period in the Whitechapel District of London, and the crimes have never been officially solved. In the decades since then, a cottage industry has developed of amateur sleuths who have tried to determine the identity of this killer that the newspapers dubbed Jack the Ripper. Learn more about these horrific crimes and the possible suspects who might have committed them on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong?

ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night and how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. This episode is sponsored by audible.com. My audiobook recommendation today is the complete Jack the River. by Donald Rumbullo. Rumbolo's classic work is the ultimate examination of the facts, theories, fictions, and fascinations surrounding the greatest who-done it in history. Laying out all the evidence in the most comprehensive summary ever written about The Ripper,

this book by a London police officer and crime authority, has subjected every theory, including those that have emerged in recent years to the same deep scrutiny. You can get a free one-month trial to Audible and two free audiobooks by going to Audible.com slash everything everywhere, or by clicking on the link in the show notes. The late 19th century in London was ground zero for the Victorian era. The city became the first European city since ancient Rome to have a population of more than one million people. The city was crowded, dirty, and dangerous. Crime was quite common.

In particular, the east end of London was one of the poorest and most dangerous areas of the city. Most crimes, which occurred in the east end, didn't capture the public's attention. However, in 1888, there were a series of murder. murders in the area, which shook the city. On August 31st at 3.40 a.m., the body of Mary Ann Nichols was found in Bucks Row in the Whitechapel District of London. What was unusual with Marianne Nichols was the brutality of her murder. Her throat was slashed to the vertebrae, and her lower abdomen was cut open, causing her entrails to spill out. Just a week later, the body of Annie Chapman was found in the same district. Her murder was similar to that of Mary Nichols, but even more brutal.

Two more victims, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Etowes, were found on September 30th. Stride's throat was slashed like the other victims, but her body wasn't mutilated. Edos was killed and mutilated like the first two victims. A fifth victim, Mary Jane Kelly, was found on November 9th. She was murdered and mutilated in a similar fashion to the others. The police initially dubbed the killer the leather apron, or the Whitechapel killer. While the murders were happening, hundreds of letters were being sent to newspapers in Scotland, yard. One letter dated September 25th was sent to the Central News Agency in London. The letter

was signed, Jack the Ripper. And after the letter was published by the press, this was the name that stuck. While there had been other serial killers in history, this was the first time that a killer became a media sensation. The five victims I listed are known as the canonical five. They were the five murders which all occurred at a similar time, place, and with a similar method. For this reason, they are all believed to have been committed by the same person. As the investigation deepened, there began to be questions as to if these were the only murders. There were two other murders of women committed months before, which were tentatively linked to Jack the Ripper. However, the method of the murders were not exactly the same as the canonical five.

Over the next 14 months, there were several more murders in the Whitechapel neighborhood, which have been possibly linked to Jack the Ripper. The last murder occurred on February 13, 1891. Francis Coles was murdered beneath a railway arch with her throat slashed, but her body wasn't mutilated. It was believed that the murderer was interrupted, and he fled before it was possible to continue to mutilate the body. It was believed that after this, the murderer either died, immigrated, moved, or was otherwise incapacitated. The investigation into the Jack the Ripper killings were one of the largest in Scotland Yard history at the time. They did door-to-door questioning of everyone in the neighborhood.

They questioned over 2,000 people, investigated over 300, and over 80 people were detained at some point. Because of the methodical mutilations of some of the victims, doctors and butchers were also looked into. A surgeon, Thomas Bond, was asked to give his opinion based on the evidence, the first time that criminal profiling was ever used. He noted, quote, all five murders, no doubt, were committed by the same hand. In the first four, the throats appeared to have been cut from left to right. In the last case, owing to extensive mutilation, it's impossible to say in what direction the fatal cut was made. But arterial blood was found on the wall and splashes close to where the woman's head must have been lying. All of the circumstances surrounding the murders lead me to form the opinion that the women must have been lying down when they were murdered, and in every case, the throat was cut first.

In the end, no one was ever accused or brought to trial. There was simply not enough evidence. This led to decades of amateur Jack the Ripper investigators who identified a variety of subjects. They included unknown individuals as well as celebrities. Names included Prince Albert Victor, the grandson of Queen Victoria. The claim is that he was racked with syphilis and this made him go insane. He died in 1892, not long after the murders ended. The theory is that the royal family protected him, which is why the case was never solved.

H. H. Holmes, who was an American serial killer. Somehow he must have made it to London for over a year to commit the murders before returning back to the U.S. Aaron Kuziminski. He was a Polish immigrant who lived in the Whitechapel area during the same time of the murders. He was a barber who had access to razors, and he was institutionalized in 1891 for threatening a woman with a knife. The murder stopped after he was placed in an institution. Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland. Supposedly, he had a breakdown, and there were several anagrams in his writings which were clues to the murders.

also supposedly in his diaries, he wrote a different colored ink on the days that there were some murders. There were literally dozens of people who have been named as a possible suspect in the case. Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes books, speculated that the murderer was in fact a woman, meaning they were done by Jill the Ripper. Sadly, all of the case files and evidence on Jack the Ripper by Scotland Yard were destroyed in World War II during the Blitz. All of the evidence except for one important item. After the murder of Catherine Etos on September 30, 1888, one of the police officers, Amos Simpson, made a very bizarre request.

He asked his superior if he could take home a shawl that was found at the scene of the crime that had blood spatters on it. He wanted to give it to his wife as a gift. I grant that it's a rather odd gift, but he probably figured that it could be cleaned and be as good as new. His wife was not pleased with getting a gift from a murder crime scene and threw the shawl into a box where it was never worn or washed. The shawl was passed on from generation to generation for years

as an odd memento from the Jack the Ripper case. In 2007, the shawl went up for auction and was purchased by an amateur ripperologist, Russell Edwards. For most of the 20th century, the shawl wasn't really useful as evidence. However, with modern DNA techniques, who was possible to sequence the DNA found on the shawl to get some answers. Comparing DNA found on the shawl with one of Catherine Eddo's modern relatives,

they were able to make a match with her DNA. However, they found someone else's DNA on it as well. After checking if it matched with the surviving relatives of known suspects, they actually found a match. Aaron Kaziminski The mitochondrial DNA matched with a female ancestor of his sister. Mitochondrial DNA is only passed down via female. males. Kossiminski was a suspect at the time, and there was one witness who testified that

they saw him near one of the crime scenes, but there wasn't enough evidence to arrest him. So, has the mystery of Jack the Ripper been solved? Well, DNA evidence is more substantial than anything anyone else has come up with since the murders took place. The evidence and the suspect checks many boxes. He was a suspect at the time. He was known to have threatened women. There was a witness, when he was institutionalized, the murder stopped, and now we have DNA. It might just be that the biggest serial murder mystery of all time has been solved with modern investigation techniques. Executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is James Mackle.

The associate producer is Thor Thompson. Remember to leave a five-star review to get your review read on the show. They can be left at Apple Podcasts, Podcast, Republic, or wherever you listen to the show. Also, you can help support the show over at patreon.com. com. Patrons can get merchandise like t-shirts and hoodies, as well as having direct access to provide suggestions for future episodes.