Stuff You Should Know - The Real How Jack the Ripper Worked

Episode Date: October 29, 2009

In this Halloween episode, Josh and Chuck go way back to late 19th century London to examine the grisly details of the Jack the Ripper murders. They also discuss Ripperology, Jack the Ripper suspects and theories, and the legacy of the murders. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Activate it in the Discover app. See terms and learn more at discover.com slash online privacy protection. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. You've heard the rumors before, perhaps some whispers written between the lines of the textbooks,

conspiracies, paranormal events, all those things that disappear from the official explanations. Tune in and learn more of the stuff that they don't want you to know in this video podcast from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.

With me as always is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. I love England. Yeah, we're partying outside of the Britannia pub. It's Saturday, September 8th, 1888, right Chuck? Yeah, I feel a little funny in my modern clothes, but everyone seems to accept us. Yeah, they're pretty wasted, Chuck. I don't think they've noticed yet.

Yes. We came back here because we're about to stumble upon the second victim of Jack the Ripper, and please don't hold it against us, part of our contract for use of the Wayback Machine, so we can't actually prevent any historical occurrence from happening. Right, Doc Brown says that we could not prevent the crime,

so we won't even try. Yeah, so sorry, Annie Chapman, but it sounds like, here we go, Chuck. Ah! Police! Did you hear that? Yeah, that's the end of Annie Chapman. Let's get over there, you want to?

Yes, crime scene number two. Okay, let's run over, Chuck. Hang back, man, let the cops do their work, but I just want to show you a couple of things. Okay, why, by the way, are we at victim number two and not victim number one? Well, victim number one was the one that kicked off the canonical murders,

but Annie Chapman, who's dead body we're looking at right now, is, her wounds and what happened to her is much more characteristic of Jack the Ripper. I just kind of wanted you to get an impression. I am impressed, then. Yeah, some bad things happened to this poor lady. Okay, hang back, Chuck, let's let the cops do their work.

Oh, God. They're starting, I just want to show you a couple of things. Just bear with me for a second. All I see is blood. Yeah, it's pretty bloody, but there's actually a lot of detail that these investigators are eventually going to pick up on. Yeah.

Which will be in M.O. Should you suggest something at this point or do you want to hang back? I think we should hang back. Okay. But notice that this is Annie Chapman. She was a casual prostitute. Yeah, now what does that mean?

It means that she made ends meet by engaging in prostitution, so I'm sorry, by the way, Ms. Chapman. I know, I feel kind of bad standing here like this, but yeah, it's true, though. So if you'll notice, Chuck, she's on her back and she's blood out of her throat, unfortunately. Yeah.

But one thing I want you to notice, and this is going to become a, I guess, characteristic of the Ripper murder. Sure, calling card, if you will. Sure. Her legs, do you see how they're bent at the knee? Yeah. They're arched up and then they're laying off to the side?

Yeah, it looks like some sort of childbirth thing. Actually, you have a theory about that. We'll get to later. Ooh, theory, okay. Yes. All right, well, that's pretty much all I wanted you to see. Wow. These guys are, we're witnessing an exercise in futility. These guys are never going to figure out who did this, but...

Yeah, it looks like she's been cut up pretty good. Yeah, so you want to get out of here, are you okay? I'm feeling a little queasy. All right, well, let's get out of here. They could just be the mead. Okay. All right, let's get to the way back machine, Chuck. Okay, so Chuck, how do you feel?

Nauseous, a bit hungover. You look sober as day. Yeah, yeah. That's frightening. Yeah, so Chuck, that was Annie Chapman. Yeah, it was. And she is the second of what they call the canonical murders or the Ripper murders, right?

Yeah, the Whitechapel murders. Right, so in the fall of 1888, from August 31st to November 9th, there were five murders that are, among the grizzlier murders ever committed in Great Britain, possibly anywhere. Yeah, and there were other murders, but these are attributed to one, Jack, the Ripper.

Yes, that's right, Chuck. These five, as we said, the canonical murders, at the time and throughout history since then, these five are definitely attributed using MO and comparing the bodies, that kind of stuff, which we'll get into later. Yes, we will. It's possible that there are other murders.

In particular, there was one woman who was murdered on August 7th, 1888. Remember, the first one, Mary Ann Pauley Nichols, was murdered on August 31st, 1888. Right. So it's possible he had another first victim, named Martha Tabram, who was a murdered prostitute. Right.

And he may have started practicing on her. Hers was a little less precise than you'll remember Annie Chapman's was, right? Yeah, I think so. So the reason people think that she might be an extra Ripper murder is that her legs were spread. You'll notice that, like you said, in the childbirth position, most of the women,

if not all of the canonical murders, were found like that. Yeah, I have a theory on that. We'll get to that, though. Okay, all right. So Chuck, London, let's talk about the backdrop. Yeah, London's East End at the time, very poor. Extremely poor.

And the pubs were open all night, and a lot of alcoholism, a lot of disease. A lot of opium, as you know. It's not a very pleasant place to be. No, it's not. But there are families trying to make it here. Again, it's mainly just poverty. Yeah, a lot of, like you said, casual prostitution.

There was a lot of that going on. Just to make ends meet. Absolutely. One of the things that makes the Ripper Murders stand out so much is that they weren't the only people to be murdered. There were some really brutal crimes committed around that same time. Yeah, not a great place to be. No, but it really said something about the Jack the Ripper Murders

and the grip that it had on the people in London's East End that they stood out against this backdrop, this horrible, bleak, violent backdrop. In a way, actually, people have later on talked about how it sort of exposed this dirty secret of the poverty in London and kind of brought it to light more so than anyone else could at the time through the murders. I think George Bernard Shaw, the playwright,

said that Jack the Ripper succeeded where social reformers had failed by shining a spotlight on the living conditions in London's East End. That's one way to do it. Yeah, and he had a whole lot of other impacts. He was a lot of firsts in a lot of ways. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But let's go over the victims, the canonical victims, Chuck.

OK, how much detail do you want to go into here? Because it is grisly. As much as you'd like, buddy, as much as you can stomach. Well, the first, like you said, was Marianne Polly-Nickels. And she was 44. She was an alcoholic, like most of her cohort victims. Yeah, that was definitely the common thread for all the women is that they were either drunk at the time

or were known to love the liquor. Right, and the other through line there is that they were all known to be prostitutes, at least casually, here and there. And a lot of people suspect that Jack, you know, some people thought he may have like hated prostitutes, but it was probably just an easy mark. A drunk hooker would be an easy person

to kill at 5.30 in the morning in London. Definitely, especially a drunk hooker in need of money. In need of, exactly. So Polly was the first one. She was killed at about, or she was found, at 3.45 in the morning. From Puck's Row. Yeah, severe lacerations in her throat,

and further incisions to her neck, and violent lacerations to her abdomen. Which makes her a lot like Martha Tabram. She was stabbed, I think, 39 times to her abdomen. Yeah, they're all slightly different, I noticed. But if you look at it, especially if you start with Martha Tabram and go all the way up to his last known victim, Mary Jane Kelly,

it's almost like a pro, you can see the progression. At first it's all just rage, and then it becomes much more methodical after he gets more comfortable with what he's doing. True, so we talked about Annie as well. We witnessed Annie. Yeah. Then I think next was Elizabeth Stride, right?

Yeah, Lizzie Stride, she's 45. Right. And she was drunk at the time. She also engaged in casual prostitution. But she was seen alive refusing a proposition. Right, and she also was seen speaking with a man and holding a parcel wrapped in like a newspaper parcel. Yeah, this man pops up several times, actually,

in the canonical murders. Yeah, the shabby Gentile. That was actually an actual description. Yes, so she's last seen at 12.35 a.m. on Sunday, September 30th, 1888, and 25 minutes later, she's found in a dark alley off Burner Street called Dutfield Yard. Yes.

Her legs are very familiarly by now, pulled up toward her body, knees in the air spread, and she has a kerchief tied around her neck. Yes, but she, interestingly, was not mutilated, which suggests to historians that he may have been interrupted before he could complete his whole thing. Right, and they definitely think he was interrupted because about an hour or so later,

another Ripper victim turns up. Yes, Catherine Edoz, Edoz, she was 46, and she was a heavy drinker as well, but she was intelligent and educated. And actually, I just read a thing last week where they just discovered the census records, I believe just like a week ago, revealed some of these people for the first time,

and their backgrounds weren't as grizzly as you might have thought. A lot of them were smart and had families. Right, but like, what's her name? Annie Chapman's daughter dying, broke up the family. They had, yeah, they had, when you talk about them, you think, oh, engaging casual prostitution,

and we're drunks, they were obviously idiots, but no, these people had actual real lives, and real things happened to them that led them to these points where they were murdered by the Ripper. And also, that's a really good point, Chuck, because it's really hard for us to put ourselves into that situation of what it was like at the time. Sure.

But these were real people dying in really brutal ways, and at the time, it had a real impact on the collective psyche of the people who lived in London. Oh yeah, we're talking paranoia, mobs forming. Yeah, let me tell you a little story about a guy named Squibby. Okay. There's a man named Squibby who used to have run-ins

with the police. He was a tattooed from head to toe is how they described it. And Squibby, you wanna go see him, Chuck? Yeah, let's go see Squibby. See him? Yeah. He's a weird-looking little guy, isn't he?

He is. Do not make eye contact with Squibby, Chuck. Don't worry. He will punch you in the face just as soon as look at you. Well, my eyes are closed, so. Okay, well, Squibby is tattooed from head to toe. He's a short little guy, but real stocky and strong. Kind of like Glenn Danzig.

Sure. And he has run-ins with the police routinely. Oh yeah. There were a couple of detectives who were down in Whitechapel around the time of the Ripper murders. By this time, the public had been whipped up into a frenzy. Oh, big time.

And they knew Squibby by sight, obviously. He's a pretty notable guy. Right. And they had a couple of truncheons. Each one had a truncheon. They started chasing Squibby. And this crowd, apparently, who had gathered outside of, I think, Katherine Eddow's murder

saw the police chasing Squibby and just immediately assumed that it was Jack the Ripper. So this huge mob formed, right? And they're running through the streets after Squibby and the police, actually. They were chasing him because they figured it was the Ripper and they were going to kill him. Finally, they get Squibby to the police station.

And the mob just throngs the station and stays for several hours until they finally realize it wasn't Jack the Ripper, just some guy. That's good stuff. Yeah, it was. Poor Squibby. Yeah. So Chuck, while we're here, do you

want to just fast forward a few days? Yeah, since we have the Wayback Machine. Can you do this one more time? I will be there blindfolded. And you can just describe it to me. All right. Well, Chuck, listen. We're going to go into a place called Miller Court.

It's an apartment house. It's about 10.45 in the morning. And a rent collector has just found the body of Mary Jane Kelly. Yeah, because he ran screaming from the apartment like we should be doing right now. Well, let's just steal yourself, Chuck, the courage man. OK.

We're going to wait for the cops to show up because this is hands down the worst, the worst mutilation of any of his victims. Yeah, because she's clearly inside here, the only one that's inside. So I guess he had a little more time to get busy, huh? Right, yeah. And I didn't bring you back here just to make you vomit, Chuck.

OK. This crime scene in and of itself is very important as far as Jack the Ripper goes and as far as the murders go. Right. How so? Well, for one, there's evidence that an ax was used on this poor lady, which is unusual for Jack the Ripper.

But he also used a lot of surgical precision and removed organs and chunks of flesh and all sorts of disgusting things. Is you OK? Yeah, it looks like her face almost has been removed here. All right, over here, buddy. The cops are coming. OK.

OK, well, watch. Watch. Right. Did someone just take a photograph? Good eye, Chuck. That's exactly why I wanted you to see this. What's up? That is arguably the first crime scene photograph ever

taken in the history of humankind. Jeez. Yeah, and it turned out pretty grainy. But if you ever see it and you're aware of what happened to Mary Jane Kelly, it's a pretty disturbing photograph. Like, if you're just looking at it, you see what the guy's working with.

It's not like the most high-tech camera around. Sure, there's a sketch artist over there, too. That's got to be a lot of fun. But what we're witnessing right here is the culmination of this string of murders. This is the last canonical murder, as far as anybody knows, that is definitively attributed to Jack the Ripper, well, in most people's minds.

So you want to take off, pal? You look a little green. Well, I just feel like we should say before we go, if I'm not mistaken, I see body parts under her head and on the side table. Yes, you do. Why did he do that? He was a sicko.

He was Jack the Ripper. Yeah, there you go, right there. So let's get out of here, buddy. Then a cop just kind of looked over at us. Yeah, seriously, let's go. Yeah. So, Chuck, we now have the canonical victims. We've seen two of them.

We've talked about the rest of them. There were some other ones that are possible. There's the Whitehall mystery victim, a headless, limbless torso that was found actually in the basement of Scotland Yard, as it was under construction on October 2, which is actually within the timeframe of the river murders. Right.

But we're going to talk about that in a little bit. Some of the river murders, but they never said that this one is a river. And there was one body found in New York, actually. Yeah. That people think the Jack the Ripper might have fled England, which is why the murders stopped in London, and then did a little handy work there in New York City.

It's possible. And there's actually a suspect who was there at the time of the murder of Kerry Brown, aka Old Shakespeare, as she was named because she used to love to get drunk and quote Shakespeare sonnets. That's nice. Yeah. Until she died.

Right. So there are actually plenty of other ones that were never definitively attributed to them. But so let's just stick with the five, possibly six canonical murders. We talked about that, right? Yeah. So Chuck, now that we have the five bodies,

we can put together what's known as a modus operandi, aka an MO. Yeah. And aka, by the way, stands for also known as. Right. His MO, Josh, he struck in the early hours. He struck on weekends. Which, Chuck, why is this significant?

Well, because it would lead the detectives to believe that he probably had a regular guy and had a regular workday job. Right. And was probably single. Yeah, because he wouldn't have aroused suspicion from the wife by leaving it all hours of the evening. And Chuck, that also kind of sounds like, well,

maybe his wife is loyal. Now, neighbors were turning in neighbors for suspicious activity saying, my neighbor's actually a ripper, people were going absolutely nuts. So they think that he was single or else somebody would have come for him and been like, my husband's been going out and coming back with blood on his clothes on the night of the ripper murders.

I have a theory that he was previously married and his wife couldn't give him a child. And that's why he, that's what I think. That's where the childbirth position came up. Chuck, my friends, has just turned into a budding ripperologist. I'm proud of you. Thank you. Other clues, Josh, he strangled all but one

of his victims initially. Right. That was the method of death. And then he would cut their throat. He would cut their throat. And remember, he cut from left to right because he was right-handed. And he would kneel on the victim's right side

and cut so that the blood spurred it away from him and largely drained out of the carotid artery. Yeah, my idea is he probably bled them out. So when he was doing all his handy work, he wouldn't get sprayed. Yeah, and there wouldn't just be blood everywhere. Right now, that suggests, number one, a working knowledge of anatomy.

Sure. Number two, somebody who is clever and doesn't want to get caught. Right. That's a huge one. Oh, yeah. Back in Whitechapel during this time, the police were working on the theory

that he was clearly a raving madman. Yeah. And it was actually a really bad time to be insane in Whitechapel. Because a number of people were just committed. They'd be picked up during police dragnets and taken to insane asylums for the rest of their lives. The police spent a lot of time in Whitechapel

chasing Squibby, corralling the insane, and interviewing suspects. And modern forensic investigators today believe that Scotland Yard or the Metropolitan Police probably interviewed the ripper at some point. But let them go because they were looking for somebody crazy. Right. And they don't think that Jack the Ripper was.

They called him frighteningly normal today. Yeah, exactly. So Chuck, what are some other clues? Well, in 06, Scotland Yard actually put together a physical description. That's 2006, so just a few years ago. They reckoned he was between 25 and 35, medium height, stocky, and a resident of Whitechapel, and like you said,

very much normal. Right. And in 1988, the FBI actually did a psychological profile. This is the case that just won't die. Oh, no. I mean, riparologist, I literally looked the other day, and there were four or five new possible suspects within the past year that people are still naming.

Right. Who we'll get to in a minute. Yes, we will. OK. And let's talk about the FBI profile. Yes, Special Agent John Douglas is who did this. Right. He said he was opportunistic.

Like you? Yeah. Like you said, I should say that you're not opportunistic. I'm an opportunistic killer. Right. Like I said, with the drunk prostitutes, being a pretty easy mark. Right.

They also think that, well, Douglas also suggests that he was a lust killer, which is not to be confused with any level of sexuality. Yeah, he did not have sex with any of these women. No, but some people do think it's possible that Jack the Ripper was a cannibal, and possibly that some of the stuff he took along with him weren't just trophies, but were food as well.

Oh, wow. Actually, there is a letter called the From Hell letter. The controversial From Hell letter. Yeah, there are a lot of letters. There were a couple hundred, from what I understand, sent to the cops, sent to the press, sent all the way up into the 1960s. They were still getting letters from Jack the Ripper.

Right, right. A couple of women were actually prosecuted for fraud for writing fake Jack the Ripper letters. There was one letter out of these many hundreds that a lot of Ripperologists today believe actually was written by Jack the Ripper. It's called the Dear Boss letter. Dear Boss, I keep on hearing the police have caught me,

but they won't fix me just yet. I have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track. I joke about leather apron gave me real fits. I am down on horse, and I shall quit ripping them till I do get buckled. Grand work that last job was. I'll get the lady no time to squeal.

How can they catch me now? I love my work, and I want to start again. You'll soon hear of me and my funny little games. I save some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with, but it went thick like glue, and I can't use it. Red ink just fit enough, I hope. The next job I do, I shall clip the ladies ears off

and send to the police officers just for jolly, wouldn't you? Keep this letter back till I do a bit more work and give it out straight. My knife's so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get a chance. Good luck. Yours truly, Jack the Ripper. Don't mind me giving the trade name.

P.S. Wasn't good enough to post this before I got all the red ink off my hands. Curse it. No luck just yet. They say I'm a doctor now. And Chuck, one of the reasons why this letter is so significant. Number one, it's the letter that gave the name, Jack the Ripper, to the killer, right?

And number two, it made a reference to taking a piece of his next victim's ear, right? Well, that letter was received September 27th, 1888. And on September 30th, Catherine Eddowes was found. Remember, she was the second victim on the same night, and part of her ear was removed. Indeed. Now was it published before that?

It was, which I mean, you can definitely take that as evidence that the Ripper read about it and decided to take the ear. Right, because there's a historian. This was actually this year. He wrote a book named Dr. Andrew Cook. And he thinks that there were a bunch of different killers. And he actually, allegedly, says that Frederick Best

was a reporter for the Star newspaper. And he said he forged the Dear Boss letter. Really? Yes, he said he forged it, invented the name, Jack the Ripper, to sell newspapers, because they were a new startup newspaper. And they were about to close their doors. And their sales just went through the roof after this letter. So that's what he alleges.

There are also a lot of Ripperologists believe that none of the letters were written by Jack the Ripper, and that they were all pretty much made up by the press or made up by crazy people or whatever. But none of the letters were written by Jack the Ripper. It's another way to look at it. Right. And he, on Earth, an interview given

by a guy named Percy Clark. And he was the assistant police surgeon in Whitechapel. And he said, quote, I think perhaps one man was responsible for three of them. I would not say he did the others. And then another senior investigating officer said the same thing, that he didn't think that the last victim, that Kelly, was a victim of the Ripper,

but a copycat killer as well. Really? Who knows? Yeah, well, that's the point, though, isn't it? Like, if you're looking for one murderer 120 years on, that's difficult enough. Sure. Imagine looking for three or five killers 120 years on.

One of the other reasons why this case will likely never be solved is a lot of the evidence has just gone. They investigated Jack the Ripper for three years, then finally closed the case as unsolved. And around the time, and probably before then, cops working the case or cops that had access to the evidence room just took evidence as souvenirs, mementos.

I believe a lot of the records, if not all the records, were destroyed in a fire or destroyed because they had reached their shelf life of being kept as records. So I mean, there's really not a lot of evidence anymore. No, and this was clearly a different day. They would have caught him today. Probably pretty easily.

Maybe. That's what I think. It's possible. So let's talk about some of the suspects, Chuck. Well, there's more than 100 that have been named throughout the years. Yeah, I've heard 170 different people named as suspects. Well, and there's like three or four new ones a year now,

still, so. Right. Do you want to talk about the most recent one, Man? Yeah, that was a Discovery Channel show I think was on last week, where a historian named My Trow used modern forensics, and he identified one Robert Mann. And this one actually, see, that's the thing. Anytime I read, like I thought Walter Sickert was,

after hearing that Cornwall lady talk about Sickert being, we'll get to him. But my point is, anytime I've seen a show or a special, I come away thinking, oh, well, that was Jack the Ripper. Right, he did. It's a real convincing argument. Yeah, I went on casebook.org, which I wrote how Jack the Ripper works, the article that we based his podcast on.

And I defer humbly to the people who run and go on casebook.org. Oh, yeah, Facebook, entirely different. If your interest has been the least bit peaked by this, I strongly recommend, well, number one, going to howstuffworks.com to read the article, but then number two, going to casebook, because they have everything. Right.

So I went on to casebook to see what they thought of Mann. And sure enough, I don't think the documentary had even premiered yet. And everybody had read the Mann's book, and we're just tearing him apart. Which coincidentally is the second book to be titled, Case Closed. Yeah, which I think is pretty funny.

Everyone says, I found it, Case Closed. Right, and riparologists don't take very kindly to this kind of thing. They don't, sure. These people are amateur historians, amateur criminologists, all rolled into one. And this is just what they do. And once in a while, somebody will come along,

do some research, write a book, and slap Case Closed on the title, and they do not like that. Well, let's go over Mann real quick. He was a morgue attendant in Whitechapel. He was an inmate at a prison when he ran the morgue. He was an attendant at the morgue. He was in charge of receiving bodies, I think. Yes, specifically, the bodies of the people

that they believe he killed. Three of them. And interestingly, or they say damningly in this article, he actually undressed Polly Nichols' body with his assistant. And he was under strict orders not to do anything like that. And a lot of people say that this is why he may have been trying to admire his handy work there. Right, yeah.

And show it off to his buddy. And I think somebody made a point in Casebook that this would probably be the first time that the body revisited the killer rather than the other way around. The problem with Mann, as I understand it, was that he was an inmate in a prison. It's pretty much as simple as that.

Even with a tremendous amount of freedom that he might have had with a job, he would have still had that job at the prison. Could he have just come and gone, as he pleased, to go murder women, especially on weekends? So I think that was the biggest problem that I ran across with Mann. And also, his testimony was discounted at the time

because his boss basically said, this man is prone to fits. Sure. And he's not to be believed. Right. But modern, what the forensic psychologist at Liverpool University said, in terms of psychological profiling, he's one of the most credible suspects from recent years. And the closest we may ever get to a plausible psychological

explanation. So who knows? Once again, case closed. But is it? Yeah. So now Cornwall? Yeah, let's get to Cornwall. She had a particularly, let's say,

difficult relationship with riparologists. Yeah, they don't like her. No. And for a good reason, in some cases. Yeah, she blamed Walter Sickert, who was a painter. Very famous painter. Yeah, at the time. And he was known for painting nudes of women who were they

butchered, or were they just? It depends on your interpretation. OK, that's what I thought. It was wide open for interpretation. Some people said they were dead women, dead nude women. But when you look at, like, what's the one painting? Camden Town Murder. Yeah, it's called the Camden Town Murder.

And it's a naked woman on the bed. And there's a man sitting on the edge of the bed with his hands in his face. Yes. And he looks like he's overcome with guilt for just murdering the woman. But what is the alternate title of that painting? What Shall We Do For Rent was the alternate title,

which if you look at it through those eyes, it could be a depressed man and his wife. She was naked, sure. But who wasn't? And from what I understand about Walter Sickert, I would not put it past him to be fully aware that he was toying with the public with stuff like this and enjoying it, but it doesn't necessarily

mean he was a murderer. Cornwell was one of the ones who titled her book Case Clothes. Right. And she apparently strode into the world of ripporology, fairly arrogantly, one could say. And she used to, I guess on her book tour, her lecture tour, when the book was released, it was heavily attended by ripporologists

who were looking to rip her a new one. And she did not like them one bit. She compared them to Trekkies, very demeaningly. And she also, it came out that during the course of researching the book, she purchased a sickert painting for a substantial amount of money so she could tear it apart to look for clues. Yeah, she found nothing.

And the curator of a major sickert collection in London called her monstrously stupid for doing that. So I was always amused by that. Yeah, she kind of hung her case on, she collected MDNA, mitochondrial DNA. And she was able to rule out, comparing it to the letters that were sent, that 99% of the people could not have been responsible, but Walter Sickert could have.

And the other thing with the mitochondrial DNA is she'll tout that 99% of the people are excluded. She doesn't really point out that that still left about 50,000 other people that could have been the murderer. She made it sound like everyone but Walter Sickert had been absolved. Well, on the other side, Walter Sickert was very well known as a prolific writer of letters

to the editor. And so he very well may have written a ripper letter. But that's a huge leap in logic to say that he wrote a ripper letter, so he was the ripper. So Chuck, my money's not on Walter Sickert. And he's not the only famous person to be named as a suspect. Lewis Carroll was suggested as a suspect.

I don't think by any of the police. No, they supposedly pulled anagrams from some of his books that everyone else is like, oh, come on. Prince Albert Victor was thought to be maybe some diabolical madman. Mad with syphilis, that's what they say. And the entire royal family has been implicated

in another theory. The Freemasons? The Freemasons, you can't forget them. They're implicated in everything, aren't they? Yeah. But then there's some lesser known people who usually actually make better suspects than the entire royal family, right, Chuck?

I would say so. And they actually, well, they end up naming officially three suspects in the actual case before they closed it. Right, police commissioner, Sir Neville McNaughton, wrote in 1889 who he thought the three best suspects were. In his final report, he wrote, he named Michael Ostrog, a Russian physician and convicted thief.

Monogue John Druitt, who was a physician, and who was found drowned in the Thames the December after the murders, and Aaron Kozminski, who was an insane man. And these were McNaughton's three top picks. Right. Unfortunately, probably not. Michael Ostrog was found in 2002 in a book by Philip Sugden that he was actually in police custody

during the time of the murders in Paris. Monogue John Druitt, possibly, if he died in December, that would definitely explain why the murders ended suddenly. Sure. And then Aaron Kozminski, he was crazy, but he wasn't violent at all. Right. And most people don't think it was him.

I shouldn't say most people. There are some that probably think it's him, but I don't personally. My money instead is on Severin Klauzowski, aka George Chapman. All right. Why do you think he did it? Well, let me retract that.

I don't know enough about it to say that he's my lead suspect. From the people I know of, he's my lead suspect. He was a man who had a nasty little habit of poisoning his wives, and he did it to three of them after the Ripper murders. He was finally caught on the third one because somebody finally figured out, hey, this guy's wives are in no way related to one another,

and yet they keep dying from this mysterious illness. And they found that he'd poisoned one, exhumed the other two, and he was convicted of all three. And this was in the United States, but he'd been living in Whitechapel at the time during the murders. He was trained as a physician, and he moved to America and lived in New Jersey at the time

that that one New York possible Ripper murder took place. So the big question is, if Klausowski was the guy, why would he change his MO so drastically, from butchering women to poisoning wives? I don't think anyone's ever switched gears like that. But out of all of them, out of all the Ripper suspects, he's the only one that has been convicted of three murders. He's the only known serial murderer in the bunch,

which is why my money's on him. Man, that's a good one. Who's your favorite? I like the Robert Mann, that makes sense. Do you? Yeah, that's who my money's on. I think you said 170 suspects have been named. And again, if you're interested in this,

go on the casebook. They have detailed descriptions of every single suspect. Indeed. But let's talk about the legacy left by the Ripper, Chuck. Yeah, I mean, it was probably the first crime scene photo ever taken. It was the first big, I think, international murder case that was known throughout the world.

It was the first case of the now well-known symbiotic relationship between a serial murderer and the press, where the press gives a serial murder infamy that he or she requires. And then the serial killer gives the press fodder for articles. Sure. And I think further, I think the Zodiac killer

sent letters to the editor, and that became kind of a thing for serial killers to do later on. Yeah. And this is one of the first times that comparing the bodies to establish an MO has been used. Basically, you can argue that the all modern forensic techniques started, kind of piecemeal, but they all started with the Ripper murders.

I would agree with that. And like we said before, the Ripper murders shown a light on the living conditions in the east end of London and led to real change. I think sanitation was introduced largely. There is a lot more interest in the plight of the poverty stricken than there had been before. And Chuck also, there's clearly a pretty big legacy

left behind in the form of Ripperologists, countless TV shows, movies. From hell. From hell? That was unsettling. You know, there's a video game coming. I heard. And Jack the Ripper is going to be a superhero

that fights demons. Yeah, he's actually an anti-hero, but he's misunderstood the killings. Was it demons or vampires? Both, all manner of imps and lesser demons. It's going to be awesome. And there's a conference every year, right? I don't know if it's every year, but this year, actually,

it was just last week in London, first time they ever had it in London. And they rented a pub for the entire weekend. So that sounds like an awesome conference so far. Yeah, they have speakers. And from 7 to 11 every night is entertainment and disco. Disco, Jack the Ripper conference disco. Yep, so that sounds like a nice way to end this,

an upbeat way to end this. Which, if you consider, is highly ironic, because this is definitely our grizzliest podcast yet. Yeah, it's not going to get any more grizzly. So obviously, we do this one for Halloween. So have a safe and happy Halloween, everybody. And if you have any ideas about who Jack the Ripper might be and if it's not your neighbor that would be fantastic,

you can put it in an email. Send it to StuffPodcast at HowStuffWorks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. Want more HowStuffWorks? Check out our blogs on the HowStuffWorks.com homepage. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you?

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