Transcript

Jack The Ripper: The Killer Strikes Again

From The Rest Is History · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 57 min · 10,546 words · 116 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Jack The Ripper: The Killer Strikes Again", an episode of The Rest Is History published December 15, 2025 (57 min, about 10,546 words). It mentions 182 people, works and ideas, including Jack the Ripper, White Chapel, Elizabeth Stride, Katherine Edos, Katherine Edetos.

What this episode is about

This content explores the ongoing terror of Jack the Ripper in Whitechapel, highlighting the atmosphere of fear, conspiracy theories, and societal reactions surrounding the infamous killer. It delves into the impact of his crimes on the community, emphasizing the chaotic blend of horror and dark humor that defined the era.

Key takeaways

  • Jack's identity mystery keeps the world hooked, like a gruesome Victorian whodunit we can't quit.
  • Hive: the modern industrial revolution—no terror, just greener power at your thumb's command.
  • Cockney accent: the Australian connection—when London's slang became Down Under's linguistic legacy.
  • Streets of dread: London's terror mixtape included conspiracy theories, grisly acts, and ghostly shadows.
  • Grisly crimes echo through time, fueled by unsolved mysteries and Victorian-era societal fears.

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Jack the Ripper, London, White Chapel, Hive
  2. – 10:00: Jack the Ripper, Elizabeth Stride, Annie Chapman, London
  3. – 15:00: Elizabeth Stride, Annie Chapman, Jack the Ripper, Philip Sugden
  4. – 20:00: Lipsky, Lipsky, Israel Lipsky, Jioati / Jivati / Jivvati (Victoria)
  5. – 25:00: Katherine Edos, Attorney General, Wolverampton, Jack the Ripper
  6. – 30:00: Sir Charles Warren, masonic, Jack the Ripper, White Chapel
  7. – 35:00: Elizabeth Stride, London, Aura Frames, Aura Frames
  8. – 40:00: London, Elizabeth Stride, Katherine Edos, White Chapel
  9. – 45:00: London, Sherlock Holmes, Barnaby and Berggo, Sherlock Holmes
  10. – 50:00: Dear Boss, Jack the Ripper, From Hell, From Hell
  11. – 55:00: Jack the Ripper, White Chapel, Mary Jane Kelly, Miller's Court
  12. – 56:43: Jack the Ripper, Mary Jane Kelly, Miller's Court, Sherlock Holmes

Notable quotes from "Jack The Ripper: The Killer Strikes Again"

  • Today on the rest is history. Jack the Ripper's reign of terror in White Chapel continues. But it's not just Jack the Ripper who is stalking the streets. So also is terror. Conspiracy theories,.
    about Jack the Ripper · at
  • Killer has struck again, not once but twice. So, first of all, we had the discovery of the body of Elizabeth Stride, just inside Dutfield's yard, which is just outside a…
    about Elizabeth Stride · at
  • So, to quote Philip Sugdan, whose book on the Jack the Ripper case is the definitive history, he says, this probably took less than 15 minutes.
    about Philip Sugden · at
  • The doctors who examined her body, there were two different doctors. One of them is the guy who had done the autopsy on Annie Chapman, Dr. George Bagster Phillips. The Bagster. The Bagster.
    about Annie Chapman · at
  • That's Elizabeth Stride murder. Let's do the second crime now. So, this is the hideously mutilated body found in Miter Square in the city. At first, the police found it very hard to identify her. She's clearly a very poor woman.
    about Miter Square · at
  • Surprising, Tom, because she's from Wolverampton. So, I'll just give you a very quick sketch of Katherine Edos's life because again, because we want to sort of let the victim…
    about Katherine Edos · at
  • A report saying that the C has not got the slightest clue of any kind. And on the 24th of October, Sir Charles Warren reports to the home office. He says, Despite numerous and…
    about Sir Charles Warren · at
  • Now, one of the women he sees calls herself Mary Jane Kelly. We know that she used to read about the killings because she used to ask her partner who's a guy called Joe Barnett who lives.
    about Mary Jane Kelly · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Jack the Ripper — Person · Main topic · 15 mentions · first at
    Central figure in the podcast, discussed as the notorious serial killer in White Chapel.
  • Elizabeth Stride — Person · Victim · 10 mentions · first at
    One of Jack the Ripper's victims, discussed in detail.
  • Katherine Edos — Person · Victim (canonical victim discussed; misspelled in transcript) · 6 mentions · first at
    Second victim of the 'double event' in Mitre Square; discussed via identification, mutilations, organ removal, and the Goulston Street apron/graffiti episode.
  • Katherine Edetos — Person · Victim · 2 mentions · first at
    Another victim of Jack the Ripper, with her life and death discussed.
    Is my partner. This is my basically my girlfriend Kate Conway. Actually, her name is not Kate Conway. She's Katherine Edetos and she was 46 years old. Philip Ston describes her…
  • Annie Chapman — Person · Earlier victim referenced (canonical victim) · 6 mentions · first at
    Used as a comparison point for weapon/wound differences and for the escalating mutilation pattern; also tied to Dr. Phillips’ prior autopsy work.
  • Mary Jane Kelly — Person · Victim · 3 mentions · first at
    The last known victim of Jack the Ripper, with her story highlighted.
  • Philip Sugden — Person · Referenced historian/author (secondary authority) · 2 mentions · first at
    Quoted repeatedly as an interpretive authority on timing, plausibility, and investigative details; described as author of a 'definitive history'.
  • Sir Charles Warren — Person · Historical Figure · 8 mentions · first at
    Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police during the Jack the Ripper murders.
  • Israel Lipsky — Person · Referenced person (earlier convicted murderer; name used as taunt) · 2 mentions · first at
    Explained as a notorious East End name after a controversial 1887 execution; 'Lipsky' appears in witness testimony as either a shouted name or antisemitic taunt, tying into fears and scapegoating.
    Abaline's thesis, he basically said to his superiors, Look, in the East End, people are shouting the word lipsky as a kind of anti-semitic taunt. And Schwarz has a strong…
  • Martha Tabram — Person · Earlier victim referenced (possible/contested Ripper victim) · 1 mention · first at
    Cited as the first in the sequence of horrific crimes setting the episode’s timeline and escalation of fear.
    To. the reason people are terrified is that there have been a series of horrific crimes. the death first of all of Martha Tabram on the 7th of August. Then Maryanne or Pololly…
  • Maryanne Nichols — Person · Earlier victim referenced (canonical victim; name variant used) · 1 mention · first at
    Referenced as an earlier canonical victim to frame the pattern of throat-cutting and abdominal mutilation.
    Series of horrific crimes. the death first of all of Martha Tabram on the 7th of August. Then Maryanne or Pololly Nichols on the 31st of August, her body literally ripped apart, ripped open.
  • Maryanne Nichols — Person · Earlier victim referenced (canonical victim) · 1 mention · first at
    Referenced as an earlier murder in the series (31 Aug 1888), used to frame the pattern of throat-cutting and abdominal mutilation.
    Series of horrific crimes. the death first of all of Martha Tabram on the 7th of August. Then Maryanne or Pololly Nichols on the 31st of August, her body literally ripped apart, ripped open.
  • Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown — Person · Historical Figure · 3 mentions · first at
    City police surgeon who examined one of Jack the Ripper's victims.
    Anyway, the surgeon who looked at the body, Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown, was sure that the killer had done this on the spot within moments. So, later on when we get to the mad conspiracy theories, the idea that the victim's.
  • Jioati / Jivati / Jivvati (Victoria) — Person · Referenced public figure (monarch; contextual authority) · 3 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as being concerned about the Lipsky case and as a cultural reference point (Golden Jubilee; Buffalo Bill context) shaping public anxieties.
    Queen Victoria was very agitated about this and was very worried that Lipky had been framed as was the Palm Gazette, a newspaper we've heard a bit about already, campaigning newspaper we're.
  • Philip Sugdan — Person · Referenced Expert · 2 mentions · first at
    Author of a definitive history on the Jack the Ripper case.
    So, to quote Philip Sugdan, whose book on the Jack the Ripper case is the definitive history, he says, this probably took less than 15 minutes.
  • John Kelly — Person · Witness/associate (partner identifying victim) · 2 mentions · first at
    Came forward to identify Catherine Eddowes (named as 'Kate Conway' initially) and provides biographical linkage and last-known circumstances.
    For people who are kind of in the on the underclass as it were. And eventually her partner comes forward, a laborer called John Kelly. He has been living with her in a in this…
  • John Kelly — Person · Referenced partner/identifier of victim (Catherine Eddowes) · 2 mentions · first at
    He comes forward to identify the Mitre Square victim and provides the key link from an unknown body to Catherine Eddowes’ identity and circumstances.
    For people who are kind of in the on the underclass as it were. And eventually her partner comes forward, a laborer called John Kelly. He has been living with her in a in this…
  • Maryanne Nichols — Person · Earlier victim referenced (timeline setup) · 1 mention · first at
    Referenced as an earlier canonical victim to contextualize the pattern of throat-cutting and abdominal mutilation.
    Series of horrific crimes. the death first of all of Martha Tabram on the 7th of August. Then Maryanne or Pololly Nichols on the 31st of August, her body literally ripped apart, ripped open.
  • Maryanne Nichols — Person · Earlier victim referenced (canonical Ripper victim; name variant) · 1 mention · first at
    Referenced as an earlier canonical victim (Mary Ann Nichols), establishing the escalating pattern of throat-cutting and abdominal mutilation.
    Series of horrific crimes. the death first of all of Martha Tabram on the 7th of August. Then Maryanne or Pololly Nichols on the 31st of August, her body literally ripped apart, ripped open.
  • Maryanne Nichols — Person · Earlier canonical victim referenced (timeline setup) · 1 mention · first at
    Referenced as an earlier victim whose murder escalated fear and shaped the perceived modus operandi (throat cut, abdominal mutilation).
    Series of horrific crimes. the death first of all of Martha Tabram on the 7th of August. Then Maryanne or Pololly Nichols on the 31st of August, her body literally ripped apart, ripped open.
  • Israel Schwarz — Person · 3 mentions · first at
    Story think that the Ripper had an accomplice. Great Scott Holmes. Yes, if this was a conspiracy. Israel Schwarz, his account makes it sound like these two men know each other…
  • Fire Marshall Bill — Person · 2 mentions · first at
    Because it's not just cowboys, but also Indians are much on the public mind because the previous year was when Buffalo Bill had come with his Wild West show to coincide with…
  • Walter Dw — Person · 2 mentions · first at
    One of the constables on the case, a guy called Walter Dw notes in his memoirs many years later. He says at this point the prostitutes of the East End who had previously sort of vanished from the.
  • Sitting Bull — Person · 1 mention · first at
    And of course, Sitting Bull had been part of Buffalo Bill's Wild West show.
  • Henry Matthews — Person · Home Secretary (political overseer; referenced) · 1 mention · first at
    Appears in the episode as the government figure in conflict with Warren over rewards and policing strategy, reflecting political pressure during the murders.
    Lots of calls in the press for a publicly funded bounty or reward. Now, as we described last time, the Home Office hate the thought of rewards because they say a reward is…
  • Dr. George Bagster Phillips — Person · 2 mentions · first at
    The doctors who examined her body, there were two different doctors. One of them is the guy who had done the autopsy on Annie Chapman, Dr. George Bagster Phillips. The Bagster. The Bagster.
  • Dr. Robert Anderson — Person · Referenced official (CID leadership; policing strategy) · 2 mentions · first at
    Presented as returning from holiday amid criticism and proposing a controversial crackdown on prostitutes; illustrates institutional strain and flawed investigative ideas.
    Warren has decided to resign. So the head of the Met is going to step down now. Meanwhile, the incoming head of the guy is going to be running CI criminal investigation…
  • Hi Rubenhold — Person · 1 mention · first at
    And they think she had been seized on the shoulders and then pushed to the ground and killed on the ground. Now, Hi Rubenhold in her book, The Five, which is brilliant on the…
  • Alfred Long — Person · 1 mention · first at
    5 minutes away, a guy called Alfred Long, police constable, is patrolling Golston Street, which is on the sort of boundary between the city and White Chapel. And at 255, he spotted something.
  • Steven Knight — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Book with the word final solution in the title is probably best left alone. And it was written by a guy called Steven Knight.
  • The Yorkshire Ripper — Person · 1 mention · first at
    This is a flood of hoax letters. They are delused with false sleeves. And it reminds me very much of what happened in the 1970s with the Yorkshire Ripper case when there was…
  • Weside Jack — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Reminds me very much of what happened in the 1970s with the Yorkshire Ripper case when there was the police publicized the work of another hoaxer who was called Weside Jack and…
  • George Lusk — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Just over two weeks later comes the most infamous letter of all. So this was addressed to the new chairman of the myend vigilance committee. the kind of vigilante group, Mr.…
  • Alan Moore — Person · 1 mention · first at
    A while longer. Signed, catch me when you can, Mr. Lusk. The bit at the beginning, From Hell. very famous because that inspires the enormous graphic novel by Alan Moore, which we might talk about in our final episode.
  • Dr. Tumblee — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Are people who think there is a link to as we will come to in the final episode an Irish American suspect Dr. Tumblee, who is a very, very peculiar person indeed. It's harder…
  • John McCarthy — Person · 1 mention · first at
    A lot of people, Mary Jane Kelly has been looking forward to it. Now, that morning, her landlord, who is a shopkeeper called John McCarthy, has been checking his books. He…
  • Thomas Boa — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Been checking his books. He notices that she is 29 shillings behind with the rent and he sends his young assistant Thomas Boa to see if she has some of the money.
  • Walter Beck — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Horror. He goes and gets his boss. They end up going to the police station and they fetch two officers, Inspector Walter Beck and this guy, Walter Dw, I've already mentioned.…
  • Sherlock Holmes — Person · 6 mentions · first at
    Exactly. So Dear Stalker hats, they're not uncommon. Of course, Sherlock Holmes is famously portrayed with one. So, it could be a different man, but it's telling that the hat keeps reappearing in all the witness statements.
  • Israel Schwarz — Person · 3 mentions · first at
    That, Tom. I don't know. So, there's another witness. See what you think of this one. This guy is called Israel Schwarz. Now, he is a Jewish immigrant and he's probably from…

Books & papers

  • From Hell — Book · Referenced Work · 2 mentions · first at
    Graphic novel inspired by the Jack the Ripper case.
    A while longer. Signed, catch me when you can, Mr. Lusk. The bit at the beginning, From Hell. very famous because that inspires the enormous graphic novel by Alan Moore, which we might talk about in our final episode.
  • The Five — Book · Reference material · 1 mention · first at
    Provides historical context about Jack the Ripper's victims
    And they think she had been seized on the shoulders and then pushed to the ground and killed on the ground. Now, Hi Rubenhold in her book, The Five, which is brilliant on the…
  • Jack the Ripper, the Final Solution — Book · 1 mention · first at
    Yes. So, there's a very notorious I think mad well I think basically everyone thinks mad book about Jack the Ripper called Jack the Ripper, the Final Solution. And I honestly think that any.
  • book on the Jack the Ripper case — Book · 1 mention · first at
    So, to quote Philip Sugdan, whose book on the Jack the Ripper case is the definitive history, he says, this probably took less than 15 minutes.
  • Jack the Ripper, the Final Solution — Book · 1 mention · first at
    I think mad well I think basically everyone thinks mad book about Jack the Ripper called Jack the Ripper, the Final Solution. And I honestly think that any book with the word…

Companies & orgs

  • Mile End Vigilance Committee — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Work. And not surprisingly, you start to get genuine vigilantes. So last time we mentioned the mileand vigilance committee which is dominated by local Jewish tradesmen and they…
  • The Mileand Vigilance Committee — Company · 2 mentions · first at
    Work. And not surprisingly, you start to get genuine vigilantes. So last time we mentioned the mileand vigilance committee which is dominated by local Jewish tradesmen and they…
  • The Daily News — Company · 1 mention · first at
    The bodies. Dr. Gordon Brown also thought the killer must have had a degree of expertise. He told the Daily News the left kidney had been carefully taken out in such a manner…
  • The Evening Standard — Company · 1 mention · first at
    We actually read one, didn't we? A piece from the Evening Standard that compared the mutilations to those done by a porny Indian. and WTstead, so the editor of the Palmau Gazette in.
  • The Daily Telegraph — Company · 1 mention · first at
    They say they're incompetent. even the conservative papers. So the Daily Telegraph we've mentioned a few times.
  • The Central News Agency — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Then on Monday the 1st of October, the Central News Agency got a second message and this was a bloodstained postcard with a London East postmark dated the 1st of October. So it could have been.
  • The Restless History Club — Company · 1 mention · first at
    The first time ever unveiling the definitive killer. And if you're not a member of the Restless History Club and you would like to hear them, then you can sign up at the rest is history.com.
  • Home Office — Company · 4 mentions · first at
    The police off the scent. This is what Sir Charles Warren thought. So Charles Warren told the Home Office, he said it was evidently written with the intention of inflaming the…
  • Evening News — Company · 1 mention · first at
    So that Dominic was the evening news published on the 5th of October 1888 by a top investigative journalist describing the atmosphere in Cooney's lodging house on the notorious Flower.
  • Metropolitan Police — Company · 1 mention · first at
    So not part of the Metropolitan Police.
  • restistory.com — Company · 1 mention · first at
    More about her, club members can do so in our bonus. And if you want to join them, just head to the restistory.com.
  • Palm Gazette — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Queen Victoria was very agitated about this and was very worried that Lipky had been framed as was the Palm Gazette, a newspaper we've heard a bit about already, campaigning…
  • Daily News — Company · 1 mention · first at
    The bodies. Dr. Gordon Brown also thought the killer must have had a degree of expertise. He told the Daily News the left kidney had been carefully taken out in such a manner…
  • social club — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Lavender, a commercial traveler, and Joseph Levy, a butcher, and they were leaving a local social club at half warn or thereabouts when they saw a man and woman standing at the…
  • City of London Police — Company · 1 mention
  • socialist club for Russian and Polish Jewish immigrants — Company · 1 mention

Products & tech

  • Hive — Product · Sponsor · 1 mention · first at
    Sponsor of the podcast, promoting their energy solutions.
    Hive makes the most of the sun with solar panels turning sunlight into greener electricity and enabling you to sell excess back to the grid. And Hives thermostats make it possible for you to.
  • Aura Frames — Product · Sponsor · 2 mentions · first at
    Sponsor of the podcast, promoting their digital photo frames.
    Aura frames let you relive these memories every day or give them to someone you love.
  • Uber — Product · Sponsor · 1 mention · first at
    Sponsor of the podcast, promoting their ride and delivery services.
    Someone shows up for you when you need it most? We all need that sometimes, and Uber knows it. Uber isn't just a ride or a meal delivered. It's showing up no matter what.
  • Barnaby and Berggo — Product · 2 mentions · first at
    The home office, news blood hounds. And eventually they get two dogs called Barnaby and Berggo and they do experiments in Regent's Park and Hyde Park. But comically, this…
  • the rest is history.com — Product · 1 mention · first at
    The Restless History Club and you would like to hear them, then you can sign up at the rest is history.com.
  • hard sweets — Product · 2 mentions · first at
    She had some bread and cheese and she possibly had some drinks and she also got hold of some hard sweets kind of breath fresheners called c I think they're called cashew or something aren't they? And she's holding them in her hand.
  • red rose — Product · 2 mentions · first at
    And she's also got hold of a red rose which she has fixed to her bodice. And then somehow she's ended up in Dut's yard outside this sort of socialist club where she has been murdered.
  • solar panels — Product · 1 mention · first at
    Hive makes the most of the sun with solar panels turning sunlight into greener electricity and enabling you to sell excess back to the grid. And Hives thermostats make it possible for you to heat your home without lifting anything.
  • thermostats — Product · 1 mention · first at
    Greener electricity and enabling you to sell excess back to the grid. And Hives thermostats make it possible for you to heat your home without lifting anything more than a thumb and an impressed brow.
  • heat pumps — Product · 1 mention · first at
    Their heat pumps draw warmth from the air and they keep it exactly where you want it. No smoke, no waste. Hives EV charger lets your car charge quietly overnight. Recharging while you do, too.
  • EV charger — Product · 1 mention · first at
    Their heat pumps draw warmth from the air and they keep it exactly where you want it. No smoke, no waste. Hives EV charger lets your car charge quietly overnight. Recharging while you do, too.
  • Hive app — Product · 1 mention · first at
  • bread and cheese — Product · 1 mention · first at
    We know that at some time that evening she had some bread and cheese and she possibly had some drinks and she also got hold of some hard sweets kind of breath fresheners called c I think they're called cashew or something.
  • cashew — Product · 1 mention · first at
    Got hold of some hard sweets kind of breath fresheners called c I think they're called cashew or something aren't they? And she's holding them in her hand.
  • Deer Stalker hat — Product · 1 mention · first at
    Old, dark complexion, a small dark mustache, wearing a black cutaway coat, wearing a hard felt deer stalker hat, and carrying a parcel in newspaper. Cuz the man seen talking to Annie Chapman had been wearing a Deer Stalker hat, hadn't he?
  • nitric acid — Product · 1 mention · first at
    Murdering a young woman who was pregnant called Miriam Angel because he'd forced her to drink nitric acid. Very unpleasant. That is so penny dreadful.
  • porn brokers tickets — Product · 1 mention · first at
    Clothes. she's got a couple of clay pipes and a handkerchief and she's got two porn brokers tickets and but they're under false names. That's very common for people who are…
  • Katherine Edos's apron — Product · 1 mention · first at
    In a tenement doorway. And it was a woman's apron wet with blood. And it turns out that this is Katherine Edos's apron. And he looks around for other signs of blood or any of the other clues. And then he sees something else.
  • app — Product · 1 mention
  • Hive EV charger — Product · 1 mention
  • Hive heat pumps — Product · 1 mention
  • Hive solar panels — Product · 1 mention
  • Hive thermostats — Product · 1 mention

Concepts & topics

  • London's fogs — Concept · Core topic · 3 mentions
    Concept discussed in the podcast, representing the atmospheric and metaphorical darkness of London during the Jack the Ripper murders.
    Complain officially to the government that people are staying away especially because in mid-occtober there's one of London Victorian London's perennial fogs PA super a P super…
  • The Jews are the men that will not be blamed for nothing — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    To the right of the doorway, written in white chalk on the black bricks, are the words, The Jews are the men that will not be blamed for nothing. And the word Jews is spelled J u ws.
  • Lipsky — Concept · 8 mentions · first at
    Really good example of how the Ripper story is a window into the anxieties of 1880s London. Lipsky is a really well-known name in the East End because in 1887, a bloke who made umbrellas called Israel Lipsky, who was originally another.
  • The Pall Mall Gazette — Newspaper · Campaigning newspaper covering the Lipsky case · 1 mention
    Provided context about public opinion on the Lipsky murder case
    Queen Victoria was very agitated about this and was very worried that Lipky had been framed as was the Palm Gazette, a newspaper we've heard a bit about already, campaigning newspaper we're.
  • Lipsky — Concept · 8 mentions · first at
    Threw the woman down called out apparently to the man on the opposite side of the road, Lipsky, and then Schwarz walked away. But finding that he was followed by the second…
  • Attorney General — Concept · 6 mentions · first at
    That you would lie down to sleep in the mud. Wasn't there the policeman or the doctor or somebody said that she seemed to have been laid down in the mud?
  • masonic — Concept · 3 mentions · first at
    Know, what kind of killer places the victim's innards around the body? Maybe a masonic one.
  • Victorian London — Concept · 2 mentions · first at
    So why are people so fascinated? partly because the case seems to embody so many of the anxieties of late Victorian London, but also the inherent fascination of the case. It's…
  • industrial power — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Britain revolutionized the future with the might of industrial power. But now you can transform your own energy future and take control with the power of Hive.
  • SEG tariff — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Suitability. Hive app compatible with selected technology. Paid for surplus requires SEG tariff.
  • Cockney — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Yes. And the lodging house judging by that reading full of Australians Tom wasn't Australians was Cockney. Lovable Cockney.
  • Saturday the 29th — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    In a backyard at Hambury Street, Spittlefields. And we entered last time on the night of Saturday the 29th and Sunday the 30th of September when the killer has struck again…
  • Queen Victoria's personal surgeon — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Schwarz off the scent and incriminate the local Jews. I don't think that's very likely. unless it's Queen Victoria's personal surgeon and they're desperate to muddy the waters…
  • The Jews are the men that will not be blamed for nothing — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    To the right of the doorway, written in white chalk on the black bricks, are the words, The Jews are the men that will not be blamed for nothing. And the word Jews is spelled J u ws.
  • Met Commissioner — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Anything. Meanwhile, the police superintendent, Thomas Arnold, briefs the Met Commissioner, Sir Charles Warren, about this graffiti, and the superintendent says, I want to get…
  • photographer — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Some of the people say, Should we wait for a photographer to photograph the graffiti? And he says, No, it's getting light. We cannot risk people seeing it. And so at 5:30, as dawn is breaking, the chalk is wiped away. And.
  • 5:30 — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    Graffiti? And he says, No, it's getting light. We cannot risk people seeing it. And so at 5:30, as dawn is breaking, the chalk is wiped away. And so, we have no photo of it.
  • razor sharp powers of deduction and logic — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    But I'm I'm applying my razor sharp powers of deduction and logic here.
  • royal family — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    And we will be talking about this in our final episode, but it's a theory about a member of the royal family being involved and various masons. And remember that Sir Charles…
  • Jubella — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    J u we s is a clue and it refers to three legendary Masonic figures, Jubella, Jubello and Jubelum. And it has to be said that this is I mean can I say bollocks on this? I guess you can.
  • Jubello — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    J u we s is a clue and it refers to three legendary Masonic figures, Jubella, Jubello and Jubelum. And it has to be said that this is I mean can I say bollocks on this? I guess you can.
  • Jubelum — Concept · 1 mention · first at
    J u we s is a clue and it refers to three legendary Masonic figures, Jubella, Jubello and Jubelum. And it has to be said that this is I mean can I say bollocks on this? I guess you can.
  • 1842 — Concept · 1 mention
  • hop picking — Concept · 1 mention
  • Mason — Concept · 1 mention

Places & events

  • White Chapel — Place · Setting · 10 mentions · first at
    Primary location where the Jack the Ripper murders occurred.
    Today on the rest is history. Jack the Ripper's reign of terror in White Chapel continues. But it's not just Jack the Ripper who is stalking the streets. So also is terror. Conspiracy theories,.
  • London — Place · Setting · 15 mentions · first at
    Primary location where the events of the podcast take place, specifically focusing on the East End during the Jack the Ripper murders.
    Ripper who is stalking the streets. So also is terror. Conspiracy theories, kidneys, murderous graffiti. This is London's nightmare.
  • Miter Square — Place · Setting · 5 mentions · first at
    Location where one of Jack the Ripper's murders occurred.
  • Spittlefields — Place · Setting · 3 mentions · first at
    Area in London mentioned in the context of Jack the Ripper's murders, contributing to the historical setting.
    And then another body ripped open that of Annie Chapman on the 8th of September in a backyard at Hambury Street, Spittlefields. And we entered last time on the night of Saturday the 29th and Sunday the 30th of September when the.
  • Cooney's lodging house — Place · Setting · 2 mentions · first at
    Lodging house where Jack the Ripper's victims stayed, mentioned in the context of the crimes.
    Published on the 5th of October 1888 by a top investigative journalist describing the atmosphere in Cooney's lodging house on the notorious Flower and Dean Street. which was…
  • Flower and Dean Street — Place · Setting · 3 mentions · first at
    Street in London associated with Jack the Ripper's victims, mentioned in the context of the crimes.
    So, she had been seen in a cheap lodging house in Flower and Dean Street just before 7:00. We don't know when she went out exactly. We don't know where she was going. We don't know whether she was.
  • Dutfield's Yard — Place · Setting · 3 mentions · first at
    Location where Elizabeth Stride was murdered by Jack the Ripper.
    Killer has struck again, not once but twice. So, first of all, we had the discovery of the body of Elizabeth Stride, just inside Dutfield's yard, which is just outside a…
  • Miller's Court — Place · Setting · 3 mentions · first at
    Location mentioned in the context of Jack the Ripper's final victim, adding to the historical setting.
    She used to read about the killings because she used to ask her partner who's a guy called Joe Barnett who lives with her in a little kind of court called Miller's Court off…
  • Scotland Yard — Place · Setting · 2 mentions · first at
    Headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, mentioned in the context of the Jack the Ripper investigation.
    It slams what it calls the notorious and shameful shortcomings of the detective department or rather of the botched up makeshift which does duty for a detective department Scotland Yard. They call the Tory home secretary Mr.
  • Mile End — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Area in London mentioned in the context of vigilante groups and the broader impact of Jack the Ripper's crimes.
    Mentioned the mileand vigilance committee which is dominated by local Jewish tradesmen and they would meet at the crown pub on my end road and they would organize patrol. They…
  • London East — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Area in London mentioned in the context of the Jack the Ripper murders.
    Then on Monday the 1st of October, the Central News Agency got a second message and this was a bloodstained postcard with a London East postmark dated the 1st of October. So it could have been.
  • Spitalfields — Place · Setting · 3 mentions · first at
    Area in London where some of Jack the Ripper's murders occurred, mentioned in the context of the crimes.
    And Dean Street. which was the lodging house that had been used by Jack the Ripper's latest victim. And we are of course in Spittlefields in White Chapel in the East End of…
  • Gothenburg — Place · Setting · 2 mentions · first at
    Birthplace of Elizabeth Stride, one of Jack the Ripper's victims.
    Discussed last time, Dutfield's Yard, Elizabeth Stride. So as we heard about her last time, she's Swedish. She's born in Goththingberg. She's come to England.
  • Golston Street — Place · Setting · 2 mentions · first at
    Location where a bloodstained apron and graffiti were found, linked to Jack the Ripper's crimes.
    5 minutes away, a guy called Alfred Long, police constable, is patrolling Golston Street, which is on the sort of boundary between the city and White Chapel. And at 255, he spotted something.
  • Goththingberg — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Birthplace of one of Jack the Ripper's victims, mentioned in the historical context.
    We know that at some time that evening she had some bread and cheese and she possibly had some drinks and she also got hold of some hard sweets kind of breath fresheners called c I think.
  • The Crown Pub — Place · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned the mileand vigilance committee which is dominated by local Jewish tradesmen and they would meet at the crown pub on my end road and they would organize patrol. They…
  • Dorset Street — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Street in London associated with Jack the Ripper's victims, mentioned in the context of the crimes.
    Because she used to ask her partner who's a guy called Joe Barnett who lives with her in a little kind of court called Miller's Court off Dorset Street and he would read her…
  • Commercial Street — Place · 1 mention · first at
    But it didn't deter her from going out on the streets cuz PC due as he then was says often I had seen her parading along commercial street between Flower and Dean Street and…
  • White Chapel Road — Place · 1 mention · first at
    Says often I had seen her parading along commercial street between Flower and Dean Street and Allgate or along White Chapel Road. She was usually in the company of two or three…
  • The Lord Mayor's Show — Event · Annual London procession referenced in historical context · 1 mention
    Potential event occurring during Ripper timeline
    The women. They'll spoil his pretty fizz. And I wouldn't give him tuppence for his life. Now at night when you're undressed and about to go to rest, just see that he ain't…
  • City of London — Place · 3 mentions · first at
    Watkins is patrolling Miter Square, just off Olgate. So, that's just inside the boundary of the city of London, so to the west of the other crimes.
  • Polish — Place · 2 mentions · first at
    Stride, just inside Dutfield's yard, which is just outside a socialist club for Russian and Polish Jewish immigrants. And then 45 minutes later, as we described last time, PC…
  • Russian — Place · 2 mentions · first at
    Stride, just inside Dutfield's yard, which is just outside a socialist club for Russian and Polish Jewish immigrants. And then 45 minutes later, as we described last time, PC…
  • Wolverampton — Place · 2 mentions · first at
    Of all the victims, which is not surprising, Tom, because she's from Wolverampton. So, I'll just give you a very quick sketch of Katherine Edos's life because again, because we…
  • Hambury Street — Place · 1 mention · first at
    And then another body ripped open that of Annie Chapman on the 8th of September in a backyard at Hambury Street, Spittlefields. And we entered last time on the night of…
  • Olgate — Place · 1 mention · first at
    As we described last time, PC Edward Watkins is patrolling Miter Square, just off Olgate. So, that's just inside the boundary of the city of London, so to the west of the other crimes.
  • school playground — Place · 1 mention · first at
    It's a school playground. Oh my god.
  • Burner Street — Place · 1 mention · first at
    Really intriguing witnesses. So, first of all, there's a guy called PC William Smith. He was patrolling near Burner Street about 12:30 on the night of the murder and he saw a…
  • railway arch — Place · 1 mention · first at
    Schwarz walked away. But finding that he was followed by the second man, he ran as far as the railway arch, but the man did not follow so far. Tantalizing it is. It's…
  • morttery — Place · 1 mention · first at
    Is. It's mysterious, Tom. It's intriguing. Anyway, the police take this bloke Schwarz to the morttery and he says, This is the woman. Elizabeth Stride is the woman I saw. And they say, Well, what do the men look like?
  • Birmingham — Place · 1 mention · first at
    They die young. She ends up as an orphan. she goes sort of back and forth but she to Birmingham Wolverampton London. She ends up with a soldier called Thomas Conway. She lives…
  • tenement doorway — Place · 1 mention · first at
    Boundary between the city and White Chapel. And at 255, he spotted something in a tenement doorway. And it was a woman's apron wet with blood. And it turns out that this is…
  • Australia — Place · 1 mention
  • Kent — Place · 1 mention

Media & podcasts

  • Dear Boss — Media · Referenced work · 4 mentions · first at
    Infamous letter attributed to Jack the Ripper, discussed in the context of the murders.
    The 4th of October cuz the police were desperate to basically, say, Do you know this man? The general consensus, I think, is that these are not real. The neither this or the…
  • Sherlock Holmes — Media · Referenced Work · 6 mentions · first at
    Fictional detective referenced in comparison to the Jack the Ripper case.
    Man, he says, was about 5'5 and wore a kind of peaked cap, a little bit like a deer stalker. That tallies with a third witness who's a laborer called William Marshall. He also…
  • Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — Media · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Literary work mentioned in the context of discussing the duality of human nature, relevant to the Jack the Ripper narrative.
    Terrible fate. And we'll also be looking at the cultural hinterland of the Ripper murders. we'll be looking at Dr.
  • From Hell — Media · Referenced work · 2 mentions · first at
    Mentioned in relation to a letter sent by someone claiming to be Jack the Ripper.
    A while longer. Signed, catch me when you can, Mr. Lusk. The bit at the beginning, From Hell. very famous because that inspires the enormous graphic novel by Alan Moore, which we might talk about in our final episode.
  • Dr. Jackekal and Mr. Hyde — Media · 1 mention · first at
    We'll talk about this in the next episode when you're going to be talking about Dr. Jackekal and Mr. Hyde and so on, but it's really striking to me reading a lot of the newspaper commentary how often people would say things that there are.

Sponsors

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    Episode sponsor; provided the opening commercial read describing Hive's home energy products (solar, thermostats, heat pumps, EV chargers) and directing listeners to hivehome.com.
    Hive makes the most of the sun with solar panels turning sunlight into greener electricity and enabling you to sell excess back to the grid. And Hives thermostats make it possible for you to.
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    Mid-episode sponsor read; Uber presented as a service that 'shows up' for you and included a download CTA for the app.
    Someone shows up for you when you need it most? We all need that sometimes, and Uber knows it. Uber isn't just a ride or a meal delivered. It's showing up no matter what.
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    Episode sponsor with a commercial read promoting Aura's digital photo frames, a Black Friday/Cyber Monday discount (promo code 'history') and a purchase URL.
    This episode is brought to you by Aura Frames. History is full of gifts, but the best are those that last. Because photographs have become our modern heirlooms. They're like fragments of the.
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    Sponsor of the episode, promoting their digital photo frames.
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    Hive brings it all together. Heating, charging, and solar, managed from one simple app in a quiet revolution. In the long history of power, Hive helps you finally know yours. Head to hivehome.com.
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    Someone shows up for you when you need it most? We all need that sometimes, and Uber knows it. Uber isn't just a ride or a meal delivered. It's showing up no matter what.
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Full transcript with timestamps

Today on the rest is history. Jack the Ripper's reign of terror in White Chapel continues. But it's not just Jack the Ripper who is stalking the streets. So also is terror. Conspiracy theories, kidneys, murderous graffiti. This is London's nightmare. This episode is sponsored by Hive. Britain revolutionized the future with the might of industrial power. But now you can transform your own energy future and take control with the power of Hive. Hive makes the most of the sun with solar panels turning sunlight into greener electricity and enabling you to sell excess back to the grid. And Hives thermostats make it possible for you to heat your home without lifting anything more than a thumb and an impressed brow.

Their heat pumps draw warmth from the air and they keep it exactly where you want it. No smoke, no waste. Hives EV charger lets your car charge quietly overnight. Recharging while you do, too. Hive brings it all together. Heating, charging, and solar, managed from one simple app in a quiet revolution. In the long history of power, Hive helps you finally know yours. Head to hivehome.com to find out more. Subject to survey and suitability. Hive app compatible with selected technology. Paid for surplus requires SEG tariff.

An old woman who was known by the subrequet of mother Krakom rather startled me by rushing up as I stood at the fireplace and demanded to know if I was Jack the Ripper. The awkwardness of answering this question I was happily relieved of by the old dame herself assuring me that she did not think I was. I know you ain't him, she said. You wouldn't rip me up, would you? Nah. By and by the proceedings in the kitchen became more lively. girls commenced singing songs and the poet of the company entertained the room with the chorus of his latest composition.

Has anyone seen him? Can you tell us where he is? If you meet him, you must take away his knife. Then give him to the women. They'll spoil his pretty fizz. And I wouldn't give him tuppence for his life. Now at night when you're undressed and about to go to rest, just see that he ain't underneath the bed. If he is, you mustn't shout, but politely drag him out and with your poker tap him on the head. So that Dominic was the evening news uh published on the 5th of October 1888 by a top investigative journalist describing the atmosphere in Cooney's lodging house on the notorious Flower and Dean Street. Um which was the lodging house that had been used by Jack the Ripper's latest victim. And we are of course in Spittlefields in White Chapel in the East End of London. It's the autumn of 1888 and we are deep into the story of the most notorious murderer of all time, Jack the Ripper.

Yes. And the lodging house judging by that reading full of Australians Tom wasn't Australians was Cockney. Lovable Cockney.

That sounds like Russell Crow to me. So, well, well, the Australian accent does derive from Cocknney.

Of course it does. Couldn't be more Cockney. And it's um it's a kind of uh it's a reminder of just how obsessed by this point everybody is with the uh with the story of of Jack the Ripper. Um not just in London, not just across Britain, but across the whole world.

Yeah, absolutely. And I guess the reason for that is that no one knows who he is. And that of course remains the case to this day.

So why are people so fascinated? partly because the case um seems to embody so many of the anxieties of late Victorian London, but also the inherent fascination of the case. It's so savage and so horrific, but also that mystery, right, that he's the the thief in the night, the ghost in the shadows who's escaping. And that's of course why we're still so fascinated and why you almost uniquely among serial killer stories, this one has an extraordinary hold on the world's imagination.

Yeah. And I think also what we shouldn't overlook is the sheer terror that he is inspiring because those those songs, you know, you sing them to keep your spirits up, but they're expressive of an absolute dread. People are terrified,

of course, and with good reason. So, we ended last time on a cliffhanger. So, let's remind ourselves where we've got to. I mean, the reason people are terrified is that there have been a series of horrific crimes. the death first of all of Martha Tabram on the 7th of August. Then uh Maryanne or Pololly Nichols on the 31st of August, her body um literally ripped apart, ripped open. And then another body ripped open that of Annie Chapman on the 8th of September in a backyard at Hambury Street, Spittlefields. And we entered last time on the night of Saturday the 29th and Sunday the 30th of September when the killer has struck again, not once but twice. So, first of all, we had the discovery of the body of Elizabeth Stride, just inside Dutfield's yard, which is just outside a socialist club for Russian and Polish Jewish immigrants. And then 45 minutes later, as we described last time, PC Edward

Watkins is patrolling Miter Square, just off Olgate. So, that's just inside the boundary of the city of London, so to the west of the other the other crimes. And he flashes his lantern. He finds something huddled on the ground. And then he's rushing across the square where we ended last time. to a watchman. For God's sake, mate, come to my assistance. There's another woman cut to pieces. So, let's pick up the story. So, within about a quarter of an hour, a group of policemen are gathered around the body, and they're joined at about 220 by the city police surgeon Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown. And it's from him that we get the again gruesome details of the crime scene. So to reiterate, if you are driving along with very small children in the back listening to a podcast about the Jack the Ripper, you will be unsurprised to hear that there are some gruesome details to come, so rethink your choices. The victim, says Dr.

Frederick Gordon Brown, is lying on her back with her throat cut, her body horribly mutilated. Quote him, "The abdomen was all exposed. The intestines were drawn out to a large extent and placed over the right shoulder. A piece of about 2 feet was quite detached from the body and placed between the body and the left arm apparently by design. So this is a really unsettling, you know, unbelievably unsettling and strange scene almost kind of ritualistic. You know, what kind of killer places the victim's innards around the body? Maybe a masonic one.

Well, maybe we shall be coming to this in our in our fifth episode. Um, and once again, of course, the the Ripper has struck extremely efficiently and quickly before vanishing into the night. So, to quote Philip Sugdan, whose book on the Jack the Ripper case is the definitive history, he says, you know, this probably took less than 15 minutes. In that period of time, the killer must have got his victim into Miter Square, assuming she's not there already, killed her, mutilated her, done all his sort of operations on the body, and then got away. And he has taken with him her womb and her left kidney. And once again, he has done this almost completely unseen and undetected. So, we're still in the small hours of Sunday, the 30th of September, and we now have two murder investigations going on. simultaneously.

So there's the Elizabeth Stride one in White Chapel and there's this other one now in the city of London

and they are under different police jurisdictions because the city of London has its own police force.

Exactly. So not part of the Metropolitan Police. So let's begin with the one in White Chapel. The first one, the one we discussed last time, Dutfield's Yard, Elizabeth Stride. So as we heard about her last time, she's Swedish. She's born in Goththingberg. She's come to England. She probably worked as an occasional prostitute. And if you want to find out more about her, club members can do so in our bonus. And if you want to join them, just head to the restistory.com. So, she had been seen in a cheap lodging house in Flower and Dean Street just before 7:00. We don't know when she went out exactly. We don't know where she was going. We don't know whether she was going out to try to solicit to get money for a bed. All of this is very unclear.

We know that at some time that evening she had some bread and cheese and she possibly had some drinks and she also got hold of some hard sweets kind of breath fresheners called c I think they're called cashew or something aren't they? And she's holding them in her hand.

And she's also got hold of a red rose which she has fixed to her bodice. And then somehow she's ended up in Dut's yard outside this um sort of socialist club where she has been murdered.

Do you know the um the sight of it now? It's a school playground. Oh my god. Really?

Yeah. I went and investigated all the places where it happened, right? And um I mean that's probably the least appropriate place.

Yeah. And is there a plaque or anything? No. Cuz obviously the school doesn't want to draw attention to the place where all the little children are playing.

I think there should be a plaque. First of all, the kids the kids would love it. And secondly, I think it's you should mark where she her last moments. I think anyway, I'll take that up with the school. So have obvious question. How did she die? As with the other victims, her throat was cut and it seems like there were bruises on her neck and shoulders. Um, the doctors who examined her body, there were two different doctors. One of them is the guy who had done the autopsy on Annie Chapman, Dr. George Bagster Phillips. The Bagster. The Bagster.

Yeah, that's surely what his friends from school call him. And um, they think she had been seized on the shoulders and then pushed to the ground and killed on the ground. Now, Hi Rubenhold in her book, The Five, which is brilliant on the lives of the victims, has a thesis that the victims were all killed as they slept, that they were homeless and the the Ripper just simply, you know, came across them and killed them. I'm not sure about that here because Sugdan points out that the ground was very muddy and it had been raining and therefore it seems unlikely that you would lie down to sleep in the mud. Wasn't there um the policeman or the doctor or somebody said that she seemed to have been laid down in the mud?

Been laid down. Exactly. Rather than you wouldn't li you wouldn't choose to lie down in the mud, surely. I mean, so many baffling things about it. Why is she still holding the hard sweets in one hand? Why did nobody hear her cry out? She's very close to this club.

Why are there no signs of any struggle at all? And most bewildering of all, why uniquely is Elizabeth Stride's body not mutilated in any way? There's no ripping. You know, her body, her throat has been cut, but nothing else. So, there are a couple of theories. One theory is she's actually killed by a different person, and this is an unrelated murder. So, Dr. Phillips the bagster. He thought that the killer had used a different knife from the one used to kill Annie Chapman and that the wound was very different. On the other hand, a lot of ripper sort of scholars say, you know, the the modus operandi is is similar. A victim killed while lying on the ground in a dark corner of the east end, the throat cut from left to right.

So the balance of probability, I think, is that this was a Jack the Ripper crime. And in that case, the explanation for why the body isn't mutilated is that actually when that guy and his cart that we talked about last time, Lewis Deemshutz, came into the yard, he actually disturbed the Ripper in the process of his, you know, his nefarious work.

Yeah. And I guess that would then also explain perhaps why he goes on to commit a second murder because he's his,

you know, he he hasn't had the opportunity to do what he wants to do, namely get ripping. Exactly that. I think that makes complete psychological sense, right? The ripper has been cheated of the thing that he really, you know, the the killing is now not enough to give him the high that he wants. It is actually the process of ripping which is becoming more and more extreme and more horrific every time. And that's why he feels the need to strike again. Now, this first crime, there are a couple of really intriguing witnesses. So, first of all, there's a guy called PC William Smith. He was patrolling near Burner Street about 12:30 on the night of the murder and he saw a man and a woman with a red rose talking across the street from where the body was discovered. And he described the man as about 28 years old, dark complexion, a small dark mustache, wearing a black cutaway coat, wearing a hard felt deer stalker hat,

and carrying a parcel in newspaper. Cuz the man seen talking to Annie Chapman had been wearing a Deer Stalker hat, hadn't he?

Exactly. So Dear Stalker hats, you know, they're not uncommon. Of course, Sherlock Holmes is famously portrayed with one. So, you know, it could be a different man, but it's telling that the hat keeps reappearing in all the witness statements.

I mean, just just to think. I mean, a deer stalker, you st you wear it because you you're stalking deer, and when you capture a deer, you you rip it open and disembowel it.

I just wondering if perhaps there's a maybe I mean, maybe I hadn't thought of that, Tom. I don't know. So, there's another witness. See what you think of this one. This guy is called Israel Schwarz. Now, he is a Jewish immigrant and he's probably from Galacia in Austria, Hungary. At about 12:45, he is walking past Dutfield's yard when, as Chief Inspector Swanson describes in his notes, he saw a man stop and speak to a woman who was standing in the gateway. The man tried to pull the woman into the street, but he turned around and threw her down on the footway, and the woman screamed three times, but not very loudly. On crossing to the opposite side of the street, he saw a second man standing lighting his pipe. The man who threw the woman down called out apparently to the man on the opposite side of the road, Lipsky, and then Schwarz walked away. But finding that he was followed by the second man, he ran

as far as the railway arch, but the man did not follow so far. Tantalizing it is. It's mysterious, Tom. It's intriguing. Anyway, the police take this bloke Schwarz to the morttery and he says, "This is the woman. Elizabeth Stride is the woman I saw." And they say, "Well, what do the men look like?" And he says, "Basically, the men were in their early 30s. They were had mustaches and they wore dark coats." And the first man, he says, was about 5'5 and wore a kind of peaked cap, a little bit like a deer stalker. That tallies with a third witness who's a laborer called William Marshall. He also says he saw a woman and a man talking and joking. The man about 5'6 and a black cutaway coat, a peaked cap, decently dressed and mild speaking like a cler. So this is looking like the same man in all of these, you know, peaked cap, 5'5, 5' 6, and so on and so forth. What about the second man, though? What about this other man? So

some people who look into the Ripper story think that the Ripper had an accomplice. Great Scott Holmes. Yes, if this was a conspiracy. Israel Schwarz, his account makes it sound like these two men know each other and the one man shouts to the other man, "Lipsky." But the police report is clear that he can't be sure about that. He's only kind of guessing.

And Holmes, what what what is this Lipky? What do you make of that? You know, I'm enjoying this new vibe to the podcast with uh being cast as Homes for once. Brilliant. So, this is a really fascinating puzzle and this is a really good example of how the Ripper story is a window into the anxieties of 1880s London. Lipsky is a really well-known name in the East End because in 1887, a bloke who made umbrellas called Israel Lipsky, who was originally another Polish Jew, had been hanged for murdering a young woman who was pregnant called Miriam Angel because he'd forced her to drink nitric acid. Very unpleasant. That is so penny dreadful.

This is a really really controversial case at the time because a lot of people said Lipky had not done it that this was anti-semitism. Lipsky confessed to his rabbi just before he was um executed. But some people believed at the time that he had done so either because he'd been kind of brutalized and broken and he was just confessing to get it over with or because the rabbi had persuaded him that it would be better for everybody if he confessed and better for the Jewish community. That seems implausible that they could then kind of ostracize him as a bad as a bad egg rather than it look as though they were trying to cover up for one of their co-religionists.

Queen Victoria was very agitated about this and was very worried that Lipky had been framed as was the Palm Gazette, a newspaper we've heard a bit about already, campaigning newspaper we're hearing more from. So anyway, Lipsky is a a sort of well-known sort of taunt in White Chapel in 1887, 1888. People will say, "Oh, you're a regular lipsky and all of this kind of thing."

Yeah. So kind of like you're Harold Shipman or you're whatever. Did you ever move in circles where people compared you to Harold Shipman?

No, but you could you I mean it becomes a kind of a a standard name for a killer or something.

Yeah, like the Ripper, right? Like Jack the Ripper. Yeah, there are a couple of possibilities. So one is this bloke was genuinely called Lipsky. The two men are working together and Lipsky is a confederate in the Ripper's crimes. I think no one really believes that. Philip Sugdan suggests that the two men, this is a bizarre suggestion I think from him, that the two men are working together possibly, but that one of them shouts Lipsky as a trick to throw Schwarz off the scent and incriminate the local Jews. I I don't think that's very likely. I mean, unless it's Queen Victoria's personal surgeon and and they're desperate to muddy the waters, but again, we will come to this in due course. And then Inspector Abaline, great to have him back. Inspector Abaline's thesis, he basically said to his superiors, "Look, in the East End, people are shouting the word lipsky as a kind of anti-semitic taunt." And Schwarz

has a strong Jewish appearance. So, I am of opinion it was addressed to him as he stopped to look at the man he saw apparently illusing the deceased woman. So that the second man is just a complete bystander and a red herring. The second man has nothing to do with anything. And actually basically the ripper shouted, you know, he's basically shouting go away you you lipsky at Israel Schwarz. And that does seem to kind of make sense to me actually.

Yeah. Now there are two implications of Abaline's thesis. That would mean the killer is probably from the East End because he's familiar with the slang of the East End, the Lipsky taunt, which is a kind of East End thing. Secondly, it also implies the killer is not Jewish because you won't use an anti-semitic taunt if you're Jewish yourself, right?

Unless that's part of his fish cunning. It is, but he'd have to No, no, I agree. I agree, Holmes. I agree, Holmes. I'm just trying to keep you on your toes.

Okay. Very good. Thank you. All right. So, that's the first crime of the night. That's Elizabeth Stride murder. Let's do the second crime now. So, this is the the hideously mutilated body found in Miter Square in the city. At first, the police found it very hard to identify her. She's clearly a very poor woman. She's wearing very old and dirty clothes. Um, she's got a couple of clay pipes and a handkerchief and she's got two porn brokers tickets and but they're under false names. That's very common for people who are kind of in the on the underclass as it were. And eventually her partner comes forward, a laborer called John Kelly. He has been living with her in a in this doss house, Cooney's lodging's house, which is a really rundown place. And he says, "This is my partner. This is my basically my my girlfriend Kate Conway. Actually, her name is not Kate Conway. She's Katherine Edetos and she was 46 years old. Philip

Ston describes her as the most likable of all the victims, which is not surprising, Tom, because she's from Wolverampton. So, I'll just give you a very quick sketch of Katherine Edos's life because again, because we want to sort of let the victim stories breathe, as it were, we'll be doing her in the bonus episode. She's born in Wolverampton 1842 to very young parents who came from tin plate working backgrounds. They moved to London and they die young. She ends up as an orphan. Um she goes sort of back and forth but she to Birmingham Wolverampton London. She ends up with a soldier called Thomas Conway. She lives with him for almost 20 years. They have three children. The classic pattern. She drinks. He's probably violent. They separate.

I think he definitely is violent, isn't he? Cuz she's always got kind of black eyes and things. Exactly. They're into the downward spiral. She ends up with John Kelly. She works as a child woman doing odd jobs, but she's almost certainly involved with casual prostitution as well, though it's unclear.

They've just been hot picking in Kent, her and this guy Kelly, cuz hot picking is kind of almost the nearest to holiday that you have if you're kind of on the streets, isn't it?

Exactly. And tens of thousands of people would go hot picking in Kent and and so on.

They've gone off. They've come back. She's got drunk. She's actually picked up earlier on the Saturday for being drunk by the police. She's put in a cell. The police let her out at 1:00 on the Sunday morning. Her last words, recorded words to the constable lets her out. She says to him, "All right, good night, old cock." And then about 40 minutes later, she is dead. So the ripper, you know, struck very quickly after she was let out. Now, as I've already heard, her fate is by far, you know, the most horrific so far. Her throat has been cut for seven in from left to right. Her face and body have been horribly mutilated. Her torso has been ripped open, her insides removed and put by her shoulder, and the killer has left with her left kidney and part of her uterus. He has also cut off the lobe of one of her ears, hasn't he? And this kind of resonates because in the notorious letter where Jack the Ripper

introduces himself, he'd said that he would cut off the ears of his next victim. And so this debate as to whether cutting off one lobe um counts or not. That is right. Um what the killer does not do is to cut off her ears though, which the letter had said that he would

and cutting off the lobe in the context of the general mutilations is only a small thing. It doesn't seem like a deliberate thing that you've done to to justify a boast in a letter beforehand. Anyway, the surgeon who looked at the body, Dr. Frederick Gordon Brown, was sure that the killer had done this on the spot within moments. So, later on when we get to the mad conspiracy theories, the idea that the victim's bodies were mutilated in a carriage by, you know, a royal doctor and then dumped on the spot, this is not what people thought at the time when they inspected the bodies. Dr. Gordon Brown also thought the killer must have had a degree of expertise. He told the Daily News the left kidney had been carefully taken out in such a manner as to show that it had been done by somebody who not only knew its anatomical position but knew how to remove it. Now again, does this mean that it's a doctor or a

surgeon? No, not necessarily. It could be, as we've said, a butcher or a slaughterman or a medical student or indeed a very talented amateur who studied anatomy, but somebody who basically knows what they're doing. I guess someone who's used to stalking deer on the highlands, perhaps

maybe. So, as with um Elizabeth Stride's murder, there is one interesting uh witness account. There are two friends. They're both Jewish. a guy called Joseph Lavender, a commercial traveler, and Joseph Levy, a butcher, and they were leaving a local social club at half warn or thereabouts when they saw a man and woman standing at the entrance to a nearby alley. And Lavender saw the most clearly. Well, he didn't see the woman's face, so he couldn't be sure that it was Katherine Edos, but he said the man was about 30, about 5'7 with a mustache, medium build, and a peaked deer stalker's cap. But he thought the man looked rough and shabby. So, we've had slightly different accounts of how the man looks, but there are a few common features, aren't there?

There are. And also, it's the middle of the night, flickering of the gas lamps.

Yeah. And this time there is another clue, a very strange and disturbing clue. So, within minutes of Katherine Ed's murder, the police were scouring this kind of warren of streets around Miter Square. And as we've described, once again, the killer slipped through their fingers like a ghost. 5 minutes away, a guy called Alfred Long, police constable, is patrolling Golston Street, which is on the sort of boundary between the city and White Chapel. And at 255, he spotted something in a tenement doorway. And it was a woman's apron wet with blood. And it turns out that this is Katherine Edos's apron. And he looks around for other signs of blood or any of the other clues. And then he sees something else.

To the right of the doorway, written in white chalk on the black bricks, are the words, "The Jews are the men that will not be blamed for nothing." And the word Jews is spelled J u ws.

Yes. So PC Long takes the apron to the nearest police station. Soon, lots of other policemen are swarming around these buildings. They don't find anything. Meanwhile, the police superintendent, Thomas Arnold, briefs the Met Commissioner, Sir Charles Warren, about this graffiti, and the superintendent says, "I want to get rid of this as quickly as possible. If we leave it up on the wall, by dawn, there will be a riot against the Jews of the East End." And you can completely see why he says this. Passions are running high because of the tide of immigration in the 1880s. And as we saw after Annie Chapman's murder, there are a lot of people who are very keen to blame the Jews of the East End. So Charles Warren goes personally to Golston Street and he looks at the writing and the graffiti.

Some of the people say, "Should we wait for a photographer to photograph the graffiti?" And he says, "No, it's getting light. We cannot risk people seeing it." And so at 5:30, as dawn is breaking, the chalk is wiped away. And so, you know, we have no photo of it. So, the enduring mystery, who left it, what does it mean? There are three possibilities. Number one, it's a complete coincidence. The Ripper just threw the apron away and there was some anti-semitic graffiti on the wall. The police themselves didn't agree with.

Some people said it was fresh. Some people said it was faded. So, it could be old anti-semitic graffiti. Of course, there is a fair bit of anti-semitic graffiti in the East End. However, Philip Subton points out this was a building that had a lot of Jewish residents. Is it really plausible that they wouldn't have wiped that away? I mean, if it had been someone who' put it up half an hour before, perfectly plausible, I suppose, Tom, but that really is a coincidence, isn't it?

Yeah, it is a coincidence. But but I assume that this kind of graffiti is going up all the time in the middle of the night.

Yeah. I mean, well, I'm not sure. That seems to me, I have to say, the likeliest explanation.

Explanation two. Well, listeners can listeners can make up their own minds. We don't want to preach. That's the last thing we do on the rest of history.

Just offering my own conclusions. Well, that everyone's grateful for that and everyone enjoys it. No one more than me, to be honest. So, the next thing, the ripper left the message to taunt the police because he was Jewish. So, he's euphoric from his killings. He's in a state of ecstasy. He's putting two fingers up to the world and saying, "Haha, the Jews have got their own back." And number three, the ripper left the message, but it's a trick to put throw the police off the scent. This is what Sir Charles Warren thought. So Charles Warren told the Home Office, he said it was evidently written with the intention of inflaming the public mind against the Jews and that's why I had to get rid of it.

I mean, that is clearly the case, but it doesn't have to be the Ripper who's written it. I mean, no one would put that up and not want that. I think

it's a better story if it's the Ripper, though, isn't it? Yeah, of course it is. But you know, I'm I'm applying my razor sharp powers of deduction and logic here.

Well, listen, amaze us now with your razor sharp powers of deduction and logic because is there not an exciting conspiracy theory attached to this that you will very much enjoy?

Yes. So, there's a very notorious I think mad well I think basically everyone thinks mad book about Jack the Ripper called Jack the Ripper, the Final Solution. And I honestly think that any book with the word final solution in the in the title is probably best left alone. And it was written by a guy called Steven Knight.

And we will be talking about this in uh in our final episode, but it's a theory about a member of the royal family being involved um and various masons. And remember that um Sir Charles Warren, the head of the Met is himself a Mason. And he says that the misspelling of Jews, so J u we s is a clue and it refers to three legendary um Masonic figures, Jubella, Jubello and Jubelum. And it has to be said that this is I mean can I say bollocks on on this? Um I guess you can.

So um these figures had apparently not been part of Masonic ritual in Britain for almost a century. Uh, and British Masons never use the the term J U Wes to describe them. Um, and there is no link with with the Masons at all. Well, we should explore this in greater detail, shouldn't we, in our final episode where we solve the crime and we should be digging into the Masonic conspiracy theory, which spoiler alert, I actually do agree with you and I think it is completely bonkers. But do remember, Sir Charles Warren had dug excavated on the site of the temple and Mason's obsessed with the temple. So, who knows? Maybe there is something there.

That was a tantalizing clue there, Tom. So, uh, let's take a break and then we'll come back and we will plunge back into the stricken streets of White Chapel as the story races towards the next terrible crime. This episode is brought to you by Uber. Now, do you know that feeling when someone shows up for you when you need it most? We all need that sometimes, and Uber knows it. Uber isn't just a ride or a meal delivered. It's showing up no matter what.

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Hello. Welcome back to the rest is history and we are in White Chapel in the heart of the East End and it is the morning of Sunday the 30th of September 1888 and news is spreading across the East End and beyond of the double killing overnight of Elizabeth Stride in White Chapel, Katherine Edos in Miter Square in the city of London and the police have cordoned off the murder sites but already thousands of people are gathering outside Miter Square in Duckfield's yard where Elizabeth Stride had been murdered and there are newspapers are starting to appear, people hawking them. The news is spreading uh virally. Yeah. And there's a massive sense of panic actually for the next week or so. So, the streets are deserted at night. There are reports that um lots of poor homeless women have gone west to the city or to the west end because the streets are better lit there. There are reports that people

kind of those people who don't the women are huddling together for protection in the east end that some women are carrying knives. the local shopkeepers complain officially to the government that people are staying away especially because in mid-occtober there's one of London Victorian London's um perennial fogs PA super a P super a regular P super descends and they actually petition the home secretary and they say basically the you know you've lost control of law and order in East London clearly respectable people are not going shopping and we're losing our livelihoods and in the meantime there are loads of mad theories about the killer you know there are sort of letters to the time some old India hands and things saying, you know, we recognize this. This is Alaskara at work.

I mean, that that is that is what it would be in a Sherlock Holmes story. That idea, the kind of opium crazed um foreigners who've landed on a ship, that kind of it's exactly what you get in a Victorian crime thriller.

It's a sort of the Empire coming home, right? Or Wilky Collins or something. There's a diamond involved almost certainly.

Yeah. But a lot of people um we I know we've got lots of American listeners and they'll be pleased to hear that a lot of people assume it must be an American because they know that Americans get up to extreme behavior, but also there's been rumors that a man in a soft felt American hat was talking to Elizabeth Stride. And there's even suspicion that may have been done by cowboys, isn't there? Well, I mean, here this is actually, I think, a kind of very interesting angle on on the panic because it's not just cowboys, but also Indians are much on the public mind because the previous year was when Buffalo Bill had come with his Wild West show to coincide with Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. And it's really notable when you look at the press coverage how regularly comparisons are made with the mutilations and murders in the East End with the supposed mutilations inflicted by Native Americans.

We actually read one, didn't we? A piece from the Evening Standard that compared the mutilations to those done by a porny Indian. Um, and WTstead, so the editor of the Palmau Gazette in the wake of Annie Chapman's murder, um, he had pointed out that a Londoner is quite as capable of bathing his hands in blood as any sue who ever scalped a foe. And of course, Sitting Bull had been part of Buffalo Bill's Wild West show. So I just feel it's clearly part of the kind of the climate of the times that journalists are instinctively reaching for those kind of comparisons.

Yeah. And I think there's a case the Ripper story almost immediately becomes absorbed into the kind of popular culture of London in 1888, doesn't it? And it becomes it becomes sort of confused with lots of other different things. And actually people immediately rush to make money from it. I mean people are you know selling um you know special editions of the newspapers and there are some tremendously tasteful ballads aren't there. Would you like to are you going to sing this ballad or you would you like to read it?

I mean I think it's interesting because actually uh Katherine Edos um and Thomas Conway had spent much of their time hawking these exactly these kind of ballads. Um so they would go to places say where people were being hanged and compose these kind of songs and sell them. And now songs are being composed about the the murder of of Kate Edos and and and the other victims. So this is an example in famous London city in 1888. Four beastly cruel murders have been done. Some say it was old Nick himself or else a Russian Jew. Some say it was a cannibal from the aisle of Kaboo. Some say it must be Bashy Bazooks or else it's the Chinese come over to White Chapel to commit such crimes as these.

There's something slightly Gilbert and Sullivan about or music hall about that, isn't there?

It's certainly not Tennyson. Um, but it's also that that the blame is being put on foreigners. Again, there's this idea that no Englishman could possibly do this,

right? And there's that I mean, you can completely see how that's part of the same world as Sherlock Holmes because in Sherlock Holmes, it would be bashy bazooks or the Chinese or or something, wouldn't it? So, people are cashing in. They're opening their houses to sightseers. So, even that that socialist club um where Elizabeth Stride's body was found, they're making money out of it by charging tourists.

H socialists. Yeah, that's a that's a lesson for you, Theo. Um now, that makes it sound as though people didn't care, but they absolutely did care. And the whole business was a spur particularly to political radicals. So, loads of letters in the newspapers saying, you know, this is a reminder that it's a disgrace that the East End is like this. We should clean up the streets. we should do something for the for the poor. We should we shouldn't have an underclass in the heart of the imperial city. You know, people feel guilty about it. And again, that's part of the kind of imperial dimension to it, isn't it? That people in London, the capital of the world's greatest empire, justify their empire in terms of a kind of civilizing mission. The idea that other po parts of the world are savage compared, say, to Britain. But what these murders show is that savagery lurks in the streets of the Imperial capital as well. And I know

we'll talk about this in the next episode when you're going to be talking about um Dr. Jackekal and Mr. Hyde and so on, but it's really striking to me reading a lot of the newspaper commentary how often people would say things like, you know, that there are people walking around in the East End whose eyes have been opened to the horror that is been lurking among us all this time. that there is something deeply buried in us that has now come out. You know, that people didn't just say it's a foreign menace. There's a lot of commentary that says this is something that has almost been bubbling away in the sewers of our of our souls all this time. I mean, I think it works in two dimensions. There's the the imperial dimension. The idea that the savagery that is conventionally identified with primitive peoples in distant clims is a part of the savagery of the imperial capital. But it's also this idea that there is a darkness, a

murderousness, a savagery lurking in the soul perhaps of even the most outwardly respectable figure walking the streets say of the West End. And yeah, we will be coming to this in our next episode. That's a huge part of the ripper mystique, isn't it, as it were. So, to go back to the investigation, there are lots of calls in the press for a publicly funded bounty or reward. Now, as we described last time, the Home Office hate the thought of rewards because they say a reward is basically invitation to hoaxes. And there's a big disagreement between the Home Secretary, Henry Matthews, and the commissioner of the Met, Sir Charles Warren, about this.

Their relations are terrible already pretty much and they're bickering furiously. Basically by early November for unrelated reasons, but this is definitely a factor.

It's compounded, isn't it? Yeah, it's compounded. Sir Charles Warren has decided to resign. So the head of the Met is going to step down now. Meanwhile, the incoming head of the guy is going to be running CI criminal investigation department, Dr. Robert Anderson, has been away on holiday. Oh, in Switzerland. And um the newspapers noticed this and they start to get very outraged. So the Palmau Gazette um says that Dr. Anderson, the chief official responsible for the detection of the murderer, is as invisible to Londoners as the murderer himself. Dr. Anderson is taking a pleasant holiday in Switzerland. You I mean newspapers don't change, right? And Dr. Anderson then returns with an absolutely mad idea. He says, "We should arrest every prostitute in London or tell them that um the police will not protect them." And everyone says, "Ah, this is mad." First of all, the police's own estimates, and

don't forget the definition of prostitution is incredibly vague. They reckon at least a, 1,200 women would fall under this category and would end up being arrested. They had got nowhere to put them. And secondly, people point out to Anderson, they say, you know, these women are are soliciting in order to pay for their lodging. They have literally nowhere to go. If we stop them playing their trade, they will just be lying in the streets. What do you you What are we going to do? So, they ditch that idea. They do launch a house-to-house search. And actually, this is interesting because, you know, you might assume that everybody in the East End hates the police. Well, I think they do, don't they? In Spittlefields, there's all this stuff that you can only go in as a policeman in pairs. But obviously, times change and now, yes, the police are your allies in hunting out the killer. So to do this search,

right, this house-to-house search, the police have to ask the permission of every single householder. And almost everybody grants permission. There's virtually no resistance at all. The press are really surprised by this and struck by it that the you know the East End welcomes the police says come on yes have do the search. So they do the search they don't find anything. There's also another Sherlock Holmes parallel actually an experiment with blood hounds which does not work out well does it?

No. So in the sign of the four where it's a very good example of the crimes in that Sherlock Holmes story have been committed by you know it's the violence of the empire coming back home. There's a blood hound called Toby who's the most brilliant blood hound in London and Holmes and Watson follow him across town in search of whatever the guy is called. Jonathan Small is it? Uh who's the who's the killer or was certainly involved with the killer? I can't remember. Anyway, the press have been pestering the home office, you know, news blood hounds. And eventually they get two dogs called Barnaby and Berggo and they do experiments in Regent's Park and Hyde Park. But comically, this doesn't happen in Sherlock Holmes. There's a massive disagreement and falling out about who's going to pay for the dog's insurance. So eventually the dog breeder loses patience with the police and he takes them to a dog show instead. And so the

police lose the um the cooperation of Barnaby and Berggo. But as Charles Warren said, this is a mad experiment cuz we don't have any we don't have the killer's blood or any of his clothes or anything like that. So what are they supposed to be tracing?

Yeah. I mean, Warren's got his finger on the pulse there. Well, I've got an even better we for you. So, there were no police women in the Met. So, they can't entrap the Ripper. They can't send police women out to kind of lure him. Do they, however, have any young lads who could plausibly uh pass? Well, so the press have been pestering the Met and saying, "Could you not, you know, send out people dressed as women to lure him?" And the Mets point out they say all our recruits by law have to be more than 5'7. So at an age when people are slightly shorter than they are today they they will stand out be very conspicuously not women. But one bloke did try this. He was detective Sergeant Robinson of G division and he went and sort of he dressed up and he stood around. He was accosted by some cab washers. So people washing down you know hackne carriages. Was this because they felt that he wasn't really plausible?

I don't know. They basically saw this Blake. One of them shouted at him. Now, this is some form of slang that I don't really understand, but they shouted at him, "You're cats and dogs, aren't you?" And then they stabbed him in the face. Oh my god. So, it was quite a big altercation. He had to be rescued by other policemen. So, that's a lesson to you, Tom. If you go on one of your walks in the East End, be careful how you dress cuz I don't want I don't want you to be accused of being cats and dogs and stabbed in the face. Anyway, the various police wheezes don't um don't really work. And not surprisingly, you start to get genuine vigilantes. So last time we mentioned the mileand vigilance committee which is dominated by local Jewish tradesmen and they would meet at the crown pub on my end road and they would organize patrol. They would get unemployed locals to do patrols and they would give them a little bit of money

and they'd give them a whistle, a stout stick and some galosshes. I don't know why particularly they' give them these galosshes but basically this doesn't act. You know, there are two different schools of thought on this. Number one is the police didn't really like these vigilante patrols for obvious reasons, and it also made their job more difficult because now there are lots of strange men kind of lurking around the streets with galosshes and upsetting the locals and stuff. But there is an argument. There is now a delay of 6 weeks before the ripper strikes again.

And this may be because the patrols are a bit of a deterrent. There are a lot more people out on the streets like with stout sticks and galosshes. And this may explain why the next crime happens indoors rather than outside because of all these patrols. So meanwhile, the press are getting more and more critical of the police. So they call them rotten. They say they're incompetent. even the conservative papers. So the Daily Telegraph we've mentioned a few times. It slams what it calls the notorious and shameful shortcomings of the detective department or rather of the botched up makeshift which does duty for a detective department Scotland Yard. They call the Tory home secretary Mr.

Matthews they call him a helpless heedless useless figure which I think is actually a little bit harsh. The police are doing all they can. They're trying lots of different things but this is a really really hard crime to solve. And now we come back to this issue of the ripper taunting the police. We already mentioned the dear boss letter. You know the letter in which he had said he would cut a victim's if he if this is the ripper which we actually don't think it is that he would cut the victim's ears off and then of course he doesn't do it.

Then on Monday the 1st of October, the Central News Agency got a second message and this was a bloodstained postcard with a London East postmark dated the 1st of October. So it could have been posted after the Katherine Edetos murder made the newspapers. In other words, the person it could be a hoaxer who's read about the murder. And most handwriting experts think it's written by the same person who had written the previous Dear Boss letter. Tom, do you want to give us the uh in your excellent Australian accent the text of this postcard? I wasn't coding dear old boss when I gave you the tip. You'll hear about saucy Jack's work tomorrow. Double event this time. Number one squealled a bit.

Couldn't finish straight off. It's not time to get ears off for police. Thanks for keeping last letter back till I got to work again, Jack the Ripper. So, copies of this were published on posters outside every police station and then they were published in the newspapers on the 4th of October cuz the police were desperate to basically, you know, say, "Do you know this man?" The general consensus, I think, is that these are not real. The neither this or the dear boss. To repeat, there are no spelling mistakes at all, although the punctuation is very all over the shop.

There are capital letters as there should be. either a full stops soever as there should be and it feels a little bit like somebody is trying to pretend to be less educated than he is. It's also somebody who can come up with the the brilliant name of Jack the Ripper.

The Ripper. Exactly. Um almost certainly I think a young reporter or somebody like that who's covering the case and the result of the police publicizing this is a flood of hoax letters. They are delused with false sleeves. And it reminds me very much of what happened in the 1970s with the Yorkshire Ripper case when there was the um the police publicized the work of another hoaxer who was called Weside Jack and then they were absolutely delued with false information and it made almost impossible for them to sift through it all. So that's the postcard and then just over two weeks later comes the most infamous letter of all. So this was addressed to the new chairman of the myend vigilance committee. the kind of vigilante group, Mr. George Lusk, and it arrived at his house in Miland on the evening of Tuesday the 16th of October.

So he gets a small parcel wrapped in brown paper with a letter and he opens the box and it contains what is clearly half a kidney, a human kidney. And the letter, do you want to give us the letter? Yeah. It has the most chilling opening, doesn't it? Which has has often been rehearsed from hell. And it's Mr. The last sir, I send you half the kidney I took from one woman, preserved it for you. Tell the piece I fried and ate. It was very nice. I may send you the bloody knife that took it out if you only wait a while longer. Signed, catch me when you can, Mr. Lusk. The bit at the beginning, From Hell. Uh, very famous because that inspires the enormous graphic novel by Alan Moore, which we might talk about in our final episode.

For those people who you can't tell from Tom's reading, a lot of that is misspelled, isn't it? So preserved or sore.

Yeah. Kind of faintly Irish perhaps. Yes, exactly. Which we will we'll come to. Lusk took the kidney to a pathologist to examined it with a microscope and said he thought it was human. There are some claims, you see them often repeated in ripper books, that he identified it as the kidney of a 45year-old woman who was a heavy drinker, but actually the pathologist said that was completely invented and made up by the newspapers. The city police surgeon agreed it was a human kidney, but there's no evidence that it came from Katherine Edos. Um, it could have come from any recent autopsy and it could have been sent in by medical students, for example. The handwriting analysis of this letter is that this is not somebody disguising their writing.

There are lots of mistakes and it is very clearly written quickly and smoothly, you know, not by somebody painstakingly trying to disguise their hand, but it's clearly not the same person as the dear boss person.

Yeah. So, and also the postcard. So, those two Jack the Ripper messages. And Thomas, you said the spelling looks like it could be Irish. So preserved for example which is a more kind of Irish formula apparently

s sor exactly writing soro r sor so there are people who think there is a link to as we will come to in the final episode an Irish American suspect Dr. Tumblee, who is a very, very peculiar person indeed. It's harder to dismiss this, I think, than the other letters. We don't know who the kidney is. You know, could this be a letter from the Ripper? We we just don't know. Now, the police, as we've said, are delued with I mean, these are not the only hoax letters they get. They're the most famous ones, but there are others. If you read the memoirs of the policemen or interviews with them, they basically say, "We were totally overwhelmed." So, Chief Inspector Donald Swanson, who was leading the investigation at Scotland Yard, he said that on just the Elizabeth Stride murder alone, his men detained 80 different people. They followed up leads on more than 300 other people, and they had 994 different files open at once.

Inspector Abalene, who's in charge of the investigation in White Chapel, remembered later that his team had 1,600 different files. And he himself was patrolling the streets to set an example to his men, very Nelsonian, till 4:00 in the morning. Then he'd often come home and then he'd immediately get a telegram saying, "Come back to White Chapel. We've got a new suspect." So, they are exhausted and they are getting nowhere near finding the killer. And what all these letters suggest is that Jack the Ripper is already becoming a a literary figure.

Yes, there are people who are writing words for him or writing composing actions for him that have filling in the gaps and this of course is something that will be repeated decade after decade after decade. So we come towards the end of October, the police have really got no clues at all. Uh, Robert Anderson writes a report saying that the C has not got the slightest clue of any kind. And on the 24th of October, Sir Charles Warren reports to the home office. He says, "Despite numerous and searching inquiries, they've produced no tangible result." The vigilante patrols are starting to dry up now because the weeks have passed and the Ripper is not killed again. The mile vigilance committee runs out of money and has to appeal for public subscriptions.

One of the constables on the case, a guy called Walter Dw notes in his memoirs many years later. He says at this point the prostitutes of the East End who had previously sort of vanished from the streets start to come back and when he passes them they will sometimes shout out to him jovially, I'm the next for Jack. You know, they're making light of it now.

Yeah. Making a joke to cheer themselves up. Now, one of the women he sees calls herself Mary Jane Kelly. We know that she used to read about the killings because she used to ask her partner who's a guy called Joe Barnett who lives with her in a little kind of court called Miller's Court off Dorset Street and he would read her stories about them but it didn't deter her from going out on the streets cuz PC due as he then was says often I had seen her parading along commercial street between Flower and Dean Street and Allgate or along White Chapel Road. She was usually in the company of two or three of her kind, fairly neatly dressed and invariably wearing a clean white apron, but no hat.

No hat, not respectable. So, we come to the morning of the 9th of November. It's the day of the Lord May's show. And like a lot of people, Mary Jane Kelly has been looking forward to it. Now, that morning, her landlord, who is a shopkeeper called John McCarthy, has been checking his books. He notices that she is 29 shillings behind with the rent and he sends his young assistant Thomas Boa to see if she has some of the money. And at 10:45, Boa goes and he knocks on the door of 13 Miller's Court and there's no answer. And he knocks again and there's still no answer. He goes around the corner where there's a broken window and he pulls aside the curtain.

And when he pulls aside the curtain, he reels backwards in absolute shock and horror. He goes and gets his boss. They end up going to the police station and they fetch two officers, Inspector Walter Beck and this guy, Walter Dw, I've already mentioned. And Beck, the inspector, peers through the window first and then he staggers back. We're told, his face as white as a sheet, and he says, "For God's sake, Jew, don't look." But Jew cannot stop himself. He puts his face to the window. And then he says, "When my eyes had become accustomed to the dim light, I saw a sight which I shall never forget to my dying day." So next time we will um reveal what he saw through the window of 13 Miller's Court. Um, we will tell the story of Mary Jane Kelly and her terrible fate. And we'll also be looking at the cultural hinterland of the Ripper murders. Um, we'll be looking at Dr.

Jack and Mr. Hyde. We'll be looking at Sherlock Holmes. And we will be asking how it was that Jack the Ripper came to be enshrined as history's first serial killer. And then our final episode, our fifth episode in the series, we will be examining the various suspects and for the first time ever unveiling the definitive killer. And if you're not a member of the Restless History Club and uh you would like to hear them, then you can sign up at the rest is history.com. But for now, goodbye. Bye-bye.

Questions about this episode

What is "Jack The Ripper: The Killer Strikes Again" about?

This content explores the ongoing terror of Jack the Ripper in Whitechapel, highlighting the atmosphere of fear, conspiracy theories, and societal reactions surrounding the infamous killer. It delves into the impact of his crimes on the community, emphasizing the chaotic blend of horror and dark humor that defined the era.

What is mentioned in this The Rest Is History episode?

182 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Jack the Ripper, White Chapel, Elizabeth Stride, Katherine Edos, Katherine Edetos, London. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Jack The Ripper: The Killer Strikes Again"?

The episode runs 57 min; the transcript is about 10,546 words in 116 timestamped sections.

More from The Rest Is History

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated February 24, 2026.