All language subtitles for Lucy Worsley Investigates s02e01 - Jack the Ripper (2025) 720p [SubRipper.com].en

On the 7th of October 1888,

London was in the middle
of a media frenzy.

A tabloid newspaper had published
a murder map.

It showed the locations where,

just days earlier...

..several women had been brutally
murdered.

Spectators flocked like tourists to
London's East End

to visit the killing sites.

True crime is now a modern-day
obsession,

but how did the case of
Jack The Ripper,

back in 1888,

set the template for this dark world

of entertainment based on violence?

In this series,

I'm reinvestigating some of the most
dramatic and brutal chapters

in British history.

Oh, yes, here we go.

And now you're face-to-face
with William The Conqueror.

They know that sex sells, and that
violence sells.

These stories form part of our
national mythology.

They harbour mysteries that have
intrigued us for centuries.

It turns very dark here.

It sounds like a network of
informers, doesn't it?

They're such graphic images
of religious violence.

But with the passage of time,

we have new ways
to unlock their secrets,

using scientific advances and a
modern perspective.

He was what we would now
call "a foreign fighter".

I'm going to uncover forgotten
witnesses.

I'm going to re-examine old evidence
and follow new clues...

The human hand.

..to get closer to the truth.

It's like fake news.

You're questioning whether we can
actually take that seriously

as a piece of evidence?

In the autumn of 1888,

it seemed everyone was talking
about one story.

A murderer was on the loose
in these streets in East London.

The killer had already targeted
and butchered several women,

and the press could not get enough
of the story.

Here is that exact same murder map
from 1888.

We're talking about a serial killer.

Of course we're talking
about Jack The Ripper.

The entire nation,
in fact, the world,

was gripped by this unsolved case.

These murders are now more than
130 years old,

and we're still obsessed.

I should make it clear that this
isn't yet another search

for the identity of Jack The Ripper.

Instead, I'd like to investigate how
this case became the prototype

for all the true crime stories
to follow.

I've come to the other side
of London

to Kensington Palace,

the childhood home
of Queen Victoria.

This might seem like an unusual
place to begin my investigation,

but I've long studied Victoria's
life, and there's some evidence

in her personal diary I want to get
my hands on.

This is a page of her diary from
the 4th of October 1888.

"Dreadful murders", she writes,

"of unfortunate women of a bad class
in London."

I wonder what she means by
"unfortunate women of a bad class"?

That sounds like a euphemism to me.

But the case was clearly
on the Queen's mind.

Victoria even telegraphed
her Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury,

with some strongly-worded advice.

Her words were sent in code

to prevent messengers reading the
top secret information enclosed.

Here, the Queen is scribbling in her
own writing

what she wants the telegram to say.

"This new, most ghastly murder shows
the absolute necessity

"for some very decided action.

"All these courts" - she means
the little streets of Whitechapel -

"must be lit,
and our detectives improved.

"They are not what they should be."

And then she goes on to give
the Prime Minister a telling off.

"You promised", she said,

"when the first murder happened,
to consult with your colleagues".

But she says, "these things have not
been done."

Queen Victoria is applying serious
pressure on her prime minister

to track down and capture the
killer.

She was appalled
by these heinous crimes.

But just how were these murders

catapulted into the diary
of a queen?

Hi.

Can I come on?

Thank you. Thank you.

From the 1860s,

newspaper circulation expanded as
more people learned to read

and the tax on paper was abolished.

Fleet Street was where the nation's
news was crafted and debated.

The top papers were all based here,

and a new mass readership was born.

The case of Jack The Ripper

would begin with Mary Ann Nichols -
also known as Polly -

and she knew this vibrant newspaper
world very well.

Her husband William got a job as a
printer's machinist

in Bouverie Street,
just off Fleet Street.

Just around the corner
from Bouverie Street

is the Church of St Bride's,

the journalists' church.

And it was here in 1864

that William Nichols and Mary Ann
got married.

I've got here a copy of a page
from the parish register.

Let's have a look.

Oh, here we go.

"Marriage at St Bride's."

There's William Nichols -
"profession, printer".

And there's Mary Ann WALKER -

it was her friends who called
her Polly.

She was just 18 at the time
of this wedding,

and it's curious to think that
William Nichols had no idea

that one day his new wife

was going to become part of perhaps
the biggest story

that these Fleet Street journalists
would ever see.

Polly and William were married
for 16 years,

but after five children

and accusations that William was
having an affair,

Polly walked out.

By 1888, she was scraping by on the
streets of Whitechapel.

She would be brutally murdered
there on the 31st of August.

Today, Polly Nichols is recognised
as the first victim

in this notorious case.

I think I can maybe get an insight
into our true crime obsession

by tracking how the press portrayed
Polly's death.

I've come to the British Library,

which holds a massive newspaper
archive.

Some of the police files from this
case are missing -

in fact, some of them were stolen -

which means that newspaper accounts

are one of the key sources
that I need to consult.

There's so much information here.

It's incredibly detailed.

But there is a problem.

I'm all too well aware that you
can't always rely on journalists

for balance and accuracy.

They're more than capable of
spinning a story.

This is the Pall Mall Gazette

from the 31st of August.

That's the day
that Polly was killed.

I think this is one of the very
first mentions of her death.

But she's not named.

There didn't seem anything
particular

about Polly's death, at first.

So what happens in the paper
the next day?

Oh, yes.

And here, she's actually named -

"Mary Ann or Polly Nichols".

And they've dug a bit into her
story, who she was.

And this is not without judgement.

It says here,
"She was the worse for drink".

This is the Star newspaper.

More sensationalist coverage.

And they've called their article
"The Whitechapel Horror".

And they say, "These are the crimes
of a man who must be a maniac".

By the 8th of September, there's a
real sense of the story escalating.

It's made the front page of the
Illustrated Police News.

And this is just extraordinary.

There's been a reconstruction,
visually,

of everything that's happened
so far.

So, here's the finding of the body.

We've got the doctors in the
mortuary, the inquest.

And here is poor Polly, laid out
dead in her coffin.

"The murdered woman
at Whitechapel Mortuary."

It is incredibly distasteful.

But this was a really low-brow
newspaper,

and at the back, you'll find adverts
for how to buy porn.

Newspapers were now competing

to provide the most lurid coverage
they could, and look -

we've got gory illustrations of
Polly's injuries on the front page.

Blood and gore continue to
characterise the true crime genre

today, but what drove the papers
towards this sensationalism in 1888?

Media moguls had invested heavily
in the new rotary presses,

these ones could churn out 10,000
newspapers in an hour.

But, margins were tight in this
business.

For anyone to make a profit,
there had to be huge sales,

so this meant that proprietors were
after really splashy stories.

To discover the vital ingredients
of a really splashy story,

I've enlisted
a former crime reporter

who's very familiar
with the business.

Paul, why was it that the press got
obsessed with this particular case?

The Ripper case had all the kind
of classic elements

of a salacious tabloid story,
didn't it?

Because it had that element
of sex to it, it was a whodunnit,

obviously, the murderer
was on the loose,

there was the conspiracy theory
element to it,

that it could have been somebody
from the elite,

and then you've just got this whole
sense of moral outrage

that something so vile could take
place in London.

Do you think it was quite new
in the 1880s

to read about this kind of story in
the mainstream papers?

The mainstream seemed to be working
off the back of the popularity

of the shilling shockers and the
penny dreadfuls,

those salacious fictions that were
sold for a penny on street corners.

And so they saw how popular
they were,

and crime started getting more into
the mainstream press. Mm.

That's a bit of a new development.

Now, as a crime reporter today,

how do you know what's ethical
to print?

Well, today it's a lot easier,

because the press, broadcasters,
they have regulators.

So they have rules to follow on
accuracy, privacy, harassment,

and things like that. It's not the
kind of Wild West

that it was in the 1800s, and they
were just thinking about,

"How can we generate more readers"?

It just seemed like a free-for-all,
if you look back on it.

I guess there was so much here that
was novel and exciting,

and, in a horrible sort of a way,
thrilling to the Victorian readers.

It would have been thrilling.
It would have been shocking.

More people bought these newspapers
when they led on these stories.

And then, if you fast forward
to now,

look at the popularity of
true crime,

the true crime genre,

there's still this sort of thirst
for this kind of story.

Here was one of the first
unsolved cases

to connect with a mass audience.

The Victorians already enjoyed
mystery novels,

and now this real life case tapped
into their fears about violence

and kept the reader guessing.

Having talked to Paul, it does seem
significant

that this almost perfect crime story
came along at a time

when the newspaper business
was changing and expanding.

For the journalists involved,

it must have been a really
fast-moving, exciting world.

And just nine days after Polly
was killed,

the journalists had another murder
to write about.

In 1869, Annie Chapman had married
John, a coachman.

John's job meant that Annie
had a comfortable life.

That's how they could afford to have
this studio portrait taken.

But Annie's relationship
would turn sour.

Caring for a disabled son and losing
a 12-year-old daughter,

Annie fell deep into alcoholism.

When John died, any support Annie
had was gone.

I think what I take away from the
story of Annie

is just how easy it was

in Victorian London
to fall far and fast.

In 1888, there was no safety net for
women like Annie,

no financial support.

Only the workhouse.

And that was so grim that many women
preferred living on the street.

Annie was murdered in the early
hours of the 8th of September 1888.

Her body was found around 6am

in a backyard in Hanbury Street,
Whitechapel.

Rumours that these killings were
linked intensified in September.

Here's the Pall Mall Gazette
on the 8th.

They say "Another murder,
and more to follow"?

They're basically hinting

that there's a serial killer
on the loose.

Polly and Annie's murders had
troubling similarities.

Both women were murdered
after midnight

in the same part of the East End,

and both had had
their throats slashed.

I'd like to do some detective
work of my own.

What seems to link Polly and Annie
is Whitechapel.

Why do all roads lead here?

Whitechapel today is a vibrant,
diverse area

on the edge of London's financial
district.

But, according to the newspapers,
at least,

Victorian Whitechapel was a
distinctly dangerous place.

Overcrowding was common.

Riots often happened.

People poured in, desperate for
jobs, though,

as Whitechapel was near to the
factories and the docks.

We can safely assume that one of the
reasons Polly and Annie came here

was to look for work.

This is where Polly was living in
the summer of 1888 -

Number 56, Flower And Dean Street.

And...

..this is where she was killed -

"Buck's Row", that was called.

And Annie lived at
Crossingham's Lodging House,

which was at
number 35 Dorset Street,

and her body was found
in Hanbury Street,

over here at number 29.

When you look at the map of
Whitechapel like this,

it's only a mile across.

There's something so intriguing

about how such a small area of town

managed to create such an enormous
nationwide panic.

This archway is all that's left of
Flower And Dean Street,

where Polly was staying.

But don't be fooled by the street's
floral name.

It was said it was too dicey

for a single policeman to go in
there on his own.

They had to patrol in pairs
for protection.

The newspapers named
Flower And Dean Street

as the foulest and most dangerous
street in London.

These sensational headlines about
Whitechapel

were meant to grab attention,
but could mislead.

As a historian, I want to check
them against other sources.

There's a set of ground-breaking
maps

which might give me an insight into
the social conditions of the time.

Let's just unfold them, here.

So, these were done between
1886 and 1889.

And the first section to be done was
the East End,

including Whitechapel.

LUCY GASPS

Here we go.

Here we are.

According to Charles Booth, who
created this map, he says,

"I'm sick to death of novelists
and journalists

"painting these very lurid pictures
of life in the East End".

He says, "My work, my volumes
are going to strip it all back

"to sober facts and numbers and
statistics and nothing else".

Who was Booth? Can you tell me a
bit about him?

Yes. He was a very, very successful
captain of industry.

He was an absolutely brilliant
employer.

He ran the Booth shipping line,
and he could not understand

why there was so much unemployment
in London,

and why all the charitable
donations

that had poured in for the
unemployed

just weren't hitting the target.

So that's how his survey gets going.

They're really rather beautiful,
with all the different colours.

I think so. Quite sophisticated for
the 1880s, I have to say.

What do the colours mean?
Now, starting at the bottom,

black is a very unusual designation
for a work of social science.

Not only is it an indicator of
chronic poverty,

it also brings the angle of
morality or character into it,

which means vicious, semi-criminal,
lowest class.

You're "vicious"
and "semi-criminal".

Yes, "vicious" meaning "vice".

So, you are probably chronically
drunk all the time.

You steal.

So there's an element of immorality
in black.

Here is Dorset Street, jet black.

Where's Flower and Dean Street?

They're here. And Thrawl Street,
and Fashion Street -

that's another jet-black region.

Why do you think that the victims of
Jack The Ripper were drawn to live

in this Whitechapel area,
particularly these black streets?

Mm. All of these streets were filled
with common lodging houses,

and Whitechapel has more than
any other district.

It is the place with the greatest
concentration

of this very cheap form of a roof
over your head.

And so it absolutely attracted
people who were just, you know,

financially not able to manage.

Would we call it a hostel today,
do you think?

That's what I think.

People lived out on the street a lot
more in the poorer parts of London,

because you didn't want to have to
be indoors unless you had to.

And so when you're walking through
it as a stranger, like Booth was,

you're seeing life
out on the streets.

But of course, living your life out
on the street like that

also puts you at risk.
Absolutely right.

Which, of course, leads into the
Ripper killings.

How do you think the people who
lived in the yellow -

upper-middle and upper-class areas -

how do you think they felt about the
people who lived in the black areas?

I think a significant number of
people in the upper-class streets

headed east to do what would become
known as "slumming".

So, after a night at the opera,
for example,

or a splendid meal in a restaurant,
they would hire their carriages

and ask to be taken into the,
sort of,

very darkest heart
of East End poverty.

And we have quite a few anecdotal
snippets from people

saying that these tiny little
streets and alleys

ended up after hours being filled
with the most intolerable people,

braying and laughing in their sort
of fantastic clothing,

just treating the poor locals
as though they were ani...

Like they were animals to be looked
at in a zoo,

or perhaps in the old days
of Bedlam,

when people went to laugh
at the patients.

So that was deeply resented.

It wasn't just the press whipping up
the story,

newspaper readers
were also complicit.

Victorians wanted to experience
London's underbelly for themselves,

and get a thrill out of its
perceived dangers.

True crime in general gives us that
same thrill.

It's not just entertainment.

It explores our deepest fears
and anxieties about society.

By the 10th of September 1888,

panic in London was rising.

There had been a marked escalation

in the level of violence inflicted
by the killer,

and he was still on the loose.

Like had been done to Polly Nichols,

Annie Chapman's throat had been cut.

It's horrible.

Also, her body had been
disembowelled,

and some of her organs were missing.

The police were struggling to make
any progress with the case,

but there was something new that
they could draw upon for help.

Science.

As Annie's death was considered
suspicious,

a full autopsy was conducted.

The information from this autopsy
was revealed in open court

on the order of the coroner,
Dr Wynne Baxter.

Dr Baxter was keen for transparency,

but this meant the reporters put

virtually every single salacious
detail straight into the press,

uncensored.

"He was of the opinion that the
person who cut the deceased's throat

"took hold of her by the chin,

"and then commenced the incision
from left to right."

It's interesting about what was in
her stomach,

which was nothing.

She was hungry. Poor lady.

There's so much graphic information
here.

I've sought out an expert in
forensic science

to help me put it all in context.

Niamh, you've had the chance

to look at these very detailed
newspaper reports of the autopsy.

How do they strike you?

What do you make of them?

They're very detailed, as you said,

much more so than I think would be
presented now.

Medical autopsies were beginning
to be done

in a really systemised way,

so that you would have a proper full
examination of the body.

I mean, at the crime scene part,
they took photographs, which,

of course, is an excellent way
of taking a record of the scene

as it was found.

So, better practice is beginning
to come in?

That's absolutely true. And again,

you have to look at the...what was
going on around that time.

There was this evolution now of new
knowledge and new thinking

about how science might be able to
help in criminal investigations,

and the scientists were starting to
say, "Oh, hold on a minute,

"we need to make sure that we're not
washing anything away,

"we're not contaminating anything,

"we're recording things properly,
as you would do in science".

Let me get your opinion here

on the account of the investigation
into Annie,

kind of speculating about what the
weapon might have been. Yep.

What do you think of the section
where they're doing that?

I think here, what they're talking
about really

is a very sharp knife with a thin,
narrow blade

that must have been at least six
inches to eight inches in length,

probably longer.
So could it be a bayonet?

Could it be a surgeon's knife?

Could it be a leather
worker's knife?

And those kind of, erm...

The facts that will underpin the
"whats", the "could have been" and

"what's the more likely" will be
taken from the body itself.

It will be looking at measuring
or annotating

the nature of the wounds, the depth
of the wounds, perhaps,

to see whether or not we could tell
anything from those

that identifies whether the knife
was sharp

or whether it was serrated, where...

How long it might be, and so on, and
so forth.

So that's what they're getting
into here.

It seems almost cold. Mm.

It doesn't seem to treat these women
as women.

How does it strike you?

It doesn't strike me that way. So,
our job as forensic practitioners

is to report our evidence in a
factual way that's not emotional.

If we become emotionally involved
in a case or with victims of a case,

then we're not
going to do our job properly

in terms of being able to be
impartial witnesses to the facts,

if you like. I guess today, a
journalist who was writing up a case

like this
would just be so much more sensitive

to what the readers were going to
take away from the story.

Aye, it's fascinating, isn't it?
It's really voyeuristic, almost.

I think, back in those times,
there was perhaps, maybe,

a trend to report things
as much as possible,

but there's a stronger filter now

put on the way in which facts like
this would be recorded today

in the newspapers.

It's so intriguing to see the
authorities grappling

with this new situation.

On the one hand, releasing so much
medical information

to people who weren't doctors

would have increased the horror
and the fear.

On the other hand, though, it also
unleashed in the general public

a fascination with this wonderful
new world of forensic science

as a means of potentially catching
killers.

And that's something that's
still with us to this day.

It's no surprise that the newspapers
took full advantage of this openness

from the authorities,
and sales rocketed.

The Central News Agency in London

began sending the story across
the Atlantic via telegraph.

Reporters now swarmed
into Whitechapel

in search of new stories
to feed the wires.

The press was starting to do
something different.

They were not just reporting
on the crimes themselves.

That was no longer enough.

By the 10th of September,
the story was dominating

the Victorian equivalent of
24-hour rolling news.

There were the morning, the evening,

the Sunday editions of
the papers to be filled.

The police hadn't made
any official statements,

but journalists rushed in
to fill that vacuum.

They were now using
Pitman's shorthand,

invented earlier in the century,

so they could very quickly take down

the statements of any witnesses,

and they were competing
to get scoops -

another new word
of the 19th century.

The whole business had become

a contest between the journalists

to get their own exclusive angles

and to put forward
a convincing motive

for the killings.

So if the journalists were desperate
to suggest a motive for the crime,

I think I should examine
how they and the police

combed over Polly and Annie's
personal lives.

Could I have a pint of
that one, please?

I don't just want to visit
the places these women died,

but also where they lived.

I've come to the Ten Bells pub
in Whitechapel,

a place they used to visit.

I'm meeting the author of The Five,

a biography of the lives
of the five victims,

and an expert on
historical sex work.

Hallie, what I've learned
so far is that

Polly and Annie were vulnerable.

They had no fixed address.

They had addiction issues.

But this isn't necessarily how
society saw them at the time, is it?

Well, society saw them in
a number of different ways.

I have here the police reports
that were written up

when the bodies of Polly,
or Mary Ann Nichols,

were found, and Annie Chapman.

And it's very interesting because

the police officer who
filled in this document,

under the heading
of "professional calling",

wrote the word, "prostitute". OK?

There it is, in black and white.

Yes, absolutely. Prostitute.

So why did the policemen
who completed this form

call her a prostitute?

You're questioning whether we can
actually take that seriously

as a piece of evidence, are you?

Well, a lot of assumptions
were made at the time

about what a dispossessed
woman actually was.

It's a real sliding scale
at this time.

If she was actually engaged
in selling sex,

if she was engaged in,

you know, living with a man
who was supporting her,

who she wasn't married to,

you know, and Victorian
society just liked

to tar all of these women
with the same brush.

They were all the same thing.

There was really no nuance applied.

I mean, and this word, prostitute,
was used so loosely,

including by people who
claimed to be experts in it.

So in the 1870s,
somebody sort of published

this supposedly authoritative
treatise on prostitution in London

and claimed there were
80,000 prostitutes in London.

But if you read it, if you go
beyond that statistic,

which gets repeated
over and over again,

you see that he included
in that estimate

any woman living
out of wedlock with a man.

No way. So, you know...

And that number then gets repeated
by historians through time saying,

"This is how big the prostitution
problem was in London".

But it's taken totally
out of context.

That's a very broad definition.

Right. Exactly.

It was impossible to tell who among

the lodging house community
of women were prostitutes

and who were just
ordinary poor women.

It was just so blurred.

Hallie, how was this issue
probed in Polly's inquest?

Well, it's very interesting because,

and we have here
Polly Nichols' inquest

and the Coroner's Court
was very keen

to put her under moral scrutiny,

as if to blame her
for her own murder.

And so they had her father
obviously testify,

and a number of questions
were asked of him.

And one of the questions
was, "Was she fast?"

So, was she immoral?

Did she run around with bad people?

And he said, "No, I never heard
of anything of that sort".

But the coroner was really intent
on kind of proving in some ways

that she sort of got
what she deserved.

Julia, do you think that Victorians

were keen to think of these women
as sex workers,

because do you think that,
in the Victorian mind,

explained the crime that otherwise
seemed motiveless?

In a way, yes.
In the 1880s, it's this moment

when more and more women
are on the street.

And so the police and
moralists are going,

"How do we tell the difference"?

You know, "How do we now know"?

We used to know if you're on
the street at a certain hour,

that means you're
a woman of ill repute.

Now that more and more women
are coming to the West End

for theatre, for restaurants,
for pleasure,

these things that women
weren't really allowed to do,

those old rules don't apply
anymore.

So we jumped right into the
middle of this culture war

about what prostitution means. Yeah.

I think culture war is, you know,

it wouldn't be a word they'd use,

but I think it's a word that
we can... It certainly makes sense.

..definitely apply to this moment.

What started as a news story
about two murders

had become a story about
moral outrage.

The press, taking their lead
from the authorities,

were all too keen to attach
blame to the victims.

So it seems that all too quickly,

Polly and Annie got reduced
to this one little word

of "prostitute".

And sadly, I feel like this way
of looking at women

hasn't been left behind
in the Victorian age.

From the 10th until the
29th of September 1888,

there were few developments
in the case.

Even in this age of
sensational journalism,

there was a limit to how long

newspapers could spin things out.

The story was running out of steam.

It might have become just
a footnote in history...

..but then, everything changed.

On the 30th of September 1888,

what became known
as the Double Event unfolded.

It involved a Swedish woman,
Elizabeth Stride.

She'd been shunned for having
an illegitimate child

and wanted a fresh start.

But by 1888, Elizabeth found
herself in Whitechapel

and reliant on charity.

As an immigrant, Elizabeth had
registered at the Swedish church,

which today is here
in Harcourt Street.

Now, the church often gave
financial assistance

to Swedish people in London
who found themselves in need.

And one of those people
was Elizabeth Stride.

This is a record from the archives
of the church of payments made,

and it's for the third quarter

of 1888.

Oh, yes. Here she is.

Stride, Elizabeth.

She's received a shilling.

Oh, look at this.

Here's a coincidence.

A very strange one.

Down at the bottom,
this page of the accounts

has been signed off by the priest
ten days later,

on the 30th of September.

And that was the very day
Elizabeth was killed.

Elizabeth wasn't the only
woman in danger that night.

Having left an abusive relationship,

Catherine Eddowes found
herself dependent on alcohol

and in and out of the pawn shop.

On the evening of the
30th of September,

within the same hour
and less than a mile apart,

both Elizabeth and Catherine
were killed.

Elizabeth Stride
was last seen at 12:45am

in a narrow street
called Dutfield's Yard.

She was murdered about
15 minutes later.

Catherine Eddowes was
last seen at 1:30am,

and her body was found
just before 2:00.

It was under a mile from
Elizabeth's,

in Mitre Square.

Four women had now been killed
within a single month

in the vicinity of Whitechapel.

Before the double murder
of Elizabeth and Catherine

could even reach the front page,

something else shocking
had taken place.

A letter, purporting to be
from the killer,

arrived at the offices of
the Central News Agency.

This letter would be a turning point

in the legacy of this story
and the true crime genre.

Now, this letter is such an
important

piece of evidence in this case,

and I've got a really rare
opportunity to see it.

Yes, the real thing,
here at the National Archives.

This is one of the most
famous letters in history.

Wow.

I'm showing this letter
to a criminologist

who works with violent offenders.

Is he convinced that this letter

is really from the pen
of the killer?

"Dear boss,

"I keep on hearing
the police have caught me,

"but they won't fix me just yet.

"I have laughed
when they look so clever

"and talk about being
on the right track.

"I am down on whores
and I shan't quit ripping them

"till I do get buckled."

Hang on, that's so powerful.
"I am down..."

"I am down on whores," he says.

What the writer is doing here

is giving us something
that this case did not have,

which is a motive.

"I'm down on whores."

In my own work,

one of the things that people
ask all the time -

"Why did they do it?"

The assumption is that
the individual

had some issue with prostitutes.

"My knife's so nice and sharp.

"I want to get to work right away.

"If I get a chance, good luck.

"Yours truly, Jack The Ripper."

Jack The Ripper.

The first time in history
those words appear.

Yep. He wants to say,
"I'm probably walking around you.

"I'm there. You can see me
all the time." Yeah.

But actually, nobody knew
who he was.

What do you think the significance
of the red ink is, Martin?

It's quite simple.

It becomes symbolic of blood.

There's a line here that says,

"I saved some of the proper
red stuff in a ginger beer bottle."

That means the blood from
the supposed killing. Yeah.

Well, my thing is,
if you mutilated someone

in the way that the
autopsy reports are,

I'd like to know, how do you
suddenly stop and scrape

a lot of blood or a vial of blood

into, it says, a ginger beer bottle?

"To write with, but it went thick
like glue, and I can't use it."

Well, even if it was glutinous,
if it was fairly...

You'd still be able
to write with it.

Depends on the implement
you're using.

So you think this description

of what the killer is supposed to
have done, it doesn't stack up.

It doesn't ring true to you

as something that would have
really happened,

putting blood into
a ginger beer bottle

with a plan to write
a letter with it later.

In terms of my work,
having worked with people

who have done horrendous things,

what tends to happen
is when the crime happens,

the emotional impact of
witnessing what they've done

has significant impact.

They don't satirise
what they've done

because if you really want to tell
somebody you've killed someone,

you don't have to really go out
of your way to write it in red...

True. ..unless you're going
to make a point with it.

Do you think it's a bit odd
that they've sent it

to the Central News Office,

rather than the police?

Of course I do,
because you and I both know,

the moment you send a letter
to a newspaper boss

and they read it,
they're just looking at sales.

So the moment you get this,
you're thinking,

"I can make a lot out of this."

And then the police
will start thinking,

"Well, how come we didn't know
about this first"?

That still happens to this day.
It's like fake news.

So whoever did this knew

that they were going
to generate publicity.

They knew.

You think the letter
is basically a fake?

Writers are very, very good at
fabricating the truth

to make you believe it.

And we're looking
at this retrospectively,

but I should imagine they could
get away with it

because there wasn't the forensic
awareness to be able to prove it,

because if they did, we wouldn't be
sitting here talking about it now.

What are the repercussions?

This is a very, very clever way

to fuel the kind of obsession

with dangerous individuals.

We get caught up in, who is it?
What did they look like?

When we look at crime fiction,
we love the bad person.

Actors love the bad person.

Everybody loves the bad person.

If you presented the reality
about what victims went through,

as a society, we'd have to
respond differently to that act.

Whoever wrote it came up with

this really potent brand
of "The Ripper".

It's impossible now for us to
even think about a serial killer

without thinking about Jack.

And all that from a letter
that was written by somebody

who, I believe, had nothing to do

with the actual deaths of
Polly and Annie.

Today, most people agree that the
Jack The Ripper letter is a hoax,

sent by a Central News Agency
journalist

named by a former Scotland Yard
detective as Tom Bulling.

But every time there's a
serial killer on the loose,

the name, "Ripper"
still gets trotted out.

So between the 1st and the 4th
of October 1888,

both the deaths of
Elizabeth and Catherine

and the letter purporting
to be from Jack

were reported in the papers.

The case was now notorious
worldwide,

and the manhunt for
Jack The Ripper was now on.

And anyone could join in.

Lots of these newspaper readers now
turned armchair detectives,

and they did the Victorian
equivalent

of wading into debates online.

They wrote in letters
with suggestions about the case

to the police and to the papers.

I've asked the National Archives
to send me some examples,

so I can get an idea of where
these armchair detectives

were going to take
The Ripper story next.

There we go. These are good.

Some people were trying to help

and were well-intentioned.

This letter from
Thomas Blair of Scotland

has what he thinks is a good plan.

He proposes that police officers
be selected of short stature

and, as far as possible,
of "effeminate appearance"

but of known courage,

and they are to be dressed
as females

of the class from whom
the victims are selected

and sent out onto the streets
at night to entrap the murderer.

Not sure
that's a very sensible plan.

Then others were just malicious,

kind of copycats, fearmongering.

There was one letter from somebody
called George at the High Rip Gang.

He said he was going to
get to work in the West End,

cutting up gilded ladies
and duchesses -

the posh women there -

while his pal Jack
continued his work in the East.

And here's a letter clearly intended

to cause trouble and fear.

This person obviously knows
about the "Dear Boss" letter.

They've written in the same red ink.

And it begins, "Dear sir,

"I shall be in Whitechapel
on the 20th of this month,

"and will begin some
very delicate work.

"Yours till death, Jack The Ripper.

"Catch me if you can."

The public's investment
in solving this crime

mirrors the way
that modern audiences

engage with unsolved cases today.

But these self-appointed Sherlocks

flooded the Victorian police
with false leads

and triggered public hysteria,

which spread outwards
from the East End.

Here, at the Lyceum Theatre
in the West End,

a wildly successful production
was running in the autumn of 1888 -

Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde.

But the story featured
the evil Mr Hyde

going out onto the streets at night
and stalking women.

It was all a bit too close
to reality.

The production was pulled
from the stage.

By the end of October 1888,

the newspapers were reporting
that women travelling at night

were half mad with fear

and carrying knives and guns.

A woman named Mary Jane Kelly,
concerned about the murderer,

offered up her home to the
vulnerable sex workers

she knew in Whitechapel.

Ten days later,

she herself was murdered.

Because of the victim's profile
and the way she was killed,

she's believed to be the final
victim of Jack The Ripper.

Mary Jane's remains were discovered
at 13 Miller's Court

on the 9th of November 1888.

She could only be identified
by her ear and her eye.

Attention shifted to
Shoreditch Town Hall

as it was announced as the location

for Mary Jane's coroner's inquest.

Reporters were poised
to revel once again

in the hideous forensic evidence,

but they would be disappointed.

I can see here from the transcript
that the new coroner,

Dr MacDonald,
wasn't happy with having

all the gory details of what
had been done to Mary Jane

revealed in the open court.

That was quite unlike his
predecessor, Dr Baxter.

It says here,

"Dr MacDonald's own opinion

"is that it's very unnecessary

"to go through the same evidence
time after time".

He felt it ought to be discussed
in a closed police court.

So this meant that, unlike
the inquest of Polly Nichols,

which lasted for five days,

the inquest into the body of
Mary Jane Kelly

only lasted for one.

After Mary Jane's funeral
on the 19th of November,

the police tried to stifle
media coverage

by withholding further details,

but with the papers not
getting what they wanted,

some of them turned their attention
on the police themselves.

And the women of Whitechapel
were getting desperate.

This article in The Morning Post
perhaps explains why

Queen Victoria knew so much
about the case.

It's a report of a petition
that's been sent to her

by 4,000 women,

and they have written,

"Madam, we,
the women of East London,

"feel horror at the dreadful sins

"that have been lately
committed in our midst".

The newspaper's justification

for their blood and guts approach
to The Ripper story

was that it would attract
more readers,

raise awareness and generate change.

But did this approach actually work?

Which cell do you fancy, Ros?

Oh, I think maybe cell four.

OK. Looks like a good bet.

My cellmate for the day

is the author of the book
Violent Victorians.

I hope she has the answer.

Ros, what did the journalists
say that the detectives

hadn't been doing
or had been doing wrong?

Well, they were highly critical
of the detectives

and the way the whole
investigation was run.

One paper in particular
was the Pall Mall Gazette,

which I have with me here.

Police not available.

It says that the detectives
are at fault.

"Hopelessly at fault."

Because... What's the explanation?

Yeah.
It just says that they're useless.

"The comment of a
Whitechapel costermonger.

"The police can't find nothink."

To be honest, they were doing
all they could

with the resources that
were available to them.

What we've also got to remember
is that police had a lot of

interference, outside interference,
with their investigation.

So as well as the vigilante groups
that were established

who would roam around the East End,

they also got thousands of letters
from members of the public,

people pretending to be Jack
or giving them information.

They had to sift through
all of those.

So one thing the journalists were
doing was criticising the police.

That filled up column inches.
What else was there?

So the newspapers at this time,
they were already running

this kind of critique of
both the police

and the investigation,
as well as society.

It's because this is the era
of New Journalism,

and the idea of social reform in New
Journalism is very, very important.

And I have this wonderful cartoon
here from Punch to show you...

..that just sums it all up
beautifully.

"The Nemesis of Neglect."
"Neglect."

Yeah. Gosh.

This figure is called Crime

and he's holding a knife

and he is kind of saying,
Jack The Ripper is this...

This spectre of crime
that's arisen from

poverty-stricken, dirty conditions
of the East End.

Jack The Ripper was representative

of everything that was wrong
with the East End of London.

Once the story of Jack The Ripper

shines a searchlight
onto Whitechapel,

and all these middle-class people
get concerned

about conditions in the area,
does anything change?

It does, Lucy.

There are a number of things
that the reformers want

as a result of the
Jack The Ripper murders.

They want better lighting.

They also want more
police supervision.

They want more police patrolling.

And finally, what they want,
they want to get rid of those

common lodging houses that they see
as being the centre of the slum,

being where all of the misery

and the problems of the East End
emerge from.

And so to do that, they suggest
a programme of slum clearance

and in their place,
to build tenements.

Now, of course, the problem there
is that the new tenements they build

are not necessarily for
the people who were using

the lodging houses in
Flower And Dean Street.

Slum clearance in the 19th century
tends to just exacerbate

overcrowding and slum conditions
in other neighbourhoods

as people are pushed out.

Ah, so you build some
fancy new buildings

and no-one can afford the rent,
so they go...

Where do they go? Further east.

Exploring social justice is still
a theme of true crime today.

We often justify the pleasure
we take in the gory details

by arguing that this has
a higher purpose.

The Victorian Ripper coverage

did draw attention to the harsh
realities of life in the East End,

but none of our five women -

Polly, Annie, Elizabeth,
Catherine or Mary Jane -

would have qualified for
the new social housing.

I believe the story of
Jack The Ripper in 1888

set the template for
a new kind of entertainment

based on murder.

How a crime story is constructed,

commercialised and then consumed.

All the ingredients are here -

the unknown killer, the dark city,

the fallen women, the forensics,

the police failings.

But I've learned that
this isn't the truth.

It's a kind of dark media fantasy,

and it concentrates our attention
on the antihero of the story,

the killer, at the expense

of the humanity of his victims.

Next time...

"We mean here to die".

..what were the radical steps
that led these men

to try to blow up Parliament?

There's no alternative?
There's no alternative.

It is now, it is urgent

and they have to be
the ones who will do it.