All language subtitles for The.UnXplained.Special.Presentation.S02E08.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

WILLIAM SHATNER:
An elusive killer

who terrorized a city
with strange, cryptic messages.

A horrifying crime spree

at the hands of a charming,
cold-blooded psychopath.

And violent murders
triggered by delusions

of supernatural, occult powers.

Jack the Ripper.

Ted Bundy.

And the Zodiac killer.

These are just a few
of history's most deranged

and dangerous criminals
who all possessed a taste

for cold-blooded murder.

What causes a person
to become a diabolical killer?

Is it a psychological disorder,

a psychopathic trait

or nature vs. nurture?

And are some people actually
born to kill?

Well, that is what
we'll try and find out.

♪ ♪

Over the course
of nine harrowing weeks,

the city was rocked by a series
of horrific murders

committed by an unknown killer.

The scene
of these terrible crimes

was a neighborhood of London
known as Whitechapel.

LYNN PICKNETT:
This one smallish area

at the East End of London,
Whitechapel,

was a magnet for not only
the very poor people--

people who had menial jobs,
for example--

but also the actually destitute,

the people who had reached the
very bottom rung of the ladder,

who had nothing but the clothes
they stood up in, often.

And basically, you had

domestic violence,
theft and murder.

Whitechapel was
an area where you had

a lot of homeless drifters.

You had what were known
as the common lodging houses.

And this is where
the drifters ended up.

It cost fourpence
for a common lodging house.

You paid it to the keeper
of the lodging house,

and then you could get your bed.

PICKNETT:
Fourpence sounds like
a very small amount of money,

but if you had nothing at all,
it was quite something.

Society had very stringent rules
about women earning

or having money, so many women
turned to prostitution

as a way to make ends meet
in those days,

because there was literally
nothing else for them to do.

MARK SAFARIK:
If you look at Whitechapel
in the late 1800s,

you have women who would not
normally engage in prostitution

sometimes hawking their bodies
to make any kind of money

just to get perhaps a bed
for the night.

So, these would be
high-risk victims.

Under the cover of darkness,

going with people
they don't know

into dark, remote areas
of alleyways

becomes highly dangerous
for them,

very low-risk for the offender.

It's a deadly combination
for these women.

SHATNER:
In the early morning hours
of August 31, 1888,

two deliverymen were walking
to work in Whitechapel

when they made
a gruesome discovery.

They found the body of
43-year-old Mary Ann Nichols

lying dead
on the bloody pavement.

SETH KOVEN:
Mary Ann Nichols had been
married, had children.

But her marriage had
fallen apart through alcoholism.

By the early 1880s,
she had turned to sex work

in order to earn her living.

When Mary Ann Nichols' body
was found,

um, at first,
it looked like a simple murder.

Her skirts were up
as though she was committing

an act of prostitution
at the time she was killed.

That's not particularly unusual
for London in its day.

However, when the body
made its way to the coroner

and further investigation
was carried out,

they found that this was
a murder and a mutilation.

And that raised some questions.

SHATNER:
Just eight days after the murder
of Mary Ann Nichols,

on September 8, 1888,
the body of another woman,

Annie Chapman,
was found lying in the courtyard

of a Whitechapel tenement.

ADAM WOOD:
Annie Chapman had previously
been married

to a man named John Chapman,
but they separated,

and then eventually,
she found that he had died.

She had tried selling items
and taking in crochet work,

that sort of thing,
to support herself,

but eventually, she became
more and more reliant

on casual prostitution to get
her money for a nightly bed.

MARK DONNELLY:
When Annie Chapman's body
was found,

there was no doubt

that a horrible mutilation
had taken place.

And now it made police
begin to wonder

whether these two horrible acts
one week apart,

in the same part of the city,

could well have been done
by the same twisted individual.

NATE HENDLEY:
This is a killer who hated women

and wanted to do
maximum damage to them.

So it immediately

gives off this sort of
cinematic image

of this sinister character
in a black coat

going through the London fog,

walking on cobblestones
at night.

SHATNER:
The notion that a predator

was targeting sex workers
in the Whitechapel district

set off a frenzy
in the London newspapers.

DONNELLY:
There were 158 daily newspapers

in London, and they were all
in competition for sales.

So, when the press got a hold
of this case of murders,

it was exactly what they needed

for the new readership
that they were trying to get.

You have to remember,
at the time these murders

were taking place,
the Sherlock Holmes mysteries

were the best-selling thing
on the planet.

And everybody wanted
to sink their teeth

into a nice, juicy mystery.

LYNNE McNEILL:
Unfortunately,
in the late 1800s,

we see a real effort
from the media

to let a cult
of personality form.

And as much as we abhor violence
and murder and killing,

there are some ways in which
the serial killer becomes

this sort of folk hero
of psychological deviance

that terrifies and intrigues us.

It's a delicate balance to
make sure we're not glorifying

something that really
shouldn't be glorified.

WOOD:
The media drove
the horrific nature

of the crimes
in a sensationalist way.

Whitechapel was obviously

a depths of degradation
and poverty,

and yet it was literally
two streets away from the, uh...

the Bank of England, which was

headquarters of the empire
at that time,

and so that became very quickly
a national issue

and a national concern.

SHATNER:
In the aftermath of
the two brutal murders,

the London police were unable
to identify a prime suspect.

As a result,
they chose to cast a wide net

in their search for the killer.

More than 300 people
were placed under investigation,

and 80 of them were brought in
for questioning.

WOOD:
Chief Inspector Donald Swanson,
who was head

of the investigation
from Scotland Yard,

wrote a report
at that time saying that

the potential suspects ranged
from the highest in the land,

Queen Victoria's grandson,
um, right down

to East End butchers
and slaughtermen.

There was no shortage
of candidates.

There were all sorts of people,

from Sir William Gull,
Queen Victoria's physician,

to her grandson,
Prince Albert Victor,

or somebody acting
on his behalf.

Even Joseph Merrick,
the Elephant Man.

Largely on the grounds
that he lived

at the London Hospital, which
was quite near Whitechapel.

So there are vast numbers
of candidates being put forward,

some laughable,
some quite plausible.

SHATNER:
As the police scrambled
to identify the man

who murdered Mary Ann Nichols
and Annie Chapman,

the vulnerable residents
of Whitechapel

braced themselves
for more attacks

by the unnamed killer.

KOVEN:
On the streets and corners
of Whitechapel,

the reaction to the murders
changed drastically

with the discovery
of the second victim.

And it led to the creation
of watch groups

patrolling the streets
of East London.

Poor women were on high alert.

Vigilante groups formed
in order to find out

who this murderer was.

SHATNER:
Over the years, there have been
countless theories

as to who committed
the Whitechapel murders,

yet so far,
the answers remain elusive.

But many researchers believe
an important clue

can be found by examining

a mysterious letter
that may have been written

by Jack the Ripper.

SHATNER:
Three weeks after
newspaper headlines announce

the brutal murder of the
second victim, Annie Chapman,

the city remains
gripped by fear.

As police investigators
frantically round up

possible suspects,
a mysterious letter arrives

at London's Central News Agency

that appears to be from
the killer himself.

It is written in red ink,

riddled with spelling errors
and strangely...

begins with the words
"Dear Boss."

The "Dear Boss" letter
is addressed to "the Boss,"

Central News Office City,
uh, or London City.

And it read:

And it really became a big
news story because of that line.

SHATNER:
The "Dear Boss" letter
concluded with the words...

"Yours truly, Jack the Ripper."

The "Boss" letter
is interesting because

it is the first letter
apparently having been written

by Jack the Ripper
where he gives himself a name.

Communicating with the public
is not an unknown phenomenon

with serial killers,

because it makes them
feel superior.

It's sort of
this narcissistic view

of them being so much smarter
than law enforcement.

"I can do what I want, and you
are not gonna identify me."

SHATNER:
The Central News Agency handed
the "Dear Boss" letter over

to police investigators,

who decided not to release it
to the public,

for fear of inciting even more
panic throughout London.

But then, two days after
the letter had been received,

on September 29th,
the Ripper struck again.

(woman screams)

And this time,
he killed two women

in a single night.

On this night of
29th of September 1888,

two women were murdered
in the same night

within an hour of each other,
less than a mile apart.

Elizabeth Stride was murdered
in a yard on Berner Street.

She was found lying
on the ground

with her throat cut
but no mutilations.

And then half a mile away,
within the hour,

Catherine Eddowes was murdered
in Mitre Square.

Her throat was cut,
and she was terribly mutilated.

And the feeling is that
the Ripper was interrupted

in the killing
of Elizabeth Stride,

so he fled the scene,

but his lust for blood
wasn't sated,

so he sought another victim,

found Catherine Eddowes a-and
killed her in Mitre Square.

SHATNER:
After Jack the Ripper claimed

his third and fourth victims,
the police had no choice

but to publish
the "Dear Boss" letter

in the desperate hope
that the public

could help them find the killer.

But, unfortunately, the letter
did little to solve the case.

Instead, it caused
the fear across London

to actually increase

and ensured that
Jack the Ripper's infamous name

would go down in history.

KOVEN:
Part of what made
that letter horrifying

is that it was understood
to have been written

and mailed before the murders
were committed,

anticipating them.

When the murders occurred,
it thus, for many,

confirmed that the Ripper
manipulated the media

in order to gain attention
for his gruesome crimes.

SHATNER:
But, curiously,
not everyone is convinced

that Jack the Ripper was
the real author

of the "Dear Boss" letter.

In fact, some believe
that the letter

was actually an invention
of the media.

There was a very famous
journalist at the time

called George Sims,
and he used to write a column

for a Sunday newspaper
called The Referee.

It was called
the "Mustard and Cress" column.

And George Sims
actually wrote in the column

the following week
that the "Dear Boss" letter

was written by an enterprising
London journalist.

And effectively, his argument
is, when that letter was sent,

the hysteria in the media

and the general fear
of the Whitechapel murderer

had started to die down.

And there is a theory
that a newspaperman thought,

"We need to get more sales,

"so what better way
to get sales?

We'll get a letter
from the killer."

SAFARIK:
The "Boss" letter was released
by the police to the public.

Now, they were hoping
that somebody might recognize

the writing style or the...
or the handwriting itself,

but all it did was really
complicate the investigation,

because then you had hundreds

of people writing in
in the same style

as Jack the Ripper,
claiming to be Jack the Ripper,

claiming to know
who Jack the Ripper was.

WOOD:
The "Dear Boss" letter
encouraged readers

and people out there
to send in their own letters

signed "Jack the Ripper,"
most certainly from hoaxers,

people just looking
to waste police time.

And every single letter,
no matter how ridiculous

it seemed at face value,

had to be looked into
by the police.

SHATNER:
Most of the letters
sent to the police

were dismissed as hoaxes,

but some experts believe that,
despite the skepticism,

the "Dear Boss" letter was,
in fact,

written by
Jack the Ripper himself.

And as evidence, they point
to a passage in the letter

detailing a trophy he would take
from his next victim.

RICHARD JONES:
The "Dear Boss" letter read,

"Next time I operate,
I shall clip the lady's ears off

and send it to the police."

And consequently,
within 24 hours,

the police now found
the horrifically mutilated body

of Catherine Eddowes,

and her killer cut
the earlobes as well.

SHATNER:
Do Catherine Eddowes'
nicked earlobes prove

that Jack the Ripper wrote
the infamous "Dear Boss" letter?

More than 130 years
after the letter was sent,

there's likely no way
to be certain.

Yet modern forensic experts
studying the "Dear Boss" letter

have used it to help develop
a criminal profile

of Jack the Ripper.

And it paints
an extraordinarily dark picture

of the shadowy killer.

We know that there were almost
no sightings of Jack the Ripper.

And even in the sightings
that existed,

the descriptions are very vague.

So you're left with behavior.

He's organized,
and he's engaged in planning.

That requires
a slightly older individual.

This is a guy who probably
prefers to be by himself.

So his job would probably entail

a job that... where he can
work by himself, isolated.

Could be a hospital worker,

could work in maybe
a butcher's shop

or work as
a mortician's assistant.

I think he lives
in the Whitechapel area,

because he's very familiar
with the routines of the police.

And that's why
he's a successful killer.

SHATNER:
Will we ever know the true
identity of the infamous

knife-wielding killer,
Jack the Ripper?

Perhaps.

But there's another
deranged murderer

who also terrorized
an entire city

and taunted the public

with threatening letters
of a different, cryptic kind

that would take decades
to decipher.

SHATNER:
The city is gripped by fear

after a number of horrific
and unsolved murders

are committed by
a shadowy serial killer.

The panic reaches a fever pitch

when the killer releases
a series of chilling notes

in which he refers to himself
as the Zodiac.

Three virtually identical

handwritten letters
arrived at the offices

of three California newspapers.

And those letters took credit
for the crimes

and included details
from the crimes,

including the ammunition
that was used,

the positions of the victims
and things like that.

And then another letter that was
sent on August 4th of 1969

was the first to use
the name "the Zodiac."

The Zodiac's crime spree
is often referred to

as a reign of terror.

And that's because his murders

not only sent fear
throughout the community

but he eventually threatened to
murder schoolchildren on a bus.

He also said
he was gonna use a bomb.

He threatened to kill dozens
of people over a weekend.

So there were a lot of threats

that sent fear
through the community.

DAVID ORANCHAK:
His name really got out there,
and on top of that,

Zodiac's victims were selected

presumably randomly.

And so people felt like,
"Well, he could be

around the corner,
ready to kill me or us."

So it became
kind of like a bogeyman

waiting to kill somebody
out of the blue.

SHATNER:
The Zodiac's reign of terror
became national news,

not only because of
the frightening nature

of his crimes

but also because
some of his mysterious letters

were written in code.

The Zodiac,
as macabre as this sounds,

turned his killings into a game,

not just for law enforcement
to try to figure out

but for the average citizen.

These ciphers sort of
served as a way

for people to play his game.

"Can you figure out who I am?"

So, using these codes, while it
made Zodiac incredibly scary,

it also made him intriguing
because

anybody could figure out
who the Zodiac killer is

if you know how to play
his game correctly.

SHATNER:
The Zodiac's claim
that the ciphers revealed

his true identity taunted
the police and the public.

Both the authorities
and amateurs alike

poured over
the encrypted letters,

hoping to crack
the killer's devious codes.

SAMI JARROUSH:
The first cipher of the Zodiac,

it's commonly referred to
as the 408 cipher.

That was actually solved
in a matter of days

by a couple of citizens
in the San Francisco Bay Area.

BUTTERFIELD:
A local high school
economics teacher and his wife,

Donald and Bettye Harden,

decided to take
the killer's challenge

and spent a weekend
trying to solve that cipher.

And they were able
to find a solution.

Unfortunately,
the Hardens' solution

did not reveal
the killer's identity.

But it did begin
with the phrase:

Then he talked about collecting
slaves for his afterlife.

SHATNER:
The shocking content
of the first cipher

heightened public panic
about the Zodiac.

But the killer's second cipher,
known as Z-340,

would not be solved so easily.

BUTTERFIELD:
The Zodiac's second cipher

consisted of 340 symbols.

Unfortunately, that cipher
was very difficult to solve.

And he may have made it
that way deliberately

because he may have been upset

that his first cipher
was solved so quickly.

SHATNER:
Despite years of effort,

the Z-340 cipher
eluded decryption.

By 1974, the Zodiac had released
more than 20 letters

in which he claimed
to have killed 37 people.

And then, after
a five-year reign of terror,

his communications
abruptly ceased,

and the case went cold.

It seemed that the codes
and the crimes

of this evil genius were
destined to remain unsolved.

More than 30 years would pass

before software engineer
David Oranchak became inspired

to take on the Z-340 cipher.

I first heard about
the Zodiac ciphers

when the Zodiac movie
came out in 2007.

And so there was already
kind of a vibrant community

of people involved with
the Zodiac ciphers specifically.

So when I saw that, I thought,

"Hey, I want to take
a crack at that."

Because I'm a programmer,
uh, I like puzzles,

and it would be very cool
to be able to-to crack that.

SHATNER:
To try and solve the cipher,
David Oranchak teamed up

with Australian mathematician
Sam Blake

and Belgian computer programmer
Jarl Van Eycke.

The team became kind of
this collaboration of people

that would run experiments,
try out different ideas,

come up with computer programs

and different kind of
specialized tools

in order to try out these ideas

or to just run a bunch of keys
and try to break the code.

SHATNER:
In spite of their combined
efforts, the Z-340 cipher

seemed like it might be
an unbreakable code.

But then, after 15 years
of challenging work,

the team finally cracked it.

ORANCHAK:
It was very satisfying
to decrypt the message.

It was very exciting.

Once we had the solution,

I put together a report
and sent it to my contacts

in the code-breaking unit
of the FBI.

And then very quickly,
they came back to us and said,

"This looks good.
It looks strong.

Looks like the real solution."

And that's when
the media storm hit.

SHATNER:
The revelation that the Z-340
cipher had been broken

more than 50 years
after it was released

made headlines around the world.

But, unfortunately,
the decrypted message

did not reveal
the killer's identity.

However, the search continues,

because there are other
Zodiac ciphers

that are yet to be solved,

the most fascinating of which
is called Z-13.

This cipher will literally
make you pull your hair out,

because at first glance, you
would think it's got to be easy.

There's only 13 characters
in the cipher.

What's worse is that it starts
with the phrase, "My name is..."

He's literally telling you,
"Here's who I am."

And to this day, no one's been
able to figure it out as of yet.

Will we finally solve
the Z-13 cipher

and reveal the identity
of the Zodiac killer?

Or are the mysterious
coded symbols just the musings

of a homicidal lunatic?

The study of cryptic clues helps
in trying to understand

how the mind
of a murderer works.

Like in the case of one
of the 20th century's

most notorious criminals,

Ted Bundy.

SHATNER:
Days before his execution,

convicted serial killer
Ted Bundy confesses

to the murder
of at least 30 people,

ending a crime spree that lasted
for more than a decade.

HICKEY:
We often use Ted Bundy
as the perfect example

of a psychopath because
he had all the attributes.

He was charming. He was likable.

He was... kind of handsome guy.
He was very articulate.

He knew how to ingratiate
himself into people's lives,

and he did all the things

that you expect
a normal person to do.

And yet, every step of the way,
everything he did was about him.

He was a predator.

He never stopped
being a predator.

SHATNER:
But how could
an otherwise clean-cut

and successful young man
like Ted Bundy

become a cold-blooded,
psychopathic killer?

Did the circumstances
of his life turn him into one,

or was he literally
born to kill?

JUDY HO:
There's been a lot
of studies lately

on the brains of psychopaths.

And some of the most
important findings

is that we see that they have
a connectivity problem

with different parts
of their brain.

FALLON:
From the scans that I had seen,

scans of all these
different murderers,

including
psychopathic murderers,

there was the same pattern.

And that same pattern was
a loss of activity

in this area of the brain

above the eyes,
above the orbits.

So it's called orbital cortex.

This is the limbic system,
the cortical limbic system,

and this is what's turned off.

When we look at someone
who is a true psychopath,

it's most likely you'll not find

much brain activity
in the limbic system.

And those parts contain
areas of empathy

and understanding,
care and concern, conscience.

This seems to line up
with the reports of psychopaths,

you know, doing some
horrific things,

you know,
killing multiple people,

and then just getting back up,
going to a movie.

They just don't seem
to have their emotions

stimulated the way that
a normal person's brain would.

There have already been
studies about trying

to rewire the brain
of psychopaths

in that we're trying to improve

some of their
connectivity problems.

Because if we see
that there's an issue

with two parts of the brain

not communicating well
with each other,

maybe we can send some
electrical impulses through it

and see if we can stimulate them
into more action.

TRAVIS TAYLOR:
If we do a brain scan
on every baby that's born

and we decide that this one
has the type of brain

that's going to be
a criminal mind,

what do we do with that?

Is that, uh, something that
we have to retrain this child?

Do we keep this child under
protection as they grow up?

How do we respond
to that type of information?

FALLON:
Are we more determined
by genetics or environment?

We had an ongoing
Alzheimer's study

that we were doing
a clinical trial on,

but we didn't have
enough controls.

And so I said,
"Look, I'll ask my family."

We'll get them all
into PET scans,

and they'll be controls
because in our family,

there is no Alzheimer's.

And so I went through this pile
of these Alzheimer's scans,

and we cover up the names
because I don't like to know

who I'm looking at,
what I'm looking at.

You got to stay
double blind, right?

And each one was normal,
normal, normal.

I get to the last scan,
and I saw this

very obviously, completely
psychopathic pattern.

It looked like all these
psychopathic murderers

I've looked at.

I said to the technicians,
"Very funny.

"You-you've slipped in one of
these psychopathic murderers.

"This is, like,
the worst one I've seen.

And whoever this is,
we got to notify the police."

And he goes, "This is somebody
who's very dangerous."

So, when I pulled off
the name tag on the PET scan,

I looked at it and laughed.

I said, "Guys,
this can't be right."

It was my name on there.

So it was me
that had the full-blown

psychopathic pattern
in my scans.

Jim Fallon found
that he actually has sort of

this classic psychopathic brain
from an imaging perspective.

But he's in a long-term
relationship, he has a wife,

and sometimes
she has to remind him

to be more empathetic,
but he's a good citizen.

HICKEY:
I would say that 30% is about
biology and genetics,

and 70% is about nurturing
or the lack of nurturing.

It is like nature loads the gun
and nurturing pulls the trigger.

SHATNER:
Although, according to
his own research,

James Fallon's brain
is similar to those possessed

by people with
psychopathic tendencies,

he hasn't gone on
to commit murder.

But why not?

Could it be that the urge
to kill requires something more?

Something harder to identify
within the human brain?

Perhaps the answer lies
not in studying

the brain's physical attributes

but instead in the dark recesses
of the imagination.

Like in the case
of a troubled teen

whose twisted fantasies of
possessing supernatural powers

led to a grisly murder

at the hands
of a so-called vampire.

SHATNER:
After a difficult
and dysfunctional childhood,

15-year-old Rod Ferrell
finds solace

in death, the occult
and blood-drenched horror films.

At his local high school,
Rod discovers a group

of kindred spirits
among some outcasts

who also enjoy his favorite
vampire role-playing games.

DAVID SKAL:
In the '90s, people stopped
being afraid of vampires.

They started
identifying with them,

sometimes very intensely.

And I think it was
the beginning of a world

in which the boundaries
between imagination and reality

were going to become
increasingly blurred.

And, uh, that can be
a dangerous place to be.

JOSEPH LAYCOCK:
Rod Ferrell did not grow up
with his father around much.

He has alleged that his
grandfather sexually abused him.

Add to that
that he was experimenting

with LSD and other kinds
of psychedelic drugs,

and this is a recipe
for extreme behavior.

BROWNING:
He was part of
this vampire coven

over which he was sort of
the elder or master.

He knew about vampire lore
through the game

Vampire: The Masquerade,
and he began

to believe he was some sort of,

uh, embodiment
of some vampire god.

LAYCOCK:
Rod often told them

that he was a 400-year-old
vampire named Vesago.

That he could help them
cross over,

which means to become
a vampire through rituals

that sometimes involved
cutting each other

and drinking each other's blood.

SHATNER:
In order to protect each other

from a world that didn't
understand their obsessions,

Rod and his coven formed
a sacred pact

and then sealed it in blood.

HARVEY ROSENSTOCK:
To belong to a gang,
there has to be

some kind of ritual

that distinguishes you
from everybody else.

You're taking a vow that,

from this point forever,
irreversible,

I'm a member of this gang.

And when we get to
the vampire type thinking,

there always has to be
blood involved.

We're gonna cut my wrist,

the other member is
gonna suck the blood

so that each one is consuming
the blood of the other person

so that now we're all
one blooded family.

SHATNER:
Over the course
of the next year,

Rod would move with his mother
to Eustis, Florida.

After forming a close friendship
with one of his new classmates,

a girl named Heather Wendorf,

the pair spent their weekends
in the local graveyard,

engaging in
bloodletting rituals.

There are some people
who adhere to a delusion.

A delusion is a belief
in psychiatry

that you accept something in
spite of facts to the contrary.

And therefore,
they start to really believe

that they have
these extraordinary powers.

SHATNER: During a series
of tearful phone calls,

Rod listens as Heather
describes a miserable home life,

culminating in alleged abuse
at the hands of her father.

Enraged that his close friend
has been mistreated,

Rod and three members
of his clan rush to her aid.

When the group
arrived at the home

of Heather Wendorf
in Eustis, Florida,

Rod and one of his companions
went inside.

They came in through the garage,

where Rod found a crowbar
which he took with him.

When he went inside,
he found Heather's father

asleep on the couch.

And he beat him to death
with a crowbar.

He also encountered
Heather's mother,

who splashed, uh, coffee
on him in self-defense,

and he beat her
to death as well.

SHATNER:
In the aftermath
of the horrific killings,

Rod was convicted
of first-degree murder.

LAYCOCK:
Sociologists who study
adolescent crime

have framed this as a kind of
game that gets out of hand.

I think that Rod Ferrell and
his friends had a kind of game

where they played the role
of vampires until they reached

irrevocable consequences
when Rod Ferrell

sort of got caught up in his
role and murdered the Wendorfs.

This is a little bit like
putting on a Halloween mask

and then discovering
that you can never take it off.

SHATNER:
It's disturbing to think
that delusions

can drive some to commit
violent acts of murder.

But stranger still
is the story of a killer

who left witnesses questioning
their own imaginations

when they were confronted
by a superhuman being--

part man, part animal--
that is known

as Spring-heeled Jack.

SHATNER:
Around 9:00 p.m.,
an 18-year-old Jane Alsop,

a young woman born into
Victorian high society,

hears a rattle
outside her front door.

(rattling)

She looks outside
and sees a mysterious figure

who identifies himself
as a policeman

and asks her for assistance.

Believing him,
she opens her door,

and very soon,
she'll wish she hadn't.

He's kind of wrapped
in this cloak,

and he says he's a policeman.

And he throws off his cloak,

and then she kind of suddenly
sees he's got this strange face

with these big, red eyes.

He looks very sort of inhuman.

And then she realizes
he's also got claws.

And he blows this sort of
ball of flame in her face.

Kind of described
as a blue-white flame.

And then he lurches at her,
he starts to attack her.

This man began to claw
at her face, her neck,

her arms and her dress.

She was screaming
and struggling,

and luckily,
her sister heard her.

Jane was actually being dragged
out of the home.

Her sister, fortunately,
was able to get her back inside

but not before Jane's dress
was almost completely torn off.

SHATNER:
Who or what attacked Jane Alsop?

Her attack made headlines
all over London,

and a wave of terror
flooded the city.

Because this was not the first
woman said to have been attacked

by a shadowy figure
that is known in urban legend

as Spring-heeled Jack.

In the 1830s,
this curious story emerges

in the newspapers
that there is an attacker

on the dark,
foggy streets of London

called Spring-heeled Jack,

who has eyes that are like
balls of fire,

who has clawlike hands,

who wears this skintight
black costume,

and who can jump
enormous heights.

SHATNER:
The urban legend
of a phantom attacker

with superhuman abilities does
sound a bit hard to believe.

But incredibly, after reports

of Spring-heeled Jack

started appearing in the 1830s,

they continued for decades.

Spring-heeled Jack sightings
lasted a very long time.

There's a sighting
in Liverpool in 1904.

In Sheffield, he was known
to be around the region

until the First World War.

So you've got a character that,
if it is the same individual,

is coming up for at least 100
years since he first appeared.

SHATNER:
Was there really

a fire-breathing superhuman
with claws

preying on women for 100 years?

Well, some experts believe
that details

of this mysterious attacker
were embellished

like many good urban legends.

And some suggest this monster
served as a cautionary tale

for Victorian women
living in 19th-century London.

The time period in which
Spring-heeled Jack emerged

was the 1830s, so we're
pretty much smack in the middle

of the Industrial Revolution
at this point.

Industrialization changed a lot.

It moved people out
from pastoral spaces

into urban spaces.

It created a lot of congestion,

people living
on top of each other

in sometimes rough conditions.

And the story that we see
is of this bizarre criminal

targeting women specifically
in this urban setting.

KARL BELL:
Spring-heeled Jack does speak
to some of that violence

towards women
in the Victorian period.

He's almost kind of
reinforcing the notion

that women should just be
sitting at home

and the public sphere is kind of
the masculine sphere,

but it's something that was
often spoken about

in this time period.

And-and so there is a sort of
a controlling element to this.

SHATNER:
Was Spring-heeled Jack invented

to keep 19th-century women
at home?

It's certainly possible.

But if that's true,
then why has this story

reemerged in the modern age?

A family is taking
a taxi ride through town,

and suddenly,
they witness something

that's impossible to explain.

They see a figure jump
over a highway divider,

run across two lanes of traffic,

and then somehow leap up
a 15-foot embankment,

all within the span
of about two seconds.

On top of this,
they said whoever this was

had no facial features.

So this is
a really strange encounter,

and it sounds
a lot like the original

Spring-heeled Jack sightings
from the 1800s.

So, what exactly is
Spring-heeled Jack?

A man or a monster?

Either way,
the question remains:

Are there those among us

who possess
psychological disorders

or psychopathic traits

that predispose them
to becoming serial killers?

Or does a certain environment
create a breeding ground

for the urge to stalk,
manipulate and kill,

to satisfy
some dark craving within?

For now, what truly goes on
in deep, shadowy minds

of diabolical killers

will continue to remain
unexplained.

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