All language subtitles for American.Ripper.S01E02.The.Butcher_s.Blade.1080p_track3_[eng]

(dramatic synth music)
(woman screaming)

(thunder rumbling)

- In 1888, Britain's first
serial killer, Jack the Ripper,

(woman screaming)

went on a killing
spree in London.

(woman shrieks)

He was never caught.

But I know the ripper is.

His real name is H. H. Holmes.

He was America's
first serial killer,

and he's my
great-great-grandfather.

(dramatic synth music)

- [Narrator] Previously
on American Ripper.

- [Jeff] Proving this
has become an obsession.

(mysterious synth music)

- If we're gonna have a
chance of proving your theory,

I need to go right the
way back to the beginning.

- This is the
place that evil man

built that factory for murder.

- [Ray] You had one
location where you could

murder someone and then
get rid of the body

without ever having
to leave the building.

- [Amaryllis] If is
true that Holmes is

responsible for the
death of his cousins,

then that means his killing
style evolves over time.

- I think he kind
of liked the thrill

of having gotten
away with something.

- There's no document
in the Chicago record

between July of
1888 and early 1889.

- [Jeff] That's the exact
period that Jack the Ripper

was committing his
murders in London.

- [Amaryllis] I'd like to
get to work figuring out

where Holmes was
during this gap.

- [Narrator] Former
CIA operative

Amaryllis Fox and Jeff Mudgett,

a descendant of America's
first serial killer,

are working to decode
one of history's

greatest unsolved mysteries.

They've partnered to investigate

a dark theory about
Jeff's bloodline,

that his ancestor, H. H. Holmes,

is also the infamous
murderer known

to the world as Jack the Ripper.

- Okay, so we have this gap.

We know that it
corresponds pretty eerily

with the period of the
Jack the Ripper murders.

HH Holmes was a
swindler and a con man

who left a trail of legal
paperwork all over Chicago

from his various
criminal schemes.

Then the paper trail just
stops in July of 1888,

right before Jack
the Ripper started

committing his
murders in London.

This doesn't mean
Holmes is the Ripper,

but it's a very
compelling coincidence.

- [Narrator] H. H.
Holmes is an alias

of the man born Herman
Webster Mudgett in 1861,

a trained doctor with a
talent for dissection,

a schemer who lives off the
profits of insurance fraud,

and the engineer of
a gruesome building

on Chicago's south side
known as the Murder Castle

that features a labyrinth
of secret chambers

and underground vaults
designed to kill.

- The big question for
me is whether we can

actually place Holmes in
London during this time.

- I found something
interesting in his confessions.

He was describing his kills.

"I had become wholly deaf to
the promptings of conscience.

"Like the man-eating tiger
of the tropical jungle

"whose appetite for blood
has once been aroused,

"I roamed about the world
seeking who I can destroy."

- [Amaryliss] That suggests
that he traveled outside Chicago

but he doesn't mention London.

- We've got a number of
significant statements

that Holmes made
regarding being in London,

including this letter that
he had written in 1895

in which he talks
about the difficulty

he had finding his
favorite paper.

The New York Herald
is to be found

in only a few places
regularly in London.

Now this letter doesn't prove
he was in London in 1888,

but it proves he
traveled across the pond

- Yeah, I think you're
right, and I think we have

a complete enough record of
him up until the summer of 1888

that we can be confident
that he hadn't gone

to London yet in his
life at this point.

It had to have been
after July of 1888.

The gap that is
unaccounted for here

is so eerily connected to
the Jack the Ripper murders,

it's beginning to seem like

slightly more than
a coincidence.

And for me, it's
enough to suggest

that we need to look
for evidence

on the ground in London.

- We have to go to London.

(dramatic synth music)

How many people
have the opportunity

to rewrite history
in their lives?

- My objective while I'm
here is just basically

to channel that original Jack
the Ripper investigative team

and compare it with the
work that we've been doing

around Holmes and see
whether there's any chance

that these two people
could be one and the same.

- I've been studying
this case for decades,

and in the 130 years
since Jack the Ripper,

crucial evidence has been
scattered or lost to time.

There are still some
surviving police files,

press accounts,
and coroner reports

that historians have gathered
on the Ripper killings,

but they're not all
housed in one place,

which only makes this cold
case tougher to crack.

We have so many
newspaper articles

or opinions from
over a century ago

which you and I have to take
apart and see which ones

can possibly be true
and which ones were

just plagiarized
over and over again.

- [Narrator] The
man believed to be

the world's first serial
killer, Jack the Ripper,

stalks his victims
in the dead of night,

savagely butchering
at least five women

between August and
November of 1888.

Police question as
many as 80 suspects,

but they are all cleared.

Never identified, the killer
disappears without a trace.

(bell tolling)

- I've dreamed of being in
this neighborhood before,

and it seems it's
finally come true.

- [Narrator] The Ripper
investigation begins

in Whitechapel, East London,
where Jeff and Amarylis meet

with an internationally-known
Ripper historian and lecturer.

- [Amaryllis] I would
love to get a sense

of what life was like
for the average person

living in Whitechapel
at the time.

And it's this street sort of
begins to paint a picture.

- I mean the honest
truth is the average life

for the average
person was horrific.

It was very much the skid row
of the Victorian metropolis.

- [Narrator] London in 1888 is

the center of a global empire.

With nearly five
million residents,

it's the largest and
wealthiest city in Europe,

fueled by an industrial boom.

But not everyone is
sharing in the spoils.

- If you fell through the nets,

this is the area you'd
tend to end up in.

All the houses here
and all the factories

around here as well
were coal-powered.

If you think about that
constant burning of coal,

pumping smoke up
into the atmosphere,

and that smoke often used
to hang over the city.

And of course it was an area
that was very overcrowded.

You might have an entire
family living in one room.

If that family fell
upon hard times,

they would take in a lodger,
so you'd actually have

maybe 12, 15 people
living in one room.

Strangers could come,
strangers could go.

And it was those
common lodging houses

that were key to the
transients of the neighborhood,

and possibly the transients
of the killer as well.

(dramatic synth music)

- If one of the strangers
was a foreigner,

would that seem
unusual or could they

just melt into the crowd here?

- In the area, you had sort of

a massive immigrant population.

It was an area for migration.

You had sailors coming
into the nearby ports,

and you had a
densely-populated area,

and so somebody
coming in from abroad

wouldn't really stand
out from the crowd.

- 19th-century Whitechapel
attracted the same type

of migrant working-class people

as the Chicago that Holmes
knew, women in particular,

who made up the most
vulnerable members of society.

- [Amaryllis] If you wanted
to prey on young women,

they seem like excellent
hunting grounds.

- [Richard] Oh, very much so.

- Will you walk me
through the facts

that we know for sure about
the first two Ripper murders?

- On August the 31st,
you have what we now know

as the first Jack
the Ripper murder.

And that's this lady
here, Mary Nichols.

So Mary Nichols was lodging in

a lodging house
in Thrawl Street.

Now, the way these
lodging houses

worked was you
paid for your bed.

She was obviously gonna
resort to prostitution

as a means of raising the money

for her bed, and
so off she goes.

She probably headed
down Whitechapel Road.

Before Mary Nichols even knows

what's happening, she's stunned,

he takes her down to the ground,
and then cuts her throat.

Meanwhile, Beat Officer PC
Neale came along Buck's Row

and saw the same sight and
shone his lantern onto the body.

Beneath the
bloodstained clothing,

a deep gash ran all the
way along her abdomen.

She had been disemboweled.

- Are any of Mary
Nichols' organs removed?

- Mary Nichols didn't
have any organs removed.

Of course, then a
week later, you get

the second murder,
Annie Chapman.

The second murder took
place in Hanbury Street.

And not only does he target it,

he goes off with a
part of the body.

(woman sobbing)

She didn't have the money to
pay for a lodging house bed

and so she was thrown
out of the hostel.

She has been disemboweled,

and he's taken a
trophy this time.

He's gone off with the womb.

- Wow.

- Now, there are press reports

she was seen
drinking in this pub

that we're sitting in
now, The Ten Bells.

- This one?

- [Richard] This one here,
at 5:30 in the morning.

- [Jeff] No kidding?

- Yes, we do know at six
o'clock in the morning,

a resident by the name
of John Davis looked down

and saw the mutilated
body of Annie Chapman.

The theory is that, in London,

the anatomy schools
for dissection purposes

look for specific
parts of a body.

- [Jeff] Including a uterus?

- Most notably the uterus.

- Wow!

- The fact that they could
profit from it financially,

this might have inspired
somebody

to go off murdering people

so that they could sell
them to the anatomy schools.

- So there was trade
in organs and bodies.

- Yes, and crucially,
when coroner Winn Baxter

holds the inquest, he says
the reason for her murder

had been so the
killer could acquire

this particular
part of her anatomy.

- Huh, for Holmes in
Chicago, that was one

of his favorite scams and his
favorite ways to make money.

We know that Holmes
enjoyed dissecting cadavers

in medical school, so much
so that one of his classmates

said that he took a baby's
corpse home with him.

If the corner's theory is true,

that the Ripper was profiting
off of the sale of organs,

(organ squelches)

then the Ripper and Holmes
share one single motive, money.

- Did the police or the
coroner make a statement

as to the type of
investigation used at the time?

- CSI was very much
in its infancy,

so as far as the
investigation, you need to go

to ex-City of London police
officer Don Rumbelow.

(dramatic synth music)

- [Narrator] To understand
how Jack the Ripper

managed to escape detection
while butchering his victims,

Jeff and Amaryllis connect
with one of the world's

foremost experts in
19th-century law enforcement.

- I was a policeman back
in the '60s and '70s.

We still wore the
old duty armband.

That armband showed
that you were on duty.

- [Narrator] Donald Rumbelow
is a police historian

and weapons specialist
with expertise

in the investigation
techniques of the era.

- What was policing
like during 1888?

- Police were
rigidly controlled.

They were timed
over their beats.

So an inspector would
look at his watch and say,

it's 10 past seven, PC
Smith should be standing

outside number
five Mitre Square.

So if the policeman
wasn't there,

that was a disciplinary
offense punishable by a fine.

- [Amaryllis] Was that
something that was known

to the public or were those
routes changed and kept secret?

- The public tended to know

where the policeman
could be found.

- And when.

- [Donald] And generally when.

- And Jack probably would
have known that as well.

- The timing's almost,
almost certain.

- The Jack the Ripper of the
history books is presented

as a disorganized
opportunistic killer who stalks

and slashes his victims to
death, aost at random.

But this detail raises questions

about the traditional
Ripper narrative.

If he was timing his
movements to avoid the police,

then that means he was actually
premeditating these murders.

Is there any indication in
the Scotland Yard records

that a murder
weapon was recovered

for the Jack the Ripper murders?

- No murder weapon was
ever, ever recovered.

We know from postmortem
the knife is pointed

because he nicks the
vertebrae when he goes down.

These are the sort of knives
that would've been regarded

as tools of trade
so they could be

legitimately carried,
even something like this,

which you would have
found in a butcher.

- And does this
seem like a probable

weapon that Jack
might have used?

- I don't think it is.

I would guess this is probably
sort of a whaler knife.

It's far too big, it's not a
handy weapon, and it couldn't

do the fine cutting that
Jack actually needs.

- Which knife would you believe

Jack the Ripper would have used?

- The blade I actually believe

was Jack the Ripper's
knife was this one.

The length of the blade is
right, six to eight inches long.

It's got a very sharp point.

It's straight-backed.

It would be actually perfect

for evisceration, for
removal of organs.

It is capable of brutal
but also very fine work.

It's a surgical knife.

It's a doctors knife

(dramatic synth music)

- [Jeff] Holmes was a doctor.

- And this came from a
doctor's kit of the era?

- Yeah, yeah.

- Would the same kit be
available in America?

- Well, almost certainly.

It's a standard medical kit.

(dramatic synth music)

- Holmes was a doctor.

He practiced dissection.

- [Narrator] In
Whitechapel, London,

the revelation that the killer
known as Jack the Ripper

likely used a surgeon's
knife to dissect his victims

is the first promising
link to H. H. Holmes.

- [Jeff] He would have had a kit

like that with an
assortment of knives.

- [Narrator] Jeff
Mudgett and Amaryllis Fox

are investigating Jeff's theory

that Jack the Ripper is just one

of the many identities
of H. H. Holmes,

an alias of Dr. Herman
Mudgett, the conman, killer,

and architect of
Chicago's Murder Castle.

(contemplative synth music)

- You could find tradesman's
knives in commonplace shops.

But a surgeon set like that was

not inexpensive and
not easy to come by.

We know that Holmes was very
fond of dissecting cadavers.

We know that he was
trained in human anatomy

using cadavers, and
then add medical school.

- [Jeff] He sold skeletons.

- Yeah, I mean he was pretty
handy with a surgeon's knife.

- Let's face it, a
layman on the street

wouldn't have even thought
of a surgeon's kit.

- I think the thing
that's interesting

for us to investigate
a little further is

if you had that surgeon's
knife, in addition to that,

do you need
anatomical knowledge?

The more that we establish that

the removal of organs
requires skill,

the more we narrow down
the possible suspects

and that could very well
put the spotlight on Holmes.

(dramatic synth music)

- He had a motive.

He was out looking
for organs to sell.

- The thing that bugs
me about that theory

is that he took the uterus
and only the uterus.

There are other
very valuable organs

that are right there
in that cavity.

So, was he harvesting
organs for profit

or was this some kind
of clue as to his

state of mind or his motivation?

Was this somehow about some
kind of puritanical objection

to prostitution as
their profession?

(woman yelling)

We don't know yet, right?

But the fact that
it was the uterus

and only the uterus
that was taken,

I think, leaves all of
those options open to us.

Maybe it was profit and maybe
this was a psychological clue.

The question of
motive is so important

in linking these two cases.

One way to get to the
bottom of it is to find out

more about how these women died.

If money is Ripper's
motive, then we can assume

he wanted to avoid a
struggle and just cut

the organs out as
quickly as possible.

But, if he's motivated
by the joy of killing,

then he would want to
watch his victims suffer

and for that, he needs them
alive while he butchers them.

Jack's first two
victims have the shift

from no missing organs
to a missing uterus.

As we move into
killings three and four,

I'm interested to see
how that escalates.

- All right.

(dramatic synth music)

- Right back at the
beginning of the century,

the idea of somebody who
you didn't know could want

to hurt you and actually
kill you was frightening.

- [Narrator] Three weeks
pass between Ripper's

second victim and
his third attack.

Jeff and Amaryllis
meet with Paul Begg,

an expert on the final
three Ripper victims.

- The 30th of September is when
the double event took place.

Murders three and
four were the murders

of Elizabeth Stride
and Catherine Eddowes,

and they were committed
on the same night.

- How much time separated
the two murders?

- [Paul] It was
about 45 minutes,

which was more than enough time

to have traveled the distance
between the two crimes.

The first of the murder
was Elizabeth Stride.

There was a man
called Israel Schwartz

who had walked behind
them, and there seems

to have been an
altercation of some sort.

The Ripper threw her to the
ground and he killed her.

The Ripper then realized
there was another man

and that he was disturbed and
then fled as fast as he could.

She was murdered
but not mutilated,

so she was different
from the other victims.

- If the third victim
was not mutilated,

why do most experts think
that she was a Ripper victim?

- The medical
opinion at the time

was the cut on the throat was
the same as in other cases.

I can imagine that if he
had wanted to kill Stride

and had failed because
he was disturbed

that you might have had somebody

with a mixture of extreme
frustration, anger, fear.

It depends on what
kind of person he was

and how in control of
himself he could have been.

experienced fits of
- Wrage in his early life.etimes

We've collected reports
that he physically abused

a college roommate and my
great-great grandmother Clara.

It's not impossible for me
to imagine that at this stage

in his career as a
killer, he may have been

less polished and practiced
than he became later in life.

- [Amaryllis] The
second event was

a considerably
more savage attack.

- Catherine Eddowes
was found murdered

in a place called Mitre Square.

She was very badly mutilated.

She had been eviscerated.

Part of her ear was sliced off

and a lot of slashing
marks on the face.

The wounds that were
done to the face

take away what she looked like.

- [Amaryllis] That looks like
it could be an X or a cross.

We haven't see that before.

Could you just clarify for
me which organs were taken?

- [Paul] The kidney was
taken and the uterus.

- Wow, it seems like
he knew at least

how to find the uterus, because
this was a repeated organ

that was removed from Annie
Chapman and Catherine Eddowes.

My view would be that there is

at least anatomical knowledge.

- Yes, absolutely, the
extraction of the kidney

from Catherine Eddowes would
suggest surgical skill.

- The more we hear
about the violent

but deliberate way
the Ripper is killing

victim after victim
with a surgeon's knife,

removing specific organs
with enough precision

to sell them for a profit,
the more I'm becoming

convinced that he
might be a doctor,

and like Holmes, must
have some surgical skill.

So it sounds like
this is a killer

who's escalating in his violence

and savagery as he goes
through these victims.

- Yes, the fifth
victim he butchered,

we can only be
grateful for the fact

that the photograph
wasn't in color.

(dramatic synth music)

- So it sounds like
this is a killer

who's escalating in his
violence and savagery.

- Yes.

- [Narrator] Jeff Mudgett and
Amaryllis Fox are uncovering

the grizzly details of
Jack the Ripper's methods

in their hunt for
evidence to link

his barbaric 1888 murder spree

to the work of America's first
serial killer, H. H. Holmes.

- [Paul] The fifth victim,
Mary Jane Kelly, she was young.

She was about 25 years old,
and she was murdered indoors.

- [Amaryliss] Inside?

- Yes.
- Okay.

- [Paul] And so therefore,
the Ripper had more time

to indulge his wishes.

He basically butchered
Mary Kelly to the point

that she could, in theory,
have been an animal carcass.

- It is, I mean,
unthinkable butchery.

Mary Kelly's body
most closely resembles

the kind of dissection that
Holmes would have to inflict

on bodies in order
to peel the skin away

and sell the
articulated skeleton.

- This is certainly
far different

than the previous murders.

The Ripper's final victim is
flayed like a piece of meat.

It makes me wonder how Holmes
was conducting dissections

in the basement of
the Murder Castle

in the years following
the Ripper killings.

Are you aware of any physical
evidence which exists today

which is relevant to
any of the five murders?

- There are various bits
and pieces that exist,

perhaps the most interesting
of which is a shawl

that is supposed to have
belonged to Catherine Eddowes

which has blood and
staining on this material.

- Wow.

- That evidence has been
called into question.

But it's there and it's
interesting and it does have

this big question mark
hanging over the DNA.

- It sounds to me
like that is a really,

really important item
to get our hands on.

- Absolutely, I think
it's worth a shot.

(contemplative synth music)

- [Amaryllis] Alright, so we
have an escalation of violence,

victim number one, Mary Nichols,

where no organs were
missing, victim number two,

where the uterus was
missing, victim number three,

Elizabeth Stride, no
organs were removed

because the killer
was interrupted,

and then victim number four
had incredibly extensive wounds

where both the uterus and
a kidney were missing.

Victim number five, Mary Kelly.

Obviously, this is the
pinnacle of Jack's journey

and his escalation
through violence.

This was obviously somewhere
where Jack felt safe.

He felt uninterrupted.

He was able to spend
time with this body

in a way that he
couldn't before,

and that must've felt
very gratifying to him.

In victims four and five,
the killer's slicing

the bodies open and
removing organs,

but he leaves some valuable
organs at the scene.

That does maybe question
the profit motive

because if you're
killing for money,

you wouldn't leave
anything valuable behind.

I'm starting to wonder whether
the increasing savagery

of the attacks is a sign
the motive is more personal.

The killing and
suffering excite him.

- What bothers me about
our depiction here is

we have an escalation,
and it stops.

- This is certainly a
killer who has learned

in his last crime that the
way that he's able to achieve

the ends that he
wants to achieve best

is in the privacy
of a closed room.

Now, he either had been arrested

or he's been killed or
stopped in some other way,

or continues killing in a closed

room somewhere outside
of Whitechapel.

In my experience tracking
dangerous criminals,

killers with this
degree of escalation

don't just stop killing.

They learn from
their previous crimes

in order to become more
dangerous and harder to capture.

So there must have been some
reason the killing stopped.

- As an ex-trial lawyer, I'm
fascinated with the shawl.

Direct evidence is
what we live for,

and this is some of the only
ever that may still exist.

- I think it's really
important for us to track down,

see whether there's any
potential for DNA processing.

If we find DNA and
that DNA matches

your profile, I mean,
bam, case closed.

(dramatic synth music)

- [Narrator] Jeff
Mudgett and Amaryllis Fox

are investigating a
theory that may finally

reveal the identity of history's
infamous Jack the Ripper.

They're scouring the
surviving records

for clues to the Ripper's motive

to link him to American conman
and killer, H. H. Holmes.

- Because Jack the
Ripper was never caught,

it remains the world's
greatest unsolved mystery.

It evokes everything
that there is

to do with the
east end of London,

the fog, the handsome
cab, the top hat,

the cloak, the
Victorian melodrama.

- [Narrator] On the
hunt for new leads,

they've arranged a meeting
with a prominent member

of the Whitechapel
Society, a local group

devoted to uncovering the
truth behind Jack the Ripper.

- I've got research notes here

on newspaper cuttings,
autopsy reports.

- Really?
- Yeah.

- [Amaryliss] The autopsies?

- Yeah, just about
everything that I've

researched on the
Jack the Ripper case.

- Really appreciate your help.

I'm excited to dig into
the autopsy records

because the timeline would
put these 1888 Ripper murders

before the Chicago killings
in the Murder Castle,

which are more removed and
organized and meticulous.

Holmes and Jack the Ripper
of the history books

are night and day, and so
whether or not a serial killer

can or will change
their method of killing

over the course of their career
is really relevant for us.

- The more
intelligent a suspect,

the more likely they
would have known

that he needed to
constantly change

if he didn't want to get caught.

Do you have an opinion on that?

- The history books are
littered with people

that do change their
modus operandi.

- [Narrator] Some of the
most notorious serial killers

in history varied their killing

methods throughout
their careers.

In the 1960s, the Zodiac
Killer terrorized California,

first by shooting then
stabbing at least seven people.

Ted Bundy allegedly murdered
dozens of women in the '70s,

sometimes by bludgeoning
and later by strangulation.

Changing their methods
helped these killers to stay

one step ahead of the law for
years before being caught.

- Once you get into
the case, it's not

who was Jack the Ripper,
it's why was Jack the Ripper?

And tieing that in
with H. H. Holmes,

I think it's really,
really interesting.

(dramatic synth music)

- [Narrator] While Jeff tracks
down the owners of the shawl

that reportedly belonged
to Ripper's fourth victim,

Amarylis digs deeper
into the autopsy reports

they've acquired with a
coroner who is trained

to decode the clues that
a killer leaves behind.

- What care would have
been taken in those days

around documentation
of each of the wounds?

- They would do a
very, very detailed

description of
each of the wounds.

Photography was expensive,
so the description

that they came to write down is

probably going to be the
main piece of evidence.

- The descriptions
are quite extensive.

- [Peter] Yeah.

- In Nichols' case, we have here

laceration of the tongue
and then the beginning

of the almost
complete decapitation.

The cuts must have been caused

by a long-bladed knife and
used with great violence.

- [Peter] Yeah.

- We still don't know for sure

what the Ripper's
motivation was,

but the savagery of
the crime suggests

that he enjoyed his
victims suffering.

I'm hoping the coroner's report

sheds light on how
these victims died

and whether it lines
up with this theory.

So, for Annie Chapman, we
have these bruises the size

of a man's thumb on the
face or around the neck.

- So you can actually
see a bruise on the face.

That's before death.

So she has to be alive
when the bruise happens.

The point of a bruise
is that you get

blood breaking out
of small vessels.

And in order to do that, you
have to have a circulation.

So if he's restraining
her at the time,

and it would produce those
kind of marks, exactly that.

- [Amaryliss] The
completely horrific

disembowelment of
Catherine Eddowes.

The throat was cut across
to the extent of about six

or seven inches, so the throat
was truly cut ear to ear.

- Yeah, I mean that
sounds like it was

more likely to have
been done from behind

with the hand coming
up from just below

and going downwards
that way like that.

- [Amaryliss] There's a deep
cut over the bridge of the nose

which went into the
bone and divided

all of the structures
of the cheek.

- So that was quite a nasty
slice across the face basically.

- [Amaryliss] These killings
escalated from victim to victim

and they culminated with
the killing of Mary Kelly.

These images are so savage
that when I look at them,

I'm really not even sure
what I'm looking at.

- We have what appears
to be a lot of injury

around the face and neck area.

This area looks, really,
just a bloodied area,

which could well fit with her
having her breasts taken off

and revealing the muscle
underneath and the ribs.

Certainly here, further down,
there seems to have been

almost disemboweled
in that area there

where everything's
left open more or less.

- [Amaryllis] How would
you go about figuring out

what actually caused death given

the extent of the disfiguration?

- If they were dead
before he mutilated them,

in other words there was no
circulation of the blood,

then you wouldn't
see the spurting.

So you wouldn't see the typical

arterial pattern
of blood on walls.

But what you would see, of
course, is pooling of blood

while the body's
being mutilated.

So you would get
pooling under the head,

under the rest of
the body as well.

- Each of the
reports cites limited

to no blood spurting
in the surrounding area

and pools of blood
under the body.

That's fascinating.

Do you think all of the
victims were asphyxiated

or rendered unconscious before
the mutilations took place?

- Absolutely.

- Wow.

The mythology of the Ripper
is that he stalked his victims

and slashed them to
death in a wild frenzy,

but the evidence is
telling us the opposite.

If the victims were dead
before they were disemboweled,

then everything we believe about

the Ripper's kills may be wrong.

That means we can rule
out the victim's suffering

as a motive, so
that leaves profit

or pleasure in the
dissection, or both,

and either motive sounds
a lot like Holmes.

- The point is he was obviously

a cold-blooded
psychopath who wanted

to demonstrate what he could do.

(dramatic synth music)

- [Narrator] H. H. Holmes'
great-great grandson

Jeff Mudgett is on the
trail of a new lead.

- More or less, it was
only ever taken out

when I wanted to show someone.

- [Narrator] He's
tracked down the owners

of what could be a
critical piece of evidence,

patches of a shawl
believed to have been worn

by the Ripper's fourth
victim, Catherine Eddowes,

reportedly found at the scene.

- How did you come about
having possession of the shawl?

- Well, about 20 years ago,
we met David Melville Hayes

who actually owned
the complete shawl.

And it'd been in his family for

many, many years
since the murders.

His great-great-uncle,
a policeman

on duty at the time
in Mitre Square,

picked the shawl up at the scene

and he had in the
family ever since.

- May I see it?

- Sure.

- David actually cut
the two small pieces out

and framed them, and
they eventually found

their way to an
antiques shop in Norfolk

and we purchased them from him.

- [Andy] There's a
description on the back.

- Two silk samples taken
from Catherine Eddowes,

victim of Jack the Ripper.

There is very little
direct evidence

regarding any of the five
Jack the Ripper murders,

and yours is one of
the only pieces left.

There's no way to
verify for certain

that this shawl belongs
to Catherine Eddowes.

We don't even know if the
killer left his DNA on it.

And since it was collected
in a time before forensics,

you can bet it was handled
by a lot of people.

But even if there's only a one

in a million chance, we
have to give it a shot.

My intention is,
if you'll allow me,

is to have the shawl
tested for DNA,

and see if that DNA matches
a sample they'll also take

from me, and I'd like
your consent to do so.

- Would it do any
damage to the material?

- It won't.

They'll handle it
with the utmost care.

- Well, it is very
precious to us,

and we don't normally
let out of our sight.

We keep a very close
to us, but we can

understand how
important it is to you.

And I think if it
is going to help,

we could agree to you taking
it and having it tested.

I hope you do find something,

and I hope it helps
your investigation.

- Thank you both.

(contemplative synth music)

- [Narrator] To test the
shawl for traces of DNA,

Jeff and Amaryllis take the
evidence to one of the world's

preeminent research
universities,

King's College, London.

- We have some evidence that
we'd like you to consider.

These are reportedly sections
of Catherine Eddowes' shawl.

- Well, this is
very interesting.

My understanding is that
there is potentially a link

between the person who
murdered Catherine Eddowes

and a distant relative of yours.

- My great-great-grandfather.

- So we will need to take
a reference sample from you

to compare with any
material we find on here.

- Could you tell us a little
bit about the likelihood

that there could,
after 100 plus years,

be DNA evidence that
would be useful here?

- Well, it's possible and
it's also difficult to say.

I mean, just looking
at this, I can't see

any obvious
bloodstains, but today,

our techniques are so sensitive

that a simple touch
can leave enough DNA.

It really depends on what was
the extent of that contact.

Was it prolonged?

Was it pressured?

If it was somebody who
might have squeezed

the cloth or had
a lot of friction.

- I got to tell you,
I'm very excited

because my research has
largely been hearing opinions

and reports from
newspaper journalists.

This is the first
scientific step

into a real crime investigation.

- [Denise] Absolutely.

(dramatic synth music)

- [Narrator] At King's
College, London,

Jeff Mudgett, a
descendant of notorious

19th-century serial
killer H. H. Holmes,

is closer than ever to
proof of his theory,

that his murderous ancestor and

Jack the Ripper
are the same man.

He's come to test what may
be the only surviving piece

of physical evidence
in the Ripper case.

- [Denise] So if you'd
like to open wide,

I'm just going to
wipe inside here.

I'm going to take these
two swabs off into the lab.

We analyze them independently.

- That was relatively painless.

- Good.

We'll also take the framed
bit of shawl and analyze that

in a separate laboratory and
see what we come up with.

- The fact that in
the 19th century,

police did not
have the same kind

of technology available to them

could have been Jack the
Ripper's greatest accomplice.

But if they find
DNA on the shawl

and it's a match to
Jeff's, it proves

H. H. Holmes was
Jack the Ripper.

- I've read a lot of
books, I've studied talks,

been a member of
debates regarding

Jack the Ripper,
but I never thought

I would actually be
evidence in the case.

- [Denise] We'll see
you in about a week.

(suspenseful synth music)

- [Jeff] So what's
the next step?

- I have to fill you in on what
I learned from the coroner.

All of the victims were
suffocated before the killings.

- [Jeff] Really?

- [Amaryliss] That's a killer
who is depriving himself

of the gratification of
seeing your victim struggle.

And the image that immediately
comes to mind for me

is the dissection of a cadaver,

which is something
that Holmes was

really familiar with and
was quite enamored with.

- Assume we prove that these
were the victims of Holmes.

Assume we prove that he had four

or five minute's time to
conduct these atrocities.

Assume his irritation
for not being

able to do his job properly.

What would he have
done going back home?

What would have
been the first thing

that would have
popped into his mind?

- Where can I
conduct these kinds

of killings without
being interrupted?

- Absolutely, the Murder Castle.

- Look, we know that
Holmes has a brilliant mind

and that he's an
adaptive criminal,

that when he makes a
mistake, he corrects

it the next time around, right?

And every killer has to kill
for the first time, some time.

And if these represent Holmes
still in his adolescence

as a killer, and he
gets interrupted,

that's a mistake that he is
gonna correct in the future,

so it's certainly
interesting to look at these

as perhaps his training
ground for something

that became a lot more
thorough and polished

and meticulous once he took
his act back across the ocean.

(dramatic strings music)

At this stage in
the investigation,

we've made some key
discoveries about the Ripper.

One, he's probably a
doctor, just like Holmes.

Two, he may have timed his
attacks to avoid the police,

which leads us to
believe he may be

more premeditated
than we had thought.

And three, he suffocates
his victims to death

before performing increasingly
brutal dissections.

All clues that could point
to Holmes as a prime suspect.

I think we've done a good
job of establishing the facts

around the first five victims.

- Yeah.

- And now that we understand
the wounds they sustained

and the way they were
killed, I wanna see

if we can place Holmes in London

during the time of
the Ripper attacks.

(dramatic synth music)

- [Narrator] Amaryliss enlists
the help of Andrew Lambert,

an expert in British
maritime history.

- There are a lot of ships
crossing the north Atlantic,

most of them carrying cargo,

some of them
carrying passengers.

- [Narrator] She's
asked him to access

passenger manifests
and ship records

to look for evidence that H.
H. Holmes may have traveled

to London around the time
of the Ripper attacks.

- Trade between Britain
and America is big,

and the people who are
running this trade,

the merchants, the
industrialists,

the financiers,
they're moving around.

So, some of them
are doing business.

Some of them are doing pleasure.

Some of them are doing both.

It's a very simple
come-and-go service.

I have here records
that you're looking for.

There's a group
of people who are

making this transit frequently.

There's enough
traffic to justify

not a line but many
lines of steamers,

and there is no ID
document required.

What they tell the captain
is what the captain tells

the port authority, so
an alias could be used.

- If you wanted to
create a new identity

in a new world, you
could get on the boat

and offer your name as whatever
you might come up with.

- That's absolutely
straightforward.

- [Amaryliss] Did you
have a chance to see

whether there's the name
Holmes in any of these ledgers?

- Yep, there are names in
the ledgers which may be him.

(dramatic synth music)

Here we have H. Holmes.

- [Amaryliss] Wow, H.
Holmes, 36, American, wow.

- He's coming back from
Liverpool to New York.

- [Amaryliss] What
month and year is this?

- This one is in May 1889.

- [Amaryliss] Whoa!

That's after the
final Ripper murder.

This could be the reason
the Ripper killings stopped.

- [Narrator] Next time
on American Ripper.

- So this is the sort of
famous Dear Boss letter.

- Oh boy.

"Next job I do, I shall
cut the lady's ear off."

- So when you look at these
letters, what do you find?

- The language, it doesn't
identify as a British writer.

- They took witness statements.

We know from the report that
an American was taken in.

- I've managed to track
down a forensic artist

who can use all of the details
from the eyewitness accounts.

A full face, broad
shouldered, with fair skin.

- Hair, light brown.

- Holy [beep], that's
really creepy.