Original subtitles

Previously on American Ripper.

There's no document in the Chicago record

for Holmes between July of 1888 and early 1889.

That's the exact period

that Jack the Ripper was committing

his murders in London.

My objective while I'm here is to channel

that original Jack the Ripper investigative team.

These are sections

of Catherine Eddowes's shawl.

We will take a reference sample

from you to compare with any material we find on the shawl.

I never thought I would actually be

evidence in the case.

We'll see you in about a week.

These are some of the known aliases that Holmes used.

That is going to make him all the harder to track.

Did you find any proof of Holmes traveling to London?

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

Wow.

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

went on a killing spree in London.

He was never caught.

But I know who the Ripper is.

His real name is H.H. Holmes.

He was America's first serial killer.

And he is my greatgreatgrandfather.

Here we have H. Holmes.

Former CIA operative, Amaryliss Fox,

may be on the verge of a major breakthrough

in the investigation to prove

the identity of Jack the Ripper

as the con man and serial killer, H. H. Holmes.

He is coming back from Liverpool to New York.

An examination of ships manifest

charting transatlantic crossings

has revealed a familiar name.

Traveling from England to the United States

after the fifth and final Jack the Ripper killing.

H Holmes, 36, American.

Was that the only one?

No, there are a number of people in here who could be him.

Herman Holmes, 31.

This is extraordinary.

This is him leaving Liverpool

and coming into Philadelphia.

We also have some of the names

that he uses as an alias.

In this era, there is no ID document required to travel.

So, an alias could be used.

Here, we have another one.

Alex Gordon, 24 years old.

That's one of his most common aliases.

And this is departing from where?

Liverpool back to the US.

What month and year is this?

This one is in December 1888.

December 1888.

That's just a couple weeks after the final Ripper murder.

This could be the proof we need to place him in London.

I never expected to find so many of Holmes's names

and aliases on these manifests.

And the timing is eerie.

Mary Kelly is the last known victim of Jack the Ripper

in November of 1888.

If Holmes was on a ship heading back to the States

in December of 1888,

that could be the reason the Ripper killings stopped.

So, how long would this passage have taken?

The passenger ships range between

the really fast express liners taking five, six days

and slightly slower ships, seven, eight, nine days.

There's enough traffic to justify not a line,

but many lines of steamers.

From cities like.

Liverpool, Southampton, and London,

the largest port in the world,

Britain dominates nineteenth century global trade.

The advent of the marine steam engine

transforms transatlantic travel.

By 1870, sail ships are being replaced by steamships,

which offer amenities.

Including barber shops, social halls, and private bathrooms.

Wealthy tourists enjoy

luxury accommodations on the upper decks

while millions of transient immigrants

are packed into steerage on their way to America.

If you wanted to travel for pleasure,

you would travel in the summer.

Traveling in the north Atlantic

in winter is a rotten journey.

If you're traveling in December,

you clearly have to travel.

You have a reason to travel.

If that's getting out of town,

that's a good enough reason.

If he is Jack the Ripper,

given the timing, December 1888,

he's the most wanted man in Britain.

If not in the world.

Jeff, I've got some great news for our investigation.

Boy.

On these travel manifests,

you can see here Herman Holmes.

31 years old.

Wow.

This is amazing.

To have evidence of Holmes's travel.

Yeah.

And then, here, line 40, his alias Alex Gordon.

Again, American.

And the timeline there puts him

returning to the United States in December of 1888.

Which, if that's Holmes, could explain why

Mary Kelley is the last murder victim in London.

Incredible.

You would expect to see the Ripper kill again.

Only we have Holmes's alias returning

in December to the United States.

And then the murders stopped.

My greatgreatgrandfather used aliases

to get away with his cons.

And, at the time of the Ripper murders,

he was 27 years old.

About the same age as the passengers

listed on this travel manifest.

These records can't prove he was in London.

But they open up a strong possibility.

Okay, let's review what we've learned so far.

As we progress, the evidence is increasing

that the killer had anatomical knowledge

and some surgical experience.

In addition to having this specialized instrument,

the surgeon's knife.

So far, our London investigation has turned up

at least three key pieces of evidence

that link H. H. Holmes and Jack the Ripper.

One, both killers had surgical skill.

In particular, an expertise in dissection.

Two, both killers render their victims unconscious

before killing them.

And, three, contrary to the Ripper mythology,

the killer was premeditated.

He planned his killings in advance to avoid the police.

Just like Holmes did in Chicago.

We know Jack was an educated man.

He had scoped the area out.

He knew the policeman's beats.

15 minutes was the time it took the police

to get through their beat and return to the square.

So that means he was skilled enough

to conduct what were essentially dissections

in under 15 minutes.

And we know that Holmes had that anatomical skill.

And we see this textbook escalation of violence here.

Mary Nichols on August 31 whose throat is slit

and her abdomen's opened.

But no organs are taken.

You have Annie Chapman on September 8th.

Her abdomen's opened and her uterus is removed.

Catherine Eddowes on September 30.

Her abdomen's opened and not just her uterus,

but also her kidneys removed and her liver is nicked.

She also has facial disfigurations

for the first time.

And then you have Mary Kelly on November 9th.

And, as you can see from the image,

there's almost nothing in the body that's left undisturbed.

The face has been so disfigured

that she was really only identifiable by her eyeballs.

The final Ripper killing was committed indoors,

which may have inspired Holmes to consider,

"How do I replicate these killings back home?"

So, I don't think it was a coincidence that,

just a year after the Ripper killings,

construction of the Murder Castle

was in full swing back in Chicago.

A hotel engineered for him to murder

and dismember his victims in secret.

The travel manifests suggest that Holmes was here in London.

But we need more evidence.

Maybe we can use a paper trail

to pin Holmes down in London.

Amaryllis, we should take a look at

those famous Ripper letters.

Yeah, let's get to work.

I feel like these go on forever.

Yeah, I mean there are many miles of shelving.

We've got a thousand years of history here.

The National Archives features

a collection of documents and records

from more than 1,000 years of British history.

Jeff and Amaryllis are here to examine

two of the most infamous.

The only surviving writings of Jack the Ripper.

Everybody knows about these letters.

They've been all over the world.

But, obviously, to have them here

in the original in the National Archives is fascinating.

As the Ripper killings gripped London

between August and November of 1888,

the press turns the public's fascination into an obsession.

Printing every lurid detail of the case

below increasingly sensational headlines.

The London police force, known as the Metropolitan Police,

receives more than 700 letters in this period.

All claiming to have been penned by the Ripper.

But, out of hundreds of letters,

only two are considered authentic.

Each containing facts of the case

never shared with the public.

And known only to the killer himself.

So, this is the famous Dear Boss letter.

Dear Boss, I keep on hearing the police have caught me.

They won't fix me.

Not just yet.

I am down on whores

and I shan't quit ripping them.

I gave the body no time to squeal.

The Boss.

Central News Office.

London City.

Clearly, that's an intention on the part

of the person writing this letter

to bring it to the attention of the media.

Jack communicating directly to the public.

Yes.

When during the murders was this done?

This was sent after the Annie Chapman murder.

Postmark was September 27.

Three days before the Catherine Eddowes murder.

The Dear Boss letter is written and mailed

during the 19 day period between the Ripper's

second and third kills.

It points to a critical detail

about the Eddowes murder

before it happens.

I saved some of the proper red stuff

in a ginger beer bottle to write you.

But it went thick like glue.

And I can't use it.

Ha ha.

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

It mentions the removal of the ear of a victim.

In Dear Boss, someone claiming to be the Ripper

writes he's going to remove a victim's ear.

The paper doesn't publish it.

And, on the night of the double event,

someone takes Catherine Eddowes's ear.

So, that's what makes the police believe

this letter is authentic.

Yours truly, Jack the Ripper.

It is the first letter to be signed Jack the Ripper.

So, this is where the name was coined.

This is where the name was coined, yes.

And when did he write this second letter?

The day after the Eddowes and Stride murders,

they received another letter.

It seems to be from the same person.

This is the Saucy Jack Postcard, as it's known.

Boy.

In this postcard, again, addressed to.

The Boss at the Central News Office,

he refers to himself as Saucy Jack.

He's, again, signed at the bottom here Jack the Ripper.

What are those smudges on it?

You can see there are smears of blood on it, as well.

No way.

There are also prints here.

Is there a chance that could contain DNA from the killer?

You can see there are smears of blood on it, as well.

Is there a chance that

could contain DNA from the killer?

The infamous Jack the Ripper

brutally murders five people in the fall of 1888.

Leaving behind few clues to his identity.

Now, on the hunt to prove the theory that

American con man H. H. Holmes is the Ripper,

Jeff Mudget and Amaryllis Fox are face to face

with the only evidence thought to be

a direct link to the killer.

A letter and a postcard stained with a bloody fingerprint.

Has that ever been analyzed?

That could be a huge piece of

physical evidence for our case.

Well, unfortunately, this is a facsimile.

This is a copy?

Yes, it's been stolen.

It's been lost for decades.

Crime is sensational.

Many people have pilfered the evidence.

Unbelievably frustrating that

the one piece of evidence is gone.

So, with this letter he writes...

I wasn't codding, dear old Boss,

when I gave you the tip.

You'll hear about Saucy Jack's work tomorrow.

Number one squealed a bit.

I had not time to get ears for the police.

Thanks for keeping the last letter back

till I got to work again.

Jack the Ripper.

Same sort of syntax.

It looks like some of the handwriting, as well.

What's interesting about this letter

is that he mentions the ear again.

But he says, "I didn't have enough time"

to take the first victim's ear."

The Saucy Jack letter is significant,

because the author references Dear Boss,

which, at the time, hadn't been published in the press.

And, when the killer says he didn't have enough time,

it's a hint at what's called the Double Event.

Murders three and four, which take place on the same night.

In both cases, the author reveals information

known only to the police and the killer himself.

I'm down on whores and I shan't quit ripping them.

Reading both of these, the phrasing sounds

really odd to my ear.

Does it read oddly to you, as well?

It's a strange letter with a strange tone.

But maybe some analysis to do.

Although I'm not the person to help you.

You need a forensic linguist.

So, perhaps, you could seek advice from one.

Let's add the letters to the timeline.

They're pretty interesting.

Especially the Dear Boss.

It was the first time Jack the Ripper was used.

And he gives it to himself.

I mean, if we believe he wrote this,

he's named himself Jack the Ripper.

And this letter, it seems like Jack

is really the first serial killer to bypass

the police and Scotland Yard

and use the press, which was, in 1888,

the equivalent of social media,

to talk directly to his public.

Almost brand himself and kind of create this legend.

The way that Jack the Ripper boasts

about his crimes to the police and the press

reminds me of the way Holmes boasted about

his crimes while writing his confessions in prison.

It seems both killers have a need to feed their egos.

They both demand respect and acknowledgement

beyond all else.

Next we have Saucy Jack.

If you look at what he's saying in these letters,

this is someone who's playing with the police.

Who's lording over them the fact that

he hasn't been caught yet.

For me, all of that adds up really strongly

to suggest that we need to go deeper

on establishing whether or not this could have been Holmes.

So, I'm gonna look into the

handwriting and linguistics analysis.

But, in the meantime, we still have

the DNA testing on the shawl.

This might be the key to the entire investigation.

Last week, Jeff secured access to

one of the few surviving pieces

of physical evidence in the case.

Two small patches of shawl believed to

have belonged to the Ripper's fourth victim,

Catherine Eddowes, and allegedly recovered

at the crime scene.

Scientists at King's College London

are analyzing the material on the chance

that the killer's DNA may have

transferred to the shawl and survived.

Waiting for these results has been really nerveracking.

Because, if the killer's DNA remained

on the victim's shawl from the night of her murder,

this is the evidence that could prove, once and for all,

that my ancestor, H. H. Holmes, was Jack the Ripper.

We've obtained a Y profile from you.

That's a profile from your male DNA.

Your male DNA will be the same

as your male ancestor's DNA.

So, that Y male profile will not have changed

in over 100 years?

If it has changed, it'll be a sm-a small change

that we will be able to recognize.

So, we need to compare that DNA profile

with anything we have found on the shawl.

Now, we have found some male material on that shawl.

We have found some male material on that shawl.

Jeff Mudgett is at King's College London

to find out whether DNA traces

recovered from a piece of evidence in the Ripper case

are a match to his own DNA.

A link would be conclusive proof of the theory

that his greatgreatgrandfather,

is Jack the Ripper.

Whose DNA was it?

What we found, there is a prominent male on that shawl.

There are a few additional, very low level, components.

Most of the DNA, 95% of it, has come from one male.

Okay.

That male profile does not match with yours.

It's not mine.

No.

So, what about the remaining 5%?

What conclusions have you reached?

That also does not match you.

Now, the fact that that male profile doesn't match you

does not discount any of the theories at all.

Because we don't know whether the person

who perpetrated this crime has had any contact

with that particular bit of scarf.

I was really hoping the shawl would be

the key to unlocking this entire investigation.

And the fact that there isn't a DNA match

is very disappointing.

But it just means we're going to have to keep on looking

for that elusive piece of physical evidence

to prove my theory.

Walking in, I was scared to death that

you were going to say, "Yea, the Y is yours, Jeff."

It would have been very exciting.

'Cause it would have closed down

a question that has been around for over a hundred years,

which we would all like to know the answer to.

Amaryllis.

Hey.

Well, there was DNA on the shawl.

No.

My heart was beating a mile a minute.

She basically told me no.

It didn't match.

It wasn't related to your blood profile at all?

Not at all.

Zero.

But we always knew the likelihood was pretty small.

What we found from those DNA testings

is that there wasn't DNA left behind by H. H. Holmes.

Or that he did and it didn't make it through 125 years.

I'm glad we tracked it down.

I'm glad we know that we have

a couple unidentified DNA profiles.

In case there's some other direct evidence

to compare them to down the road.

And I think our next step is to decode the Ripper letters

for clues that could tie them to Holmes.

Jeff and Amaryllis consult

two of the UK's top forensic linguists

to dig deeper into the mysterious origins

of the Ripper letters.

They've spent the last week decoding

the writing and its author.

So, when you work in forensic cases,

how are you able to reach your conclusions?

Well, it's a matter of looking at the language

and comparing different kinds of dialect

or two different samples.

And we have quite an extensive background

in working in forensic linguistics

and speech analysis.

Forensic linguists study patterns

in the written and spoken word

across cultures and through history.

Analysis of phrase usage, frequency, and style

can identify the time period of the writing

and the geographic origin of the author.

Is it a problem these letters were written

back in the 19th century?

You have sample data for that?

The best written samples are letters.

It could be newspapers, magazines, novels.

That's certainly true with 19th century English,

which we have a very large database for.

We're really curious about these letters.

The language in them seems so strange to the modern ear.

I'm curious as to whether it's

because we're looking back from so far in the future

or whether these would have seemed strange

to an 1888 era, as well.

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

So, here's the interesting thing.

The language doesn't identify as a British writer.

In terms of literature of the time,

the phrases in the letters were American.

The language doesn't identify as a British writer.

Hunting for answers

in one of history's greatest mysteries,

Jeff Mudgett and Amaryllis Fox

are working with top forensic linguists

to decode the origins of the only surviving

written evidence in the Ripper case.

They're looking for clues to the killer's identity

hidden in the language of the infamous Dear Boss

and Saucy Jack letters.

Attempting to prove that the man known as Jack the Ripper

is America's first serial killer, H. H. Holmes.

What makes you so sure

the writer of these letters was American?

So, we went back into the British Parliamentary record

using existing databases of written language.

In 1880, there's a big difference

between American English and British English.

Interesting.

My greatgreatgrandfather, H. H. Holmes,

was born in the States.

And, if he did commit these murders,

failing to disguise his Americanism in these letters

could have been his first mistake.

Well, I think the Dear Boss letter

struck a lot of people as having features

that people thought were American.

What jumps out at you when you look at that?

Dear Boss.

Fix me.

Shan't quit.

Let's start with fix me.

It's pretty old fashioned sounding.

It's used in a quite particular way in the letter, right?

It's something like catch me.

That certainly occurs in American English from that time.

But also occurred in British English.

So, if we look at the use of fix followed by a pronoun,

these are the patterns we find.

Explain the significance of the top number.

These are percentages for each date.

What percentage of the words in the database

matched the pattern plus a verb.

So, the numbers are very small.

And you can see, in the present day,

there is a bit of a difference between

American and British English, but, interestingly,

if we go back to 1880s, I would say,

on that particular feature, the fix me,

the evidence is pretty neutral.

This one didn't help as much.

So, it was really important

to look at some of the other alleged Americanisms.

What did you find looking at the rest of the letter?

So, the main one I want to look at right now is quit.

I shan't quit was picked out

as one of the phrases that was supposedly American.

And it's interesting, with quit plus verb,

there's a big difference now between

American English and British English.

Wow.

The American utilization of that word

is over twice as much as in England.

Yeah, this is the crucial gap here.

People on this side of the pond

tend to say stop doing this.

Stop doing that.

Not quit doing that.

Really?

How about boss?

Well, as you can see,

very small usage in Britain.

But rapidly increasing use in American books

starting around about 1875.

And becoming much, much higher right through

the period that we're interested in.

Whoa, so that's a significant gap between those two.

And then, of course,

we haven't even mentioned right away.

A British person would have been more likely

to say straightaway at the time.

And an American more relatively likely to say right away.

Straightaway, to me, it does sound

much more English than American.

If I were an investigator

while the murders were being conducted,

would you suggest looking for an American suspect?

Well, there has to be some explanation

for the American features in the letter.

When I decided to ask if you'd

help me with this investigation,

I did so knowing you would have an open mind.

And I know, when you first started, you were skeptical.

Has that begun to change any?

You know, it's my job to be skeptical.

And I'm very fact based.

With a case this cold,

there aren't a whole lot of remaining facts.

So, for me, the jury was still out

until there was sufficient evidence.

And I think it still is, to be honest.

But, when you hear one story, you hear two stories,

you hear three stories, you can dismiss them.

But there is this moment where

the scales tip and the confluence of evidence

begins to point in one direction.

I want to subject these letters to handwriting analysis

when we get back to the States.

But, based on the linguistic analysis alone,

I'm convinced that the writer of these letters

was raised in America.

Whether of not that person was Holmes, though,

is still unclear.

I'd like to learn more about the list of suspects

that Scotland Yard was looking at at the time

and see if there's a link to Holmes.

One of my old law enforcement contacts

set me up with a former London police officer

who specializes in this part of the case.

We've got everything ever written

on the Ripper in this room.

I was a police officer for 30 years

and I've been reading about the case since 1961.

Stuart Evans is an expert on the Ripper case

and has compiled an extensive collection

of official police reports.

His research examines known Riper suspects

and the techniques used to follow up on leads.

Having written police reports myself,

you get a whole different view of things.

How reliable do you feel like

the investigations were at the end of the 19th century?

The police, it was primitive in terms of

modern technology and the way we look at things today.

You didn't have regular serial killers in those days.

But, once you've got this brutality,

they began to realize, perhaps,

there was something out of the ordinary.

The Jack the Ripper murders

are the first in history to be classified

as the work of a serial killer.

The 1888 case is so groundbreaking

that it sets the model for future police investigations.

Though it introduces techniques

such as crime scene photography, still in use today,

at the turn of the century,

there was no such thing as forensics.

There's no fingerprinting, no DNA technology,

and no blood typing.

Instead, detectives hunting the Ripper

relied most heavily on eyewitness accounts

of the attacks and their aftermath.

Across the five murders, a total of 13 eyewitness reports

still survive through police notes

published in the press.

The police did door to door inquiries

to look for witnesses.

And questioned people who were working at night.

They took witness statements.

All they would get is a description.

And so, they operated on descriptions.

Scotland Yard looked at over 80 suspects.

Then the press recorded their statements in shorthand

and they appeared in the newspapers.

Would you mind sharing

with us copies of those reports?

No problem.

In my experience in criminal profiling,

it's very rare to have 13

eyewitness accounts of a suspect.

Especially when it's operating in secret and in darkness.

So, this could be a huge break for us.

Put simply, there weren't that many suspects at the time.

When I say that, I mean real suspects.

Most of these Scotland Yard suspects

were quickly eliminated.

The one that really first caught attention as a suspect

was Pizer, John Pizer.

That was the arrest of Pizer being illustrated there.

Nicknamed Leather Apron.

He worked in leather and wore a leather protective apron.

He was threatening street prostitutes and bothering them.

They were obviously frightened of him

and that was good enough.

Hey, we got a suspect.

He was fairly quickly exonerated.

With an alibi or...

Yeah, yeah, he was speaking to a policeman

on the night of the murder.

Pretty strong alibi.

That's a pretty good alibi.

It's pretty good, yeah.

But the name Leather Apron, which hit the press,

then it stuck until a better name came along.

Who was the next major suspect?

We know from a report done by Chief Inspector Swanson

that an American was taken in.

Really?

They were questioned by the police.

How did they find this guy?

Well, this lady ran a lodging house, 22 Batty Street,

on the night of the double murder.

Somebody came into the house about two AM.

Which would tie in with just after the Eddowes murder,

which a was committed about 20 to two.

So, the time fits perfectly.

And this person was a lodger she'd known.

Next day, her husband,

going to the lodger's room after he'd left,

saw a black bag.

The lodger was a medical man.

And, on opening it, discovered a long sharp knife

and two bloodstained cuffs.

Wow.

And do we know who the American was?

The lodger was a medical man, an American.

The story was that an American lodger

at 22 Batty Street left a bag with a weapon

and bloody cuffs in it and never returned?

While investigating details

of the Jack the Ripper case,

Jeff and Amaryllis uncover a critical clue,

an eyewitness account suggesting the killer,

like Holmes, is American and a doctor.

Detectives call him the Batty Street Lodger.

A mystery man who becomes one of the leading suspects.

So what happened to this doctor?

Well, nothing more was heard of the American doctor

with the suspicious black bag.

The story went that the police

kept watching and waiting for him to come back,

but he never came back.

So, everything is a big unknown.

But the amazing thing is, 25 years later,

we find mention of the same landlady and the same lodger.

I have seen him again this week.

She says she thinks it's the same lodger

she had 25 years later.

Then she says, "He is now in practice"

in the northwest of London."

If the suspect known as The Batty Street Lodger

was seen again 25 years later,

then it rules out Holmes.

Because he was convicted and executed in 1896.

So, either the eyewitness was mistaken

or Holmes is not Jack the Ripper.

The story of this American doctor stuck

and the American became a popular suspect at the time.

Did they arrest anyone they thought

was the Batty Street Lodger at the time?

Well, the one named American suspect

is a Doctor Francis Tumblety

who hailed from Rochester, New York.

He was an American quack doctor.

They used to call them snake oil doctors.

He arrived from America in Liverpool in late July 1888.

He was arrested in Whitechapel

on suspicion of being the Whitechapel Murderer.

So, this is an American doctor

with a known history of swindling

and selling snake oil medicines.

He was a good suspect.

And the description, as it went, a Yank in a slouch hat.

He was tracked down.

And, when they had him detained,

they couldn't charge him with the murders,

because, although suspected,

they've got no hard evidence against him at all.

He was released on bail.

And, as soon as he got bail,

he got on the next steamer back to the states.

He arrived in New York on the third of December.

So, he got away.

Scotland Yard had the American police

watch Tumblety get of the ship.

So, they were definitely watching out for him

at the request of Scotland Yard.

I mean, there's a lot pointing at Tumblety.

But no hard evidence.

So, they only arrested him because

he was an American doctor who fit the description.

That's pretty dramatic.

There's a lot pointing to the fact that

Scotland Yard believed that

an American doctor fit the bill.

Whether it was Tumblety or anyone else.

Yea I mean, the evidence is there.

It's in the press.

It's in the police records.

If you were presented with another American doctor

who had similar education,

similar preoccupation with anatomical scams,

would that seem like a viable suspect to you?

Well, I don't think anyone could be ruled out.

It sounds like the suspect they called.

The Batty Street Lodger was their best suspect.

And he got away.

The closest they came to figuring out

who that lodger was was Francis Tumblety.

Tumblety is the really interesting suspect.

To my mind, the most interesting thing

that came out of the Stuart meeting was Tumblety.

An American doctor who was a scam artist

who had been in London selling snake oil remedies.

To me, it's really pretty eerie how similar

that description sounds to Holmes.

I agree.

It also fits that the killer was

an educated man of high intellect.

To me, the Tumblety description

is incredibly reminiscent of Holmes.

And yet, too old to be Jack the Ripper.

So, I think it opens up a lot of questions.

The police reports that Stuart shared

indicates Tumblety was in his 50s.

But every eyewitness account, without exception,

says that the Ripper was in his late 20s or early 30s.

It's highly unlikely that 13 different eyewitnesses

were all wrong.

So we can safely conclude that the evidence

doesn't point to Tumblety.

So it doesn't seem unreasonable to think that

maybe it was a different American doctor.

One that was in his late 20s, early 30s.

I mean, my question is whether they were right

in suspecting an American doctor.

But just had the wrong doctor.

Deep into the investigation

to prove that Jack the Ripper is an alias

of dark mastermind H. H. Holmes,

a series of revelations are beginning to connect the dots

between the two killers.

These latest discoveries are significant for our case.

We have the Ripper letters

suggesting the writer was American.

And now we know the detectives who were hunting the Ripper

were actively looking for an American doctor

as one of their most likely suspects.

Each of these clues supports the possibility

that H. H. Holmes and Jack the Ripper are one and the same.

But what we don't have is any evidence

that places Holmes at the scene of the crime.

You know, Jeff, we have 13 eyewitness accounts

from the time.

And, back in the day,

they obviously just had sketch artists.

So, we're left with line drawings from the age.

But, today, there's amazing cutting edge technology

that can create a composite photograph from them.

So, once again, we're trying to use

modern forensic science to clear up confusion from 1888.

So, I managed to track down a forensic artist

who can use all of the details from

the eyewitness accounts so that we can see a photograph

of what Jack the Ripper might have looked like.

Police sketches have been

a standard law enforcement tool for decades.

Particularly in criminal investigations.

But modern technology now helps to create

more accurate images than ever before.

Forensic artists create mugshots

by pulling from a digital database

containing thousands of the most common human features.

A technique used by agencies like the FBI and CIA

to help identify suspects from eyewitness reports.

I'm very excited to be here today

to see what a photograph would have given us

had we had that science at the time.

Absolutely, yea.

Could you tell me a little bit about

what your methodology is?

Usually, I start with descriptions about

facial features, overall appearances.

Then I'll take some pieces of pictures

and then paste them together.

Then create a face from that.

We do have 13 eyewitness accounts

from the police records at the time.

For a cold case, it's actually

not a bad number of descriptions.

Well, let's get started, if you don't mind.

Israel Schwartz, he witnessed the Elizabeth Stride killing.

Mary Ann Cox witnessed Kelly's killing.

James Brown who was one of the witnesses

for Elizabeth Stride's killing.

George Hutchinson described a full face.

Broad shouldered with fair skin.

Complexion pale.

Description of a blotchy face.

Joseph Lowend also says a fair complexion.

Mary Ann Cox says a fresh complexion.

And was described as

"respectable looking."

Very surly looking.

In terms of age, Israel Schwartz saying about 30.

William Smith, 28.

Young man from 25 to 30.

George Hutchinson describes him as 34.

In terms of height, five foot five inches.

About five foot seven inches tall.

Five foot five inches.

Five foot six inches.

Anything about eye color?

George Hutchinson did describe Jack as having dark eyes.

Dark eyes.

Dark eyes usually

suggests dark hair as well.

We have dark hair being noted

in Israel Schwartz's description.

Joseph Lowend also says that he had brown hair.

Hair, light brown.

Gonna get roughly an average sized nose.

Okay, what about any facial hair?

That's one of the features there's a little dispute over.

The first eyewitness account is

he had a small brown mustache.

The second account was a black mustache,

but was otherwise clean shaven.

Mary Ann Cox, the witness for Kelly,

she said he had a thick carroty mustache.

Do we want to put a hat on him?

It's one of the most consistent points

in these eyewitness accounts.

There's not one that doesn't mention a hat.

We have small peaked cap.

Holmes's face has been branded into my mind's eye.

From portraits in history books.

I've scoured his face looking for

pieces of myself in his image.

And now, watching Jack the Ripper

come to life before my eyes,

I wonder if it will be a face I recognize.

You know, I brought with me some images that

we have of H. H. Holmes.

If I give you this, is it possible to bring them up

so we can look at them side by side?

Of course.

Yeah, let's take a look.

All right.

Holy...

That's really creepy.

If you took this composite to a judge,

he'd issue a warrant.

Next time on American Ripper.

It's straight out of the mind of Edgar Allen Poe.

It's definitely not out of Architectural Digest.

If properly excavated, there's the potential

for history changing evidence.

We're looking at a treasure trove of body parts.

Wow, look at that.

You're still left with very recognizable

human bones as the remains.

They started finding bones that

appeared to be a six year old child.

If you're a serial killer

and you're trying to get rid of bodies,

it would be much easier by encasing them in cement

and dropping them in the Chicago River.

Whoa.

There's so many of them.

This is an indication that things have been dumped here.