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00:00Good morning everybody!
00:18I'm just going to stop down here folks.
00:23Gather round, close you can.
00:28I'm going to be your tour guide for this morning's Jack the Ripper walk.
00:32We're going to be following in Jack's footsteps today.
00:35We're going to be walking down the same streets that he went down.
00:37We're seeing some of the murder sites obviously and some of the other locations.
00:40And more importantly we'll be learning about the victims that Jack sadly killed
00:44and their lives as well and that's something that I've researched for many years.
00:47It is truly remarkable that nearly 140 years after the man the press called Jack the Ripper stalked these streets
00:57people are still coming from all over the world to the east end of London to revisit the scenes of his crimes.
01:05Martha was actually stabbed to death. Stabbed not once, not twice but 39 times.
01:11OK we're going to head in this direction now folks. Follow me.
01:14OK.
01:18But down this street in the heart of Whitechapel, not at all far from where the Jack the Ripper tours go,
01:28another terrible discovery was made. In September 1889, a dismembered woman's body was found just down there.
01:40With the whole of Whitechapel still reeling from the recent space of murders,
01:46the immediate assumption was that this was another victim of Jack the Ripper.
01:51But there's another theory that it was the work of an entirely different serial killer.
02:01And unlike Jack the Ripper, this killer has been largely forgotten until now.
02:08I'm following in the footsteps of the Victorian police and reinvestigating a terrifying series of unsolved murders known as the Thames Torso Killings.
02:25The case began in 1887 with body parts of an unidentified victim found scattered all across London and along the Thames.
02:35A second dismembered victim, also unidentifiable, was then found in the vaults of the new police headquarters in the very heart of London.
02:48The killer's third victim was a pregnant 24-year-old called Elizabeth Jackson, whose body was also deposited along the river.
02:58As the police investigated, clues were found, suspects emerged, but the investigation has hit a dead end.
03:08Could the discovery of a fourth body now crack open the case and finally reveal the identity of the killer?
03:17The body has been found in the streets of Whitefield.
03:22To help me investigate, I'm consulting professionals from the fields of forensics and psychology, as well as independent researchers who've studied this cold case.
03:35And I've handpicked a group of professional writers and historians to help me navigate Victorian London.
03:44We're revisiting the surviving police case files, records and reports on the victims and their deaths.
03:53Seeing which leads were followed, and which were missed.
04:00Together, we'll build a picture of the women who were killed, and we'll finally unmask one of the 19th century's most brutal serial killers.
04:12A
04:19The
04:23The
04:25around 5 30 in the morning at the 10th of September 1889 police constable pennant
04:54is walking along his beat here in back church lane whitechapel when he spots something in the
05:02railway arches just here at the corner of Pynchon street he goes over to take a look and it's a
05:11woman's torso no head no legs constable pennant now has to follow strict police protocols put
05:20in place since the jack the ripper murders began he has to stay with the body and immediately
05:26summon help two other officers arrive and with the crime scene secure an urgent coded telegram
05:35is sent to all the police divisions in the metropolitan district it just says another whitechapel
05:50i need to know if the police were right to connect this latest murder with jack the ripper
05:56so i've asked the murder club to take a closer look
06:03those words another whitechapel suggests that the police have made the assumption that this
06:08is another killing by jack the ripper what do we think well they've got good reason the body's found
06:15at Pynchon street and if we look at it here these are the locations of the women who were killed by
06:23jack the ripper just a year before and this is within a one mile radius it's also close it's just
06:28happening in the same neighborhood and even though these happened the year before in july 1889 so
06:35that's only a couple of months before the Pynchon street discovery a woman called alice mckenzie
06:41is murdered on castle alley in whitechapel she was murdered in a very similar manner she had her
06:46throat cut and she suffered from abdominal mutilations so again they thought this might
06:51be a crime perpetrated by jack the ripper so we've got one two three four five victims of jack the ripper
06:58another woman who the police think is attributed to jack ripper and then two months later we've got our
07:03seventh body in the same area of one mile yeah i can see why they have thought it was jack the ripper
07:09i'd make the same assumption absolutely it's very close geographically isn't it and i can see why
07:15they would make that assumption this is very much jack the ripper's territory but
07:20it just it doesn't quite strike me as a jack the ripper murder they had their throats cut and their
07:27their abdomens were mutilated so they get the word ripper from whereas this victim here it's just a
07:35torso she doesn't even have a head that's so much more like the thames torso killers that if she was
07:43a victim of the guy we called jack the ripper he's really changed doing something new you know
07:52so at this point the fact that it happens in whitechapel suggests jack the ripper but as you were saying
07:58the method of killing suggests the thames torso murderer i think at this stage we can't conclude
08:05can we no i wonder if there are any interesting leads that could be followed up about missing persons
08:12in the area were there really no leads there were missing women in this area and a few names were
08:19given to the police one of them was lydia hart and her sons and her friends reported her missing
08:26but she was found in hospital a little while later after having gone on a three-day bender oh lydia
08:34but she's alive and safe yes a second potential victim is emily barker who's a young girl a runaway
08:41from northampton and she's described as a wild and ungovernable girl an ungovernable girl yes with an
08:49apparently irreclaimable addiction to excessive drinking and dishonesty oh but she's also found a
08:56life hmm but these were the type of women that were in the local area and who people were worried about
09:05sounds like if you were an ungovernable girl then with a drinking problem it you you're quite likely to
09:10end up in white chapel yes by the late 1880s the east end had become one of the most densely populated
09:23areas in london newcomers were drawn partly by the promise of cheap housing which white chapel had in
09:33abundance but as more and more people settled here living standards fell dramatically many faced poverty
09:44and even homelessness to make ends meet some women were forced to turn to prostitution which meant
09:54that any female on the streets at night was often assumed by the authorities to be selling sex
10:01the sad truth is that in this poor squalid overcrowded area disappearances could slip by
10:09unnoticed could that be why the killer chose to leave the body here
10:19i want to take a closer look at the crime scene so i've arranged to meet rose from the murder club
10:25here on pinching street so where exactly was the body found rose the police files give us
10:35the precise location so we're at this end by back church lane oh look there's that door yeah yeah
10:42and a little window yeah so it's found here in this archway this one is the closest one
10:49to back church lane so this is the one that was open all picked up now yeah x marks the spot it was
10:57just there just inside here yeah against this against this wall oh creepy and do we think that she
11:06might have been killed there in the arch unlikely so there's no signs of blood or significant disturbance
11:15at the scene it's as if she's been placed here which is really quite extraordinary pc pennett's beat
11:24that would have taken him all the way along here from christian street back up back church lane and
11:29then round again he'd made that round and come past this archway sometime between half past four and five
11:35and then that's only just before yeah and then he comes back at about 25 past five and it's there
11:40so within that half hour 45 minute window the torso must have been placed here yeah that's quite a
11:48short period of time isn't it to come and to go and to not be seen yeah ah if the body was brought
11:55here to pinching street where might it have come from so this is back church lane so we've got two
12:01options north white chapel that's jack the ripper territory yeah absolutely or we've got south and
12:09what's down there so south we're heading towards the river the river yes the river that's a bit of a
12:15step though isn't it to the river no it's not that far and in 1889 the london docks were just over the
12:22other side of the railway bridge there we're closer to the river than i thought yeah so and this is
12:27actually somewhere where the police focused quite a lot of their energy within about 20 minutes of
12:31the body being discovered the thames river police were mobilized let's see how far it is to the river
12:39shall we in 1889 the area just south of pinching street was dominated by the vast london docks where
12:50goods from all over the world were unloaded to meet the needs of the booming metropolis the largest
12:57dock which was nearest to pinching street was built over in the 1980s so today it no longer exists but
13:05some of the neighboring docks still remain it really is a surprisingly short wave so the police spend pretty
13:15much the whole of that first day after the discovery of the body searching ships up and down the thames
13:22so from london docks all the way through up to the mouth of the river so the fact that the police were
13:27looking so much down here on the river in the docks that makes me think that perhaps they thought
13:33this is a thames torso case well i think that's increasingly what they think obviously the press
13:40initially go oh it's white chapel it's a jack the ripper killing that immediately set off that kind
13:46of media frenzy but the police seem to move quickly sort of away from that and think that perhaps this
13:52is a thames torso killing made to look like a jack the ripper that's a theory the plot thickens goodness me
14:01we've established that it's really not far from here to pinching street but to make that journey
14:08with a body it does sound to me challenging
14:16and moving a body unnoticed from here to pinching street would have been even harder at that time
14:23because this whole area was being closely watched by the police
14:28not just because of the ripper killings but also because of the 1889 dockers strike
14:37the 1880s had seen a wave of industrial action across the capital and just weeks before the
14:44pinching street body was discovered roughly 75 000 dock workers had downed tools to demand better pay
14:52and working conditions 2000 extra police officers had been deployed in the east end to maintain order
15:01and keep the peace and it was in the middle of all this that the killer left his fourth victim
15:08moving a body through the streets of the city strikes me as an incredibly high risk thing to do
15:24having said that though remember at whitehall the body was placed in the unfinished vaults at the new
15:30police said quarters building
15:35so if it was the same killer they have taken risks like that before
15:42but i am curious how on earth do you physically transport a body through the city streets
15:48without anybody noticing
15:59i'm meeting a man who claims he can answer that question a historian who's co-authored a book on these
16:06murders he believes he knows not only how the killer could have moved the body undetected but he's also
16:14identified a new suspect for who the thames torso murderer might be
16:22so drew i think you've got a particular suspect haven't you for the torso murders
16:28yes there is a man who's working around white chapel at the time of the torso murders
16:35and his name is james hardiman hardiman tell me about him so if you look here we'll find 29
16:44hanbury street there it is 29 hanbury street james hardiman yeah your guy and if you move him across
16:52he's a dealer in horse flesh a dealer in horse flesh
16:55ugh it's a cat's meat man a cat's meat man what's his job exactly well it's setting meat for cats and
17:03dogs to eat for all pets to eat pet food pet food exactly yeah so james hardiman is someone like this
17:09man here he would have started very early in the morning having collected his meat from a horse
17:15slaughterer's yard you can see him with his barrow
17:18so this barrow or cart that the cat's meat man uses it is of the size that could contain something
17:30like a torso isn't it absolutely it's an ideal vehicle not only for transporting body parts
17:38but also for blending into the background and passing unnoticed
17:41and as a cat's meat man was he experienced in cutting up the horses then because the killer
17:49must have had the skills to cut up the victim well in hardiman's case we we know that he he wasn't just
17:58a cat's meat man he gives his occupation on the 1881 census but above it has been written knacker
18:06a knacker that's somebody who cuts up horses or kills horses kills horses it's it's a horse
18:14slaughterer this is a bit gory gosh it's somebody who's intrinsically involved in that whole process
18:22and has potentially the skills to cut up the body so james hardiman he's got the means of transport
18:31he's got the skills to cut up bodies he's in the white chapel area yes but not only that lucy
18:38there's a possibility that james hardiman isn't just responsible for the torso murders
18:44he's responsible for jack the ripper murders of 1888. no the same man yes
18:53james hardiman lived in and around this area for most of his life his family lived here at 29
18:59hanbury street and it was at 29 hanbury street in 1888 that the body of ripper victim
19:05vanny chapman was found in the backyard what in the backyard
19:12yes but not only that lucy this is one of the very first letters
19:19sent to the police or to the newspapers by people purporting to be jack the ripper
19:25oh so this is before the famous ones where he signs himself jack the ripper this is before yes
19:32exactly oh yes i am the man who committed all these murders in the last six months
19:38i am a horse slaughterer so he's taunting the police he is yeah and that does fit with things
19:47that the thames torso murderer has done before but what would his motive be for killing all these
19:53women well i think that james hardiman is angry i think he has a boiling rage at the class of women
20:04that he blames for his family's misfortunes tell me more in 1876 he married sarah scott
20:13but it took them nearly 11 years to have their first child which is unusual in victorian terms
20:21and one of the ways we might understand this is that it's possible that syphilis was in their family
20:29a sexually transmitted disease syphilis was in the family causing her fertility issues
20:35causing her fertility issues yeah yeah but the couple finally had a child harriet maria which
20:41must have been a joyous moment but if we look at this death record yes we can see
20:48that harriet dies aged about 12 months and the cause of death could mean that she died from a
20:55congenital syphilis his wife dies three months later in september 1888 again potentially to syphilis
21:02and his whole world is just shattered and collapsed there is a possibility then that james
21:11had passed on syphilis to his family so he takes that rage out on the sex workers from london
21:20so you're suggesting that james hardiman had syphilis had given it to his wife it killed her it also
21:27killed their daughter and his motive therefore was that he wanted to kill people who he perceived to
21:33be the carriers of syphilis sex workers in general yes and you think that the torso victims were sex
21:40workers in some respects it doesn't matter all that matters is that james hardiman thought that they were
21:49sex workers the the perception of these women is that they are on the street therefore they are sex
21:56workers because that's what the police and society would have condemned those women to have been
22:01at the time and that's all that's important to him it's not it's not the reality of the situation
22:06is how he perceived the situation this theory is certainly intriguing i can see that as a cat's
22:21meat man and a horse knacker hardiman had the means to move the body parts and the butchery skills to be
22:30the murderer but it's his motive that i'm left wondering about there's 30 there's 28 so this must be
22:4729 hanbury street where james hardiman once lived and where the ripper victim annie chapman's body was
22:56discovered in there it's a trendy food market now but this was once where the hardimans ran their horse
23:08meat business imagine what it must have been like 140 years ago
23:13as well as being well known for overcrowding and poverty the streets around here were also infamous
23:34for sex work according to the police there were around 60 brothels in the local area
23:41and 1200 prostitutes and the hardiman family were in the thick of it
23:50i am intrigued by this idea that sex workers spreading syphilis could be seen as a motive for murder
23:58now if we're going to build a viable case for james hardiman as a suspect with a really solid motive for
24:12murder i think i need to know more about whether it was really possible that he and his whole family
24:18had syphilis dr anne hanley is an expert in the history of sexual health i want to know if she
24:30thinks the hardiman family really could have died from syphilis and i've got something to show you here
24:38it's a couple of death certificates this is the wife sarah hardiman and the daughter of a man who's
24:45a suspect for being the thames torse murderer but what i want to know is could they possibly have died
24:51of syphilis there is space in these death certificates for the possibility of syphilis
25:00sarah is listed as having died from pathysis pulmonares and exhaustion
25:04this is another term for tuberculosis but syphilis at the time is known as the great imitator
25:11which means that it mimics a lot of classic symptoms that you would see in many other very common
25:18conditions at the time you lose the will to eat and you start to waste which is what we see
25:26in harriet's death certificate as well tell me what what's gone on with harriet then it's interesting
25:32that merasmus is listed you will often very often see merasmus as a description of congenital syphilis
25:42at this time oh what's merasmus the child is essentially wasting away classic congenitally
25:50syphilitic children infants especially are described as having the appearance of withered old men
25:57the poor little baby they're also very gaunt they look malnourished
26:03and not long for this world unfortunately do you know i thought this theory was a bit of a stretch but
26:09you have left a little door open for it to be true something else to consider with victorian
26:15death certificates is that if a person did die from syphilis it was very unusual for syphilis
26:21to be listed as a cause of death oh why because it would be some other thing that would actually
26:26finish you off no it was to spare the family the shame of having a syphilis death in the family
26:33how did victorian people see syphilis there's such moral panic and because it's not curable
26:41there is this fear about its spread we don't have reliable statistics at the time but more like
26:48recent historical modeling suggests that up to 8.5 percent of men in their mid-30s would have had
26:53syphilis no way that's a gigantic number yes and there is a belief that it is a disease
27:01that is spread through immorality hmm so there's a lot of shame and guilt yes there's also a lot
27:07of misogyny there is a persistent view that women are the vectors of contagion and they are spreading
27:16these diseases to these poor unsuspecting men who are then taking the disease home to their wives and
27:22their children so there's a lot of shame and blame attached to this disease yes and it's unfairly apportioned
27:29it seems to me between the women and the men yes this view that sex workers need to be controlled
27:36to prevent the spread of disease to these poor and unsuspecting men was very pervasive so imagining
27:44that james hardyman himself had spread this disease it makes it makes a sort of sense that
27:50he could think it wasn't his fault he hadn't done it somebody else was to blame somebody else should be
27:55punished that's a chain of thought that doesn't sound completely mad no and that was a very popular
28:01opinion at the time
28:06so it's not impossible that james hardyman's family did have syphilis but what i'm really struck by
28:16is how endemic syphilis seems to have been in victorian society and how deep the fear of it was
28:24and how the spread of syphilis was completely unfairly blamed upon women
28:35i was skeptical at first but do you know i'm starting to think that this james hardyman
28:42really could be the killer but i want another opinion so i've asked the murder club to investigate
28:49further and see if the history really does back up this idea
28:57now slightly to my surprise this theory that the killer could have been motivated by a hatred of
29:03women for spreading venereal disease it does seem to stand up this was a big issue in victorian society
29:09that's absolutely true it they were blamed for an awful lot in victorian society and it was not just
29:15the morality that they objected to there was a real problem with the military and with troops i think
29:20it was in 1864 one in four men who were absent from the army were absent for a venereal disease one
29:29in four this is a big issue even florence nightingale gets in on this and tries to come up with
29:35wholesome manly activities to divert the troops away from the brothels she suggests sports um it doesn't
29:43catch up so they have to come up with something else but in 1864 what became known as the contagious
29:48diseases act is introduced and what this act did any woman suspected of selling sex could be forcibly
29:56detained by the police forcibly forcibly detained by the police and if she didn't agree to submit to
30:03a vaginal examination she would be detained in jail and if she was found to have an infection she would
30:09be made to go to one of the lock hospitals where they treated venereal disease so it's it's a really
30:16nasty brutal system it's effectively incarceration without any sort of due process isn't it so just
30:24a couple of years before the pinching street body is found we were in an official period of state
30:30sanctioned misogyny and you know there was a whole lot of violence around this issue
30:36this lady here josephine butler who i'm going to introduce you to your new hero now she started
30:43the ladies assembly for the repeal of the contagious diseases act and she challenged the government and
30:51all the lawmakers head on she referred to it as surgical rape she also brought in the voices of
30:57the women that this was affecting the sex workers this was affecting which you almost never heard from
31:02there was one piece of writing that she published and it was of a woman who'd been sentenced because
31:07she wouldn't submit to a venereal examination and she was sentenced by a judge who'd paid her for sex
31:11two days before wow no yeah so she pulls out that level of hypocrisy she travels all around the
31:19country holding these huge they're rallies really and these meetings were attacked buildings were set
31:24on fire where she was supposed to be giving a talk yeah they had bully boys waiting outside for her
31:29she was physically attacked so violence was unleashed against this woman by by um people the acts were
31:38also really popular there was the national assembly for the repeal of the contagious diseases act but
31:44there was also one for the promotion of the extension of the contagious diseases act full-on culture war
31:50it really is and josephine butler does win it was a hard hard won fight but in 1886 the acts were
31:59appealed well done josephine well done but even though the acts were appealed just before the
32:04pinching street murder the idea that women were to blame was still extremely popular
32:11so there's a lot of violence occurring around this issue and i do think it could legitimately explain
32:17the violence of the killer if that killer was james hardiman
32:27the case for james hardiman as the killer really is compelling
32:33not only does he have the means to move the body parts and the ability to dismember his victims
32:38but the idea that he hated women enough to attack them was not uncommon in late victorian society
32:50the only thing that i'm not sure about is this notion that hardiman could be both the thames torso
32:57killer and jack the ripper although there is one striking connection between them
33:03in 1889 the body of the pinching street victim was brought the short distance to this little building
33:14it was a small local mortuary
33:18it's quite hard to imagine that this little building was associated with not one but two notorious
33:26murders because as well as the pinching street victim the body of jack the ripper's third victim elizabeth
33:35stride was also brought here
33:41could it be that they were both killed by the same person all along
33:47to test out that idea i've asked forensic pathologist dr marie cassidy to look at both the thames torso murders
34:04and two of the murders attributed to jack the ripper to see if she thinks they could all be the work of one
34:12man
34:17mary what have we got here today well what we have is we've got six murders all happening about the same
34:24time we have the upper group we have two cases attributed to jack the ripper and then we have the
34:32four cases at the bottom which were grouped together as the thames torso murders yes i remember we've
34:39already talked about the raynham and the whitehall mysteries and here we've got elizabeth jackson and
34:44the pinching street mystery do you think it's possible that these cases at the top the ripper cases
34:51and the lower down torso cases might have been done by the same individual from a pathologist's point of
34:58view they're completely different you're very clear about that the case is attributed to jack the ripper
35:03they're pretty brutal murders yes there there's no finesse about it yes it's almost like we would
35:12call it overkill uncontrolled anger overkill yes more violence than is necessary to kill the person
35:20and then if we look at where the injuries are the injuries are sustained to the face
35:25to the neck to the trunk the cuts across are running in all different directions
35:33then you have groups of injuries targeted to the perineal area to the genital area
35:40and from a pathologist point of view that smacks of there being a sexual connotation to this
35:47right so it looks like he has been targeting that femininity in a way yes yes exactly exactly
35:55there's no doubt in my mind these are two distinct killers these murders the torso cases are all done
36:04by the same hand the same killer and that killer was not jack the ripper with the torso cases it's much
36:11more controlled and the cuts are deliberate someone's taking their time over this there's somebody who
36:18has cut up bodies for a living if you didn't have any electrical tools to help you how long would
36:23it take to cut up a body to that extent that we're looking at here with elizabeth jackson it would
36:27take some hours hours hours yes so to actually make these cuts remove the head it really would take
36:37some time and effort yes and here the killing is cold and calculated this is why i i can't get into
36:45his psyche at all is it is it fair to call the killer an unusual killer i think he is unusual because
36:53i as i said i don't know the reasoning behind it i cannot i get get jack the ripper just an angry man
37:00angry at women and you you understand what's going on with this i i don't understand what the motive
37:09behind this is it's a deeper mystery it really is it is
37:13it seems like the method of our killer cold and precise undermines the idea that he was in a
37:25delirious rage when he committed these murders there's no frenzy or lack of control here it makes
37:32me question whether hardiman really is a viable suspect i want to see what the murder club think of
37:39marie's assessment well marie is completely definitive she doesn't think that our killer
37:48and jack the ripper could be the same person so where does that leave our fury about james hardyman
37:54the cat's meat man do you think he could have just done the torso killings one of the things that sticks
37:59out to me is that whoever is committing these murders stretches all across london from the west to
38:06the north to to essex so the person i think that we're looking for they're much more mobile
38:15yes yes i agree so one of the other problems with hardyman is there's kind of no criminal record
38:21there's not a huge amount to go on yes i think that we're probably looking for somebody with a history
38:27of some sort of crime violence yeah yeah which we don't know that hardyman has it just doesn't work
38:33does it no no it does all it's all gone up in smoke hasn't it i think it blows it out of the water
38:39really it's a shame however do you know what the implications of this are if the thames torso
38:48killer is one person and jack the ripper is another person it means and this seems impossible that there
38:55are two serial killers operating in the same city at the same time and really close to one another more
39:02than close we've got one putting a body part within the territory of another serial killer that's
39:10bizarre why why would they be doing that professor sam lundrigan is an investigative psychologist
39:25who spent decades studying serial killers i want to know what she thinks about the idea that there
39:33could be two serial killers operating in london at the same time sam i think we're ruling out the
39:40possibility that jack the ripper and the thames torso killer were the same person would you agree from
39:46the psychological point of view absolutely oh yeah i'm as certain as i can be i think given that
39:52their crime scenes and their modus operandi we're absolutely dealing with two different individuals
39:59but then there's two serial killers operating at once doesn't that beg a belief it's very rare but it's
40:05not impossible there have been examples in history where there have been more than one serial killer
40:11operating in the same environment at any one time los angeles in the 1980s is a particularly good
40:17example so in 1980s los angeles there were multiple serial killers is there any theory you've got as to
40:25why that might have been the case well los angeles at the time attracted quite a transient population
40:30people can pop up and then disappear and no questions are necessarily asked because it's the norm
40:36and you introduce into that environment somebody who has the motivation and the means to murder
40:45then they're going to be able to do it with relative ease and then we have a serial killer
40:51when you say that 1980s los angeles was a city full of transients that does make me think of 1880s
40:57london people moving into the city into really tightly packed districts like the two square miles at
41:03the heart of the east end i think it's a almost the perfect backdrop it made people more vulnerable
41:11sam given that white chapel is such an overcrowded bustling kind of an area what does that mean for
41:17the killer bringing in this torso and placing it in the pinch and street archers there's so many people
41:22around yeah so we've got two potential hypotheses um it may be that this was an attempt on his behalf to
41:32confuse the police perhaps or maybe throw them off his scent the case before pinchham street that was
41:43the murder of elizabeth jackson it's the only one where the victim was discovered now he didn't want that to
41:49he didn't want that to happen his script didn't go according to plan he lost control this may well
41:56have made him move into a different area push them off in a different direction and it's all about
42:02regaining control regaining control i think this is really central to the script of this offender
42:10you know his crimes for me scream power and control sam that's fascinating
42:16so there's one more possibility i've been thinking about this idea that our killer may have been
42:25seeking an additional reward of notoriety media coverage can really elevate the status of serial
42:32killers almost some sort of celebrity so this killer maybe saw the massively high profile of jack the
42:38rapper and thought i want a bit of that i want a bit of that so not an attempt to confuse the police but
42:44actually uh right have a look at me yeah this is what i've done which of those theories are you most
42:50convinced by um i think it's a bit of both to be honest i think he's a contradiction someone on the
42:59one hand who's incredibly careful controlled planned organized
43:08but on the other hand someone who's quite blatant and is is using the streets of london
43:17in a very audacious way scatter body parts you know in plain sight
43:25so sam's explained really well that the social conditions of 1880s london might have made it
43:45possible that we get this incredibly rare thing two serial killers operating at the same time
43:51and it does seem to me that they're in some sort of a dialogue with each other jack the ripper the
43:59torso murder i wonder if the torso murderer really wanted to be as notorious as jack the ripper
44:07to answer that question i've asked the murder club to look at the newspapers from the time
44:19to see just how much attention the pinching street murder actually received i think it is a really
44:26fascinating theory that the thames torso murderer wanted attention wanted to be famous wanted to be in
44:32the newspapers i wonder how successful he was he says in this one it looks like he was very successful
44:39the pinching street murder did get more press attention than that of elizabeth jackson oh so
44:46once he's gone into ripper land there's an escalation in the media absolutely and people do love this kind
44:53of attention don't they i think that these types of crimes they do that's not as if it's a financial
44:58crime where he wants to steal the money keep everything quiet these are awful grotesqueries
45:04i think placed in public so of course you want attention for that and this was big business in
45:10the 19th century these sensational newspapers true i mean true crime is still big today it's a huge
45:18genre but the illustrated police news by 1888 it was having over 300 000 copies circulated each week it
45:27was huge cost a penny they're gripping aren't they just can't stop looking at them you get sucked into
45:33whatever they're teasing at the moment and it's a kind of ground level view of victorian society in
45:39this nothing is censored really it's somewhere between reporting and entertainment and they really
45:46don't hold back with the imagery do they they're really visceral i think one thing we should be careful of
45:53is assuming that these are accurate representations of reality we know that the papers are more than
45:57capable of making things up a true and look at this image of the white hall murder oh it's all about
46:04the um the bosom even in death so the raining one's completely inaccurate we've got bosoms in this one
46:13and we're talking about the lower torso is the part that was found so they were the body was cut here
46:19and it was that part that was found and yet they've put in the breasts just gratuitously yeah absolutely
46:23because breasts sell yeah but actually in amongst all this you know misleading information all this
46:32drama and sensation there is one potentially useful lead so two days before the pinching street also
46:43is discovered a man walks into the london offices of the new york herald and says that a murdered body
46:51has been discovered on back church lane hang on two days before it actually is found two days before
46:59yeah so how did he know that a body was going to be found two days before the body actually was found
47:08well that's exactly the point he can't not it has to be the killer is it the killer yeah it sounds
47:14like that let's follow this up this sounds good with a new lead to go on the victorian detective
47:24chief inspector donald swanson begins a fresh hunt for the killer he believes that the man who walks
47:32into the newspaper offices knowing about the pinching street murder two days before the torso was found
47:39must be the prime suspect to take me through swanson's investigation i've asked his biographer adam wood
47:47to meet me here at the national archives where swanson's original police case files are kept
47:56so this man who goes to the newspaper offices who seems to know
48:00that a murder is about to happen he's a very interesting man because how would he know unless
48:04he was the murderer absolutely right chief inspector donald swanson goes to the herald offices speaks to
48:11the reporter to find out what they could tell him yes and they actually gave a physical description
48:17this is a young man between 25 and 28. is this is swanson's own handwriting yeah he was short
48:25five foot four inches of medium build light complexion small fair mustache blue eyes he walked
48:33with a shuffle and spoke in the usual fashion of citizens of white chapel he was a white chapel man
48:40that's it this could be the murder yes yes yes swanson gets back to scotland yard concerned because
48:45there's a murderer out on the loose but he's told that a man has gone into a police station and admitted to
48:53being the person they're looking for the murderer's just handed himself in this is exactly what he
48:58suspected so swanson can you imagine suddenly picked up very excited let's get down to charing cross
49:03station and see who it is yes when he gets down there it's a man called john arnold who's a news
49:10vendor at charing cross he was a newspaper seller he was a newspaper seller what happens what happens
49:17well swanson realized straight away once he'd interviewed john arnold this isn't the man
49:22first of all he hasn't got the temperament to um commit this murder or deposit the uh the torso
49:31so how does the newspaper seller know that the murder was going to happen this is this is the question
49:37on his statement to swanson um he says that he'd been in the king lud public house
49:43i had a little drop to drink when he came out another man came up in a black uniform just as a
49:52soldier who says hurry up there has been another horrible murder he definitely knows something about
50:00it he said the soldier then disappears who's this soldier then he knows a lot about this murder
50:10swanson must have been tearing his hair out i think he absolutely was because if he's not caught
50:17is he going to kill again this is john arnold's statement about the soldier he saw that night
50:24he was in a black uniform he had a black cord shoulder strap he was wearing a cap that had some
50:33sort of a badge on it it looked like a horn arnold says and you can see here that the police have been
50:39pressing him for more detail they've added in that the buttons on the uniform were lightish in color
50:47swanson now starts checking out the uniforms of all the different regiments to try to work out which
50:53one the soldier belongs to but none of the details seem to fit until he works out that the man wasn't a
51:03soldier after all he was a commissioner commissioners were military veterans who were given jobs around
51:11the city to help them get back into civilian life they were employed as doorkeepers and messengers and
51:17night watchmen that sort of thing and they were based in a building in the strand in central london
51:23swanson comes up with a clever plan to catch the killer he's going to place john arnold right here in
51:36the strand opposite the commissionaire's building it's just over there arnold's supposed to stake it out
51:44he's to watch the comings and goings see if he can spot the suspicious man
51:55but before that plan can be put into action swanson makes a connection that changes everything
52:07this is the police report that explains that on the night john arnold met the mysterious man in black
52:13with his story of a murder a woman had been found unconscious on the street in whitechapel
52:20she'd had an epileptic fit
52:23her body was loaded into an ambulance and it was taken to the whitechapel infirmary
52:29swanson realizes that the commissioner must have seen the woman's body going into the ambulance
52:36he must have assumed that she was dead and had been murdered and he must have told
52:41john arnold this in good faith but he'd been mistaken swanson's whole investigation had been based on
52:49nothing more than a red herring all along
52:53with no more leads to follow up the trail of the killer once again goes cold
53:13the coroner decides that the remains of the pinchon street victim should be buried and they were brought
53:20here to the east london cemetery
53:27hi good morning lucy darren hello take a seat there i'll get the register for you thank you so much
53:32pleasure
53:38ah we've got a woman unknown it says that she's come from saint george's mortuary
53:45she's 35 years old what else this is the funeral ceremony performed by it says for all of these people but for her
53:58nobody i guess that means that in her case there was no funeral poor lady and do you know where about
54:07she is yes we can look here at the grave mark number and we can go over there now if you would like
54:13let's go and see her of course
54:21so this is the spot up here is it yes it is so um if you're happy i'll leave you with it thank you thank
54:36you pleasure
54:50rather than her getting a regular burial in this case the police surgeon recommended that the woman's
54:57remains be put into a tin box that would be soldered shut and that was to preserve the body parts so that
55:05they could be exhumed and re-examined if more information came to light
55:13she didn't even get the dignity of resting in peace
55:25the only person we definitely know to have been present when she was buried was
55:32one of the police inspectors who'd been investigating the case i'm pleased that he at least went along
55:43but the victim never was identified
55:46well this isn't great is it we've got four women killed body parts in and near the thames all over london but
56:05no more leads the police have stopped investigating the case actively all the suspects have been cleared
56:14it seems like the killer's got away with it
56:18there might be something else that we could look into
56:22i was looking in the newspaper archives and i think i found something that could be related to our
56:28cases it's in 1902 so it's 12 years after the torso murders but a dismembered body was found near the river
56:38and it was a woman
56:40oh it's i know it's 12 years later it could be connected
56:46it's it's a long shot but i think it's worth looking into
56:50that's definitely worth a look yes
57:07in june 1902 just yards from the river in a narrow street in lambeth south london
57:15the river in the river in the river in the river in the river in the river in the river in the river
57:21and this time the victim's head is retrieved
57:26but an appalling discovery is made the head's been boiled beyond recognition
57:35could it be that the thames torso killer has returned taking his depravity to new extremes
57:44and if so why the 12-year gap since his last murder to answer these questions a new suspect enters the
57:54frame polish immigrant and a known murderer severin klasowski is this the thames torso murderer
58:13he assaulted her in the bottom of the boat that to me is a very promising lead they are very much at
58:23the opposite ends of violence he is every single place he needs to be to be the thames torso killer
58:38so
58:46so
58:48so
58:50so
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