Speaker 1: Welcomed, unobscured a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky.
Speaker 1: Charles Warren rode through Knightsbridge. It was the morning of
Speaker 1: October nine, and Liz Stride and Catherine Ettoes had been
Speaker 1: dead for more than a week. Their killer had not
Speaker 1: yet been caught. Warren's message from the month before that
Speaker 1: I could myself in a few days unravel the mystery
Speaker 1: now rang bitterly in his own ears. So he rode
Speaker 1: to Hyde Park in the dim morning hours to supervise
Speaker 1: a new method that had not yet been tried by
Speaker 1: the police in Whitechapel, although the reading public had been
Speaker 1: clamoring for it. He arrived at Hyde Parks Albert Gates
Speaker 1: and climbed down off his horse to greet a circle
Speaker 1: of waiting men. There was a constable to assist the commissioner,
Speaker 1: as well as a police surgeon, a veterinarian, a journalist,
Speaker 1: a kennel keeper, a dog breeder, and most important of all,
Speaker 1: two bloodhounds trained to hunt men. For the past day,
Speaker 1: the breeder and kennel keeper had been running the dogs
Speaker 1: through Regent's Park, testing their ability to hunt in the
Speaker 1: city raised in the countryside. They arrived on Saturday, and
Speaker 1: since then they had been taking their bearings. The first
Speaker 1: trial had gone well, and now they were determined to
Speaker 1: prove to the Commissioner that with their help they could
Speaker 1: catch the killer. A flurry of letters from the beginning
Speaker 1: of October between Warren and the Home Office makes it
Speaker 1: clear that both the Home Secretary and Warren himself knew
Speaker 1: how desperate a move disappeared. I found that there is
Speaker 1: a difficulty in suddenly bringing bloodhounds into a town, Warren
Speaker 1: had written, when they have not been trained for use
Speaker 1: in the streets, owing to the confusion of sense, they
Speaker 1: should be constantly practiced in the streets if they are
Speaker 1: to be of any use. For his part, the Home
Speaker 1: Secretary was open to the idea. He did though feel
Speaker 1: a simmering dread that it could go very, very wrong.
Speaker 1: Every precaution should be observed in their use, he wrote
Speaker 1: to Warren. If an accident happened from the dogs attacking
Speaker 1: an incorrect person, there would be a great outcry. That
Speaker 1: message got through to Charles Warren loud and clear, but
Speaker 1: so did the already growing outcry that it was a
Speaker 1: necessary next step that the hounds would work. Warren wanted
Speaker 1: to see it with his own eyes. As he greeted
Speaker 1: the waiting circle, he told them that he himself would
Speaker 1: be the quarry. The dogs sniffed his boots, and then
Speaker 1: he was off, heading northwest across the park. The morning
Speaker 1: was misty, and soon enough he passed out of sight
Speaker 1: of the group. In another moments, the kennel keeper dropped
Speaker 1: the leads and waved his hat with a whoop. The
Speaker 1: dogs rushed forward. Many hunting hounds were trained to give
Speaker 1: voice as they followed a scent, but these dogs moved
Speaker 1: forward in perfect silence. The bloodhounds weren't the only things
Speaker 1: chasing Warren. His past was also nipping at his heels.
Speaker 1: You see, two years earlier, in eight six, about of
Speaker 1: rabies had swept through the city. For Warren. It had
Speaker 1: been secondary to beating back the London poor demanding work
Speaker 1: or bread, but he had it nord it completely. In fact,
Speaker 1: he dealt with it in his signature style with a crackdown.
Speaker 1: Warren had his Metropolitan Police sweep through the city and
Speaker 1: sees any stray dogs they could find. He also enforced
Speaker 1: the musseling laws that Londoners had grown accustomed to ignoring.
Speaker 1: It earned him the nickname Muzzler in Chief for a
Speaker 1: while before the police violence of Bloody Sunday made him
Speaker 1: hated for more significant issues. Nothing put the hounds office scent,
Speaker 1: though They struggled through the do and balked once or
Speaker 1: twice where other pedestrians had crossed Warren's path, but they
Speaker 1: always caught it again. They trailed the Commissioner closely, and
Speaker 1: eventually he was caught. The same was true for their
Speaker 1: second trial with another man. One of the dogs lost
Speaker 1: the scent of their quarry as his trail entered the
Speaker 1: growing crowd of londoner's criss crossing the park, but the
Speaker 1: second dog hunted him down by the end of the morning.
Speaker 1: Warren was convinced not that the dogs could help in
Speaker 1: solving any open cases. Any traces of the man who
Speaker 1: killed Liz Stride, for instance, would be long gone, but
Speaker 1: Warren ordered the dogs to be kenneled in Whitechapel. He
Speaker 1: was determined that if the killer were to strike again,
Speaker 1: they would have every resource at their disposal. The irony
Speaker 1: wasn't lost on London journalists that the Commissioner who had
Speaker 1: muzzled the dogs of London was now trying to use
Speaker 1: those dogs to solve a crime. But the journalist who
Speaker 1: had witnessed the trial didn't have any of that criticism,
Speaker 1: only hope in what might come next, And that hope
Speaker 1: made it into the papers that the murderers cunning will
Speaker 1: not avail him against the sure hounds that will be
Speaker 1: laid on his track, and soon, they claimed, London would
Speaker 1: ring with the news of his capture. It was one
Speaker 1: of the few hopeful voices in a storm of confusion
Speaker 1: and righteous anger at the police of London who had
Speaker 1: failed for months to catch a killer who seemed to
Speaker 1: be slaughtering with impunity. But as you might guess, those
Speaker 1: hopes were false. This is unobscured. I'm Aaron Manky. We
Speaker 1: can hardly blame Warren for calling in the dogs. But
Speaker 1: what was the smooth lawn of West London's Hyde Park
Speaker 1: compared to the streets and yards of the East End.
Speaker 1: Warren was clearly casting around for help. After all, in
Speaker 1: the past weeks since the two women had been murdered,
Speaker 1: nothing had been pinned down when it comes to making
Speaker 1: sense of the Whitechapel murders. Every scrap of evidence and
Speaker 1: testimony has been examined and debated countless times. The events
Speaker 1: of September when Liz Stride and Katherine ETOs died are
Speaker 1: some of the most contentious. There are so many things
Speaker 1: that happened that night, and at one point or another,
Speaker 1: most of those details have been called into question. In
Speaker 1: the years since eighty eight. Historians and investigators have questioned
Speaker 1: whether the same man killed Liz Stride and Katherine ETOs.
Speaker 1: After all, if it was the White Chapel murderer who
Speaker 1: had killed Liz, why was the only cut across her
Speaker 1: throat while Catherine was attacked the way Annie Chapman had been.
Speaker 1: Who was the man Israel Schwartz said was smoking a
Speaker 1: pipe when he saw someone attack Liz Stride in Dutfield Yard.
Speaker 1: Did any of the eyewitnesses that night see the real killer?
Speaker 1: Couldn't have been the man Joseph Lavendaz saw outside the
Speaker 1: synagogue with the peaked cap and the red neckerchief Israel
Speaker 1: Schwartz said the attacker he saw was dressed in a
Speaker 1: dark jacket and trousers with a black peaked cap. And
Speaker 1: what about the man Mrs Mortimer saw carrying his shiny
Speaker 1: black bag down Burner Street. Added to all of that,
Speaker 1: Donald Swanson was confronted with the reports from various constables
Speaker 1: around Whitechapel that night, piecing together the descriptions of all
Speaker 1: the people they had seen and encountered, and matching them
Speaker 1: to the timeline of the murders. And then there's the
Speaker 1: question of the fabric. Did it match Catherine's clothing? But
Speaker 1: with that short trip between Miter Square and Galston Street
Speaker 1: that could be walked in just a few minutes, why
Speaker 1: did it take more than an hour after Catherine's murder
Speaker 1: for the bloody scrap to be discovered. When it comes
Speaker 1: to the graffiti, the arguments multiply over who might have
Speaker 1: written it, what it said, what it meant, and why
Speaker 1: Charles Warren would have agreed that it should be scrubbed away.
Speaker 1: All of those questions began immediately, and they were spurred
Speaker 1: on by a postcard. It arrived for the Metropolitan Police
Speaker 1: the next day in the flood of mail, but this
Speaker 1: one stood out because it looked so much like the
Speaker 1: Dear Boss letter the police had received just a few
Speaker 1: days before on September a handwriting well, it looked identical,
Speaker 1: and it was written in the same blood red ink.
Speaker 1: This note confused things even more, especially because it seemed
Speaker 1: to know the murders of Liz Strie and Katherine Eddo's
Speaker 1: in grizzly marking detail. The note read, I wasn't cutting
Speaker 1: dear old Boss when I gave you the tip. You'll
Speaker 1: hear about Saucy Jackie's work tomorrow. Double event. This time
Speaker 1: Number one squealed a bit, couldn't finish straight off, had
Speaker 1: no time to get ears for police. Thanks for keeping
Speaker 1: last letter back till I got to work again. And
Speaker 1: of course it was signed Jack the Ripper. It was
Speaker 1: also stained with a red smear to match the red
Speaker 1: ink written and covered in blood. At least that's what
Speaker 1: it looked like. Here's historian Paul Beg. The Soucy Jackie
Speaker 1: postcard was posted to the Central News on the first
Speaker 1: of October. It also addressed the recipient as Boss, and
Speaker 1: other contents suggested that it was written by the same
Speaker 1: person as the Dear Boss letter, and the postcard appeared
Speaker 1: to give details of the murders of Elizabeth Stride and
Speaker 1: Katherine Eddoes that only the killer at that time could
Speaker 1: have known. Ever since the Dear Boss letter had arrived,
Speaker 1: Donald Swanson and the other officers at the mets head
Speaker 1: kept it quiet. Analyzing it and thinking over what it
Speaker 1: might mean, but it had been given to them by
Speaker 1: the Central News Company. This note followed the same path
Speaker 1: to Swanson's desk, but somewhere along the way word had
Speaker 1: gotten out, and on Sunday, October one, the Star published
Speaker 1: a transcription of the postcard. The name Jack the Ripper
Speaker 1: was now at large, but Swanson and the detectives could
Speaker 1: hardly be upset with the press for releasing the text
Speaker 1: of the notes. After all, they were about to make
Speaker 1: revelations of their own and broadcast them throughout London. Now
Speaker 1: that they had both the Dear Boss letter and this postcard,
Speaker 1: together with matching handwriting and matching styles, they knew that
Speaker 1: someone was mocking the police with these notes. To catch them,
Speaker 1: they thought they would pull all of London on the scent.
Speaker 1: So Swanson and his team at Scotland Yard hired printers
Speaker 1: to put copies of both images onto a poster, and
Speaker 1: within days they were pasted unto every police notice board
Speaker 1: in London. If that wasn't enough, it was copied down
Speaker 1: into the pages of the London Evening News and roared
Speaker 1: through readers. On October three, Here's historian Adam would to
Speaker 1: describe the results, in the absence of any other clues
Speaker 1: of faccinity, was published in the national press to see
Speaker 1: if the handwriting would be recognized, with the inevitable result
Speaker 1: that hundreds of copycat letters were sent to them Met
Speaker 1: and also the city of Police, all of which had
Speaker 1: to be followed up and discounted, wasting valuable police time
Speaker 1: and certainly Swanson. I'm sure these were it doesn't categorically
Speaker 1: state it. I'm sure these letters were sent to Swanson
Speaker 1: Scotland Yard along with all the other documents, and so
Speaker 1: each day he'd have to go through these hoax letters,
Speaker 1: which I'm sure they must have known at the time.
Speaker 1: But looking at pertinent points, is there a name, user address,
Speaker 1: Is there something that we can send a comfortable to investigate.
Speaker 1: That was probably one of the biggest mistakes that the
Speaker 1: police made in the investigation was publishing that letter, because
Speaker 1: it just ended up wasting so many police hours and
Speaker 1: directing work that could shooting down on a more direct basis.
Speaker 1: And when it comes to the Saucy Jackie postcard, there's
Speaker 1: little reason to believe it even provided any new information
Speaker 1: to the police, which was the only reason for them
Speaker 1: to give it any attention. In the first place. Here's
Speaker 1: Paul beg once again. It's now thought possible that it
Speaker 1: could have been posted after the details of the murder
Speaker 1: were published, and neither Dear Boss nor Saucy Jackie are
Speaker 1: really now believed to have been written by the murderer
Speaker 1: at all, but they certainly contributed considerably to the notoriety
Speaker 1: of this series of murders. As if the murderers weren't
Speaker 1: already notorious enough, Donald Swanson's investigation and his desk were
Speaker 1: snowed under, that might have been the end of the
Speaker 1: leads for the police to follow. But unfortunately, the letter
Speaker 1: wasn't the only one claiming firsthand knowledge of what happened
Speaker 1: on the night of the so called double event. There
Speaker 1: were witnesses who all came forward with their own testimony,
Speaker 1: and Donald Swanson and his team at Scotland Yard weren't
Speaker 1: the only ones on the case. Another inquest, another moment
Speaker 1: to shine for a win. Baxter. Elizabeth Stride had died
Speaker 1: in Duttfield Yard only a few days before, and Baxter's
Speaker 1: inimitable hand rested on the proceedings. Once again. His questioning
Speaker 1: brought in the same cacophony of voices that Donald Swanson
Speaker 1: was trying to compose into something that sounded clear, and
Speaker 1: when it came to assessing Liz Stride's death, Baxter had
Speaker 1: to do the same. So he called in the whole roster,
Speaker 1: the steward of the Socialist club at Dutfield Yard, the
Speaker 1: neighbors on Berner Street, the doctor who responded to the
Speaker 1: scene and examined Liz Stride's wounds, even members of a
Speaker 1: club who were there that night and had seen Liz
Speaker 1: Stride's body just outside their walls. He called in plenty
Speaker 1: of constables from the area to describe the night. He
Speaker 1: called in a widow who had lived in a Spittlefield's
Speaker 1: lodging house with Liz Stride for six years, who identified
Speaker 1: the body as the woman she knew as long Liz.
Speaker 1: The surgeon, Dr Phillips, testified as well. He described how
Speaker 1: he had worked together with a local doctor on the
Speaker 1: post mortem examination and detailed the bruises on Liz Stride's shoulders,
Speaker 1: marks that were made as if strong hands had brutally
Speaker 1: thrown her down, though he couldn't tell if they were
Speaker 1: from the night she was killed or earlier. In fact,
Speaker 1: over multiple days, when Baxter called back, both doctors to
Speaker 1: give minute details about Stride's body, her position, the exact
Speaker 1: depth of the cut across her neck, what was in
Speaker 1: her hands, and what was in her stomach. None of it, though,
Speaker 1: turned up, and he clues to the killer or leads
Speaker 1: for the police to follow. It was as if the
Speaker 1: coroner was following a confused trail. The earlier cases had
Speaker 1: him and Dr Phillips asking if a surgeon could be
Speaker 1: behind the killings. Now he was chasing after any sign
Speaker 1: that would build on or contradict any aspect of the
Speaker 1: profile he had sketched out with Phillips from the earlier murders.
Speaker 1: But Liz Stride's inquest simply did not reveal anything new
Speaker 1: to go on. Curiously, though, there was one significant person
Speaker 1: who did not appear at the inquest, Israel Schwartz, the
Speaker 1: Jewish Hungarian, the man who had seen the attack. That
Speaker 1: wasn't because he dodged the authorities, though far from it.
Speaker 1: Together with an interpreter, Israel Schwartz went to the London
Speaker 1: Street Police station on the day he had seen the
Speaker 1: murder of Liz Stride. That's where he gave the testimony
Speaker 1: that Donald Swanson would include in his reports. He knew
Speaker 1: he had witnessed the crime in question. In fact, Inspector
Speaker 1: Aberleine had been on hand, and in a later report
Speaker 1: described their encounter. I questioned Israel Schwartz very closely at
Speaker 1: the time he made the statement. Aberleine wrote, as to
Speaker 1: whom the man addressed when he called Lipski, but he
Speaker 1: was unable to say. Schwartz, being a foreigner and unable
Speaker 1: to speak English, became alarmed and ran away. No doubt
Speaker 1: it was Aberleine's interrogation of Schwartz that formed the basis
Speaker 1: of Donald Swanson's report too. But there were a few
Speaker 1: things that Aberleine wanted to clear up, because that shout
Speaker 1: the name Lipsky was likely to be confusing. Aberleine wrote
Speaker 1: that since a Jew named Lipski was hanged for the
Speaker 1: murder of a Jewess in eight seven, the name was
Speaker 1: very frequently been used by persons to insult the Jew
Speaker 1: to whom it has been addressed, and when it was
Speaker 1: shouted at Schwartz, Inspector Aberline rights, I am of the
Speaker 1: opinion it was addressed to him. As he stopped to
Speaker 1: look at the man he saw ill using the deceased woman.
Speaker 1: So there's no question that Schwartz was closely questioned by
Speaker 1: the police, and Donald Swanson even makes a note that
Speaker 1: by all accounts, it seemed like the man was telling
Speaker 1: the truth. At the very least, Israel Schwartz convinced the
Speaker 1: inspectors working on the case that he had really seen
Speaker 1: the attack that killed Liz Stride. One thing that makes
Speaker 1: it all more puzzling that Israel Schwartz did not appear
Speaker 1: at Liz stride inquest. The coroner in the eight seven
Speaker 1: Lipsky murder case was none other than Win Baxter. After all,
Speaker 1: that murder had been in the same neighborhood where Liz
Speaker 1: Stride had been killed. Here's Paul beg once again to
Speaker 1: tell us more about that case. Israel Lipsky lived in
Speaker 1: Batty Street, which was a street adjacent to Burner Street,
Speaker 1: which is where Stride was molded. A fellow lodger in
Speaker 1: the house was a young woman named Miriam Angel, and
Speaker 1: in June of seven, she was poisoned with nitric acid.
Speaker 1: On nitric acid, it also appears that Lipsky had tried
Speaker 1: to commit suicide by drinking the acid too, but he
Speaker 1: didn't die, and when he had recovered, he was charged
Speaker 1: and tried and convicted of murdering Miriam Angel. He denied
Speaker 1: having done so, and a lot of people believed him,
Speaker 1: but the jury wasn't amongst them, and he was sentenced
Speaker 1: to hang. There was a great deal of effort to
Speaker 1: try and persuade the Home Secretary to commute the sentence,
Speaker 1: but Henry Matthews refused to do so, and Lipsky then
Speaker 1: wrote a confession shortly before he went to the gallows.
Speaker 1: Many people still entertained doubt about his guilt. However, the
Speaker 1: name we had told Lipsky was briefly used as a
Speaker 1: term of insult. It was just one more event that
Speaker 1: had sown seeds of hatred and suspicion in London, especially
Speaker 1: of London Jews, connecting them to stories of crime and violence.
Speaker 1: That's how the name had come to be a slur.
Speaker 1: Shouting Lipsky was about turning that hatred and suspicion into
Speaker 1: a weapon, especially at a time when someone was killing
Speaker 1: women in the Jewish and immigrant neighborhoods of London, and
Speaker 1: none of the officials trying to untie the knots at
Speaker 1: the center of the Whitechapel murders would have known this
Speaker 1: better than when Baxter he had conducted Miriam Angel's inquest
Speaker 1: one step in Lipsky's march toward the gallows, and Inspector
Speaker 1: Aberleine wrote in his report that Israel Schwartz did see
Speaker 1: the body of Liz Stride together with his interpreter. Aberleine
Speaker 1: says he was taken to the mortuary and he confirmed
Speaker 1: that she was the woman he had seen attacked on
Speaker 1: Berner Street. So what made Schwartz disappear at this point,
Speaker 1: it's hard to know. It could be that his testimony
Speaker 1: became less trusted over time, or it could be that
Speaker 1: the police themselves held him out of the public eye
Speaker 1: well almost you see, before he vanished from the public record,
Speaker 1: he was run to ground by a journalist from the Star.
Speaker 1: A reporter heard that he was giving a statement to
Speaker 1: the police and followed him home to back Church Lane,
Speaker 1: where he took down a wild version of Israel schwartz testimony.
Speaker 1: The embellishments on the police account included a man chasing
Speaker 1: Schwartz with a knife, but what Israel told the reporter
Speaker 1: also repeats his description of Liz strides attacker, a man
Speaker 1: about thirty years old, dressed respectably in dark clothes, and
Speaker 1: a felt hat, a man whose face he had been
Speaker 1: well enough in the dark to tell that he had
Speaker 1: a brown mustache. After that statement was published in the Star,
Speaker 1: though Israel Schwartz disappeared. Here's Paul Beg. Once again, we
Speaker 1: know that another witness in the street who had also
Speaker 1: seen nothing, but whose testimony was relevant to what was
Speaker 1: happening or rather not happening in burn The Street at
Speaker 1: the time of the murders. She wasn't called either. So
Speaker 1: it's possible that the police were keeping Schwartz under wraps,
Speaker 1: which they shouldn't really have done and assuming they were
Speaker 1: doing it, or rather they shouldn't have done it, assuming
Speaker 1: that they did it at all, Or it's possible that
Speaker 1: Schwartz gave his testimony and camera or off the public record,
Speaker 1: or finally that he'd gone to ground and the police
Speaker 1: couldn't find him. Whether he disappeared in police custody or
Speaker 1: under his own power, Israel Schwartz wasn't the only person
Speaker 1: to give a statement to the papers but then never
Speaker 1: appeared at Win Baxter inquest. That distinction also goes to
Speaker 1: Mrs Mortimer and her man with his black bag, leaving
Speaker 1: her out of the inquest. Is slightly less puzzling, though.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, the shining black bag she
Speaker 1: described was one of the easiest matters for the police
Speaker 1: to clear up. That's because after reading Mrs Mortimer's testimony
Speaker 1: in the paper, a man named Leon Goldstein followed Israel
Speaker 1: Schwartz's example and arrived at the Lenham Street police station.
Speaker 1: He was the man who matched Mrs Mortimer's description. He
Speaker 1: said he had left a coffee shop in Spectacle Alley
Speaker 1: a few minutes before and he was walking home. That
Speaker 1: put him on Berner Street at around the time of
Speaker 1: the murder. And he said he hadn't seen anything, but
Speaker 1: he was sure that he was the one the neighbor
Speaker 1: had seen because in his hand he had a set
Speaker 1: of cigarette boxes, recently assembled and ready to be delivered
Speaker 1: to a shop where they could be filled. Of course,
Speaker 1: he was carrying those cigarette boxes in a shiny black bag.
Speaker 1: Leon Goldstein, it seems, simply had the bad fortune of
Speaker 1: walking through the neighborhood at the time. But through the
Speaker 1: testimony of Mrs Mortimer printed in the Evening News, his
Speaker 1: brisk walk turned from ordinary to ominous. Here's Paul Beg
Speaker 1: once again the contents of his black bag were utterly harmless,
Speaker 1: and Mr Goldstein went on his way, but his black
Speaker 1: bag stayed in the public's mind and added to the
Speaker 1: image of the top the the upper class gent with
Speaker 1: a top hat, wearing a cape, and always carrying a
Speaker 1: black bag. The bag is iconic in the story of
Speaker 1: Jack the Ripper, as much as the dear stalker hat
Speaker 1: is iconic in the image of Sherlock Holmes. So Leon
Speaker 1: Goldstein inadvertently gave rise to this this myth of the
Speaker 1: black bag, and the police didn't help because they never
Speaker 1: released the story of Mr Goldstein to the press, so
Speaker 1: it was never significantly reported. In fact, Goldstein's testimony at
Speaker 1: the Lehman Street station would stay tucked away in the
Speaker 1: police files for decades, like so many of Donald Swanson's
Speaker 1: observations and conclusions. So as far as the press of
Speaker 1: the public knew, Mrs Mortimer's fleeing man with the mysterious
Speaker 1: black bag had vanished into the night, and in the
Speaker 1: time that followed, with fear, uncertainty, and doubt simmering in
Speaker 1: the minds of everyone fascinated by the murders, the mysterious
Speaker 1: black bag would loom large thousands of paper boxes were
Speaker 1: assembled at East End homes and then delivered to match
Speaker 1: factories and cigarette shops in bags and boxes of all
Speaker 1: kinds at home. Assembly was the gig work of London,
Speaker 1: a crucial cog in the Empire's grandest manufacturing giants. But
Speaker 1: despite simply being a testament to the kinds of factory
Speaker 1: work done in the East End Leon Goldstein's Shiny Black Bag,
Speaker 1: but instead assume the mythic proportions of the killer himself.
Speaker 1: Katherine Etto's inquest was different matter altogether, and there was
Speaker 1: a different man in the lead her murder in Miters
Speaker 1: Square took the case not only into the jurisdiction of
Speaker 1: the London City Police, but also across into the jurisdiction
Speaker 1: of a different corner. He opened proceedings on October four,
Speaker 1: and though it was a different man calling the witnesses
Speaker 1: and guiding the jury through the process of determining the
Speaker 1: cause of death, there was much about the process that
Speaker 1: was familiar. Catherine's sister Eliza appeared at the inquest and
Speaker 1: offered the first hints about her life with Thomas, the
Speaker 1: traveling and the storytelling. Her recent partner, John Kelly, filled
Speaker 1: in the picture of their life in lodging houses and
Speaker 1: trips to the hops fields. The deep grief they expressed,
Speaker 1: echoes the other families whose voices come to us out
Speaker 1: of each inquest, telling the stories of women who could
Speaker 1: not be brought back from the grave. Constable Watkins gave
Speaker 1: his testimony the circuits around the synagogue and through Miters Square,
Speaker 1: the gruesome discovery by the light of his lantern of
Speaker 1: the violence that the killer had to Catherine. But with
Speaker 1: different minds at work, new assumptions and new models of
Speaker 1: thinking were brought to bear. Take for instance, Dr Frederick
Speaker 1: Gordon Brown. He was the surgeon who examined Catherine's body,
Speaker 1: both at the scene and later in the mortuary for
Speaker 1: her full post mortem. So he learned and informed the
Speaker 1: police and the coroner that the murderer had cut away
Speaker 1: Katherine Etto's uterus and one kidney. But where previous examinations
Speaker 1: had put forward the idea that a surgeon would have
Speaker 1: carried out these mutilations, Dr Brown took a different direction.
Speaker 1: I cannot assign any reason for these parts being taken away,
Speaker 1: he said. The parts removed would be of no use
Speaker 1: for any professional purpose. And yes, although it would take
Speaker 1: someone with significant knowledge to remove the organs the way
Speaker 1: they had. It didn't need to be a doctor. Such knowledge,
Speaker 1: he suggested, might be possessed by someone in the habit
Speaker 1: of cutting up animals. The trail, in other words, could
Speaker 1: lead to a surgical office. It it could also lead
Speaker 1: to a slaughterhouse or a butcher's shop as well. And
Speaker 1: then on October five, Donald Swanson received a third letter
Speaker 1: in red ink from the journalists at the Central News Agency.
Speaker 1: Once again, it made wild claims about the murders. The
Speaker 1: handwriting in red mocked the efforts of his investigation and
Speaker 1: threatened that every sex worker in London would receive God's
Speaker 1: judgment through the hand of the Whitechapel murderer. This time
Speaker 1: the letter ended threatening three murders at once, but that
Speaker 1: pushed it beyond the bounds of believability. If Swanson, Aberline
Speaker 1: and Warren had previously considered whether the letters they were
Speaker 1: getting from the Central News could be genuine, this put
Speaker 1: a stop to it. There was no real question for
Speaker 1: them after that. The journalist who passed it along, Tom Bulling,
Speaker 1: was the one responsible for writing the notes and also
Speaker 1: then for drawing the police into his own little mind
Speaker 1: games and away from the trail of the real killer. However,
Speaker 1: furious the police were that he had invented a story
Speaker 1: out of thin air, they just eidd it was not
Speaker 1: best to unmask him for the public. Charles Warren wrote
Speaker 1: saying he believed the letters were frauds, but with nothing
Speaker 1: more compelling to go on, it was too little, too late.
Speaker 1: Just like the Black Bag, the Red Ink letters were
Speaker 1: Jack the Ripper now, and the powers of Tom Bulling's
Speaker 1: imagination had made them a reality. But Bullyings mind games
Speaker 1: weren't the only ones being played that month. On October six,
Speaker 1: Bryant and May told the police that they had received
Speaker 1: a letter of their own, which they turned over to
Speaker 1: the authorities for examination. Of course, like almost everyone else,
Speaker 1: they also told what they knew to the press, and
Speaker 1: that was published that Monday in the Daily News. Here's
Speaker 1: Dr Louise raw to read it for us. I here
Speaker 1: by notify you that I'm going to pay your girls
Speaker 1: a visit. I hear they are beginning to say what
Speaker 1: they will do with me. I'm going to see what
Speaker 1: a fifth have have in their stomachs, army, and I
Speaker 1: will take it out of them so that they will
Speaker 1: have no more to do on the quiet. It signed
Speaker 1: John Ripper p s. I am in Poplar today. Well,
Speaker 1: it's an incredible letter, whether or not it was a hoax.
Speaker 1: What it says is so revealing, even a few lines
Speaker 1: if we break it down. So this person says, the
Speaker 1: reason who's going to attack the match women is I
Speaker 1: hear they are beginning to say what they will do
Speaker 1: with me? Well, what does that mean? That means that
Speaker 1: the match women, rather than being understandably terrified that there
Speaker 1: is a killers talking their streets, are furious because what
Speaker 1: this means they're going to say what they will do
Speaker 1: with me? They're presumably saying, right, we're going to find
Speaker 1: that bastard, wait till we get our hands on him.
Speaker 1: They are threatening the Ripper basically, and why wouldn't they.
Speaker 1: After all, they were women who knew their own strength,
Speaker 1: and they had a union to build. As horrifying as
Speaker 1: they were, the murderers weren't going to stop them. These
Speaker 1: women had already faced down the factory bosses, the middle
Speaker 1: class journalists, and even the esteemed members of parliament. Many
Speaker 1: Londoners may have been frozen in fear, but women like
Speaker 1: Mary Driscoll and the others of her union in the
Speaker 1: match factory weren't going to let the vicious attacks against
Speaker 1: their neighbors and the threats against them stop them from
Speaker 1: banding together and fighting for their lives. The union was
Speaker 1: really active and they were probably more concerned and busy
Speaker 1: with that than they would have been worrying about the rip.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying they didn't worry. I'm sure when they
Speaker 1: walked down the streets at night they were concerned. But
Speaker 1: you see, they were always in danger. The Eastern was
Speaker 1: never a safe space if you were a working class women,
Speaker 1: so they always traveled in gangs. They had to be
Speaker 1: prepared to come out fighting and no questions asked. So
Speaker 1: I think in that respect they would have been much
Speaker 1: more careful, but they were always used to being careful.
Speaker 1: They were always used to being on their guard and
Speaker 1: to not being particularly so. But if the match women
Speaker 1: and the other white chapel working people were focused on
Speaker 1: fighting for their dignity in the face of opponents. Besides
Speaker 1: the undiscovered killer, much of London and the reading public
Speaker 1: beyond the city was only becoming more engrossed in the case.
Speaker 1: The letters that arrived with the press and the police
Speaker 1: flew in from amateur detectives across the country who saw
Speaker 1: patterns and possibilities in the newspaper reporting. They felt the
Speaker 1: police had missed and they let the officers know it.
Speaker 1: They begged for the police to spend more time in
Speaker 1: the White Chapel sewers. They suggested that the police should
Speaker 1: follow the trail of a knife hand from the slaughter
Speaker 1: houses in the East End. But it wasn't just amateurs
Speaker 1: pitching in. After the Daily News published two sketches of
Speaker 1: a stout man based on the description of a man
Speaker 1: the constables had seen with Liz Stride in the hours
Speaker 1: before her murder, a letter arrived at Scotland Yard from
Speaker 1: the police in France. Passed through the consulates and the
Speaker 1: Home Office. It said a man who much resembles the
Speaker 1: picture of the supposed murderer had been arrest As Dion,
Speaker 1: Warren and Swanson spent valuable time writing back and forth
Speaker 1: with the Home Office and the Consulate. They determined the
Speaker 1: man's identity and traced his movements back to England. In
Speaker 1: the end they confirmed that the man was simply a
Speaker 1: laborer who had crossed the Channel looking for work. They
Speaker 1: were convinced he was not the man required in the
Speaker 1: midst of this postal barrage, one more parcel was delivered,
Speaker 1: this time not to the police, but to the desk
Speaker 1: of the man who chaired the White Chapel Vigilance Committee
Speaker 1: ever since they had organized the local business owners to
Speaker 1: lobby for a government reward. The committee had been led
Speaker 1: by a builder and decorator named George Lusk, and on
Speaker 1: October six a package arrived on his desk, a small
Speaker 1: cardboard box that had a letter inside. It sent Lusk
Speaker 1: running for a local doctor and then to the Lennon
Speaker 1: Street police station, where it could be examined, photographed and
Speaker 1: passed along to Donald Swanson and then of course circulated
Speaker 1: between the Metropolitan and City police because the contents of
Speaker 1: the package were horrifying. The letter itself said the package
Speaker 1: held half the kidney taken from one woman. The other half,
Speaker 1: the writer said, had been fried and eaten. It ended
Speaker 1: with a line that was half threat, half offer. I
Speaker 1: may send you the bloody knife that took it out
Speaker 1: if you only wait a while longer, catch me when
Speaker 1: you can, Mr Lusk, as promised, The package held half
Speaker 1: a kidney alongside the letter. The doctors who examined it
Speaker 1: all agreed it was the kidney of an adult human.
Speaker 1: Both police forces attempted to trace the sender, but their
Speaker 1: efforts failed. There was a return address, though, but it
Speaker 1: didn't help the police. Nevertheless, it's been pinned to Jack
Speaker 1: the Ripper ever since. At the top of the paper
Speaker 1: it was said to come from hell. It was becoming
Speaker 1: the fashion, it seems. Who wasn't writing to the police.
Speaker 1: In an open letter published in The Times on October two,
Speaker 1: the clerk of the Whitechapel Board of Works lambasted Charles
Speaker 1: Warren for failing to catch the murderer. It passed along
Speaker 1: the horror of the board and it urged Warren to
Speaker 1: strengthen the police presence in the East End. The next day,
Speaker 1: Charles Warren returned fire. He offered a predictable response to it, simply,
Speaker 1: wasn't his fault, So where did the blame lie? Well,
Speaker 1: he suggested that the women of Whitechapel, in his words,
Speaker 1: connived at their own destruction. They were asking for it,
Speaker 1: he seemed to say, if they were willing to sell sex.
Speaker 1: If a brutal murderer took their lives in the midst
Speaker 1: of that transaction, the police weren't to be blamed. To
Speaker 1: be honest, it was a disgusting instance of blaming the
Speaker 1: victims for the crimes they suffered. It was one more
Speaker 1: terrible piece of evidence that the police did not see
Speaker 1: the women of Whitechapel as people they were meant to serve.
Speaker 1: But if that wasn't enough, he wrote to the clerk
Speaker 1: that the police had already strained every nerve to catch
Speaker 1: the murderer and act. He said, if the board wanted
Speaker 1: the police to get results, then they shouldn't push to
Speaker 1: make police actions public. The very fact that the Board
Speaker 1: of Works was unaware of what Scotland Yard was doing
Speaker 1: was a sign, in fact, strong proof that the police
Speaker 1: were doing their work with the necessary secrecy and efficiency.
Speaker 1: How convenient was that, But October was the month when
Speaker 1: the police would set aside their precious secrecy and efficiency.
Speaker 1: Because however much Charles Warren might cast blame elsewhere and
Speaker 1: dismissed the criticisms against him, he knew the Metropolitan Police
Speaker 1: were failing in their task. It wasn't just the man
Speaker 1: hunt that strained Warren's nerves either. There were also the
Speaker 1: increasingly urgent demands from the Home Secretary to produce some results.
Speaker 1: The notes from Secretary Matthews make him sound somewhat understanding
Speaker 1: and cooperative at the beginning of the month, authorizing money
Speaker 1: for Warren to station dogs throughout Whitechapel and making suggestions
Speaker 1: for how to use them things of that nature. But
Speaker 1: within two weeks matters were not so pleasant, and ARLs
Speaker 1: Warren felt that pressure. October was the month that he
Speaker 1: would authorize monumental police action that would take Whitechapel by storm,
Speaker 1: starting with a massive house to house search. Here's Adam
Speaker 1: Wood to explain what we know about that mobilization. This
Speaker 1: took place on the third of October, couple of days
Speaker 1: after the double event murderer and Watchapel was flooded with
Speaker 1: policing plain clothes at a house to house search was
Speaker 1: carried out and to give an idea of the scala
Speaker 1: that operation, the police issued some eighty tho leaflets to
Speaker 1: the households and lodgin houses in the area, pinning for
Speaker 1: information and in addition to the residents of the area,
Speaker 1: more than two thousand people who were staying at the
Speaker 1: coming lodgin houses were questioned. The thing is whether the
Speaker 1: search was legal or not was questionable at best. It
Speaker 1: had been suggested by an MP and pressed on Warren
Speaker 1: by the Home Office. Warren had even passed along the
Speaker 1: remainder that there were streets in Whitechapel quite hostile to
Speaker 1: the police, and forcing entry might not be read it
Speaker 1: with open arms. Warren called the plan drastic and arbitrary.
Speaker 1: But whatever else you can say about the man, he
Speaker 1: was certainly a loyal soldier. With the Home Office backing him,
Speaker 1: Warren carried out the plan and he brought everything to bear.
Speaker 1: I think it stretches the imagination that they would send
Speaker 1: not only watch up police, but they drafted in officers
Speaker 1: from other divisions to assist this. And they questioned every
Speaker 1: every household, every resident, searched the rooms. As I said,
Speaker 1: they questioned all the lodgers. I find it's a bit
Speaker 1: unusual that they would have just done that, not knowing
Speaker 1: what to expect. They probably had a little bit of
Speaker 1: an under an idea or hope perhaps what they might uncover.
Speaker 1: It was a massive operation. It started on October three,
Speaker 1: but it took over two weeks for the Metropolitan Police
Speaker 1: to search each and every home and lodging house. They
Speaker 1: scooped up dozens of people in their dragnuts and they
Speaker 1: made arrests too, and interrogations, and with an effort like that,
Speaker 1: there were demands for an accounting from the Home set
Speaker 1: greet Terry Matthews needed something to show that he was
Speaker 1: doing absolutely everything in his power and driving his police
Speaker 1: department to the same lengths, and the matter of drafting
Speaker 1: that report felt and none other than Donald Swanson here's
Speaker 1: Adam Wood once more. Shortly after the house to house search,
Speaker 1: the Home Office demanded a report or an update on
Speaker 1: the ongoing investigation, and Assistant Commissioner Robert Anderson was annoyed
Speaker 1: at the time of this request. Um you know, he
Speaker 1: felt he felt there was more important matters for Swanson
Speaker 1: and the Office officers to be attending to. But nevertheless,
Speaker 1: the report that Swanson wrote, dated the nine team of
Speaker 1: October was obviously a prize the Home Office at the time,
Speaker 1: but but for us researchers, it's invaluable because it gives
Speaker 1: the clearest picture of the police investigation into the murders
Speaker 1: at that point, and Swanson details each of the murders
Speaker 1: going right back to Elizabeth Stride, Margaret tabram Um, Mary
Speaker 1: and Nichols, Earn and Nannie Chapman and as well as
Speaker 1: police investigation at that point, um And gave details of
Speaker 1: the house to house search we just heard about. Um
Speaker 1: And Swanson writes more than the three hundred people were investigated,
Speaker 1: as well as seventy six, which isn't slaughter men and
Speaker 1: all the sailors who were on at that point on
Speaker 1: board ships in the terms or or the various East
Speaker 1: End docs. I think all eighty of these people that
Speaker 1: were detained would have been questioned to some degree. You know,
Speaker 1: some we easily dismissed, another's needed to be interrogated more closely. However,
Speaker 1: closely they were interrogated, though they didn't offer up anything
Speaker 1: conclusive to satisfy the Home Office. They had a laundry
Speaker 1: list of their efforts but no achievements. Suspects had been cleared,
Speaker 1: but none had been charged. The White Chapel Vigilance Committee
Speaker 1: had been pressing Matthew's hard, urging him to set a
Speaker 1: large reward on the murderers capture. They had sent him
Speaker 1: a petition to put before the Queen herself, and the
Speaker 1: conversation wasn't one way. Matthews was also getting criticism from
Speaker 1: above as well. Word must have filtered down to him.
Speaker 1: The government were worried that he was bungling the administration
Speaker 1: of the country, and the White Chapel murders were at
Speaker 1: the center of that concern. Queen Victoria had even gone
Speaker 1: so far as to write the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury,
Speaker 1: saying that the Home Secretary was doing the government's harm.
Speaker 1: She thought that he had a general want of sympathy
Speaker 1: with the feelings of the people. With the coroners coming
Speaker 1: up empty and the massive police efforts falling shorts of
Speaker 1: conclusive arrests, it was a precarious moment for Matthews, and
Speaker 1: it gave him very little patience for someone else, Charles Warren.
Speaker 1: On October twenty, the entire White Chapel Vigilance Committee called
Speaker 1: it quits after receiving the package from Hell. George Lusk
Speaker 1: just didn't have the will to go on, despite the
Speaker 1: police efforts to trace the killer to his hidden den.
Speaker 1: The other men who had gathered to protect their neighborhood
Speaker 1: were also discouraged. There was a lack of moral and
Speaker 1: material real support. They felt neither their neighbors nor their
Speaker 1: government had done enough to keep Whitechapels safe. After the
Speaker 1: worry and anxiety and horror of that October they disbanded,
Speaker 1: but they weren't the only ones who had had enough.
Speaker 1: Charles Warren was right there with them. Policing London was
Speaker 1: hardly like surveying the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Nor was
Speaker 1: it like rallying volunteer cavalry to ride down South African insurrectionists,
Speaker 1: or leverage the political power of the Empire to pressure
Speaker 1: Egyptian courts into criminal prosecutions. Warren had always been a
Speaker 1: man of imperial service, but in London he was a
Speaker 1: man under the imperial eye, and that meant not doing
Speaker 1: anything to ruffle the royal feathers or to give the
Speaker 1: government a bad name. But by the end of October
Speaker 1: of eighteen eighty eight it seemed that he was guilty
Speaker 1: of both, and if you remember, the year had already
Speaker 1: been trying even before the White Chapel murders became a
Speaker 1: press sensation. And neither were the White Chapel murders. His
Speaker 1: first trial by fire in the press that came in
Speaker 1: the response to his police forces beating Londoners in the streets.
Speaker 1: And then well there was his relationship with the Home
Speaker 1: Secretary and all the rules of being police commissioner. When
Speaker 1: he took the post. Warren had expected to be given
Speaker 1: free reign to pursue the development of his police forces
Speaker 1: at his own discretion, But when Matthews became Home Secretary,
Speaker 1: Warren found his leash was a lot shorter than he'd
Speaker 1: hoped for. When he forced Monroe to resign over the
Speaker 1: mcdonughton spats, he found that Monroe had then immediately been
Speaker 1: hired into the Home Office. It's the sort of politicking
Speaker 1: that might drive anyone up the wall, especially when Warren
Speaker 1: learned that his Scotland Yard detectives were going to the
Speaker 1: Home Office to meet with Monroe more often than they
Speaker 1: were meeting with him. And when it came to using
Speaker 1: his government power to carry out invasions of London neighborhoods
Speaker 1: with dubious legal foundation, well maybe he was just following orders.
Speaker 1: But Warren was done with all of that. He was
Speaker 1: ready to break a few rules, so he took action
Speaker 1: on the surf us. What he did may seem harmless
Speaker 1: to us, He wrote an essay. It was published in
Speaker 1: Murray's magazine with the title The Police of the Metropolis.
Speaker 1: Over the course of twenty pages, Warren set out to
Speaker 1: respond to all of the criticisms of his force. You
Speaker 1: can almost see the anger of White Chapel citizens that
Speaker 1: he's responding to on each and every page. In his essay,
Speaker 1: Warren dismissed the criticisms that his police were too much
Speaker 1: like the Imperial military. He suggested that if there were
Speaker 1: problems in London, it was because the city's people chose
Speaker 1: to create panics and false alarms. If his police were
Speaker 1: better at beating people in the streets than solving crimes
Speaker 1: in the dark, then it was simply because they were honest,
Speaker 1: straightforward Englishmen. In fact, he declared, it was well known
Speaker 1: among oriental and savage tribes very far afield that the
Speaker 1: word of an Englishman could be trusted. It's a shame,
Speaker 1: he seemed to sniff, that the people of darkest England
Speaker 1: weren't able to see how good and honest he really was.
Speaker 1: It's a huffing piece of writing. It tries to respond
Speaker 1: to all the criticisms Warren and his police had received
Speaker 1: from the public. It's sneers at foreigners and at the
Speaker 1: malcontents of London who wouldn't take their beatings in grateful silence.
Speaker 1: And of course there were some who didn't take too
Speaker 1: kindly to that here's Dr Drew Gray. The article for
Speaker 1: Laura's magazine was his chance to have a goal of
Speaker 1: those who criticize and called for his resignation. And you
Speaker 1: just look at the reaction of the press to it.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the staff as a real go
Speaker 1: in for me. It says I wrote this down. A
Speaker 1: more extraordinary document never found his way into print. It
Speaker 1: would be charitable to suppose that when he penned this
Speaker 1: remarkable addition to the literature of Conney Hatch, Sir Charles
Speaker 1: Warren was laboring under some unusual excitement. And for contents,
Speaker 1: Coney Hatch is London's largest lunatic asylum. So it's it's
Speaker 1: kind of like saying that he gone mad basically. But
Speaker 1: the Star was inflating its claims. There were plenty of
Speaker 1: London officials writing blithe defenses of imperial violence. There's more
Speaker 1: to it than that, though, because by publishing such a
Speaker 1: prominent defense of the police, Charles Warren was overstepping one
Speaker 1: of the boundaries. He was breaking one of the Home
Speaker 1: Secretary's rules. And if the press thought that his essays
Speaker 1: showed that Charles Warren had gone off as rocker, while
Speaker 1: the Home Office saw it as a sign that he
Speaker 1: was thoroughly off his leash. Here's Adam Wood once again. Well,
Speaker 1: it's interesting because Warren's article in itself was homeless enough.
Speaker 1: Has just just been about police administration, didn't didn't give
Speaker 1: any secrets away or anything that may be deemed to
Speaker 1: make it a horrific publication, and it was quite actually
Speaker 1: was well received by the newspaper reviews and commentators at
Speaker 1: the time. But unsurprisingly, Warren run foul of Home Secretary
Speaker 1: Henry Matthews yet again, who wrote to remind Warren that
Speaker 1: it'd broken a rule that prohibited civil servants from publicly
Speaker 1: discussing matters relating to the Kimmons, and it was a
Speaker 1: confrontation of Warren's own making. Whatever he would say, it's
Speaker 1: likely he knew what kind of response he'd get. That
Speaker 1: the Home Secretary's anger was one final source of satisfaction
Speaker 1: that offered the Police commissioner away out Browbeaten by his
Speaker 1: superiors once again, Warren throw in the towel. On November eight,
Speaker 1: he turned in his resignation on its own. His abandoning
Speaker 1: his post would have shocked the city even while it
Speaker 1: gratified his opponents, but the news reached London alongside a second,
Speaker 1: much darker revelation. Another woman had been killed in Whitechapel,
Speaker 1: and this one was the most horrifying murder of all.
Speaker 1: That's it for this week's episode of Unobscured. Stick around
Speaker 1: after this short sponsor break for a preview of what's
Speaker 1: in store for next week. If Londoners feared that a
Speaker 1: police force given the authority to investigate crimes would also
Speaker 1: become a clandestine agency with a political agenda, well they
Speaker 1: didn't have to wait long. Soon enough, a branch of
Speaker 1: the detectives would be ferreting out members of a political
Speaker 1: movement that we're making themselves known in London. But of course,
Speaker 1: as these things go, certain members of the public who
Speaker 1: might have rejected the idea of playing clothes officers sneaking
Speaker 1: around in alleys and back gardens of Londoners might eventually
Speaker 1: change their tune because as much as they hated a
Speaker 1: secret police, there were other things that they feared far more.
Speaker 1: Unobscured was created by me Aaron Manky and produced by
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick, Alex Williams and Josh They, being in partnership
Speaker 1: with I Heart Radio. Research and writing for this season
Speaker 1: is all the work of my right hand man Carl
Speaker 1: Nellis and the brilliant Chad Lawson composed the brand new soundtrack.
Speaker 1: Learn more about our contributing historians, source material and links
Speaker 1: to our other shows over at history unobscured dot com,
Speaker 1: and until next time, thanks for listening Unobscured as a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minkey. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts for my heart Radio, visit i heeart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.