WEBVTT - S3 – 2: Rome & Babylon 0:00:00.960 --> 0:00:04.160 Welcomed, unobscured a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky. 0:00:07.680 --> 0:00:10.959 By all accounts, it was a nice spring evening. That's 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:13.800 why Lizzie was out on a double date, walking Regent's 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:17.480 Park on Joseph's arm. It was their usual spot, although 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:20.920 tonight they were joined by Lizzie's sister strolling beside one 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:25.279 of Joseph's coworkers. At some point, it seems Lizzie and 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:28.720 Joseph wanted to have a quiet moment alone. With a smile, 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:30.880 they picked up the pace a bit while the other 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:34.240 pear trailed behind. You can picture them leaning in together, 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:38.159 whispering as they passed into the beautifully manicured landscape that 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:41.199 had made London the envy of the modern world when 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:44.400 it was first designed a generation before. One writer had 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:47.839 expressed his awe at its grandeur. Rome had its ruins 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:52.320 and Jerusalem It's temple, but London had its own shining glories. 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:55.840 As they ambled through Regent's Park, maybe Lizzie rested her 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:59.440 head on Joseph's shoulder. Back in eighteen twenty four, London 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:02.280 had repeat old the city's ancient law against walking the 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:05.200 streets at night. That was thanks in part to the 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:08.160 new wonder of the age, light that could throw back 0:01:08.200 --> 0:01:12.120 the darkness on command. Maybe, as the clipped lawns glowed 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:14.920 under the gas lights that came to life, Lizzie had 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:17.320 the time to recall the lofty terms in which their 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:22.039 city had been praised the room of modern history. But 0:01:22.120 --> 0:01:25.319 if it was a beautiful, quiet moment, it would be 0:01:25.360 --> 0:01:29.039 their last. The sound of running feet neared on the 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:33.319 path behind them. Someone shouted, are you Macy. Joseph turned 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:35.920 to answer with I don't know what you mean, as 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:39.720 another voice called out, that's the one. Lizzie looked just 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:42.240 in time to see half a dozen young men closing 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:45.880 in anger on their faces, and they were staring at Joseph. 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:50.040 In an instant, they were upon him. One of them 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:52.840 grabbed him by the collar. Other hands and arms came 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:56.400 swinging in more violently. Joseph did his best to fight back, 0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:59.760 throwing up his arms. He was a printer's machinist and 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:02.560 strong man, but there were too many of them, so 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:05.920 he took off, running his hat flew into the darkness. 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:09.840 They were faster, and they came on him too. Suddenly. 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:12.520 It only took a few moments before Lizzie caught up 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:14.760 just in time to see a knife flash in the 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:18.040 shadows between their bodies. As she came within reach, the 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:21.000 group was already on the run, whooping as they made 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:24.160 their escape. They had left Joseph draped over a park 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:28.200 gate with blood running from his mouth. He was gasping. 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:30.960 At first, she thought he had been punched in the face, 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:35.000 but he wheezed out the words I am stabbed. Someone 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:37.600 nearby came over to help and hail a cab, but 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:40.400 Lizzie could still see the attackers running off and no 0:02:40.440 --> 0:02:43.960 one was giving chase. A righteous fury took hold of her, 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:47.640 and she set off running. Lizzie could tell they were 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:51.040 getting away. She yelled stop thief, and a man in 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:53.640 front of them tried to answer the call. Stepping into 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:56.799 the group's path. They knocked him aside, but it slowed 0:02:56.840 --> 0:02:59.600 them down just enough for Lizzie to catch up. That's 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:02.320 when one of them turned and knocked her down. A 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:05.920 vicious kick smashed her ribs. Before she could get up, 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:10.200 they disappeared. As she climbed to her feet, she saw 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:13.480 a group of bystanders taking it all in. Why didn't 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:16.760 any of you help, she demanded, but the nearest man 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:20.680 turned away, and then she remembered Joseph still bleeding in 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:23.600 the park. She got back to him just as he 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:26.320 was helped into a cab. Lizzie climbed in with him 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:29.760 and they began rattling toward the hospital. But they wouldn't 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:33.240 make it. Blood was flowing from Joseph's chest and neck, 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:36.280 and he died in Lizzie's arms while they were still 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:41.840 on the way. It was a terrifying, senseless murder. To 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:45.280 say that it shocked London would be an understatement. Papers 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:49.040 across Britain, from Leeds to Ipswich to Bristol, reported the 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:52.160 murder at a frenzied pitch. The story made the same 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:56.120 splash in Scotland and Ireland. Like the Brighton railway murder. 0:03:56.160 --> 0:03:58.480 It drew the attention of a reading public to the 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:03.440 turmoil in the streets of London. As suspects were questioned, 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:07.480 the picture became clear. The attackers were members of the Deck, 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:10.760 and they'd mistaken Joseph for a member of a rival gang, 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:13.600 a gang that had attacked them in Regent's Park the 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:17.520 night before. The knife that had sliced Joseph long was 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:21.120 a sailor's dagger. The sanitary workers dredged the sewers at 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:23.680 the request of Scotland Yard and found the six inch 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:26.560 blade embedded in the mud. Its owner had loaned it 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:28.680 to the killer, who had carried it to the park 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:33.800 with revenge on his mind. Youth gang's sailor's knives and 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:37.040 evidence stashed in sewers, only to be dredged up by 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:40.960 London's finest It all gave London an air of incredible danger. 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:44.360 And of course this heinous crime had occurred along Regent 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:48.640 Street inside Regent's Park. That place was a wonder of 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:53.800 modern design, meant to replace pestilent alleyways, squalid hovels and 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:57.479 myrie rhodes at the heart of London with healthy streets, 0:04:57.480 --> 0:05:01.320 elegant buildings and park like scenery, or so they had 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:05.839 said in eight when the park was first opened. But 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:09.280 like the Brighton Railway murder, the Regent's Park murder of 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:13.600 eight would force Britain's wide eyed readership to revisit the 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:18.039 question asked by the rampaging crowds two years earlier. Had 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:21.640 the modern world really washed away the worst impulses of 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:25.240 London's past, or had it simply invited the sins of 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:29.120 Mother England to play out once more, only this time 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:36.599 on a much grander scale. This is unobscured. I'm Aaron 0:05:36.680 --> 0:06:03.880 manky m M. London didn't just get this way by itself. 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:08.000 There's always a backstory. It was certainly true that in 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:10.560 the eighteen hundreds London was a city on the grow, 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:13.120 and no one could take more credit for that than 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:17.000 the Prince Regent himself, George the Fourth, well except maybe 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:20.880 his architect John Nash. You see, in the centuries before 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:23.719 the industrial era, much of the land around London was 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:26.719 owned by the Crown. It was then leased to farmers 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:29.160 and builders, who used it for their own ends. But 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:32.640 those leases ended in eighteen eleven, just as the Prince 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:35.880 Regent was puzzling over England's place in the modern world, 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:39.840 and if the reports are true, he was especially troubled 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:42.200 when he looked across the channel and saw the grandeur 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:44.839 of France. By all accounts, he set out to make 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:47.600 the city at the center of his empire a metropolis 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:51.400 that could quite eclipse Napoleon, and he spared no expense. 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:55.440 Not only did George the Fourth and John Nash create 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:59.279 Regent Street and Regent's Park, but they remade Buckingham House 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:02.839 into a pal us worthy of any continental monarch. Acts 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:06.200 of Parliaments launched three new bridges across the Thames, which 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:08.479 cleared the way for new roads to cross the river. 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:11.560 Gas Lights began to pop up in eighteen oh seven 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:15.119 and spread along London streets for years until their glow 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:17.680 could be seen throughout the city in the eighteen forties. 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:22.080 But this was more than a facelift, and the scalpel 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:25.400 did more than scratch the surface. Along those streets and 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:28.520 gas lines traveled new sewers that would sluice the city's 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:30.840 filth to the river that would carry it out to sea. 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:34.320 At least that was the story for London's West End. 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:38.040 When the Prince Regent and John Nash were done and 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:41.679 collecting their praise from observers, others took up the vision 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:45.960 for creating London anew Throughout the century, huge projects continued 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:49.080 to be launched, even up to eighteen sixty seven, when 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:52.480 the Holburn Viaduct, the biggest and most expensive project of 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:56.920 the century, was built to serve London's financial district. All 0:07:56.960 --> 0:07:59.560 of that remodeling came at a cost, though, and not 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:02.600 just to a purse, No, it was much more severe 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:05.920 than that. For the new city to arise, the old 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:09.880 one had to be cut to pieces. Among the wealth 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:12.480 and well to do, John Nash was known for his 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:16.240 beautiful architecture, but among poor and working people he was 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:19.040 known for the men who cleared the way for those buildings, 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:26.360 Nash's housebreakers. Here's historian Adam Wood. Fifty years earlier. The rookeries, 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:28.960 where the poor in the criminal classes congregated, were to 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:30.960 be found in the West End and Saint Charles Area 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:34.080 and spill Fields and White chap in the early teen hundreds, 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:37.679 were by comparison and quite prosperous. When the West End 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:40.719 was developed, a large number of people were forced from 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:43.559 the rookeries. And when Oxford Street and Shaws Revenue, which 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:48.000 are well known West End streets now were developed, that 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:50.520 St Charles Area was demolished and all the five five 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:54.079 thousand poor residents were relocated to the East End. That's right, 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:58.160 thousands of poor Londoners were dispossessed and displaced as the 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:01.079 West End developed. The homes where they had lived in 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:04.960 some cases for generations were destroyed and those people were 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:08.280 simply turned out into the streets. Where did they go? 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:12.360 Not far? Actually, pushed out from the neighborhoods where they 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:15.080 used to live. Many now found themselves only a few 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:18.400 neighborhoods away in the East End, but there was hardly 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:21.800 a reprieve in the docklands. When a project to build 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:24.480 the St. Catherine's Docks was arranged, the first thing to 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:27.880 do was clear the way. House breakers arrived at three 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:31.199 neighborhoods in the East End called Cat's Whole, Pillory Lane 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:35.280 and Dark Entry and they left them in ruins. Construction 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:38.960 on this single project left over eleven thousand people without 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:43.559 their homes. Here's historian Louise raw If you were better 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:47.520 off and the property owner, then you get compensation. If 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:51.840 you didn't tough on, you go. And we presume because 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:54.720 nobody bothered to record where people went, that they just 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:59.440 went deeper into London. They just increased the overcrowding everywhere 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:02.319 else they would had no choice, perhaps stay with friends, 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:04.680 go wherever you could. A lot of them would just 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:10.120 have been homeless. And there was a large increase in homelessness. 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:13.640 So London's posh West End and it's dark East End 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:16.560 didn't just drop out of the sky or sprout up 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:19.800 from the soil. Among the Thames River. They were choices 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:22.800 that had been made by Crown and country that lay 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:26.040 behind the fashionable facade of the West End and the 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:29.439 desperation of the East. In fact, many Londoners of the 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:32.920 Victorian era agreed where we might differ from them, though 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:36.760 is in whose choice that was. Because for the middle 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:40.040 class Victorians who looked to the East from their comfortable homes, 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:44.079 it was clear the east Enders had brought this upon themselves. 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:47.400 The link they saw was between the squalid conditions of 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:50.360 the East End neighborhoods and the morality of the people 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:53.120 who lived there. It was an endless cycle, they thought, 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:57.319 between bad homes and bad morals. It was as if 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:00.880 the grandness of Nash's designs had white all memory of 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:05.160 his house breakers from their minds, assuming, of course, they 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:08.160 had ever given them a thought in the first place. 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:15.520 The Regent's Park murder locked a lot of London doors. 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:19.360 The house breaking and home wrecking that middle class Victorians 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:21.959 worried about had little to do with fears that their 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:24.280 home might be destroyed to clear the way for a 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:28.040 grand promenade. Instead, they worried that someone might break into 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:30.800 their homes and make off with their belongings, or that 0:11:30.920 --> 0:11:34.120 someone with loose morals might disturb the tranquility of their 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:38.560 family arrangements with temptations. And that's what had them turning 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:41.920 to a new organization that grew up alongside the modern city, 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:45.960 the modern police Department. They turned to men like Charles 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:49.520 Warren to coordinate and lead the efforts against both violence 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:53.120 and vice, and they counted on men like Detective Inspector 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:56.720 Donald Swanson to untie the difficult knot at the center 0:11:56.760 --> 0:12:00.760 of inexplicable crimes. After all, when Swans and arrested the 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:04.160 Brighton Railway murderer in eight eight one, it wasn't the 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:07.720 first time that his quick thought and decisive action brought 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:11.360 relief to London's wealthy. In fact, by then he had 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:14.120 already solved a string of cases that made him highly 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:17.000 respected among the public who knew him, but in the 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:20.800 police department too. In eighteen seventy, when Swanson was still 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:23.680 just a constable, a small gang of thieves made off 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:27.000 with gold chains lifted from a pawnbroker's shop on Fleet Street. 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:29.560 They had used the cover of night to creep to 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:32.880 the shop's closed shutters with a small metal file and 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:35.440 a plan while two of them stood look out. The 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:38.319 other two board holes through the shutters and pulled out 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:41.960 the valuables they found inside. They had spotted diamond necklaces 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:45.000 in the shop, and no mere wooden board could stop 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:47.439 someone with a penchant for drilling his way to wealth. 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:50.559 But they knew they couldn't attract too much attention. They 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:53.000 had to work quickly, and they ran out of time. 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:55.800 The holes they made were too small for the diamonds. 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:59.000 Only a few thin gold chains would slip through. The 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:01.400 hall was far us valuable than it could have been, 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:04.120 but when the thieves vanished with the gold chains, it 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:07.680 was enough to set the police on the scene. The 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:10.160 gang would have gotten away completely if it weren't for 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:13.280 Constable Donald Swanson. He traced their path through the city, 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:17.560 into the East End and into Whitechapel. Ultimately, Swanson arrested 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:21.040 three of the four thieves. Alongside the stolen gold chains, 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:23.280 he found a bent wire in the belongings of a 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:26.680 woman named Curly Paul. Swanson convinced the judge that the 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:29.320 wire had been used to lift the stolen gold through 0:13:29.360 --> 0:13:32.920 the punctured shutters of the shop. Curly Paul was convicted 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:35.880 of acting as a lookout for the group, but that 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:39.080 was only one case when Swanson slapped the hand reaching 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:41.600 from the East End, because as well as helping the 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:45.000 residents and retailers of West London hold onto their valuables, 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:47.640 he was also tasked with making sure that their moral 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:51.840 fiber remained intact. The year after catching the pawn shop burglars, 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:56.080 Swanson worked with another officer, Frederick Aberlein, to investigate a 0:13:56.120 --> 0:13:59.920 different kind of business, one that threatened to corrupt respectable 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:05.040 und dinners. Here is Adam Wood. Once again, Swanson was 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:08.280 a PC and Atherline a serjump and complaints have been 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:10.880 made to the police that the infamous fear to impresario 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:13.600 George Sanger was putting on plays without a license, and 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:17.040 to get around this he placed advertisement stating that entry 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:19.920 was free, but when nearly four hundred people turned up 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:21.160 on the night, they were told they had to buy 0:14:21.160 --> 0:14:25.280 a program before they had gained admittance. Other Line went 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:28.680 along in playing clothes and watched the performance and observed 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:31.880 what the newspapers described. Got it written here as several drunks, 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:35.120 men of a doubtful character and women of an immoral character, 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:38.440 causing nuisance to the ability to the public so you 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:42.040 just imagine what an evening that that was like. Sanger 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:44.800 eventually appeared before the magistrates and was fined just five 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:47.120 pound and I know a little bit about saying that 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:50.960 he did go on to continue with his illegal playhouse career, 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:54.120 should he say? And he was quite quiet notorious that 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:57.240 Swanson was transferred to Bow in the East End three 0:14:57.240 --> 0:14:59.680 months later on a line to whitechape Or two years later. 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:04.080 Those transfers for Donald Swanson and Frederick Aberleine would be 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:06.920 a fateful one for both men. As they worked in 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:09.200 the East End, they came to know its streets and 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:12.960 its people, and those experiences meant that in eighteen eighty eight, 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:16.440 when Scotland Yard needed detectives to investigate a series of 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:20.880 gruesome murders, first Frederick Aberleine and then Donald Swanson would 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:24.640 get the call. Not at first though, because in eighteen 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:27.840 eighty seven, after nine years as the head of investigation 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:31.400 in Whitechapel, Aberleine had been transferred to the central office 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:35.120 at Scotland Yard. Donald Swanson joined him in the same November. 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:39.360 In eighteen eighty eight, both men were senior officers climbing 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:42.560 toward the top of the criminal investigation Department or c 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:47.080 i D, whose responsibilities were more and more administrative, to 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:51.200 follow the patterns of crime around London. But when murder 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:54.760 came to Whitechapel in eighteen eighty eight, they found themselves 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:58.160 facing a pattern they had never seen before, and it 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:05.520 would prove to be their greatest challenge. Pearly Paul sat 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:09.040 uneasily looking at the corner. If it was an ordinary week, 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:11.400 that man would have been Win Baxter, who led the 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:15.440 inquest into the Brighton railway murder. But Baxter was vacationing 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:18.600 in Scandinavia. His work got handed down to the next 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:22.120 in line, so Pearly Paul was faced with Baxter's deputy. 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:26.960 The newspapers that reported her testimony would mock her. They 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:30.320 would call her masculine looking and say that her face 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:33.360 was soddened by drink. But the past few weeks had 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:36.400 been terrible ones for Paul, and now she was sitting 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:39.320 at a coroner's inquest, and she was about to relive 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:43.080 all those weeks again. After all, her friend had been 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:47.080 murdered when she was first called into the inquest two 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:49.760 weeks before. Paul was pulled into view the body of 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:52.520 a dead woman. She told the police that yes, she 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:55.560 knew her name. Her name was Emma, but the inquest 0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:57.480 came to a halt when the next two women to 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:00.000 view the body gave different names for the dead woman. 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:04.359 Frustrated by the confusion, the deputy corner delayed the second 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:06.719 day of the inquest by two weeks in hopes that 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:10.120 Scotland Yard could sort out the confusion. At least one 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:13.119 historian has noted that while wind Baxter was known for 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:16.760 guiding inquests with cool detachment in the face of gruesome 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:20.919 injuries and mysterious deaths, this backup Deputy Corner was not 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:25.760 so collected. His shock and horror are evident in his records. 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:28.200 We can only imagine how glad he was to put 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:30.680 the terrible crime out of his mind and turn things 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:33.480 over to the detectives as they slowly began to put 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:38.600 together the pieces of Martha Tabram's life. Here's historian Drew Gray. 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:44.360 She was an alcoholic and she had a reputation for 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:47.760 being seen out with men that she wasn't going out with, 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:52.200 which might have tainted her reputation. She was found dead 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:55.720 on the landing of George Yard Buildings on the seventh 0:17:55.720 --> 0:18:01.520 of August. She can stabbed thirty nine times. Most of 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:04.639 the wounds are targeted to abdomen. I think at the 0:18:04.720 --> 0:18:07.480 time it was considered to be a very brutal murder, 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:09.320 and there's a suggestion it might have been carried up 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:14.520 by soldiers. That suggestion caught on because a constable patrolling 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:17.919 that neighborhood had talked with the Grenadier guardsman loitering in 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:21.240 the street around two am. Hurley Paul's testimony made that 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:24.239 theory even stronger. You see, she and Martha had been 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:26.480 out drinking with a couple of soldiers on the night 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:29.520 of the murder. Just before midnight. They left the White 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:32.920 Swan Pub to go their separate ways with their separate men. 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:37.280 Hurly Paul had seen Martha walk away on the soldier's arm. 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:39.959 It was the last time anyone would see Martha alive. 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:43.679 Her body was found at four fifty a m. The 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:46.879 next morning in the stairwell of the George Yard buildings, 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:50.000 just off the White Chapel Road. A dock worker spotted 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:51.960 her body as he was coming down the street to 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:54.560 go to work. He rushed to find a constable and 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:56.560 brought the man who had talked with the soldier. A 0:18:56.600 --> 0:18:59.879 few hours earlier. That brought more police and a Sir 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:04.520 Rgin to examine Martha's body. What he found was terrifying. 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:08.480 Small knife wounds covered her thighs, her abdomen, and her chest. 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:11.600 The surgeon guests they were inflicted with what he called 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:15.119 an ordinary pen knife. The blade had pierced both lungs 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:18.840 and Martha's heart as well. One wound that had punctured 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:22.240 her stern um, though likely required something bigger, a dagger 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:26.679 or maybe a soldier's bayonet. The doctor did report that 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:30.040 there was no evidence of recent intimacy to use the 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:33.199 terms of Victorian propriety that were published in the paper. 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:36.560 But there's no wonder it was considered a brutal murder 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:40.880 because that's exactly what it was. So with the White 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:45.000 Chapel Constable into the detectives rounded up Grenadier guards at 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:47.520 the Tower of London, especially the ones who had been 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:50.399 on leave the night of the murder. The constable couldn't 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:53.080 spot his man among them, or rather, first he picked 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:56.080 out one man, then changed his mind and picked another. 0:19:56.560 --> 0:19:59.720 After talking with them, the inspector decided the constable had 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:03.040 made mistake, so a few days later they called Pearly 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:06.119 Paul She was brought into view an identity parade, and 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:09.119 the detectives asked her, can you see here either of 0:20:09.160 --> 0:20:12.040 the men you saw with the woman now dead? She 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:14.600 scrutinized them for a long time, but in the end 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:17.520 she shook her head. When the inspectors asked her again, 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:20.359 she looked him in the eye and said he ain't here. 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:23.879 All she remembered was that the soldiers had white bands 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:27.440 around their caps. That led the search to the Wellington 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:30.920 Barracks and the cold Stream Guards. They brought Paul back 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:33.920 to review more potential killers, and when they came through 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:36.600 in a lineup, she picked out two men. The trouble 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:40.480 was both of them had alibis, so the inspector scribbled 0:20:40.480 --> 0:20:46.800 an ominous phrase in his notes. Identification failed. Scotland Yard 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:49.960 questioned neighbors around the building where Martha's body had been found, 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:52.720 and people who had passed by along the street that night. 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:56.040 None had information to add, though in fact, no one 0:20:56.080 --> 0:21:00.560 in the neighborhood where she died even claimed to know her. Strangely, 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:03.440 the police didn't press the supervisor of the building where 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:06.560 Martha's body was found. He was questioned, but he told 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:09.600 the inspectors he hadn't heard anything. Maybe he was just 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:12.000 trying to keep his head down. His wife told them 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:15.120 that she had heard someone shout a single word murder, 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:18.960 but that wasn't so unusual, she said, after all, this 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:23.000 was the East End. When the inquest reconvened on August, 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:28.520 only Martha's identity had been established. Her estranged husband, Henry Tabram, 0:21:28.560 --> 0:21:31.080 had come in to identify her from Greenwich, on the 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:33.560 other side of the Thames and a bit farther downriver. 0:21:33.920 --> 0:21:36.960 Henry said they had been separated for thirteen years and 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:41.919 I quote owing to her drinking habits. Another Henry, Henry Turner, 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:44.480 had been her partner since then. She had been his 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:47.399 wife for nine years, he said, but he had separated 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:49.960 from her two or three weeks before she was killed. 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:53.159 Their landlady testified as well, but all she said was 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:56.760 that Martha owed her two weeks rent. So Pearley Paul 0:21:56.880 --> 0:21:59.280 came last. She gave her account of the night when 0:21:59.280 --> 0:22:03.520 Martha died. She gave her account of reviewing the suspected soldiers. 0:22:03.560 --> 0:22:06.680 She even admitted to saying she might drown herself, though 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:09.199 at the inquest she tried to take that back. In 0:22:09.200 --> 0:22:12.199 the days since the murder. Paul had taken refuge with 0:22:12.240 --> 0:22:15.280 her cousin on Drury Lane. We can only imagine how 0:22:15.400 --> 0:22:19.600 much she needed that support to not be alone. The 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:23.320 inspector responsible for Whitechapel told the Deputy coroner that none 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:25.520 of the soldiers were found with any blood on their 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:28.639 clothes or weapons. He ended his statement with the plea 0:22:28.720 --> 0:22:32.159 that was published in the London Times on August if 0:22:32.200 --> 0:22:35.800 anyone had information about Martha's death, please let them know. 0:22:36.480 --> 0:22:41.040 They had reached a dead end without The inspector responsible 0:22:41.080 --> 0:22:45.360 for investigating crime in Whitechapel moved on literally. He followed 0:22:45.359 --> 0:22:50.040 Win Baxter's example and left London on vacation. The next day. 0:22:50.119 --> 0:22:53.200 The East London Adviser responded with an article of their own. 0:22:53.520 --> 0:22:56.280 They saw the way that the East Ends reputation was looking, 0:22:56.320 --> 0:22:58.480 and they hoped to head it off. A murder in 0:22:58.520 --> 0:23:02.320 Whitechapel or any in the East End was regarded differently 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:06.120 from attacks elsewhere in London, say Regent's Park, for example, 0:23:06.480 --> 0:23:10.080 A murder there would get sympathy from a wide British readership. 0:23:10.680 --> 0:23:13.280 But let a poor man sin in the East End, 0:23:13.400 --> 0:23:16.960 they wrote, and it draws the finger of scorn alongside 0:23:16.960 --> 0:23:20.240