Speaker 1: Pushkin. A woman lies motionless. A passer by mistakes her
Speaker 1: for a vagrant people often curl up in the hallways
Speaker 1: of this building at night. He ignores her. Another two
Speaker 1: hours passed before anyone realizes that the sleeping figure is
Speaker 1: in fact dead, and not dead from illness or mishap.
Speaker 1: She's been stabbed multiple times. Her clothing has also been
Speaker 1: pushed up, exposing the lower half of her body. Local
Speaker 1: residents claim they saw and heard nothing of her murder
Speaker 1: in the night, but perhaps they simply heard nothing out
Speaker 1: of the ordinary. After all, the neighborhood of Whitechapel, this
Speaker 1: patch of London's yeast end, has a reputation as a
Speaker 1: sink of misery and vice, a place feared and reviled
Speaker 1: by many richer Londoners, a byeword for all that is
Speaker 1: wrong with modern society. It is no stranger to violence
Speaker 1: and murder, and soon it will become synonymous with the
Speaker 1: deeds of a serial killer. I'm Hallie Reubin. Hold you're
Speaker 1: listening to Bad Women. The Ripper retold, a series about
Speaker 1: the real lives of the women killed by Jack the
Speaker 1: Ripper and how we got their stories so wrong. One side,
Speaker 1: money plenty and friends too by the scar Then for June,
Speaker 1: smilder upon me hanaw One as my dolone. I'm not
Speaker 1: twelve half seems to love me. I'm conflac. In order
Speaker 1: to tell you these victims stories, I first need to
Speaker 1: acquaint you with the spaces where they spent their final months,
Speaker 1: days and hours in London's East End. Listen, this is
Speaker 1: the sound of eighteen eighty eight. It's a piece of
Speaker 1: music called the Lost Chord, recorded in the summer of
Speaker 1: that year on a phonograph, a marvelous new invention of
Speaker 1: the era. We are in London and the date is
Speaker 1: August sixth. This is the capital of one of the richest,
Speaker 1: most technologically advanced superpowers on the face of the Earth.
Speaker 1: It's also at the center of the largest empire in history,
Speaker 1: with colonies, conquests, and dominions spanning a quarter of the globe,
Speaker 1: from Canada to the Cape Egypt to Australia. Queen Victoria
Speaker 1: has been sitting on the throne for more than fifty years,
Speaker 1: reigning over this center of art, literature, commerce and science.
Speaker 1: She has recently celebrated her golden jubilee with a series
Speaker 1: of lavish balls magnificent festivals, dinners, regattas, races and parades
Speaker 1: designed to display the extraordinary wealth of the nation. But
Speaker 1: for all the splendor, there remains squalor out in town,
Speaker 1: and pits and pockets of absolute destitution. Like here, I've
Speaker 1: brought you to the heart of Whitechapel. This is Jack
Speaker 1: the Rippers, London. A sailor from the busy docks nearby
Speaker 1: has wandered, or perhaps been lured into the dense maze
Speaker 1: of alleyways and dark courtyards. Get you, he'll be beaten
Speaker 1: and left for dead. Whitechapel is one of the most
Speaker 1: densely populated parts of the city. Dozens of people will
Speaker 1: have heard the sailor's cries for help, but no one
Speaker 1: lifts a finger. Well, why ain't deaf? But there ain't
Speaker 1: a night passes, There ain't a fight in a passage
Speaker 1: or a drunken row. But why should I in sophere?
Speaker 1: So I ain't no business of mine. Let's walk along
Speaker 1: this street. It's called George Yard. It's not the sort
Speaker 1: of place for the unwary to wander. Even the local
Speaker 1: police agree. They consider Georgeyard to be one of the
Speaker 1: most dangerous streets in the locality. It is said that
Speaker 1: police constables dare not even enter the buildings around us.
Speaker 1: Crime has been decreasing across London as living standards have improved,
Speaker 1: but not here, in these tight, crowded streets, grinding poverty persists.
Speaker 1: I can tell you this with some certainty, because the
Speaker 1: written records are as rich as they are sobering. One
Speaker 1: eminent businessman, Charles Booth, set about documenting the true extent
Speaker 1: of poverty in the city. He sent his researchers to
Speaker 1: visit these streets and assess the inhabitants. They marked the
Speaker 1: findings down on a map, color coding what they had witnessed.
Speaker 1: Look on those maps, and this neighborhood is bordered by
Speaker 1: streets of red, pink, and purple, the middle class, the
Speaker 1: well to do, and the comfortably off. But closer to
Speaker 1: us those purples darkened blue denoting the poor and very
Speaker 1: poor people in chronic want. Where we stand in George Yard,
Speaker 1: The map shows stretches of jet black. In the legend
Speaker 1: of the Booth maps, black stands for the lowest class, vicious,
Speaker 1: it reads, and semi criminal. The houses here are tall,
Speaker 1: dark and old. Their brickwork has worn and covered in soot.
Speaker 1: Their plaster and paint cracks and crumbles. Many of the
Speaker 1: windows are broken. Indeed, these buildings are so shabby and
Speaker 1: neglected they look like they must be abandoned, but they're not.
Speaker 1: The decrepit rooms inside have been portioned out to a
Speaker 1: multitude of different occupants. Entire families are crammed into these
Speaker 1: tiny living spaces, along with a variety of vermin which
Speaker 1: make life itchy and disease ridden. There's a shared toilet
Speaker 1: a grim common privy, but many residents avoid this if
Speaker 1: they can help it, especially at night. Instead, they use
Speaker 1: a chamber pot stowed under the bed, so the stench
Speaker 1: in each room is heavy. I want you to meet
Speaker 1: the people who live here, people like Elizabeth Stride. She's
Speaker 1: currently renting a sparsely furnished room in one of these
Speaker 1: buildings with her hard drinking, violent partner, Michael Kidney. Elizabeth
Speaker 1: is resourceful, intelligent, and brave. She was born in rural
Speaker 1: Sweden and has taught herself to speak English fluently. Her
Speaker 1: life has been varied, at times filled with passion, but
Speaker 1: also marked by terrible misfortune. Her forty four years of
Speaker 1: life are fascinating, touching, and thought provoking, but she will
Speaker 1: be remembered merely as the third victim of Jack the Ripper.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth and Michael Kidney's room is grim and desolate, but
Speaker 1: it does offer one significant advantage over other types of accommodation,
Speaker 1: a door that can be shut. At the alternative a
Speaker 1: common lodging house, all space is shared and privacy is nonexistent.
Speaker 1: This is where we're heading next, Just over there on
Speaker 1: Thrall Street as Wilmot's, a woman only lodging house. Polly Nichols,
Speaker 1: another Ripper victim, is staying there at the moment. She's
Speaker 1: been sleeping rough across London and she's only just arrived
Speaker 1: in Whitechapel. Polly feels safer at Wilmot's than at lodging
Speaker 1: houses that accommodate both sexes. Lodging house life can be
Speaker 1: violent and unpredictable for a woman on her own. Polly's
Speaker 1: heavy set but small in stature, and her father has
Speaker 1: always thought she looked young for her age, even at
Speaker 1: forty three. Polly's relationships with her family fascinate me. She
Speaker 1: was certainly a daddy's girl, but even he couldn't fix
Speaker 1: the mess that resulted when she walked out on her
Speaker 1: husband and children never to return. For a Victorian wife
Speaker 1: and mother, this is extraordinarily bold, almost unheard of. What
Speaker 1: motivated her? Why would she do such a thing. But
Speaker 1: we'll return to Polly Nichols in a later episode. For now,
Speaker 1: we're on the way to another lodging house altogether via
Speaker 1: a local market kite. These streets are a hive of activity.
Speaker 1: Street sellers, beggars, musicians, drunkards, workers, shoppers, of course, lots
Speaker 1: of horse traffic. All buy rope, stair rods, petticoat lane
Speaker 1: bursts with extraordinary sights, sounds and smells. Canny salesman push
Speaker 1: cheap garments, imitation jewelry and dubious medicines. That first price
Speaker 1: is bad. They crowd the street, and the path between
Speaker 1: them is narrow. I can't give you sixteen. Some stalls
Speaker 1: offer a medley of brick a brack, Madam, looks like
Speaker 1: you've guy through a fire for a bargain. Furniture covers
Speaker 1: all clothes, worn out boots, and rusty locks. Buyers planned
Speaker 1: to renovate their items and sell them on again. There
Speaker 1: is a flourishing trade in secondhand clothing and wear better
Speaker 1: than anything you've bought before, and the rent is due,
Speaker 1: or when someone has an eaten for a while, a
Speaker 1: lady's bonnet or a man's shirt can be turned over
Speaker 1: to a dealer or a pawnbroker for reddy cash over.
Speaker 1: There is Ammy Chapman, that tired and weak soul with
Speaker 1: a terrible cough. She's contracted tuberculosis. Annie is counting the
Speaker 1: days until Saturday. That's when her partner, Ted Stanley comes
Speaker 1: and meets her, takes her to the pub and spends
Speaker 1: the weekend with her at a local lodging house. Annie
Speaker 1: has bought herself a cheap ring to wear in place
Speaker 1: of a wedding band. Even here in Whitechapel, she is
Speaker 1: worried about appearances. Not that long ago, Annie led an
Speaker 1: entirely different life. She owned pretty ear rings, brooches, and
Speaker 1: a real wedding ring. She even lived on a country
Speaker 1: estate in the shadow of Windsor Castle, Queen Victoria's residence.
Speaker 1: Her story, her tumble from comfort in nineteenth century respectability,
Speaker 1: is an astonishing and poignant one, but she rarely reveals
Speaker 1: the truth of her past life to anyone around here.
Speaker 1: The woman they call Dark Annie leans against a wall
Speaker 1: watching the hubbub traders hock fruits and vegetables, breads and cakes.
Speaker 1: Customers haggle over fish. This part of London is home
Speaker 1: to a huge immigrant community. Jewish refugees fleeing the murderous
Speaker 1: programs of Russia and Eastern Europe have flocked here. Yiddish
Speaker 1: is spoken on the streets and floats from the theaters
Speaker 1: and music halls that catered to the newcomers. But we're
Speaker 1: just passing through the market and down this side street.
Speaker 1: Its slick with sewage and pools of stagnant water. In
Speaker 1: certain places, the stench of rot and refuse is pungent
Speaker 1: and nauseating. Trash gathers in the corners near dwellings, human waste,
Speaker 1: horse droppings, worthless scraps, and things broken beyond use or
Speaker 1: scattered about. Nothing of any value, no matter how minute,
Speaker 1: is ever thrown away. There is always some one who
Speaker 1: or repurpose it, fix it, or sell it on. People
Speaker 1: have many ways of surviving here, and here's our destination.
Speaker 1: This common lodging house is a bleak and grimy establishment.
Speaker 1: Common lodging houses got going in the early eighteen fifties
Speaker 1: in order to cater for very poor people who could
Speaker 1: no longer even afford a weekly rent in a room
Speaker 1: of their own that social historian Sarah Wise. Now, these
Speaker 1: common lodging houses were totally private concerns, but they had
Speaker 1: by law to be inspected by the Metropolitan Police. The
Speaker 1: stipulation was a common lodging house was somewhere in which
Speaker 1: three or more persons not of the same family may
Speaker 1: sleep within the same dormitory. So it's the idea that, yes,
Speaker 1: we're mixing loads of people together with all the potential
Speaker 1: moral dangers of that could involve. But that's okay because
Speaker 1: all the beds are separated. We've got a superintendent on site,
Speaker 1: so no hanky panky gets going, And of course the
Speaker 1: police can inspect. Common lodging houses aren't supposed to admit
Speaker 1: any one of known bad character. Drunkenness and other forms
Speaker 1: of vice like adultery aren't supposed to flourish here, but
Speaker 1: in practice many turn a blind eye. They're not too
Speaker 1: fussed about bad character, and they do admit drunks. In fact,
Speaker 1: the conditions at a lodging house are as good or
Speaker 1: as bad as the person who runs it, and this
Speaker 1: lodging house is home to an awful lot of vice.
Speaker 1: At the entrance, SIT's the deputy lodging housekeeper or manager.
Speaker 1: Before nightfall, he collects fourpence from everyone who intends to
Speaker 1: use the dormitory upstairs. That would be less than about
Speaker 1: ten dollars today. Fourpence buys a coffin bed, a person
Speaker 1: sized box, likely hopping with fleas, in which to lie down.
Speaker 1: The room is noisy, dirty and stifling, but it's better
Speaker 1: than the street. And down this passage is another room.
Speaker 1: This kitchen is thirty feet long and packed full of people.
Speaker 1: An older woman dozes to one side with a filthy
Speaker 1: child playing at her feet. One thinder dear dead days
Speaker 1: beyond recall. Smells like old grease, beer, stale tobacco smoke,
Speaker 1: and the sharp and ninny scent of sweaty, unwashed bodies.
Speaker 1: Just over there is Kate Edo's with her partner John Kelly.
Speaker 1: Kate's the one singing Sweet Kata spent much of her
Speaker 1: life doing this, though usually she's selling sheet music. When
Speaker 1: she's belting out a tune. Everyone who knows her, from
Speaker 1: her sisters to her friends at the lodging house, remark
Speaker 1: on her jolly personality. Just a song. Twilight, when the
Speaker 1: lights are low and the flickering shadows softly, Godman gone. However,
Speaker 1: drink can turn her high spiritedness into aggression. Kate fascinates me.
Speaker 1: She's a rebel, and she was born to a rebel.
Speaker 1: Her father was a Union agitator, so perhaps it was
Speaker 1: he who taught her to rail against the system. She
Speaker 1: rejected the conventional existence of her mother, grandmother and sisters
Speaker 1: life constantly giving birth, scrubbing and cooking, and instead chose
Speaker 1: the open road. She's lived for many years as a vagrant.
Speaker 1: Kate's story is about the lack of choices available to
Speaker 1: women and how class and gender kept them in poverty.
Speaker 1: Lost his shot a group of men, all of them drunk,
Speaker 1: a crowded by the range, quaffing beer. This is a
Speaker 1: common sight. Many of the people here are bereathed, lonely
Speaker 1: and homeless, and they drown their Sorrows's lost this place,
Speaker 1: you may as well. Whistles are not. Some commotion is
Speaker 1: breaking out in one corner. It's two women arguing over
Speaker 1: a bar of soap. This is a precious commodity that
Speaker 1: get off me. But there's also conviviality in this kitchen.
Speaker 1: The cooking range, the focus of the room burns all
Speaker 1: day and it bathes the space around it in warmth.
Speaker 1: This is a blessing. Even in the summer London days
Speaker 1: can be chilly. Everybody convened down in the great big
Speaker 1: common kitchen. You would buy your food out in the street,
Speaker 1: maybe from a cost amonger. Maybe you get a savolloy
Speaker 1: or some fish that, maybe some bacon or a jacket potato,
Speaker 1: and you use the range of the common stove to
Speaker 1: cook your food and you eat it in the kitchen
Speaker 1: with everyone around you. And we've got plenty of eyewitness
Speaker 1: accounts of just what kind of quite convivial places these
Speaker 1: could be card games, all sorts of board games going on,
Speaker 1: people laughing, joking, reading the newspaper in the corner, and
Speaker 1: this human warmth and human noise and company and chat.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't underestimate the value of that. In some broken lines,
Speaker 1: this lodging house is the haunt of beggars, criminals, women
Speaker 1: selling sex, chronic alcoholics, the unemployed, the sick, the old.
Speaker 1: But there are people here from other walks of life too.
Speaker 1: Some of these lodging house residents entered the world in
Speaker 1: entirely different circumstances. We do hear of members of the
Speaker 1: aristocracy who have drunk their inheritance or gambled it away.
Speaker 1: Maybe being an aristocrat wasn't what they wanted. So a
Speaker 1: much bigger mix than many people would have thought living
Speaker 1: in your common lodging house Today, the sixth August, I'm
Speaker 1: looking for a particular face in this kitchen, a local
Speaker 1: woman named Martha Tabram. Martha's around forty, and like most
Speaker 1: of the women who live here, her hard life has
Speaker 1: taken its toll. Her marriage has soured, as have other
Speaker 1: partnerships with men. In a few hours, Martha's story will
Speaker 1: end in her murder. As evening draws in, the atmosphere
Speaker 1: in the kitchen starts to change, desperation increases. The deputy
Speaker 1: lodging housekeeper has started turning out those who haven't paid
Speaker 1: for a bed that night. Outside, a police constable is
Speaker 1: on patrol. Fights often break out when lodging houses close
Speaker 1: their doors for the evening. Today is a public holiday,
Speaker 1: so some locals have indulged in more drink than usual.
Speaker 1: This officer is ready and waiting to arrest any troublemakers.
Speaker 1: The men of the local Police Force H Division will
Speaker 1: soon be pitched into a difficult and desperate hunt to
Speaker 1: find Jack. The Ripper and end the horrific killings. What
Speaker 1: they do, what they say, and what they decide to
Speaker 1: enter into the historical record will set the tone for
Speaker 1: how the murdered women are remembered well into the twenty
Speaker 1: first century. So let's learn a bit about them and
Speaker 1: follow this police constable back to headquarters. The Ripper, we're told,
Speaker 1: will be back in just a moment. Welcome to Leamon
Speaker 1: Street Police Station, home to H Division of the Metropolitan Police.
Speaker 1: H Division comprises about five hundred officers pounding their beats
Speaker 1: in a labyrinth of dark city streets. From the wharves
Speaker 1: and docks on the rivers up to the gas works
Speaker 1: and filthy canals of Haggerston. In between are some of
Speaker 1: the most deprived neighborhoods in the capital. Plenty of dark
Speaker 1: blues and blacks on Charles Booth's poverty map. Inside is
Speaker 1: the kind of commotion you might expect of a busy
Speaker 1: police station, very much shutter. We know from the records
Speaker 1: that there's a steady flow of arrests and that the
Speaker 1: holding cells are filling up. John Hawkins has been brought
Speaker 1: in for assaulting his wife and nineteen year old Joseph
Speaker 1: Gibson is under arrest, charged with indecent exposure. I'm interested
Speaker 1: in one police officer in particular, Thomas Barrett. He's about
Speaker 1: to start a night shift and he's going to play
Speaker 1: a significant role in Martha Tabram's story. We know from
Speaker 1: police records that Thomas is five foot ten. This is
Speaker 1: tall by Victorian standards. He's also just moved to London
Speaker 1: from a dyllick rural Dorset. White Chapel has surely been
Speaker 1: a shock to the system. He himself lives outside the neighborhood,
Speaker 1: for Whitechapel isn't considered a fitting address for such an
Speaker 1: upstanding young man. Thomas is getting ready to walk his
Speaker 1: regular beat. He carries an oil lantern swinging from his belt,
Speaker 1: which he'll use to peer into Whitechapel's dark corners, and
Speaker 1: there are many of those. He also has a pair
Speaker 1: of handcuffs with him and a whistle. This is a
Speaker 1: relatively new piece of technology, allowing him to cut through
Speaker 1: the din of the Whitechapel streets and someone help if
Speaker 1: he needs it. It's a useful tool as he patrols,
Speaker 1: he'll meet with all kinds of crimes and misdemeanors from
Speaker 1: alcohol fueled fights to robberies, stabbings and domestic violence. He'll
Speaker 1: also confront social care issues. When the police encounter drunkards
Speaker 1: who are so inebriated that they can no longer walk,
Speaker 1: they arrest them and bring them in glass and circumciser.
Speaker 1: Take local woman Margaret Kine. By the start of this year,
Speaker 1: she had been charged with drunken disorderliness over two hundred times.
Speaker 1: Sometimes she challenges the policeman outside the station. On other occasions,
Speaker 1: she just hands herself in. The recruitment criteria to join
Speaker 1: the force are strict. Officers must be able to read
Speaker 1: and write. They also must be over a certain height,
Speaker 1: aged between twenty one and thirty five, and come with
Speaker 1: a reference that shows their good, respectable character. But whatever
Speaker 1: you might have gathered from Sherlock Holmes stories, the detection
Speaker 1: skills of these officers are limited. They rely on eye witnesses, confessions,
Speaker 1: and catching culprits red handed. We're back out on the
Speaker 1: street and it's dark. Let's follow Constable Bearrett on his
Speaker 1: beat about the Angel and Crown for a drink. We
Speaker 1: pass off duty soldiers stationed at the nearby Tower of London.
Speaker 1: I rather fancy the King girls were turning onto Whitechapel Road,
Speaker 1: the busiest and widest thoroughfare in the area. It's lined
Speaker 1: with pubs, one seemingly every few yards. Here the hopeless
Speaker 1: drown their sorrows and rot gut gin. But they are
Speaker 1: also the closest thing many local people have to a
Speaker 1: parlor or a living room. Here people can meet, talk,
Speaker 1: play games, and sing together, all in the warm amber
Speaker 1: glow of gaslight. Some pubs are even opulent, with carved
Speaker 1: wooden paneling and decorative mirrors. Alado knows myself that's half
Speaker 1: a pint of Ale with a pennyworth of the Angel
Speaker 1: and Crown on Gholston Street is not such a place.
Speaker 1: It's one hundred and fifty years old, and it shows.
Speaker 1: This pub's interior has been worn by the years and
Speaker 1: by the rough company that congregates here. Will you take something?
Speaker 1: Miss Martha Tabram has been here this evening with a
Speaker 1: friend and two soldiers who would have been paying for
Speaker 1: their drinks. In the Victorian era, this was expected of men,
Speaker 1: no matter their social background. Martha, like so many Whitechapel inhabitants,
Speaker 1: likes a tipple. But it's possible that an edge of
Speaker 1: desperation crept in on her enjoyment as the hours wore
Speaker 1: on this evening. Martha would have woken this morning not
Speaker 1: knowing where she would be sleeping come nightfall, when the
Speaker 1: pub closes, she'll be worried about scraping together the four
Speaker 1: pence to return to her lodging house. Will she be
Speaker 1: able to afford it? Or will she have to sleep
Speaker 1: on the street, With all the dangers this brings. Constable
Speaker 1: Barrett continues his beat. Leaving the main street, we are
Speaker 1: entering darker, narrower alleys and passages. This lack of light
Speaker 1: is oppressive and menacing. We slide and skid on who
Speaker 1: knows what? A figure appears ahead of us, a man
Speaker 1: Barrett's lamp illuminates a soldier in uniform. The Constable challenges him,
Speaker 1: what is he doing loitering here at this time? Wayne
Speaker 1: for a chum who went off with a girl? Comes
Speaker 1: the reply. Not an unusual answer perhaps, And so the
Speaker 1: beat continues, hour after hour with no rest. We are
Speaker 1: passing Miller's Court. Now there in the broken window of
Speaker 1: number thirteen, a light flickers. Mary Jane Kelly, a sex worker,
Speaker 1: rents this one room abode with her partner Joseph Barnett,
Speaker 1: who has only recently lost his job at Billingsgate Fish Market.
Speaker 1: This was their only source of income, and Barnett is
Speaker 1: too proud to let his girlfriends solicit on the streets again.
Speaker 1: Their worries will grow in the coming weeks before Mary
Speaker 1: Jane becomes a victim of the Ripper. Mary Jane's life
Speaker 1: is a puzzle for anyone attempting to unraub all the
Speaker 1: stories and half truths that make up her existence. She
Speaker 1: once sold sex in the rich West End of London
Speaker 1: and moved in much higher circles, wearing nice dresses and
Speaker 1: traveling in carriages between restaurants and hotels. What on earth
Speaker 1: happened to land her here in a furnished room in
Speaker 1: a yard across from a block of stinking latrines, But
Speaker 1: that will be for later. Now, as the first glow
Speaker 1: of morning breaks the eastern sky, and as workers begin
Speaker 1: to rise from their beds, there are other matters to
Speaker 1: return to place. We are back in George Yard. A
Speaker 1: woman's body has been found. The wide pool of blood
Speaker 1: around it has already begun to thicken and dry. Her
Speaker 1: clothes are in disarray. It seems hopeless but Constable Barrett
Speaker 1: sends for medical assistance. Martha Tabram has been dead for
Speaker 1: several hours, says doctor Khaleim. He counts thirteen nine d
Speaker 1: stab wounds. When the catalog of injuries has later read
Speaker 1: out the coroner accord, he says it is the most
Speaker 1: dreadful crime anyone can imagine, and declares that the murderer
Speaker 1: must be a savage. He urges the officers of h
Speaker 1: Division to find the culprit. Constable Barrett is sent to
Speaker 1: track down the soldier he'd seen at about the time
Speaker 1: of Martha's death, but he has no luck. The other
Speaker 1: soldiers he interviews close ranks, offering up alibis for each
Speaker 1: other and frustrating Barrett's investigation. With hindsight, the viciousness of
Speaker 1: Martha's unsolved murder will cause some people to conclude that
Speaker 1: her death was the work of Jack the Ripper. Rightly
Speaker 1: or wrongly, Martha's death doesn't feature in the conventional telling
Speaker 1: of the Famous Ripper story. Her murder, along with the
Speaker 1: killings of ten other women between April eighteen eighty eight
Speaker 1: and February eighteen ninety one, are referred to collectively as
Speaker 1: the White Chapel murders. Those women were Emma Elizabeth Smith,
Speaker 1: Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Katherine Edos, Mary Jane,
Speaker 1: Kelly Rose Milott, Alice Mackenzie, Francis Coles, and the torso
Speaker 1: of an anonymous woman found under a railway arch. At
Speaker 1: the time and even today, there is debate about whether
Speaker 1: all of these women were victims of the same killer. Eventually,
Speaker 1: the consensus among the police would be that, due to
Speaker 1: the similarity of the weapon used and the nature of
Speaker 1: the injuries, only Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Katherine, and Mary Jane
Speaker 1: could be identified as Ripper victims. Martha's death, as well
Speaker 1: as the murders of those who followed, whether by the
Speaker 1: hands of Jack the Ripper or some other malefactor, only
Speaker 1: served to illustrate just how normal deadly violence against women
Speaker 1: was in nineteenth century Whitechapel, and how the killers so
Speaker 1: often escaped justice. I often get asked why I didn't
Speaker 1: include Martha Tabram among the Ripper victims, or why I
Speaker 1: didn't write a book called The Eleven. But writing a
Speaker 1: book about Jack the Ripper, obsessing over the minute shy
Speaker 1: of injuries and murder weapons was never my objective. I
Speaker 1: wanted to study life, not the agonizing, terror filled moments
Speaker 1: of death, and The Five offered me a perfect data set.
Speaker 1: The experiences of Polly Annie, Elizabeth Kate, and Mary Jane
Speaker 1: were quite simply the experiences of millions of Victorian women.
Speaker 1: They fell in love, injured, childbirth and the deaths of parents.
Speaker 1: They argued with their siblings. They wept, they dreamed, they hurt,
Speaker 1: and they enjoyed small triumphs. The courses of their lives
Speaker 1: mirrored that of so many others, and yet their lives
Speaker 1: were so singular in the ways they ended. Jack the
Speaker 1: Ripper will never be caught, but justice can be restored
Speaker 1: when we remember their names and learn their stories. They
Speaker 1: don't need to be forgotten or to remain silent any longer.
Speaker 1: So please come with me. I can't wait to introduce
Speaker 1: you to them. Bad Women The Ripper Were Told is
Speaker 1: brought to you by Pushkin Industries and me Hallie Rubbinhold,
Speaker 1: and is based on my book The Five. It was
Speaker 1: produced and co written by Ryan Dilley and Alice Fines,
Speaker 1: with help from Pete Norton. Pascal Wise Sound designed and
Speaker 1: mixed the show and composed all the original music. Also
Speaker 1: heard the voice talents of Soul Boyer, Melanie Gutridge, Gemma Saunders,
Speaker 1: and rufus Wright. The show also wouldn't have been possible
Speaker 1: without the work of mil LaBelle, Jacob Weisberg, Jen Guera,
Speaker 1: Heather Fane, Carlie Migliori, Maggie Taylor, Nicole Morano and Daniella
Speaker 1: Lacan were special thanks to my agents Sarah Ballard and
Speaker 1: Ellie Kron