Speaker 1: Welcomed, unobscured a production of iHeart Radio and aeron Mink.
Speaker 1: Mary Kelly's murder was horrifying. The brutal mutilation of her
Speaker 1: body went far beyond the viciousness of the previous Whitechapel murders.
Speaker 1: The sight of the crime scene at Miller's Court scared
Speaker 1: the veteran police officers who arrived to investigate her death.
Speaker 1: One of the surgeons at the scene said that he
Speaker 1: had never witnessed such ghastliness, and this man earned his
Speaker 1: living dissecting human bodies. Even as the doctors and police
Speaker 1: in Miller's Court grappled with their shock over the murder,
Speaker 1: there were two other men who arrived on the scene
Speaker 1: who both believed that the hunt for clues to Marry
Speaker 1: Kelly's death was theirs to supervise. But I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about the challenge of coordinating between detectives from Scotland Yard
Speaker 1: and officers of the City Police who were investigating the
Speaker 1: murder in Miter Square. No, this was a boundary dispute
Speaker 1: over another crucial part of the process. It was a
Speaker 1: wrestling match between London coroners, one of them we know well,
Speaker 1: of course. When Baxter Mary Kelly's room was in Win
Speaker 1: Baxter's White Chapel jurisdiction, so that afternoon they admitted Baxter
Speaker 1: to the crime scene, believing that he would be responsible
Speaker 1: for determining Mary Kelly's cause of death and conducting the
Speaker 1: interviews that would help the police work and feed the
Speaker 1: story to the London press. But Baxter was in for
Speaker 1: a surprise because he wasn't the only coroner on the
Speaker 1: scene that afternoon. The other man was someone he knew
Speaker 1: all too well, Roderick McDonald. He had come alongside Dr Phillips,
Speaker 1: and he put his own claim on conducting the inquest.
Speaker 1: If there was incentive for departments like the Metropolitan Police
Speaker 1: and the City Police to resolve disputes and share information,
Speaker 1: the same certainly can't be said for the coroners of
Speaker 1: East London. Because they were paid by the corpse. In
Speaker 1: a place where living was as hard as the East End,
Speaker 1: the position of coroner came with the promise of a
Speaker 1: steady income. That's what made when Baxter and Roderick McDonald
Speaker 1: put themselves up for the position two years earlier in
Speaker 1: eight six, and because coroners were elected, that meant that
Speaker 1: Baxter and McDonald were political opponents to choose their corner.
Speaker 1: The people of the district met at a church hall
Speaker 1: in bethnal Green. Names were called out and hands were
Speaker 1: raised to show approval. The thing was though, when Baxter
Speaker 1: had brought a group of friends to that election, large loud,
Speaker 1: burly friends, friends with anger problems and a habit of
Speaker 1: following Baxter around. It made one candidate give them the
Speaker 1: sarcastic nickname Baxter's Lambs. The Times, though, didn't play coy.
Speaker 1: They called Baxter's supporters a mob of roughs, and they
Speaker 1: were rough. Indeed, his men beat, choked and fought the
Speaker 1: supporters of other candidates. In fact, they caused so much
Speaker 1: trouble in the church hall that election night that the
Speaker 1: whole thing was called off. No one could be sure
Speaker 1: of the number of votes for each candidate when raised,
Speaker 1: hands were lost between flying fists, so a poll of
Speaker 1: the district was scheduled for three days later. The London
Speaker 1: Standard reported that all day long, carts and cabs hired
Speaker 1: by the candidates rolled to the church filled with voters.
Speaker 1: When it was over, though, Baxter's Lambs proved to be
Speaker 1: the convincing shepherds. When Baxter tallied the most votes, with
Speaker 1: McDonald hot on his heels in second place and the
Speaker 1: other candidates were left in the dust. Baxter had his
Speaker 1: corner seat. It was the night that made sure that
Speaker 1: he would be in office when the murders started in Whitechapel.
Speaker 1: Two years later, though, the district was split and a
Speaker 1: position was created for a new corner Roderick McDonald. Both
Speaker 1: men started collecting fees for the White Chapel dead. So
Speaker 1: on a November day in eighteen eighty eight, Rodrick McDonald
Speaker 1: and Win Baxter were in a contest for who would
Speaker 1: turn Mary Kelly's death into their next paycheck. The victim's
Speaker 1: room was in Win Baxter's jurisdiction, but somehow Roderick McDonald
Speaker 1: went out by having Mary Kelly's body transported over the
Speaker 1: border into Shortage. In fact, it was a reversal of
Speaker 1: Annie Chapman's case. Her murder on Hanbury Street had been
Speaker 1: in McDonald's jurisdiction, but she had been carried by police
Speaker 1: into Baxter's Amaine. Once Mary Kelly's body was on McDonald's turf,
Speaker 1: he was responsible for her inquest. Win Baxter was left
Speaker 1: out in the cold. Now Baxter's inquests of murder victims
Speaker 1: had inflamed public fears. The long weeks of witness interrogations
Speaker 1: the doctors brought back over and over to recite the
Speaker 1: horrible litany of wounds, cuts and mutilations, the police constables
Speaker 1: giving the press their firsthand accounts, complete with bodies emerging
Speaker 1: in dramatic lamp lights. But with McDonald at the helm,
Speaker 1: Mary Kelly's inquest took a different approach cooperating with the police.
Speaker 1: He kept it to a single day. It was quick
Speaker 1: and to the point. In a clear criticism of his opponent,
Speaker 1: Win Baxter, McDonald announced that to go through the same
Speaker 1: evidence time after time only causes expense and trouble. He
Speaker 1: reminded his jury as well as the listening press, that
Speaker 1: inquests had but one goal to determine the cause of death,
Speaker 1: and his jury had o trouble doing their job. They
Speaker 1: quickly delivered their verdict on Mary Kelly's death willful murder
Speaker 1: by some person unknown. This is unobscured. I'm Aaron Mankey.
Speaker 1: The Home Secretary was under fire. Aberleine Swanson and the
Speaker 1: other officers at Scotland Yard were hoping that by opening
Speaker 1: and closing the inquest quickly, panic over the most gruesome
Speaker 1: and horrifying murders so far would not burst out across Whitechapel.
Speaker 1: To some extent, it worked. There were a few stories
Speaker 1: for the Star to chase, there were fewer monster visions
Speaker 1: for London readers to fear. But if journalists found less
Speaker 1: to rile up the public in the halls of Government,
Speaker 1: the ferocious debate only continued to rage, and the target
Speaker 1: of most attacks was the Home Secretary. Now, it was
Speaker 1: true he had done enough to rid himself of Charles Warren,
Speaker 1: he had accepted the Police Commissioner's resignation and was just
Speaker 1: waiting for the man to see himself out so that
Speaker 1: James Monroe could take his place. But whether that was
Speaker 1: enough to play Kate the Queen and the public was
Speaker 1: another question altogether. And there was another place where the
Speaker 1: Home Secretary, Matthews was scrutinized and scathingly dressed down on
Speaker 1: almost a daily basis, the halls of Parliament. In the
Speaker 1: weeks after Mary Kelly's murder, The Times of London offered
Speaker 1: an inside look at the kinds of fury that regularly
Speaker 1: was unleashed in the chambers of Government. On November twelve,
Speaker 1: the day that Mary Kelly's inquest was both opened and
Speaker 1: closed by Roderick McDonald. The pointed questions for the Home
Speaker 1: Secretary came in a flurry, and they all had to
Speaker 1: do with the central issue who was running the show
Speaker 1: over at Scotland Yard. If Charles Warren's resignation was a
Speaker 1: relief to Matthews, this was the other side of that coin.
Speaker 1: The men confronting him in the House of Commons seemed
Speaker 1: to know that something strange had happened behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: with one man in particular, the spy and Detective James Monroe.
Speaker 1: Matthews found himself running from a difficult question. Why was
Speaker 1: the Home Secretary still working with Monroe? If the Scotsman
Speaker 1: had stopped working with the police, it would have passed
Speaker 1: no one's notice that a spymaster from the Special Branch
Speaker 1: had come to serve on the staff of the Home Secretary.
Speaker 1: And that didn't leave any members of Parliament feeling particularly comfortable,
Speaker 1: let alone members like Edward Pickersgill, the representative of Bethnal
Speaker 1: Green in the East End. He had been campaigning against
Speaker 1: police abuses since his election in eight five, and he
Speaker 1: would be remembered in later years for calling secret policing
Speaker 1: dirty work. In the House of Commons, shouting and cheering
Speaker 1: followed the demands that Matthews make it clear what Monroe
Speaker 1: was doing on his stay off, and of course the
Speaker 1: issue of who would replace Charles Warren was on everyone's mind.
Speaker 1: Over the next couple of days, the House of Commons
Speaker 1: rang with arguments about the role of police in London,
Speaker 1: who they should be, how they should be funded, and
Speaker 1: who should lead them. Edward Pickersgill wasted no time reminding
Speaker 1: his fellow members that London was now under the thumb
Speaker 1: of soldiers who had been hardened in India. The time
Speaker 1: has come, he said, for a change in this regime
Speaker 1: under which the mounted men of the police, with an
Speaker 1: ex lancer at their head, rode people down in the
Speaker 1: streets and the infantry, instructed by an ex officer of
Speaker 1: the Guards, batond them. What Pickersgill wanted was a force
Speaker 1: to effectively detect crimes. So for members of Parliament like him,
Speaker 1: it was good riddance to Charles Warren, but that hardly
Speaker 1: sewed up the issues in the East End. Pickersgill continued
Speaker 1: to Pepper, the Home Secretary, with questions throughout November trying
Speaker 1: to peel back the layers of secrecy around the communications
Speaker 1: between the Home Office and the police. He was worried
Speaker 1: about the killer roaming White chap yes, but he was
Speaker 1: even more worried about the rots in the government of
Speaker 1: the city that allowed it to happen. Every choice that
Speaker 1: the Home Secretary had made was picked over and pounded flat.
Speaker 1: Demands that he changed course and offer a reward for
Speaker 1: the killer. Demands that he offer a pardon for accomplices
Speaker 1: to entice them out from the shadows. It seems that
Speaker 1: many members of Parliament believe that somewhere along the secret
Speaker 1: government correspondence were the answers they were looking for. Answers
Speaker 1: about what the police knew and when, Answers about why
Speaker 1: the investigations had failed. Answers about whether the government had
Speaker 1: really done everything it could to bring the killer to justice.
Speaker 1: The arguments swirled back and forth through the causes and
Speaker 1: consequences of the murders. What could the Home Office do
Speaker 1: about the East Ends lodging houses, with their cramped conditions
Speaker 1: housing crowds of unknown persons. What could the Home Office
Speaker 1: do to stop the police from publishing the names of
Speaker 1: suspects who turned out to have no connection to the murders.
Speaker 1: But we're staying with a connection to Jack the Ripper.
Speaker 1: When all the questions were asked, though Parliament would be
Speaker 1: left unsatisfied. They could demand the capture of the killer. Sure,
Speaker 1: they could demand a change. But even after Charles Warren
Speaker 1: stepped away from his post and James Monroe stepped out
Speaker 1: from his shadowy corner of the Home Office to take command,
Speaker 1: Home Secretary Matthews had nothing more to give them. Like
Speaker 1: the police of the world's largest city, the government of
Speaker 1: the world's most commanding empire was at a loss because
Speaker 1: the answers to their questions just weren't there. The whole
Speaker 1: city was on tenter hooks. Now, that's not tender hooks, no.
Speaker 1: The phrase comes from the clothmaking trade, when new made
Speaker 1: sheets of wool were hung like tents on hooked wooden
Speaker 1: frames to keep the cloth from shrinking while it dried.
Speaker 1: The process gave its name to East End landmarks like
Speaker 1: the Tenter Streets and Tenter passage in Spittle Fields, Wherefore,
Speaker 1: a very long time the English wall trade had a home.
Speaker 1: At the end of November of eight though, crime after
Speaker 1: unsolved crime had everyone in this city feeling like something
Speaker 1: was about to snap. And the truth is that what
Speaker 1: we call the Jack the Ripper murders were not the
Speaker 1: only heinous killings in London. Of eight they were clearly
Speaker 1: the most discussed, the most publicized, and the most significant
Speaker 1: in the eyes of history. But other than the brutal
Speaker 1: mutilation of Mary Kelly, they were not even the most
Speaker 1: heinous or most gruesome. Here's Dr Drew Gray to say
Speaker 1: more about that. There were other murders, and not not
Speaker 1: least the Thames torso mystery, which which could possibly be
Speaker 1: linked to the rip of Killings um so. In that case,
Speaker 1: there was the discovery of a female torso in the
Speaker 1: Thames at Raynham in May seven, with more body parts
Speaker 1: surfacing that same year, and then in September, right while
Speaker 1: the White couple cases is kind of reaching its end,
Speaker 1: another torso was being found amongst the building work for
Speaker 1: police head quarters at White Hall, and in June third
Speaker 1: dismembered female body was tracked from the Thames at Horsby
Speaker 1: Down before in September of that year the police discovered
Speaker 1: a rotting torso underneath arches in Pension Street, which isn't
Speaker 1: far from where there's strive to be murdered just a
Speaker 1: year earlier. The details of these crimes are truly stomach turning.
Speaker 1: Take for instance, the case that opened in the midst
Speaker 1: of Scotland Yard itself in October, which came to be
Speaker 1: called the Whitehall mystery. That's when a carpenter who was
Speaker 1: working on the construction of the new police headquarters spotted
Speaker 1: a wrapped package tucked away at the building site near
Speaker 1: the spot where he left his tools. When he first
Speaker 1: saw the bundle, he left it alone. It was unusual,
Speaker 1: but he hardly was the only one working on the
Speaker 1: construction site. After the second day seeing it lie undisturbed, though,
Speaker 1: the builder pointed it out to a supervisor and the
Speaker 1: two men opened it together. What they found in I'd
Speaker 1: shocked them both. It was the mutilated torso of a woman.
Speaker 1: This sent everyone on the site into a flurry of investigation.
Speaker 1: Who could have dropped it there? And when all the
Speaker 1: workers on the site were questioned and speculations flew wildly,
Speaker 1: the examination of the body was undertaken by Dr Thomas
Speaker 1: Bond himself. He had examined a severed arm that had
Speaker 1: been found a few weeks earlier along the Thames at Pimlico,
Speaker 1: and he immediately made the connection. The body was too
Speaker 1: decomposed to tell the doctors much, though the pall Mall
Speaker 1: Gazette reported that the deceased was a very fine woman
Speaker 1: and the body was exceedingly well nourished. They guess the
Speaker 1: woman had been dead for about six weeks, but the
Speaker 1: rudimentary forensic science available to Dr Bond and his assistant
Speaker 1: meant that by the time the body was found, the
Speaker 1: trail was already cold. Things got worse for the police though,
Speaker 1: when a journalist with a terrier did with the Metropolitan
Speaker 1: Forces never could. He used his dog to scare up
Speaker 1: evidence in a search at the building site. The terrier
Speaker 1: covered another arm and leg near the place where the
Speaker 1: carpenter found the rap torso it was a huge embarrassment
Speaker 1: for Scotland Yard and for a little while the Star
Speaker 1: drove that point home. But the mystery was quickly overshadowed
Speaker 1: by the double event murders of Liz Stride and Katherine ETOs.
Speaker 1: The police and Dr Bond didn't think it was likely
Speaker 1: that the two cases were connected, and the case was
Speaker 1: already cold by the time the body was found. There
Speaker 1: were a few stories that discussed the horrible find and
Speaker 1: even drew connections to the Whitechapel murders, but with so
Speaker 1: much less pressed, the horrible dismemberment failed to make the
Speaker 1: same kind of impression on the city of London. Here's
Speaker 1: more from historian Paul Beg. They were overshadowed by the
Speaker 1: Whitechapel murders and therefore they just didn't get the publicity
Speaker 1: that they One imagine is that they might have done
Speaker 1: had the Whitechappel murders not being committed at the same time. Equally,
Speaker 1: of course, it depends on what really grabs the attention
Speaker 1: of the press, and these were body parts, in effect,
Speaker 1: that were being found at different times in fairly separated places,
Speaker 1: and unlike the Ripper killings, which were suggested one person
Speaker 1: operating in a very small area. It may well be
Speaker 1: that that also killings just didn't grab public attention. And
Speaker 1: we have known about these murders for quite a long time.
Speaker 1: It's only in the last few years that people have
Speaker 1: been writing books about them and really bringing them into
Speaker 1: the sphere of of anybody interested in the Ripper murders
Speaker 1: as well, because they show what was going on at
Speaker 1: the time in the same way that the press could
Speaker 1: turn the Whiteappel murders into an international panic while dismissing
Speaker 1: what came to be known as the Torso murders, the
Speaker 1: name Jack the Ripper could receive the same treatment. It
Speaker 1: drives home a simple but profound point that should be
Speaker 1: all but obvious by now. It was the storytelling about
Speaker 1: the murders and the invention of the name Jack the
Speaker 1: Ripper that pushed the Whitechapel killings into the public eye,
Speaker 1: and along the way invented one of the most enduring
Speaker 1: stories in the history of modern crime. In fact, when
Speaker 1: Mary Kelly's inquest was quickly closed in November, the reporters
Speaker 1: of The Star, The Times and the Paul Malgazette were
Speaker 1: hard pressed to keep the fear alive. As the growing
Speaker 1: chill of December descended over London. There were other stories
Speaker 1: to tell that absorbed attention, and until there were new
Speaker 1: victims to sketch out and new inquests to publicize, there
Speaker 1: just wasn't anything new to say. The tension of the
Speaker 1: murders went slack as the weeks marched by the strengthened
Speaker 1: police numbers in the East End. Carried on for as
Speaker 1: long as the new Commissioner James Monroe could justify the
Speaker 1: budget to the Home Secretary, but government budgets rarely make
Speaker 1: press sensations, even when they reached the headlines. Soon enough,
Speaker 1: the name invented by the Central Press Agency had gone
Speaker 1: the way of every figure from popular fiction. He had
Speaker 1: his day in the sun and faded with the ink
Speaker 1: he was printed on. The papers closed their chapter on
Speaker 1: Jack the Ripper. They moved on, but the case, well,
Speaker 1: that was still open, because the thing that gave energy
Speaker 1: to those early press reports was still true. The killer
Speaker 1: had not been caught, but the police didn't move on
Speaker 1: as easily as the press. The flow of sensationalist stories
Speaker 1: may have stopped, but the search was ongoing. The questions
Speaker 1: that needed to be answered still hung in the air,
Speaker 1: and the veriest senior policeman in the Metropolitan Office all
Speaker 1: had their sense of who the killer might be. The
Speaker 1: problem was, though they all disagreed. In the final months
Speaker 1: of eight eight, immediately following Mary Kelly's death, a number
Speaker 1: of suspects were arrested. One detective sergeants who had been
Speaker 1: involved in patrolling Whitechapel brought a man into police court
Speaker 1: on the day that Mary Kelly was buried. He was
Speaker 1: the time, said, a man of decidedly foreign appearance, and
Speaker 1: his mustache was no doubt the thing that put him
Speaker 1: front and center in the suspicions of the police. The
Speaker 1: sergeant presented the magistrate with his deep suspicions he had
Speaker 1: arrested this man before and held him under lock and
Speaker 1: key in connection with the murder of Liz Stride. It
Speaker 1: was only after he was released that Mary Kelly was
Speaker 1: found dead. To the sergeant's mind, this could be the
Speaker 1: murderer that they had all been searching so hard for.
Speaker 1: A Swede named nicanner Ben alias. This time he had
Speaker 1: been arrested for a terrifying home invasion. A woman had
Speaker 1: been at home alone and had left open the street
Speaker 1: facing door. When she was sitting in her parlor, the
Speaker 1: man suddenly burst in. Terrified, she gasped out, what do
Speaker 1: you want? In reply, he only grinned. She jumped out
Speaker 1: of her chair and ran to the window, but when
Speaker 1: she turned back to the room he had disappeared. It
Speaker 1: was enough to get him arrested by a constable in
Speaker 1: the street, but the evidence against him thinned out to
Speaker 1: the parallel between his break in and Mary Kelly's murder
Speaker 1: in her room. The police he held him for a
Speaker 1: few days and peppered him with questions, but all they
Speaker 1: learned was that his landlord sometimes found him preaching in
Speaker 1: the streets, and he was twenty five shillings behind on
Speaker 1: his rent. He had been under watch from the Birmingham
Speaker 1: police and they had sent word to London to do
Speaker 1: the same, but rather than keep an eye on him
Speaker 1: from a distance, the London authorities had immediately colored him
Speaker 1: for questioning. The Birmingham police had speculated that this man
Speaker 1: was the true Whitechapel killer, escaping London after each murderer
Speaker 1: by taking the early train out of the city. After
Speaker 1: questioning him, though he was released and soon vanished from
Speaker 1: the pages of history, he wasn't the only doctor to
Speaker 1: come under scrutiny and then make a quick escape. In fact,
Speaker 1: there was an Irish American doctor in London, a man
Speaker 1: named humble t. He was frequently watched by Scotland Yard
Speaker 1: and at least one Chief inspector and the man in
Speaker 1: charge of the Special Branch in eight firmly believed Dr
Speaker 1: Tumblety was the murderer. He was so certain, actually, that
Speaker 1: he had him arrested, and there's no surprise that he
Speaker 1: would be watched by the Special Branch. He was justin
Speaker 1: Irish American doctor, but one with Finney and sympathies, and
Speaker 1: the bombs of the Finneyan campaign still resounded throughout Scotland yard.
Speaker 1: And as they watched him, their suspicions grew. After all,
Speaker 1: he was bitter in the extreme, they said, toward women.
Speaker 1: If either of the charges were true and tumble Ty
Speaker 1: was connected to either the bombings or the brutal murders,
Speaker 1: Special Branch must have been incendiary with rage. Because the
Speaker 1: American doctor was allowed to post bail. Two men came forward,
Speaker 1: paid the enormous fee and then disappeared, and Tumblety went
Speaker 1: out with the tide. He hopped from London to France
Speaker 1: and then back to the United States. In fact, the
Speaker 1: Special Branch went so far as to send an officer
Speaker 1: over the Atlantic to hunt him down. When word got
Speaker 1: out that an American doctor had been arrested on suspicion
Speaker 1: of the murders, that the world was reading about with horror,
Speaker 1: the American press had a field day. In New York,
Speaker 1: they published sightings of tumble Ty. When his ship arrived
Speaker 1: and they also published accounts of the English detective attempting
Speaker 1: to catch him. Taken together, those stories allowed the man
Speaker 1: to vanish without a trace as far west to San Francisco.
Speaker 1: The chronicle profiled the doctors passed in the city with
Speaker 1: commentary from the local chief of police. In fact, some
Speaker 1: of Tumblet's money was still held in a San Francisco bank,
Speaker 1: but the man never appeared to claim it, and East
Speaker 1: End murders didn't end with the man's departure from London.
Speaker 1: The year ended with a terrifying event just before Christmas,
Speaker 1: a killing that left many people wondering whether the same
Speaker 1: murderer was still at large and still praying on vulnerable
Speaker 1: women in the East End because it was in the
Speaker 1: early morning hours of December that Rose Milette's body was
Speaker 1: found by two police officers who were patrolling the street
Speaker 1: where she was killed the shadow darkness of Clark's Yard.
Speaker 1: There were no cuts on her body and her money
Speaker 1: was still in her pockets. After he had fetched a
Speaker 1: surgeon to examine the body, the police sergeant searched the
Speaker 1: yard and found no signs of a struggle. The surgeon,
Speaker 1: who arrived on the scene declared her dead, though the
Speaker 1: body was still warm when she was delivered to the mortuary.
Speaker 1: The police believed that she had died of natural causes.
Speaker 1: When when Baxter marched into the inquest the next day,
Speaker 1: a different conclusion was about to hit the papers and
Speaker 1: to shock Scotland Yard, who thought their work on the
Speaker 1: murder was done because during the post mortem examination, two
Speaker 1: other doctors found that there was a wound on the
Speaker 1: woman's neck. It was a deep mark that ran from
Speaker 1: the right side of the spine around the front of
Speaker 1: her throat, ending beneath her left ear. The woman, it seems,
Speaker 1: had been strangled. It was a shock to the police department.
Speaker 1: With no signs of struggle and no witnesses around the
Speaker 1: yard reporting any unusual noise, a dread came over the police.
Speaker 1: The press reported that the stealth and efficiency of the
Speaker 1: killing must be the work of a skillful hand, and
Speaker 1: everyone knew exactly who that meant. It was all too
Speaker 1: obvious to the Times, who conjured up the specter of
Speaker 1: in their words, the recent crimes as the only possible
Speaker 1: precedent for murder. After all, the killer had vanished without
Speaker 1: a trace. James Monroe sent for a medical examination from
Speaker 1: a trusted adviser, Dr Thomas Bond, and he immediately dispatched
Speaker 1: a capable officer to devote his energy to the case,
Speaker 1: Chief Inspector Donald Swanson. But Swanson wasn't the only one
Speaker 1: investigating the murder, with Win Baxter helming the inquest. The
Speaker 1: Star soon followed after, and as always, they had a
Speaker 1: story in mind to fit the case. Their lead sentence
Speaker 1: proclaimed that a police surgeon had determined that the woman's
Speaker 1: murder was the work of the White Chapel fiend, and
Speaker 1: they came to that conclusion by hunting down Dr Phillips,
Speaker 1: the man whose theory that the White Chapel killer was
Speaker 1: a surgeon made so many East End doctors the target
Speaker 1: of deep suspicion. The Star reporter claimed that Dr Phillips,
Speaker 1: who had examined the body of Annie Chapman at Hanbury Street,
Speaker 1: believed that she had been strangled before her throat was cut.
Speaker 1: This had strengthened his belief that the killer was an anatomist,
Speaker 1: because he believed that the murderer knew just where to
Speaker 1: wrap a wire around a victim's neck to choke off
Speaker 1: any screams. And so The Star reported Dr Phillips believed
Speaker 1: that this new victim, Rose Myolette, had been killed by
Speaker 1: the same man. But once again Dr Phillips profile of
Speaker 1: the killer was about to crash against the opinion of
Speaker 1: Dr Thomas Bond when he swept into examine Rose's body
Speaker 1: on Christmas Eve. Doctor Bond said that there was no
Speaker 1: mark on her neck from accord, and certainly not the
Speaker 1: kind of thing you would expect if she had been
Speaker 1: strangled violently. If anything, he reported, she had been a
Speaker 1: drunk and when she fell to the ground, the neck
Speaker 1: of her jacket had pressed against her throats and killed her.
Speaker 1: A terrible accident, he said, but nothing more. When Baxter
Speaker 1: was furious when he reopened the inquest, he ripped into
Speaker 1: the betrayal doctor. After doctor had seen the body, he said,
Speaker 1: at the urging of the detectives, but without his knowledge
Speaker 1: or permission, medical opinions were flying thick and fast, But
Speaker 1: only Doctor Bond had thrown his expertise against the idea
Speaker 1: that Rose Miolette had been murdered. It was police against
Speaker 1: corner surge at each other's throats, and the star flogging
Speaker 1: on the idea that the ripper was still hunting in
Speaker 1: the East End. The jury at the inquest came back
Speaker 1: with a verdict that Win Baxter expected Rose Milette had
Speaker 1: been murdered by some person or persons unknown, and like
Speaker 1: the murder of the other women in Whitechapel, the killer
Speaker 1: would never be caught. But despite the Star's best efforts,
Speaker 1: other papers let the story lie Rosa's death was a
Speaker 1: tragedy in its own right. In fact, other women would
Speaker 1: continue to die under deeply suspicious circumstances in the East End,
Speaker 1: but the writers who could weave the threads together into
Speaker 1: a terrifying image had laid down their chaotic looms. The
Speaker 1: Ripper scare was over. Mary Kelly's eyes were still open.
Speaker 1: You remember the way that they imprinted on the inspector
Speaker 1: who first pushed back the dirty coat to behold the
Speaker 1: room for him. They screamed of the police failure to
Speaker 1: catch the killer before he had reached her. For others, though,
Speaker 1: the eyes of Mary Kelly were the last desperate avenue
Speaker 1: of investigation. Remember that suggestion in the papers after Annie
Speaker 1: Chapman had died that police should take photographs of the
Speaker 1: victim's eyes to see if they would reveal the imprinted
Speaker 1: image of the killer. According to one memoir published years
Speaker 1: later by one of the inspectors after Mary Kelly's death.
Speaker 1: The police actually tried it, he says. They didn't expect
Speaker 1: it to work necessarily. They did it as an experiment,
Speaker 1: but they did it all the same, and they didn't
Speaker 1: take half measures. They called in expert photographers and used
Speaker 1: the latest type of cameras. They snapped away at Mary
Speaker 1: Kelly's Retina's, hoping that her trauma had imprinted itself there.
Speaker 1: Of course, all the effort was useless and it should
Speaker 1: be no surprise that it didn't work. The result, he wrote,
Speaker 1: was negative. Along with the idea of using bloodhounds to
Speaker 1: hunt the killer through Whitechapel's busy streets. It was another
Speaker 1: attempt at cutting edge technique that proved to be used
Speaker 1: us in the heart of the city. There was another
Speaker 1: set of eyes brought to the case, though, Melville McNaughton.
Speaker 1: He was the man who had been refused police service
Speaker 1: by Charles Warren at the beginning of eighteen eighty eight
Speaker 1: when James Monroe to control of the Metropolitan Police. Though
Speaker 1: McNaughton finally got his chance, here's Adam Wood to say more.
Speaker 1: Things changed, of course, when Warren resigned at the end
Speaker 1: of Monroe became commissioner. Mcnorton was appointed Assistant Chief Constable
Speaker 1: support in Williamson in June and replaced him in December
Speaker 1: nine when Williamson died. So they had the three friends
Speaker 1: together there, Anderson, Monroe and mc norton. But although he
Speaker 1: wasn't around at the time of the reper investigation of
Speaker 1: McNaughton was quite actively involved in inquiries into subsequent murders
Speaker 1: in White Chapel, such as Alis McKenzie and Francis Coles.
Speaker 1: And in his autobiography, which is completely exaggerated, he's rolling
Speaker 1: everything to be honest, but he puts himself in the
Speaker 1: center of things quite heavily there. I think it seems
Speaker 1: to be that he was frustrated it on the outside,
Speaker 1: wanting to be part of investigation, but certainly took any
Speaker 1: big invol Whitney things alter his appointment. But if McNaughton
Speaker 1: resented the fact that he wasn't on the case during
Speaker 1: the Whitechapel murders, he didn't let his new opportunity go
Speaker 1: to waste, because, as you may have guessed, Mary Kelly
Speaker 1: wasn't the last woman to be killed in Whitechapel, which
Speaker 1: brings us to July of eight eighty nine, when an
Speaker 1: East End lodger named John woke up to find that
Speaker 1: his bed was empty and cold. His partner, Alice, hadn't
Speaker 1: come to the lodging house the night before. He stumbled
Speaker 1: blearily down the stairs to talk with the lodging housekeeper,
Speaker 1: who told him that he hadn't seen Alice, nor had
Speaker 1: she paid the fee for their bed. She was found
Speaker 1: almost two hours later by a constable walking his beats
Speaker 1: in Whitechapel. As he proceeded Downcastle Alley. Alice's body was
Speaker 1: lying on the footpath between two vendor's carts, faintly lit
Speaker 1: by a nearby street light. The constable saw that she
Speaker 1: was slumped to her side and that her clothes were
Speaker 1: stup over her body, where it lay in a pool
Speaker 1: of blood. Dr Phillips was summoned for the medical examination,
Speaker 1: and the Whitechappel detectives who made it to the scene
Speaker 1: just after one o'clock were no strangers decides like this.
Speaker 1: Less than a year had passed since Mary Kelly's death.
Speaker 1: Most of the same men were still on the job,
Speaker 1: and the wounds they saw on Alice's body chilled them.
Speaker 1: Two cuts acrossed her neck and long, jagged slices went
Speaker 1: deep into her abdomen. Crowds packed in around Castle Alley,
Speaker 1: crowds packed in around the mortuary, and Melville McNaughton must
Speaker 1: have felt a thrill because the truth was as plain
Speaker 1: as day. Jack the Ripper had killed again. That's it
Speaker 1: for this week's episode of Unobscured. Stick around after this
Speaker 1: short sponsor break for a preview of what's in store
Speaker 1: for next week. When ever, a new body turned up,
Speaker 1: the question had to be asked, was this the work
Speaker 1: of Jack the Ripper. In a year that followed Autumn
Speaker 1: of Terror, everyone responsible for governing life and death in
Speaker 1: Whitechapel was caught in a fog of uncertainty. At Alice
Speaker 1: Mackenzie's inquest, Win Baxter intoned for The Times of London
Speaker 1: that there is great similarity between this and the other
Speaker 1: class of cases which have happened in this neighborhood, and
Speaker 1: if this crime has not been committed by the same person,
Speaker 1: it is clearly an imitation of the other cases. There
Speaker 1: is nothing to show why, he said, the woman is
Speaker 1: murdered or by whom lon Obscured was created by me,
Speaker 1: Aaron Manky and produced by Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and
Speaker 1: Thane in partnership with I Heart Radio. Research and writing
Speaker 1: for this season is all the work of my right
Speaker 1: hand man Carl Nellis and the brilliant Chad Lawson composed
Speaker 1: the brand new soundtrack. Learn more about our contributing historians,
Speaker 1: source material and links to our other shows over at
Speaker 1: history unobscured dot com, and until next time, thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Unobscured is a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minkey.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit i heeart Radio, app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.