Speaker 1: You're listening to the second and final part of Unexplained,
Speaker 1: Season seven, episode five. Jumping Jack's Thomas Martin didn't want
Speaker 1: to believe it and begged his wife Anne to stop
Speaker 1: saying it. About ten months before, in May eighteen twenty seven,
Speaker 1: Thomas's twenty six year old daughter Maria left their modest
Speaker 1: home in Polstead, a small village in southeast England, with
Speaker 1: her boyfriend William Carder, a local farmer, but Thomas had
Speaker 1: not heard from her since. There'd been letters from the
Speaker 1: twenty four year old William insisting that all was well.
Speaker 1: He'd even visited them occasionally to pass on Maria's best wishes,
Speaker 1: but something was off. The union had been shaky from
Speaker 1: the start, but Maria seemed smitten. William had a history
Speaker 1: of dodgy dealings and was non committal at best until
Speaker 1: Maria fell pregnant. When the baby tragically died soon after,
Speaker 1: Thomas assumed the feckless William would soon disappear. To his surprise, however,
Speaker 1: William instead announced his intentions to marry Maria. Then one
Speaker 1: morning he arrived at the Martin's home in a flurry,
Speaker 1: bearing the troubling news that a local police officer had
Speaker 1: ordered a warrant to arrest Maria for having children out
Speaker 1: of wedlock. William had come to urge her to run
Speaker 1: away with him to nearby Ipswich so they could be
Speaker 1: married and live the rest of their lives in peace together.
Speaker 1: He told her to meet him at the Red Barn,
Speaker 1: a farm building that his family rented in the fields
Speaker 1: about half a mile east of Maria's home. With seemingly
Speaker 1: no other choice but to go along with it, Maria
Speaker 1: left the house later that day, dressed in men's clothing
Speaker 1: as a disguise in an effort to evade capture, and
Speaker 1: cautiously made her way to the barn. As William explained
Speaker 1: it later, he said she waited there for him until nightfall,
Speaker 1: until he was able to come and pick her up.
Speaker 1: After Maria then changed into her normal clothes, the pair
Speaker 1: eloped into the night. A week later, William Carder returned
Speaker 1: alone to the Merton's home. He explained to Maria's father, Thomas,
Speaker 1: that there'd been some complications with the marriage license and
Speaker 1: it would take a few weeks to rectify. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: Maria was being looked after some one hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: miles away in Yarmouth, on the south coast of England,
Speaker 1: by the sister of a friend of his called Miss Rowland.
Speaker 1: Once the issue was resolved, he insisted he and Maria
Speaker 1: would be married as planned. In the months that followed,
Speaker 1: with the pair presumably then married. Although William continued to
Speaker 1: update Thomas on his daughter's whereabouts, Maria herself had not
Speaker 1: been heard from. Ten months later, Thomas's wife, Anne, Maria's stepmother,
Speaker 1: was insisting that she let him tell her just one
Speaker 1: more time about the disturbing dreams she'd been having. They'd
Speaker 1: started some time before Christmas. Each time it had been
Speaker 1: the same. Anne would find herself in the middle of
Speaker 1: a field under a starless sky, staring up at the
Speaker 1: large double doors of the red barn. The next thing
Speaker 1: she knew, she was opening them up and entering the building. Inside,
Speaker 1: the barn was empty save for a light carpeting of
Speaker 1: straw strewn across the dirt floor. Then she would see it,
Speaker 1: the small mount of dirt that seemed glaringly out of place,
Speaker 1: and buried underneath it was Maria's body. For months, Thomas
Speaker 1: tried to ignore it, telling his wife to keep the
Speaker 1: dreams to herself. It was nothing but superstitious nonsense, he said,
Speaker 1: until finally, having heard nothing from his daughter for the
Speaker 1: best part of a year, he agreed to take a
Speaker 1: look for himself. It was a balmy spring morning when
Speaker 1: Thomas set out, arriving after a short walk to find
Speaker 1: the place deserted. He stared up at the large double doors,
Speaker 1: then took off his hat and wiped the sweat from
Speaker 1: his brow. Barowed its name to the small red tiled
Speaker 1: roof that lay over the front left section of it.
Speaker 1: There were a few other sheds dotted about, and a
Speaker 1: yard out the front. A soft breeze blew through the
Speaker 1: surrounding fields of wheat, while swallows whipped about in the
Speaker 1: sky above, gorging on flies. Thomas looked back toward his
Speaker 1: home and imagined the walk his daughter had taken there
Speaker 1: all those months ago before running off with William. Then
Speaker 1: he looked back to the barn. Though he hadn't believed
Speaker 1: a word of his wife's supposed visions, it was impossible
Speaker 1: to escape the creeping sense of dread as he unlatched
Speaker 1: the doors and pushed inside. The ground was covered with straw,
Speaker 1: but there was nothing else of note. Thomas grabbed a
Speaker 1: rake and began to steadily turn the straw over when
Speaker 1: he uncovered a mound of lea stirred that looked oddly
Speaker 1: out of place. Prodding at it with the handle of
Speaker 1: the upturned rake, he found there was something solid underneath it.
Speaker 1: Thomas got down on his knees and scraped away the
Speaker 1: earth to reveal a black sackcloth, and inside that he
Speaker 1: found the decaying remains of a body. Wound tightly around
Speaker 1: its neck was a green striped handkerchief, which Thomas recognized
Speaker 1: instantly was his daughter, Marias Maria Martin was shot, stabbed,
Speaker 1: and strangled to death by William Cordo. Her senseless killing,
Speaker 1: known today as the Red Barn murder, is one of
Speaker 1: the most infamous in recent British history, owing to its
Speaker 1: striking title as much as anything else. It was also
Speaker 1: the case that made Officer James Lee's name. At the time,
Speaker 1: Lee was a young police assistant who succeeded in tracking
Speaker 1: William Corder down and bringing him to justice. He was
Speaker 1: hung for his crime in August eighteen, twenty eight. Ten
Speaker 1: years later, Lee was given the task of hunting down
Speaker 1: another violent man that was said to be terrorizing mostly
Speaker 1: women in London and the south of England. Rumours about
Speaker 1: a mysterious, cloaked and sprightly figure that would eventually become
Speaker 1: known as springheel Jack who could leap ten feet in
Speaker 1: the air, had been steadily growing throughout the eighteen thirties. Then,
Speaker 1: on the night of February eighteen thirty eight, he was
Speaker 1: said to have attacked eighteen year old Jane Olsop on
Speaker 1: her front doorstep in old Ford, just east of London.
Speaker 1: Alsop claimed the man or whatever he was, had clawed
Speaker 1: at her with sharp metal talons and spat blue flames
Speaker 1: into her face before her sister was able to pull
Speaker 1: her back inside their house. Though many questioned Orsop's account,
Speaker 1: Officer Lee was inclined to believe it, perhaps not the
Speaker 1: more fantastical elements, but certainly that a man would be
Speaker 1: more than capable of carrying out such an attack. When
Speaker 1: a large dark coat was found just outside the Orsops
Speaker 1: front gate, along with a single candle the one Jane
Speaker 1: said she'd brought out to the attacker on the night
Speaker 1: in question, there was little doubting that something had genuinely
Speaker 1: taken place. Officer Lee began his investigation as soon as
Speaker 1: Jane reported the crime to the local police. Working through
Speaker 1: the night, he issued his report the very next morning,
Speaker 1: stating that he was in no doubt that the person
Speaker 1: who'd committed the outrage had been hanging round the neighborhood
Speaker 1: for the past month. A tall, thin man wrapped in
Speaker 1: a large Spanish cloak had been seen frequently wandering the
Speaker 1: local lanes, sometimes carrying a small lantern, frightening passers by.
Speaker 1: On one occasion, after partially revealing a bazaar and grotesque
Speaker 1: costume under his coat, the mysterious figure escaped pursuit by
Speaker 1: what witnesses described as extraordinary feats of agility. One theory
Speaker 1: was that Henry Beresford, Marquess of Waterford, was the culprit
Speaker 1: as it transpired. Although he may well have carried out
Speaker 1: his own spree of late night attacks on women, the
Speaker 1: so called mad Marquess supposedly had a solid alibi for
Speaker 1: the night that Jane Alsop was assaulted, so Officer Lee
Speaker 1: turned his attentions elsewhere. Alongside a mister Young, another London
Speaker 1: based police superintendent, the relentless Officer Lee interviewed several witnesses
Speaker 1: who'd been in bare Bind Lane at the time of
Speaker 1: the assault. The street on which the Orsop family lived.
Speaker 1: Two suspects quickly emerged, a local bricklayer named Paine and
Speaker 1: a carpenter named Millbank. One witness testified to seeing Pain
Speaker 1: and Millbank walking along bear Bindlane away from the Orsop's cottage,
Speaker 1: as the family's cries for help rang out behind them.
Speaker 1: Millbank was also said to have been wearing a white
Speaker 1: shooting jacket under a large coat at the time. To
Speaker 1: Officer Lee, it sounded a lot like the tightly fitting
Speaker 1: white oil skin outfit that the attacker had worn under
Speaker 1: his coat, as Jane Orsop described it. Shortly after the attack,
Speaker 1: Pain and Millbank were then spotted in a dark lane
Speaker 1: outside a nearby pub, quietly discussing some kind of rascally act.
Speaker 1: The pair were then said to have stopped talking when
Speaker 1: they spotted someone in earshot. Under questioning, Pain and Millbank
Speaker 1: denied carrying out the assault, although Millbank also admitted to
Speaker 1: being so drunk that evening that he had little recollection
Speaker 1: of anything. Another witness then emerged, stating that he had
Speaker 1: also seen Pain and Millbank near the Allsops that night,
Speaker 1: but also to other possible suspects, a boy and a
Speaker 1: young man in a large cloak who he overheard talking
Speaker 1: about spring heeled jack. The two witness testimonies could not
Speaker 1: be reconciled by magistrates of the two Millbank was formally
Speaker 1: arrested and tried for the crime. Sadly, for Officer Lee,
Speaker 1: he was a quitted of all charges. Further inquiries into
Speaker 1: the incident were called for, but all appeared to have
Speaker 1: come to nothing. All the while, the so called spring
Speaker 1: heeled jack seemed to be cropping up in evermore places.
Speaker 1: In eighteen forty, in Camden, North London, a tall man
Speaker 1: said to be wearing a large blue cloak and dark
Speaker 1: colored glasses, hiding in doorways at night, was reported to
Speaker 1: leap out at women with outstretched arms. As he did so,
Speaker 1: he unfurled a pair of huge dark wings, enveloping his
Speaker 1: victims inside his cloak and then sexually assaulting them. For
Speaker 1: the next thirty years, more spring heeled jack like figures
Speaker 1: was spotted throughout all corners of England, stretching from Sheffield
Speaker 1: in the north to Yarmouth in the south. All the
Speaker 1: key elements were present, a darkly clad figure springing on
Speaker 1: unwary passers by usually women on unlit lanes after dark,
Speaker 1: with blazing red eyes. He was said to make giant leaps,
Speaker 1: clearing hedges and gaits, and even male coaches in a
Speaker 1: single bound. There's no doubt that real individuals attacked people
Speaker 1: throughout the decades in which Springheeled Jack is said to
Speaker 1: have been active in ways that seemed to fit his profile. However,
Speaker 1: it's impossible to know what of the stories is true
Speaker 1: and what is hyperbole or exaggeration. What is clear is
Speaker 1: that somewhere between the truth and the swirling maelstrom of
Speaker 1: terrified rumor and supposition, a bizarre, maniacal and almost cartoonish
Speaker 1: figure was in many ways conjured into existence by the
Speaker 1: British public imagination, which took the form of what we
Speaker 1: think of today as Springheeled Jack, a character as fantastical
Speaker 1: and darkly curious as any dreamt up by a graphic novelist.
Speaker 1: This character was so ready made for fiction it can't
Speaker 1: have been to anyone's surprise to see it actually appear
Speaker 1: in fiction, cropping up in books as early as eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty four. Then he was portrayed as a suitably demonic
Speaker 1: figure by eighteen seventy eight. However, in a turn of
Speaker 1: events that seems particularly fitting for our times. He was
Speaker 1: being entirely reimagined as someone who was in fact the
Speaker 1: good guy, who was merely flouting the law to defend
Speaker 1: the weak and punish the wicked. Certainly, it's doubtful whether
Speaker 1: the mostly women who were attacked by him, or others
Speaker 1: presumed to be him in whatever guys that took would
Speaker 1: have recognized this portrayal. By the eighteen seventies, talk of
Speaker 1: the spring heeled Menace eventually died down, but soon re
Speaker 1: emerged midway through that decade with one of the more
Speaker 1: bizarre incidents in the figure's history. It came too as
Speaker 1: if lifted straight from the pages of a superhero comic.
Speaker 1: It began just after midnight on a chilly, moonless mid
Speaker 1: March night in eighteen seventy five, at the perimeter of
Speaker 1: a giant army barracks in Aldershot, in the countryside just
Speaker 1: southwest of London. The barracks housed the headquarters of the
Speaker 1: British Army, with around ten thousand troops billeted there at
Speaker 1: any given time, and was guarded night and day by
Speaker 1: armed sentries. That night, the guard stationed at the sentry
Speaker 1: box on the north side of the camp was busy
Speaker 1: trying to keep warm. He stamped his feet and slapped
Speaker 1: his arms across his body as he kept watch over
Speaker 1: the silence road and fields before him. There was a
Speaker 1: boring shift. Rarely did anyone arrive to be challenged or
Speaker 1: checked into camp that late in the night. At least,
Speaker 1: with only two hours to go, he'd be in a
Speaker 1: warmish bed soon enough. After another sweep of the empty
Speaker 1: fields in front of him, the guard turned to head
Speaker 1: back to the sentry box. When he stopped and shivered.
Speaker 1: It was as if something cool and damp had just
Speaker 1: passed in front of him. Thinking he was just being stupid,
Speaker 1: he shook out the adrenaline and was about to carry
Speaker 1: on his way when it happened again. This time it
Speaker 1: was as if a deathly cold and clammy hand had
Speaker 1: brushed across his face. Who goes there? Shouted the startled guard.
Speaker 1: There was the slightest hint of movement in the shadows
Speaker 1: above the sentry box. As the guard's eyes adjusted, he
Speaker 1: was just quick enough to see a figure leap down
Speaker 1: to the ground from the box and land silently as
Speaker 1: a cat, before disappearing into the darkness behind. The guard
Speaker 1: rushed to the box and picked up his rifle. Hearing
Speaker 1: the faintest scratch of footfall on gravel off to his right,
Speaker 1: he swung the rifle around and let off a shot.
Speaker 1: But the man, if it were indeed a man, was
Speaker 1: moving at such astonishing speed that no sooner had the
Speaker 1: rifle blast finished echoing into the night, than the shadowy
Speaker 1: figure emerged again, way over to the guard's left. There
Speaker 1: he saw the figure briefly once more in the middle distance,
Speaker 1: before it ran off again into the dark with what
Speaker 1: the guard could have sworn was a faint, gleeful laugh.
Speaker 1: Around a month later, at the sentry box on the
Speaker 1: southern side of the barracks, another guard was keeping watch
Speaker 1: late one night when they were stunned to find a
Speaker 1: man hanging over the roof of their sentry box. Before
Speaker 1: the guard could respond, he was slapped in the face
Speaker 1: several times by a cold, damp hand. On this occasion,
Speaker 1: another sentry who had been coming to take over the watch,
Speaker 1: witnessed the attack and managed to catch hold of the
Speaker 1: assailant as he fled. The two men wrestled with each other,
Speaker 1: both falling to the ground as they rained punches on
Speaker 1: one another, but the prankster prevailed, managing to rise to
Speaker 1: his feet, then he bounded away in a series of
Speaker 1: astonishingly large leaps. The attacks continued for months. Often the
Speaker 1: mysterious black clad figure would wait until the guard pacing
Speaker 1: his beat was walking away from him, then he would
Speaker 1: bring on to the man's shoulders, grabbing the guard's rifle
Speaker 1: and making off with it. Despite regularly being shot at,
Speaker 1: the culprit somehow managed to evade capture. Newspapers were quick
Speaker 1: to report the attacks. To haunt a place so dangerous
Speaker 1: as Britain's largest army base seemed confirmation, if any were needed,
Speaker 1: that this was no ordinary man. Though it was never
Speaker 1: confirmed who was responsible, many speculated it was in fact
Speaker 1: a soldier stationed at the barracks, a Lieutenant Alfrey, who
Speaker 1: was described as being big, powerful and extraordinarily active, was
Speaker 1: cited by numerous people as the most likely culprit. However,
Speaker 1: Alfrey was never charged and nor did he ever confess
Speaker 1: to being involved. Sightings at Spring Heeled Jack's continued to
Speaker 1: be reported across Britain well into the eighteen eighties. Jack's
Speaker 1: litany of crimes were often vicious, abusive, and criminal, but
Speaker 1: never had they resulted in the death of their victim,
Speaker 1: or that seemed to change when, on the thirty first
Speaker 1: of August eighteen eighty eight, the mutilated body of Mary
Speaker 1: Anne Nichols was found in Whitechapel in East London, murdered
Speaker 1: in an especially brutal fashion by numerous severe knife wounds.
Speaker 1: The butchery of more women would follow in what would
Speaker 1: come to be considered a series of at least five
Speaker 1: murders committed by the same man. The attacks elicited a
Speaker 1: profusion of letter writing to the police and newspapers. Some
Speaker 1: purported to have information about the killer, others claimed to
Speaker 1: come from the kills miller himself. One of the earliest
Speaker 1: letters sent to the Metropolitan Police was signed Springheel Jack
Speaker 1: the Whitechapel murderer, but soon another anonymous letter was received,
Speaker 1: written by a different individual, also claiming to be the killer.
Speaker 1: This letter was signed simply Jack. A letter sent to
Speaker 1: the head of a London news agency shortly after, again
Speaker 1: written by someone claiming responsibility for the crime, was signed
Speaker 1: Jack the Ripper, and the name stuck. Before long, any
Speaker 1: associations between these murders and Jack's older and tamer namesake
Speaker 1: were soon forgotten, perhaps not to be entirely outdone, while
Speaker 1: Londoners endured the terror of a serial killer on the loose.
Speaker 1: Springheel Jack was apparently capering around the streets of n Everton,
Speaker 1: just north of Liverpool in the northwest of England in
Speaker 1: the autumn of eighteen eighty eight. He was alleged to
Speaker 1: have been seen there springing from the top of a
Speaker 1: reservoir in high Park Street, jumping over high garden walls
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood of Saint Michael's in the hamlet, and
Speaker 1: dancing across the rooftops of Shore Street. During this period,
Speaker 1: spring hill Jack was even seen in Scotland in cities
Speaker 1: including Aberdeen and Dundee. Like some of the reports from
Speaker 1: south of the border, on more than one occasion, events
Speaker 1: were clearly stirred up by rumor along with a healthy
Speaker 1: dose of massesteria. In Galas Shields in August eighteen ninety one,
Speaker 1: a crowd gathered in the market square to listen to
Speaker 1: the town band spotted what was described as a peculiarly
Speaker 1: dressed female entering the square, whereupon it was reported that
Speaker 1: part of the crowd set upon this person, who, for
Speaker 1: reasons not explained, they decided was spring heeled Jack. The
Speaker 1: unfortunate woman was taken to the local police station for
Speaker 1: her own protection. By the time of Jack's last appearances,
Speaker 1: his jumping abilities had reached new heights, with him often
Speaker 1: portrayed as being able to leap over entire buildings. Back
Speaker 1: in Liverpool, in September nineteen o four, a report in
Speaker 1: the sensational Illustrated Police News stated that hundreds of locals
Speaker 1: watched in awe as Jack leapt up and down a street,
Speaker 1: bounding up onto roofs and then down into the street
Speaker 1: again in a manner it was alleged that would have
Speaker 1: embarrassed an Olympic pole vaulter. He was also reputed to
Speaker 1: have jumped clean over the houses from one street to
Speaker 1: the next one day. At the end of September, Jack
Speaker 1: was again said to have appeared, this time in broad daylight,
Speaker 1: clad as usual in a mask, black cloak and long
Speaker 1: tight boots, springing from side to side along a road
Speaker 1: before hopping a full twenty five feet onto the rooftops,
Speaker 1: turning one last time to utter a mocking laugh before
Speaker 1: vanishing for good. But when the journalists of the day
Speaker 1: attempted to track down victims and eyewitnesses, they found no
Speaker 1: one to interview. Then in nineteen sixty seven an intriguing
Speaker 1: interview was published in the Liverpool Daily Post with a
Speaker 1: Missus Pierpoint, an Everton pensioner who'd lived in the district
Speaker 1: all her life. She'd been a schoolgirl in nineteen o
Speaker 1: four and recounted how that year there had been a
Speaker 1: scare among the locals due to a supposed poltergeist, so
Speaker 1: much so that people would congregate on the street to
Speaker 1: catch sight of the scary phantom. Missus Pierpoint had a
Speaker 1: distinct recollection that the source of the rumors of Liverpool Jack,
Speaker 1: as she called him, was a local man with psychiatric problems,
Speaker 1: including a kind of religious mania. From time to time,
Speaker 1: she said, when this mania was at its peak, he
Speaker 1: would climb up onto the roofs of houses, and when
Speaker 1: the police arrived to get him down, he would simply
Speaker 1: run away, leaping from one roof to the next, crying,
Speaker 1: my wife is the devil. With the sighting of spring
Speaker 1: Hill Jack vanishing over the Liverpool rooftops in nineteen o four,
Speaker 1: reports of his activities largely came to an end, but
Speaker 1: Victorian Britain was not the only home of stories of
Speaker 1: leaping and jumping men. During World War II, an elusive
Speaker 1: figure known as Perak, Man of Prague, was said to
Speaker 1: prow the blacked out streets of that city, possessing all
Speaker 1: the supernatural leaping abilities of spring heeled Jack. No written
Speaker 1: records of his activities have ever been found, but like
Speaker 1: his British predecessor, Perak went on to become a fictional
Speaker 1: folklore hero, in his case fighting the German Army and
Speaker 1: several animated superhero cartoons. So who, if anyone was springhield Jack?
Speaker 1: Were the people ascribed to that moniker throughout the Victorian
Speaker 1: era highly athletic individuals whose ability to vault over hedges
Speaker 1: and walls were simply exaggerated in the public imagination, or
Speaker 1: were spring assisted boots ever part of their disguise. There
Speaker 1: are reports that the German Army experimented with this exact
Speaker 1: idea with its paratroopers during the Second World War. However,
Speaker 1: tests were supposedly halted after an eighty five percent incidence
Speaker 1: of broken ankles. Our boots equipped with iron springs would
Speaker 1: have performed on the rough terrain of early Victorian country lanes,
Speaker 1: or while crossing the rough common land around Aldershot is
Speaker 1: anyone's guess. What is very likely is that the combined
Speaker 1: elements of a vengeful anti hero, perhaps a wronged aristocrat
Speaker 1: wearing a costume with apparently bat like wings and the
Speaker 1: ability to leap to great heights, was a direct precursor
Speaker 1: of comic book superheroes like Batman. Was the Marquess of Waterford,
Speaker 1: despite his apparent alibi, the real instigator of the attacks
Speaker 1: in the late eighteen thirties all along and were the
Speaker 1: other errant and youthful members of the Victorian aristocracy also
Speaker 1: up to no good? Or was it all just the
Speaker 1: product of the highly amaged British public of Victorian Britain.
Speaker 1: These and many other questions that swirl around the strange
Speaker 1: and unusual story of Spring Heeled Jack remain unexplained. This
Speaker 1: episode was written by Diane Hope and Richard McClain Smith
Speaker 1: Unexplained as an Avy Club Productions podcast created by Richard
Speaker 1: McClain Smith. All other elements of the podcast, including the music,
Speaker 1: are also produced by me Richard mclin Smith, Unexplained. The
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Speaker 1: is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from
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Speaker 1: Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like
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