WEBVTT - How Ripperology Works

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<v Speaker 1>Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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<v Speaker 1>It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know

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<v Speaker 1>from how Stuff Works dot Com? Brought to you by

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<v Speaker 1>Consumer Guide Automotive We make Garbine easier. Hello, and welcome

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<v Speaker 1>to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, as staff writer here

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<v Speaker 1>at how Stuff Works dot Com. With me is my trust,

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<v Speaker 1>the edit, Tricks, the Intrepid, Candice Gifts and how are

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<v Speaker 1>you Candidas? Well, I hope you are feeling intrepid right now.

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<v Speaker 1>We're about to enter some grizzly territory. Let's talk about

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<v Speaker 1>Jack the Ripper, shall we? Indeed? Okay, so specifically, could

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<v Speaker 1>Jack the Ripper have been an artist? Ah the artists

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<v Speaker 1>formerly known as Jack the Ripper a k a. One

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<v Speaker 1>Walter Sickert, a British impressionist painter. He would have been

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<v Speaker 1>twenty eight around the time of the famous Ripper murders,

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<v Speaker 1>also called the Canonical murders. These take place back from

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<v Speaker 1>August thirty one November nine, just as had the scene

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<v Speaker 1>for you, and it would have been more than just

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<v Speaker 1>doves crying and that dank and depraved east end of

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<v Speaker 1>line done in the Whitechapel District. It would have been

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<v Speaker 1>the sound of prostitutes. Um More specifically, his prey of

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<v Speaker 1>choice was the alcoholic, drunk, middle aged and unattractive prostitutes.

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<v Speaker 1>It's the unattractive part that really gets you, you know.

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<v Speaker 1>I mean, it's bad enough as it is, but unattractive

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<v Speaker 1>to the problem is is Jack the Ripper was never caught,

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<v Speaker 1>and as such, a kind of field of amateur investigation

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<v Speaker 1>called ripparology has grown up over the centuries um of

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<v Speaker 1>people who dedicate their time trying to figure out who

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<v Speaker 1>Jack the Ripper was, right, right, right, And over the

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<v Speaker 1>years police departments in London to have fingered about a

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<v Speaker 1>hundred seventy suspects in the case, but no one's ever

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<v Speaker 1>been definitively convicted of the crime. And back in two

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<v Speaker 1>thousand two, someone who wasn't even a real ripparologist sort

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<v Speaker 1>of took a stab at the case, no pun intended,

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<v Speaker 1>and that was crime novelist Patricia Cornwell. And she was

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<v Speaker 1>the one who named Walter Sickert. And she had you know, um,

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<v Speaker 1>hard evidence and some sort of I don't know, loosely

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<v Speaker 1>based evidence, and the loosely based evidence was sort of

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<v Speaker 1>relevant to her to her interpretation of Secrets art. Now actually, um, yeah,

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<v Speaker 1>she considered some of Secrets paintings confessional, like he had

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<v Speaker 1>actually painted, um or used the murdered prostitutes that he

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<v Speaker 1>murdered as models for some of his paintings, and that

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<v Speaker 1>that um, he was either tawning police or getting this

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<v Speaker 1>off his chest through these paintings, or he could have

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<v Speaker 1>been super authentic because he was taught under the school

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<v Speaker 1>of American painter James Whistler, who recommended that secret paint

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<v Speaker 1>from life. So, um, if you wanted to paint dead

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<v Speaker 1>prostitutes only made sense. Awesome first, what better way to

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<v Speaker 1>do it than? Yeah than that? Now? Actually, in a

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<v Speaker 1>nine FBI psychological profile of Jack the Ripper, um, one

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<v Speaker 1>of the one of the points they concluded was that

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<v Speaker 1>the Ripper probably would have um either gotten some of

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<v Speaker 1>his rage out in between murders by drawing pictures of

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<v Speaker 1>brutalized women, are writing, you know, fantasy stories about brutalizing women,

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<v Speaker 1>so sicker kind of fits that bill. But really, one

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<v Speaker 1>of the problems with basing your theory on art is

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<v Speaker 1>that artists so widely open to interpretation, especially impressionism. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 1>and that's what's kind of wild about this point of

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<v Speaker 1>Cornwell's argument. The painting that she was using as her

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<v Speaker 1>most damning evidence was called the camed in Town Murder,

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<v Speaker 1>and this featured a man sitting on the edge of

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<v Speaker 1>a bed and while he's dressed, there's a woman in

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<v Speaker 1>bed whose neket and ostensibly dead, and she was saying, look, look,

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<v Speaker 1>this is it, y'all. This is the ultimate tantamount confession.

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<v Speaker 1>But another critic pointed out that the painting has an

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<v Speaker 1>alternate title, and that is what shall we do for rent? Right?

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<v Speaker 1>So the the murderer and murdered woman go uh to

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<v Speaker 1>a desperate couple down on their luck, just with the

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<v Speaker 1>change of the time, right right, very here, scu a tonue.

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<v Speaker 1>She she didn't base her theory entirely on her interpretation

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<v Speaker 1>of secrets, though she actually um with her vast millions

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<v Speaker 1>um purchased some paintings to try to find clues and

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<v Speaker 1>actually tore one apart, which the curator of the Royal

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<v Speaker 1>Academy in London later called monstrously stupid publicly um that action.

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<v Speaker 1>But she also had some hard evidence. Yeah, she has

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<v Speaker 1>an empty DNA in her bag, mitchondrial DNA and the

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<v Speaker 1>glitch with this is that monicondrial DNA only comes from

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<v Speaker 1>our mother's lineage, so it's discounting your your father's and

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<v Speaker 1>put into you essentially, So using that to confirm the

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<v Speaker 1>identity of someone is only half right. It's and it

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<v Speaker 1>turns out it left about fifty thou people in London

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<v Speaker 1>at that time it could have produced a match. Strangely though,

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<v Speaker 1>one of them was Walter Sicker. And the way she

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<v Speaker 1>found a match was she compared um some secrets DNA

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<v Speaker 1>with DNA samples taken from the Ripper letters. Now, from

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<v Speaker 1>the time of the murders till about nineteen sixty, hundreds

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<v Speaker 1>of letters came in ostensibly written by Jack the Ripper. Um.

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<v Speaker 1>Most ripperologists don't think he out any of them. But um,

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<v Speaker 1>she Cornwell found that Secret had written one or two

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<v Speaker 1>of them. Uh. Now she kind of jumped to a

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<v Speaker 1>conclusion saying that you know, in her opinion that meant

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<v Speaker 1>he was the Ripper. But uh a ripperologist, um kind

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<v Speaker 1>of put it into perspective. Thanking Cornwell for all of

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<v Speaker 1>her hard work and research improving that Walter Secret was

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<v Speaker 1>indeed one of the people who wrote fraudulent Jack the

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<v Speaker 1>Ripper letters so well, that was rather tongue in chic

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<v Speaker 1>and if you want to learn more about this case,

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<v Speaker 1>there's so much more to learn. Check out Could Jack

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<v Speaker 1>the Ripper have been an artist? On how stuff works

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<v Speaker 1>dot com? For more on this and thousands of other topics.

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