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Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language, along with references

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Speaker 1: to sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised.

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Speaker 2: I did not ask to write about Jack the Ripper.

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Speaker 2: I got ambushed by him, and I'm still mad at

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Speaker 2: him because I had a perfectly reasonable, sensible, nice little

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Speaker 2: life until he came along.

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Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor

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Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the

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Speaker 1: podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,

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Speaker 1: research for my many audio and book projects has taken

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Speaker 1: me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down

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Speaker 1: with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,

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Speaker 1: and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true

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Speaker 1: crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both

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Speaker 1: good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the

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Speaker 1: unpublished details behind their stories. Our next guest is a legend.

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Speaker 1: It's novelist Patricia Cornwell. She's one of my mother's most

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Speaker 1: favorite authors, and she's also a nonfiction writer and several

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Speaker 1: years ago she wrote a book about Jack the Ripper

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Speaker 1: called Portrait of a Killer. Jack the Ripper case closed.

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Speaker 1: This book is Patricia's opinion on his identity. Based on

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Speaker 1: her extensive research, Patricia believes that Jack the Ripper was

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Speaker 1: a German British artist named Walter Sickert. This is a

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Speaker 1: controversial opinion according to some ripperlogists. And you'll hear why again.

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Speaker 1: This is Patricia's theory. And I'm not a ripperlogist, but

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Speaker 1: I loved our conversation. Let's get started on how you

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Speaker 1: came to this story. For me, personally, I don't want

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Speaker 1: to know who it is. I don't want to know,

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Speaker 1: and there's so many theories out there, but you clearly

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Speaker 1: wanted to know who this was because you have done

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Speaker 1: such a tremendous amount of research.

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Speaker 2: The fact of the matter is I was in London

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Speaker 2: in the spring of two thousand and one. I was

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Speaker 2: actually there with the Governor of Virginia and his wife

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Speaker 2: to promote the archaeological excavation of Jamestown. And while I

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Speaker 2: was there, I got an invitation to tour Scotland Yard

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Speaker 2: and that their premier investigator wanted to chat with me,

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Speaker 2: and he was their in house expert on Jack the Ripper,

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Speaker 2: and I thought, I'm not interested in that. I'm here

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Speaker 2: doing something else, and I'm writing Scarpetta, and I thought

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Speaker 2: it would be absolutely disrespectful for me not to go

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Speaker 2: and accept that invitation. It's an honor. So I went

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Speaker 2: over there and the investigator's name was John Greeve, and

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Speaker 2: he was towards getting ready to retire. But he started

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Speaker 2: telling me all about Jack the Ripper, and I'm like, okay,

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Speaker 2: but I don't know what this has got to do

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Speaker 2: with me. But I was listening, and then he said,

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Speaker 2: you know, tomorrow, I'd like to take you to Whitechapel

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Speaker 2: and I'll drive you around and i'll show you what's

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Speaker 2: left of where these crimes occurred, the ones that we

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Speaker 2: know of. Some people say they were five. Really at

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Speaker 2: the time it was there was at least seven in

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Speaker 2: based on other things, I know that the Ripper didn't

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Speaker 2: stop killing in the late fall of eighteen eighty eight.

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Speaker 2: He absolutely didn't. But I went on this tour with

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Speaker 2: John Grief in the rain and the cold. It was

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Speaker 2: a miserable day. I was supposed to be in Ireland,

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Speaker 2: and I canceled my trip to go do this with

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Speaker 2: him because I just thought I have to go. At

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Speaker 2: the end of it, I said to him, who are

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Speaker 2: the suspects, and he started rattling off some names and

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Speaker 2: I said, based on what he said, based on nothing theories.

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Speaker 2: And I said, well, what about the evidence. He said, well,

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Speaker 2: the only evidence left because nothing was really kept at

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Speaker 2: the time anyway, the only evidence would be the letters

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Speaker 2: that Jack the Ripper wrote to the police and other people.

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Speaker 2: And I said, what letters. I've never heard of that before.

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Speaker 2: So apparently quite a lot of them, he said, And listen,

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Speaker 2: he said, if you're going to look into this, he said,

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Speaker 2: there's this painter named Walter Sickert and his name I've

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Speaker 2: been hearing his name for a really long time. And

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Speaker 2: he painted these murder paintings and he said, and I'm

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Speaker 2: just telling you you need to look into him. So

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Speaker 2: that came from Scotland Yard. It wasn't my idea. And furthermore,

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Speaker 2: John Greeve, I was like a PhD student going and

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Speaker 2: sitting down with my advisor, you know. Every now and

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Speaker 2: then I'd show up and we'd go meet at some

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Speaker 2: Indian restaurant in Whitechapel and I'd pull out my big

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Speaker 2: portfolio like an artist keeps, and I'd let him go

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Speaker 2: through my latest stuff that I was gathering from the investigation,

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Speaker 2: and he was sort of the wizard behind the curtain

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Speaker 2: the entire time I was doing that first book, I

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Speaker 2: got to see a lot of things and do a

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Speaker 2: lot of things your average person wouldn't get to do.

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Speaker 2: But what convinced me that Walter Sickret was Jack the Ripper.

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Speaker 2: It wasn't just the art work. I mean, the artwork

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Speaker 2: was enough to give you the willies. It's like, wow,

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Speaker 2: this is weird, and his biography's strange stuff. But when

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Speaker 2: I went to see the actual letters, the real ones

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Speaker 2: in person, and you put them on a light box,

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Speaker 2: and then later you bring in experts and scientists and

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Speaker 2: what have you, and it was very obvious that there

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Speaker 2: were connections between Walter Sicicred's letters and Jack the Ripper's letters.

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Speaker 2: There were matching watermarks. There were the six letters out

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Speaker 2: of a total of only twenty four pieces of paper

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Speaker 2: that were handmlled with this particular water mark, and five

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Speaker 2: of them were two from Jack the Ripper and three

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Speaker 2: were Walter Siicard and they were written on his mother's stationary.

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Speaker 2: How's that for creepy. He cut the letter head off,

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Speaker 2: but the water mark and the paper measurements and I

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Speaker 2: had the world's foremost paper expert who was doing all this.

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Speaker 2: There's no question he wrote some of the letters, so

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Speaker 2: he would have a lot to answer for it today,

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Speaker 2: one way or other.

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Speaker 1: Will you take me through before we talk more about

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Speaker 1: Walter Sicard and you know your evidence behind all of this.

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Speaker 1: Take me through the prevalent theories I've heard, Royal family,

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Speaker 1: I have heard, you know, I mean, just it feels

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Speaker 1: like it runs the gamut. What's your understanding of the

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Speaker 1: most popular theories that have pervaded did everything for the

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Speaker 1: past almost one hundred and fifty years.

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Speaker 2: Well, the most popular was always the royal conspiracy, you know,

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Speaker 2: where Prince Eddie, for example, had an affair with maybe

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Speaker 2: one of the sex workers who ended up being murdered.

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Speaker 2: And interestingly enough, Walter Sickert actually has overtones or they

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Speaker 2: are echoes of him that are mixed in with this

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Speaker 2: whole royal theory because of stuff that he used to

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Speaker 2: tell people. But we'll get to that later. But the

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Speaker 2: point is the Royal conspiracy. It was the Queen's surgeon

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Speaker 2: was doing it. Sir William Gull was running around and

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Speaker 2: butchering these people. And by the way, he was Queen

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Speaker 2: victorious physician at that time, and he was also i think,

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Speaker 2: like in his seventies and he had stuffered a stroke.

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Speaker 2: Another theory then, of course, a prominent theory was it

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Speaker 2: was some insane, illuctric person who lived in the slums.

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Speaker 2: And then you get this guy named Kozminski, who DNA

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Speaker 2: supposedly later connected to a shawl that Catherine Edow's one

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Speaker 2: of the victims. She was murdered in Miter Square on

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Speaker 2: the night of the double murder in November of eighteen

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Speaker 2: eighty eight, and so the theory was suddenly this shawl

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Speaker 2: appears over one hundred years later, and it's claimed that

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Speaker 2: this was found at the crime scene, it was given

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Speaker 2: to a cop, it was stored in various places, and

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Speaker 2: then testing was done to see if Kominski's or somebody's

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Speaker 2: DNA was on it, and magically it was. But I'm

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Speaker 2: going to tell you right now, uh huh, No way

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Speaker 2: I know the history of that shawl. First of all,

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Speaker 2: I've seen the police drawing of Catherine Edel's crime scene,

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Speaker 2: and there's no big shawl like that. There's nothing in

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Speaker 2: the drawing. There's no mention in the original police reports

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Speaker 2: about a shawl that actually looks more like a tablecloth runner.

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Speaker 2: And furthermore, for a while it was stored at the

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Speaker 2: Crime Museum at Scotland Yard because it was donated there

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Speaker 2: and people who work there it was always being passed

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Speaker 2: around the room. They I mean, one of the persons

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Speaker 2: I know cut a piece of it out and had

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Speaker 2: it on his desk the lab that did the DNA testing.

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Speaker 2: From what I understand, I'm just going to put it

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Speaker 2: this because I don't want to get sued by anybody,

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Speaker 2: But that is not the sort of science that I'm

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Speaker 2: used to hearing being practiced. And I do not believe

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Speaker 2: in that DNA for one minute. And are you going

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Speaker 2: to explain to me how someone like that wrote the

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Speaker 2: letters that we've seen, because what that would tell you

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Speaker 2: is that someone like Walter Siicred or basically we know

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Speaker 2: I do know that Walter Sicred wrote at least some

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Speaker 2: of those letters. And if you look at them, you

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Speaker 2: see the hand of an artist. One of them is

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Speaker 2: a print from a wood block, you know, a face

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Speaker 2: carved in wood that's stamped in ink, that's professional looking.

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Speaker 2: There are so many things that point to Sicred and

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Speaker 2: the only explanation if it were some quote crazy person

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Speaker 2: like Kosminski would be if somebody like that killed these

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Speaker 2: people and then it was turned into a carnival by

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Speaker 2: some crazy person like Walter Siicard, I don't find that

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Speaker 2: very believable. For one thing, Walter Sicicred painted a painting

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Speaker 2: called Red Jack the Ripper's Bedroom, and it's the very

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Speaker 2: bedroom he was living in at the time when he

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Speaker 2: painted it, which is also when the Camden Town murder

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Speaker 2: happened right around the corner from another woman who with

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Speaker 2: a throat cut. This was in nineteen oh seven. So

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Speaker 2: the theories are things like that, no, it's not what

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Speaker 2: it was. It was a psychopathic killer. But not all

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Speaker 2: of them are ignorant and without resources.

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Speaker 1: What about the argument that many of these letters have

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Speaker 1: been I guess proven. I didn't know this proven to

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Speaker 1: be hoaxes, and I know you you just sort of

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Speaker 1: addressed that that it seems ridiculous to you that Walter

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Speaker 1: Sickert has contributed to the letters that would have been

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Speaker 1: hoaxes rather than being an authentic Jack the Ripper letter.

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Speaker 3: Listen.

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Speaker 2: I have been through every one of those letters, not

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Speaker 2: only at the National Archives but also the City of

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Speaker 2: London Archives. Because you see Katherine Edows, this person we're

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Speaker 2: just talking about who was Basically, she was disemboweled on

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Speaker 2: the sidewalk in the dark shadows of Miterer Square, where

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Speaker 2: sex workers, you know, would sometimes meet the gentlemen coming

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Speaker 2: out of the clubs late at night. And that's where

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Speaker 2: Katherine Edows were. She'd just gotten out of jail for

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Speaker 2: being drunk. She was so drunk she couldn't walk. And

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Speaker 2: when the constable finally led her out of the jail

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Speaker 2: after midnight for some reason, instead of heading home she

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Speaker 2: didn't really have a home, but heading back to where

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Speaker 2: she had been before, she went into Miter Square. And

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Speaker 2: next thing, you know, I mean, a watchman goes by

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Speaker 2: on his rounds. You could just hear the heels of

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Speaker 2: his shoes on the cobblestones, and by the time he

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Speaker 2: comes back around, like fifteen minutes later, she's there. That's

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Speaker 2: how quickly this guy struck. He cut her throat, then

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Speaker 2: he cut her all the way down through the pubic area.

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Speaker 2: He took her kidneys, or at least one of them.

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Speaker 2: Some organs were grabbed, her intestines and everything were dumped

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Speaker 2: out on the sidewalk. And then this whole notion that

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Speaker 2: it was a surgical thing, is blooney. There's nothing surgical

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Speaker 2: about any Objack the Ripper's incisions. There's what I call

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Speaker 2: slash and grab. The biggest thing is he probably I

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Speaker 2: believe he came around from behind them and then they

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Speaker 2: go down on the pavement and then he'd come around

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Speaker 2: the other thing and start tearing off their clothes, ripping off,

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Speaker 2: cutting through the clothes. These were sexual crimes, even though

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Speaker 2: there's no evidence that he had any sexual contact with

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Speaker 2: these people. His gratification came from the violence.

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Speaker 1: One thing that's interesting is I have another show called

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Speaker 1: Buried Bones with a forensic investigator named Paul Holes, and

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Speaker 1: we've talked about that the theory, not necessarily with Jack

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Speaker 1: the Ripper, but the theory that if a victim has

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Speaker 1: been dismembered in a certain way, cut in a certain way,

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Speaker 1: that it has to be someone with medical education. And

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Speaker 1: he said, hunters know how to break down animals better

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Speaker 1: than just about anyone butcher's And he said even lay

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Speaker 1: people can figure it out. So I am happy to

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Speaker 1: know that that has been refuted I think by anybody

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Speaker 1: who's credible that's looked into this case. Why do you

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Speaker 1: think this case in particular for taking a pause here.

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Speaker 1: Why do you think this case in particular has been

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Speaker 1: something that has sparked so much controversy over this amount

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Speaker 1: of time.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I imagine that you've had.

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Speaker 1: People privately or publicly criticize what you're saying, because I

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Speaker 1: think everybody, anybody who's an expert in Jack the Ripper,

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Speaker 1: or when they put out something it's refuted. Do you

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Speaker 1: feel like it's understandable based on what you know about

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Speaker 1: how people are so enthusiastic about this case.

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Speaker 2: You know what the problem with it is. Everybody thinks

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Speaker 2: they know about it, and so they're not willing to

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Speaker 2: learn anything new.

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Speaker 3: Almost.

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Speaker 2: I would guarantee that the vast preponderance of those people

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Speaker 2: who have criticized me for my books on Jack the

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Speaker 2: Ripper never read either one of them ever, especially the

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Speaker 2: more recent one, which is not for the feinne of Heart.

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Speaker 2: It's very graphic, and it's a big book, and I

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Speaker 2: show you the evidence, you know, hundreds and hundreds of

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Speaker 2: images to let you see what it looks like, even

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Speaker 2: photographs of murdered victims. But I agree with you what

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Speaker 2: you said in the very beginning. People don't really want

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Speaker 2: this solved. It's kind of like the Titanic's more interesting

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Speaker 2: if it's still on the bottom of the ocean. If

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Speaker 2: you really raise the whole thing and put it in

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Speaker 2: the middle of a hangar for everybody to look at,

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Speaker 2: it would seem so mundane and it would not be

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Speaker 2: have the intrigue and the mystery Amelia air Heart. If

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Speaker 2: we finally find her, it won't be the same as

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Speaker 2: not finding her. It becomes this looming question of who

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Speaker 2: did this horrible thing? And when you go to the

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Speaker 2: graves of Jack the Ripper's victims, and where else do

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Speaker 2: you see on the tombstone victim of Jack the Ripper?

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Speaker 2: Two of those graves are like that at least, I mean,

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Speaker 2: where do you see that that? Yeah, victim of Ted Bundy.

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Speaker 2: We don't do that. That's how pervasive this was back then.

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Speaker 2: It's all because the Ripper wrote letters. He taunted the police,

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Speaker 2: he played games with them. I find myself going through

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Speaker 2: the Ripper letters and laughing out loud at times, knowing

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Speaker 2: I shouldn't because of his humor. Like there's one an

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Speaker 2: envelope that he tacked to a tree in a place

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Speaker 2: called bird Cage Lane in London. Tacked it to a tree,

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Speaker 2: a Ripper letter, and he drew a stamp on it

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Speaker 2: with a bird, a cartoon bird. I mean I almost

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Speaker 2: burst out laughing out loud in the public record office.

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Speaker 2: I said, is nobody notice this kind of stuff?

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Speaker 3: He'll have a.

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Speaker 2: Little pair of scissors of where you cut along the

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Speaker 2: line like doctor Seuss does. And It's like, who is

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Speaker 2: not noticing these things?

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Speaker 3: Now?

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Speaker 2: I'm not saying all the Ripper letters are genuine, absolutely not.

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Speaker 2: In fact, there's only a couple hundred left that we

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Speaker 2: know of, so imagine how many there must have been

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Speaker 2: back in the day, and not only original ones, but

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Speaker 2: fake ones, hoax ones. Walter Sickert suffered from what you

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Speaker 2: probably heard of called graphamania. He was a compulsive writer

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Speaker 2: as a person. He was in fact, he used to

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Speaker 2: apologize to people for sending yet another letter or writing

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Speaker 2: yet another editorial for a newspaper. He couldn't stop. He

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Speaker 2: was always writing, always painting. And I believe that the

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Speaker 2: Ripper I. E. Siicert, probably wrote hundreds and hundreds, possibly

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Speaker 2: thousands of these communications, most of which had not survived.

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Speaker 2: I mean I bought a couple of them from antique

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Speaker 2: dealers that people had stuck in a drawer. Now, you

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Speaker 2: can't prove it from Jack the Ripper. You can prove

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Speaker 2: it's from back then and all that, But very similar.

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Speaker 3: To the other ones.

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Speaker 2: I think we'd be astonished at how many of them

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Speaker 2: he did write knowing secret the way I do.

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Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about sicicred because we really, I mean,

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Speaker 1: we've been talking about this for quite a while without

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Speaker 1: getting into your main suspect. Where do we start with

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Speaker 1: him to understand why you feel really strongly that this

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Speaker 1: should be the main suspect in Jack the Ripper?

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Speaker 3: Where do we start with his life?

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Speaker 2: Well, we start with him being born in Munich, Germany,

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Speaker 2: in eighteen sixty and by the age of three he

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Speaker 2: had his first surgery because he had a fistula. And

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Speaker 2: I read in three of his biographies that he'd had

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Speaker 2: this surgery starting he had three surgeries. The first two

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Speaker 2: failed and they never said what this fistula was. But

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Speaker 2: imagine at age of three in Munich, Germany, eighteen sixty three,

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Speaker 2: having surgery as a child, and then having a second one,

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Speaker 2: and then your fistula still isn't fixed. So the family

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Speaker 2: moves to London, where the mother had a sister or

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Speaker 2: something relative. They move into this house in London because

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Speaker 2: there's a surgeon there who's famous for fixing fistulas. It's

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Speaker 2: Sir Alfred duff Cooper who also surgically fixed Charles Dickens

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Speaker 2: fistula and Charles Dickens and his was in his rectum.

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Speaker 2: So I happened to track down Walter Secret's non biological nephew.

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Speaker 2: He had two non biological nephews that these guys who

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Speaker 2: were the sons of his third wife, Cheres Lesour, who

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Speaker 2: was an artist, a French artist who outlift him. And

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Speaker 2: now these two sons, I don't think they didn't never

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Speaker 2: know Walter Sicred because he died in nineteen forty two,

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Speaker 2: but they knew all about their famous uncle. And so

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Speaker 2: I went to visit this one nephew in his studio

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Speaker 2: in peckham Rae, John Lesore. I was talking to him

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Speaker 2: about his uncle and he was showing me he's a

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Speaker 2: painter too, and he was he got me to buy

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Speaker 2: a few of his paintings that are kind of influenced

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Speaker 2: by Walter Secrets, shall we say. But as I was

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Speaker 2: talking to him, he said, you know, you should write

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Speaker 2: my uncle's biography. And I thought oh, honey, you don't

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Speaker 2: even know what I'm getting ready to do. But trust me,

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Speaker 2: it's not gonna be a biographer you want. And I said,

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Speaker 2: let me ask you something. This is after I've bought

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Speaker 2: a painting table and an easel thing and several of

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Speaker 2: John's paintings and whatever. So I said, well, John, I said,

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Speaker 2: I keep reading about this fistula secret had. What was it?

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Speaker 2: And he says, oh, he said he had a hole

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Speaker 2: in his penis. I said, excuse me, He says yes.

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Speaker 2: I said, well, then, well I left very soon after that.

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Speaker 2: As soon as I got in the car, I immediately

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Speaker 2: wrote all this down because later Siicret's family denied this

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Speaker 2: was ever said, well, I promise you it was said,

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Speaker 2: so he had some problem with his genitals. Now, if

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Speaker 2: you have three surgeries on that by the time you're

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Speaker 2: five or six years old, can you imagine. We don't

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Speaker 2: even know if he got ether. We don't know what

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Speaker 2: that kid suffered. And it was an article not so

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Speaker 2: many years ago and a psychiatry magazine where a psychiatrist opined,

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Speaker 2: this was before my book, This is a psychiatrist opined

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Speaker 2: that the nature of Jack the Ripper's crimes the violence

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Speaker 2: struck him as somebody who might have suffered medical violence

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Speaker 2: as a child. Now, isn't that interesting because you think

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Speaker 2: of what he did to Catherine d Ouse, going open

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Speaker 2: her up and slashing a grabbit. There were many cases

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Speaker 2: like this. This is what the ripper. That's why they

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Speaker 2: called him the ripper. He didn't just cut your thirty RiPPs,

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Speaker 2: you open and then later, I believe, to begin dismembering people.

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Speaker 2: There are many stories and they're in my book about

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Speaker 2: torsos and limbs found in the Thames. Women who vanished,

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Speaker 2: including a music hall singer that he painted her portrait

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Speaker 2: and she insulted him, saying she'd use it as a

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Speaker 2: window screen, where she vanished after that and was never

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Speaker 2: heard of since.

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Speaker 1: Moving forward now, so we already have a young man

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Speaker 1: who's been it sounds like, tortured medically. How do we

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Speaker 1: then move ahead where we start to feel like Sickert

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Speaker 1: is someone who is developing a personality that is beyond

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Speaker 1: someone we should feel sorry for, and as someone who

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Speaker 1: has the potential to be a predator later in life.

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Speaker 1: Because regardless, it sounds like, regardless of whether or not

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Speaker 1: he is Jack the Ripper, it sounds like we are

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Speaker 1: moving toward someone who is deeply disturbed on several different levels.

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Speaker 2: His own sister, who grew up to be a journalist

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Speaker 2: and was a very well respected person, but she had

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Speaker 2: tremendous physical disabilities. There was a partial document that I

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Speaker 2: found at Oxford University, her handwritten document, and she talks

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Speaker 2: about their childhoods, and she describes Walter as really being

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Speaker 2: a very cruel and unfeeling boy, and that he, you know,

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Speaker 2: that he would use his friends and then leave them

379
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Speaker 2: in tears, you know, because he didn't care about anybody.

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Speaker 2: The mother coddled him. In fact, she had a portrait

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Speaker 2: painted of him as a child. He's dressed with his

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Speaker 2: little curly locks, and he's in a velvet little dress.

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Speaker 2: And she used to refer to Walter and the boys. Now,

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Speaker 2: why would you refer to Walter and his brothers as

385
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Speaker 2: Walter and the boys? Unless it may be possible that

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Speaker 2: his gender might have been ambiguous at birth, that he

387
00:20:03,440 --> 00:20:06,200
Speaker 2: may have had a birth defect of his genitalia which

388
00:20:06,280 --> 00:20:09,920
Speaker 2: made it difficult to know what he was. It's interesting

389
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Speaker 2: sick Art is not known to have ever had children.

390
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Speaker 2: There is no account that's credible of ever really having

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Speaker 2: sex with anybody he was accused of adultery, but I've

392
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Speaker 2: yet to see any evidence that he had any I

393
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Speaker 2: suspect his wife, his first wife, Ellen, who was quote

394
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Speaker 2: an old maid age forty. When he started courting her,

395
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Speaker 2: he was twenty eight. We don't know that they ever

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Speaker 2: consummated their relationship. There's nothing that makes us think that

397
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Speaker 2: he may have been as active sexually as he wanted

398
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Speaker 2: people to believe. To get back to the story of

399
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Speaker 2: who he was when he was in his teens, his

400
00:20:42,600 --> 00:20:45,199
Speaker 2: big thing is he wanted to be an actor. So

401
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Speaker 2: he went to work for the Lyceum Theater with their

402
00:20:47,680 --> 00:20:51,000
Speaker 2: traveling actors, and he would go and interesting. A lot

403
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Speaker 2: of The Ripper letters are mailed from the very cities

404
00:20:53,720 --> 00:20:56,040
Speaker 2: that that acting troup used to go to. But he

405
00:20:56,080 --> 00:20:58,440
Speaker 2: was an actor, but he was a failed actor, and

406
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Speaker 2: he was said that he was best in the role

407
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Speaker 2: of an old man, and he was so good at

408
00:21:03,840 --> 00:21:06,480
Speaker 2: makeup and costumes that he quote roasted that he could

409
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Speaker 2: walk right past his own mother and she wouldn't recognize him.

410
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Speaker 2: Now that's a handy habit to have if you're Jack

411
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Speaker 2: the Ripper, isn't it. And he was always buying hand

412
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Speaker 2: me down clothes and costumes, and he would show up

413
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Speaker 2: dressed out landishly when you would go meet with people.

414
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Speaker 2: And he also would go to the Red Cross and

415
00:21:22,920 --> 00:21:25,919
Speaker 2: collect the uniforms of soldiers udyed And one of the

416
00:21:26,000 --> 00:21:29,080
Speaker 2: Ripper cases where a torso is found, the place where

417
00:21:29,119 --> 00:21:31,159
Speaker 2: it was found was notified by a man dressed as

418
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Speaker 2: a soldier who then vanished. There's all kinds of weird

419
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Speaker 2: things about people dressed as soldiers, including the very night

420
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Speaker 2: of the first Jack the Ripper murder, where two soldiers

421
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Speaker 2: were seen going off with the victim and it was

422
00:21:44,280 --> 00:21:47,120
Speaker 2: believed that a soldier did it. And ironically this soldier

423
00:21:47,240 --> 00:21:51,080
Speaker 2: was wearing a good conduct metal. Now that sounds exactly

424
00:21:51,160 --> 00:21:54,119
Speaker 2: like Secret's humor. To this day, I've wondered was that

425
00:21:54,320 --> 00:21:57,439
Speaker 2: really him dressed as a soldier. So he became the

426
00:21:57,480 --> 00:22:01,640
Speaker 2: actor that didn't work. And he he was also very artistic.

427
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Speaker 2: His father was an artist. Have you ever heard of

428
00:22:03,600 --> 00:22:06,560
Speaker 2: Punch and Judy. Well, his father was an artist for

429
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Speaker 2: Punch and Judy magazine and Germany, and I have seen

430
00:22:10,160 --> 00:22:12,840
Speaker 2: the drawings of the Punch and Judy stuff. Very violent,

431
00:22:12,960 --> 00:22:15,840
Speaker 2: by the way, really really violent. If you've ever looked

432
00:22:15,840 --> 00:22:18,800
Speaker 2: at Punch and Judy. It's a violent puppet act, hitting

433
00:22:18,800 --> 00:22:22,080
Speaker 2: people with sticks, hitting women with sticks and all this stuff.

434
00:22:22,280 --> 00:22:24,600
Speaker 2: And on some of the Jack the Ripper letters there

435
00:22:24,600 --> 00:22:27,080
Speaker 2: are little cartoon figures that look like Punch and Judy

436
00:22:27,160 --> 00:22:29,960
Speaker 2: hitting each other with sticks. It's just weird, and you go,

437
00:22:30,080 --> 00:22:32,639
Speaker 2: am I just imagining this? This is crazy. So he

438
00:22:32,680 --> 00:22:36,680
Speaker 2: was very talented by his DNA. He was drawing stuff

439
00:22:36,720 --> 00:22:39,320
Speaker 2: as a little kid. So he started going into art

440
00:22:39,880 --> 00:22:43,840
Speaker 2: and he became the apprentice to James McNeil Whistler. Well

441
00:22:43,880 --> 00:22:49,040
Speaker 2: Whistler magnificent artists. He's American born, which is interesting because

442
00:22:49,359 --> 00:22:53,000
Speaker 2: he and Sickret had a terrible adversarial relationship. I mean,

443
00:22:53,040 --> 00:22:55,679
Speaker 2: Whistler would not be easy to work with, but he

444
00:22:55,800 --> 00:22:58,720
Speaker 2: hated Whistler and was jealous of him, and it was

445
00:22:58,760 --> 00:23:01,199
Speaker 2: probably like the abuse father that he grew up with

446
00:23:01,240 --> 00:23:04,119
Speaker 2: that kind of father image. Well, interestingly enough, most of

447
00:23:04,160 --> 00:23:06,920
Speaker 2: the Ripper letters were the ones that are so famous,

448
00:23:07,119 --> 00:23:11,000
Speaker 2: begin with dear Boss. Well Boss was an American term.

449
00:23:11,440 --> 00:23:14,480
Speaker 2: Boss was not something that the British used back in

450
00:23:14,520 --> 00:23:17,320
Speaker 2: the eighteen eighties, and Whistler was American.

451
00:23:17,400 --> 00:23:18,639
Speaker 3: He was born in Boston.

452
00:23:19,040 --> 00:23:21,680
Speaker 2: In fact, his family was embroiled in the Civil War

453
00:23:21,720 --> 00:23:24,440
Speaker 2: back in the United States while he was in London,

454
00:23:24,760 --> 00:23:27,600
Speaker 2: you know, getting started as a big artist. So that's

455
00:23:27,640 --> 00:23:30,600
Speaker 2: when Secret became the artist. It was later on, It

456
00:23:30,640 --> 00:23:34,160
Speaker 2: wasn't right away, but he began to become very successful

457
00:23:34,520 --> 00:23:37,359
Speaker 2: and well known in later years. He actually gave art

458
00:23:37,440 --> 00:23:40,840
Speaker 2: lessons to Sir Winston Churchill. If you go to Blenham Palace,

459
00:23:41,240 --> 00:23:44,320
Speaker 2: you'll look at Churchill's artwork and it looks very, very

460
00:23:44,320 --> 00:23:48,199
Speaker 2: sickred esh. You know he learned this from his instructor.

461
00:23:48,600 --> 00:23:51,440
Speaker 2: I mean his artwork has been hanging in the royal palaces.

462
00:23:52,080 --> 00:23:55,800
Speaker 2: His shocking how he got around and people had no idea.

463
00:23:56,560 --> 00:23:59,000
Speaker 1: What's your sense of his personality? I know that you

464
00:23:59,119 --> 00:24:02,480
Speaker 1: had said that he was described when he was a

465
00:24:02,600 --> 00:24:05,840
Speaker 1: child as being sort of unfeeling and distant.

466
00:24:06,480 --> 00:24:08,000
Speaker 3: What was your sense as.

467
00:24:07,760 --> 00:24:10,720
Speaker 1: He grew older. We know that he did not like Whistler.

468
00:24:10,960 --> 00:24:13,320
Speaker 1: It sounded like he could be a bit acerbic. Do

469
00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:16,239
Speaker 1: you have any details or any anecdotes of where we

470
00:24:16,359 --> 00:24:19,200
Speaker 1: just we get a real sense of what his personality

471
00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:19,600
Speaker 1: was like.

472
00:24:20,040 --> 00:24:22,199
Speaker 2: I'll give you an example, something crude. He did the

473
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:26,120
Speaker 2: Camden Town murder in nineteen oh seven. That was literally

474
00:24:26,160 --> 00:24:28,520
Speaker 2: in Camden Town where he had his art studio. He'd

475
00:24:28,520 --> 00:24:31,080
Speaker 2: had two art studios there at the time, and the victim,

476
00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:33,560
Speaker 2: Emily Dimmick, lived just around the corner and she was

477
00:24:33,680 --> 00:24:36,760
Speaker 2: basically entertaining all kinds of men when her husband would

478
00:24:36,760 --> 00:24:39,080
Speaker 2: go off. He was a chef on a train and

479
00:24:39,119 --> 00:24:41,360
Speaker 2: he would go away, you know, for nights on end,

480
00:24:41,560 --> 00:24:43,719
Speaker 2: and she'd have people over. So she was doing her

481
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:47,520
Speaker 2: share of entertaining in this flat that they rented. Well,

482
00:24:48,000 --> 00:24:50,000
Speaker 2: the guy comes back from one of his train trips

483
00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:53,040
Speaker 2: in the doors locked, so he gets the landlady and

484
00:24:53,080 --> 00:24:54,760
Speaker 2: they have to go in and there she is in

485
00:24:54,800 --> 00:24:57,480
Speaker 2: bed with her throat cut. Well, the thing about it

486
00:24:57,520 --> 00:25:00,919
Speaker 2: is sicker. He would have people over for tea. And

487
00:25:00,920 --> 00:25:02,840
Speaker 2: when he was having people for over for tea wall

488
00:25:02,880 --> 00:25:05,439
Speaker 2: all this Camden Town murder stuff. There was a big trial.

489
00:25:05,760 --> 00:25:08,640
Speaker 2: They never caught the guy who did it. Secret what

490
00:25:08,680 --> 00:25:11,120
Speaker 2: you would call a lay figure, which was a mannequin

491
00:25:11,480 --> 00:25:13,280
Speaker 2: Back in the day. They'd look like a big wooden

492
00:25:13,320 --> 00:25:15,359
Speaker 2: puppet and you could sit it and use it to

493
00:25:15,760 --> 00:25:19,400
Speaker 2: help position a body and a drawing. These were very

494
00:25:19,440 --> 00:25:22,040
Speaker 2: crude and he had a very an old like seventeenth

495
00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:25,960
Speaker 2: eighteenth century lay figure and it looked like Pinocchio sort of,

496
00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:29,159
Speaker 2: and he would pretend he was murdering it and saying

497
00:25:29,400 --> 00:25:31,439
Speaker 2: it was the Camden Town murder. He would do this

498
00:25:31,440 --> 00:25:34,040
Speaker 2: to entertain his guests. It reminds you of the Preppy

499
00:25:34,119 --> 00:25:37,040
Speaker 2: murder when someone's shaking a rag doll and saying that

500
00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:40,520
Speaker 2: they're strangling the person. And that's what he would do,

501
00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:43,960
Speaker 2: outrageous things like that. Here's what's really creepy. He was

502
00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:46,880
Speaker 2: also a chef when there were body parts missing from

503
00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:47,840
Speaker 2: his victims.

504
00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:52,520
Speaker 1: Is there anything provable outside the Jack the Ripper murders?

505
00:25:52,600 --> 00:25:56,119
Speaker 1: Is there anything provable that he did that was violent?

506
00:25:56,240 --> 00:25:58,080
Speaker 1: I know that we've talked a little bit about speculation

507
00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:01,440
Speaker 1: people have gone missing, but was he ever arrested or

508
00:26:01,600 --> 00:26:04,520
Speaker 1: suspected of something outside of these cases totally under.

509
00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:06,439
Speaker 3: The radar, not that we know of.

510
00:26:06,680 --> 00:26:09,800
Speaker 2: But I'm not so sure because there's some very strange things.

511
00:26:09,800 --> 00:26:12,280
Speaker 2: For example, I went through you know, I went through

512
00:26:12,320 --> 00:26:16,159
Speaker 2: Whistler letters, James McNeill Whistler letters. We know that he

513
00:26:16,240 --> 00:26:19,160
Speaker 2: would have written around the time that this was all

514
00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:23,760
Speaker 2: going on, and very strangely he got summoned to Scotland Yard.

515
00:26:24,040 --> 00:26:26,159
Speaker 2: Whistler did and there was a letter he wrote to

516
00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:28,320
Speaker 2: someone where he was all in an uproar about he

517
00:26:28,680 --> 00:26:31,280
Speaker 2: was very upset about why he was having to go

518
00:26:31,320 --> 00:26:33,800
Speaker 2: to Scotland Yard. To this day we don't know what

519
00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:36,560
Speaker 2: they talked to him about. And the date on the letter,

520
00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:39,600
Speaker 2: I believe it's something like eighteen eighty seven or something,

521
00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:41,840
Speaker 2: or eighteen eighty six, which makes no sense if it

522
00:26:41,840 --> 00:26:43,919
Speaker 2: were about the Ripper because his crimes that we know

523
00:26:44,040 --> 00:26:47,359
Speaker 2: of didn't start till eighteen eighty eight. But I have

524
00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:51,080
Speaker 2: a feeling there were suspicions about him. Well, here's the

525
00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:53,520
Speaker 2: weird thing that happened. Whistler was supposed to go on

526
00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:57,560
Speaker 2: tour in America for his art stuff. Before he set

527
00:26:57,600 --> 00:26:59,359
Speaker 2: out on this tour, which I think he ended up

528
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:03,119
Speaker 2: not doing, suddenly these same cities where he was supposed

529
00:27:03,160 --> 00:27:07,040
Speaker 2: to have an exhibit got letters claiming that Whistler was

530
00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:09,919
Speaker 2: Jack the Ripper. Now, who's even going to write something

531
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:12,160
Speaker 2: like that? I mean, Whistler got so upset about all

532
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:13,879
Speaker 2: of this, and that might be why he got dragged

533
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:16,280
Speaker 2: into Scotland Yard. The date on the letter might be wrong,

534
00:27:16,560 --> 00:27:17,360
Speaker 2: but there.

535
00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:17,960
Speaker 3: Are weird things.

536
00:27:18,040 --> 00:27:21,040
Speaker 2: And why did John Grieve know about this? Now? I

537
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:23,720
Speaker 2: know that there had been a book written some years

538
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:27,080
Speaker 2: earlier that suggested Walter Sickert as Jack the Ripper. And

539
00:27:27,080 --> 00:27:30,240
Speaker 2: this was written by a woman whose mother was a

540
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:33,679
Speaker 2: friend of one of Sickret's friends, another artist. And this

541
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:36,360
Speaker 2: woman who I met with before she died, the one

542
00:27:36,359 --> 00:27:38,919
Speaker 2: who wrote the book about him. The tale that she

543
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:41,400
Speaker 2: tells about her mother being in France and coming home

544
00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:44,040
Speaker 2: and having met up with this artist who was Sickret's friend,

545
00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:47,639
Speaker 2: and this horrible story about that he was painting murder pictures,

546
00:27:47,680 --> 00:27:50,240
Speaker 2: and there was a fear that he was actually one

547
00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:53,199
Speaker 2: doing these awful things. I mean, there's been rumors he

548
00:27:53,280 --> 00:27:56,720
Speaker 2: painted a picture, a portrait in nineteen oh seven when

549
00:27:56,720 --> 00:27:59,520
Speaker 2: a man he's looking out a shuttered window in this

550
00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:02,560
Speaker 2: bedroom and it's called Jack the Ripper's bedroom. He was

551
00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:05,000
Speaker 2: obsessed with Jack the Ripper, and he used to tell

552
00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:06,879
Speaker 2: tales about it. He used to say that at one

553
00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:09,200
Speaker 2: time he lived in a rooming house with Jack the Ripper.

554
00:28:09,480 --> 00:28:12,840
Speaker 2: These people have to talk about it. Their fantasies are overwhelming.

555
00:28:13,440 --> 00:28:16,120
Speaker 2: I mean, it'd be one thing if Siicret never mentioned it,

556
00:28:16,400 --> 00:28:18,200
Speaker 2: knew nothing about the case. But he's so in the

557
00:28:18,240 --> 00:28:21,919
Speaker 2: middle of it, and by his own virtue, which I

558
00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:23,720
Speaker 2: think in and of itself is very odd.

559
00:28:24,400 --> 00:28:28,119
Speaker 1: What does his nephew say about your books or any

560
00:28:28,160 --> 00:28:32,200
Speaker 1: of this. Does he cooperate anything, does he agree with anything? Well,

561
00:28:32,280 --> 00:28:33,480
Speaker 1: I don't know what he says today.

562
00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:35,359
Speaker 2: I don't even know if his nephews are still alive

563
00:28:35,560 --> 00:28:38,440
Speaker 2: because they were elderly then. And this was two thousand

564
00:28:38,440 --> 00:28:40,440
Speaker 2: and one when I met with him. No, he wrote

565
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:42,880
Speaker 2: me a letter after I'd been to his place, when

566
00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:46,320
Speaker 2: he realized what I was doing, and he accused me

567
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:49,080
Speaker 2: of being undercover and what I'd done was wrong, and

568
00:28:49,120 --> 00:28:52,040
Speaker 2: that told people that the fistula thing he never said that. Well,

569
00:28:52,040 --> 00:28:55,760
Speaker 2: that's a lie. I swear on my own life that

570
00:28:55,800 --> 00:28:58,240
Speaker 2: he said that. And I could show you the entry

571
00:28:58,280 --> 00:29:00,680
Speaker 2: in my journal that I wrote the minute in the car.

572
00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:03,840
Speaker 2: I guarantee you his family covered for him in his dotage,

573
00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:05,600
Speaker 2: No telling what he said. He used to get drunk

574
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:07,320
Speaker 2: on champagne and stuff, and I go lock him in

575
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:09,840
Speaker 2: the bedroom because no telling what he started rambling about.

576
00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:13,280
Speaker 2: I know he stalked people, that's for sure. He stoked

577
00:29:13,280 --> 00:29:15,760
Speaker 2: the actress Ellen Terry, who was kind of like the

578
00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:19,080
Speaker 2: Angelina Jolie of the day. One of the most beautiful

579
00:29:19,200 --> 00:29:22,040
Speaker 2: actresses of the day. He stalked her, and then he

580
00:29:22,080 --> 00:29:24,840
Speaker 2: stoked another woman many years later, where he'd written these

581
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:28,239
Speaker 2: letters to this actress in Paris and he would leave

582
00:29:28,320 --> 00:29:31,040
Speaker 2: them at the stage door with no postage on it.

583
00:29:31,120 --> 00:29:34,720
Speaker 2: I mean, he definitely stalked people, but he was talented,

584
00:29:34,720 --> 00:29:36,280
Speaker 2: and he was charming, and he was part of the

585
00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:39,480
Speaker 2: upper class society, and he was protected by them, if

586
00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:40,040
Speaker 2: you ask.

587
00:29:39,960 --> 00:29:42,080
Speaker 3: Me, he still is. Now.

588
00:29:42,120 --> 00:29:45,480
Speaker 1: There's I think an argument that he was not in town.

589
00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:47,959
Speaker 1: Was he not in France? Tell me more about that.

590
00:29:48,040 --> 00:29:50,240
Speaker 1: So the argument was that he was out of town

591
00:29:50,360 --> 00:29:51,800
Speaker 1: during some of these murders.

592
00:29:51,920 --> 00:29:54,440
Speaker 2: Yes, he was in France most of the time, but

593
00:29:54,480 --> 00:29:55,960
Speaker 2: he was in and out of London. And how do

594
00:29:56,080 --> 00:29:59,040
Speaker 2: I know that. It's because when he his big thing

595
00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:02,000
Speaker 2: was to go to the music halls, which were filled

596
00:30:02,320 --> 00:30:03,240
Speaker 2: with sex workers.

597
00:30:03,280 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 3: By the way.

598
00:30:03,960 --> 00:30:06,520
Speaker 2: They would start late at evening and let out early,

599
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:09,720
Speaker 2: like at midnight or early in the morning, always letting

600
00:30:09,760 --> 00:30:12,560
Speaker 2: out not long before the next ripper crime happened. So

601
00:30:12,600 --> 00:30:14,920
Speaker 2: he would go to these music halls and he would

602
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:18,920
Speaker 2: draw what he saw on these little postcard size as

603
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:21,520
Speaker 2: pieces of paper that he kept in his pocket with

604
00:30:21,560 --> 00:30:26,440
Speaker 2: a pencil. Well he dated those and there are several

605
00:30:26,480 --> 00:30:28,920
Speaker 2: I found that are dated in London at a certain

606
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:31,760
Speaker 2: music hall within twenty four hours of a Ripper crime.

607
00:30:31,960 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 2: It was no big deal to take the steamer across

608
00:30:34,200 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 2: the English Channel. You could do it in one day,

609
00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:38,480
Speaker 2: and I think that's what he did after he committed

610
00:30:38,480 --> 00:30:41,760
Speaker 2: his crimes. He would go chill out somewhere, probably go

611
00:30:41,800 --> 00:30:44,239
Speaker 2: to the near steamer go and then go to his

612
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:46,400
Speaker 2: family house in DP and that's where he did. His

613
00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:48,960
Speaker 2: most beautiful artwork was in France and dep But when

614
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:51,040
Speaker 2: you get back to London, I think it brought out

615
00:30:51,360 --> 00:30:53,320
Speaker 2: the beast in him. And by the way, speaking of that,

616
00:30:53,680 --> 00:30:56,200
Speaker 2: it's not a coincidence that the Ripper crime started the

617
00:30:56,320 --> 00:30:58,840
Speaker 2: very time the Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde open at

618
00:30:58,840 --> 00:31:02,800
Speaker 2: the Lyceum Theater where Siccret used to work. The stage

619
00:31:02,800 --> 00:31:06,000
Speaker 2: manager was Bram Stoker, who wrote Dracula and Secret knew

620
00:31:06,040 --> 00:31:09,000
Speaker 2: all these people. Imagine that Jack the Ripper gave Winston

621
00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:10,160
Speaker 2: Churchill painting lessons.

622
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 4: I mean, seriously, do you think any pushback that your

623
00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:19,120
Speaker 4: theory gets is because maybe you're an American who is

624
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:22,680
Speaker 4: investigating the most famous case, not only in the world

625
00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:25,440
Speaker 4: but especially in the United Kingdom.

626
00:31:25,800 --> 00:31:28,040
Speaker 2: Well, I don't think that help matters. I don't think

627
00:31:28,040 --> 00:31:30,120
Speaker 2: it helped matters. I don't think it helped matters that

628
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:32,840
Speaker 2: I was one of the top crime novelists in the

629
00:31:32,840 --> 00:31:34,560
Speaker 2: world at the time, that I did all that, and

630
00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:37,719
Speaker 2: flying around on private jets and driving ferraris and all

631
00:31:37,720 --> 00:31:40,320
Speaker 2: the rest of it. I don't blame people for thinking

632
00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:43,040
Speaker 2: what they did. Why take me seriously? I don't know

633
00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:45,720
Speaker 2: that I would have taken me seriously. I've been very

634
00:31:45,760 --> 00:31:48,120
Speaker 2: fortunate with my success and stuff, but at the heart

635
00:31:48,120 --> 00:31:50,800
Speaker 2: of things, I'm still that little reporter running around chasing

636
00:31:50,840 --> 00:31:52,880
Speaker 2: down a story and go find out everything I can.

637
00:31:53,320 --> 00:31:58,720
Speaker 2: And I don't summarily or casually accuse somebody a murder,

638
00:31:59,200 --> 00:32:02,080
Speaker 2: even if they've been dead for a long time. That's wrong.

639
00:32:02,480 --> 00:32:04,720
Speaker 2: And I still am accusing him. If I am ever

640
00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:07,560
Speaker 2: shown that he absolutely didn't do it, I would be

641
00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:09,240
Speaker 2: the first to take it all back and say, well,

642
00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:11,640
Speaker 2: I know he wrote some of the letters. Okay, I

643
00:32:11,680 --> 00:32:14,400
Speaker 2: know he did, and he admits he was obsessed with

644
00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:17,480
Speaker 2: the case, but it looks like he just piggybacked on

645
00:32:17,520 --> 00:32:19,719
Speaker 2: what someone else did. But I don't believe that. I

646
00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:21,920
Speaker 2: wish for his sake it were true. You know this

647
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:24,680
Speaker 2: may sound weird to say, I find this all very sad.

648
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:28,640
Speaker 2: This was a really supremely gifted person and I'm sorry

649
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:30,440
Speaker 2: whatever happened to him as a child. And I know

650
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:32,880
Speaker 2: his father was very cruel. When he would go out

651
00:32:32,920 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 2: on a stroll with the disabled sister, he would deliberately

652
00:32:36,240 --> 00:32:39,200
Speaker 2: walk her into walls and into hedges, and sicret learned, well,

653
00:32:39,400 --> 00:32:40,360
Speaker 2: he had a good role.

654
00:32:40,200 --> 00:32:41,000
Speaker 3: Model for all that.

655
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:44,800
Speaker 1: You have some pretty incredible stories about Sickert, who I

656
00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:47,360
Speaker 1: had never heard of before, and not in the context

657
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:49,920
Speaker 1: of Jack the Ripper. How were you able to get

658
00:32:50,040 --> 00:32:54,440
Speaker 1: like the story about the father intentionally running the daughter

659
00:32:54,560 --> 00:32:55,320
Speaker 1: into a wall.

660
00:32:55,360 --> 00:32:56,520
Speaker 3: Where does that come from?

661
00:32:56,880 --> 00:33:00,160
Speaker 2: Some of that came from the document that his sister wrote,

662
00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:03,920
Speaker 2: but most of the telling things about Walter Sickert come

663
00:33:03,920 --> 00:33:08,280
Speaker 2: from the memoirs written by his artist friends, who had

664
00:33:08,400 --> 00:33:12,480
Speaker 2: no idea what they were revealing. A good example, he

665
00:33:12,600 --> 00:33:16,080
Speaker 2: was with this one artist friend one night and he said, oh,

666
00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:18,080
Speaker 2: let's go for a walk in the fog. It's a

667
00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:22,240
Speaker 2: very rim brand. So he picks up this gladstone bag,

668
00:33:22,520 --> 00:33:23,840
Speaker 2: you know those things that look like a big old

669
00:33:23,920 --> 00:33:28,080
Speaker 2: black doctor's bag, and weirdly. It's got a weird address,

670
00:33:28,200 --> 00:33:31,000
Speaker 2: something painted on it about a hedge or something strange.

671
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:33,840
Speaker 2: And they go out into the fog and he says

672
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:36,120
Speaker 2: he was taking her on a walk to show her

673
00:33:36,440 --> 00:33:38,960
Speaker 2: Jack the Ripper's world. They were going on a Jack

674
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:41,480
Speaker 2: the Ripper walk. This is what he did, and she

675
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:44,720
Speaker 2: was actually frightened. And there are other people that had

676
00:33:44,800 --> 00:33:48,720
Speaker 2: encounters with him that they reported as being very strange.

677
00:33:49,120 --> 00:33:52,000
Speaker 2: He wrote to a friend one time, at least you feel,

678
00:33:52,560 --> 00:33:55,800
Speaker 2: because he couldn't feel, couldn't feel anything. And I think

679
00:33:55,840 --> 00:33:57,440
Speaker 2: one of the reasons he did this stuff was to

680
00:33:57,480 --> 00:34:00,800
Speaker 2: feel something. And that's typical of a psychopath. They don't feel,

681
00:34:01,440 --> 00:34:03,720
Speaker 2: they don't feel remorse, they don't feel loved, they don't

682
00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:06,440
Speaker 2: feel attachments to people, and it must be a lonely,

683
00:34:06,520 --> 00:34:08,880
Speaker 2: miserable existence. And at one point, when he was in

684
00:34:08,920 --> 00:34:13,279
Speaker 2: a deep depression, living in France and writing, he wrote

685
00:34:13,280 --> 00:34:14,959
Speaker 2: a lot of letters. And I went through every letter

686
00:34:14,960 --> 00:34:17,000
Speaker 2: of his I could find, and there are a lot

687
00:34:17,040 --> 00:34:18,759
Speaker 2: of them. So I learned a lot from his letters

688
00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:19,880
Speaker 2: to by the way, and I had to have a

689
00:34:19,880 --> 00:34:22,080
Speaker 2: lot of them transcribed because his handwriting is so awful.

690
00:34:22,080 --> 00:34:22,839
Speaker 3: I couldn't read him.

691
00:34:23,200 --> 00:34:26,479
Speaker 2: But he wrote about listening to the water dripping into

692
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:28,560
Speaker 2: a pot from the leaky roof in this place as

693
00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:30,920
Speaker 2: Hove as he was staying, and he wrote to his friend,

694
00:34:31,120 --> 00:34:34,400
Speaker 2: I am the most hunted man in England right now.

695
00:34:34,760 --> 00:34:38,000
Speaker 2: Now what does that mean? Very strange. So all of

696
00:34:38,040 --> 00:34:44,480
Speaker 2: this stuff, memoirs, Whistler's own memoirs, Whistler's letters, sick Art's letters, Oh,

697
00:34:44,600 --> 00:34:47,280
Speaker 2: his wife's letters, you know. I went to that archival

698
00:34:47,320 --> 00:34:51,600
Speaker 2: source Ellen Cobden, And what's very fascinating is when you

699
00:34:51,640 --> 00:34:54,480
Speaker 2: get to eighteen eighty eight, there's not a single letter

700
00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:58,520
Speaker 2: between him and her, even though they were separated much

701
00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:00,960
Speaker 2: at the time. She was traveling and he was alone

702
00:35:01,160 --> 00:35:02,880
Speaker 2: in London some of the time in the fall of

703
00:35:02,880 --> 00:35:05,839
Speaker 2: eighteen eighty eight, when he supposedly was in France all

704
00:35:05,880 --> 00:35:08,160
Speaker 2: the time, Oh no, he wasn't. But all of these

705
00:35:08,160 --> 00:35:10,839
Speaker 2: things they continue to add up to a composite of

706
00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:14,799
Speaker 2: something that's so far from normal. This guy was so

707
00:35:14,840 --> 00:35:16,680
Speaker 2: obsessed with all this there was no way you'd ever

708
00:35:16,800 --> 00:35:19,239
Speaker 2: keep up with it. And I believe that he's responsible

709
00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:22,600
Speaker 2: for a lot of the ripper Lord that's out there today.

710
00:35:22,640 --> 00:35:24,440
Speaker 2: I believe he might be the one who started the

711
00:35:24,520 --> 00:35:29,440
Speaker 2: Royal conspiracy based on story Secret himself told about a

712
00:35:29,480 --> 00:35:32,280
Speaker 2: sex worker who was across the street from a studio

713
00:35:32,360 --> 00:35:34,600
Speaker 2: in a tobacco shop, and that Prince Eddie went in

714
00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:37,560
Speaker 2: there and had an illegitimate child with her that they

715
00:35:37,600 --> 00:35:40,399
Speaker 2: then gave the scret to raise as his own. That's

716
00:35:40,400 --> 00:35:42,479
Speaker 2: for him, you know, And that's kind of a little

717
00:35:42,480 --> 00:35:45,919
Speaker 2: bit the kernel of what went on in the Royal conspiracy.

718
00:35:46,120 --> 00:35:48,719
Speaker 2: You know, Prince Eddie has been blamed, but there's no

719
00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:53,160
Speaker 2: evidence whatsoever that anybody connected to the royal family had

720
00:35:53,160 --> 00:35:54,759
Speaker 2: anything to do with this. And I think it's a

721
00:35:54,760 --> 00:35:55,520
Speaker 2: bunch of hooey.

722
00:35:56,239 --> 00:35:59,880
Speaker 1: And you think he is responsible for more than just

723
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:03,640
Speaker 1: the canonical five, more than the additional two. You think

724
00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:06,400
Speaker 1: there are many more victims. And when did it stop?

725
00:36:06,480 --> 00:36:09,440
Speaker 1: Why would it stop? What you think he's responsible for.

726
00:36:09,680 --> 00:36:12,640
Speaker 2: The canonical five is a bunch of malarkey, because it

727
00:36:12,680 --> 00:36:16,200
Speaker 2: was that term was invented or coined by the former

728
00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:19,800
Speaker 2: Commissioner of the London City Police, who wasn't even present

729
00:36:19,840 --> 00:36:22,560
Speaker 2: for the Ripper crimes. I have in my possession the

730
00:36:22,640 --> 00:36:26,040
Speaker 2: original Times newspapers from eighteen eighty eight. I have every

731
00:36:26,040 --> 00:36:28,600
Speaker 2: single one of them. They're in books, this big bound

732
00:36:28,640 --> 00:36:30,279
Speaker 2: in leather at one on the table right over there.

733
00:36:30,320 --> 00:36:32,400
Speaker 2: You can't see it. And I went through all the

734
00:36:32,440 --> 00:36:35,839
Speaker 2: original newspaper stories. In the early days of the investigation,

735
00:36:35,920 --> 00:36:39,880
Speaker 2: they referred to seven murders so far seven, then it

736
00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:43,680
Speaker 2: became five because of the memoir this constable wrote many

737
00:36:43,719 --> 00:36:47,239
Speaker 2: years later. First of all, they didn't understand that with

738
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:51,640
Speaker 2: sexual psychopaths, they don't always do everything exactly the same

739
00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:55,480
Speaker 2: way things progress. They start out as you cut someone's throat,

740
00:36:55,640 --> 00:36:57,840
Speaker 2: then you open them up, then you take their introls

741
00:36:57,880 --> 00:36:59,359
Speaker 2: out and throw them on the pavement. Then you get

742
00:36:59,360 --> 00:37:01,680
Speaker 2: to Mary Kelly, where you flay her to the bone,

743
00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:04,799
Speaker 2: and you steal every organ except her brain. Oh well,

744
00:37:04,880 --> 00:37:08,040
Speaker 2: excuse me, you remove every organ except her brain. And

745
00:37:08,120 --> 00:37:10,680
Speaker 2: he did steal her heart. He took her heart, but

746
00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:15,280
Speaker 2: her other organs were very irreverently placed under her head.

747
00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:18,360
Speaker 2: You know, he just probably spent hours with that particular body.

748
00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:22,279
Speaker 2: So anybody I showed a picture of Mary Kelly, we

749
00:37:22,880 --> 00:37:24,960
Speaker 2: have a couple of crime scenes pictures of her. The

750
00:37:25,040 --> 00:37:27,680
Speaker 2: only in existence are the ones of Mary Kelly because

751
00:37:27,680 --> 00:37:30,800
Speaker 2: someone showed up with one of those old wooden box cameras.

752
00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:33,120
Speaker 2: And I have an original photograph. I should have pulled

753
00:37:33,120 --> 00:37:35,400
Speaker 2: it out and shown it to you of her body

754
00:37:35,440 --> 00:37:38,759
Speaker 2: on the bed and her whole face is gone or

755
00:37:38,840 --> 00:37:41,680
Speaker 2: she's been flayed. You can see the black line around

756
00:37:41,840 --> 00:37:44,080
Speaker 2: her lower leg where he's getting ready to amputate that

757
00:37:44,440 --> 00:37:47,720
Speaker 2: below the knee, because he's cut an incision there, removed

758
00:37:47,719 --> 00:37:50,480
Speaker 2: her whole face, cut off her breast, took out her organs,

759
00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:53,440
Speaker 2: and you go, how is it a far reach to

760
00:37:53,480 --> 00:37:55,120
Speaker 2: think that someone who would do that might not be

761
00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:57,200
Speaker 2: dismembering people, and that you're why are you not thinking

762
00:37:57,239 --> 00:38:00,279
Speaker 2: that this guy is the one who's leaving Torso scattered out.

763
00:38:01,200 --> 00:38:04,919
Speaker 1: So the ripper, the kind of conventional ripper timeline ends

764
00:38:04,960 --> 00:38:06,759
Speaker 1: in eighteen ninety two, is that right?

765
00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:08,400
Speaker 3: I don't know when he ended.

766
00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:11,560
Speaker 2: I mean that the Camden Town murder was nineteen oh seven,

767
00:38:12,040 --> 00:38:14,880
Speaker 2: but you know how long he may have killed after that,

768
00:38:14,960 --> 00:38:19,040
Speaker 2: I don't know, but it probably began to dissipate the

769
00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:21,520
Speaker 2: older you get. And you probably can see that in

770
00:38:21,560 --> 00:38:24,640
Speaker 2: his art workers after his Camden Town paintings. They're the

771
00:38:24,640 --> 00:38:26,880
Speaker 2: ones that made him famous, the Camden Town series of

772
00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:31,000
Speaker 2: paintings that all show women who look dead, they look murdered,

773
00:38:31,320 --> 00:38:33,719
Speaker 2: all sprawled on a bed. These nudes, they do not

774
00:38:33,840 --> 00:38:37,279
Speaker 2: look like art. They look like violent pornography if you

775
00:38:37,320 --> 00:38:41,200
Speaker 2: ask me. But that would show that imagination was still

776
00:38:41,239 --> 00:38:43,759
Speaker 2: being very much fueled, you know, if you want to

777
00:38:43,800 --> 00:38:46,400
Speaker 2: think of it in extremists. One goes out to do

778
00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:49,120
Speaker 2: research to get inspiration for a story, I go to

779
00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:52,200
Speaker 2: the morgue, but I don't cause the bodies to show

780
00:38:52,239 --> 00:38:55,480
Speaker 2: up there. That's the difference. But this is how I

781
00:38:55,480 --> 00:38:58,360
Speaker 2: think he got his artistic inspiration was through the violence

782
00:38:58,360 --> 00:39:00,919
Speaker 2: that he perpetrated, and I think at some point he quit.

783
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:03,439
Speaker 2: Now it is interesting that one of the other things

784
00:39:03,440 --> 00:39:05,880
Speaker 2: that's creepy he'd moved to France for a while. He

785
00:39:05,960 --> 00:39:07,279
Speaker 2: was in and out of France all the time, and

786
00:39:07,320 --> 00:39:10,440
Speaker 2: he bought a former police department there as his home.

787
00:39:10,760 --> 00:39:13,920
Speaker 2: It had bedrooms that had been former jail cells, and

788
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:17,360
Speaker 2: that's where he lived when his second wife died. She

789
00:39:17,560 --> 00:39:21,440
Speaker 2: also had physical problems. He was feeble and had money,

790
00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:25,080
Speaker 2: and he was such a disgusting person that when she

791
00:39:25,239 --> 00:39:27,920
Speaker 2: died there are letters at the Tate to him writing

792
00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:31,600
Speaker 2: her relatives constantly asking for money for her headstone and

793
00:39:31,640 --> 00:39:33,920
Speaker 2: all the rest. He didn't bother having her headstone engraved.

794
00:39:34,200 --> 00:39:36,760
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure he poisoned her with morphine. He decided

795
00:39:36,800 --> 00:39:38,680
Speaker 2: it was time for her to go because she did

796
00:39:38,800 --> 00:39:40,960
Speaker 2: you know, he was in charge of giving her morphine.

797
00:39:41,080 --> 00:39:43,520
Speaker 2: And he had met Cherise Lasour and as soon as

798
00:39:43,719 --> 00:39:46,759
Speaker 2: as this one was dead, Cherise Lsur took him under

799
00:39:46,760 --> 00:39:49,120
Speaker 2: her wing. And that was his third wife and she

800
00:39:49,239 --> 00:39:50,040
Speaker 2: supported him too.

801
00:39:50,680 --> 00:39:53,560
Speaker 1: He died in nineteen forty two. Can we just talk

802
00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:55,440
Speaker 1: about the end of his life and what you know

803
00:39:55,560 --> 00:39:58,600
Speaker 1: about it and sort of how to wrap up him

804
00:39:58,960 --> 00:40:02,160
Speaker 1: and him as a care character. We know how everything

805
00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:04,759
Speaker 1: has gone up until then. What do we think about

806
00:40:04,760 --> 00:40:06,320
Speaker 1: the last decade of his life?

807
00:40:06,560 --> 00:40:09,680
Speaker 2: He got more and more peculiar. You know, he didn't

808
00:40:09,719 --> 00:40:12,200
Speaker 2: drink in his early years, and then he started drinking.

809
00:40:12,520 --> 00:40:15,839
Speaker 2: This one actress that he was stalking in France, who

810
00:40:15,880 --> 00:40:18,120
Speaker 2: I mean these women, they actually would even go on

811
00:40:18,160 --> 00:40:20,719
Speaker 2: a carriage ride with him. They didn't realize what was

812
00:40:20,800 --> 00:40:24,000
Speaker 2: going on here. I mean, Ellen Terry would have secret

813
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:26,919
Speaker 2: help her run errands. Meanwhile he's walking past her house

814
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:29,279
Speaker 2: at night, staring through the windows, you know. And this

815
00:40:29,719 --> 00:40:33,200
Speaker 2: Gwen frank Jan Davies, the French actress, I think she

816
00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:35,000
Speaker 2: went on a carriage ride and had lunch with him

817
00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:37,640
Speaker 2: once and he had downed two bottles of champagne, And

818
00:40:37,680 --> 00:40:40,759
Speaker 2: so I imagine that his wife, his third wife, get

819
00:40:40,840 --> 00:40:43,239
Speaker 2: him tucked into his bedroom and hush him up. So

820
00:40:43,280 --> 00:40:46,520
Speaker 2: he didn't tell wild stories. So he was known for that.

821
00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:50,000
Speaker 2: But he was very much respected until I think close

822
00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:51,320
Speaker 2: to the end of his days. I think he was

823
00:40:51,440 --> 00:40:54,320
Speaker 2: rather much getting becoming forgotten. But he had an honorary

824
00:40:54,400 --> 00:40:57,920
Speaker 2: PhD from the University of Manchester. He taught art, he

825
00:40:57,960 --> 00:41:00,840
Speaker 2: wrote about art. I think in his very late days

826
00:41:01,040 --> 00:41:02,840
Speaker 2: he had a lot of health problems. He was he

827
00:41:02,920 --> 00:41:05,920
Speaker 2: supposedly his cause of death, for one thing, was like

828
00:41:06,120 --> 00:41:09,360
Speaker 2: constant kidney infections and urinary tract infections and all of

829
00:41:09,400 --> 00:41:12,239
Speaker 2: this was probably the sequela to his early surgeries and

830
00:41:12,320 --> 00:41:15,120
Speaker 2: having a lot of scar tissue and strictures and things

831
00:41:15,120 --> 00:41:17,239
Speaker 2: the damage that would have been caused by that, and

832
00:41:17,280 --> 00:41:19,239
Speaker 2: that's what he died of. But he wasn't young. He

833
00:41:19,360 --> 00:41:22,400
Speaker 2: was almost eighty two. That's what's so weird. You realize

834
00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:26,359
Speaker 2: that he lived to see the first movies about Jack

835
00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:29,520
Speaker 2: the Ripper, this one behind Me, the Lodger, And by

836
00:41:29,560 --> 00:41:32,279
Speaker 2: the way that Lodger was based on the story by

837
00:41:32,360 --> 00:41:34,920
Speaker 2: the author who sat next to a man at a

838
00:41:34,960 --> 00:41:37,040
Speaker 2: dinner who claimed he had lived in the same rooming

839
00:41:37,040 --> 00:41:38,879
Speaker 2: house with Jack the Ripper. Well, who do you think

840
00:41:38,920 --> 00:41:40,960
Speaker 2: that might have been that night? It was probably sicker

841
00:41:41,719 --> 00:41:43,920
Speaker 2: And that became the basis of her book The Lodger

842
00:41:44,040 --> 00:41:45,759
Speaker 2: that then became the first movie.

843
00:41:45,960 --> 00:41:46,960
Speaker 3: This guy, he.

844
00:41:47,040 --> 00:41:49,520
Speaker 2: Was, this publicity junkie. He had, He had his own

845
00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:52,360
Speaker 2: clipping service. I went through all that too, all the microfilm.

846
00:41:52,400 --> 00:41:54,879
Speaker 2: I had all of it printed, including stuff that went

847
00:41:54,880 --> 00:41:57,399
Speaker 2: back to his childhood that was written in some form

848
00:41:57,440 --> 00:41:59,480
Speaker 2: of German that I had to have somebody translated into

849
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:02,440
Speaker 2: bottom Jar and then have translated into English. And that's

850
00:42:02,440 --> 00:42:05,120
Speaker 2: where I learned stories about his father, who was very

851
00:42:05,200 --> 00:42:08,080
Speaker 2: similar to Secred, who was always wandering around, would disappear

852
00:42:08,160 --> 00:42:11,120
Speaker 2: for days on end. Siicred would take his wife Ellen

853
00:42:11,520 --> 00:42:14,160
Speaker 2: out for her birthday. He'd get up to go use

854
00:42:14,200 --> 00:42:16,480
Speaker 2: the bathroom or do something and never come back to

855
00:42:16,520 --> 00:42:19,000
Speaker 2: the table. She never knew where he was. He would

856
00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:21,759
Speaker 2: disappear for days on end. It wasn't until the last

857
00:42:21,840 --> 00:42:24,600
Speaker 2: year of her life that she finally wrote him off

858
00:42:24,719 --> 00:42:28,000
Speaker 2: and stopped dealing with him. This was about nineteen fourteen,

859
00:42:28,040 --> 00:42:32,080
Speaker 2: I believe, and she changed her will the last year

860
00:42:32,120 --> 00:42:34,160
Speaker 2: of her life to include that she would have an

861
00:42:34,200 --> 00:42:37,360
Speaker 2: autopsy on death. Now why would she do that. I

862
00:42:37,400 --> 00:42:39,240
Speaker 2: think she was afraid she was going to be murdered

863
00:42:39,239 --> 00:42:42,480
Speaker 2: by him. I think he poisoned people too, just so

864
00:42:42,560 --> 00:42:44,839
Speaker 2: you know, because right after he got with Ellen in

865
00:42:44,880 --> 00:42:49,400
Speaker 2: eighteen eighty seven, his own father suddenly died of some

866
00:42:49,520 --> 00:42:52,560
Speaker 2: neurological flare up, something that had to do with his brain,

867
00:42:52,600 --> 00:42:55,360
Speaker 2: and he died. And then not long after that, Ellen's

868
00:42:55,560 --> 00:42:58,399
Speaker 2: younger sister, who was only in her twenties, she came

869
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:01,839
Speaker 2: down with some weird neural logical something fever and all

870
00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:04,560
Speaker 2: the rest, and she died. Well, just so you know,

871
00:43:04,640 --> 00:43:07,400
Speaker 2: the painting studios used a lot of things that were poisonous,

872
00:43:07,480 --> 00:43:11,440
Speaker 2: like Oarsnick there were poisons glore back in those days.

873
00:43:11,640 --> 00:43:15,000
Speaker 2: We don't know, but he would have loved the power

874
00:43:15,080 --> 00:43:18,160
Speaker 2: of watching someone getting sicker every day because of something

875
00:43:18,160 --> 00:43:20,719
Speaker 2: he's given them in their tea or their food, or

876
00:43:20,719 --> 00:43:23,480
Speaker 2: who knows what. And I think that Ellen, I mean,

877
00:43:23,560 --> 00:43:26,359
Speaker 2: why would you want an autopsy? She's a proper upper

878
00:43:26,400 --> 00:43:30,120
Speaker 2: class lady who wants an autopsy? In nineteen friggin fourteen,

879
00:43:30,480 --> 00:43:33,200
Speaker 2: and he had himself cremated when he died. Not many

880
00:43:33,200 --> 00:43:34,400
Speaker 2: people did that either.

881
00:43:34,680 --> 00:43:37,600
Speaker 1: So I would say, of all the theories that I've heard,

882
00:43:37,640 --> 00:43:41,879
Speaker 1: yours is more valid, if not certainly as valid as

883
00:43:41,920 --> 00:43:44,720
Speaker 1: the ones that have been thrown out there to wrap

884
00:43:44,800 --> 00:43:47,520
Speaker 1: up Jack the Ripper. Though, what will it take do

885
00:43:47,560 --> 00:43:52,160
Speaker 1: you think to finally, definitively solve this case for everyone?

886
00:43:52,520 --> 00:43:56,680
Speaker 1: Is it coming up with DNA real DNA from one

887
00:43:56,680 --> 00:43:58,440
Speaker 1: of the crime scenes and you can compare it to

888
00:43:58,480 --> 00:44:00,399
Speaker 1: sickard and that's or do you think I think we're

889
00:44:00,440 --> 00:44:00,960
Speaker 1: done right?

890
00:44:01,280 --> 00:44:02,440
Speaker 3: There's nothing to be done.

891
00:44:02,520 --> 00:44:06,239
Speaker 2: You could dig up his remains, his creamines, and now

892
00:44:06,320 --> 00:44:09,520
Speaker 2: DNA testing is sensitive enough that you might be lucky

893
00:44:09,520 --> 00:44:12,240
Speaker 2: and get his DNA profile, But good luck getting permission

894
00:44:12,320 --> 00:44:16,080
Speaker 2: to exhume him or any of his victims that's been

895
00:44:16,120 --> 00:44:19,319
Speaker 2: in discussions before. You'd have to get the government to

896
00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:22,080
Speaker 2: approve that, and you'd have to have really good justification

897
00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:24,719
Speaker 2: for it. Even so, I don't The only thing you

898
00:44:24,719 --> 00:44:26,960
Speaker 2: could ever prove is that he wrote the letters. You're

899
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:29,120
Speaker 2: not going to find his DNA on somebody that's been

900
00:44:29,160 --> 00:44:30,919
Speaker 2: in the ground for one hundred and thirty years after

901
00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:34,200
Speaker 2: it's been in the dead house. They threw the clothes

902
00:44:34,280 --> 00:44:36,000
Speaker 2: out in the alleyway. We don't have any of the

903
00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:38,040
Speaker 2: clothing of the victims. They didn't save things like that

904
00:44:38,160 --> 00:44:41,680
Speaker 2: back then. In fact, the ragpickers they would come around

905
00:44:41,719 --> 00:44:44,480
Speaker 2: and collect rags like the clothing thrown in an alleyway.

906
00:44:44,719 --> 00:44:48,160
Speaker 2: They would sell it to paper mills. Imagine this. They

907
00:44:48,160 --> 00:44:51,120
Speaker 2: would bleach it and they would take the paper and

908
00:44:51,200 --> 00:44:54,439
Speaker 2: the linens and stuff the cotton, whatever, and they would

909
00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:58,279
Speaker 2: turn it into fine stationary, the very fine stationary. That

910
00:44:58,320 --> 00:45:00,880
Speaker 2: secret was writing his ripper letters one on. Some of

911
00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:04,400
Speaker 2: it came from clothing of poppers, and that's something the

912
00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:06,360
Speaker 2: chain of life, the chain of death.

913
00:45:06,920 --> 00:45:09,880
Speaker 1: Are you as enthusiastic about your fiction books as you

914
00:45:09,920 --> 00:45:13,520
Speaker 1: are about this book, because if you are even more

915
00:45:13,640 --> 00:45:16,680
Speaker 1: enthusiastic about the fiction series, I can't even imagine what

916
00:45:16,760 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 1: you're like on a book tour, because you are just

917
00:45:19,800 --> 00:45:22,880
Speaker 1: it's like you're bleeding this. You really believe it, and

918
00:45:22,920 --> 00:45:25,080
Speaker 1: you have done a tremendous amount of research.

919
00:45:25,560 --> 00:45:28,239
Speaker 2: You know, if anybody listened to the evidence I look at,

920
00:45:28,280 --> 00:45:30,960
Speaker 2: if you look at the evidence that I have, and

921
00:45:31,320 --> 00:45:33,760
Speaker 2: I have to be quick to tell people I didn't

922
00:45:33,880 --> 00:45:37,360
Speaker 2: analyze this stuff. I didn't do the DNA testing, and

923
00:45:37,400 --> 00:45:40,680
Speaker 2: the DNA that we did get is inclusive. We don't

924
00:45:40,760 --> 00:45:43,680
Speaker 2: have secrets DNA, but we got a profile from a

925
00:45:43,760 --> 00:45:46,719
Speaker 2: ripper letter that had never been laminated or treated by

926
00:45:46,760 --> 00:45:50,640
Speaker 2: the conservationist, and so it gave us some good DNA.

927
00:45:50,719 --> 00:45:53,200
Speaker 2: That most of the stuff had been destroyed. You're not

928
00:45:53,239 --> 00:45:54,920
Speaker 2: going to get anything off of it because they would

929
00:45:55,120 --> 00:45:57,399
Speaker 2: take the letter in the envelope and they would put

930
00:45:57,440 --> 00:46:01,000
Speaker 2: a laminated piece of plastic over it. Can you imagine

931
00:46:01,440 --> 00:46:03,680
Speaker 2: like you do heating a decal for a T shirt?

932
00:46:03,880 --> 00:46:05,600
Speaker 2: So what do you expect is going to be left.

933
00:46:06,000 --> 00:46:09,280
Speaker 2: You're ruining the handwriting, you're ruining the DNA, You're ruining everything.

934
00:46:09,360 --> 00:46:11,120
Speaker 2: They never should have done that. I'm sorry, but they

935
00:46:11,120 --> 00:46:13,880
Speaker 2: shouldn't have. But we don't know whose DNA any of

936
00:46:13,880 --> 00:46:16,360
Speaker 2: that is when you're getting it off an envelope, because

937
00:46:16,400 --> 00:46:18,960
Speaker 2: remember back in those days, a lot of people sealed

938
00:46:19,040 --> 00:46:22,279
Speaker 2: envelopes with a sponge. You might find Whistler's DNA on

939
00:46:22,320 --> 00:46:25,480
Speaker 2: a letter that Sickert sealed in his studio. So no,

940
00:46:25,680 --> 00:46:27,719
Speaker 2: I'm not going to prove it through that probably and

941
00:46:27,760 --> 00:46:31,040
Speaker 2: nobody else is either, I don't think Unless I tell

942
00:46:31,040 --> 00:46:34,120
Speaker 2: you what would be really telling, there is a ripper

943
00:46:34,200 --> 00:46:37,440
Speaker 2: letter that has I mentioned it a woodprint on it,

944
00:46:37,600 --> 00:46:39,800
Speaker 2: this face, and he says, this is Jack the Ripper.

945
00:46:39,840 --> 00:46:42,800
Speaker 2: Ain't I a handsome guy? Or something like that? People

946
00:46:42,800 --> 00:46:44,879
Speaker 2: thought it was a drawing. Tell I took an art

947
00:46:44,960 --> 00:46:47,800
Speaker 2: historian to look at it in the public record office,

948
00:46:47,960 --> 00:46:50,000
Speaker 2: and she looked at the original and she said, this

949
00:46:50,040 --> 00:46:52,680
Speaker 2: isn't a drawing. She said, this is a woodcut. And

950
00:46:52,719 --> 00:46:54,839
Speaker 2: she said this is a good enough woodcut to hang

951
00:46:54,880 --> 00:46:57,800
Speaker 2: in a fricking gallery. You know that you could carve

952
00:46:58,239 --> 00:47:00,920
Speaker 2: this face on a piece of wood like an etching,

953
00:47:01,600 --> 00:47:05,839
Speaker 2: put it an InCor put it on the letter. Well, now, oh,

954
00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:07,839
Speaker 2: wouldn't it be a nice thing if it turned out

955
00:47:07,840 --> 00:47:10,920
Speaker 2: that and Sicret's memorabilia that he left behind with his

956
00:47:10,960 --> 00:47:13,640
Speaker 2: family there happened to be that woodcut in a gladstone bag.

957
00:47:14,360 --> 00:47:17,719
Speaker 2: Then the one he carried everywhere. Now that's never turned up,

958
00:47:17,960 --> 00:47:20,480
Speaker 2: and if it did, I suspect certain parties would not

959
00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:23,600
Speaker 2: come clean about it. But even that could be argued,

960
00:47:23,600 --> 00:47:25,080
Speaker 2: where did he get it? And just because he sent

961
00:47:25,120 --> 00:47:28,040
Speaker 2: a letter doesn't mean he killed anybody, right, So I

962
00:47:28,080 --> 00:47:30,760
Speaker 2: think what I would simply suggest is that if people

963
00:47:30,760 --> 00:47:32,719
Speaker 2: should look at the evidence, read it in my book,

964
00:47:32,760 --> 00:47:35,480
Speaker 2: everything I say is true. If there's a if it's not,

965
00:47:35,600 --> 00:47:37,759
Speaker 2: it's just an honest mistake, like a street sign that

966
00:47:37,800 --> 00:47:40,160
Speaker 2: I get the name wrong or something. But the science

967
00:47:40,200 --> 00:47:43,480
Speaker 2: in it is actually just the truth. I mean. Peter

968
00:47:43,600 --> 00:47:46,040
Speaker 2: Bauer is the one that did the paper analysis, and

969
00:47:46,080 --> 00:47:49,080
Speaker 2: the Tait hired him to show what an idiot I was.

970
00:47:49,120 --> 00:47:50,800
Speaker 2: They were going to show that he was going to

971
00:47:50,840 --> 00:47:53,279
Speaker 2: look at the paper and show that this didn't match

972
00:47:53,320 --> 00:47:55,120
Speaker 2: anything they had to do with sicret Instead, he was

973
00:47:55,160 --> 00:47:57,600
Speaker 2: the one who proved it did, proved it did, and

974
00:47:57,760 --> 00:47:59,439
Speaker 2: even called me one time. He says, oh my god,

975
00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:02,560
Speaker 2: this one watermark. It was at the Getty in California,

976
00:48:02,719 --> 00:48:04,839
Speaker 2: and he said, this is the best one I've seen.

977
00:48:04,880 --> 00:48:06,480
Speaker 2: He said, I need to look at this in person.

978
00:48:06,560 --> 00:48:08,680
Speaker 2: So he flew all the way to LA and looked

979
00:48:08,680 --> 00:48:10,719
Speaker 2: at it in person. And that's the one that was

980
00:48:10,800 --> 00:48:13,920
Speaker 2: like six pieces of paper out of twenty four, and

981
00:48:14,040 --> 00:48:16,960
Speaker 2: three of them were ripper letters and the other three

982
00:48:17,040 --> 00:48:19,400
Speaker 2: were secret letters. And I show you the pictures of

983
00:48:19,440 --> 00:48:21,920
Speaker 2: those in my book. There's something going on there, and

984
00:48:21,960 --> 00:48:24,080
Speaker 2: maybe I don't have it dead right. No pun intended

985
00:48:24,080 --> 00:48:25,960
Speaker 2: about what he actually did, But I'm telling you he's

986
00:48:25,960 --> 00:48:28,880
Speaker 2: connected to all this, and I do think he did it.

987
00:48:29,160 --> 00:48:32,440
Speaker 2: I think that you don't confess the way these Ripper letters.

988
00:48:32,480 --> 00:48:36,440
Speaker 2: They're violent, they're awful, they're crude, they hate women, they

989
00:48:36,520 --> 00:48:37,360
Speaker 2: hate the authority.

990
00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:39,320
Speaker 3: His father hated authority.

991
00:48:39,320 --> 00:48:41,000
Speaker 2: He would write about the police and how much he

992
00:48:41,080 --> 00:48:44,680
Speaker 2: hated him in his German letters and stuff. But I'm

993
00:48:44,680 --> 00:48:46,600
Speaker 2: never going to prove it any more than anybody else

994
00:48:46,640 --> 00:48:50,160
Speaker 2: probably will, and I don't really care. I mean, it's

995
00:48:50,160 --> 00:48:52,879
Speaker 2: not about being right. I don't care anymore whether people

996
00:48:52,920 --> 00:48:55,160
Speaker 2: think I'm right. I hope that people think I did

997
00:48:55,200 --> 00:48:57,600
Speaker 2: a credible job, because most of all, I would want

998
00:48:57,640 --> 00:49:01,040
Speaker 2: to have integrity and be ethical. Would never say something

999
00:49:01,040 --> 00:49:03,560
Speaker 2: that I believe isn't true. And like I said it,

1000
00:49:03,640 --> 00:49:05,759
Speaker 2: the day comes that we find out that he absolutely

1001
00:49:05,800 --> 00:49:08,360
Speaker 2: couldn't have done it for some reason, I'd be the

1002
00:49:08,360 --> 00:49:10,440
Speaker 2: first to want to know all about it, because it's

1003
00:49:10,520 --> 00:49:12,240
Speaker 2: not about me, it's about truth.

1004
00:49:23,520 --> 00:49:26,400
Speaker 1: If you love historical true crime stories, check out the

1005
00:49:26,440 --> 00:49:29,319
Speaker 1: audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That

1006
00:49:29,440 --> 00:49:32,680
Speaker 1: Is Wicked, and American Sherlock, and Don't Forget There are

1007
00:49:32,760 --> 00:49:36,520
Speaker 1: twelve seasons of my historical true crime podcast Tenfold More

1008
00:49:36,560 --> 00:49:40,200
Speaker 1: Wicked right here in this podcast feed, scroll back and

1009
00:49:40,239 --> 00:49:43,000
Speaker 1: give them a listen if you haven't already. This has

1010
00:49:43,040 --> 00:49:47,560
Speaker 1: been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alexis M. Morosi.

1011
00:49:47,920 --> 00:49:52,400
Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This episode was mixed

1012
00:49:52,400 --> 00:49:56,279
Speaker 1: by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer, artwork by

1013
00:49:56,440 --> 00:50:01,760
Speaker 1: Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hartstark, Kilgaiff and Danielle Kramer.

1014
00:50:02,000 --> 00:50:06,160
Speaker 1: Follow Wicked Words on Instagram at tenfold more Wicked and

1015
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