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Speaker 1: Pushkin. Gretta Heywood has come to London's Nightclumb district to

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Speaker 1: meet her boyfriend, but as cross paths with another man,

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Speaker 1: a trainee fighter pilot. He's lewd, persistent, and menacing. Are

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Speaker 1: you a naughty girl? She's found herself alone with him

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Speaker 1: on a side street in total darkness. This is winter

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Speaker 1: nineteen forty two, in the middle of the Second World War,

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Speaker 1: and London is blacked out for fear that any light

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Speaker 1: will attract Hitler's bombers. The man pushes Gretta into a doorway,

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Speaker 1: pressing closely up against her and kissing her. Come on,

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Speaker 1: you've got to let me make love to you. He

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Speaker 1: raises her skirt. Gretta protests, but the man's hands knit

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Speaker 1: around her throat. She tries to break free. You won't.

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Speaker 1: Gretta struggles to release the man's grip. You won't, but

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Speaker 1: his fingers only tighten around her neck, cutting off the

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Speaker 1: flow of air to her lungs and blood to her brain.

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Speaker 1: You walk. You are very an art. It is a

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Speaker 1: full fifty years after the Whitechapel murders gripped this city,

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Speaker 1: but a killer every bit as brutal, as twisted, and

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Speaker 1: as terrifying as Jack the Ripper is again stalking at

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Speaker 1: streets over the course of just a few days in

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Speaker 1: this chilly wartime February. He will strike night after night.

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Speaker 1: His cruelty and depravity are so shocking. His victims have

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Speaker 1: so brutalized that he will be dubbed the Blackout Ripper.

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Speaker 1: My reaction when I read the case file was sod

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Speaker 1: the Blackout Ripper. He's an asshole. I hate him. He's arrogant,

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Speaker 1: he doesn't deserved to live, and I hate to say

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Speaker 1: that about anyone. Whereas the women, I fell in love

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Speaker 1: with them, every single one of them. But just like

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Speaker 1: Jack's victims, many thought the women who were attacked by

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Speaker 1: the Blackout Ripper had it coming. They were asking for trouble.

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Speaker 1: They were particularly targeted. They were seen as both deserving

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Speaker 1: victims and also easy pickings. This is the most shocking

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Speaker 1: murders bury you've never heard of. So we've delved into

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Speaker 1: the archives and retrieved police reports, witness statements, and photos

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Speaker 1: to explain who the victims were and reconstruct what happened

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Speaker 1: over that bloody wartime week. You learn about all the

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Speaker 1: quirks in their life. You learn about the sadness, you

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Speaker 1: learn about the joy. It makes them real and whole

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Speaker 1: and you kind of want to meet them. I'm Hallie Rubinhold,

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Speaker 1: and with the help of fellow historians, I'll introduce you

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Speaker 1: to those women and reveal a dark side to World

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Speaker 1: War Two that's seldom taught in schools. Men had to

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Speaker 1: dodge advancing bullets and women had to dodge advancing men.

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Speaker 1: It was kind of pretty dark staff that's going on

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Speaker 1: at its worst. The world of the Blackout Ripper may

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Speaker 1: seem distant and long gone, but there are still women

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Speaker 1: alive to tell us what they went through. There was

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Speaker 1: a man that there's appalling creature I had ever seen

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Speaker 1: in the whole of my life, who reached out as

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Speaker 1: I came in, turned round my rich right back, and

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Speaker 1: luckily nobody killed me, but I might have done if

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Speaker 1: I'd gone down those steps. So come back with us

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Speaker 1: to the dive bars, jazz joints, and raucous nightclubs of

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Speaker 1: London's West End, where young women try to forget the

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Speaker 1: falling bombs. When you add the excitement and the fear,

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Speaker 1: you get a kind of hedonism where people are just

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Speaker 1: desperate for entertainment, for sex, for alcohol and those sorts

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Speaker 1: of things. You are a very nice girl. Are you

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Speaker 1: waiting for somebody? Step into the dark with me? For

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Speaker 1: Bad Women The Blackout Ripper starting October eleventh, wherever you

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Speaker 1: get your podcasts,