Speaker 1: Pushkin. It's one am and Louis deem Shuts, a jewelry seller,
Speaker 1: is on his way home in his horse and cart.
Speaker 1: He can barely see his way through the dark. As
Speaker 1: he turns off the street, his pony shied at something
Speaker 1: which was lying in a heap in a corner of
Speaker 1: the yard. Newspaper reports say that deem Shuts assumed that
Speaker 1: a passed out, drunk or homeless person was blocking the
Speaker 1: way and scaring his horse. He looked more closely into
Speaker 1: the matter and then found a woman lying on the ground, dead,
Speaker 1: with her throat cut clean to the vertebrae. The body
Speaker 1: was quite warm and blood was still flowing freely from
Speaker 1: the throat. Elizabeth's Stride has died recently. It seems curiously,
Speaker 1: her injuries differ from those of the rippers previous victims.
Speaker 1: While Polly Nichols and Annie Chapman suffered abdominal mutilation as
Speaker 1: well as slash wounds to their throats, Elizabeth was killed
Speaker 1: by a single cut. Few expressed doubt, however, that Jack
Speaker 1: the Ripper is to blame. Elizabeth's death prompts myriad eyewitness accounts.
Speaker 1: Whitechapel locals report where Elizabeth went before she died, and
Speaker 1: with whom they described the men she had met, and
Speaker 1: a picture of a suspect emerges. Jack the Ripper now
Speaker 1: has a face. These descriptions will shape the case for
Speaker 1: decades to come. But did any of these eyewitnesses actually
Speaker 1: see Elizabeth's stride that night, let alone her murderer. I'm
Speaker 1: Hallie Rubinholt, you're listening to bad women. The Ripper retold
Speaker 1: a series about the real lives of the been killed
Speaker 1: by Jack the Ripper and how we got their stories
Speaker 1: so wrong. One side, money plenty and friends too by
Speaker 1: the sky. Then fortune smild upon me. I now one
Speaker 1: pass my dome. Aloney, I'm not with her, seems to
Speaker 1: larn me. I'm come for me for rockcount Elizabeth strides
Speaker 1: early life took her from Brual Sweden, were prisoned like
Speaker 1: syphilis hospital. She came to London, married a carpenter and
Speaker 1: ran two coffee houses, both of which failed and closed.
Speaker 1: Then she became a fraudster, hoodwinking Londoners with tales of
Speaker 1: family tragedy. We left her in September eighteen eighty eight.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth's final day began like any other. She cleaned rooms
Speaker 1: at a Whitechapel lodging house, earning a meager sixpence wage
Speaker 1: about ten dollars today, and then she went to the
Speaker 1: pub for a drink. The lodging house manager noted that
Speaker 1: Elizabeth wore neither a coat nor a bonnet, a detail
Speaker 1: that some have pounced upon as proof that she'd returned
Speaker 1: to selling sex, as she had done briefly in her
Speaker 1: native Sweden. Women out soliciting which surely tried to show
Speaker 1: off their faces and bodies as much as possible. Of course,
Speaker 1: wearing a hat was equally argued to be the sign
Speaker 1: of a prostitute. Remember the conclusions drawn about Polly Nichols
Speaker 1: in her jolly bonnet. If Elizabeth Stride was still selling sex,
Speaker 1: she didn't have much lucks listing clients. She walked back
Speaker 1: to her lodging house alone at around six thirty pm.
Speaker 1: Only a handful of facts are known about what she
Speaker 1: did in the hours before her death. She ate some potatoes,
Speaker 1: bread and cheese. She likely had a few drinks as well.
Speaker 1: At some stage in the evening she acquired a corsage,
Speaker 1: a single red rose tied together with some maidenhair fern,
Speaker 1: which she attached to the bodice of her dress. Elizabeth
Speaker 1: asked a friend to mind a length of green velvet
Speaker 1: she had in her possession. She was about to go
Speaker 1: out for several hours, and perhaps she wanted to make
Speaker 1: sure that no one stole and pond it before she
Speaker 1: stepped out the door again. She sought to smarten herself up,
Speaker 1: borrowing a brush to clean the muck from her only
Speaker 1: set of clothes. Just as the newspaper reports and Polly
Speaker 1: Nichols and Annie Chapman's last movements are riddled with contradictions
Speaker 1: and inconsistencies, the same is true for Elizabeth. Some say
Speaker 1: she had paid for her bed at the lodging house
Speaker 1: that night in advance with that sixpence she'd earned. Others
Speaker 1: state the opposite. If she had indeed already paid, it
Speaker 1: would suggest that her intention was to return to the
Speaker 1: lodging house later that evening, but where she planned to
Speaker 1: go when she stepped out that night is unknown. Elizabeth
Speaker 1: avoided telling her neighbors about her current or past life.
Speaker 1: No one knew her typical habits, regular companions, or usual haunts.
Speaker 1: Perhaps she went out to socialize or to meet someone.
Speaker 1: She may have left her lodging house with the intention
Speaker 1: of soliciting, or of finding a long term partner, or both.
Speaker 1: Whatever Elizabeth's planned that night, she never returned. According to
Speaker 1: the coverage of the autopsy, there was a clear cut
Speaker 1: incision on the neck. It was six inches in length
Speaker 1: and commenced two and a half inches in a straight
Speaker 1: line below the angle of the jaw. The obvious inference,
Speaker 1: said one newspaper, was that this was the work of
Speaker 1: Jack the Ripper. The thing is, the darts just don't
Speaker 1: join up that easily. Elizabeth was killed with a single cut,
Speaker 1: and her body wasn't otherwise mutilated. Her injuries were therefore
Speaker 1: quite unlike those of Polly Nichols and Annie Chapman. She
Speaker 1: was also killed near a busy men's club, whereas Polly
Speaker 1: and Annie were murdered in quiet places with fewer passers by.
Speaker 1: I have strong doubts about whether Elizabeth Stride was a
Speaker 1: victim of the Ripper at all. The traditional narrative claims
Speaker 1: that the killer was disturbed before he could carry out
Speaker 1: his trademark butchery. It further maintains that, with his blood
Speaker 1: lust unsated, he dashed across Whitechapel in search of another
Speaker 1: woman to murder. That very same night, but that's a
Speaker 1: story for another episode. This all strikes me as a
Speaker 1: bit far fetched. Elizabeth could have fallen prey to some
Speaker 1: other unknown attacker, a victim of one of her fraudulent tricks.
Speaker 1: Perhaps it's even possible that she was killed by her partner,
Speaker 1: Michael Kidney, who was known to be physically abusive. Nevertheless,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Stride is still counted among the five victims, perhaps
Speaker 1: because her death adds so much color to the Ripper myth.
Speaker 1: It was only with Elizabeth Stride's death that I witnesses
Speaker 1: began to come forward to report actual sightings of a suspect.
Speaker 1: For example, a laborer saw a man and a woman
Speaker 1: in close conference just before midnight on the street where
Speaker 1: Elizabeth was killed. He believed that woman was Elizabeth's Stride.
Speaker 1: I was standing at my door, and what attracted my
Speaker 1: attention first was standing there sometime and he was kissing her.
Speaker 1: I heard the man say to the deceased, you would
Speaker 1: say anything but your prayers. He was mild speaking and
Speaker 1: appeared to be an educated man. Not long after that,
Speaker 1: Israel Schwartz, who gave a statement through an interpreter, noticed
Speaker 1: a man and a woman having a disagreement on the
Speaker 1: same street. Their argument became increasingly heated. The woman was
Speaker 1: thrown to the ground, letting out a scream. Schwartz was
Speaker 1: then startled by a second man who had been standing
Speaker 1: in the shadows. Feeling menaced by this figure and unwilling
Speaker 1: to intervene in some kind of domestic dispute, he took
Speaker 1: to his heels and fled. Other neighbors chimed in two.
Speaker 1: One woman saw a young man with a black, shiny
Speaker 1: bag who walked very fast, but had it noticed anything
Speaker 1: else unusual. That night, and in the daily news, a
Speaker 1: man named Albert asked recalled a conversation with a suspicious stranger.
Speaker 1: He asked me questions which now appeared to me to
Speaker 1: have some bearing upon the recent murders. He wanted to
Speaker 1: know whether I knew what sort of loose women use
Speaker 1: the public bar at their house, when they usually left
Speaker 1: the street outside, and where they were in the abbit
Speaker 1: of going. He asked further questions, and from his manner,
Speaker 1: seemed up to no good purpose. He appeared to be
Speaker 1: a shabby, genteel sort of man, and was dressed in
Speaker 1: black clothes. He wore a black felt hat and carried
Speaker 1: a black bag. Such descriptions are the bedrock of most
Speaker 1: Ripper theories. The trouble is none of these eyewitness statements
Speaker 1: have ever been submitted to real scrutiny. Under close examination,
Speaker 1: they don't hold up well at all. The Ripper he
Speaker 1: told will be back In a moment, from the cacophony
Speaker 1: of witnesses, a portrait of Elizabeth Stride's killer began to
Speaker 1: take shape. The following description has been circulated of a
Speaker 1: man said to have been seen in the company of
Speaker 1: the deceased during Saturday, age twenty eight slight height, five
Speaker 1: feet nine inches, complexion dark, no whiskers, black diagonal coat,
Speaker 1: hard felt hat collar. It's not much to go on
Speaker 1: an average size Victorian man who was neither very old
Speaker 1: nor very young in average Victorian dress. Still, over the years,
Speaker 1: these statements, no matter how vague, have crystallized into the
Speaker 1: supposed facts of the case. Every Ripper book or documentary
Speaker 1: you've seen will build on these shaky foundations. There was
Speaker 1: at least one, maybe two copycats involved in these five murders.
Speaker 1: Take Jeff Mudget, a descendant of Herman Mudget, who was
Speaker 1: also known as H. H. Holmes. That's pretty much where
Speaker 1: my theory has gone okay, and I know a lot
Speaker 1: of people disagree with that. A notorious American swindler and
Speaker 1: serial killer Holmes trapped his victims and what became known
Speaker 1: as his murder Castle, a Chicago house he built to
Speaker 1: include soundproof chambers and shoots to move body parts for disposal.
Speaker 1: I put some research into this evil man and became
Speaker 1: somewhat obsessed with knowing the true story about him. Holmes
Speaker 1: lived and killed in Chicago, but Jeff is convinced that
Speaker 1: he also crossed the Atlantic to satisfy his murderous impulses,
Speaker 1: that he was also shack the Ripper. The more I
Speaker 1: dug in, the more the angle started lessoning, and the
Speaker 1: chances became greater and greater. Jeff has gathered evidence about
Speaker 1: handwriting and passenger lists. We've done quite a bit of
Speaker 1: research into passenger lists on liners from New York to
Speaker 1: London Southampton, and we found some of the aliases that
Speaker 1: Holmes used. He also thinks physical descriptions link Holmes and
Speaker 1: the man scene with Elizabeth Stride. Both were of average
Speaker 1: height and mustachioed, as was the fashion of the day.
Speaker 1: Jeff actually thinks that Holmes didn't kill all the women.
Speaker 1: His theory is elaborate and seems to suggest that H. H.
Speaker 1: Holmes was a copycat killer drawn to London after the
Speaker 1: earlier murders. He gave a ted X talk where he
Speaker 1: presented his evidence, making much of a computer image, a
Speaker 1: facial composite based on the statements of eye witnesses that
Speaker 1: was produced by Scotland yard analysts for yet another TV show.
Speaker 1: Noticed the bridge of the nose, Notice the shape of
Speaker 1: the eyes, Notice the years, Notice the cheek bons. He
Speaker 1: compares it to a photo of HH Holmes. Just take
Speaker 1: a second to look once again the nose Holmes had
Speaker 1: a broken nose, the eyes, the years, and again the
Speaker 1: cheek bons. Jeff, who incidentally is a lawyer by trade,
Speaker 1: show both of these images to two seasoned investigators, one
Speaker 1: from the FBI. Both said the comparison was the closest
Speaker 1: they'd ever seen in their entire careers. Jeff calls all
Speaker 1: this a remarkable piece of evidence, although many of the
Speaker 1: people that criticized me for using that thought it looked
Speaker 1: more like Freddie Mercury than it did H. Holmes. Jeff's
Speaker 1: theory is frankly baffling, and I had a bit of
Speaker 1: trouble following the logic. During our conversation, it seemed to
Speaker 1: contain gaping holes and great leaps of imagination. I was
Speaker 1: surprised that someone with legal training would entertain this story
Speaker 1: for a second. Would I be confident proving that Holmes
Speaker 1: was Jack the Ripper and a court of log beyond
Speaker 1: a reasonable doubt. Now now, off the back of his
Speaker 1: ted X talk, Jeff made a TV show, American Ripper,
Speaker 1: where he teamed up with former CIA agent Amaryllis Fox
Speaker 1: in an effort to prove once and for all that
Speaker 1: his great great grandfather was Jack the Ripper. I've talked
Speaker 1: to experts and historians and combed through libraries and archives
Speaker 1: searching for the truth, and I believe that by assuming
Speaker 1: the identity of Jack the Ripper, HH Holmes pulled off
Speaker 1: one of the greatest cons of all time. That show
Speaker 1: has been seen all over the world. In fact, it
Speaker 1: was on British TV again the very day I interviewed him.
Speaker 1: The Ripper's final victim is played like a piece of meat.
Speaker 1: It makes me wonder how Holmes was conducting dissections and
Speaker 1: the basement of the Murder Castle in the years following
Speaker 1: The Ripper killings are you aware of any? Viewers are
Speaker 1: served up theories like this all the time. The same
Speaker 1: cast of former detectives, handwritting experts and police artists are
Speaker 1: wheeled out to explain the evidence and solve the crime.
Speaker 1: The issue here is that not all evidence is equal.
Speaker 1: It has to be scrutinized and weighed up. I'd argue
Speaker 1: that little cited as evidence in the Ripper case would
Speaker 1: actually stand up in court. The idea behind the due
Speaker 1: process is that obviously we have these safeguards in place
Speaker 1: that ultimately those who should be convicted or convicted and
Speaker 1: where there's doubt they're acquitted. Ed Connell knows all about
Speaker 1: the problems that evidence can pose. He's a judge in
Speaker 1: the UK, presiding over criminal cases, and he previously spent
Speaker 1: twenty three years as a trial lawyer. Eyewitness statements, he says,
Speaker 1: are notoriously thorny. Visual identification has been one of the
Speaker 1: real problems that the criminal justice system has faced. It's
Speaker 1: one of the main causes of injustice. In eighteen ninety five,
Speaker 1: a man named Adolf Beck was accused of swindling women
Speaker 1: in London. He'd approached them on the street, claiming to
Speaker 1: be an aristocrat and promising to whisk them away to
Speaker 1: his luxury yacht and lavish them with jewelry. In fact,
Speaker 1: why not give me that old ring so I can
Speaker 1: have a new one made in exactly the right size
Speaker 1: for you. Beck was spotted leaving home by one of
Speaker 1: the women. That's him a rest back man. Several victims
Speaker 1: and other eyewitnesses also identified him as the con man,
Speaker 1: and he was sent to prison. The problem was Beck
Speaker 1: was living in South America when these crimes took place.
Speaker 1: It was only years later that the real culprit was
Speaker 1: caught and Beck was freed. The case prompted the creation
Speaker 1: of the UK's Court of Appeal. Today, we issue guidelines
Speaker 1: about witness testimony precisely to avoid the kind of issues
Speaker 1: that consigned ad Off Beck to years in prison for
Speaker 1: someone else's crimes. A judge will say to the jury
Speaker 1: members of jury, they have in the past being miscarriager's justice.
Speaker 1: We have to be very careful. People who appeared to
Speaker 1: be compelling can be wrong. Honest people can be wrong.
Speaker 1: Lots of honest people can be wrong. Mistakes are made,
Speaker 1: juries are often worn. To accept eyewitness statements with caution.
Speaker 1: What distance were they viewing the person from, was there
Speaker 1: anything in their way? What was the weather like, what
Speaker 1: was the lighting like? How long has there been from
Speaker 1: when they saw the persons or when they perhaps subsequently
Speaker 1: identified them. Ed's examined some of the witness statements in
Speaker 1: elizabeth Strides case, and he says they contain inherent weaknesses,
Speaker 1: so it's difficult to really draw any conclusions from what
Speaker 1: these people are said. It's difficult to see how anybody
Speaker 1: could go away having read these statements and be sure
Speaker 1: of what's contained within them. One should take great care
Speaker 1: and caution before being able to say, yes, actually, any
Speaker 1: of this stuff is fact. We can rely upon the
Speaker 1: ripper were told we'll be back in just a moment.
Speaker 1: Looking at, for example, the statement of William Marshall, it's
Speaker 1: a very limited use to you at all. William Marshall
Speaker 1: was a laborer. He believed he saw Elizabeth's stride the
Speaker 1: night she died, in quiet discussion with a man. Marshall
Speaker 1: thought he heard the man with Elizabeth tell her you
Speaker 1: would say anything but your prayers. Marshall later went to
Speaker 1: identify Elizabeth's body and confirmed that this was indeed the
Speaker 1: same woman he had seen on the Street, he gave
Speaker 1: evidence at the coroner's inquest. I recognize it as that
Speaker 1: of a woman I saw on Saturday evening, about three
Speaker 1: doors off from where I'm living in Berni Street. I
Speaker 1: recognize her both by her face and dress, while she
Speaker 1: wearing a flower when you saw her. No, it is
Speaker 1: wary of Marshall's testimony. Marshall didn't actually know Elizabeth, and
Speaker 1: how much real attention would he have paid to a
Speaker 1: couple he just saw on the street, Probably not enough
Speaker 1: for a detailed picture of them to lodge in his memory.
Speaker 1: He gives a very limited description as to what she
Speaker 1: was wearing. He says black jacket and black skirt, which
Speaker 1: I imagine was not particularly unique. And the other piece
Speaker 1: of him for mation is that he says that she
Speaker 1: was wearing a small black crape bonnet, which again I
Speaker 1: suspect is probably not a particularly distinguishing feature. Curiously, Marshall
Speaker 1: didn't see the corsage that Elizabeth had attached to her dress.
Speaker 1: He told the coroner that the woman he saw wasn't
Speaker 1: wearing a flower. On the other hand, a police inspector
Speaker 1: who took a description of Elizabeth at the Moutree noted
Speaker 1: that She had a red rose tied with maidenhair fern
Speaker 1: fastened to her clothing. Again a sort of feature that
Speaker 1: an observant witness who could be deemed reliable would have spotted.
Speaker 1: Even if this woman was Elizabeth's stride, Marshall couldn't have
Speaker 1: had a great view of the pair. For one thing,
Speaker 1: he was watching them from a distance. Can you describe
Speaker 1: the man? There was no lamp near, and I did
Speaker 1: not see the face of the man she was talking to.
Speaker 1: He had on a small black coat and dark trousers.
Speaker 1: Seemed to be a middle aged man. What sort of
Speaker 1: cap was he wearing? A round cap with a sort
Speaker 1: of peak to it, something like what a sailor would wear.
Speaker 1: It's happening late at night, so it's dark. He makes
Speaker 1: reference to there being a light, but of course they
Speaker 1: would have been passing under the light. He describes that
Speaker 1: the male person had a brimmed cap on, so that
Speaker 1: would have cast the face into darkness. What height was he?
Speaker 1: About five ft six inches and he was rather stout.
Speaker 1: He was decently dressed, and I should say he worked
Speaker 1: at some light business and had more the appearance of
Speaker 1: a clerk than anything else. He gives a description of
Speaker 1: a man wearing a small black coat, dark trousers. Again
Speaker 1: not unique. I wouldn't have thought for the time, middle
Speaker 1: aged and about five foot six and rather stout. It's
Speaker 1: not particularly sort of distinctive description that would only match
Speaker 1: maybe two or three people. It mats hundreds of thousands
Speaker 1: of people at that time. So again that sort of
Speaker 1: cast some doubt over whether or not he could be
Speaker 1: relied upon his identification witness. But more important than that,
Speaker 1: there is actually no visual identification of the person because
Speaker 1: he doesn't see the face. And then the coroner asked
Speaker 1: a question latron or did he have any whiskers? And
Speaker 1: his response was born from what I saw of his face.
Speaker 1: I don't think he did. But he's already told them
Speaker 1: that he hadn't seen the face. So his identification evidence
Speaker 1: is just really, it seemed to me inherently weak. Here
Speaker 1: Edie is convinced that William Marshall wouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: pick this suspect out of a lineup. A modern standard
Speaker 1: for reliable identification by witnesses. The whole idea of identification procedures.
Speaker 1: You arrange eleven stooges that look very similar facially to
Speaker 1: the individual and then you hope that the witness then
Speaker 1: picks the person out. But this witness, mister Marshall, seems
Speaker 1: wouldn't have even been able to do that at all.
Speaker 1: So you're really left with a broad description of types
Speaker 1: of clothing of very limited value. Should we also ask
Speaker 1: questions of this witness such as why was he awake
Speaker 1: at that time of night? What was he doing? Was
Speaker 1: he drinking? Perhaps? Absolutely? I mean that's one of the
Speaker 1: things you often would ask a witness when they're identified
Speaker 1: someone involved perhaps in a pub fight, for example, at
Speaker 1: eleven o'clock at night, because it's a very good chance
Speaker 1: that they will have been drinking. It's also worth remembering
Speaker 1: where the abundance of eyewitness accounts on Elizabeth Strides case
Speaker 1: came from. In the first place. Panic was gripping Whitechapel.
Speaker 1: These murders were all over the newspapers. It's unsurprising that
Speaker 1: people would then come for and say, oh, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I think you know, I might have seen that night
Speaker 1: as well. And of course they then want to believe
Speaker 1: that they're right about it, and no one's going to
Speaker 1: then go and look at the body and say, oh no,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm wrong. I've made a terrible mistake. They're
Speaker 1: going to want to insist that they've got it all right.
Speaker 1: Marshall's evidence wouldn't clear the bar for reliability that we
Speaker 1: said today. His is just one example of witness testimony
Speaker 1: from Elizabeth Stride's murder, but it shows us that there
Speaker 1: are pitfalls when we take what people thought they saw
Speaker 1: in Whitechapel that night and on the nights of the
Speaker 1: other murders and portray them as facts. Because there was
Speaker 1: never a trial, accounts like Marshall's were never discredited. Instead,
Speaker 1: they're out there in the ether ripe to form the
Speaker 1: foundations for House of Card theories, like Jeff Mudget's thesis
Speaker 1: that is great great Groundfather sailed across the Atlantic to
Speaker 1: join the Jack the Ripper killing spree. The advantage of
Speaker 1: people have now looking back with the passage of time
Speaker 1: is that you can pretty much put a spin on
Speaker 1: anything you want to your advantage, because there's such limited
Speaker 1: information for you to tear and say, well, no, you've
Speaker 1: got that completely wrong. We're all just stuck with the
Speaker 1: minimum information we've really got from the coroner reports and
Speaker 1: what was reported at the time. Perhaps this is why
Speaker 1: I'm viewed with such animosity by ripparologists. As a professional historian,
Speaker 1: I hunt for evidence, stress test the facts that I find,
Speaker 1: and cross reference them with other available sources. Ripparologists cherry pick,
Speaker 1: attaching huge importance to whatever supports their theories and ignoring
Speaker 1: what's inconvenient. All this reminds me of how conspiracy theories work.
Speaker 1: They too, are detailed narratives built around scant and disputed facts.
Speaker 1: It's no coincident, but the Whitechapel murders spawned many crackpot
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories, with Freemasons, Jews, and Royalty all being implicated
Speaker 1: in plots to cover up the murderer's true identity. I
Speaker 1: find this aspect of the Ripper case especially maddening. It's
Speaker 1: bad enough that some people ignore the victims and spend
Speaker 1: an inordinate amount of time almost glorifying the killer's deeds,
Speaker 1: but to abuse the historical records so casually in the
Speaker 1: process infuriates me. Further Still, it turns the grisly murders
Speaker 1: of real women into a silly who done it? Game.
Speaker 1: The megastar crime writer Patricia Cornwell, creator of the famous
Speaker 1: Scott Heatter novels, also has a very detailed theory Patricia
Speaker 1: links Victorian artist Walter Sickett to the Whitechapel murders. I've
Speaker 1: been reading up on her work and I feel it's
Speaker 1: no more plausible than chefs. There's no statute of limitation
Speaker 1: on harmicide, and just because these cases have had her
Speaker 1: in fourteen years ago, the victims have a right to justice.
Speaker 1: My mind went back to her documentary, Patricia Cornwell's Stalking
Speaker 1: the Ripper. Patricia is clearly a thoughtful and talented person
Speaker 1: who speaks passionately about wanting to bring justice to the
Speaker 1: murdered women. But I cannot understand the path she has followed,
Speaker 1: and I fear she's falling into the same trap as
Speaker 1: the most zealous ripparologists. I genuinely want to understand what's
Speaker 1: driving her, but getting in touch with Patricia was proving
Speaker 1: more difficult than I had anticipated. I write my agent, Sarah,
Speaker 1: hoping she might have some ideas. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: like contacting a superstar. Really, I'm not quite sure how
Speaker 1: I'm going to manage to help you with this. What
Speaker 1: are we dealing with it? I mean, Patricia Cornwell is
Speaker 1: like a kind of force of nature. How big is she?
Speaker 1: I've never met her, myself, but she does. Her reputation
Speaker 1: really precedes her. She is a sort of action woman
Speaker 1: of the literally world. And that first case Scarpettiitt was
Speaker 1: the first bonfidi forensics thriller, which is extraordinary when you
Speaker 1: think about it. I mean the CSI Dexter. You can't
Speaker 1: turn on the telly without tripping over something, which is
Speaker 1: all about forensic detail, and she predated all of that.
Speaker 1: She started writing those books at a time where there
Speaker 1: wasn't really any interest in that. Sarah said that she
Speaker 1: would reach out to Patricia's US agent for me. I
Speaker 1: was keeping everything crossed. Interestingly, she also thought that Patricia
Speaker 1: and I might have more in common than I'd imagined.
Speaker 1: She's very interested in victimhood. Her books are all about
Speaker 1: finding justice for people who've had terrible things done to them.
Speaker 1: Patricia's Walter Sickett theory, like the prostitute killer theory, wrests
Speaker 1: on simplistic ideas of misogyny and sexual deviance. Patricia contends
Speaker 1: that as a child, Sickert underwent surgery to correct a
Speaker 1: fisture on his penis. The operation was botched, leaving him
Speaker 1: disfigured and impotent. As a result, says Patricia, he raged
Speaker 1: against women. None of this theory ry screams interest in
Speaker 1: the victims to me, certainly, not in who they were
Speaker 1: before their murders, or in the lives that they led,
Speaker 1: or the forces that put them into the killer's path.
Speaker 1: I genuinely want to understand why people invest so much time, money,
Speaker 1: and emotional energy into thinking about Jack the Ripper. Maybe
Speaker 1: Patricia can articulate that for me, and maybe I can
Speaker 1: convince her to focus less on the psychology of a
Speaker 1: killer will never catch and more on the women that
Speaker 1: he murdered. Maybe I can convince her to finally call
Speaker 1: off the hunt. Bad Women the Ripper Were Told is
Speaker 1: brought to you by Pushkin Industries and Me Hallie Ribbinhold,
Speaker 1: and is based on my book The Five. It was
Speaker 1: produced and co written by Ryan Dilley and Alice Fines,
Speaker 1: with help from Pete Norton. Pascal Wise Sound designed and
Speaker 1: mixed the show and composed all the original music. You
Speaker 1: also heard the voice talents of Soul Boyer, Melanie Gutridge,
Speaker 1: Gemma Saunders, and rufus Wright. The show also wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been possible without the work of mil LaBelle, Jacob Weisberg,
Speaker 1: Jen Guerra, Heather Fane, Carlie Migliori, Maggie Taylor, Nicole Morano
Speaker 1: and Daniella Lacan were special thanks to my agents Sarah
Speaker 1: Ballard and Ellie Karen