Unsolved Killings of Jack the Ripper, The (2023)

[bunniefuu]

- (carriage rattling)

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[Policeman] It was September of 1888.

Streets of Whitechapel were a dark,

and frightening place at the best of times.

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I had spent 15 years on

the beat in the East End,

so I knew, better than

most, what went on in

that shadowy corner of the capital.

(dramatic orchestral music)

By that autumn, with a k*ller on the loose,

the streets became even

darker, and even more frightening.

(dramatic music)

Gruesome murders had left the entire city

in a state of panic and chaos.

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- (women whispering)

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In February that year,

I was promoted to Inspector First Class,

but the following autumn,

I was seconded from my new position,

and assigned to the case of the m*rder

of a woman named Annie Chapman.

(dramatic music)

- (women whispering)

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I could not have known the terror,

or frustration of what was to come.

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The hunt for one of the most elusive,

and mysterious K*llers in history.

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Jack the Ripper.

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Whitechapel in the

1880s was very much one

of the poorest parts of town.

Generations of extreme

poverty, extreme unemployment,

and extreme overcrowding

had turned large parts

of the area into slum ghettos,

and it was a horrible place to live.

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There were a number of

different people who were living

in Whitechapel at the time.

You had the working poor, for example.

Certain streets were

seen as worse than others.

So certain streets, people had menial jobs,

and they were able to

work and pay their rent.

Other streets at the time

were described as vicious,

and semi criminal.

There wasn't really a step down

after the slums of Whitechapel.

It really didn't get much worse than that.

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The area was dangerous,

unfit to be lived in.

Gloomy by day, dark and dangerous by night,

and it was a horrible place to live.

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A number of the buildings were collapsing,

were unfit to be lived in.

Mice and rats infested the walls.

It was a desperate time for

tens of thousands of people

in the Whitechapel and Spitalfields area.

- (horses whinnying)

- (people chattering)

[Speaker] Come on now, come on.

(somber music)

[Speaker 2] Line it up, line it up there.

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Back in Victorian times,

prostitution was ill*gal.

But due to the horrible living conditions

that so many people were

forced to contend with it,

it had become so widespread,

that the police were just simply unable

to do anything about it,

and it was just something

that seemed to happen in a lot of areas.

prostit*tes in Victorian

times, much like those today,

would put themselves in great danger.

People forced to work

the streets, put themselves

in great danger to do so.

And much like today, numerous

women in the Whitechapel area

will have been beaten, ripped, ripped off,

and been subjected to

any manner of criminality

as they're forced onto the streets to try,

and get the money to feed themselves.

(foreboding music)

- (people muttering)

- (people whistling)

Crime was very widespread

in Victorian Whitechapel,

but it was a lot of poverty driven crime.

A lot of thefts, muggings,

burglaries, that kind of thing.

Prostitution had become rife.

People were desperate,

and were doing absolutely

anything they could

to get the money to

find a bed for the night,

and feed themselves.

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m*rder wasn't overly

common in Victorian times.

People often think that there

were murders happening

all the time in the streets,

and there weren't.

It would happen occasionally,

and if they were to hang somebody,

the newspapers would make

a big song and dance out of it.

But m*rder wasn't overly common,

and certainly not serial

k*ller, m*rder mutilation,

in the street, kind of murders.

That was something that

was entirely unheard of.

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It all began with the

m*rder of Mary Ann Nichols.

I was handed the file, which informed me

of the k*lling of 42-year-old

Mary Ann Nichols,

whose body was found on Buck's Row

on the 31st of August, 1888.

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Mary Ann Nichols had

been a casual prost*tute

who was residing in a lodging

house in nearby Thrawl Street.

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Her marriage failed in 1880

due to her frequent

overindulgence in alcohol.

After this, she had

begun working the streets

in order to earn a living.

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Mary Ann Nichols at

the time of her m*rder,

was a 43-year-old English woman.

Who at the time was living

at number 18, Thrall Street,

in the Spitalfield's area of Whitechapel.

She'd previously been

married to a man named William,

with whom she had had five children.

But William had actually

run off with the midwife

that delivered the fifth of her children,

and left Mary Ann to herself.

He'd been forced to pay her

an alimony payment, monthly,

but then it stopped.

She'd taken him to court over that,

and he had said in the courtroom

that he had had her watched,

and knew that she was

living as a prost*tute.

In Victorian times, that

meant he didn't have

to pay her anymore, so he

stopped paying her the money.

That then led to her

being entirely homeless,

and sleeping rough in Trafalgar Square.

She'd then been taken by police,

and admitted to a number of workhouses.

And then eventually had ended up,

at the time of the

m*rder, in Thrawl Street,

one of the worst streets in the area.

In the middle of the worst slum districts

in London, desperate

and just trying to survive.

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[Policeman] In the early

hours of 31st August, 1888,

the body of Mary Ann Nichols was discovered

in a stable entrance on Buck's Row.

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On the night of her

m*rder, Mary Ann Nichols

had been staying at Wilmott's lodging house

at number 18, Thrawl

Street in Spitalfields.

And having spent some

time in the Frying Pan pub

on the corner of Thrawl

Street and Brick Lane,

she had been back in the lodging house

at half past midnight.

But had been thrown

out of the lodging house

because she didn't have

money to pay for the bed.

It would appear at this point,

she had produced a hat,

according to a number of witnesses.

It was a new hat,

that she'd apparently found

somewhere in the street.

She placed it onto her head and said,

"Don't worry, save the

bed for me. I'll soon be back.

Look what a jolly bonnet I've got."

She then left the lodging house.

At half past two that

morning, she was then seen

on nearby Osborn Street by

a woman who actually worked

at Wilmott's lodging house.

"She was so drunk," she said,

"That she could barely stand up."

She offered to take her

back to the lodging house,

but Mary Ann refused, saying

that she'd already earned

her money three times

that day, and had spent it.

She headed off alone down Whitechapel Road,

drunk, at half past two in the morning,

and that was the last time

that she was seen alive.

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[Policeman] Around 3:40

AM Charles Cross, a carter,

found the body lying in Buck's Row

on her back, legs straight out.

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She was lying on the

path on the south side

of the road outside of Brown's Stable Yard,

and was found originally by

two men called Charles Cross,

and Robert Paul as they

made their way to work.

But it was so dark, they were unaware

that a m*rder had taken place.

Unsure whether she was dead,

or simply sleeping, they

decided to get back to work,

and inform a policeman when they saw one.

They did not raise the alarm.

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A few minutes later, a

constable was inspecting

the stable yard next to the board school,

when he noticed the body

of a woman lying on her back.

Upon closer inspection

by the light of his lamp,

he found that Mary had

sustained horrific wounds.

Mary's throat had been

slashed from ear to ear,

and cut back to the vertebra.

Her windpipe and gullet

had been severely slashed,

and there had also been extensive slashing,

and ripping of her abdomen.

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And the investigation began.

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The police had been questioning

the neighborhood's

prostit*tes about the character

who had a repetition for being violent,

and had been extorting money

from them for the past year.

Rumors had been circulating

that the killings were the work,

of a Jewish man dubbed Leather Apron,

who had a reputation for

violence against prostit*tes

in the East End.

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On the 5th of September,

1888, "The Star" newspaper

published a write up on Leather Apron.

These rumors resulted in

growing anti-Semitic sentiment

in the area.

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The case surrounding the m*rder

of Annie Chapman begins earlier that night

at number 35, Dorset Street

at Crossingham's lodging house

where she was staying.

Half three in the morning,

she was sitting in the kitchen

of the lodging house when she

was approached by the manager,

and asked if she had the money for the bed.

She said she did not, but

told him to save the bed for her.

She would soon be back.

She would find the money.

She left the lodging house

at half past three in the morning,

and then wasn't seen again.

Until her body was then

discovered at five to six

that morning, in the rear yard

of number 29, Hanbury Street,

heavily mutilated with her

throat cut, her body posed,

objects arranged around her body.

(sinister music)

At 6:00 AM on the 8th of

September, 1888, John Davis,

a resident of 29 Hanbury

Street, came downstairs,

walked through the narrow

passageway of the building,

and opened the back door.

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At the foot of the

stairs, he found the body

of 47-year-old Annie

Chapman lying flat on her back.

A deep cut had been

slashed across her throat.

Her intestines have been pulled out,

and laid across her shoulder.

Missing from the body were the uterus,

and parts of the bladder.

The contents of her pockets

had been arranged around her,

and lying nearby was a

neatly folded leather apron.

(sinister music)

Annie Chapman, in 1888,

was a 47-year-old woman,

who at the time of her m*rder

was staying in the slums

at number 35 Dorset Street,

Crossingham's lodging house.

Which is one of the worst

places to stay in the entire area.

Annie Chapman had somewhat

fallen from grace as well.

She had a very tragic back story,

that had led her to the

slums in Whitechapel

in the first place.

She had previously lived in Mayfair.

She lived in Windsor.

She'd been married to her husband John,

and the pair had had

three children together.

But her husband, John, would

appear to have been disabled,

and had been sent to live in a home.

Their daughter, Emily,

then died at the age of 12

from meningitis.

That would seem to have put a great strain

on their marriage, at which point

they both would seem to

have started drinking heavily.

They'd gone their separate ways.

Annie Chapman had

ended up cast into the slums,

and then had found herself

stuck there permanently,

when her husband John,

drank himself to death

on Christmas Day, 1886.

From that time onwards, she

had been living a degraded life

of desperation and destitution.

Trying to do anything she

could to keep going in the slums

of Whitechapel and Spitalfields.

(somber dramatic music)

- (sinister chanting)

- (somber music)

Ayle

Kross

Ayle

Yole

Ayle kross

Yole

Ayle

Kross

(sinister chanting)

Ayle

Ayle

Kross

(sinister chanting)

Ayle

Ayle kross

Yole

Ayle

(sinister chanting)

(sinister music)

Ayle

Kross

Ayle kross

Ayle kross

Yole

Ayle

(sinister chanting)

(gentle dramatic music)

Annie Chapman's body

was discovered at shortly

before six o'clock in the morning

by 56-year-old John Davis,

who actually lived on the top floor

of number 29 Hanbury Street.

(gentle dramatic music)

(typewriter clanging)

He woke up at quarter to

six that morning, he said,

Knowing the time,

because he heard the clock

at the Brewers on Brick

Lane, strike the quarter hour

as he got out of bed.

He made him, and his wife, a cup of tea

for around 10 minutes, he said.

Then descended the

stairs to use the only toilet

on the property.

There was an outhouse in

the back right corner of the yard.

On arriving at the

ground floor, he realized

that the front door was standing wide open,

and was against the wall.

He went to the back door,

he opened it outwards,

and to the left, and on

looking out into the yard,

discovered the horribly

mutilated body of Annie Chapman

at the bottom of a few

steps, and to the left,

in between the steps, and the fence.

Objects had been arranged

around her at the crime scene.

Blood had been smeared on the wall,

and whoever the k*ller was, was long gone.

(gentle dramatic music)

The m*rder of Annie Chapman

caused a sensation in the area.

And it was now vividly clear,

to the people living in

the Whitechapel area,

that somebody among them

was murdering the women in the area.

There was a huge amount of pressure

on the police to catch the k*ller.

And police immediately were

sure that this was the same man

that had m*rder*d Martha Tabram,

and Mary Ann Nichols only a week earlier.

Her body was found

posed in a very similar way.

The injuries were

consistent with the murders

that had gone before.

Objects arranged around

her at the crime scene,

seemed reminiscent of the

crime scene on Buck's Row.

It was clear to everybody

that this was the same man.

He'd struck again, and it was

imperative that we find him.

(gentle dramatic music)

Our interviews confirmed

that a Jewish man named John Pizer,

was who the street walkers

called Leather Apron.

John Pizer was in his 30s.

And he lived at number

22 Mulberry Street nearby.

On the morning of the 10th,

he was arrested at home

by a Sergeant William Thick.

He was arrested without complications.

Anybody who witnessed the arrest,

apparently was completely

unaware of what was happening.

He was then taken quickly

to Commercial Street police station,

where he was interviewed

for at least two days.

The police were convinced

he wasn't actually the k*ller

after all, because he had an airtight alibi

for the first two murders.

At that point, it became

clear that while he was

in fact the character

known as Leather Apron,

he couldn't possibly have been the k*ller.

(gentle dramatic music)

[Policeman] On September

27th, 1888, a missive addressed

"To the boss," arrived at

the Central News Agency.

(suspenseful music)

[Jack] "Dear boss," it said,

"I keep on hearing the police

have caught me, but

they won't fix me just yet.

I have laughed when they look so clever,

and talk about being on the right track.

"That joke about Leather

Apron gave me real fits."

(suspenseful music)

[Narrator] It was signed.

[Jack] "Good luck, yours

truly, Jack the Ripper."

(suspenseful music)

It is that letter that

gave the k*ller the name

by which he'd forever be known.

(suspenseful music)

There was no definitive way of telling

whether the letter was genuine or not.

We each had our theories.

I, however, was not convinced.

Until he m*rder*d again.

On September the 30th,

there was another m*rder

in Berner Street just off Commercial Road.

The victim was Elizabeth

Stride, a 44-year-old prost*tute.

(suspenseful music)

On the night of

Elizabeth Stride's m*rder,

she had actually been seen

at around 11 o'clock that night,

drinking with an unknown

man in the Bricklayer's Arms

on nearby Settles Street.

Later on that evening, she'd

then been seen by a couple

of people in the Berner Street area,

and then at around 12:45 had been seen

by a man named James Brown,

talking to a strange individual

on Fairclough Street, only moments away

from where the m*rder took place.

Whoever the man was, he had

his back turned to James Brown

as he walked past, but he saw

him to be a stoutish-built man

who stood around 5'7 " to 5'9",

and wore a long trench coat

that came almost to his heels.

(sinister music)

As he walked past, he

heard Elizabeth tell the man,

"No, not tonight, maybe some other night,"

and Elizabeth was never seen alive again.

She would later be found

dead, only seconds away

from where she was seen

in that witness sighting.

Lying on her back with her throat cut,

on the floor of Dutfield's Yard.

(gentle sinister music)

Elizabeth Stride was first discovered

at around a minute past one

by a 26-year-old man

called Louis Diemschutz.

She was lying on a back in

Dutfield's Yard on Berner Street,

which lay at the site of number 40,

which was a working men's club

where Louis Diemschutz

actually worked himself.

He'd been returning home

when he discovered the body.

The call quickly went out to the police,

and when police turned up,

they realized that, like

the victims before her,

her throat had been cut deeply,

and she was posed on her

back with her head to the side.

Her eyes wide open,

her hand across her chest.

The k*ller had removed

her hat from her head,

and placed it on the ground behind her.

Scattered objects around

her body, smeared the blood

from her neck wound across her hand,

and her forearm, and then ran.

She was lying in exactly the same position

as Annie Chapman had been.

And as soon as the police

discovered the crime scene,

it was very obvious that the

same k*ller had struck again.

(foreboding music)

[Policeman] The same

night, only a few miles

to the west, the k*ller struck again.

(typewriter clanging)

The victim was Catherine

Eddowes, a 46-year-old prost*tute

who had been found dead in Mitre Square

with her throat slashed,

and her abdomen mutilated.

- (sinister music)

- (water sloshing)

(sinister music)

In the hours leading up to her m*rder,

Catherine Eddowes had actually

been arrested for drunkenness

on Aldgate at around

eight o'clock that evening.

She'd been taken by two police officers,

to Bishopsgate police

station, where she was placed

in the cell to sleep it off.

And was then released from police custody

at around one o'clock that morning.

Around half an hour

later, she was then seen

by three witnesses in

the nearby vicinity, talking

to a strange man on the

end of Church Passage,

which led into Mitre Square.

Whoever the man was,

this time he stood facing

the three witnesses as

they passed by in the dark.

But whoever he was, the three passed on,

made their way home, and didn't look back

to see where he went.

- (gentle foreboding music)

- (water sloshing)

(gentle foreboding music)

- (gentle foreboding music)

- (water sloshing)

(gentle music)

The body of Catherine

Eddowes was discovered at 1:46

that morning, lying in the

south corner of Mitre Square

by PC Edward Watkins of

the City of London Police.

She was lying on her back

with her legs wide apart,

both hands by her side

exactly as Martha Tabram

had been lying in George

Yard, back on the 7th of August.

Her throat had been cut

violently in two places.

The k*ller had mutilated her

abdomen, pulled her intestines

from inside her, and stuffed

them into her throat wound.

A two and a half foot section of her colon

had been removed from inside her,

and was lying by her left

arm at the crime scene.

The k*ller had inflicted a

number of knife injuries

to her face, removed her left

kidney, and her entire womb,

and taken them with

him from the crime scene

along with nearly half of a

white apron she was wearing.

It had been torn from

her at the crime scene,

covered in blood, and the k*ller had taken

that with him too.

(gentle sinister music)

[Policeman] On October 1st, 1888,

the Jack the Ripper letter went public.

It was printed in newspapers,

and a mania broke out.

(gentle sinister music)

People traveled from all

around to the m*rder sites.

It was akin to a carnival atmosphere.

It hampered our investigation immensely.

Having received the "Dear

Boss" letter a few days before,

a number of tabloids then

printed it alongside news reports

of the new double m*rder.

This only amplified the terror in the area.

Now, the k*ller had a name.

People didn't know who he was,

but you now knew who

it was, was doing this,

and his name was Jack the Ripper.

(gentle dramatic music)

[Policeman] I witnessed

firsthand the impact

that the media had on our investigation.

From the very beginning,

the sensationalist coverage

of the murders created a climate of fear,

and hysteria in the city,

making it difficult for us

to conduct a thorough,

and methodical

investigation as we intended.

I think by making the

"Dear Boss" letter public,

the newspapers were

hoping to cause hysteria,

and sell as many newspapers as possible.

And that's exactly what they did.

With the double m*rder having taken place,

and with the "Dear Boss"

letter having been held back

a couple of days since

it was originally received

by the Central News Office,

it was then printed in a number

of tabloids alongside

reports of the double m*rder.

This created an absolute

sensation in the area.

Huge, sold enormous numbers of newspapers,

and people in the area

were now absolutely aware

of who it was they were up against.

This also, however,

started to attract the attention

of imitators, hoaxers, and any

manner of people who wanted

to cause trouble in the investigation.

Soon a barrage of fake letters would arrive

at newspaper offices, police stations,

and even private homes across the country

from other individuals,

also claiming to be the k*ller.

(gentle music)

Newspaper attention given

to the "Dear Boss" letter

had caused such a sensation

that writing Jack the

Ripper letters, they said,

had become a national pastime.

Literally hundreds of them were pouring in

from all over the place

in different handwriting

from different places.

Police now have to investigate this.

It was wasting thousands

of hours of police time,

and yes, it just very much got in the way

of the investigation.

(gentle foreboding music)

Criticism of the police

force isn't a new thing,

and in Victorian England,

as the Jack the Ripper case continued,

and the m*rder*r remained at large,

police were taking

enormous amounts of criticism

from both the press, and public alike.

The pressure on the police to

catch the k*ller was enormous.

[Policeman] Rumors and

false leads spread like wildfire.

Every day, it seemed like a

new suspect was being named,

and then quickly cleared,

diverting our attention,

and resources away

from more promising leads.

This constant barrage of

information also made it difficult

to separate fact from fiction,

and many people began to accuse us

of incompetence, and corruption.

(gentle dramatic music)

It must have been very

frustrating for the police force

to have, under such enormous pressure,

to be conducting interviews,

and interviewing witnesses

and still feel like they

were not getting anywhere.

The enormous amounts

of criticism leveled at them

from all areas of the British press,

was only making things more complicated,

and the sheer number of

fake stories, fake letters,

and fake reports that were

coming into the police as well,

was only complicating

the case even further.

(soaring orchestral music)

October came and went,

and no further murders occurred.

We kept up our investigations,

but we were all convinced

that perhaps it was over.

And we could soon solve

the case and return to normal.

But we were to be proved wrong.

As in the second week of November,

the Ripper struck again, one last time.

(foreboding music)

Some people in the area might

have been breathing a sigh of relief.

Some people might have

thought that the k*ller had died.

Some people might have

thought he moved away.

Some people might have

thought he could have gone

to prison for something else.

But he was then, once we got into November,

he would make himself known yet again.

Just down the road on Dorset Street,

in the middle of the Spitalfields area,

to commit what surely

was his worst m*rder of all.

(foreboding music)

Of all of the Jack the Ripper

victims, the least is known

about Mary Jane Kelly.

At the time of her m*rder,

she was 25 years old,

and everything that we know

about Mary Kelly comes somewhat secondhand

from her boyfriend, Joseph Barnett,

and statements he made to the police,

and things that he

claimed she had told him.

(foreboding music)

Mary Kelly is widely believed

to have been born somewhere

in Limerick in Ireland, and

had moved over to London

only a year or two before her death.

She would appear to

have lived for a short period

of time out in France.

She lived for a short

period of time in Wales.

But at the time of her m*rder,

was staying only doors away

from where Annie Chapman

had been staying on Dorset Street,

which was considered

to be the worst slum street

in the Whitechapel area.

And potentially the worst

slum street in all of London.

(dramatic music)

(energetic dramatic music)

(gentle poignant music)

[Policeman] The last and

most gruesome m*rder was that

of Mary Jane Kelly, a

25-year-old prost*tute.

Her body was found in her room

in Miller's Court, Dorset Street.

The k*ller had not only slit her throat,

but had also mutilated her face,

and body beyond recognition.

The scene was so gruesome,

that it left even the most

experienced officers,

and doctors shaken.

(gentle poignant music)

Like the other victims before her,

she was lying on her back,

with her head to the side.

Her eyes wide open, her

hand placed across her chest,

her legs wide apart.

But unlike the other victims,

she'd been extremely heavily mutilated.

The majority of her face had been removed.

Both of her thigh bones had

actually been stripped down

to the bone, and the meat that

had been cut from her thighs,

and her buttocks to do that,

had been placed in a pile

on the bedside table next to her head.

Her liver was lying in between her feet.

Her intestines were down

the right side of the body.

Half the right lung

was under the right arm.

The spleen was under the left arm.

Whoever the k*ller was,

police believed he had been

in the room for at least two hours

at this particular crime scene,

unlike the few minutes

he spent at the other ones.

And the original police report stated

that when police arrived in the room,

organs from inside her body

had been draped across the back

of the chairs, and were

hanging from nails in the wall.

(gentle poignant music)

[Policeman] The murders

had a similar pattern,

and it was evident that they were committed

by the same person.

The k*ller had targeted prostit*tes,

and had mutilated their

bodies in a particular way.

It was a brutal and savage

crime that shook the entire city.

(gentle poignant music)

The pressure that had been building

on the police throughout

the Jack the Ripper case,

really came to a point after

the m*rder of Mary Kelly.

Metropolitan Police

Commissioner, Sir Charles Warren

was taking more criticism from all angles,

than he ever had before,

and actually resigned the day after

that Mary Kelly was found.

The police now were

taking severe criticism,

all the time, from all angles.

The k*ller had appeared,

seemed to be right under

their noses the entire time,

and they simply couldn't catch him.

(gentle poignant music)

[Policeman] The murders

had a similar pattern,

and it was evident that they were committed

by the same person.

The k*ller had targeted prostit*tes,

and had mutilated their

bodies in a particular way.

It was a brutal and savage

crime that shook the entire city.

(gentle poignant music)

(gentle dramatic music)

As the lead investigator

on the Jack the Ripper case,

I spent hundreds, even thousands of hours,

poring over the evidence,

and chasing down any potential leads.

Over the years, I have developed

several personal theories

as to the identity of the k*ller,

but I have been unable to

definitively prove any of them.

(gentle dramatic music)

We had to rely on our instincts,

and the evidence found

at the scene of the crimes.

We analyzed the

bloodstains, the footprints,

and the clothes found on the victims.

We'd searched for any

connections between the victims,

and the k*ller, but always came up short.

We each had our theories,

but nothing concrete.

(gentle poignant music)

One of my most persuasive theories,

is that the k*ller was a local

butcher, or slaughtermen.

The Ripper's ability to quickly,

and skillfully dissect his victim's bodies,

suggests a certain level

of anatomical knowledge.

And butchers, fishmongers, and slaughtermen

would have have had access

to the necessary tools, and experience.

Additionally, many of the

murders took place near,

or within areas that were known

to have a high concentration

of such professionals.

(gentle poignant music)

(rain splattering)

Another suspect though, had

now come to police attention,

and his name was Jacob Isenschmid.

Jacob Isenschmid was

actually known by some people

as the Mad Butcher of Holloway.

And after talking to

his wife, police learned

that his butcher's shop in

Holloway had gone bust.

He'd had some sort of breakdown,

and he wasn't the same guy he used to be.

His wife said he was completely irrational,

he was very violent, he was very dangerous.

He always carried big knives with him.

He was in the habit of drinking

at a local pub in Whitechapel.

When it was learned that he was absent

from his lodging house on the night

of the m*rder of Annie Chapman,

it became very obvious that

there was now another suspect

and the hunt was on to find him.

- (gentle dramatic music)

- (rain splattering)

Police at the time said that

one of the biggest problems

they had to contend with,

was the sheer number of people

in the area who fitted the

rough, vague description

of the wanted man, were

constantly getting themselves

into trouble while acting inappropriately,

while drunk with women, or in some cases

were boldly incriminated

by other individuals.

Joseph Barnett, Montague Druitt.

Another name was Michael Ostrog

who was this Russian barber surgeon

who had appeared to have

been in London at the time.

Albert Bachert.

Dr. Francis Tumblety, was

an American quack doctor

who lived out in New

York on the East coast.

Charles Cross.

Prince was having an affair,

and the royal doctor was sent

to silence everyone that knew about it.

James Maybrick, George Chapman.

Kosminski, and he never gave a first name,

but in the time since

then, people must have,

people decided it must have

been this Aaron Kosminski.

Who's this mentally ill

man that lived in the area.

Jacob Isenschmid, Thomas Cutbush.

It became very frustrating for the police.

The longer the case went

on that there really seemed

to be no suspects.

There were wild rumors,

and wild accusations,

but once John Pizer, and Jacob

Isenschmid had been ruled out

of the investigation,

there really wasn't a lot

to go on after that.

It seemed that if the k*ller

was going to be caught,

he was going to be caught red-handed,

or he possibly wasn't

going to be caught at all.

- (carriages rattling)

- (foreboding music)

I think if this investigation

was taking place now,

Albert Bachert is far, and

away the number one person

investigators ought to go and speak to.

His parents were German, he was born,

and raised in Whitechapel.

He's the right age.

He fits the right description.

He's got a criminal record

for all the things you'd

expect a serial k*ller

to have today.

He was constantly injecting

himself into the investigation.

He told the police

that he'd met the k*ller,

and spoken to him on a couple of occasions.

He told the police that

the k*ller was writing letters

to his house to threaten

him, and warn him of murders.

He claimed that the k*ller

was writing graffiti on the wall

of his house, but it was washed away

before police could photograph it.

He turned up entirely uninvited

to the inquest of Frances Coles

at the Working Lads

Institute on Whitechapel Road,

demanding to be on the jury,

just when the jury were about

to be taken to view her body

in the mortuary, and

caused such a big scene

when they wouldn't let him,

that the coroner told

him if he didn't sit down,

and behave himself, he was

gonna have the police remove him

from the building.

He also worked as an

engraver, which is interesting,

engraving the plates

for bank note printing.

Because there were a

number of women in the area

who got attacked but got away,

and later told the police that the k*ller,

or the attempted k*ller had

conned them with fake coins.

These coins were reportedly

polished extremely brightly,

and then machined around

the edges, it was said,

to appear like half crowns typically,

which were very valuable.

When actually they were cheap coins,

and worth next to nothing.

Albert Bachert, as a copper plate engraver,

would've had all the

tools, and the knowledge

to manipulate those coins

in that fashion in the house.

And then in 1889, they

actually took him to court,

and charged him on two separate occasions

for passing counterfeit

coins exactly like that,

in a number of different

pubs throughout the East End.

(gentle foreboding music)

The murders in Whitechapel,

had caused such a sensation,

attracted so much attention,

and been such a big deal,

that people were forced for the first time

to really pay attention,

not just to the horrors that had happened,

but to the horrible living conditions

that these people were forced

to endure in the East End.

If anything positive came out of any of it,

it was that such attention

was now focused on the slums,

and the poverty and the lodging houses.

And now people across

London who previously had paid

no real attention to the

slums, and the poverty,

and the people who lived there,

were now so disgusted by

the conditions under which

these people were

continuing to have to live,

that they were now

demanding something be done

to change that.

Numbers of people were demanding now,

that conditions in the East

End had to be improved.

Street lighting needed to be introduced,

something needed to be

done to make the place safer,

and it would be a very

long and slow process,

but eventually that would start to happen.

(gentle foreboding music)

I think the reason people are so interested

in Jack the Ripper, and

the reason why the case,

and stories of it are

inevitably going to stick around

for decades, or centuries to come, is...

It's not the... it's partly the violence.

It's partly the area that it

happened in, and the slums,

and the cobblestones and

the misery and the poverty,

but it was also the first

time that something like that

happened in a major city,

with what would be referred

to as a modern press following it.

So it was the first case to

receive anywhere near the amount

of publicity it did.

And then of course, because

they never caught him,

it's just something that's

always kind of stuck around

in the public imagination.

I think for decades to

come, Jack the Ripper

will still be getting talked about,

when numerous other criminal cases

have been long since forgotten.

(gentle foreboding music)

(orchestral music)