Criminal Adaptations
Criminal Adaptations is a True Crime/Movie Review Podcast discussing some of your favorite films, and the true crime stories that inspired them. With hosts Remi, who spent over a decade working in the film and television industry, and Ashley, a clinical psychologist and forensic evaluator. They discuss a new movie each week and compare the film to the real life events that the film is based on.
Criminal Adaptations
From Hell
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This week we descend into the foggy streets of Victorian London to compare Albert and Allen Hughes’s From Hell (2001) to the real story of possibly the most notorious serial killer of all time, Jack the Ripper. Starring Johnny Depp and based on the acclaimed graphic novel, From Hell offers a dark and conspiracy filled interpretation of the infamous Whitechapel murders – but how much of its story is rooted in fact, and how much is pure speculation? We explore the real case, examine the identities of the victims, and break down the many theories surrounding the killer’s true identity. From secret societies and royal conspiracies to psychic vision and fictional detectives, we’ll separate the historical records from the movie’s imaginative storytelling. We also discuss what historians actually know about the murders and why the case remains unsolved over a century later.
Primary Sources:
- Rumbelow, Donald. Jack the Ripper: The Complete Casebook. Virgin Books (2013).
- Moore, Alan & Campbell, Eddie. From Hell: The Master Edition. Top Shelf Productions (2020).
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Theme: DARKNESS (feat. EdKara) by Ghost148
Welcome And The Unsolved Question
RemiWelcome to Criminal Adaptations, where we take a look at some of your favorite movies and the true crime stories that inspired them. I'm Remy. I spent over a decade working in the film and television industry in Los Angeles, California.
AshleyAnd I'm Ashley, a clinical psychologist and forensic evaluator in the state of Oregon.
RemiWelcome back, everybody. So glad you could all join us once again for one of our more historic episodes. Now, Ashley, if you could go back in time and solve one unsolved mystery in all of history, what would it be?
AshleyOoh, way to put me on the spot. That is a really tough question. The first thing that comes to my mind is what happened to Amelia Earhart? Not just where she is, because obviously her plane crashed somewhere, but like where did it crash? Did she die immediately? Was she alive for a while? I think that would be interesting.
RemiI think I would have to pick the subject of today's episode. Jack the Ripper. And that's probably because it's almost 140 years old, and everyone is still arguing about who did it. I mean, it's probably the most famous unsolved serial killer murder spree of all time.
AshleyThe Zodiac would be a good one too.
RemiI know every couple of years somebody comes out with definitive proof that they know who Jack the Ripper is, and everyone spends a bunch of time talking about it, and then it's completely bullshit.
AshleyOh yeah, we will get into a lot of those claims today.
RemiThat is because today we will be covering probably the most famous movie to tackle
Why From Hell Chooses Conspiracy
Remithis mystery, From Hell. The only problem is it doesn't exactly try and solve the case, and instead it creates a conspiracy theory, so insane that it kind of ends up being pretty entertaining. And we've got a lot to cover today, so let's find out what happens when you take one of history's most famous unsolved murder cases, throw in a royal conspiracy, a secret society, Johnny Depp, and apparently some psychic detective powers as well.
Jack the RipperOne day, men will look back and say I gave birth to the 20th century.
RemiFrom Hell was released in 2001 and was directed by Albert and Alan Hughes, better known as the Hughes Brothers. It was written by Terry Hayes and Raphael Iglesias, and stars Johnny Depp as Inspector Frederick Aberleen, the Scottinyard detective investigating the Whitechapel murders, alongside Heather Graham as Mary Kelly. The supporting cast includes Ian Holm, Ian Richardson, Jason Fleming, and Hagrid himself, Robbie Coltrane. You're a wizard, Harry. Now, although the movie takes place during the Jack the Ripper murders, it isn't a direct adaptation of the real case. Instead, it's based on Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's graphic novel, From Hell, which I also read for this episode.
AshleyAnd man, is it a beast of a book?
RemiAlan Moore first began developing From Hell in the late 1980s after becoming fascinated with the Jack the Ripper murders. He became so obsessed with the case that he even enlisted fellow comic writer Neil Gaiman to help him track down rare books and historical documents at the British Museum. The story began publication in serialized installments in 1989 before finally wrapping up in 1998. That is a really long run. Rather than trying to solve the Ripper murders, Moore built his story around a theory proposed by author Stephen Knight in his 1976 book, Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution. The theory claimed the murders were part of a royal conspiracy involving Prince Albert Victor, Queen Victoria's grandson, which became the foundation for Moore's own story.
AshleyAnd I don't even get into this theory because it was so convoluted and involved like three separate people and just made no sense to me in my opinion, so I just discounted it.
RemiFrom Hell went on to become one of the most acclaimed graphic novels of the 1990s, and it didn't take long before From Hell became the very first Alan Moore work to receive a feature film adaptation. Moore, however, wanted absolutely nothing to do with the project and intentionally distance himself from the production, later stating that he preferred not to watch film adaptations of his work because he viewed comic books and movies as two entirely different mediums. The project itself spent several years bouncing around Hollywood before eventually landing at 20th Century Fox. Around that same time, the Hughes brothers signed on to direct after passing on Planet of the Apes, which Tim Burton went on to direct, unfortunately. From Hell was a natural fit for the brothers who had been fascinated with Jack the Ripper ever since they were about seven years old after watching an episode of In Search of, hosted by Leonard Nimoy. They spent years reading books and watching documentaries about the murders, and by the time From Hell came along, they had already made a name for themselves with Menace to Society, Dead Presidents, and American Pimp, eventually landing From Hell as their first major studio production. According to the Hughes brothers, Daniel Day Lewis was their first choice to play Inspector Aberleen, and both Brad Pitt and Jude Law were reportedly considered before Johnny Depp ultimately signed on.
AshleyWould you have preferred any of those actors over Johnny Depp?
RemiI don't think any of those actors could have saved this film, unfortunately. Not even Daniel Day. Though he would have done a much better job. Ironically, Depp initially turned the role down because he'd just finished playing another investigator in Victorian England in Sleepy Hollow. But his longtime interest in Jack the Ripper eventually convinced him to take part in the project. He later said he'd been reading books about the murders since childhood and owned more than two dozen on the subject.
Johnny DeppI was about seven, maybe seven, eight years old. And I remember seeing a documentary on public television about uh about the Ripper and uh just that that began the fascination, you know. I was just immediately uh intrigued and uh wanted to learn more and was amazed that such a huge case and such an awful crime had gone on unsolved for hundreds and so hundreds of years. So uh yeah. Studd early.
AshleyOh Johnny, it hasn't been hundreds of years. Someone's not good at math. Also, I would be so concerned if I had a seven-year-old boy who became obsessed with Jack the Ripper.
RemiRight? The directors started getting interested in him around that same time. I was not into serial killers when I was seven or eight years old. In Alan Moore's graphic novel, Inspector Frederick Aberleen is portrayed as a highly respected Scotland Yard detective. But once Depp landed the role, the character was rewritten as a younger inspector whose opium addiction gives him psychic visions that help guide his investigation. Can you guys hear my eyes rolling? You may recognize this tired old psychic detective trope from characters like Alison Dubois in Medium, Johnny Smith in The Dead Zone, or Wednesday Adams in Wednesday. And personally speaking, I've always found the whole investigator conveniently sees visions of the crime thing to be pretty cliche and unimaginative. The story itself also underwent some pretty major changes from the graphic novel. In Moore's original version, readers learned the killer's identity relatively early in the story, making it less of a murder mystery and more of a character study centered on Sir William Gull. The movie ditches this concept completely and instead turns the story into a more traditional whodunit built around Aberleen trying to solve the murders. And personally speaking, the graphic novel is a thousand times better than the movie is, but we'll get more into that later. The film also invents Aberleen's romance with Mary Kelly and greatly scales back the graphic novel's heavy focus on Freemasonry, the occult, and Gull's lengthy philosophical monologues in an effort to make the story more accessible to general audiences. I know, I know, we'll get into it. Principal photography began on June 5th, 2000, with most of the film shot in Prague, the Czech Republic. Although Prague has some incredible historic architecture, which we can both
Alan Moore’s Graphic Novel Origins
Remivouch for, production designer Martin Childs said it looked very little like Victorian London. Because of that, enormous sections of Whitechapel had to be built from scratch at Barandov Studios, using surviving photographs, newspaper illustrations, and historical records from 1888, to painstakingly recreate the streets, buildings, and many of the actual murder locations.
AshleyDid it look good?
RemiI will say the sets in this film looked really good. The sets in the costumes, A plus is all around there, the film and the acting, not so much. The special effects team even studied real coroner's reports and surviving crime scene photographs, so the victim's injuries would be as historically accurate as possible. Production hit an unexpected setback when Nigel Hawthorne, who had originally been cast as Sir William Gull, withdrew after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. Ian Holm ultimately stepped into the role, and because the two actors were very different physically, several scenes had to be reworked before filming could continue. So now that we've covered how this whole thing came together, let's head back to Victorian London, where Johnny Depp is about to solve the case of Jack the Ripper with a little help from a few poppy-fueled psychic premonitions. Jack the Ripper, 1888. Our story begins as the opening credits play intercut with extreme close-ups of Inspector Frederick Aberleen, played by Johnny Depp, preparing and smoking opium from a long ivory pipe. We then fade in on a blood red sunset over London in 1888, before panning down into Whitechapel, where the cobblestone streets are packed with cockney boozers, hustlers, hussies, drunken vagrants pissing in the streets, and prostitutes haggling on nearly every corner. Among them are Martha Tabram, played by Samantha Spiro, Polly Nichols, played by Annabelle Epsian, Dark Annie Chapman, played by Catherage, Liz Stride, played by Susan Lynch, and Mary Kelly, played by Heather Graham. As we follow Mary down an alleyway, she is accosted by two men dressed in black. One man has a dramatic scar running across his face, while the other man, named McQueen, played by David Schofield, begins cutting the buttons off of her dress one by one with a large switchblade. McQueen reminds Mary that he was expecting payment from her and the girls last Monday, and gives her one more day to come up with the money, or he'll be introducing her and her friends to the sharp end of his blade. Mary and her cohorts sleep together in a church that night and wash themselves in a public fountain the following morning.
AshleyWait, so it's portrayed that all those women are like friends?
RemiI wouldn't go as far as saying friends, more like co-workers, I guess. The women are soon joined by Anne Crook, played by Joanna Page, who is eager to show off her newborn daughter, Alice, to the other women. Anne is also a former prostitute herself, but is now being supported by her wealthy baby daddy who goes by the name of Albert. Elsewhere on Cleveland Street, a carriage driver named Nettley, played by Jason Fleming, is minding his own business when a mysterious man sneaks up behind him, puts a knife to his throat, and tells him he'll soon be transporting a very special passenger who is not to be disturbed and must be taken wherever he wishes to go.
AshleyWell, that's ominous.
RemiI know, right? Meanwhile, Anne has given Mary her baby for safekeeping while she goes off to have a quick mid-morning rendezvous with her boy toy Albert. The couple's sexcapades are suddenly interrupted, however, when Anne and Albert are abducted by a group of men in bowler hats, while Mary and Martha watch helplessly from around the corner of the building. Hours later, there is still no sign of Anne anywhere, so Mary decides to take baby Alice to Anne's parents for safekeeping, while Martha stays behind to keep on working. Now alone, Martha walks down a dimly lit cobblestone street when she is suddenly grabbed by an unseen figure lurking in the darkness and dragged into an alley where we see only brief glimpses of light glistening off the killer's knife as it is viciously plunged into Martha over and over again. We then cut to an opium den filled with tattooed women and random guys sprawled all over the place looking higher than giraffe balls, including our protagonist, Inspector Aberline, who is likewise chasing the dragon. In the middle of his drug-induced stupor, Aberline has a psychic vision of Martha's murder, filmed and edited like a jigsaw trap sequence from one of the many saw films.
AshleyDid the graphic novel have psychic visions?
RemiNo, he is not a psychic in the novel. He is not a drug addict in the novel. He is just a normal inspector who is a good man trying to go about his business. All of this is created because Johnny Depp joined the project. And apparently they must have thought that this character would suit him more? I don't know what that says about him. Aberen is eventually found by Sergeant Peter Godley, played by Robbie Coltrane. You're a wizard, Harry. Who promptly bitch slaps Aberleen, yanks him to his feet, and drags him out because unfortunately for Aberline, there is a murder to investigate. After plunging his face into a basin of cold water, Aberline and Godley spark up a couple of cigarettes before heading down to the morgue. There, they are briefed on Martha Tabram's murder, and Aberline learns that before slitting her throat, the killer removed her lady parts and took them with him as a keepsake. Meanwhile, down at the Royal London Hospital, we are introduced to an unimposing gray-haired physician named Sir William Gull, played by Ian Holm, as he lectures a group of medical students about a revolutionary new procedure for treating insanity. Today's patient also just so happens to be Anne Crook.
AshleyI do not like where this is going one bit.
RemiAnne's arms and legs are strapped to an operating table before being rendered unconscious with chloroform and wheeled into a packed operating theater. There, Dr. Farrell, played by Paul Rise, cuts into her scalp and repeatedly hammers a long chisel-like instrument through her skull while Gull calmly narrates the entire procedure. Anne survives but is left profoundly mentally impaired and unable to communicate coherently.
AshleyWhy did they lobotomize her?
RemiOh, you'll find out soon. It's a pretty big reveal. We then cut to sometime later, where Polly has just finished with a customer in a filthy alleyway. He tosses a few shillings
Casting Choices And Major Rewrites
Remion the ground, and as she scrambles to pick them up, McQueen appears and slams her against the wall, then threatens to gouge her eye out, claiming the money on the ground belongs to him and his gang. Fortunately, a constable arrives just in time and sends McQueen on his way. Not long afterward, Polly reunites with the other women, still shaken and looking for comfort. Liz tries to console her through physical intimacy, but Polly rejects her, leaving Liz to walk away as Polly stands alone in the street crying. Later that night, Polly rides alone in a carriage with a mysterious man in a top hat, his face completely hidden in darkness. As she casually eats grapes, he offers her a drink and talks about the ancient architecture of Whitechapel before suddenly grabbing her by the throat and pulling her into the shadows with him.
Mary KellyWhat's it called again? Cleopatra.
Dr. FerralShe was a beauty, wasn't she?
Jack the RipperIt was carved 1500 years before the Son of God was born. Six men died to bring it here from Egypt.
AshleySo I left this out of my portion. There was speculation that one of the Ripper victims ate grapes before she died, although this has been disproven since there is no evidence that there was stomach contents in her stomach at time of death. But it was not Polly Nichols. It was Elizabeth Stride, who was the third victim.
RemiOh, all of the women in From Hell are given the grapes. Every one of them.
AshleyOh, the Ripper gives them the grapes?
RemiYes, the Ripper always gives them grapes to earn their trust because apparently back in the day grapes were pretty expensive and hard to come by. And then he would give them a drink of something that would drug them a little bit, and then he would murder them. Moments later, Polly lies dead in the street with her throat slit. The mysterious man calmly works out of a briefcase filled with surgical instruments, doing something unseen to her lower torso before packing up, walking away, and seemingly vanishing into thin air. Pauly's body is discovered not long afterward by a patrolling constable. Also, from this point on, I'm just gonna call the killer the Ripper because that's who he is. Hours later, Aberleen arrives at the crime scene, now overrun by curious citizens and police who have left Polly exactly where she was found for everyone to gawk at. Sergeant Godley briefs him, explaining there were no witnesses and nobody heard so much as a peep. With a little help from yet another one of his opium-fueled psychic visions, Everline concludes Polly was murdered elsewhere and brought there by carriage. He also discovers a grapevine in Polly's pocket, which he believes came from the killer since grapes would have been far too expensive for a Whitechapel prostitute to afford. Polly's body is eventually brought to the morgue, where two coroners become sick at the sight of her mutilated abdomen. Even Aberleen admits he's never seen anything like it, describing the killer as an irrationally meticulous butcher. Believing the murderer has at least some working knowledge of anatomy and dissection, Aberleen orders every veterinarian, butcher, and furrier in the district to be interviewed as potential suspects. Aberen also explains that Polly's throat was slit, she was stabbed once in the chest, disemboweled, and had at least one of her organs removed. Aberen later tells his superior, Sir Charles Warren, played by Ian Richardson that the killer may actually be a wealthy Englishman, but Warren immediately dismisses the idea and is far more interested in blaming a minority.
AshleyAnti-Semitism was rampant in London at the time because London was experiencing an influx of immigrants, many of which were Jewish people from surrounding areas.
RemiYeah, one of the people he tries to sort of put the focus on is a Native American man who is just in town for a Wild West show and has nothing to do with any of this except he's in a Wild West entertainment show. As news of Pauli's murder hits the papers, Whitechapel quickly descends into paranoid hysteria. One evening, Aberleen treats himself to a steaming hot bath and a large glass of green absinthe, spiked with a few drops of laudanum, sending him into another vision, this time of his wife, who died during childbirth.
AshleyHow does this guy get anything done?
RemiSeriously, he does this like every single night, it seems, and in all of these scenes, he is just zoning out, zonked out of his gourd. During Polly's funeral, the ropes suddenly give way as her casket is being lowered, sending it crashing into the grave and breaking open, exposing her horribly disfigured body to everyone in attendance. Afterward, Aberleen and Godley question the remaining women, who are convinced McQueen, leader of the Nickel gang, is behind the murders. They are called the Nickel Gang because they operate on Nickel Street. Later that night, the women gather in their crowded lodging house, where we learn Mary immigrated from Ireland when she was eight. They also discuss taking Anne Crook's disappearance to the newspapers before the landlord bursts in, furious that four women are sharing a room meant for one. He slaps one of them and throws them all out onto the street, forcing them to look for customers so they can afford another room for the night. Elsewhere, the ripper sits down to an elegant meal of one of the rarest-looking cuts of meat I have ever seen, paired with red wine, mixed with a few drops of blood, and laudanum. Laudanum was apparently pretty popular back then. Afterward, he puts on white gloves, a black top hat and cape, and retrieves a red-lined black briefcase neatly packed with surgical instruments. The scene is basically portrayed like Batman getting his suit on and all of his gadgets ready before heading out into the night. Back on the streets, Annie is approached by Nettley, the carriage driver, who tells her that a wealthy gentleman specifically requested her company and is eager to meet her over on Hanover Street. Though Annie is apprehensive, she is quickly convinced when Nettley offers her a fresh bunch of red grapes to eat along the way. Once they arrive, Nettley directs Annie into a nearby alley where we hear the sounds of her murder mere moments later as the film jarringly flashes between quick graphic glimpses of her horrific attack. Aberen arrives the following morning to find the crime scene already surrounded by onlookers.
Sgt. GodleyAnother of the circle of friends, Annie Chapman.
Psychic Detective Trope Backfires
Sgt. GodleyDark Annie, they call her. You still say this isn't the Nichols boys? Leather apron. We could be looking for a butcher after all. This one. Or fellow whore in this case. He's really outdone himself this time, hasn't he? He not only severed the intestines, he's carefully ranged them around the neck and shoulders. I think he's taking more organs this time.
RemiIn case you couldn't tell by the clip, Aberline saw Annie's murder during another drug-fueled vision quest, and notices another grape stem clutched in her hand. He begins theorizing that the killer is using grapes to gain the women's trust before carrying out what he believes are ritualistic murders. Later, Aberleen tells Sir Charles Warren that Annie's uterus was removed and, believing the killer has advanced anatomical knowledge, requests a surgeon with a strong stomach and stable mind to assist with the investigation. This leads Aberline to the London hospital where he arrives during a fundraiser featuring renowned surgeon Dr. Frederick Treves, showcasing Joseph Merrick, better known as the Elephant Man, to a room of wealthy donors, physicians, and aristocrats. Afterwards, the guests move on to a reception for drinks and mingling.
Sgt. GodleyYou Dr. Farrell.
DoctorOh my lord, you're the ripper case. Am I right?
Sgt. GodleyYeah.
DoctorJolly good. You've come to the perfect place. We've got butchers of plenty here.
Sgt. GodleyI see. Well, I can certainly use the expertise of someone like yourself to help solve this past. They tell me you're the best young surgeon in earth.
Dr. FerralI don't see how a reputable surgeon could know anything about it. This country's overrun with foreigners, orientalists, Jews, socialists trying to stir things up against our monarchy. That's where you should be considering everything.
AshleyAberline seems to be looking at all of those doctors as not only ones that can help him, but also suspects.
RemiOh, he definitely is. He's looking at practically everyone except Godly and the women as potential suspects. Aberen continues through the reception before meeting Sir William Gull, physician to the royal family and former surgeon Extraordinaire. In private, Aberleen shows him a sketch of the murder weapon, which Gull quickly identifies as a Liston knife, which is a long amputation knife, originally designed for surgical speed before anesthesia became widely available. Oh my god, that sounds horrific. Yeah, it's meant to cut things as quickly and efficiently as possible. When Aberline mentions that the victims had been drugged with laudanum after recognizing the smell on their breath, Gull inquires if Aberline uses the drug personally, noting that only doctors and addicts could recognize the scent so easily. Gull also agrees that the killer must be highly educated with extensive anatomical knowledge, explaining that Annie's liver would have been extremely difficult to remove so quickly without considerable surgical experience. Back at the police station, Aberleen studies a map of Whitechapel with Godley and the other detectives, plotting each murder and noticing a deliberate pattern. Spoiler alert, it turns out it's a pentagram? Doubt that's accurate. He then predicts where the Ripper will strike next and orders uniformed constables to keep the area under constant surveillance. Despite skepticism from the other officers, Aberleen doubles down hoping they'll catch the killer before he strikes again. Sidebar, directors Albert and Alan Hughes reportedly pinned real post-mortem photographs of the Ripper victims to the police station set to unnerve the cast and get more authentic performances. I think we've talked about our feelings about this sort of thing in past episodes. It's pretty distasteful.
AshleyYeah, and extremely disturbing.
RemiThe film then cuts to the Ripper meeting privately with his coachman, John Nettley. Clearly shaken, Netley laments that there are still three women left to kill, and questions whether he can continue. The Ripper responds with a cryptic speech about evil and humanity, insisting they've entered the most extreme and utter region of the human mind, before declaring, HEL, we are in hell. That night, Mary is brought in to speak with Aberleen, who asks why she's still working the streets if she believes McQueen murdered her friends. Frustrated by the lack of progress, Mary offers to testify that McQueen threatened to cut her unless she paid him a pound a week in protection money. Aberen refuses, warning that even if McQueen went to prison for a year or two, the nickel gang would simply retaliate against Mary and the other women. Aberen then heads to Special Branch Headquarters, identifying himself as Inspector Adderly, to get inside while Superintendent Ben Kidney is away. He slips into the records room and searches the files before discovering one labeled Crook Annie Mary, containing paperwork from the Merylbone Workhouse, which Aberline quickly copies down. When Godly spots Kidney and his men returning, he starts a fire that causes a small explosion, creating enough chaos for Aberline to escape.
AshleyThat seems a bit extreme.
RemiAgreed, it's a pretty big explosion, too. Not long after, Aberline and Mary visit the Merrowbone workhouse in search of Anne, finding her lobotomized in a dingy cell and mumbling incoherently. Mary desperately tries to get through to her friend, but Anne no longer understands what's happening around her and is unable to answer any of her questions. After leaving the asylum, Mary tells Aberline that Anne's wealthy gentleman was actually a painter who hired the women as models and that she personally witnessed the two Mary at St. Savior's Catholic Church. When the conversation turns to Baby Alice, Aberline reveals that Special Branch listed her as an unknown child and dumped her in Bishopsgate.
AshleyI thought she was left with someone's parents.
RemiShe was, but apparently she was picked up and brought to an orphanage. So there's something shady going on with Anne Crook and her baby. Aberen
Whitechapel Setup And First Kill
Remithen takes Mary to an art gallery and asks if she recognizes anyone in the portraits. When they reach a painting of Prince Albert Victor, Mary immediately identifies him as the man she knew as Albert. Aberen realizes Anne's husband and Alice's father was actually Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, grandson of Queen Victoria, and second in line to the British throne.
AshleyI feel like we are well on our way to Crazyville.
RemiBuckle up, we're just getting started. Aberen later visits Sir William Gull at home and is initially told he's too ill for visitors, but Gull agrees to see him after learning it's Inspector Aberline. Questioned about Prince Albert Victor and Anne Crook, Gull confirmed that Albert contracted syphilis and explains that the resulting tremors in his hands would make performing such precise murders virtually impossible. He also lacks the anatomical knowledge necessary to perform the mutilations, sending Aberline back to Square One. So I guess his initial feeling was that Prince Albert was murdering these women in retaliation for catching syphilis?
AshleyIt's not the most wild of theories we'll discuss later.
RemiThe film then cuts to Dr. Farrell's Masonic initiation, where he kneels blindfolded with a ceremonial blade pressed against his chest, while reciting an oath officially inducting him into the secret society.
AshleyI'm assuming this is Freemasons.
RemiIt is indeed. They all wear a fancy matching ring, so they're pretty easy to identify for a secret society. Back at the police station, Aberline and the detective sift through another pile of letters claiming to be from Jack the Ripper, dismissing nearly all of them as hoaxes, when they're suddenly interrupted by a constable rushing in with a package containing half a human kidney postmarked from hell. That night, Aberleen tells Mary he wants her and the remaining women off the streets for the next few days.
Mary KellyWhat about baby Alice? Are you sure she's alright?
Sgt. GodleyYeah, she's alright. We'll get her out after this is over.
Mary KellyWe'll get her.
Sgt. GodleyListen. I want you and your friends off the streets until I can sort this thing out.
Mary KellyOff the streets for how long?
Sgt. GodleyA few days at least.
Mary KellyWell, you better throw us in jail then, because we have no money for food and no money for a dust.
Sgt. GodleyAlright, you take this. Get a room. Stay there. Don't tell anyone where you're going. I don't want to know. In three days, come to the tembells. I'll leave a message with the bargain. Well.
Mary KellyI wish I could show you the little village where I was born. It's so lovely there. It's by the scene the way you said you saw me. I used to think it too small to spend a life in, but now I'm not so sure.
RemiAnd with that, the two part ways with a deep, passionate kiss. Permission to speak freely. I just cannot take this love story between Mary and Aberlyn seriously. Johnny Depp and Heather Graham have absolutely zero chemistry, and every romantic scene between them falls completely flat.
AshleyEven incorporating a love story between the lead investigator and one of the women who I think you told me Mary actually survives in this movie, which she does not in the real story, including that is just stupid and completely unnecessary. Also, the accents in this suck.
RemiSustained. And most of the acting is pretty bad across the board as well, unfortunately. Back at the lodging house, Liz makes advances towards the new French girl, Ada, played by Estelle Skornik, who repeatedly rejects her until Mary steps in and tells Liz to leave her alone. The argument escalates until Liz smashes a window, then storms out into the night, shouting back that she needs another drink. After leaving the lodging house, Liz encounters the Ripper and briefly mistakes him for someone she knows before accepting a drink and walking off with him. When she realizes something is wrong, she tries to run, but Nettley tackles and restrains her while the Ripper slits her throat. Before he can mutilate the body, Netley hears someone approaching, forcing them to flee before finishing the job. Meanwhile, Aberline reviews Superintendent Benjamin Kidney's military records and discovers that before joining Special Branch, Kidney served with the Grandeer Guards assisting as a field surgeon. Suddenly, Aberline has a remarkable epiphany, realizing that the women are being killed because they witness Prince Albert Victor's marriage to Anne Crook and the birth of their daughter Alice, a scandal that could rock the British throne to its very core if ever exposed.
AshleyOkay, that's what's going on here. Also, Aberlyne just figured that out. How?
RemiHe's taking drugs and finding the answers just floating in the air out there, Ashley. Pretty simple if you're a psychic detective. But yeah, this is a pretty far-fetched version of the true events. Even compared to the novel, the movie takes it up a few notches. That same night, shortly after murdering Liz, the Ripper strikes again, killing Catherine Edoes. While examining Liz's body, Aberleen experiences another psychic vision and races towards the second crime scene, but is ambushed on his way by several men who brutally beat him and warn him to stop digging into things and just find a damn scapegoat. Despite the attack, Aberleen regains consciousness and makes his way to Meter Square, where he discovers Catherine's body beneath a chalk message reading, The Jews are the men that will not be blamed for nothing, with Jews incorrectly spelled J-U-W-E-S. Recognizing it as potential evidence, Aberline protests when Sir Charles Warren orders the message scrubbed from the wall to prevent anti-Jewish riots. Warren then blames Aberline for bungling the investigation, suspending him from duty, and stripping him of all his authority. Three days later, Aberline leaves a letter for Mary with the bartender at the Ten Bells, just as promised, before heading to his favorite opium den to drown his sorrows. There he has another drug-induced vision showing Mary being murdered by the Ripper beneath the shadow of a Masonic symbol. Convinced the visions are trying to tell him something, Aberleen begins researching the history of the Freemasons. Now, a bit of context for the blissfully unaware. The Freemasons are one of the world's oldest fraternal organizations, with the modern group officially founded in London in 1717. They are known for secret ceremonies, symbols, and rituals, and its members have included politicians, military officers, judges, businessmen, and even members of the royal family.
AshleyInteresting, I didn't know they were founded in London.
Grapes Laudanum And Murder Pattern
RemiShortly after, Mary picks up Aberline's letter at the Ten Bells but is spotted by Nettley as she leaves. Back in her room, she opens the envelope and discovers Aberline has enclosed enough money for her to leave London once and for all. Meanwhile, Aberline confronts Sir William Gull with everything he's uncovered about Prince Albert Victor, Anne Crook, and the murders. Rather than deny it, Gull calmly admits Aberline is essentially correct and reveals himself as Jack the Ripper. He then launches into a lengthy diatribe defending the murders as serving a greater purpose involving the crown, Freemasonry, and the course of history.
Jack the RipperBelow the skin of history. A London's veins. These symbols, the mitre, the pentacle star. Even someone as ignorant and degenerate as you can sense that they coarse with energy and meaning. I am that meaning.
William GullI am that energy.
AshleyTwo things. Man, the Ripper is incredibly narcissistic. Two, the actor has black eyes in every single scene he's in. It's kind of unnerving.
RemiIt is the same actor from the first alien movie who played the robot. So he is a classic actor who's been around in a bunch of stuff. He played Bilbo in the Lord of the Rings movies, not the Hobbit movies, the Lord of the Rings movies. So he's a pretty established British actor.
AshleyYeah, I remember him in all of those things, now that you mention it.
RemiUnwilling to accept Gull's justification, Aberleen pulls his pistol, ready to rid the world of Jack the Ripper once and for all. Before he can fire, Benjamin Kidney sneaks up behind him and knocks him unconscious yet again. He should probably get a CAT scan at this point. And this allows Gull to slip back into the night in search of his final victim. Aberline wakes up in the back of a moving carriage between Kidney and Dr. Farrell, who is in the midst of preparing a syringe to inject him with. Realizing what's happening, Aberline fights back, donkey kicking Kidney through the window and tipping the whole damn carriage over in the process. Emerging virtually unscathed, Aberline takes off to save Mary post haste before it's too late. Elsewhere, Gull quietly slips into Mary's room through the broken window while she is fast asleep, then murders the woman in bed, carrying out by far the most extensive and extreme mutilations thus far. Far. After removing her heart, Gull places it in a pot on the stove, leaving it to boil. As the organ begins to heat, a brilliant light fills the room, and Gull is transported into a surreal Masonic ceremony, where he represents the murder as if it were a surgical demonstration, culminating in a standing ovation from his captivated audience.
AshleyI'm assuming he's having some sort of like psychotic episode here.
RemiOh yes, absolutely. It's better portrayed in the graphic novel. By the time Aberleen arrives, the victim has been mutilated beyond recognition. Sidebar, after the Ripper kills his final victim, the officer describing the condition of the body is reading directly from the real-life police report documenting Mary Jane Kelly's murder. While searching the room, Aberleen finds a lock of dark hair and realizes that the victim isn't Mary at all, but is actually Ada. He quietly conceals the hair, knowing Mary survived and escaped before Gull arrived.
AshleyOoh, Gull is gonna be in trouble.
RemiBack at the Ten Bells, Aberleen finds a letter from Mary explaining that she's fled to Ireland with baby Alice, where they'll be living by the sea, waiting for him.
AshleyI'm assuming she just stole that baby from the orphanage. And also, does Mary live in the graphic novel?
RemiShe does not. In the graphic novel, Gull realizes he's killed the wrong woman and then he comes back and murders her. And there's no love story, she does not survive. But I think the novel and the film make up this victim, Ada. We later learn Queen Victoria was far from pleased with how Gull had handled the whole Albert situation. So he is summoned before his fellow Freemasons to answer for his actions.
FreemasonsYou stand accused of mayhems that have placed our brotherhood in jeopardy. You stand before your peers, masons and doctors both.
Jack the RipperI have no peers present here. What? No man amongst you is fit to judge the mighty art that I have wrought. Your rituals are empty oaths you neither understand nor live by. Great architect speaks to me. He is the balance where my deeds are weighed and judged.
William GullNot you.
AshleySo it sounds like they're mad at him for the way he killed the women, not that he killed them at all.
RemiYes, it is better explained in the graphic novel, but William Gull is hired to get rid of these women to cover up this big scandal that Albert had a child with one of these prostitutes. But he was never told to do what he did and go as far as he did. He was only told to take care of them. So they were pretty appalled by his actions when they found out what he had done. And in response, the Freemasons sentenced Gull to a lobotomy, along with a lifelong confinement in an insane asylum.
AshleyPoetic.
RemiAlthough Godly encourages Aberline to reunite with Mary, Aberline realizes that if he leaves London, the people watching him will likely follow. Because he's still being watched by the Freemasons, apparently. Rather than risk leading them to her, he stays behind, burning the letter she had left for him.
Sgt. GodleyI'm telling you, it's safe to go to her. If I disappear or change my routine, sir, they might wonder why. You know who you're gonna turn into, don't you? That boring old bugger in the pub that nobody wants to sit beside. Because as soon as he's had a few drinks, he goes on and on about the girl that got away. Is that what you want? Do you want to live the rest of your life like a ghost? Is that it? No. What I want is to go to her. But at the slightest hint that she's alive, they will spare no expense, no expense, and no trouble. So I study. And watch them.
AshleySo I feel like he could just publicly announce his retirement and leave, and the Freemasons would leave him alone.
RemiThat's basically what happens in the graphic novel. He retires, he doesn't want to work on any more cases after this, and just sort of lives a quiet life.
AshleyI took this out of my section, but I'm pretty sure he ends up retiring, not right after the Ripper murder stopped, but some years after, and he moves to the United States and becomes like a private detective.
RemiAnd I also just want to point out here that Robbie
Special Branch Files And Royal Reveal
RemiColtrane, you're a wizard, Harry, is far closer to how Aberleen is depicted in the graphic novel. Godley discovers Aberline dead in an opium den from an apparent drug overdose not long after. And that was the Hughes Brothers from Hell. Any initial response, Ashley?
AshleyYeah, what the hell? He just dies?
RemiYeah, he basically stays behind, and it's implied that Mary lives a life on a cliff in Ireland in a little cottage and raises baby Alice, and they live happily ever after, but Aberleen must sacrifice his own happiness to let them live their lives. So he just ends up overdosing on opium. And yeah, that's the end of the movie. Godly puts a couple of pennies on his eyes, which are change for the ferryman of death, says, Good night, sweet prince, and that's the end of the movie. There's not even any title cards at the end. It's just the end.
AshleyWhat did you think about this movie? A lot of times when we're doing these episodes and you show me clips, even ones that you're like, this really wasn't my favorite movie. You can agree with me on some of my observations that put the movie in a better light if it's not already in a good one. But this one, I don't really have much positive to say from what I saw. The accent sucked, the acting sucked, it didn't look visually striking to me at all. I do not want to see From L.
RemiAnd I don't blame you. This movie is Edgelord crap. It is not a good film. It is filmed in a way where it's trying to make the murders almost look cool and make Jack the Ripper seem like this supernatural force that is hunting these women. And it's really dumb and it's not pulled off well at all. It is still a ridiculous story in the graphic novel, but it is given a lot more time to grow and breathe. So it just comes together a lot better than it does in this two-hour adaptation.
AshleyIf I were doing this movie, I would have it follow the five Ripper victims and just switch from each one to each one and tell the story from that woman's point of view. I think that would be way more interesting than an extravagant, supernatural detective who done it.
RemiAnd I totally agree with you again. The graphic novel does spend a lot more time developing the women characters, and you get to know a bit more about their lives and how hard all of their lives are. Each and every one of them is living in squalor and abuse and scraping by day to day in completely different ways. And it is truly, truly tragic, but all of that is condensed to maybe like one scene or a line of dialogue or completely cut out in the film. It does not do any justice to the victims whose story really should be the focus here. And just personally speaking, if they were to ever remake this story or try and do a more historically accurate version of it, I think that Robert Eggers could do a brilliant job portraying this sort of thing on screen. He has a obsessive attention to detail, and focusing on each one of the victims, you could even have it be a short story for each one of them, I think would be a better telling of this horrific, tragic, unsolved series of murders.
AshleyIt's also kind of a choice to make a movie inspired by this graphic novel, which, okay, we could argue that that was the source material. So that's why they included the Prince Albert, Sir William Gall, Freemason shit. But if you're gonna make it on a graphic novel, then make it on the graphic novel. Don't like add even more crazy stuff to it.
RemiYeah, the entire love story is preposterous and offensive, and really, really, really badly executed and corny. And should not have been in this movie. But let's move on to the release. Before From Hell hit theaters, an early cut of the film was screened for the MPAA, which was reportedly so graphic that it initially received the dreaded NC17 rating. In order to secure a more marketable R rating, several scenes were trimmed, most notably Mary Kelly's murder, which was significantly toned down from the original cut and the historical crime scene. From Hell was ultimately released in theaters on October 19, 2001, with an R rating for strong violence and gore, sexuality, language, and drug content. The film opened at number one with just over $11 million before finishing its run with $31.6 million domestically and $74.6 million worldwide against a $35 million budget.
AshleyHuh, respectable.
RemiToday, From Hell holds a 57% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, where the site's consensus reads visually impressive, but this latest Ripper tale is dull and far from scary.
AshleyI am shocked it is that high.
RemiMe too. I was really expecting this to be around 30 something percent. The Hughes brothers reunited for their next film, The Book of Eli, in 2010, before eventually going their separate ways as solo directors. Since From Hell, Johnny Depp's career has experienced some of the biggest highs and lowest lows in all of Hollywood. Following the film's release, he became one of the biggest movie stars on the planet thanks to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. But years of substance abuse, unprofessional behavior on film sets, and a very public legal battle with ex-wife Amber Heard all took a serious toll on the actor's reputation and career. The Fallout has cost him several high-profile roles, including that of Grindelwald in the Fantastic Beasts franchise. You're a wizard, Harry. Effectively bringing his Hollywood career to a complete standstill. Following the conclusion of the Defamation trial in 2022, Depp largely shifted his focus towards smaller independent and European productions.
AshleyBecause that's all he could do.
RemiYeah, nobody was hiring this guy, but in 2026, Depp will make his first major studio return, starring in Ty West Ebenezer, followed by the upcoming Mark Webb action thriller, Daydrinker, in 2027, co-starring Penelope Cruz. So he's trying. But whether or not those films mark the beginning of a full Hollywood comeback for the ring-wearing wannabe gypsy drug-outled bandana aficionado is something only time will tell. But personally speaking, I sure hope not.
AshleyI think there's too much baggage. It'd be like if Will Smith tried to make a comeback. You might be able to land some movie
Gull Unmasked And Brutal Finale
Ashleyroles, but you're never gonna be even close to where you once were.
RemiNor should he be. At this point, the only reason he would want to come back is for more fame. He is still rich, he still owns an island, he could just go off and live the rest of his life like Aberleen did in the novel, but he likes the attention. Having already distanced himself from the production before From Hell was released, writer Alan Moore remained deeply unhappy any time his work was adapted for movies or television. In the years that followed, he asked for his name to be removed from all future adaptations of his work he no longer owned, refused to accept any royalties, and declined screen credit on such other adaptations as V for Vendetta and Watchmen. To this day, his policy still remains in place for every major adaptation of his work.
AshleyOh, you should rethink that. V for Vendetta is so good, and people loved Watchmen. I am so confused. How does he not own the rights to these graphic novels he wrote?
RemiUnfortunately, it was a common occurrence back in the 80s when you worked for a publishing company like DC or Marvel, and you invented a character or wrote a story about them, you didn't own it. They did. So when you leave, they can do whatever they want with it, and your name will still be on it, but you don't have any control over what happens to it.
AshleyThat really sucks.
RemiAnd it still sucks to this day because I know a lot of creators of some of these huge Marvel films aren't really paid much at all because they worked for a company and invented that character and wrote that story while they were working there. It's really unfortunate. So I guess the only question left is: was Jack the Ripper really a royal physician carrying out murders for the crown to cover up a sex scandal? Or was this whole damn story just a bunch of baloney?
AshleyOi, let's find out, mate. Please excuse my awful, awful accent. By the mid-19th century, the population of London was growing at an astonishing rate. The census reached roughly 5 million by 1888, with the East End being one of the most densely populated and impoverished parts of the city. Severe overcrowding led to inadequate sanitation, poorly maintained housing, and thousands of people living in conditions difficult to comprehend today. The East End had a substantial economic underclass, and for women with few employment opportunities, prostitution became one of the ways they survived. London's housing crisis steadily gained the government's attention. In 1875, Parliament passed the Artisans and Laborers Dwellings Improvement Act, which allowed local agencies to identify and acquire unhealthy and overcrowded housing, demolish it, and redevelop the land.
RemiSo it was just kicking all of these people out on the streets?
AshleyWell, the idea was good in theory. Get rid of the worst slums and replace them with healthier housing for the working class. But as you just highlighted, reality posed greater challenges. In Whitechapel and surrounding areas, thousands of people were displaced as buildings were condemned and destroyed. Tenants were often left in deteriorating buildings while awaiting demolition since landlords had little incentive to spend money on repairs. The legislation was amended in 1879 to give authorities greater responsibility for rehoming people displaced by the improvements, but resources didn't come close to meeting the demand. Many ended up in lodging houses, where you paid a small amount for a bed for the night. Some lodging homes consisted of open areas packed with rows of beds, with 60, 80, or even more people sleeping in a single room. This was the world of Whitechapel in 1888. Extreme poverty and very limited resources for the people living there. Keep this in mind as we start talking about Jack the Ripper. He wasn't operating in a quiet, stable suburban area. He was functioning in a crowded, chaotic part of London where thousands of people were struggling to get through each night. Poverty and desperation also contributed to problems with alcohol, drug use, and violence, particularly against women. From April 1888 to February 1891, 11 women were murdered in the Whitechapel district. These cases are collectively known as the Whitechapel murders. But that doesn't mean the police thought they were all committed by the same person. The first two murders are sometimes considered possible Ripper victims, but they're generally left out of the official victim count. Elizabeth Smith and Martha Tabram.
RemiMartha Tabram is portrayed in the film, but not Elizabeth Smith.
AshleyBoth cases have similarities to the later murders, but there's also significant differences. Elizabeth Smith was attacked at around 1.30 in the morning on April 3rd, 1888. She suffered a brutal sexual assault and severe head injuries. She survived long enough to tell police she was attacked by two or three men and died the next day. Because she described multiple attackers, the prevailing theory was that her murder was the result of gang violence rather than the work of a lone serial killer.
RemiLike the nickel gang.
AshleyFour months later, 39-year-old Martha Tabram was found lying on the landing of a staircase shortly after 5 a.m. on August 7, 1888. She was stabbed 39 times, primarily
Verdict On The Film’s Execution
Ashleyin her chest and abdomen, but also in her neck and general area. The sheer number of wounds, lack of an obvious motive, and the fact that her murder occurred just weeks before the first canonical Ripper murder led some researchers to argue she was an early victim of Jack the Ripper. But there are some problems with that theory. Unlike the Canonical 5, Tabron was stabbed rather than having her throat cut. She also didn't have extensive abdominal mutilation. Investigators also had evidence suggesting she might have been with two soldiers shortly before her death, although the exact circumstances remain unclear. There's considerably less debate with the next five murders. 43-year-old Mary Ann Nichols, whose nickname was Polly, but I just call her by her name. 47-year-old Annie Chapman, 44-year-old Elizabeth Stride, 46-year-old Katherine Edoes, and 25-year-old Mary Jane Kelly.
RemiI did not realize Mary Jane was so much younger than the others.
AshleyThese five are almost universally recognized as Jack the Rickbur victims. To spare myself and you, Remy, and of course our listeners from having to hear about the gruesome details five separate times. Four occurred on or very close to a weekend. Each had their throats cut, and in most, the wounds were incredibly deep. I'm talking like hitting the spine. Their body showed varying degrees of mutilation, particularly to The abdomen and genital area. Several of the women also had bruising or injuries to their faces. This led doctors who conducted the autopsies to opine that the killer likely restrained them or covered their mouths to prevent them from screaming.
RemiWhich is how it's portrayed in the film.
AshleyAnd all of the mutilation to their bodies is believed to have happened after they died. In all cases, the opinion was that they died from having their throats cut.
RemiSo he would murder them and then do all of these atrocious things to their corpse.
AshleyYes. And in each case, the doctors opined that it would only have taken him less than five minutes to do what he did. The exception is Mary Jane Kelly. The murder weapon was believed to have been a sharp narrow knife with a six to eight inch blade, though the exact weapon was never identified. A final similarity is that all but the last victim were killed outside.
RemiWhich is why I assume Mary Jane's was so much worse. He was inside.
AshleyThat's exactly what they thought. Mary Ann Walker, aka Polly, was born in 1845 and married William Nichols, a printer's machinist, when she was 18 years old. The couple had five children between 1866 and 1879. They separated in 1880, with William taking custody of their children. The reason for the separation depends on who you asked. Nichols' father later claimed
Release Ratings And Alan Moore Blowback
AshleyWilliam had been unfaithful, but William blamed Nichols' drinking habits for the divorce. Whatever the reason was, William was obligated to provide financial support after their separation, and he did so for a time. According to his account, those payments stopped after he learned Nichols was working as a prostitute. On the night of August 30th, 1888, Nichols was out drinking in Whitechapel and reportedly told a friend she had made enough money to pay for her lodging for the night. But she never made it home. At approximately 3 40 a.m. on August 31st, her body was discovered by two cart drivers in the middle of the road. At first, the men thought she might still be alive. They stopped to examine her before summoning a nearby police officer. She was buried without a headstone at Manor Park Cemetery on September 6th, 1888. In 1996, a memorial plaque was installed at her gravesite.
RemiWell, that's nice, at least.
AshleyI know, right? It's kind of one of the only shining lights in this entire story. The fact that over a hundred years after she died, someone at this cemetery thought, hey, maybe we should just put her name on a gravestone here and just eat the cost.
RemiIt's the least that anyone can do. I mean, these women were treated like nothing their entire lives. They should be at least commemorated in death somehow beyond their murders.
AshleyAnd I think an important thing to point out here is that all of these victims that we're going to talk about, they also had jobs, at least opportunities where they would make income when they could. They didn't want to be living this lifestyle. They had to turn to sex work in order to have a safe place to lay their heads down at night.
RemiThat is portrayed in the graphic novel much more that these women would find lodging with men who fancied them and wanted to pay for their company. But usually the men would turn violent or something would happen along the way and they'd end up right back out on the street again.
AshleyAnd in several of these cases, the women were out when they were because they were kicked out of the lodging home they were staying at because they didn't have enough money for that night's rent. So they were out trying to get the four pounds or whatever they needed to pay for a bed for the evening.
RemiWhich is portrayed in the graphic novel, but not so much in the film.
AshleyAnnie Smith was born in 1840 and married John Chapman in 1869. The couple had three children between 1870 and 1888. Chapman struggled with alcohol throughout her life, but there were periods of sobriety. Her drinking reportedly became much worse after the death of her youngest child, who also had a physical disability. She suffered another devastating loss when her 12-year-old daughter died of meningitis in 1882.
RemiGod, these women led such tragic lives.
AshleyNot long after, John took custody of their surviving daughter and Chapman moved to London. There, she supported herself by crocheting and selling flowers and other small goods. John continued providing her a weekly allowance, but that support ended when he died of cirrhosis in 1866, causing her to resort to sex work to survive. Despite her struggles with alcohol and poverty, people who knew Chapman described her as intelligent, sociable, and good natured. On the night of September 7, 1888, she was seen drinking and attempting to earn money, likely to pay for her lodging for the night. Around 5 45 a.m. on September 8th, her body was discovered in the backyard by a tenant who lived in the building. At the inquest, a woman named Elizabeth Long testified that she'd been walking
Whitechapel Reality And Victorian Poverty
Ashleyhome at 5.30 in the morning when she saw Chapman and a man standing near the doorway where the body was discovered. She described the man as approximately 40 years old with a dark mustache and complexion, wearing a dark coat and brown deerstalker style hat.
RemiWhich was an extremely common look back in the day.
AshleyAccording to Long, she heard the man say something like, Will you? And Chapman replied, Yes. Another resident of the building was also awake at the time. He reported hearing voices coming from the backyard, a woman saying, No, no, and something strike the fence. The doctors who examined Chapman's body found something that distinguished her from Mary Ann Nichols. Part of her uterus and bladder were removed. She was buried at Manor Park Cemetery on September 14th, 1888.
RemiSo her organs were just gone. They weren't found like nearby or a few days later or anything. They were just completely gone.
AshleyThey were near her body, from what I recall from my research. There is one victim whose kidney was removed, but we haven't gotten to her yet. The next two victims are remarkable because they were both killed during the early morning hours of September 30th, 1888, just 45 minutes apart. Elizabeth Gustoff's daughter was born in Sweden in 1843 and moved to London in the 1860s. She had already been working as a prostitute before arriving in England. She was married to carpenter John Stride from 1869 to 1881. By the mid-1880s, Stride was living in East London and in an on-again-off-again relationship with Doc worker Michael Kidney. On the evening of September 29, 1888, she was seen around Whitechapel with several men. One witness reported seeing a man accosting a woman around midnight. He grabbed the woman, threw her to the ground, and shouted something in a foreign language. Another witness reported seeing a woman who might have been stride talking with the man earlier that evening. He recalled hearing her say something along the lines of, no, not tonight, some other night. That man was described as being in his 30s, wearing dark clothing and a black hat, dark hair, mustache, and fair in complexion. At approximately 1 a.m. on September 30th, Stride's body was found by a cart driver in the street. Her throat was cut, but unlike the previous two canonical victims, there were no abdominal or genital injuries, which immediately raised a question. Was Elizabeth Stride actually a victim of Jack the Ripper? Evidence suggesting she was is largely circumstantial, but there is one particularly important detail. When she was discovered, she was warm and blood was still flowing from the wound in her neck, suggesting she died very shortly before she was found. The leading theory is the ripper was interrupted while attacking her and went looking for another victim that night. She was buried at East London Cemetery on October 8, 1888. Catherine Edoes was born in 1842. Both her parents died when she was 15 years old, and after a brief stint in an orphanage, she and her siblings were taken in by relatives. Those who knew her described her as intelligent and joyful. In the early 1880s, she began dating Thomas Conway, a former soldier. They had three children between 1863 and 1873. The relationship ended around 1880 due to alcohol abuse and Conway's violent behavior. After leaving Conway, Edos began seeing a laborer, John Kelly. The two lived together in lodging houses at the time of her death. She was taken into custody and spent several hours at the police station. She was last seen walking home around 1.35 a.m. Her body was found 10 minutes after she was released from the police station and just 45 minutes after Elizabeth Stride's murder. Her injuries were more extensive than the previous victims. Her throat was cut and her face was severely mutilated. Her abdomen was completely open, and her left kidney and part of her uterus were removed. The uterus was still at the scene, but the kidney was completely missing. She was buried in an unmarked grave at Manor Park Cemetery on October 8, 1888. Like Mary Ann Nichols, a memorial plaque was added in 1996. The last of the canonical five is Mary Jane Kelly. Unlike the other four women, almost everything about her life is unknown. Even her age is debated. She was probably born around 1863 or 1864, which would have made her 24-25 years old when she was killed, two decades younger than Jack the Ripper's other victims. According to accounts, she married a Welsh miner when she was 16 years old, but he died in a mining accident a few years later. After his death, Kelly reportedly moved to London and became involved in prostitution.
RemiThere is a pattern with a lot of these victims where they were married to a man for a period of time, and for different reasons that relationship ended, and in order to survive, they turned to prostitution.
AshleyAnd for Mary Kelly, there's kind of reports that she lived with her cousin after her husband died, and her cousin is who introduced her to prostitution. In April 1886, Kelly met and started living with a fish porter named Joseph Barnett. Their relationship was affectionate at times, but also increasingly turbulent due to his disapproval of her lifestyle. They eventually separated, though he continued to see her rather frequently. By November 1888, Kelly was living alone in a tiny room on 13 Miller's Court and was seen drinking in the area on the evening of November 8th. She returned to her room with the man around midnight. Another sex worker who lived nearby heard her say something along the lines of, Come along, you fool, as they entered the room. This is the last confirmed sighting of her alive. There's another witness who became one of the most famous and controversial in the Ripper cases, George Hudson. He was an unemployed laborer who later told police he encountered Kelly around two in the morning. According to his account, she was approached by a man who was unusually well dressed with a dark mustache, pale complexion, dark coat, and a large Ostracon style hat. He claimed he saw the man give Kelly money and followed them back to Miller's court, which took him something like 45 minutes, because he like waited outside for a while, because he thought the man looked suspicious. Because he didn't come forward until after the inquest, some wonder if he exaggerated or fabricated his account for notoriety.
RemiIt is a questionable story.
AshleySometime between 3 30 and 4 in the morning on November 9, 1888, two residents near Kelly's room heard a faint cry that sounded like someone saying murder. No one investigated. In the east end, hearing cries, arguments, and drunken shouting was hardly unusual. Another resident recalled hearing what sounded like someone leaving Kelly's room around 5 45. Five hours later, the landlord's assistant went to Kelly's room to collect overdue rent. He peeked in the window when his knocks went unanswered and ran to
The Canonical Five Victims
Ashleythe police station to report his discovery. A severely mutilated body lying on the bed. Police inspector Walter Beck and surgeon George Baxter Phillips were among those who responded to the scene. Officers immediately restricted access to the room. They were so concerned about preserving evidence and potentially catching the killer that they considered using bloodhounds to track whoever left the property. A telegram was sent requesting assistance, but no dogs came. With their telegram unanswered, police finally entered the room at approximately 1.30 in the afternoon. What they found was unlike anything they had encountered before. Kelly's body was brutalized beyond recognition. Her abdomen was opened and much of her flesh was removed. Organs were removed and strategically placed around her and on the kitchen table. There was also a still smoldering fire fueled by women's clothing. She was buried at St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Cemetery on November 19, 1888. She is the last widely accepted victim of Jack the Ripper. As the murders continued, the investigation grew into a massive law enforcement effort involving multiple police agencies, detectives, volunteers, and private investigators. At first, the murders were handled primarily by the Whitechapel Division of the Metropolitan Police, led by Inspector Edmund Reed.
RemiWait, where is Aberline?
AshleyWell, funny you should ask. After the murder of Mary Ann Pauline Nichols, the first of the Canonical Five, Scotland Yard sent additional detectives to assist. Among them were Frederick Aberline, Henry Moore, and Walter Andrews.
RemiWas there anyone named Godley?
AshleyI can't recall. There's so many names in here that I just took out the ones that weren't imperative to the story. And Walter Andrews, Henry Moore, never mentioned again. And by all accounts, once Scotland Yard sent detectives, Aberline was the leader of the force. And after the discovery of Catherine Edoes, the City of London police became involved. On September 10th, 1888, two days after Annie Chapman's murder, 16 local tradesmen met at a pub. They were not only concerned about the murders themselves, but also about the effect the growing panic was having on local businesses. Believing the police weren't doing enough, they formed the White Chapel Vigilance Committee and elected George Lusk as their leader. Their goal was straightforward. Patrol the streets each night, typically from 12 to 5, to help deter or identify the killer. After the murders of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Edhouse on September 30th, widely referred to as the double event, the committee even offered their own reward of 500 pounds after the government refused to do so. This was approximately 20,000 US dollars adjusted for inflation. They also hired private detectives to investigate the murders and question witnesses. Like the growing team of investigators, the leading theory about who was responsible changed over time. Early on, many suspected they were connected to gang violence or criminal groups operating in Whitechapel. As they continued, the idea that a single person was responsible took hold. An obvious question was why these women? Unlike the movie From Hell, it wasn't because of some royal Freemason conspiracy. The victims had very little money, so robbery wasn't an obvious motive. Their occupation seemed to be what made them targets.
RemiWhich is unfortunately still the case to this day, I believe. Prostitutes are among the most commonly targeted for serial killers.
AshleyTypically, yeah, because they are vulnerable. They are typically at a stage of their life where they aren't in close contact with family members, and there's other elements of their lifestyle that could make police view them as less worthy of a full investigation. The increasingly elaborate mutilations also led investigators to speculate about the killer's background. Several physicians examined the bodies, most of whom believed the killer had some knowledge of human anatomy. That led to speculation that he may have worked in a profession where he regularly handled knives and human or animal bodies. Doctors and surgeons were obvious possibilities, but so were butchers, slaughtermen, and even barbers. Whitechapel was also close to the London docks, where ships arrived from all over the world with thousands of sailors, dock workers, and transient laborers. Some theorists suggested the Ripper might have worked on a cattle ship, which could potentially explain his familiarity with cutting flesh, the timing of the murders, and his ability to escape. And now we get to my favorite theory. What if Jack the Ripper wasn't a Jack at all? What if she was a Jill?
RemiI'm not gonna cover the Adam Sandler movie.
AshleyThe most famous version of the theory came about in 1972. The basic argument is that the killer used her profession as a midwife to gain the victim's trust. I can see why this initially would raise eyebrows, but I can also understand why it's kind of taken hold. A female killer could have potentially moved through Whitechapel without attracting the same attention as a man wandering around alone with a blood-covered knife. If she had blood on her clothes, she might have had an easier time explaining it away by saying it was from childbirth. But then we get to kind of a bizarre version of the theory. Some propose that the victims actually died during botched abortions and that the killer mutilated their bodies to conceal the true cause of death.
RemiThat is preposterous.
AshleyWell, and there's one significant problem with this idea. And that's the problem with Jill the Ripper. And frankly, a lot of other Ripper theories. The idea is fascinating, but it's based on speculation, unconfirmed theories, and assumptions rather than actual evidence.
RemiIf it had been Jill the Ripper, it would have been the most horrifically brutal female serial killer of all time.
AshleyYeah, in my opinion, these murders are way, way. Way too brutal to have it be a woman. I don't want to sound sexist or anything. I don't even think that's sounding sexist, but I am 99.9% sure Jack the Ripper was a Jack, not a Jill. So, what did law enforcement do to try to catch the Ripper? Surprisingly, a lot. They conducted house-to-house searches after each murder, interviewed thousands of people, collected statements from any witness they could find, and followed up on endless leads. More than 2,000 people were interviewed, hundreds were investigated as possible suspects, and roughly 80 men were arrested at various points in connection with the murders or related offenses. Early in the investigation, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Charles Warren ordered every available officer onto the streets to deter or catch the killer in the act. After the double event on September 30th, some officers suggested all prostitutes found crawling the streets after midnight should be arrested or warned that police wouldn't protect them. The first was thought to be too drastic, but unfortunately the second was adopted.
RemiThe one where they're basically like hands off and don't do anything?
AshleyIt's basically police saying if they saw a sex worker at night, they would say, go home. We're not gonna do anything to try to deter the killer from you, which I don't think is the correct reaction to have to these women that are being hunted. On October 19th, 1888, 80,000 leaflets were distributed throughout Whitechapel asking residents to provide any information they might have about the murders. On November 10th, Dr. Thomas Bond, a police surgeon who examined several of the victims, wrote a report detailing what he believed were likely characteristics of the killer. This profile isn't as strong as the ones we see today, aka Mindhunter. Bond described the killer in fairly broad terms. A strong, daring, self-controlled man with a tendency towards solitary behavior and a sexually motivated homicidal impulse.
RemiSounds like a movie pitch.
AshleyImportantly, Bond didn't believe the killer had any special anatomical or surgical knowledge. Unlike others, he thought the mutilations could have been done by someone without medical or butcher training.
RemiWhat do you think, Ashley?
AshleyI tend to disagree with Dr. Bond. In all of the cases except for the last of Mary Kelly, the ripper was able to mutilate and remove portions of organs within five to ten minutes. And with Katherine Edoes, her left kidney was removed and taken with him. And several of the doctors said that it was in an area that you kind of would have to know where you're searching for to be able to get it out and to get it out quickly.
RemiYes, that is what I found in my research as well. Apparently, the kidney is sort of hidden in the body, and it's very difficult to find unless you know exactly where it is.
AshleyBut I also don't necessarily think that Jack the Ripper was a doctor, especially in the late 1800s. I do think that anyone who had any sort of experience, even working with animal carcasses, would have the general idea of where these certain organs were situated and how to cut skin in a timely and efficient manner. So despite best efforts, the investigation faced many obstacles, some of which had nothing to do with police incompetence. The biggest problem was that forensic science was still in its infancy. In 1888, the
Investigation Limits And Public Hysteria
Ashleydetection of crimes relied heavily on local knowledge, informants, eyewitness testimony, and catching the perpetrator in the act. We have said this to each other time and time again, Remy. I don't understand how any crimes were solved before DNA.
RemiYou basically had to be caught in the act.
AshleyWell, and in Jack the Ripper days, fingerprinting wasn't even an established forensic technique. It would be another 17 years before it was used in the first court case in England.
RemiThey didn't even have blood types yet, right?
AshleyYes, blood evidence was even more primitive. Not only did they not have blood types, they couldn't even tell the difference between animal and human blood.
RemiWow, so it was like blood was blood. That's all they could tell.
AshleyCommissioner Charles Warren was also problematic at points. After Catherine Edo's murder, police discovered graffiti written in chalk on a wall near the murder scene. It read something like, The Jews are the men that will not be blamed for nothing. The exact meaning, spelling, and punctuation are debated, but it appeared to suggest a Jewish person was responsible for the murders. Responding officers wanted the writing photographed before it was removed, but Commissioner Warren ordered it washed away before sunrise, fearing it would inflame anti-Jewish violence in an already tense neighborhood. From a public relations standpoint, the decision was disastrous. The press and public criticized him for destroying potentially valuable evidence. Within days, the pressure mounted for him to resign. He eventually did on November 8, 1888, the same day Mary Jane Kelly was killed. His resignation is why the telegram for the Bloodhounds went unanswered. The other officers didn't know he had resigned.
RemiSo he left this message and misspelled words to kind of throw them off his scent.
AshleySo keep this in mind in the next section where we talk about the correspondence that reportedly came from Jack the Ripper. And right before we get to that, it's important to note that the public and the media were the final confounding factors to complicate the investigation. Jack the Ripper is often cited as the first serial killer to create a worldwide media frenzy. At the height of the investigation, police were getting hundreds of thousands of letters and other communication each week, many from cranks, hoaxers, attention seekers, and people claiming to know the identity of the killer. And the media didn't help. Newspapers aggressively competed for readers, and stories about the murder sold extremely well. It didn't matter if what they printed was actually true.
RemiTimes have not changed too much in that regard, unfortunately.
AshleyThen came the letters. On September 27, 1888, the Central News Agency received a letter addressed, Dear Boss. The writer claimed responsibility for the murders, mocked police, threatened to kill again, and signed it, yours truly, Jack the Ripper. And just like that, one of the most famous names in criminal history was born.
RemiSo it came from a letter. It wasn't a name that the media invented.
AshleyNo, it came from this letter. Before this, the killer was known by a variety of nicknames, including Leather Apron, due to a local man named John Pizer being a suspect, but more on him later. Police and journalists were skeptical that the dear boss letter was genuine, at least until Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Edoes were murdered. In the letter, the killer promised that he would remove the ears of his next victim. Edo's ear was cut, but not actually removed. The coincidence made the letter seem more credible. Two days later, on October 1st, the Central News Agency received another communication, the saucy Jackie postcard, signed by Jack the Ripper. It referred to Edo's and Stride's murder as the double event, a phrase that became permanently associated with these killings. For decades, people debated whether these communications were actually written by the murderer. Today, most consider them hoaxes, though there's no way to actually prove who wrote them. And unfortunately, the chain of custody for these documents is not what we would expect today. Bold disappeared shortly after the investigation was shelved. The postcard was never recovered, but the Dear Boss letter was anonymously returned to the Metropolitan Police and is now preserved in the National Archives, along with other material related to the investigation. There was even a bizarre confession decades later. In 1931, journalist Fred Best reportedly confessed that he and a colleague at the Star fabricated several Ripper letters and postcards to keep the public interested in the story.
RemiThis is depicted in the graphic novel.
AshleySome modern linguists have argued that the Deer Boss letter and saucy Jackie postcard were written by the same person, while others have questions whether such analysis can tell us much about the authorship at all.
RemiThere's definitely one of them that is real, though, right?
AshleyWell, that gets us to one other letter that is worth mentioning. Because unlike the others, it's much more plausible to have come from Jack the Ripper. On October 16th, 1888, George Lusk, chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, received a package with half a human kidney and a letter with the words from hell listed on the return address, which gave the document its name. Unlike the Dearboss letter, this one was short, poorly written, and in a noticeably different style. The writer claimed to have taken the kidney from one of the victims and eaten half of it. It was later determined to have been preserved in liquor before it was mailed. Doctors examined the kidney and concluded it was human and came from the left side of the body. It was widely assumed to have belonged to Catherine Edoes. Several other women were attacked or murdered in Whitechapel from November 1888 to February 1891, but none were definitively linked to Jack the River. Public and media interest fell during the months after Kelly's murder. By the spring of 1889, many suspected the culprit was dead, arrested for another crime, committed to an asylum, or simply left London. So now let's get into some suspects. I'm going to start with some men who were actually considered or investigated by police during the original investigation, before getting into some of the more elaborate suspects proposed decades later. Before we do that, though, there's an important problem with the historical record that needs to be highlighted. A great deal of the original police documentation was destroyed, lost, or stolen over time. One of the most important surviving documents is the McNaughton Memorandum written by Sir Melville McNaughton in 1894, several years after he joined Scotland Yard as an assistant chief constable. Because he wasn't directly involved in the investigation, it's unclear where this information came from, but many suspect it was taken from Frederick Aberline's files. The memo identifies three primary suspects Montague John Druitt, Aaron Kosminsky, and Michael Ostrog. Druitt was a 31-year-old barrister and assistant schoolmaster from an upper middle class family. He came from a long line of surgeons, but wasn't a physician himself. According to McNaughton, Druitt became a serious suspect after he was found dead in a river on December 31, 1888.
RemiThis is in the graphic novel as well.
AshleyHis death was ruled a suicide.
RemiHe is a Patsy in the novel.
AshleyHis family reportedly thought he was the murderer because he was, quote, sexually insane. Otherwise, we have no idea why he was suspected of being Jack the Ripper. He wasn't identified by witnesses or even connected to Whitechapel. According to the memo, even Aberline didn't consider him a convincing suspect. Next up is Aaron Kosminski, a Polish Jewish immigrant who worked as a hairdresser in Whitechapel and struggled with mental illness for most of his adult life. In 1889, he was admitted to a hospital after exhibiting increasingly concerning behavior. In 1891, he was admitted to Colony Hatch Lunatic Asylum. God, the names of these places were wild.
RemiYeah, you don't hear the words lunatic asylum very much these days.
AshleyWhich is where he remained for the rest of his life. There are police accounts describing him as someone with a strong hatred of women, particularly prostitutes. He was suspicious enough to put under surveillance, but there wasn't any evidence to arrest him. There's also surprisingly
Letters Hoaxes And The From Hell Package
Ashleylittle to suggest he was physically violent. One documented incident occurred in 1892 when he attacked a hospital worker with a chair. Otherwise, he was generally apathetic, withdrawn, and inactive. He became a more famous suspect in 2014 when ripperologist Russell Edwards claimed he had a shawl, supposedly recovered from the scene of Catherine Edo's murder, and had DNA connected to Kosminsky. The results were later featured in the 2019 documentary Jack the Ripper, the case reopened. If the evidence was as straightforward as it was presented, we'd have our answer. But it's not. There are huge problems. First, the shawl might not even have belonged to Edo's. It wasn't mentioned in any surviving police reports about the crime scene. Second, it's been handled by hundreds of hands over the years, creating an obvious contamination problem. Lastly, is the type of DNA that was tested. The researchers relied on mitochondrial DNA. Unlike nuclear DNA that is individualized, this type is inherited through the maternal line and is thus shared by many.
RemiYeah, I'm calling BS on this riparologist.
AshleyAnd the last suspect named in the McNaughton memo is Michael Ostrog, a Russian-born man with an extensive criminal record, though little of it was violent. Ostrog was a career con man and petty thief with multiple aliases and claimed occupation, including as a doctor. He was arrested countless times for fraud, theft, and other minor offenses. In 1887, he was committed to a French asylum where he, for some reason, was dubbed a homicidal maniac. Despite that distinction, he was released in March 1888.
RemiOne year later, after being diagnosed as a homicidal maniac?
AshleyBy the time of the Ripper murders, he'd come to the attention of British authorities and was named a suspect, despite no evidence connecting him to the murders. There was also evidence suggesting he was in France during at least part of the period when the murders were occurring. Okay, so Remy, do you think any named in the McNaughton memo are suspects that you would want to investigate more into?
RemiNo, I don't think any of these are our guy. None of these sound credible to me.
AshleyI agree. And so now we'll move on. As I mentioned earlier, roughly 80 people were arrested at various points in connection with the murders or related suspicions. Many were quickly cleared and initially investigated because of rumors, suspicious behavior, or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. One of the earliest suspects was connected to an early nickname given to the killer, leather apron. After Mary Ann Nichols was murdered, a bloodstained piece of a leather apron was found in the vicinity of the crime scene. Local residents began speculating that it belonged to John Pizer, a Polish-born Jewish bootmaker known to wear a leather apron while working. He was arrested on September 10th, 1888, despite no real evidence against him.
RemiOther than the fact that he wore a leather apron.
AshleyWhich I am sure so did so many other professional men at this time. A search of his home revealed several long-bladed knives and a collection of homemade hats. Coincidentally, Nichols reportedly told people shortly before her death that she had acquired a new hat. Piser was released from custody after police established his alibis for the murders of Nichols and Chapman. He was also awarded compensation from at least one newspaper who publicly named him as the killer. Ironically, another piece from an apron was found near Catherine Edo's body. It belonged to John Richardson, though he was ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing. There was also William Piggott, a ship cook arrested the same day as Pizer. He came under suspicion because he was found at a pub with cuts on his hands and blood on his clothes. After a few hours in custody, he became increasingly incoherent, declared insane, and sent to an asylum. He was eliminated as a suspect after the murders continued during his confinement.
RemiJesus, that went as badly as it could have possibly gone.
AshleyAnother suspect who seemed plausible was Jacob Eisenschmid, a Swiss-born butcher. He was arrested on September 13, 1888, shortly after the murder of Annie Chapman. Part of the reason he was considered was because he matched the description of a man with a distinct ginger mustache who was reportedly seen wearing bloodstained clothing and acting suspiciously the night of Chapman's murder. Two days before his arrest, two physicians contacted police about him. AishenSmid apparently lived a relatively quiet life until about a year before the murders. His mental health deteriorated when his businesses began failing. According to his wife, he became violent, erratic, and unpredictable. She claimed he frequently attacked women in Whitechapel, rarely came home, and always carried large knives. This does sound like an excellent fit for the Ripper profile. The only problem is once again there was no evidence against him, and he was still in custody when Stride and Edoes were murdered on September 30th. He was subsequently committed to a psychiatric institution where he remained for the rest of his life.
RemiThey're just committing everybody back in the day.
AshleyThen there was Charles Ludwig, a German hairdresser. He came to police attention after stabbing a man while drunk at a coffee stall on September 18th. Prior to that, he was wanted for trying to slash a woman's throat with a razor. Like others before him, he was still in custody at the time of the double event. Next up is a really fun one. Dr. Francis Tumbletty. He's the suspect you'd concoct if you were writing Jack the Ripper fanfiction. Tumbletty was born and raised in Rochester, New York. He reportedly disappeared around the age of 17 and resurfaced a decade later, claiming to be a great physician. He had no medical training but earned a small fortune traveling around the United States and Canada as a self-proclaimed Indian herb doctor, selling questionable remedies like Tumbledi's pimple destroyer and Dr. Morris's Indian root pills.
Police-Era Suspects And Why They Fail
AshleyHe had a reputation for being eccentric and hating women, possibly because his ex wife engaged in prostitution during their marriage. A stranger claim made by people who knew him was that he had a large collection of uteruses from quote, everything. Class of women. End quote.
RemiCan you explain that at all?
AshleyI think it's referring to every social and economic class of woman. I don't know. It's sketch.
RemiThat's a weird way to phrase it.
AshleyTumblady fled to London following accusations of medical malpractice and allegedly trying to procure an abortion for a prostitute. On November 7, 1888, just two days after Mary Jane Kelly's murder, he was arrested for homosexual activity, which was illegal in Britain at the time. Shortly after his arrest, Scotland Yard contacted police in San Francisco requesting handwriting samples, suggesting they were interested in comparing his writing to some of the communications attributed to Jack the Ripper. Because he was known in the United States for his pending criminal charges, the New York Times reported that his arrest in London was connected to the Ribber murders. After being released on bail, Tumbletti fled England and returned to the United States. Scotland Yard tried to extradite him, but American authorities declined. The charges against him weren't extraditable, and there was no compelling evidence connecting him to the Ripper murders. He was a problematic fit for the witness descriptions, and that he was older and considerably taller.
RemiEven though it's not a strong candidate, it's the most plausible one so far, I would say.
AshleyThe last two suspects from the 1800s worth mentioning are William Bury and Frederick Deming. Burry had recently moved to Scotland before murdering his wife Ellen on February 4th, 1889. A few days later, he went to police claiming she committed suicide. He eventually admitted to killing her but denied being Jack the Ripper. The circumstances of Ellen's murder attracted attention because of the Ripper case. She was strangled and had cuts to her abdomen, though they were minor compared to the mutilations of the Canonical Five. He was sentenced to death and hung in April 1889. That's when the Ripper theory really took off. Executioner James Barry promoted the idea that Bury was Jack the Ripper, pointing to several things he found suspicious. One was graffiti associated with Bury's residence that allegedly accused the occupant of being the Ripper. Barry interpreted this as a confession. There were also claims that his wife told police her husband knew something about the serial killer, but neither of these claims is strong. There's no proof Bury wrote the graffiti, and the sources of Ellen's statements are difficult to verify. Police did show some interest in him because he left Whitechapel shortly after Mary Jane Kelly's murder. And when he was arrested, he reportedly expressed concern about being accused of the slangs. The biggest problem with the Bury theory is the Ripper's MO. Ellen was strangled rather than having her throat cut, and the abdominal injuries were minor compared to the other murders.
RemiIt seems like if you committed just about any crime in the vicinity during this time, you were a suspect.
AshleyIt's if you did anything to raise suspicion about you for any reason, you were a suspect. And finally, we have Frederick Deming. In 1891, he murdered his wife and four children at their home in Lancashire. He then fled Britain for Australia, where he married and killed a second woman. Her body was discovered beneath the floorboards of his home, which led police to discover the bodies of his family back in England. He was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to death. While in prison, he reportedly boasted about being responsible for the Whitechapel murders, though evidence suggests he was either in prison or outside of England during most of the killings. Still, the rumors were persistent enough that a plaster cast of his face was sent to Scotland Yard after he was executed in May 1892. It was displayed for years as the death mask of Jack the Ripper and eventually placed in the Metropolitan Police's famous Black Museum. So, Remy, now before we turn to more modern suspects, any of those guys still float your boat?
RemiI mean, none of them are incredibly strong candidates in my eyes. But if I had to go with one of them, it would be Dr. Trembletti. He's the only one that it seems even remotely plausible that he could have been the guy.
AshleyI really like the theories where it's someone that was in Whitechapel for a short amount of time, and the reason the killing stopped is because they moved or they were institutionalized. Because, in my opinion, a killer that is acting in this like just extreme horrific manner, he's not just gonna start and stop within a couple months. Something happened to this guy. So I agree. As crazy as Dr. Trombletty is, of all those ones, in my opinion, he's the most convincing. Which isn't saying much.
RemiNo, none of them are truly viable suspects to me.
AshleyNow let's turn to more modern suspects. Over the years, virtually anyone with even the loosest connection to the case was accused of being the ripper. And some of the accusations are truly wild. Oscar Wilde's boyfriend, George Miles, Winston Churchill's dad, Queen Victoria's physician, Sir William Gull. There he is. The pining tutor of King Edward VII's oldest son, Prince Albert Victor, and even Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Because anyone being accused has been dead for generations, there's no possibility of questioning them, making it easy to construct a theory around almost anyone. Nonetheless, let's go over additional suspects presented over the years. We'll go chronologically, starting with theories from the early 1900s and working our way forward. In 1929, journalist Leonard Matters published The Mystery of Jack the Ripper, one of the earliest books to propose a new identity for the killer. Matters claimed that shortly before his death in Argentina, a man known only as Dr. Stanley made a deathbed confession about being Jack the Ripper. There's just one problem. There's no reliable evidence that this man ever existed. Matters also named another man as the possible suspect, Severin Klaowski. He was born in Poland, trained as a surgical assistant, and worked as a barber after immigrating to Whitechapel around 1888. Between 1898 and 1902, he married three women who died from mysterious ailments. Turns out, he slowly poisoned them to death with arsenic and became known as the Borough Poisoner. He was arrested in 1902 and hanged a year later. So why did Matters think he was Jack the Ripper? For starters, Klawowski lived in Whitechapel during the Ripper murders, had some surgical training, and resembled witness descriptions. Matters also claimed Frederick Aberlein considered Klawski one of his leading suspects. But would Jack the Ripper replace his life of brutal mutilation for one of slow poisoning? Unlikely. Moving forward several decades, we come to Dr. Alexander Pedachinko. The theory appeared in Donald McCormick's 1959 book, Identity of Jack the Ripper. According to his story, the Russian doctor committed the murders while another man served as a lookout. This sounds familiar. McCormick pointed to Pedachinko's surgical expertise and black mustache to support his theory. Once again, there's no reliable evidence that this man ever existed, and since 1959, the book has been increasingly discredited. In Jack the Ripper The Bloody Truth, author Melvin Harris puts forth Robert Stevenson as one of the few suspects who actually fits what is known about the Ripper. Stevenson was a journalist and writer interested in the occult, spiritualism, and black magic. He had a mustache, lived in Whitechapel, and was 47 years old at the time of the murders. On July 26, 1888, he admitted himself to London Hospital, where he remained until December 7th. This means he was hospitalized during each of the canonical murders. At first glance, this would seem to completely exonerate him. But Stevenson was a voluntary patient, not someone who'd been committed involuntarily. He might not have had the same restrictions as other patients and may have been able to move about the facilities and large grounds more freely. The hospital was also remarkably close to the crime scenes, in some cases, only a few minutes' walk away. While still hospitalized on December 1st, 1888, Stevenson published an article in the Paul Mall Gazette in which he suggested black magic or ritualistic killings as a motive for the murders. His well-known interest in the occult contributed to suspicions about him, but police didn't consider him a serious suspect. After leaving the hospital on December 7th, he met George March, an amateur detective trying to identify the Ripper. They met two or three times a week to discuss the case. During one of these meetings, Stevenson claimed Dr. Davies, a physician at London Hospital, was responsible. The two agreed to split the reward if he was arrested and convicted. On Christmas Eve, 1888, Stevenson went to Scotland Yard with a five-page statement explaining why he thought Dr. Davies was the killer. In it, he claimed he witnessed Davies acting out the Ripper's murders on an imaginary woman at the hospital. There's no surviving documentation on how this was followed up. Stevenson does seem to be a promising suspect, though his physical condition at the time would have posed a challenge. He was a heavy drinker and used drugs to prevent and manage the effects of severe alcohol withdrawal. On the other hand, his background may have given him the kind of knowledge some investigators believe the Ripper possessed. Unlike most of the witnesses we've already discussed, Stevenson actually fits several elements of contemporary descriptions. He lived in Whitechapel, was the right general age, had a mustache, and was physically close to the murder scenes during the entire period of the killings. In Donald Rumbello's book, Jack the Ripper, The Complete Case Book, which is the primary source for this portion of the podcast, Stevenson is one of the few individuals said to be a strong suspect. What do you think, Remy?
RemiI think like all of the other suspects, it's reaching. I don't think that there is enough to point the finger at this guy either, in all honesty.
AshleyI also don't feel like
Modern Suspects And DNA Claims
AshleyJack the Ripper would have teamed up with a sleuth detective and gone to Scotland Yard pointing the detective at a random doctor. That just seems reckless. But the idea that he was living in a hospital and sneaking out and just running back to this hospital, and that's why he was nowhere to be found in the streets is kind of intriguing.
RemiIt's intriguing, but does it make much sense? He was going out butchering these women and then coming back to the hospital completely spotless.
AshleySo all the physicians who examined the bodies post-mortem all agreed that the culprit would actually have very little, if any, blood on him because he cut the throats while he was standing behind them and then laid them on the ground, so all the blood would have flowed downwards, not splattered on him.
RemiI still think that you would get some on you. And is he changing clothes? I don't know what you wore when you were committed back in the day, but it is usually white, if it's how it's depicted in movies. So I don't know. It's an interesting theory, but I don't buy it.
AshleyIf he's wearing a black coat, would you even be able to tell if it's stained? Where did he get the black coat?
RemiHe just hangs it on a coat rack every night before he goes back inside?
AshleyNo, in a lot of hospitals that you're committed to, especially if you're voluntary, you can wear your own clothes.
RemiStill, I don't think that there's enough for this guy to be a suspect. It's interesting, but I just don't believe it's this guy.
AshleyOne last ripper theory from the 1980s involves someone considerably closer to one of the victims than anyone we've discussed so far. Joseph Barnett, Mary Jane Kelly's romantic partner. The theory is Barnett killed her in a fit of jealousy, possibly because he was angry about her continuing to work as a prostitute. According to some versions, he mutilated her body to make the murder look like the work of Jack the Ripper. This would explain why her injuries were more extensive, which I could argue that could also be explained by the fact that it was done inside. Other supporters take this theory even further, arguing that Barnett killed the other woman to frighten Kelly away from prostitution, which just seems like a lot of work. Now we find ourselves in 1992, when a Liverpool resident named Michael Barrett contacted a literary agent saying he had Jack the Ripper's diary. It was a scrapbook-style book bound in black cloth with seven bands of gold foil across the two-inch spine. The diary begins with the writer describing himself as having done something he can never tell anyone about before launching into a series of disturbing entries about women he killed, his sexual obsession, and attempts to evade detection. The author was supposedly James Maybrick, a wealthy Liverpool cotton merchant whose wife was convicted of poisoning him with arsenic in 1889. According to Barrett, the diary was discovered beneath the floorboards of a house in Liverpool, but no one could establish a reliable chain of custody showing where this diary had been from 1889 and 1992. Scientific testing did find that the ink contained a dye that was consistent with those manufactured during the late 19th century. However, the handwriting didn't match what was on Maybrick's will and marriage certificate. At one point, Barrett also admitted to forging the diary, though he redacted this claim sometime later.
RemiOh no, no, no, no. You already said it, you can't take it back.
AshleyAnd Remy, because I know you just love art so much, we start our list of suspects from 2000s with two artists.
RemiWe're still getting suspects in the 2000s? Alright, lay them on me.
AshleyWalter Sickert and Francis Thompson. Sickert was a German-British painter first accused of being Jack the Ripper in 2002 when crime writer Patricia Cornwell published Portrait of a Killer, Jack the Ripper. Case closed. She points to what she saw as sinister undertones in his artwork. The most frequently cited example is his Camden Town Murder Paintings, a series inspired by a murder in 1907, which depicted nude women lying on beds, sometimes with clothed men nearby. Cornwell argued Sickert's artistic interest in murder, sexuality, and the feminine form reflected something much darker. She also tried to make a scientific case. She said she obtained letters and envelopes supposedly handled by Sickert and compared mitochondrial DNA from those sources to recovered envelopes associated with Ripper correspondence. The results were presented as evidence that Sickert and the writer of at least one Ripper letter shared a maternal lineage. This is where things get complicated. First, the Ripper letters of themselves are of questionable authenticity. If the letter wasn't actually written by Jack the Ripper, finding DNA evidence on its envelope means nothing. Second, as I noted before, mitochondrial DNA isn't unique to an individual, meaning a genuine match wouldn't even mean Sickert touched the letters. The envelopes were handled by many people over decades, and the DNA would have been degraded and contaminated long before modern testing was attempted. There are also more fundamental problems with this theory. Sickert wasn't in Whitechapel for the entire period of the murders, and once again, there's no evidence placing him at any of the crime scenes. So despite what Cornwell wants us to believe, this case is very much not closed. The other artist we'll look at is Francis Thompson, a poet proposed as a Ripper suspect much more recently. He had some medical training and spent some time homeless in London, including in Whitechapel around the time of the murders. Beginning in the 2010s, some researchers interpreted passages of his poems as containing hidden references to the Ripper murders. The theory gained attention around 2016, but once again, the so-called evidence is extremely subjective. Poetry is metaphorical by nature. Works containing imagery of death, blood, violence, and sexuality can of course look sinister when read through the lens of the Ripper murders.
RemiAs can a painting. These are all absurd.
AshleyIn 2019, William Clarkson was named a suspect based on information taken from his biography written in 1937, three years after his death. Clarkson was a wig maker who worked for Queen Victoria and lived about two miles from most of the crime scenes. He reportedly stalked a former fiance and allegedly claimed one of his wigs was found at one of the crime scenes. His profession made him an interesting candidate. As a wig maker, he would have worked with sharp cutting tools that could have potentially been used as murder weapons. And the theory gets more speculative from there. One proposed theory was that he became involved in some sort of blackmailing scheme and murdered the women to conceal it, which makes no sense to me, because come on. And finally, that brings us to the most recent major ripper suspect, Hayam Hyams, proposed in 2023 by researcher Sarah Horton in her book One Armed Jack Uncovering the Real Jack the Ripper. Hyams was a cigar maker who lived in London. In 1889, he attacked his wife with a knife and was committed to a psychiatric institution. While there, he became increasingly aggressive towards staff and patients. His history of violence, residence, and access to knives are reasons he was cited as a suspect.
RemiOh, this is our man, Cyam Hyams. That's Jack the Ripper for sure.
AshleyI mean, he does have the best name. I don't know. So, Remy, before we move on so we don't have to talk about it later, what do you think about any of these guys?
RemiI don't think any of these guys are Jack the Ripper. I think that Jack the Ripper was someone who we will never know, and is not someone who's been named on any suspect list, and may not have been anyone of any consequence either. He may have just been a man in an extremely crowded area of London who perpetrated this axe and was just a nobody, and not someone that we will ever know. And that's who I think Jack the Ripper actually is.
AshleyI agree. I have no theory on whether he was initially from London. Or not, but what I think is that he fled London once these cases started getting too hot and died shortly after, because there's no accounts of these types of killings happening elsewhere. Maybe they were happening and they just didn't make the news. I don't know. But you think with how popular and widely publicized Jack the Ripper was that if a woman turned up with her throat cut and
Why The Case Stays Unsolved
Ashleyuterus and kidney removed and organs splaying out in Australia or the United States, it would have made the news. So because of that, I think he died sometime after. And I don't think we will ever know who Jack the Ripper was. In the two decades following the murders, the worst of London's slums were cleared and demolished. Whitechapel changed, but some of the streets and buildings associated with the Ripper murders survived and can be seen today. Many are stops on the various walking tours visitors can take through the area. But Jap the Ripper's biggest legacy isn't tangible. It's the fascination with the case itself. By 1955, there were more than 900 books and articles published about him. Today, that number is well into the thousands. By 2002, the Ripper inspired more than 50 movies and TV episodes. At least four magazines are almost exclusively devoted to the case. And it's not hard to understand why Jack the Ripper continues to fascinate so many people. It's the ultimate unsolved mystery. There are victims, witnesses, and evidence, but we don't have the one thing that would bring the story to an end: a culprit. There wasn't a universally accepted solution. Everyone can take a stab at solving the case. Anyone is free to add their own ending. And that is the true story of the Hughes brothers from hell.
RemiI know on our last episode we talked about questioning whether or not we would even be able to get this episode out in time because there was so much info to cover. But damn, Ashley, we did it. Good on us. We finally covered the most infamous serial killer in all of history with Jack the Ripper.
AshleyWe did it. We know it's long, and because it's long, we've tried to kind of discuss key points throughout the episode so we can just not beat around the bush and get into our final conclusions for this week.
Objections Guilty Verdict And Next Film
AshleyRemy, let's just dive into our objection of the week.
Trial of the Chicago 7Your Honor, I object! And why is that, Mr. Reed? Because it's devastating to my case! Overrule. Good call!
AshleyI believe you kicked things off last week, so I'm gonna start this week. There was a lot of different things about like body parts being removed or cut from different people, but I'm gonna go with the fact that in the movie, Mary's heart, Mary, quote unquote Mary. It wasn't Mary in the movie, but who we thought was Mary and who was supposed to be Mary, was being boiled on the stove. In reality, she had enough done to her body. Why throw in a boiling of the heart? Just why?
RemiI think they threw that in because they had to edit out a lot of the other stuff because of the MPAA, and that was really the only thing that was left in there at the end. But that is a good objection. However, I don't think that it compares to my objection this week, which is the fact that the elephant man makes an appearance in From Hell and in the graphic novel From Hell. Granted, he has a little bit more to do in the graphic novel, but in the movie there is a scene showcasing the elephant man. Now, the elephant man did exist during the time of the Jack the Ripper murders, but there are no reports that he was ever in Whitechapel or had anything to do with the Jack the Ripper murders, but was included in the film. In the book, Jack the Ripper uses him as a distraction for his first kill, like he has him in the bushes and the woman sees him and is kind of caught off guard, and that's how he ambushes her. But in the movie, he's just there for some reason. So yeah, that is my objection, Ashley.
AshleyAlright, yeah, that's not one that was even on my radar, because like you had mentioned, which is the reason it was your objection, he's not an original story. So yeah, I'm I'm gonna give to you. You you got it, Remy. You got it.
RemiI even paused after I mentioned that scene and looked over at you like, you gonna say anything about this? And you just shook your head no, and I kept on moving. So, all right, I get the objection this week with the elephant man.
AshleyEven including this individual just seems distasteful. Why did you have to do that? Other than trying to exploit him.
RemiIt is in the graphic novel, and that is, I assume, why it's included in the film. However, in the film, it's just kind of thrown in there for one scene and doesn't have any impact on anything. However, in the graphic novel, Jack the Ripper, or William Gull, actually sits down with Merrick, the elephant man, and talks to him about how other countries would see him as a god because he resembles an elephant. And because of that, he agrees to help him do this thing where he kinda just waits in the bushes as the carriage drives by, and that's enough to distract the woman inside, Martha, as she is brutally murdered. But no, he has nothing to do with the true story whatsoever. So let's dive into our verdict.
VerdictAt the conclusion of each episode, our hosts will deliver a verdict based on the film's accuracy. If the film is an honest portrayal of the events, then it will earn a not guilty verdict. If the adaptation is mostly factual, but creative liberties were taken for the sake of entertainment, the film will be declared a mistrial. But if the film ultimately strays too far from the truth, then it will be condemned as guilty and sentenced to a life behind bars.
RemiI think that this one is pretty easy. I'm giving From Hell a big fat guilty verdict. This is not a good movie. It portrays the murders extremely distastefully. It portrays Jack the Ripper as a blade-style villain with a fancy briefcase and really shiny knives, and just the whole thing is really tacky, and I just get an icky feeling. This is a horrific crime spree that occurred, and the movie did not treat it that way at all. It treated it like a saw film or something like that. They changed Aberdeen to an opium-fueled psychic detective. They added so many ridiculous things that it's almost impossible to name them all. Though they were following the graphic novel to some extent, the graphic novel is actually way more accurate to the true story than the film is. The film is just trash and should not be viewed by anyone. It's not a good movie, it's not historically accurate, it has terrible acting, it has a terrible plot, a terrible ending. I'm glad to be done with this movie, and I feel like the story of Jack the Ripper and especially his victims, these poor women, were not given their due justice in this interpretation. How do you feel, Ashley?
AshleyFor time purposes, I'm just gonna keep this brief. I agree. This was a guilty verdict from me within. I mean, the second you mentioned he was having a opium-fueled psychic vision. And then when you got into the Sir William Gall, the Freemasons, the love story, it just like threw me over the ledge. This seems like a bad movie. I don't know, I haven't seen it, but I can definitively say it is a bad depiction of the Jack the Ripper case.
RemiTwo guilty verdicts for from hell. But what do we have coming two weeks from now, Ashley? It's pretty different than a serial killer from Victorian England.
AshleyIt is very different. We are launching into a political crime, a protest crime, and a Netflix movie that I'm pretty sure was fairly well regarded and is recent. We are gonna be talking about the trial of the Chicago 7.
RemiIt is starring Jeremy Strong, Sasha Barron Cohen, and several others. And I saw it a while back. I don't really remember much about it. I think it came out during lockdown times.
AshleyIsn't Eddie Redmane in it too?
RemiYes, Eddie Redmane is in it as well. Like I said, I don't remember a lot about it, but it will be a refreshing change of pace from all of the horrific things that we have been studying for the past two weeks.
AshleyI have never seen it and I don't know much of anything about the true story. I do know the movie is pretty well regarded. So I'm very, very excited to take a step away from Brutal Murder to talk about the trial of the Chicago 7. And as normal, we will play a little clip of the trailer at the end. And before we get to our famous closing line, if you like what you hear, please do give us a rate review and subscribe. It really helps us out.
RemiAnd until then, court is adjourned.
Trial of the Chicago 7We want to underscore again that we're coming to Chicago peacefully, but whether we're given permits or not, we're coming. We're going to Chicago to protest the Vietnam War. There's no place to be right now, but in it. We watched for a decade while we reveled without a job. Tell us how to prosecute a war. Are you concerned about an overreaction from the cop? You all right?
