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Hey weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Alayna. And this is Morbid.
This is the Jack the Ripper podcast. Welcome back.
Welcome back. Hope you had a nice little reprieve.
It's over. It's going to be over today.
This is it. This is the last of it. Not for me, but the last of it for you, because I have officially become obsessed with this case and will not stop.
Can't stop rocking to the rhythm. I will not stop.
I can't stop. But I'm going to stop shoving it in your face after this one.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed it. It seemed like you have, which has been nice to see.
So I'm glad that I didn't like force all this down your throat and you're like, get the fuck away from me.
I really loved it. I do just feel compelled to go, Ron, stop.
Stop. I just had to. I'm gonna stop. I'm gonna stop after this one because I need to take a break from it.
But this case... is way more fascinating than I gave it credit for.
And I saw a couple of people say, which I was like, thank you, I'm on the same page as you.
They were like, I was actually bummed when I saw you were doing this because I don't I just never cared about Jack the Ripper. the case, which I understand like sometimes these kinds of cases where it's like a huge case, that everyone knows and everyone's heard, like, the general, usually the wrong story, funny enough.
But I understand that, like, even I was like, oh, yeah.
Just one of those that you just like, I'll get, I'll look at that later.
You know, like a lot of people were feeling that and they said that they actually were like, actually now I'm into it.
Like hearing it, I'm actually into it, which is cool because, wow, it's a crazy one.
Yeah. And it'll... hook you if you get the right stuff, which hopefully those books that I posted and all that stuff, all the different sources will get you hooked into it.
And you can do some research because this is The tip of the iceberg, what I've given you here.
Yeah. I mean, probably a little bit more than the tip of the iceberg.
There's like 67 pages of research that I have that is just really covering as far as I felt I could go for this.
But like I could have drawn this out for weeks and weeks and weeks.
Easily. And again, there's like definitely check out the Unobscured podcast, season three, Aaron Manke's podcast, because he goes into a lot of like the police stuff and all that.
And I think it's like a really good way to just like keep it going while getting some more information.
So definitely check that out. But here we are, we're going to talk about A couple of the murders that people have tried to tie to Jack the Ripper, they try to get... A lot of people don't want to live in that canonical five... place space they just they really want to take this out and i think that that is like i understand This guy did some gnarly murders.
Yes, I believe it's a guy we are going to talk about whether it's Jill the Ripper.
Don't worry about it. I know that's a theory.
We'll talk about it. But I believe personally that this is a man.
Okay. And I think, you know, he's a lot.
His murders are grisly. His murders are intense.
They were like boom, boom, boom. And people want to be like, well, he definitely didn't stop there.
He didn't just start with, you know, Pauli Nichols.
Like, there has to be more outside of this.
There has to be more in between. you know, between Mary Jane Kelly and Catherine Eddowes, there was that like period of time where he didn't do anything.
Right. But I don't think there is anything outside of this.
I think maybe, maybe I can buy like one more, but I really don't.
I don't even know if I, Elizabeth Stride, I'm still on the. fence about do you have any theories about what you think happened to him and like why he stopped i think he either i think he might have either died like, was killed somehow because I think he was probably living some kind of pretty dangerous lifestyle there.
Kind of everybody was. Or he killed himself.
When it got too heated. Yeah, I think. Or he might have moved.
Okay. Yeah. And done murders elsewhere.
And maybe done murders elsewhere. But I honestly, this is a hard one to figure out exactly where I stand on because it's still so...
I think in the last episode I was like, I know I'm crazy, everybody, but could it be a fucking demon?
Could it be a demon? And honestly, maybe it is.
Maybe it's a demon at the end of this. Magic.
So there were other murders before and one after Mary Jane Kelly.
And those are the ones that people keep trying to... shoehorn in here right i'm going to talk i'm not sold on most of them i'm really not sold on any of them but i'll i'm going to talk about them here just so you can get an idea of why people want to connect these in the past.
And maybe you'll feel like they are. I don't want to tell you what to think.
So there's one and the woman's name is Alice McKenzie.
This was done July 17th, 1889. So this was after.
This one, to me, seems like someone who is just trying to make it look like a Jack the Ripper.
And I think that was the problem here. Like a copycat. a lot of murders after this, like casual murders, which is like horrible to say, but that seems to be something that happened a lot back then.
They did try to like emulate almost, I think, to try to throw people off and take suspicion away from themselves.
According to the Shelton Mallet Journal City of Wells Reporter, which is a newspaper, it and the county advisor newspapers from July 1889.
On the evening of the murder, Alice McKenzie, who was in her 40s, was found by Police Constable Andrews in Castle Alley, which was in Whitechapel.
She was killed and left in a dark doorway.
In the article, it said that by her dress, she was, quote, assumed to belong to the unfortunate class.
And remember, they called this class of people the unfortunates.
How nice. No evidence was left behind, but her throat was deeply cut and her stomach was lacerated by a sharp knife.
The article states, quote, the intestines were in no way disturbed, just a large laceration.
Also, the throat was cut on the side, not an ear to ear job like the ripper used to do.
She had been living with a man named John McCormick for six years and he said he never knew her to go out at night.
So he's claiming she was not a sex worker.
She never went out at night. That evening they had had an argument and she had said she was going down to, I think she was going down with payment to pay for lodging.
He was like, he sent her down and then she never came back up.
She like left. And he said she never did that.
Okay. So that was weird. He saw her next to identify her body.
That's sad. And it's really sad that a lot of these victims, they ended with their partners on a fight.
Yeah. Which is really sad. That did happen a lot.
There wasn't the belief of like, don't leave angry back then.
Apparently it was like, well, there was a lot to be angry about.
Everything was to be angry about. There still is.
Now, of course, that sounds similar. Like we got the throat laceration, we got the stomach laceration, we got the nothing left behind.
But again, not ear to ear. Nothing was really mutilated, just a laceration.
And again, this was after Mary Jane Kelly's murder.
So to go from Mary Jane Kelly's... full evisceration to this.
Unless Kelly isn't a Ripper victim, which I don't believe she's a victim of anyone else.
I think she is a Jack the Ripper victim.
I stand strongly on that, that she is the fifth victim.
It makes sense because there's like such an escalation.
There is a very clear, clear escalation.
I mean, he followed it. It was almost like he mapped it out.
Right. To be honest. It just doesn't feel right.
And even... I just had a thought. I saw that face like, huh.
My little light bulb went off. This might be a crazy question, but is there... Do you think that there's any reason why it's five?
I always wondered that myself, but... I don't think there is.
Yeah, because I think if Elizabeth, which I am not counting Elizabeth Stride out.
I just question her. Okay. But I do think it's possible that he was fully like trying to go. like full evisceration and then he got stopped by those people coming into the club i think he got he got scared he ran away and that was the double event so an hour later he did what he was intending to do so i wonder if it was supposed to be four yeah And happened to be five because she just doesn't fit in that pattern of escalation.
But I think she was meant to. If she is a victim.
So then five could mean something. So five could mean something or it could have been four.
Hmm. And maybe four means something. But you have no idea what it could possibly mean.
But I don't know what that could mean, to be honest.
Now, even after Catherine Edo's murder, this is a weird one to commit a year later.
Because Catherine Edo's murder was right before Mary Jane Kelly's and it was very escalated from the other ones.
It was like right under her. Now, the article also says the police said they received several signed, which is a red flag, letters.
So signed by Jack the Ripper, which to me is always a red flag that it is not him.
That's not him. Saying he was going to start up again in July.
So they're thinking like, what? This lady was killed in July.
He said he was going to start up in July.
I'm sure they got letters that were like, I'm going to start in August.
I'm going to start tomorrow. I'm going to start next week.
One of those was going to hit. And why would you tell the police when you're going to start?
Like, I don't think he would do that because then police presence is going to be higher.
I mean, unless he's going to say like, I'm starting in July, but really starts in June.
Exactly. But. I don't know. That's weird.
And again, he signed them. Yeah. Every time it's signed, I'm out.
Like, count me out. The more I looked into that letter business, the more I was like...
No way. Elena sees a sees a signature and turns into SpongeBob on the sofa.
I don't know what that. Oh, I do know that one.
Okay. Yep. See, I got it. John loves that one.
He does love that one. It's an I'm-a-head-out moment for me.
After I've looked at like a shit ton of psychological profiles of this guy, I don't think that's his deal.
I really don't. I trust you. I think the from hell letter is legit.
It feels legit to me and it was not signed.
I mean, it had a kidney. It had a legit human kidney.
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Now, Dr. Forbes Winslow, who is called an eminent specialist on lunacy cases.
Same. interesting, was quoted in the article saying he believed the Whitechapel murderer was, quote, Yeah. doing previously.
And basically now he's awake and ready to start again.
So he's saying he went into some kind of weird hibernation period where his brain just shut off.
And he was like, oh, I don't. What have I been doing the last year or so?
Like, what's been going on? And now all of a sudden he was like, click, click.
And it was like, warring back on. And he was like, whoop, must murder now.
Yeah. I don't know about that. I don't know about that one.
It then goes in this article from 1889 to include Fairy Fay.
Another victim I'm about to speak about in the next paragraph and Alice in his list of eight victims that they lay at Jack's feet.
So in that article, this doctor said, Ferry Fay, another victim, Martha, which I'm going to talk about next, and this Alex, McKenzie, are added to the five canonical victims.
And he says all eight of those victims are Jack the Ripper victims.
That is it. I don't agree. Okay. At all.
Now because of this murder, the Devon Evening Express reported that police were doing, quote, special murder beats.
Because they believed he was absolutely back in action.
Like the police were like, he's back. Here we go.
Yeah. I'm more willing to accept Alice McKenzie, and I'm not even willing to accept her, than I am the next one.
That seems to be the case. that a lot of people want to associate with the Ripper.
This next one, Martha Tabram, is in a lot of people's, like, I'm adding her to the canonical five.
I would more say Alice is part of the canonical five, and I don't even agree with that.
Huh. So that's Alice. I don't think she's part of anything.
Seems like it would be real weird for him to go from Catherine Eddowes, Mary Jane Kelly, like that major. climax magnum opus of bullshit then take a dive into like going back to the beginning And if he was going to do that, then where was the escalation back up?
And then another one, I would think if he was going to do that, which would be strange if he was just going to go in waves. then I would expect another escalation past that.
And I'm sorry, where was Alice found? Alice was found in Whitechapel.
Which you would, I don't know. But there was a shit ton of murders in Whitechapel.
There's always that. And in my opinion, I would think that if he was going to, like, de-escalate for any reason, he would go elsewhere and start the terror of, like... you know, let me start slow and really build up like I did in Whitechapel.
Exactly. That seems likely. And it's like, even though Whitechapel is like, an easy place to get victims kind of because of the desperation and people are on the streets at all hours of night and you can kind of weasel your way into these people's lives a little more.
There were other places, like you said, that he could do this.
And it would, like you were saying, make a little sense for someone this, you know, twisted.
Maniacal. To be like, okay, let's start at a Polly Nichols level.
Right. And then ramp ourselves up to a Mary Jane Kelly. go back down, head off somewhere else, do this whole thing again and see how many times I can cause mass pandemonium.
Exactly. And because that's what he loved about this whole thing is the mass pandemonium.
I feel like he really liked that fear that he was spreading.
I think he liked that more than anything, to be honest.
I think it was like that fear. Yeah, and there was no escalation for this one, no clear escalation of anything.
So the next one is the Martha Tabram case.
She was also known as Martha Turner or Emma Turner.
She had a lot of aliases. She was around 40 years old, was married with two sons.
She had worked as a sex worker for a while in Whitechapel.
And remember, Alex McKenzie was also in her 40s, so they did fit the...
The victim profile, for sure. Even though we have Mary Jane Kelly down at 25 years old, she was kind of the outlier there.
So Martha Tabram was 40 years old. She was murdered August 7th, 1888.
So she was before the Mary Jane Kelly. She was before the Catherine Eddowes of it all.
And she was found killed around 3 a.m. on a landing leading to the George Yard buildings. in the same kind of area in Whitechapel.
She had been stabbed 39 times. The issue I have with this one is the lack of mutilation.
There is no mutilation Jack the Ripper. He doesn't stab.
And the fact that evidence suggested that this was either done by a sharp knife or a bayonet. and they were thinking that it was likely more a bayonet.
Jesus. And according to The Times from 1888, quote, there was one large wound over her heart while several other injuries of the nature of stabs were on her body.
The injuries on the deceased are, it is stated, not unlike bayonet wounds.
A doctor who was called to the scene also said he believed all wounds were done while she was alive.
So we're already deviating from Jack's MO.
He wouldn't do that. He cut the windpipe.
Usually they were already dead or dying and he started doing his thing.
And he wasn't really stabbing them. He was more slicing them and ripping them.
He was ripping them. Unfortunately, and this doctor also said he believed there could have been multiple weapons used on Martha.
Interestingly, she was seen along with another sex worker friend of hers with two soldiers earlier in the evening, bayonets.
They were actually both found and arrested, but the other sex worker she had been with wouldn't identify them, so they were released.
And who knows if that was out of fear or just like people really cling to this one because of who she was and also because of some of the stab wounds. were to, you know, sexual organs and genitalia, which obviously is Ripper-esque.
But they were all the time as well. Dabs, too.
Right. But honestly, people treated sex workers like shit.
So this isn't as unique as it unfortunately sounds.
This was kind of unfortunately the norm there.
I don't think she is a Ripper victim, but...
She would be the first victim of the entire series.
And for him to go from using a likely bayonet and stabbing someone 39 times to then go to Polly Nichols?
Yeah. and then immediately start a consistent pattern of slitting the throats to kill and silence them. would be a real weird twisty turny road to take for him.
Right. Because it's not like it was everywhere.
If it was everywhere, randomness can be a pattern in and of itself.
But that's not what he did. But he wasn't random.
He was very consistent. So to go from random to consistent then random again just doesn't make any sense to me.
Now, there's another one that happened after Mary Jane Kelly as well that is placed in as a possible Ripper murder.
Her name was Frances Cole. She was 25 years old, so the same as Mary Jane Kelly, which I'm already a little like...
I don't know. Because I really think that Mary Jane Kelly was simply a victim because of the fact that he could do it Yeah, I think he just took an opportunity there.
So she was working as a sex worker. It was February 13th, 1891.
So it was much after Mary Jane Kelly. And she was found around 2.15 a.m. in a railway underpass called Swallow Gardens.
Police Constable Ernest Thompson had apparently been walking his beat.
He heard some footsteps. He followed those footsteps sounds to find her with a deep cut to her throat.
And he thought he saw her eye move a bit, so he thought she could have been alive still.
When it was looked into further, she was well known to be on the streets since she was about 17 years old.
And in the days leading up to the murder, she had been in a legendary pub crawl for two days straight with a man named Thomas Sadler.
They had been drinking. all day and all night for two days.
They were celebrating? According to Jack the Ripper in the case for Scotland Yard's prime suspect, which I link in the show notes, Sadler was a client and he described their relationship as, quote, I used her for my purpose.
Wow. That's what he was quoted as saying.
Yeah. Fuck right off with that. Yeah. Now, interesting during their wild bender. he got he happened to get robbed and beaten by some random men like these women came up behind him and like kind of like distracted him and then these men robbed him and beat the out of him and it was during their bender.
So he immediately blamed Frances Cole and said she must have set this up.
But she was like, on a space level. Like she was not with it.
She was like, so she was like, I did not set this up.
I can't even talk. No. So they got in a fight and they parted ways the same night she was killed around 1130 p.m.
So they ended things on a bad note. Now, he got in trouble at the docks after this.
He was super drunk. He was trying to fight people.
Can't be doing that. Yeah, and he wandered around without getting lodging because he didn't have any money. money robbed and then he went to the spitalfields chambers and found francis cole again passed out in the kitchen there they just passed out on a on a table And he got kicked out for not having money.
And then around 1 a.m., she was also kicked out.
And he said he never saw her again, according to police records.
He saw her in the kitchen. See you later.
We got kicked out. Bye. Hmm, he lied. He got caught lying a ton.
Oh. He had seen Cole after the kitchen because he then admitted that they had something to eat at Shuttleworth's around 1.30 a.m.
Liar. So he was lying. So besides lying about that, he also said he went to the hospital that night because he said he had to be treated after being robbed several times because he also said he was robbed at the docks.
But he never went to the hospital. He wasn't treated at the hospital.
He was found by a police constable passed out around 2 a.m. near the Royal Mint and was arrested.
Why are you always lying? Why are you lying?
When he said when he was arrested, he said, I expected this. what now that's my reaction weirdly only a few hundred yards from where he was, was the place where Cole would be found murdered at 2.15.
15 minutes later. So what you're saying is he was responsible.
Likely. Also, like he had a motive. He thought she was involved in the robbery.
Exactly. Revenge. He was pissed. Now, given all of these, like we... So that one, I believe... was pretty clear.
Yeah, definitely. Like to me, John Sadler is the guy.
He's at least a great suspect. I don't think that Cole was part of the canonical five.
I don't believe that Martha Tabram was part of the canonical five.
I think those two soldiers are suspect. I think there was probably other things with that.
And then Alice, I also don't really think was it.
Nobody that you have said so far in this episode.
Yeah. And that's sad, too, because then, I mean, at least for the last one where, like, he definitely did it.
But then it's like, who killed them? Like, why was Justice not served there?
This happens so much. Justice wasn't. I mean, even in Jack the Ripper, it wasn't.
And people wouldn't even look. most of the time.
It was one of those like, well, this happens.
I mean, think about it. In the middle of the night during the Mary Jane Kelly murders, two people heard oh murder yelled by a woman in the middle of the night and they were like Happens all the time.
And they said they listened for a second.
They didn't hear another one. So they were like, well, all right, good night.
You didn't hear another one because her throat had been cut.
Like, my goodness. Now, I'm going to go over some suspects.
I don't find all of these compelling, but I find them at least interesting.
Okay, I'm sure that I'm not gonna get everyone's favorite suspect on here.
There has been over 200 suspects that have been like, put forth over the years.
There's like a pretty big chunk that are like the one that a lot of people go to.
I kind of narrowed that down even further because I didn't want to keep you here for like 18 hours.
Thanks. I'm sure this won't be the last time I touch upon Jack the Ripper on this podcast.
No, I know it's not going to be the last time I touch upon Jack the Ripper on this podcast.
Say what? We will talk about this again at some point in some other way.
So don't worry. Probably other cases that will relate.
If you didn't hear your favorite one here, you're probably going to hear it at some other point.
Okay. But these are just mine. So this is just how I feel.
So we're going to start with the McNaughton papers before we get into the suspects.
The McNaughton papers were the name for what is actually more like one cheat.
It's like really not papers. It is one paper.
So Sir Melville McNaughton became assistant chief constable of Scotland Yard in 1889.
So right after the murders. Right after.
Because what's his face left? Because all that shenanigans.
Now, Incomplete Jack the Ripper by Donald Rumbelow, which I really loved that book.
So I really think you should go get that book.
I just thought it was great. He reproduced a copy of these notes for the first time in that book.
In these, he points to three suspects. I'll go over them in one second, but he also only attributed the canonical five victims to Jack the Ripper.
So he also believed only those five. He said Elizabeth Stride was indeed a victim of the Ripper, but was interrupted when people arrived at the club that night.
And I really think I agree with him. He also pointed out that his brutality increased each time, like very clearly, and that the last one was so brutal that he was likely driven insane and killed himself. or was committed that's what he believes oh wow because he said that was so brutal and over the top no one was walking out of there and just living their lives after that Okay.
I don't know if I believe that one. I see it.
I understand it. But people do horrible things all the time and murder other people. because they can, because they're not you and me, who would be affected by that?
Exactly. And I think this was more him looking at him being like, that was so gnarly that he had to have been committed after that.
He had to have been driven. People also thought driven insane was like a very casual and very like, well, he must have been driven mad.
And it's like, not everybody is just driven. driven mad by things.
You don't think he was already mad to begin with?
That's the thing. I don't think he was out of control.
Ever. And I don't think he was out of control after, to be quite honest.
I think he just reached his pinnacle and that was it.
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But they said, you know, what he said was he never would have resumed only to deescalate. which is exactly what we were saying.
Right. It just doesn't make sense. Now, his suspects are three men in the McNaughton papers, but I'm going to talk about two right now.
And the last one I'm going to end So you'll hear about later.
Do you have a particular suspect that you think is Jack the Ripper?
I don't have anyone in here that I can say for certain is Jack the Ripper.
Okay. I'm still very like... I don't know.
And I feel like I almost need to do more reading and more craziness.
I feel like I need to go over to London and figure this out.
Help, I'm blinking thrice. Because now I need, I need.
In fact, when I do come up with my suspect, it's going to be on some future episode that has absolutely nothing to do with Jack the Ripper.
I'm going to tell you in the beginning of the episode who I think it is.
When I know it, I will shout it from the rooftops.
Okay. And it will have nothing to do with the episode.
I'll just say, by the way, I figured it out.
In like two years, Lena's going to be like...
I figured it out. Sorry, I think I broke your speakers.
I was going to say, now that Ash is... Busted your eardrums.
Oopsie. The first one that he names is somebody that he refers to as MJ Druitt.
What we now know is Montague John Druitt.
Hmm. He came from a line of medical men.
He himself was a successful barrister, so he studied law.
He would have been about 41 years old at the time of the murders.
He had a dark mustache. our care. He came from a prosperous family, so he dressed well.
He was described as a sportsman who had strength in his upper body and arms.
He was also unable to be located around the time of Mary Jane Kelly's murders, and he killed himself in December 1888.
Okay. Very shortly after. He did this by throwing himself into the Thames River with pockets full of rocks.
Oh, damn. That's one way to go. Yeah. Now, McNaughton really thought this was the guy, but like, I don't.
I don't see this one at all. Okay. He was pretty thin.
When you look at him, he's like a thin, lean guy.
And most witnesses described whoever they saw with the last victims.
They described him always across the board as medium build at least.
There was never a thin man among them. Also, he was a lawyer.
Yeah. And yeah, it doesn't really... I mean, he came from a line of medical men.
Sure. So he had that in his blood. He was probably around it.
I'm sure he could have learned a thing or two.
I mean, I like come from you essentially.
And like, I'm not an autopsy technician.
That's true. True. But back then it was like a little different because it's like you would go into the trade really young and if you didn't stay in it, maybe he went to law after that.
All right. So no one really, again, like...
There just isn't anything I could find about him being connected to Whitechapel in a way that is significant. or a way that would make him angry at these women, or something even close to that.
Like, there's just no significance with Whitechapel here or connection to it.
It's simply just that, like, he couldn't be accounted for and then he killed himself.
He just, like, couldn't be accounted for.
He had a lot of... There was mental illness in his family, which I think a lot of people want to, like...
I don't know what it is about this case.
Maybe it's because the police initially like always demonized people with mental illness.
So they were like, really intense about like, let's check the asylums.
This has to be an escaped inmate from an asylum.
And it's like, what about this? Yeah. Very calculated series of murders says to you, like, somebody who's unhinged to the point of, like, not planning any of this.
Right. Like... This seems planned out to me personally.
So to me, it's like he was he just doesn't fit it for me.
It absolutely is planned out, too, when you think about the dates, even.
Exactly. He even planned that last one to be coincided with Lord Mayor's Day. so that all the police officers are going to be one side of town and he's going and doing it over here.
Planned for sure. Yeah. Now, and he even skipped a couple of weeks, a few weeks in there, and skipped his regular pattern of dates to me, in my opinion, to wait for that next one, which was going to work perfectly for him.
I agree with that for sure. That's what makes sense to me.
I don't think it was like, oh, we just like randomly deviated from this set path.
I think you're exactly right. Yeah, I think you waited for it.
Right. Now, the next one is Michael Ostrog.
He was a Russian doctor. He was also a convict.
And in the in the McNaughton papers, this is like, quote, who was subsequently detained in a lunatic asylum as a homicidal maniac.
This man's antecedents were of the worst possible type, and his whereabouts at the time of the murders could never be ascertained.
I'm going to have to disagree with McNaughton for even entertaining this one.
Why is that? He was not violent. He was at least not recorded to be violent at any moment in his life.
Huh. He was just a thief. Why did they think he was a homicidal maniac?
McNaughton got a few details wrong. Oh. And there's a few times where you're like, no.
That's not true at all. But like, all right.
It's like, but then you look back at these records.
A lot of these police officers got a lot of details wrong a lot of the time.
Sure. It was a lot of like, I want to be the one to solve this.
Of course. And it was your own confirmation bias kind of situation going on.
But I know this one doesn't. He's a thief.
He's definitely a thief. But that's it. Yeah.
Thief's not necessarily the same person that like killed Mary Jane Eddowes.
No, and this was the same kind of thing where the police wanted to believe so badly that this was someone from an asylum and that it was just someone who was mentally unstable and they escaped. and decided to perpetrate the most cunning, quick, and diabolical series of mutilation murders ever recorded.
Yeah. Seems not legit at all. Yeah. This one just says you can't really place him there.
There's just nothing. You can look at him and be like, he was a doctor.
He's Russian. I guess he did some bad stuff, but like not really.
Like it just doesn't really fit at all. Yeah, not at all.
Now, the next one who is not in the McNaughton papers, but this is the next suspect that I see on a lot of lists, Joseph Barnett.
Sounds familiar. I was going to say that to us.
We remember Joseph as Mary Jane Kelly's guy for a while.
Yeah. Yeah. It seems while I was when I was reading, it seems like he really loved her.
And I think we were both saying that, that he really loved her.
They just weren't right for each other. It just wasn't working.
And he wasn't the one that was like crazy abusive, right?
No, he was the one that he was married. Jane Kelly's.
He was the last one that she dated. He was the one that didn't want her to be a sex worker.
He wanted to provide for her. He was the one that we were loving on last episode.
We were loving on him because we were like, he... he at least is attempting to be a solid stand-up guy for one of these women.
He's at least attempting. Now, this is me basing it off their lives and the limited amount we can gather from records and witness statements.
But I could not find anything that said that he was a bad guy online. or that he was abusive, or that they were anything other than like a couple that actually did care for each other, but it just was tough.
Fizzled out. He was, like I said, he was not happy with her being a sex worker.
And in fact, he was obsessed with the idea of being able to provide financially for her to make her stop.
He did not want her on the street. Right.
It always feels like he had good intentions to me.
Like that was he really just didn't want her doing that.
Yeah, I mean, that's a very dangerous job for somebody that you love, especially back then.
Exactly. And the theory goes that maybe this love was what led him to murder.
No, I don't think so. So Bruce Pally, who wrote Jack the Ripper, The Simple Truth, said he believed maybe Barnett was so obsessed with the idea of getting Mary Jane Kelly off the streets. that he began murdering other sex workers to scare the shit out of her and keep her off the streets.
That would be a wild length to go to. Well, and then when their final fight led to their separation and he found out she was still on the street, he killed her in a jealous rage.
I feel like they just want to say that he was like somebody was in a rage because of the way that she was murdered.
Yeah. He does resemble the Jack the Ripper that witness statements describe.
Medium build, dark hair, dark mustache, fair complexion, but like...
That described about a zillion other men in the area at the time.
So like any of these guys, they probably all had mustaches.
It's really not... There's also the strange thing where the door was locked when they found Mary Jane Kelly, but they had lost the and had started using the broken window that they broke when they fought to lock it when they would leave.
So who knew how to do that? Joseph Barnett.
Yeah. That's an interesting little tidbit.
Somebody could have ascertained that maybe.
She could have even said that walking in there.
She could have. And it's like, but still, that is a weird little...
Thing. Well, actually, now that I think about it, like, she would have reached in the window to open the door to let whoever in.
Mm-hmm. That's true. So maybe they saw that and were like... So maybe they saw it.
And that's... That's the thing that we kind of laid on last time when we mentioned this was like, oh, that person could have just seen her do it.
Right. And again, they could have just ascertained it from like... Seeing the broken window.
You know, context clues. Even if they hadn't seen her do that, she could have mentioned it.
Yeah, there's a lot. lot that could have they could have said why is that window broken and she could have been like well because this is how we do this exactly and that's the thing so when you and this is what we find in a lot of these cases with Jack the Ripper and like the suspects and theories, you go down a path and you're like, but then you fight against it.
And then you're like, But then all of these things kind of take that away.
So it's like it's easy to put it in with other things and be like, oh, my goodness, what a great suspect.
But then you're like smoking gun. But then all of these other things that don't make any sense.
Yeah. Now, it seems so it's important to note that.
So the other thing that I want to mention, and of course, I'm doing this in episode five.
I was referring to Inspector Aberline. A lot of people said it's Inspector Aberline.
Oh. You are probably correct, but here's the reason that I said Aberline.
I just want to put it out there. I had a criminal justice professor that referred to him as Inspector Aberline.
Yeah. for like the entire year that we talked about Jack the Ripper.
So that's what you were told. So it is so burned in my memory as Aberline because I heard it like a thousand zillion times.
So if I said it wrong, I apologize. That's just like my brain says it that way.
Who even knows, brother? But I think that's just like what I always heard it as.
But, you know, whatever. I mean, it was 1888, so like no one can actually confirm.
So no one was there. So, you know, but if it is Aberline, that's just me like.
That's what I heard forever. So it's important to know that Aberline cleared him after a four hour interview with him.
And I respect Inspector Aberline, Aberlean, Eberline.
And I respect him. Inspector A. Good call.
Caught you. I respect him. I think that he did good work in this case.
And I think if he cleared him after a four-hour interview, I feel... safe to say that he is probably not the guy.
Agreed. Four hours is a long time. Not for sure, but I feel pretty good about it at least.
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Go today and claim a free indoor security camera plus 20% off with interactive monitoring. go to simplysafe.com morbid So let's move on to James Kelly.
Let us. James Kelly is not related to Mary Jane Kelly.
Just putting that out there. He actually murdered his own wife, Sarah Brider, in 1883, so before these.
In what manner? By stabbing her in the neck.
Okay. He was convicted, but they believed he was insane.
So he was sentenced to Broadmoor Asylum, where he stayed up until...
1888 oh and in 1888 he escaped oh Now, that would line up really well with those police assertions that this is an escaped asylum inmate.
It would. Now in 1927, so he lived until 1927 or past 1927.
And he actually turned, he waited from 1888 to 1927.
Nothing. And then he turned himself in in 1927 into Broadmoor saying like, I escaped.
Like he turned himself in for escaping like how everybody was prior.
Almost 30 years prior. And then he was dead by 1929.
So only a couple of years later. Huh. Interestingly, this is just like an interesting tidbit.
He grew up thinking his grandmother was his mother a la Bundy.
But he found out later she was not, and his sister was his mother, that whole thing.
Same thing. furniture upholsterer, which required skilled use of a sharp knife.
He was slowly kind of losing his grip on reality after he found out all the stuff with his family.
He had a hatred of women and really didn't like the idea of women having any kind of power or any kind of like authority.
What a dick. When he married Sarah, he was increasingly violent with her.
And when he contracted a venereal disease, he blamed her and basically said, you must be a sex worker. because you must have fucked some other man and given me this illness.
So a disdain for sex workers. Clash out on her a ton and then immediately apologize after becoming very violent.
He would suddenly turn into like, oh shit.
Classic abuser. But one of these times he attacked her when she wouldn't immediately just forgive him after the lash out.
And he also threw during this whole thing, he threw her mother across the room.
Jesus. Yeah, when she tried to intervene.
And when he turned himself in in 1929, he said he had, quote, been on the warpath since I left Broadmoor.
And he left Broadmoor in 1888. Medical knowledge?
Not that I could find. He was a furniture upholsterer.
I don't know. I stay strong. There's a lot of researchers who will say they don't believe that the Ripper had any medical knowledge.
I'm not on that side. Neither am I. And I respect that side.
You can have that feeling and I'm sure you have shit to back it up.
Of course. Yeah. This is just where I sit is I believe he had medical knowledge and that's just me.
I just would think, and based off of your actual medical knowledge and like just the breakdowns of everything especially like the very detailed breakdown either last episode or the one before yeah that was a rough one I just feel like he had to have.
Yeah. To do everything so cleanly. Yeah.
And just quickly. Quickly, cleanly. There was...
I feel like there was like purpose to all of it.
I don't feel like it was willy nilly. And that's one of the other biggest things like you just said.
The purpose. Yeah. Quickly. Mm hmm. That's exactly it.
Quickly and properly. I think this guy was a shithead.
I think he's a murderer. I think he is a misogynistic piece of shit and an abuser.
But I don't think he's Jack the Ripper. I don't either.
I just don't. I don't see it. I think that was like him being a piece of shit.
I don't think it was him beating Jack the Ripper.
Mm-hmm. now the next one is george chapman okay who is actually that was the name he gave himself his real name is severin antoniovich klasowski Okay.
But then he was like, my name is George now.
He was like, it is a little bit long, so I'm thinking George.
George. Why not, George? Now, he was a doctor in Poland and then moved.
There it is. And then he moved to the East End in London in 1887 or 1888.
Hmm. And he was employed as a hairdresser's assistant at a barber slash surgeon's shop.
Because remember, back then, barbers and surgeons were one and the same.
Wild. And he was in Whitechapel. Interesting.
Now, he was also a serial poisoner. He had murdered three mistresses in his life.
Mary Isabella Spink, he did that in 1897.
His second, he then, it was Bessie Taylor in 1901 and then Maude Marsh in 1902.
Love the name Maude. So obviously those are after all the Ripper murders, but he was known to be violent towards women.
He was a known wife abuser. In 1891, he had moved to, and this was again after the Ripper murders, but it's just showcasing who he is.
He had moved to New Jersey after the Ripper murders.
Yeah. So across the pond with his then wife, Lucy.
He had only married her because she got pregnant.
She was pregnant. and people at the shop he opened in New Jersey testified that they witnessed him abuse her regularly.
In fact, one day it was so bad that he had pinned her down to a bed while pregnant in the back of the barbershop, and he only stopped when a customer walked in and interrupted them.
And later she said, what were you going to do if that person walked in?
Like, are you kidding? And he told her the only reason that you are safe and that nothing happened to you, he's like, is because that person walked in and he said if they didn't walk in, I was going to cut your head off.
He then told her, because she said, well, what would the neighbors say if I wasn't here anymore?
And he was like, I would just tell them that you moved back home.
Like he immediately was like, what? That's not hard.
He's like, I figured this out. Yeah. So she moved back to London after that.
Don't blame her. And he was eventually hanged for the murders of those three women.
But interesting that he poisoned them. That's why I don't believe he's the guy.
Because why would you go from poisoning to slitting people's throats and cutting them open and stealing their kidneys?
Well, and it would have gone the other way around.
You would have gone first to that and then you would have ended on poisoning.
No way. Especially after Mary Jane Kelly, then you just start poisoning people.
Yeah, no. I don't think so. It doesn't work for me.
That's too much of a slow burn for him. He's a quick guy.
He wants results. And I think he got... Do you think he got a sexual thrill out of murdering?
I think he got a thrill. That, I don't think he was there for... For the thrill?
I don't think he... I think he was there for the thrill, but...
But I don't think he was necessarily like getting off while this was happening.
You know what I mean? As like crude as that is.
Sexually. But I think he was like... like i couldn't see i don't think he raped those women well like they said like they didn't really fight they didn't find anything but i mean how would you I just don't feel like he raped that woman.
The components of these crimes are more anger.
Yeah. And, like, sexually sadistic, if anything.
I don't think, like, maybe later. Maybe that's why he took those things back wherever he went.
Yeah. Maybe that's what he got off on, was the trophies he took.
I don't think he did it at the scene. I really don't.
Because I don't think, one, I don't think he had time, and two...
I think he and this is me, again, totally basing it off of my own research.
I think he was, like, methodical. That's the thing.
And I think he was methodical and was... singular focused when he was doing the murders, get it done, get what I came here to do, leave.
And then afterwards he could take a moment and probably think about it.
And that's when you got the thrills of sending the letter with the kidney.
Right. Maybe looking out a window and seeing people scared. walking down the street, brushing by people and hearing them get nervous about it.
But that's going to be a totally separate thrill, I hate to put it that way, than poisoning.
Yeah, that's the thing. And it's like... And it's so, I mean, so far removed.
It's very removed. Versus... Yeah. Very hands-on.
Exactly. Those are two totally separate methods and two totally separate pathologies, in my opinion.
And two totally separate... modus operandi exactly i love saying there you go methodologies boom that's so i'm you know what he's a he's a shithead like george chapman is actually a shithead yeah um all of these men are so far but like i don't think he's jack the ripper nah Now, the next one we have is an interesting one.
I saw a couple of people ask about it. Jill the Ripper.
No. If Jack the Ripper was actually a woman.
Not a chance. Of course this idea needs to be entertained because women can do fucking foul things.
We've all seen it. We have seen it. I mean, look at Catherine Knight, look at tons of other women like this.
That's just the first one that came to mind.
Ooh, somebody I'm working on right now. There's plenty of women that have done terrible fucking thing.
I mean, yeah. So we got to look at Jill the Ripper. also referred to as the mad midwife, because this always goes back to midwifery, which immediately makes me go, nope, none of these women were confirmed to be pregnant. why would they be seeing a midwife no it's just like that's not well most of them were in their 40s as well which is like back then i don't really think many women in their 40s were having children no And it's just it's just it's just no, it's a no for me.
But I'll go into it because why not? So Caroline Maxwell was a witness in the Mary Jane Kelly case, but she was kind of disregarded because she claimed to see Mary Jane Kelly when she was likely already dead.
And she held real firm to her witness statement.
Like, I know I saw her. I talked to her.
She was adamant that she saw her speaking to a man at 8 a.m.
November 9th. And that's a no. She even said she had a conversation with her.
According to Jack the Ripper, Scotland Yard investigates...
This was the conversation she claimed occurred.
She said, what brings you up so early to Mary Jane Kelly?
And Kelly said, I have the horrors of drink upon me as I have been drinking for some days past.
And then Maxwell said, why don't you go to Mrs. Ringer's and have a half pint of beer?
And Kelly said, I have been there and had it, but I've brought it all up again.
Then she pointed to some vomit on the street in front of her.
Aw. So she's like, yeah, I did that. And then I puked right here.
So she then said she left to run some errands.
And then she saw Kelly again at 9 a.m. in front of the Britannia pub. speaking to a man in his 30s who is medium height and build.
So the Jill the Ripper theory ties to say that possibly this woman was who murdered Mary Jane Kelly, was wearing her clothing.
And this is who Maxwell saw that morning because she described her clothing and it was very much like Mary Jane Kelly's.
That would be wild because they spoke face to face.
Exactly. Did she also look exactly like Mary Jane Kelly?
And here's the part of the theory is that this Caroline Maxwell said she knew Mary Jane Kelly, but only for like three months.
Who knows how often she saw her. shit is dark back then who knows if she's only seen her at night and she's like hey girl like what's up i wonder if this happened another day Yeah.
And she just fucked days up. Thank you. That's what a lot of people think.
Yeah. She really held fast to this, but everybody was like, okay, Caroline, like everybody was just kind of like, I don't think you got that right.
Right. They also think maybe she was just talking to another woman.
Yeah. Just not necessarily a woman who murdered Mary Jane Kelly.
This could have just been, she didn't say like, hey, Mary Jane.
Right. What's going on? Like, she was just like, hey.
Right. What brings you out so early? And she's like, I've been drinking all night.
And she's like, vomit, you know? Yeah, she also could have said, hey, Mary Jane. and got a fucking answer.
It's a common ass name. I was going to say someone would have turned around.
Right. So it's like. This makes a lot of sense that like, sure, maybe she saw that.
Maybe she talked to that lady. I don't think that was Mary Jane Kelly.
No. So this goes with the theory that the Ripper was a midwife.
After all... A midwife would have anatomical knowledge and access to the trust of many women.
That is true. It would not be weird if a midwife walked around covered in blood. gross and i read that at the time midwives used to use this pressure point thing to put women out in labor to decrease the pain so they would do it so Like they would literally like knock them out just by pressing on their neck somewhere.
So what if this bitch is walking around using this quick pressure point method to knock women out before they even scream and then uses her knowledge and tools? to get to work.
All right. Quick, quick, quick. Maybe. And no one's going to think it, but it doesn't really make sense to be honest.
There were always rumors that Mary Jane Kelly was pregnant, but I think that was because she was 25 years old and they were like, I bet she was pregnant.
Like, there was really no reason for this.
It's just rumor. There was absolutely no proof of that.
Right. Of course, it would be very difficult to ascertain from her remains, but her uterus was there.
Nobody could say she was pregnant. And nobody, no witness said she was pregnant.
Nobody who knew her said she was pregnant.
It just became this thing. The other thing is if somebody comes up behind you and puts their finger behind your ear at that pressure point, you're going to turn around and like slap them.
Of course, you're going to be like, what the fuck?
Right. And it takes a minute too. Exactly.
Now, also, none of the other victims were said to be pregnant.
A lot of them had their uterus still. So it's like you would be able to tell.
So why would a midwife really be like all up in their business?
Of course, midwives did a ton of shit back then.
But like, I think the main theory of this This one is like pregnancy midwife.
You know what I mean? Like they really hammer on that part of it.
And it's like, and no one around these women said they were even seeing a midwife ever.
Like there was just no. I also feel like a midwife would have used a different cut.
Yeah. Like they wouldn't do that Y-shaped incision.
Exactly. They would do maybe like how they delivered a, well, I don't know.
Was there Caesareans back then? I honestly don't know.
Maybe we should look it up. Yeah, we should.
Yeah, let's look it up now. All right, cool.
Because I would think they would use that cut if they were going to.
I would assume. I assume there was the Sarians, but you're right.
I don't know how exactly it was done. Let's look.
Go off on your knowledge. So we looked it up.
And the first ever successful cesarean in the British Empire was conducted by a woman.
And it was done sometime between 1815 and 1821.
Also, there's like, it says C-sections can date back to like ancient Roman times, like before Caesar.
And also that when you look up any of the like old anatomical models and figures of cesarean sections, it is a vertical cut.
Which is that actually ended up giving credence to that.
Which I knew a vertical cut could was done not that long ago.
So it actually does kind of make sense. Oh, I didn't realize that.
Yeah, that was like a newer thing that it's like hip to hip.
Yeah, it was like, that's gnarly. The thought of C-sections.
Anybody that's had one, you're a badass motherfucker.
Thank you. You're welcome. She's had two.
I have had two. But it was not vertical, I can tell you that much.
But that kind of does give a little bit of like...
At least a little bit. Just something to make you scratch your little noggin.
Exactly. I'm not convinced, but here I am.
But interested. Interesting. Now, another interesting thing about the Jill the Ripper thing was that a woman was actually thought later to be like, hmm, maybe this person could have been that. bad guy uh it was mary piercey now you may recognize that ash and you may recognize it if you came to our gilded gore virtual show that we did at the black veil Was it Mary Piercy?
Mary Piercy. I covered her for that show, and she actually...
She's named as a possible Jill the Ripper.
It's kind of a stretch for me, but I get it.
I get where it comes from. Her story in a nutshell is that she killed the wife whose name was Phoebe Hogg. of the guy she was having an affair with.
She did it brutally. And I understand that people would see that and think she was capable of the Ripper murders because honestly, she probably was capable of it.
She killed the baby, too. Oh, yeah. She killed an 18 month old baby.
Yeah. She had crushed Phoebe's skull and had slit her throat so deeply that she'd almost decapitated her and did sever the vertebrae.
So Phoebe's so she had also had Phoebe had deep lacerations on her hands and torso.
The paper actually referred to the wounds as having been done in, quote, excess of hellish rage.
But she then moved her victims and dumped them elsewhere because she did it in the house, moved them out of the house.
Ripper did it in the scene, left the victims there.
Yeah. Doesn't really fit for me. She also did that very personal murder scene.
Because there was a very reason, like she had a very much a reason for it in 1890 after the Ripper murders happened.
So she started, you're telling me she started with sex workers and ended up on a very personal murder?
No. That doesn't make sense to me. And one that got her caught and hanged pretty quickly.
Yeah. Like she got away with all the Ripper murders and then just happened to like lose her shit on this one.
I don't think so. They found the blood covered kitchen where she had brutally murdered her victim.
They were like, look at all this blood. Like, what is this about?
And she was like, oh, I was trying to kill mice.
Yeah. That's why it's so bloody. And you're like, that's why there's blood on the ceiling?
And she's like, hell yeah. She's like, there's a lot of mice, man.
Like, come on. That's not Jack the Ripper.
I don't believe this one doesn't feel right.
I get it. And I'm not going to tell you that it's absolutely 100% false.
It's not for me, though. I'm going to need more evidence for that one.
That brings us to Walter Sickert. I know this name.
Now you may know this name. He's a famous artist, first of all.
That's not why. But second of all, you may have read about him in Portrait of a Killer, Jack the Ripper, Case Closed by Patricia Cornwell.
Sure did, brother, at your recommendation.
I love Patricia Cornwell. I was in like high school and you said, read this book.
I was like, read this bitch. You felt strong about that book.
I've read that book twice. So I definitely have read it through and through.
I love Patricia Cornwell. I think she is phenomenal.
I've read all her books, and I recommend you read not only this book, but read all her books.
I don't know where I stand on this one anymore.
Okay. I was very convinced when I read the books.
I remember being super convinced. Through more research, I'm...
Her argument is compelling, but I am not completely convinced.
And the crux of the motivation for him doing this is... seems to be that he was supposedly impotent, and it was brought on by multiple surgeries as a child for genital fistulas.
Mm-hmm. This caused the impotence. He was very angry about this impotence.
He took it out on women. Now, the other thing is that he had an obsession with murder and the macabre and the dark stuff, and he painted about it.
He used it as inspiration. I always hesitate to use that to convict anyone of anything because...
Look at all of us. Yeah. The first one seems plausible to me.
That he developed the hatred of women, blamed them for his problems with sex and intimacy and the like.
That can cause rage. We've seen that happen.
We've read cases of that happening. But apparently the hospital where he received all those surgeries actually might have only specialized in rectal fistulas and not... penis ones.
So that's interesting. But again, that's just like a thing that people have found.
Also, a lot of his wife and like people he was with in life claimed that he was like a serial adulterer and cheater.
And he actually might have had like, quote unquote, illegitimate children throughout his life.
So to me, that doesn't say he was... An impotent person?
No. He seems to be pretty... If you have some kids, I don't think they're super impotent.
Yeah, I don't know about that. But apparently the only time that this penile fistula was ever brought up was by his family member.
And then this family member later said, well, it could have just been family gossip.
And there was no real proof that he suffered from that.
Just talking about Uncle Walter's dick. The fuck?
Just the 1800s of it all. You know, like we all just talk about each other's genitalia.
Yeah. Yell at each other about venereal diseases, blame people for murders.
It's just all It's often good fun. Now, so I had to take a second.
Penile fistulas just really threw me off.
You're known to do that. Being casually talked about at like family dinners, just being like, oh my God, have you heard?
Pass me the gravy. I'll go Walter. Yeah.
He can't fuck anymore. Isn't that nuts? Like, I just feel like, whoa.
Cousin Susie? Like, why are we talking about that?
Like, why do you care about Uncle Walter's sexual life?
Why do you care about Uncle Walter's dick?
It's not... It's not for me. I'm out. Good old sicker.
Now, Patricia Cornwell was able to use mitochondrial DNA to match a sequence found on a Ripper letter stamp with letters written by Walter Sickert.
Which is really fucking cool. Very cool.
This seems pretty damning. But the letter in question was the Dr. Openshaw letter, which me, Elena, now in 2022 says that letter is a whole load of bullshit. definitely not written by Jack the Ripper now if that's the letter he's tied to then I think yeah maybe he wrote a hoax letter Yeah.
I can 100%. Maybe he's a jackass. I think he was.
Like, I'm pretty sure Walter Sickert was an asshole.
He had many affairs, so there's that. But, like...
So mitochondrial DNA is not a great identifier.
We're going to get more into mitochondrial DNA in a minute.
It doesn't really narrow down to one person.
It can... It can eliminate people, but it doesn't really narrow.
It's not good for identifying. Again, it's great.
Mitochondrial DNA is very valid. Very awesome.
High five, mitochondrial DNA. But like in this kind of case, nah.
Compelling. Compelling. But not case closed, in my opinion.
But very cool that she was able to do that.
And very cool that she like got all the way to London and was like, let's fucking test these.
That's sick. That's my Patricia. Yeah. That's my Patricia right there.
She takes the bull by the fucking horns.
This is what she does. She sounds like a Capricorn.
I'm going to look it up. Maybe she is. Now, I find it interesting, however, that he may have placed clues into his paintings to point to Ripper crime scenes.
That was something that was brought up. Okay.
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He painted a lot of people who especially and Patricia was saying that Patricia's birthday is the day after mine.
That bitch is a Gemini. Oh, look at that.
They're determined. we're determined there you go now he painted a lot and I think she is right I think my friend Patricia your girl we're girls now But I think she's right in saying that these subjects in his paintings, a lot of them do seem dead.
And that even when they're not being... presented as dead, they seem dead.
And it's like, he does seem to like that kind of situation.
And a lot of his paintings do have dead people in them, like they're straight up dead people.
But she pointed out that a lot of them seem like there's some kind of violence associated with them.
It's... They're definitely dark, I will say that for sure.
Yeah, they are, huh? It's definitely an interesting note when you put it next to... possible impotence and hatred of women, the mitochondrial DNA, which I'm like, ugh.
But we'll put that next to it. It's definitely an interesting little thing.
He had two particular paintings that people point to as proof.
That sounded like I was like Peter Piper picked a peck of pickle pepper.
Like I said, a lot of peace. But you did it.
Hopefully the pop filter is working. Two particular paintings that people point to as proof.
Jack the Ripper's bedroom? There's one. Saw that.
So one of them, I'll start with the other one first, the Camden Town murder, which was painted after Emily Dimmock was murdered in her bedroom in Camden. is a real murder.
The picture, the painting is a naked woman lying on a bed.
She's facing away from the camera so you don't see her face. and a man is sitting next to her with his head in his hands.
It's haunting. It's like tragically beautiful.
It's like very dark. He did a lot of sketches and works based off of these murders and inspired by other crimes like it. or like the Ripper murders.
People tried to say he could only have painted some of these by being at Ripper crime scenes, but I beg to differ.
I don't see anything concrete there. There was also a lot of sketches of different crime scenes.
Exactly. And he actually painted a painting called Jack the Ripper's Bedroom, like you said, in 1907, 16 years after the murders ended.
It's a really cool painting, to be honest, where it appears like an ominous figure in red and black is standing... and peering out over Whitechapel.
The line of vision is through these double doors and like this long burgundy carpet.
It's like very black and burgundy, the whole thing.
It's very cool, in my opinion. I would love to have that painting.
It's just like a very cool painting. It is, I agree.
His landlord-y... His landlord-y... His landlady had once told him that the room he was renting was likely one that Jack the Ripper rented.
And that's when he painted that because he was like, oh, I'm staying in Jack the Ripper's bedroom.
It's strange of her to say, considering we have not identified Jack the Ripper.
All right, landlady, go off. I mean, whatever you need to do to get people to stay in your place back in the 1800s.
Yeah, girl. You got to make that money.
But this definitely would have made me feel some type of way if my landlady was like, hey, this room is probably where Jack the Ripper was staying when he was doing his murder.
I would say, I'm going to need my security deposit back.
Bye. And I would have been like, give me a canvas if I was an artist, because I'd be like, holy shit, the dark energy here.
Like, let's just see what comes up. Like artists thrive over that stuff.
Of course they do. They thrive over like heavy emotions and heavy feelings and environments and and stories and music and sounds and smells, like anything can get them going.
And we can say that because Elena's parents slash my grandparents, yeah, we're related.
Truth. I met in art school. They did. They're both artists.
They've both like I've known them to paint through like some shitty times. absolutely they have some dark artwork as well exactly that they've told us about and been like this happened so i painted this exactly like i have a painting in my living room i was gonna say of a woman holding a baby and my mom painted it and it's like very dark and very outside of her normal. way of painting like is it a sketch i was gonna say it's actually a sketch she's a painter and this is sketch like a very gnarly rough sketch but it's beautiful so beautiful And she painted it after she suffered a couple of miscarriages and she finally had a baby and she titled it Joy.
We should ask her if we can share it. We should because it's a really beautiful painting and I love it.
And it's in my house now because she gave it to us after when we were going through our miscarriages and like... like the IVF situation.
And like, it's, it was a nice little reminder that like it can happen.
Exactly. That's like a really dark thing.
And she painted through it. Right. And something good came out of it.
And I think that that's how a lot of artists work.
And I think Walter Sickert just happened to like dark shit.
And he was inspired by the macabre. I understand that.
So I'm not going to sit here and fault him for that and accuse him of being Jack the Ripper because...
There's some things that I can say for sure that make me go, hmm.
Like he's one of the only, he's one of the only ones.
There's a few that you can go, hmm. You know what?
I'm not going to count you out yet. I'm not counting him out yet.
Am I saying case closed? By no means. Am I saying case closed on him?
But I'm saying, I don't know if we can really count him out.
I want to hang out with Patricia and I want to hear everything she's got because she's got a lot of shit.
You heard? Patricia Cornwall. We could celebrate our birthdays together.
Celebrate your birthdays together. Like books.
I love them. She writes them. I write them.
I read them. You write them, you read them.
I have your entire series on my bookshelf right now.
Let's talk Jack the Ripper, girl. I'm in this now with you.
You could have Pat, Patricia. You could have Elena's entire series of books.
Let's become best friends, Patricia Cornwell. tinyurl.com slash the butcher and the wren.
Let's make it happen. Me and Patricia. I want to sit down.
I want to hear all her stuff. You gotta.
Because again... I'm obsessed with those books, like the book she wrote, like Portrait of a Killer, about this. with all her research, it's fascinating.
It is compelling. Yeah. And it will make you sit there and go, huh.
Yeah. And like, she has some other stuff that she has not released yet.
And I would die to sit down and hear it from her.
About Walter? About Walter Sickert. And she is 100% convinced that he's the guy. to know the other stuff that she's got.
You think she's working on another one? I think she might be working on more shit.
I believe in Patricia. I really do. But, you know, I will say I understand the dark art being part of the theory because it's like, of course, along with everything else.
And she even places crime scene photos next to some of his portraits.
When you do that, it's a little weird. positioning is a little wild sometimes and I get that and that's why I can't say that he's not because it is pretty compelling but you can kind of argue those either way He did resemble the description of the Ripper.
He was a light-complected male under six feet tall with brown hair, brown mustache at the time, but like...
We've already gone through that. Yeah. But along with everything else.
Still. Yeah. The description fits. an interesting tidbit was that Patricia had tests done, and this one will make you go, hmm.
She had tests done on the papers used in the Sickert letters and the Ripper letters.
She wanted to see what kind of paper, there were watermarks, there was a specific kind of paper.
The same paper was used for three of the Sickert letters and two of the Ripper letters.
This was apparently from a run of paper that only had 24 sheets.
Dude. So at the very least here, I believe he is a Ripper hoax letter writer.
Yes. At the very least. He's connected in some way.
Yeah. And again, I urge you to read her book.
She's phenomenal in my opinion. I think she makes good points.
She's on to something. There's also the possibility that he knew who Jack the Ripper was and was covering and was complicit.
And maybe he used his artwork to get through all of the guilt of that.
Exactly. And maybe he was, it could have been even as far as him being inspired by by someone he knew who was committing these murders and putting that onto his art.
So I think he's a valid one to look at. I'm not saying case closed on anyone because I don't think I have enough for that.
But it's compelling to say the least. I will say that paper thing, at the least, he's a hoax writer.
Definitely. Definitely. And again, read that book.
I will link it. So I'll add to the library of Jack the Ripper books that I'm urging you all to read.
Get a new bookshelf. Yeah, I was going to say get a new bookshelf and get like a billion hours of time to read them because wow.
Ooh, and some bookmarks. There you go. Lots of bookmarks.
We love a bookmark. A bookmark. We love a bookmark.
We love a bookmark. Sorry, I've just like transported back to this time for a second.
It's all good. So let's get into the next guy who some of you may have heard of.
It's somebody called H.H. Holmes. Can you say it one more time?
H dot H dot Holmes. No, I don't think so.
Okay. I figured you might recognize it. Just kidding.
So... This one I definitely want to go further into when we cover H.H.
Holmes. Which is soon. Yeah, you'll have to buy another book for that.
I will give you a thousand other books for that.
For real. That's probably going to be another like seven. of role parter, deep dive, I'm going to end up driving myself crazy and John in the process and probably Ash along the way kind of thing.
That might be crazy schnookums. So that'll be in the next few weeks.
I'll definitely do it. It'll come up. Oh.
Because I feel like because I can talk about this, it'd be nice to have this fresh.
Not too fresh, but a little fresh in your mind.
Wow, girl. So I will stay a little general here, but...
It makes a little bit of sense. I'm not convinced but it makes a little bit of sense.
I see it. I actually like I know the very basics of H.H.
Holmes and like what his whole deal was.
Most people do. It's Holmes was someone with vast medical knowledge.
She had a medical degree and was by all accounts very skilled in that area.
Point one for being Jack the Ripper, at least in my eyes.
Agreed. He looked like the descriptions.
He was medium build, medium height, and had a dark mustache, and he dressed fancy.
Truth. However, they are vastly different in their methods of killing.
Holmes created a murder castle. over like years and years and years, had various chutes and hidden doors and trap doors to dispose of bodies.
Jack just left his victims in the street for everyone to find.
Holmes was killing for insurance money and selling skeletons and shit and just liked to kill people.
Like, he just... Literally liked hurting people.
Do you think it's possible that, like, he... started killing people in white chapel and then was like oh like i might get caught leaving these people out in public so like that's maybe that was his whole inspiration for the murder house Maybe.
Perhaps. Maybe. But I don't, the reasonings aren't lining up for me.
Yeah, because he wasn't. The whole insurance money thing and the skeletons.
Holmes liked a financial reward for his killings.
He didn't always, but like... He liked that.
And as we know, the previous victims would have no financials to give him.
Jack was seeming to be a man, in my opinion, on a mission, out to send a message, not to get any money from it.
He just... There was something he wanted to do here, and he was locked on it.
But Holmes was always working, and he was always able to be tracked down through his financial nonsense.
Like, there was a very clear... trail that you can follow of H.H.
Holmes. July 1888 to 1889, nothing. In the United States.
Weird. And according to diaries found by his great-great-grandson, Jeff Mudgett, which I can't imagine suddenly realizing that you were H.H.
Holmes' great-great-grandson. That would be a wild discovery.
It would be a real moment. Like some people log on to 23andMe and find out they're Jewish.
Other people find out that H.H. Holmes is their great-great-grandpa.
I logged on to 23andMe and I found out that I am probably going to get gallstones in my life and that I am 1.4% Italian.
And this guy logged on and they were like, Hey, America's first serial killer is your great-great-grandfather.
That's wild. We do have a hot claim, though.
We have Viking blood. That's true. And it's pretty rare.
It is pretty rare. Roar. So roar. See, it came right out.
So, so, so natural. Roar. So Jeff Mudgett said that he, according to his diaries, was in London at the time of the murders.
And that he mentioned training an assistant during that time as well.
So there's also a ship manifest that has records that show an H. Holmes returning from Britain to the U.S. right after the Mary Jane Kelly murder.
Now, H-Homes, it can be a name that a lot of people add.
Okay. Just saying. All right. You love a shit manifesto.
I love a shit manifest. Can I like, should I get you a shit manifest?
Please get me a shit manifest. Get me this shit manifest.
Like this is a cool shit manifest because I don't even think it's him, but whatever.
Now, the theory is that he was using the London murders as training sessions.
He once wrote, quote, I roamed about the world seeking whom I can destroy.
But he was a liar. He was a known and proven fucking liar, liar, pants on fire.
He actually confessed to shit he didn't even do.
Like, he said he killed people that they later just found alive and well.
That is true. And also, I feel like he probably would have loved to have been considered Jack the Ripper.
So that's why he kind of leaned into it.
He's ego. Theatrical. And he was a killing machine.
He killed because he liked it and he was able to financially gain from it.
It was just like everything he needed. I got money from it and I like doing it.
So it's just like, there you go. The Jack the Ripper killings always ring to me.
Like I said, more of a message. more of a hatred for these women or these streets or this place or these circumstances.
There's something here. It was symbolic.
I feel like it was deeper than just pure bloodlust.
Bloodlust was part of it, but a message was there somewhere.
He was sending fear throughout those streets.
More to it. Holmes is just like ego with bloodlust.
Like he's just like lying, conning, thieving.
Like he's just a shithead. Jack is a shithead too, but like in a different way.
Different kinds of shitheads. And maybe I've spent too much time and too many hours with Jack's bullshit, but he feels like...
He's just got something more to say. I don't know.
It's hard to describe. But I remain unconvinced either way.
And I want to get way more into that when I cover H.H.
Holmes, and I will, so just stay tuned for that.
Right now, I'm not convinced. But I'm not convinced.
How many times Elena said that throughout the episode?
Right now, I'm not convinced. But I'm not convinced.
I have yet to say for sure. There's a couple of people that I'm like, no, that's not it.
But there's a couple that I'm like, hmm.
I don't know. Seems like it might be right.
Now, here's someone who I really fucking don't think did it.
But the whole the whole world was told that this is the guy like a couple of years ago.
Okay. We're talking about Erin Kosminski.
Please go off. Go off on the first reason why we have been talking about this, because obviously she's been recently. for weeks i was gonna say weeks we've been talking about this aaron kosminski he didn't do it first of all and i'll go into a ton of the reasons why Jack the Ripper's name is an errand.
It's just not. I don't see it. I refuse to believe.
To the point where John is taunting her and being like, nah, it's Erin.
No, John is, yeah, John literally has been like, I...
I think it's Aaron. I feel like it's Aaron.
I don't know. I think it's Aaron. I just don't think it's Aaron.
I don't know. It's just something about it doesn't work for me.
Doesn't feel right. But is it Aaron, though?
It's not Aaron. It's not Aaron. And there's much more to back that up than just his name not fitting for me.
I literally have to say A-A-Ron. A-Ron. Yeah, it's just not it.
And by the way, I'm kidding in case anybody thinks that like names mean that you murder people and that I'm like saying that.
I'm not. I mean, we said like the entirety of this show that if you have three first names, you're a murderer.
Exactly. So we don't completely subscribe to, like, your name means you're going to be a killer.
We're just joshing you. Just joking. But on a serious note, his name's not Aaron.
Totally kidding. But by the way, fuck that.
But no, not an errand. Now, in the McNaughton papers, he is that third suspect that he named.
Oh, he is? Yeah. He's that third one. He wrote that he was, quote, a Polish Jew who lived in the very heart of the district where the murders were committed.
He had become insane owing to many indulgence and solitary vices.
He had a great hatred of women, had strong homicidal tendencies, and was, and I believe still is, detained in a lunatic asylum about March 1889.
This man's really... wanted a lunatic. Well, and also funny that you said this man because the next thing is this man in appearance strongly resembled the individual seen by the city PC near Mitre Square, which is where Catherine Eddowes was found.
But everyone kind of looked like that. I love that they always say, like, this person is just like an insane lunatic from an asylum.
Like, first, like, chill, everybody. But also, he got some stuff wrong.
Weird. This guy was a hairdresser by trade originally.
But everybody said he was definitely not working at the time.
He hadn't worked in years. He was just like... floating around, but he hairdressed at one point.
Now, a lot of sources will say that Robert Anderson, our Switzerland jet setter and Chief Donald Swanson, who took over while he was gone, both believed that this guy was Jack the Ripper and that they stated it.
Why? They didn't. Oh, they didn't. According to Jack the Ripper tour website, which I'll link in here, Anderson never named him. but instead wrote he believed Jack was a, quote, Polish Jew, which is what you can see in the McNaughton papers.
Obviously, everybody's just talking out of their ass at this point.
Swanson wrote in a little side note in the like... in the margins of Anderson's memoir.
He like pointed to that where he said like, this person was a Polish Jew, quote unquote.
He wrote, In a very short time, the suspect, which is who Anderson was referring to, the suspect, with his hands tied behind his back, He went to Stepney Workhouse and then to Colney Hatch and died, and that's an asylum, and died shortly afterwards.
Kosminski was the suspect. So they're saying Anderson is saying the suspect for Jack the Ripper is this guy.
And Swanson has written in the margins of that and pointed to that and said that.
That suspect that he's talking about went here.
He died in an asylum right after he went into it.
That was Kozminski. So that led people to go, oh, two plus two equals four.
Kosminski, Aaron Kosminski, he died in an asylum a couple of years after he was put in one.
And this guy's referring to a Polish Jew, which is what McDonough is saying.
Oh my God, that's him. Whoa. But Aaron Kosminski did not die in an asylum shortly after being put into it, which is what Swanson said, that he died shortly thereafterwards.
He lived until 1919. So this was not the same Kosminski.
This is another Kosminski. Yeah. And there's certain spellings of the other Kosminski which use a Z. And that's not how you spell this one.
Now... It's just, he's, no, this isn't the guy.
He was very thin, like described as being very gaunt and thin.
He doesn't match any descriptions. He was never described as a man who was a danger to those around him.
Oh, jeez. More that he was a danger to himself, he would be.
The homicidal tendencies that McNaughton is talking, I couldn't find that in any record.
The two people that he has said have homicidal tendencies might not have.
Yeah, did not. They said he was not a... In fact...
At least one of his admission notes specifically say he is not a danger to others.
That's really sad. He was also declared insane.
And I don't think Jack was insane, guys.
These people do. I don't think it. I just don't.
And he wasn't in an asylum until two years after Mary Jane Kelly's murder.
So he was walking around for two years... doing nothing after killing Mary Jane Kelly in that fashion.
But isn't this the same guy that thinks like he like powers down and then powers up again?
That's the thing. I guess so. It's like that just doesn't make sense.
But... We fly forward to 2019. Do the soldier boy into 2019.
There you go. This is when it was claimed that DNA had solved the case of Jack the Ripper.
We have identified the man and Aaron is the guy.
Rejoice, right? Wrong. No, don't rejoice.
I don't buy it and neither should you. Rejoice for not.
I do not believe this. So the DNA in question was taken from a silk shawl. said to be found next to Catherine Edo's body at the crime scene.
Already... Ripperologist Russell Edwards owns this piece of history.
He owns the shawl. Oh, wow. Which I'm like, whoa.
And it was there. Oh, sorry. My bad. You can't see this, but I held up a finger and went, mm-mm.
She said, don't go there yet. I said, mm-mm.
We're not there yet. She said, slow down.
Well, he asked, he has this, he bought it wherever you bought it from.
I don't know where you buy something like that, but like, holy shit.
And he asked for it to be tested a while ago by a lab. at University of Leeds and John Moores University in Liverpool.
He wanted to see if there was any DNA on this that could tie.
They got some shit from it. But then in 2013 or 2014, I forget which year, Edwards wrote a book saying this is the guy that bought the shawl.
He wrote a book saying it proved that Aaron Kosminski was the killer, but the results were not made public, like the DNA test results.
So we were just taking everyone's word for it. i didn't i didn't girl then in 2019 they released those results finally in a peer-reviewed journal the journal of forensic science What they found was that there was blood on the shawl and other stains that they felt could be semen stains.
They found there was some mitochondrial DNA that matched Catherine Eddowes and Aaron Kosminski.
Sounds great. Case closed. No. Nah. Mitochondrial DNA is great, like I said.
Great, valid, wonderful. Woohoo for mitochondrial DNA.
No arguments there. Mitochondrial DNA, so good.
Hot right now. So hot right now. But it is not a uniquely specific identifier.
It is not used to identify... cannot say that it is 100% one person.
Mitochondrial DNA can be used to rule a lot of people out.
That is what it is used for, elimination.
If there is no match, it makes sense. But a lot of people who don't share any relation of any kind can have the same or similar mitochondrial DNA.
It is only from your maternal side. That's all it is.
So it doesn't narrow anything down to a single person.
It can narrow the field a bit, I guess. But it's really not helping in this case.
I think this actually happened in one of the cases that I covered.
I think it did. Yeah. I can't recall right now.
And it was the mitochondrial DNA. Yeah. And I remember I think I believed that the person was not responsible.
Yeah. Yep, that's exactly what it was. Now, this could mean that the shawl might not have even belonged to Catherine Eddowes.
Because, yeah, you're saying you have her mitochondrial DNA on it. that can also match a ton of other people.
Right. So you're just hoping it matches hers because you're saying that this was found at the crime scene.
But we don't know that. I never read anything about a shawl being found.
None of the investigative reports, none of the police reports say that they collected a shawl.
Wouldn't you also think that if the shawl was next to her body, it would be doused in blood?
That's the thing. You would think so. I mean, who knows where they're saying it was.
I don't know about it, because in fact, forensic tests said it could have been that.
That shawl wasn't even from 1888. And in fact, it wasn't made until 1910.
And possibly in another part of Europe. And he burned a lot of her clothing to keep that fire going.
No, that was Mary Jane Kelly. We're talking Catherine Eddowes.
Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Catherine Eddowes, in case you were, because I know it's like hard to keep everything straight.
Catherine Eddowes was the second to last.
Okay. She was the one that was very brutally eviscerated right before the Mary Jane Kelly.
It was like the one whose kidney was taken.
Yeah, the kidney was taken. Yeah, exactly.
Sorry. Damn it. I thought I was on to something.
There you go. Yeah. But she was the one found in Mitre Square.
It was outside. I never saw anything about it.
I don't know where that, in fact, in what she was wearing, it's not described that she was wearing a shawl.
So I don't know where that shawl came from.
Yeah. And she was wearing everything she owned.
Exactly. And so I don't know about that.
They didn't say conclusively that it was from 1888.
They said a lot of people don't think it was from 1888.
I don't know. But also, I stand by my belief that he did not rape them or have sex with them before killing them.
So the semen thing is strange to me. If that's semen, I don't think it was from that.
I don't think he would have had time to...
No, he didn't have time to do that. Sexually mutilating the person, he definitely did that.
But I don't think this was him producing semen at the scenes, like I said before.
I really don't. I think it was later, if anything.
If anything, to be honest. But also, they never scientifically established that the stains are, in fact, semen.
This all feels like confirmation bias to me.
They want it to be Aaron. They want it to be Catherine Eddowes.
So they fit everything to be Catherine Eddowes and Aaron.
Right. Not to mention they never released the specific genetic findings.
It's all graphs. and like blocks and stuff.
No specific genetic variants are seen. And a forensic scientist, Walter Parson, He spoke out about them failing to share the specific variants and all of that.
And he said, quote, Otherwise, the reader cannot judge the results.
I wonder where science and research are going when we start to avoid showing results but instead present colored boxes.
Because it was just like a colored graph.
That was a sick burn, Walter. To show it was a sick burn. think this proves anything.
I think this was pure confirmation bias.
And to be honest, I am not convinced that that is Catherine out of shawl.
Someone's gonna have to show me otherwise.
I don't believe it. All right. I don't see it.
If you can find in an investigative report or some police report that they picked up a motherfucking shawl next to her, that I will eat my hat, but I did not find it.
I just don't buy it. And it's, again, that mitochondrial DNA can match Catherine Eddowes.
It can also match a billion other people.
Well, not a billion, like a lot. A lot, yeah.
It can also match Aaron Kosminski. It can match a bunch of other people in there too.
And if you're not going to show me without a shadow of a doubt that that is a semen stain, then I don't buy it.
And if it is a semen stain and you're telling me that's from Whitechapel, in the 1800s, well, honey, that could be from a lot of places.
So I'm not going to sit here and say this is definitely from a Jack the Ripper victim.
Jesus, like what? It's not. I don't believe it's Aaron.
I'm not into the Aaron theory. No way. But do you think it could be Aaron?
It's not Aaron. Okay. It's not Aaron. And you know what?
If you ask John, it's Aaron, and I'm angry about it.
He needs to listen to me again, go through this whole spiel.
Simply for teasing purposes, he thinks it's Aaron.
It is not Aaron. So the last one I'm just going to mention briefly.
This is just like a quick little. His name was James Maybrick.
He is a suspect I'm going to talk about in a couple of weeks when I cover his entire case.
Oh. Him and his wife, Florence Maybrick.
It's a very interesting case. He is definitely not Jack the Ripper. according to me, who is obviously an expert, he's not him at all.
Are you a Ripperologist at this point? I think I am.
What qualifies somebody as a Ripper? ripperologist.
I am not a ripperologist. I'm probably like pissing so many people off by saying that.
I'm totally kidding. I'm not. But I honestly, I love this case has made me want to continue.
Well, what qualifies you? I think you probably need to do a lot more.
Yeah, you got to put in some more work there.
Do it. And I'm willing to do it. So I think I might do it.
And then, I don't know, let me know what it takes to be a riparologist.
With all the extra time you have. Yeah, I would like to ask.
Add that onto my list. Just Capricorn things.
I'm going to keep going with it. I'm telling you, I will have a definitive. suspect in mind and I will tell you when it pops in my head.
You think you're going to get there? I know I'm going to get there.
Whoa, the determination I just said. I think I also think that I don't know if Patricia wants to join forces.
We can get on this shit and we can solve it together.
Patricia, I have the determination. Let's go.
Let's go, girl. It's not Aaron, so there's that.
That was a great try, science, but that did not work out well.
Screaming. The bitch yells at someone. I love science.
But that's I think I think it's me over here with science being like that doesn't work.
You're like. No. Close, but no... I don't know science words.
Never mind. Close, but no deoxyribonucleic acid.
Hot. So we will talk about James Maybrick in the coming few episodes or weeks.
And that is the conclusion. Of Jack the Ripper for now.
The way that that sentence was almost so satisfying.
For now. No, I'm totally kidding. At you.
This is great. Thanks. I hope you guys enjoyed this.
I hope you were horrified by it. I hope you got a little insight into these women and their lives. and Whitechapel at the time.
I hope you watch Peaky Blinders. I hope you listen to Unobscured season three.
That's how you would like to say it. Watch Peaky Blinders, though.
I know this has nothing to do with it. Never watch that.
And we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. but not so rare that you do a deep dive on Jack the Ripper and it's five parts and holy shit you think that you might solve it someday but actually you should keep it that way because like you might solve it someday that'd be like really cool but uh bye I'm gonna do it.
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