Jack the Ripper Pt. 2

More than 135 years later, the identity of Jack the Ripper remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in true crime In Part 2, Vanessa and Dr. Engels explore the final chilling 1888 Whitechapel murders that terrorized Victorian London and their aftermath. They'll examine the most compelling suspects behind the world’s most infamous unidentified serial killer, and what kind of person could be capable of such evil. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Serial Killers & Murderous Minds to never miss a case! For ad-free listening and early access to episodes, subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Serial Killers & Murderous Minds is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Murder True Crime Stories, Crime House 24/7, and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse https://www.instagram.com/crimehouse/ TikTok: @Crimehouse https://www.tiktok.com/@crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios https://www.facebook.com/crimehousestudios YouTube: @crimehousestudios https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Vanessa Richardson?

  Hi, everyone. Before today's episode, there's another show I want to tell you about. It's called What the Fact with Connor Tomlinson from Netflix's Love on the Spectrum and Carter Roy. Every week, they take three unbelievable true facts from history and tell you the full story behind them. Plus, Connor's infectious energy that'll make you realize history is the most fascinating thing on earth. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen, or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.

• 0:36Speaker 01

  This is Crime House.

• 0:42Vanessa Richardson?

  One of the biggest mysteries in true crime is Jack the Ripper's identity. For over a century, people have tried to figure out who this infamous serial killer was. And in recent years, modern technology has led to some shocking discoveries. But with each new breakthrough, there's something else distorting the full picture of what happened in London all those years ago. The mystery still looms large, and people everywhere are left to wonder what new horrors might be uncovered.

• 1:28Vanessa Richardson?

  The human mind is powerful. It shapes how we think, feel, love, and hate. But sometimes it drives people to commit the unthinkable. This is Serial Killers and Murderous Minds, a Crime House original. I'm Vanessa Richardson.

• 1:44Tristin Engels?

  And I'm forensic psychologist Dr. Tristin Engels. Every Monday and Thursday, we uncover the darkest minds in history, analyzing what makes a killer.

• 1:54Vanessa Richardson?

  Crime House is made possible by you. Please rate, review, and follow Serial Killers and Murderous Minds. To enhance your listening experience with ad-free, early access to each two-part series and bonus content, subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts. Before we get started, be advised that this episode contains discussion of murder and mutilation.

• 2:18Vanessa Richardson?

  Today, we conclude our deep dive on the most infamous and unidentified killer in history: Jack the Ripper. In 1888, Jack terrorized East London. He targeted women with little to no means and killed them in some of the most gruesome ways imaginable. In the process, he became a media sensation, whose story continues to haunt us.

• 2:43Tristin Engels?

  As Vanessa goes through the story, I'll be talking about things like the link between severe mental illness and extreme prejudice, why some witnesses refuse to testify, and what effect that can have on a case, and what motivates people to forge evidence.

• 2:59Vanessa Richardson?

  And, as always, we'll be asking the question: what makes a killer? In October of 1888, the East London neighborhood known as Whitechapel was in full-on panic mode. Over the past two months, a sadistic killer known as Jack the Ripper had claimed the lives of at least four women who'd been earning a living through sex work. Their names were Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, and Catherine Eddowes. There was also another woman named Martha Tabram, who'd been murdered before any of the other victims. However, Martha had been stabbed 19 times, while the other victims' throats and abdomens

• 3:44Vanessa Richardson?

  were slashed before they were disemboweled. So as the murders continued, investigators started to disagree about whether Jack had killed her. Only the other four women were officially considered Jack's victims. Part of Jack's MO also involved stealing some of the women's organs. He'd taken Annie Chapman's uterus, and Catherine Eddowes' uterus and kidney. Then, in mid-October, half of a human kidney was sent to George Lusk, the leader of a local vigilante group. When news of this incident reached the press, the media went wild with speculation and lies. In reality, authorities weren't sure if the kidney belonged to Catherine, but many outlets claimed that it did.

• 4:28Vanessa Richardson?

  On top of that, some tabloids used the grotesque story to feed into antisemitic hatred in London. They said no one who was from England could commit such horrendous crimes, and they published images of the killer with exaggerated, stereotypically Jewish features. Of course, there was no hard evidence that Jack was Jewish. These stories were just pure bigotry, so while the media coverage ramped up fear in Whitechapel, it didn't do much to actually help people stay safe, which meant sex workers kept looking for clients at night. As scared as people were, they still had to make a living, even if that meant putting themselves in harm's way.

• 5:09Tristin Engels?

  We talked about this a little in episode one, but the reality is, human survival instincts aren't just about avoiding danger. They're also about meeting immediate needs, and sometimes those needs override other safety concerns. When you're concerned about immediate needs like food and shelter, the brain is focused on the right now, not the what ifs or any possible danger like Jack the Ripper. You have to prioritize like that under scarce conditions. And I don't think they're doing it unknowingly. I think they're just calibrating their risk in ways that many people haven't had to. Danger is just a normal part of the environment for many of the people in Whitechapel. I also think optimism bias likely plays a role too, because yes, Jack the Ripper is a real threat,

• 5:53Tristin Engels?

  but how many times have people been aware of a threat and thought, "That won't happen to me"? It's not necessarily that they're being naive. It's just a way to psychologically distance from a real threat that you have no choice but to survive among. So if they had ideal choices at their disposal, they would have left Whitechapel. They would move, they would buy a house, they would never work in sex work again. But those aren't options that people in that level of poverty and scarcity necessarily have. And remember, his victims, they were divorcees, some with children, some of whom had disabilities. So it wasn't just about them either.

• 6:29Vanessa Richardson?

  Despite how anyone interpreted the media coverage, like you said, sex workers in Whitechapel still had to make ends meet, and they were in even more danger than they realized. One of those women was 25-year-old Mary Jane Kelly. Mary Jane was born in Limerick, Ireland, and moved to Wales when she was young. She'd married a coal miner when she was around 16, but just a few years into her marriage, her husband was killed in an explosion on the job, and Mary Jane became a widow. In 1884, four years before the Jack the Ripper murders started, she moved to London to try and make a living. But finding steady work was hard, and she turned to sex work. She was young enough to get a job at a high-end brothel in London's posh West End.

• 7:14Vanessa Richardson?

  In general, working in brothels was safer than finding clients out in public. Not only were the workers sheltered inside, but they encountered clients from a wealthier and ostensibly more respectable class. Mary Jane was able to start building a new life for herself. However, a few years into her new job, there was a movement in the city to end sex work by closing the brothels, which meant that by 1885, Mary Jane was forced to find work on the streets.

• 7:43Tristin Engels?

  Brothels initially being legalized likely gave the public the perception that it was somewhat socially acceptable, at least to some degree. It was private, it was regulated, and so it was out of public view and therefore likely more tolerated. But when they were shut down, it was subsequently labeled illegal, and that creates a shift in public perception, and with that, empathy decreases. Sex workers are not being seen as women trying to survive, they're being seen as problems now that need to be removed. And closing the brothels made their work more dangerous for everyone involved. Not only are they on the streets, where they're exposed to more risk, but they're visible, and visibility gives way to stigma. And this also deepens the existing in-group,

• 8:27Tristin Engels?

  out-group thinking within the community that we talked about in episode one, where empathy and protection are reserved for, quote, "people like us", while those labeled as outsiders, or the out-group, are viewed as part of the problem rather than members of the community. And in that kind of environment, harm against marginalized people, such as harm from Jack the Ripper, can feel more distant to them, less urgent, and tragically easier for them to ignore.

• 8:53Vanessa Richardson?

  How do certain social biases tend to influence some criminals?

• 8:58Tristin Engels?

  Well, they tend to use them to their advantage. It influences their victim selection. That's priority one. I mean, Jack the Ripper and most predatory offenders prey on vulnerable targets, mainly marginalized ones, for accessibility. It makes it easier to dehumanize them and to justify their crimes. They believe that their victims are someone that won't be missed or believed, or they deserved what happened to them and that no one cares about their victims. Social prejudices can act like psychological permission to them by narrowing their empathy, if any exists in the first place, and making extreme behavior feel more acceptable to the person committing it.

• 9:39Vanessa Richardson?

  For a couple of years, Mary Jane kept scraping by as best she could. And by 1887, a year before the murders, she thought she'd finally found a way out. That year, she met a man named Joseph Barnett, who swept her off her feet. They started a relationship, and soon, Mary Jane moved into Joseph's apartment in Whitechapel. When the murders started in the fall of 1888, Mary Jane was grateful to have a safe, steady place to live. But the same couldn't be said about some of her friends. Another sex worker Mary Jane knew hadn't been as lucky as her. She'd been struggling financially, and she had nowhere to live. So Mary Jane asked Joseph if her friend could move in with them temporarily, but he said no.

• 10:23Vanessa Richardson?

  This led to an argument that got so bad, Joseph left Mary Jane. He moved out of their apartment, which meant her friend could move in. But now, the two women were responsible for all the rent. By early November, about five weeks since the last murder, Mary Jane had racked up a huge debt to her landlord. She contacted Joseph and asked for his help, but he refused. So Mary Jane looked for help from others. She took to the streets, not to solicit sex work, but to ask complete strangers for a loan. At around 2:00 a.m. on November 8th, she approached a man named George Hutchinson and asked if he could spare the money. But George said he didn't have it.

• 11:08Vanessa Richardson?

  Mary Jane thanked him for his time and crossed the street, where she encountered another man who looked wealthy. He was wearing a thick gold chain and a fur-trimmed coat. George Hutchinson kept watching Mary Jane as she talked to the man. The two of them talked and laughed for a few minutes, before the man put his arm around Mary Jane and they entered her apartment building together. No one saw or heard from Mary Jane for the rest of the day. Then, at around 10:45 a.m. on November 9th, her landlord's assistant knocked on her door. He'd been sent to collect her overdue rent money. When she didn't answer, he peeked in through a broken windowpane. That's when he saw what looked like pieces of human flesh sitting on a table.

• 11:54Vanessa Richardson?

  The man couldn't believe his eyes. He looked at the room more closely and realized there were even more horrors to be found, including blood all over the floor and Mary Jane's mutilated body on the bed.

• 12:10Vanessa Richardson?

  The man notified the police, who arrived 45 minutes later. Once they stepped into Mary Jane's room, they could barely maintain their composure. They were convinced that this was the work of Jack the Ripper, and it was his most vile, gruesome murder yet. Mary Jane's face was sliced beyond recognition, and Jack hadn't simply opened her abdomen, he'd completely removed her midsection, along with the surface of her thighs and her breasts. Then, he emptied her abdominal cavity entirely and placed her kidneys and uterus underneath her head. Finally, he left a pile of her remaining organs next to her.

• 12:52Vanessa Richardson?

  The only organ police didn't find was Mary Jane's heart, which they realized Jack had taken with him.

• 13:01Tristin Engels?

  With the exception of the murder of Elizabeth Stride because he was interrupted, each murder was an escalation. He escalates in time spent, his focus on anatomy and which organ or organs he takes, and his postmortem ritual and activity. This kind of extensive mutilation suggests it's less about killing and more about his own psychological need, and often, again, it's about fantasy fulfillment. He hasn't been caught, and with every murder, he gains confidence and becomes less constrained. He's likely acting on compulsion and urges that what he was previously imagining and rehearsing in his mind for years, and those compulsions

• 13:41Tristin Engels?

  and those urges are getting stronger. And so is his need for personal symbolism. This is about fulfilling his own personal needs.

• 13:50Vanessa Richardson?

  What can we glean from the fact that he kept Mary Jane's heart?

• 13:54Tristin Engels?

  So if we look at the pattern across his murders, there's a clear progression from extreme violence to increasingly deliberate, targeted, postmortem behavior. Early on, the injuries are brutal, but comparatively less elaborate than they are now. And by the time we reach Annie, the uterus is removed. That organ is biologically specific to women, and because his victims were women engaged in sex work, that can be interpreted as symbolically tied to femininity or sexuality. With Catherine, he took her uterus and her left kidney. Now, some people could argue that the kidney is also symbolic because kidneys filter toxins, and she was released from jail for being drunk in public, and they

• 14:36Tristin Engels?

  thought she was an alcoholic. But I think in this case, it's better understood as behavioral escalation. He's spending more time, taking greater risks, and engaging in more complex behavior. That tells me his confidence is rising. Because then, he takes Mary Jane Kelly's heart. Accessing the chest cavity is so invasive. It's much more time consuming, and it requires privacy, which she seemingly had in her home. So this is another escalation because he's immersing himself in his crime because he could. He's lingering.

• 15:11Tristin Engels?

  He's manipulating and he's arranging. He's becoming more confident. And I think he knows he has a captivated audience in the public and he's enjoying that. His crimes have begun to reinforce his sense of power, mastery and superiority over both his victims and the authorities trying to stop him.

• 15:33Vanessa Richardson?

  As the news of Mary Jane's murder spread, the people of Whitechapel realized just what level of brutality Jack the Ripper was capable of. They thought they'd seen the worst already, but now he left a scar on the neighborhood that would never heal. To add to their dismay, investigators didn't find any evidence at the scene. People had hoped that since this murder was committed indoors, there might be something left behind, but there wasn't. Soon, members of the public realized something else, too, that they may be partially responsible for what happened to Mary Jane. At four o'clock that afternoon, a horse-drawn cart pulled up outside Mary Jane's building. Her remains were placed in a casket and taken away.

• 16:17Vanessa Richardson?

  As a crowd looked on, murmurs started to ripple through. Some of Mary Jane's neighbors confessed to each other that they'd heard her scream and didn't do anything. They said she'd only screamed once, so they brushed it off.

• 16:32Tristin Engels?

  Let's talk about why people might have ignored hearing Mary Jane's scream. There's something called the bystander effect. When many people live close together, responsibility becomes psychologically diluted. Each person assumes someone else is closer or they heard more or is better positioned to intervene than the other. That shared uncertainty reduces the likelihood that any one individual takes action. The Kitty Genovese case, although it's since been debated heavily, brought attention to this very real phenomenon. Fear also plays a role in this. People knew there was a violent offender targeting vulnerable women. Intervening could mean putting themselves directly in harm's way.

• 17:16Tristin Engels?

  And when personal safety feels threatened, self-preservation can override the instinct to help. Especially when the situation is ambiguous. And importantly, screams were not rare in that environment. Whitechapel was crowded, it was dangerous, and it was often very loud at night. When distress signals become part of the background of daily life there, people can become desensitized to that, not because they don't care, but because their brains can learn not to treat every sound as an emergency.

• 17:45Vanessa Richardson?

  This particular attack happened inside, which went against Jack's usual MO. Could this have influenced people's reactions?

• 17:52Tristin Engels?

  Oh, absolutely. Because the attack happened indoors, like you said, it didn't match the public's mental picture of how Jack the Ripper operated. So it's possible an indoor scream was more likely to be interpreted maybe as a domestic dispute, something people were used to hearing and often tried not to interfere with. I mean, even today, neighbors hesitate to involve themselves in what appears to be a private conflict because they have to continue living near their neighbors. That social hesitation, combined with the unexpected setting, could easily have led people to dismiss the scream instead of recognizing it as an emergency.

• 18:29Vanessa Richardson?

  While at least one person wanted to do right by Mary Jane in the wake of her death, a few days later, on November 12, George Hutchinson, the man Mary Jane had asked for alone before she encountered Jack, gave police a description of the man he saw her talking to. He said the man was well-dressed and seemed wealthy. He also described him as having Jewish features. Whether this was driven by prejudice or not, George's statement didn't lead the authorities to any suspects. By now, the public was used to the lack of progress in the investigation, and as time passed, authorities were met with even more disappointing and shocking twists of fate.

• 19:15Speaker 03

  The police closed my sister's case in 2019. Last month, her killer commented on my post.

• 19:22Speaker 04

  On Reddit, true crime doesn't come from journalists. It comes from the victims, the witnesses, and sometimes the suspects themselves.

• 19:30Speaker 03

  People post the things they'd never say out loud: anonymous, unfiltered, and completely real.

• 19:35Speaker 04

  And every Tuesday, on Crimes of Reddit, we read them out loud.

• 19:39Speaker 03

  I'm Sabrina Deanna-Roga from Two Girls, One Ghost.

• 19:42Speaker 04

  And I'm Alexis Linkletter from The First Degree.

• 19:45Speaker 03

  Each week, one of us brings the most unhinged true crime stories the internet has to offer.

• 19:50Speaker 04

  And the other goes in completely blind: no prep, no spoilers, reacting in real time, same as you, and then we swap.

• 19:58Speaker 03

  And we pull every thread until the whole twisted picture comes into view.

• 20:01Speaker 04

  It's dark, it's messy, and the scariest part is that these are real stories, posted by real people.

• 20:08Speaker 03

  New episodes drop every Tuesday. Listen to and follow Crimes of Reddit, available now wherever you get your podcasts.

• 20:18Vanessa Richardson?

  In November of 1888, Jack the Ripper is believed to have claimed the life of 25-year-old Mary Jane Kelly. Her death and mutilation were far more shocking and grisly than any of the victims before her. In the aftermath, everyone in Whitechapel waited in fear to see just how far Jack would take things next. As investigators chased leads that went nowhere, the town was consumed with dread. And on November 21st, two weeks after Mary Jane's murder, it became clear just how much Jack the Ripper's influence had taken hold. That day, a woman named Annie Farmer allegedly invited a man back to her apartment.

• 21:01Vanessa Richardson?

  It's not clear whether Annie was a sex worker, but once they were alone together, she tried to steal the money he was carrying. A struggle ensued, and Annie ended up nicking herself in the throat accidentally. Annie screamed for help, which caused the man to take off running. Unlike how people reacted to hearing Mary Jane scream, Annie's neighbors and the police rushed to check on her. When she managed to calm herself down, she told them what happened. Annie said she'd been attacked by Jack the Ripper. People were dumbfounded. Was Annie the first victim to escape Jack's clutches and live? And if so, would her testimony lead to him finally getting caught?

• 21:42Vanessa Richardson?

  It seemed like the case had reached a turning point. But then, when investigators dug more into Annie's story, they discovered the truth of what had happened, that Annie wasn't attacked. Her minor injury was just an accident.

• 21:57Tristin Engels?

  So let's talk about a few reasons why Annie claimed that Jack the Ripper attacked her. This could have been genuine fear and panic. When communities are exposed to repeated, highly-publicized violence, people become hyper-alert to threat. Annie just invited a man, a stranger, back to her apartment after Mary Jane was found dead in her own apartment. Annie lured him there to steal from him, so she was probably already on high alert for that reason. But on top of that, she had just experienced a struggle and sustained a cut to her neck, so adrenaline shock and pain could easily have pushed her mind toward the most available explanation, which is that Jack the Ripper did this, or Jack the

• 22:38Tristin Engels?

  Ripper was in the room with her. But, at the same time, though, because she was also conspiring to commit a crime herself, we can't rule out that this was self-preservation. By claiming she was attacked, she might have felt it would divert suspicion away from her intentions entirely. There are many reasons why she might have made this claim, knowing it was false, and it could have come from fear, confusion, survival strategy, or social pressure, or some combination of all of those things. But in times of widespread terror, the stories people tell about what happened to them are often shaped as much by the environment as they are by the event itself.

• 23:17Vanessa Richardson?

  Police and the public had hoped they would finally learn something about Jack the Ripper that would help identify him, but they were wrong. After Annie's incident, people continued to fear when he would actually strike again, but he never did. As the years passed, many people believed that Mary Jane Kelly was Jack the Ripper's last murder victim. However, others thought he may still be at large. One team of investigators at Scotland Yard kept building a list of possible suspects, and by 1894, six years since Jack's last known attack, Sir Melville McNaughton, the assistant chief constable of Scotland Yard, had narrowed it down to three men.

• 23:59Vanessa Richardson?

  Their names were Montague John Druitt, Michael Ostrog, and Aaron Kosminski. McNaughton felt most strongly about the first name on the list, Montague Druitt. He was a wealthy lawyer who'd also worked briefly as an assistant headmaster at a boarding school before being dismissed under mysterious circumstances. McNaughton knew Druitt had gotten into serious trouble, but he didn't know exactly what for. So during the initial investigation, he spoke to Druitt's family to see what else he could learn about him. Druitt's own loved ones described him as "sexually insane." They told McNaughton they thought it was entirely possible he was Jack the Ripper.

• 24:44Vanessa Richardson?

  McNaughton thought he might be closing in, but then, at the end of 1888, his line of inquiry came to a crashing halt when Druitt's lifeless body was found floating in the Thames River. He'd taken his own life. McNaughton thought Druitt's death could explain the sudden end to Jack's reign of terror, but there was still pressure to bring someone to justice, so he kept working his way down the list of suspects. Next on the list was Michael Ostrog, a doctor from Russia. Michael was highly educated, and on the outside, he was professional and polished. However, he had a long history of fraud convictions.

• 25:25Vanessa Richardson?

  On top of that, he'd also spent time in various psychiatric hospitals. It's not clear exactly what he was admitted for, but Michael's most recent hospital stay had been in the spring of 1888. He was released that March, then failed to check in with authorities as was required. McNaughton thought Michael could have gone off the grid when he became Jack the Ripper. Unfortunately, Michael was still nowhere to be found, so McNaughton had to move on. The final suspect on the list was Aaron Kosminski, a Jewish barber who was 23 at the time of the murders. His family was originally from Poland, but moved to Whitechapel to escape religious persecution in Eastern Europe in the early 1880s.

• 26:11Vanessa Richardson?

  But even though they'd gotten a fresh start, Aaron's mental health had deteriorated significantly by the late 1880s. His family first noticed something was wrong when he refused to bathe. Then, things escalated. Aaron started hearing voices. He even claimed that a higher power spoke to him and controlled his every move. Around this same time, Aaron began expressing a deep hatred for women, especially those who engaged in sex work.

• 26:41Tristin Engels?

  Severe mental illnesses that involve psychosis, such as disorders where someone hears voices or holds fixed, false beliefs, can distort how a person interprets the world. If someone already lives in a social environment where certain prejudices exist, psychosis can take those themes and magnify them into rigid delusions. In that sense, the illness doesn't create prejudice out of nowhere. It can intensify ideas already present in their environment. Psychosis can also lead to misattribution of meaning. So, a person may begin to believe that specific groups are responsible for their suffering, that they are being controlled, or targeted, or morally corrupted by others.

• 27:24Tristin Engels?

  These beliefs can feel absolutely real to them, even if they're not grounded in reality. That's when we sometimes see extreme, fixed hostility that goes beyond typical prejudice. That said, it's very important to emphasize that mental illness alone does not make someone violent, and most people with psychotic disorders are not violent. Prejudice, hatred, and violence usually arise from a combination of factors like personality traits, life experiences, social attitudes, and opportunity. Mental illness may distort perception, but it doesn't automatically lead to harm.

• 27:59Vanessa Richardson?

  Do Aaron's symptoms suggest that he always harbored these feelings, and they just came out once his mental health had deteriorated enough? Or do you think his hatred toward women was caused by his mental illness?

• 28:11Tristin Engels?

  Severe mental illness doesn't typically invent a brand-new belief system out of nowhere. People who develop psychosis still draw from cultural, social, and personal

• 28:21Vanessa Richardson?

  ...material already in their minds and environments. So if anti-sex work attitudes and misogyny were already common in London at the time, which they were, those themes could have become woven into his delusional framework once his mental health deteriorated. So in other words, it's more likely that any hostility he expressed was shaped by the social climate he lived in or from his home environment, and then intensified or were made more rigid by illness. Psychosis can remove nuance and flexibility. So that said, we also can't assume he always harbored extreme hatred. Mental illness can change how someone interprets people and events in dramatic ways.

• 29:03Vanessa Richardson?

  Suspicion, paranoia, or feelings of being controlled can get projected outward, sometimes attaching to specific groups. But that's different from saying the illness created misogyny by itself. What's more likely is his social environment provided the themes, and his mental illness may have distorted and intensified them.

• 29:24Vanessa Richardson?

  Aaron's misogyny, along with his experience wielding a blade as a barber, raised red flags for Sir Melville McNaughton. The more McNaughton looked into Aaron, the more suspicious he became. And when he looked into the suspect's health records, he became even more convinced. Aaron had been admitted to the psychiatric hospital twice, once in 1889 and again in 1891, this time indefinitely, which meant two things: one, that Aaron had been roaming freely during the year of the murders, and two, he was still in custody, so McNaughton could potentially press charges and bring him to trial. He might be able to catch Jack the Ripper. Soon, McNaughton got another big win in his investigation.

• 30:09Vanessa Richardson?

  It turned out there was witness testimony placing Aaron at the scene of one of the murders. Back in September of 1888, a bystander had seen Jack trying to pull Elizabeth stride into an alley. Jack noticed the man's so-called Jewish features and shouted a slur to scare him away before he could stop Jack from killing Elizabeth. The bystander's name was Israel Schwartz. He was, in fact, Jewish, and he told investigators exactly what had happened. At the time, Israel's statement didn't result in any solid leads, but investigators claimed they spoke to him again once they had a short list of suspects. According to them, Israel picked Aaron out of a lineup.

• 30:54Vanessa Richardson?

  Authorities were equally shocked and thrilled. However, when they asked Israel to testify against Aaron in court, he refused. He said he didn't want to be the reason a fellow Jewish man went to the gallows. I want to be clear. I don't think that Israel's refusal to testify is because of guilt, deception, or sympathy for a sadistic serial offender by any means. I think this is really about his sense of community loyalty, fear of contributing to existing prejudice, moral conflict, and self-preservation. And I think this would be different and less intense if his existing environment wasn't already tense, divided, and highly charged as it is. This is a very public case,

• 31:38Vanessa Richardson?

  and his name would be connected to it. That's an enormous amount of pressure when you consider the circumstances and the current climate. How can a lack of witness testimony influence a trial? It can have a major impact because trials are about building stories a jury can trust, and juries trust eyewitness accounts. Without an eyewitness, a trial relies mostly on circumstantial evidence. It doesn't make it weak. Most criminal cases are based on circumstantial evidence, but it can make it less concrete to a jury. Without witnesses, it also makes the burden of proof harder to meet. How do you show guilt beyond a reasonable doubt when there are gaps that no one can account for? And jurors need credibility to anchor the story to.

• 32:20Vanessa Richardson?

  But that said, some cases succeed without witnesses if the evidence is overwhelming. But generally speaking, missing witness testimony makes the prosecution's job harder, and it gives the defense more room to argue that the picture isn't complete enough to justify conviction.

• 32:38Vanessa Richardson?

  Without Israel Schwartz's testimony, the authorities didn't have a strong enough case against Aaron Kosminski. There was no other evidence tying him to Elizabeth's murder or any others. McNaughton's suspect list was down to zero. He had no more leads. The investigation was never formally closed, but by October of 1896, the team on the Ripper case had run out of funding and were no longer actively looking into it. But the story of Jack the Ripper was far from over. After nearly a decade, the killings had cast an ever-present shadow over London. And the more the people tried to move on, the more they got sucked back into the turmoil.

• 33:33Vanessa Richardson?

  Happy Halloween, Crime House listeners. I'm Vanessa Richardson. Did you know horror films like Abigail and Sinister were based on true stories? Join me every Sunday this month on Crime House 24/7 for Crime House of Horrors, where I dive into four stories behind some of our favorite scary movies. From Abigail, The Autopsy of Jane Doe, Sinister, and The Taking of Deborah Logan, you'll find one thing in common: the truth is scarier than fiction. Listen every Sunday on Crime House 24/7, or join Crime House Plus for all four right now, ad-free. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or at crimehouseplus.com.

• 34:21Vanessa Richardson?

  In 1896, the official investigation into Jack the Ripper stalled out. Eight years had passed since the last murder, and the authorities hadn't been able to provide any answers, let alone justice for Jack's five known victims. Without closure, people sought other forms of healing. The intense media coverage had shed light on other issues, like the rampant poverty and inequality in Whitechapel. All over the world, people now associated the neighborhood with death, disease, and suffering. Some even viewed all of London this way, and the city's upper echelon wanted to do something about its poor reputation.

• 35:00Vanessa Richardson?

  So in the 1890s, London's slums were cleared out to make way for better housing for some residents. The problem was, not everyone benefited from this initiative. A lot of people were simply pushed into the next impoverished neighborhood. And since the project only went so far, that meant hordes of people were displaced or left with nowhere to live.

• 35:24Tristin Engels?

  After something as traumatic as this, communities often have this pull to feel that something is being done. And often, they lean towards symbolic solutions, like clearing the slums or rebuilding parts of the neighborhood where this happened at, because it creates the appearance of progress. That can be emotionally reassuring for the public and certainly politically reassuring for leaders, particularly after a failure like this. But it's only beneficial to some residents, like you mentioned, and it's rooted in reputation management. The motive's financial and restoring image. And the problem is it's prioritizing visibility over effectiveness. Displacing residents without providing stable alternatives doesn't reduce poverty. It just moves it.

• 36:09Tristin Engels?

  It's not a structural solution. It leads to short-term relief for some people, but long-term harm for others, especially those who are already vulnerable.

• 36:19Vanessa Richardson?

  Many people in London wanted nothing more than to move on from this dark chapter in history. But over time, it became clear that Jack the Ripper's torment and brutality would be a lasting stain. Then, over 100 years later, shockwaves ripped throughout the world when the case was resurrected. In 1992, a scrap metal merchant in Liverpool, about 200 miles from London, named Michael Barrett, claimed he was in possession of Jack the Ripper's diary. Michael said one of his friends had found the diary and gave it to him. It had belonged to a man named James Maybrick, who lived in Liverpool in the 1880s and 90s. If you want to learn more about this story,

• 37:03Vanessa Richardson?

  we highly recommend you check out the episode on Florence Maybrick from our fellow Crime House show, Crimes Of. But for our purposes, all you need to know is that James had led a tragic life. His marriage soured after he caught his wife Florence cheating on him. And after he died in 1889, Florence was charged with his murder. She'd allegedly poisoned him to death with arsenic. Many of the diary entries were about James's hatred toward his wife, but others were much more chilling. Apparently, after learning about her affair, James started traveling to London and taking his anger out on sex workers, including five whom he killed. The diary named those five women,

• 37:47Vanessa Richardson?

  and they were none other than Jack the Ripper's canonical victims: Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly. The diary went into great detail about their vicious murders, and one of the last entries signed off with a final confession in which James named himself as Jack the Ripper.

• 38:13Vanessa Richardson?

  Michael knew this diary could be a major breakthrough in the historic case, so he handed it off to experts to verify its authenticity. And when they were done, people were astonished at the findings. The analysts confirmed that the diary had been written during the time period James was alive. Not only that, but they said it matched the handwriting from the letters believed to have been written by the killer and sent to the press and police at the time, like the "Dear Boss" letter sent to the central news agency. To many members of the public, it made sense. Some even speculated that James's wife had killed him because she found out he was Jack the Ripper. But others quickly noticed that the story was too good to be true.

• 38:58Vanessa Richardson?

  People started poring over old coverage of the case and noticed how many of the diary's details matched the most widespread headlines. And as speculation grew, Michael Barrett finally caved. He confessed that he and his wife had forged the diary.

• 39:17Tristin Engels?

  People inserting themselves into highly public crimes like this is more common than people realize, and there are several reasons why it happens. Some do it because they are seeking significance of their own. Attaching themselves to a case like Jack the Ripper brings them an instant sense of importance, relevance, and identity. Instead of being an ordinary person, someone becomes the person who solved a century-old cold case, or is the person with the secret. That can be extremely attractive to someone who feels overlooked, or dissatisfied with their life and stuck in their own life. In some cases, there is an element of fantasy, thrill, and deception as well. They want to step into the story themselves and feel connected to something powerful.

• 40:01Tristin Engels?

  There are also instances where people are seeking their own notoriety, sometimes simply for attention, but others for financial motivations. They're hoping that maybe they will be compensated for interviews, publications, or more. Especially with the so-called Diary of Jack the Ripper, they probably thought maybe there'd be some good hefty payday turning that in.

• 40:24Vanessa Richardson?

  What does it say about the Jack the Ripper case that people are still so fascinated with it over a century later? What causes certain cases to stick with people for so long?

• 40:34Tristin Engels?

  I mean, Jack the Ripper has all the ingredients to make a story psychologically stick with you. I mean, firstly, it's unsolved. We are not wired as humans for unfinished narratives. We are wired for resolution. This is an unresolved mystery, and it's a horrific one, that is hard to imagine has gone unresolved, especially for its time. Second, it strikes at basic vulnerabilities. He struck women walking alone or living in poverty. That still resonates today. Women walk alone every day, just to and from the parking lot. Is it different from the environment of Whitechapel? Of course it is, yes. But many women can resonate with this fear because it's universal.

• 41:17Tristin Engels?

  It's not confined to one time and place. And lastly, we don't know who he was. Every generation can insert its own theories, fears, and cultural concerns into this mystery. He's like a boogeyman. Cases that endure usually combine unresolved questions, that emotional resonance, strong storytelling elements, which this certainly has, and symbolic meaning. And Jack the Ripper has all of that.

• 41:46Vanessa Richardson?

  Well, Michael Barrett may have lied, but he certainly wasn't the only one still fixated on Jack the Ripper. Ten years after the diary incident in 2002, DNA technology was rapidly advancing, so a crime novelist named Patricia Cornwell decided to use it to try and identify the killer. Cornwell suspected that a 19th-century painter named Walter Sickert might have been Jack the Ripper. Some of his paintings depicted murder scenes with female victims, or even resembled the post-mortem photographs of Jack's victims. Cornwell thought Sickert had been documenting his crimes through his artwork. So in 2002, she obtained some stamps and envelopes, which she believed contained samples of Sickert's saliva.

• 42:31Vanessa Richardson?

  By that point, forensic analysts had also discovered some DNA samples on some of Jack the Ripper's old letters. So Cornwell sent the stamps and envelopes off for comparison, and the test showed a possible match. Cornwell thought she had her smoking gun, but DNA experts weren't so sure, because the analysis had focused on mitochondrial DNA, which up to 10% of the UK population could also share. It wasn't enough to pin Walter Sickert as the killer. Besides, even if the match had been stronger, there was still no way to confirm whether the killer had actually written the letters. And in fact, based on forensic linguistics and handwriting analysis, experts have concluded that many of the letters,

• 43:16Vanessa Richardson?

  including the "Dear Boss" letter, were fabricated by reporters to boost sales. However, Cornwell's theory did lead to another key theory: that Walter Sickert probably sent a few of the letters. He may not have been the killer, but he was likely a scammer, obsessed with the Jack the Ripper case, like so many others. The search for Jack's true identity seemed futile. But almost 20 years after Cornwell's investigation, authorities once again turned to DNA technology to try and solve the mystery.

• 43:51Vanessa Richardson?

  Back in 1888, a bloodstained silk shawl had been found next to the body of Catherine Eddowes, Jack's fourth victim. It would have been an important piece of evidence if investigators had handled it properly. Instead, one of the constables kept it in his possession, and it stayed in his family until 2007, when it was put up for auction. A man named Russell Edwards bought it. He was a Jack the Ripper enthusiast and researcher, also known as a Ripperologist. Edwards had written books about the case, so he was interested in what mysteries the shawl might unlock. Specifically, he wanted to see if the DNA on the shawl pointed to Aaron Kosminski as the killer.

• 44:35Vanessa Richardson?

  Edwards had always believed Aaron was the culprit, and by 2019, over 10 years since Edwards bought the shawl, living relatives of both Aaron and Catherine Eddowes were willing to submit samples of their DNA to see if they matched the stains on the shawl. Edwards sent the shawl off to the lab, and the results showed matches for both. In other words, there was evidence supporting the theory that the shawl had really belonged to Catherine and that Aaron had killed her. However, this test also used mitochondrial DNA, so there still wasn't a solid conclusion. Not to mention, the authorities hadn't maintained proper chain of custody over the shawl, so

• 45:20Vanessa Richardson?

  none of the clues it provided could have been considered official evidence, anyway.

• 45:24Tristin Engels?

  Wow, what an emotional roller coaster. There's a sense of closure within reach, which is emotionally revealing, but when the evidence turns out to be inconclusive, that can turn to disappointment or even mistrust really fast, especially when it happens more than once. It can also escalate people, because once they believe a solution is close, they become more attached to a specific suspect or theory. And even when evidence weakens, it can be harder to let go of that emotional investment. The case becomes less about facts at that point and more about defending a narrative people want to be true. That can be harmful if it frames the wrong person.

• 46:05Tristin Engels?

  And this is especially taxing on investigators or scientists or anyone trying to make these breakthroughs and solve this crime once and for all. It's a professional setback for them, especially if they've dedicated years of their life to this.

• 46:19Vanessa Richardson?

  Despite the lack of definitive, official evidence, many people still believe that Aaron Kosminski was Jack the Ripper. However, to many others, the killer's identity almost doesn't matter anymore. Because the case of Jack the Ripper wasn't a game of guess who, it was the story of his victims, five women just trying to survive another day.

• 46:57Vanessa Richardson?

  Thanks so much for listening. Come back next time for a deep dive into the mind of another killer.

• 47:03Tristin Engels?

  Serial Killers and Murderous Minds is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on all social media at Crime House. And don't forget to rate, review, and follow Serial Killers and Murderous Minds wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference.

• 47:26Vanessa Richardson?

  And to enhance your listening experience, subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode of Serial Killers and Murderous Minds ad-free, along with early access to each thrilling two-part series and exciting bonus content.

• 47:43Vanessa Richardson?

  Serial Killers and Murderous Minds is hosted by me, Vanessa Richardson, and forensic psychologist Dr. Tristin Engels, and is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. This episode was brought to life by the Serial Killers and Murderous Minds team: Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benedon, Lori Marinelli, Natalie Pritzowski, Sarah Camp, Sarah Bachelor, Dana Rossi, Sarah Tardif, and Carrie Murphy. Thank you for listening.

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  Did you know penicillin, the drug that has saved more lives than any other in history, was discovered because a scientist forgot to clean a Petri dish before going on vacation? I'm Connor Tomlinson and history is my thing, has been my whole life.

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• 50:15Vanessa Richardson?

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