Episode 39 - Jack the Ripper

In 1888, the streets of Whitechapel were more than just dangerous, they were disorienting, oppressive, and on edge. Thick industrial fog choked the air, gaslights distorted what people thought they saw, and entire neighborhoods lived under constant stress, poverty, and fear.

This episode goes beyond the surface of Jack the Ripper murders. We break down the timeline of the canonical victims, then step back to examine the environment surrounding the killings, pollution, red-tinged skies, dense fog, and the psychological toll of life in one of the harshest districts in Victorian London.

We explore the role of spiritualism, psychics, and the widespread belief in supernatural forces during the investigation. At a time when science and the occult existed side by side, many believed the killer was more than human.

From there, we look at modern theories about the identity of the Ripper, including leading suspects and what current research suggests.

Was Jack the Ripper simply a man hiding in the fog…
or was he something the city itself helped create?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Welcome to R Chain Station. I'm your host, Mike Porter. Tonight we are looking into uh basically something that everybody has heard about before and maybe even has their own theories on. But tonight I'm looking into Jack the Ripper, and I'm looking at it from a different perspective slightly. So I'm looking at the environment around uh London at the time, specifically what the Whitechapel area. I'm looking at you know the uh environmental factors in that area that basically um may have spawned this killer. And I'm also looking at sort of the supernatural layers behind it as well. So I'm gonna start off with the timeline of the murders uh just to sort of ground this in uh reality and the things that happened, and then we'll move forward from there. So um April 3rd, 1888, about 1:30 a.m., there's this uh local prostitute named Emma Smith, and she was attacked by a gang of men at a junction of Osbourne Street and Brick Lane, and they robbed her, but they also assaulted her uh most likely sexually. And then on April 3, 1888, at 4 to 5 a.m., she arrives back at her lodging house on 18 George Street, where the uh other residents were alarmed at her appearance, like her injured state and her distressed behavior, obviously from that attack, and they persuaded her to go to a nearby London hospital. So on April 4th at 9 a.m. in the morning, so four hours later, or five hours later, uh, she dies of her injuries at the London Hospital. So on April 7th, 1888, there's an inquest into her death at the London Hospital, and the jury returns a verdict of willful murder against some person or persons unknown. Um and so that was the first attack or death of a prostitute there that's that's been sort of recognized at the as the start of the Jack the Ripper um era or timeline. Another prostitute named Martha uh Tabram is found stabbed to death on a landing of Georgie R. Buildings. So this happened um shortly shortly after the um, or actually on the same day, as the inquest uh into the death of Emma Smith happens. And then on the 31st of August at 3 40 a.m., the body of Mary Ann Nichols, who is commonly held to be the Ripper's first victim, was found at Bucks Row in Whitechapel. So on September 1st through the 4th, uh the police begin questioning the neighborhood's prostitutes, and they learn about a character who the prostitutes have nicknamed Leather Apron, who has been extorting money from them for the past 12 months. So on September 5th, the Star newspaper publishes a write-up on leather apron, and this caused some anti-semitism at the time because the leather apron character or person, uh, and we never get the information, but they're said to be of Jewish descent. So on September 8th at 6 a.m., the second Jack the Ripper victim, Annie Chapman, is found in the backyard of 29 Hanbury Street. On September 10th, Mr. George Lusk, together with several other local businessmen, founds the Mile In Vigilance Committee, hoping to assist the police with their endeavors to catch the murderer. And obviously there's a little bit of vigilanteism going on, and so therefore people were being accused of things and uh being attacked in the streets. So John Pizer, whom Sergeant Thick maintains is recognized as Leather Apron, is arrested. He can provide alibis for the two most recent murders, so he's released. And then on September 27th, um basically there was an address, there was a letter addressed to the boss, and it arrives at the Central News Agency, and it's signed Jack the Ripper. And this is where the name starts to become a legend. So on September 30th at 1 a.m., the body of Elizabeth Stride is found on Burner Street off of Commercial Road. And I'll talk a little bit more about Commercial Road later. And then on September 30th at 1.45 a.m., the body of Catherine Edoes is discovered at Mitre Square in the City of London. That means that another police force, the City of London police, now have to join the manhunt because Whitechapel is separated, it's a separate area from the City of London. And on October 1st, the police make the Jack the Ripper letter public. And then on October 6th, the Central News Agency receives another letter that signed Jack the Ripper, and the police asked them not to make this letter public. On October 16th, George Lusk receives a letter that's addressed from Hell, and it contains half a kidney. There's press speculation that it belonged to Catherine Edams. On November 9th, 25-year-old Mary Kelly is found dead in her room on 13 Miller's Court off of Dorset Street in Spittlesville. She is believed to be Jack the Ripper's last victim. However, on July 17th, the body of Alice McKinsey is found in Castle Alleyway off of Whitechapel High Street. Despite the fact that her injuries were less savage than those inflicted on the previous victims, several detectives believe her to be the final victim of Jack the Ripper. However, September 10th, there's a mutilated torso of an unknown woman found beneath a railway arch in Pynchon Street. The press at the time noted that the torso bore similar mutilations to those inflicted on the victims of Jack the Ripper. The consensus is that it's probably not a ripper killing, perhaps a copycat. And then on February 13th, the body of Francis Coles is found beneath a railway arch in Swallow Gardens. And at the time there was much speculation that her killing said that there was a return of the Ripper. And it was a sailor named James Thomas Sadler was arrested, charged, and then later acquitted of her murder. Today she's not to believe to have been the Jack the Ripper victim. However, some people speculate that it might have been. So we have the five canonical victims of Jack the Ripper, and that's Mary Ann Nichols, Innie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Meadows, which happened on the same day as Elizabeth Stride, and then Mary Jane Kelly. So all the victims were in the Whitechapel area, and most of the murders occurred very late at night or early in the morning, so in the 1 a.m., 2 a.m. time timeline. And they were in public or semi-public places except for the final victim. So most of them they were killed out on the street behind people's houses or in the alleyway. And sometimes within moments of them being um killed, um someone was seen running off, or the police would be very close by and they would just miss who was there. Now the f what was happening is it started off the the injuries were super violent, but what started off violent turned even more violent and savage as it progressed, and then the final murder was obviously indoors, and it was a far more extensive uh mutilation because they felt that the the ripper had way more time and less concern about being uh walked up upon when he was doing his deed. So so again, there's very short windows between um the sightings and the discovery, and there's no identified killer. And there's hundreds of suspects actually, but there's no resolution to which one might it it might be. And I know people have said they solved it, but I don't know that they actually have yet. Alright, so I'm gonna step out of that. That's how everything gets set up. Now let's talk about the environment of Whitechapel at the time. So during the 1880s, there was a London fog called pea soupers, and basically the pea soup fog was so dense that visibility was reduced to a few feet. So it was making it impossible for pedestrians to even see their own feet, or people who were driving horses and buggies to even see their horses. So this yellow-black coal smoke saturated uh the fog, and it frequently brought city traffic to a complete standstill. So it forced shops to use artificial lights at noon using coal lamps or um oil lamps. And this caused widespread respiratory distress. People were choking and gagging and having difficulty breathing. And what's more interesting is that that thick fog was polluted air as well. So it wasn't only fog, it was industrial smoke and waste, and the burning of the coal and the oil added to this fog and made it even more dense. And what was interesting about that is that people would see these people, you know, they they would describe people just vanishing in front of them because the fog was so thick they would run away and instantly be swallowed by the fog. And the fog actually dampens sound, so it makes it difficult to hear for long periods because of the density of the particulates in the air, sound was sort of muted, and it made it feel like the streets were unnaturally quiet. So, also what was happening at that time is in London they would get these blood-red skies, and this happened um all the way through the 1880s, all the way including 1888, and this was caused in part by atmospheric aerosols from a massive 1883 Krakatoa volcanic eruption. So volcanic ash and sulfur dioxide circled the globe, reflecting, refracting the light, and it produced this crimson, violet, and sometimes orange twilight glows for years. And you know, again, the pollution uh and get in this gaslight from all the fires created an orange, copper, and sometimes a reddish glow. And witnesses described that it had oppressive air and unnatural color in the streets. So obviously not supernatural, but walking around in a very dense fog with blood-red skies would be psychologically pretty crazy and make people have fear. So, the other part of that, like I said, there's a there was pollutants, there was coal smoke, there was factory emissions, and that and the water and the air both were contaminated. So sulfuric acid and soot were the main contributors to the toxic nature of the fog, but lead and other heavy metals were present as part of the industrial pollution. And you know, in modern times, we look at the effects of uh these pollutants like lead and heavy metal, and it creates irritability and uh cognitive decline, which means lower IQ. So people were losing brain cells basically. They would have memory loss, and some people would experience behavioral issues like hyperactivity and impulsivity. Their personality would change and they would become irritable, and there was increased risk of depression, anxiety, and psychosis. So this soup that they were walking in and breathing in was causing them, everyone, um, to have all of these psychological effects. And when you have somebody that's already in a state where they may have psychotic breaks or they may have mental disorders, that additional um that additional layer could provide the snap, which causes that psychological break. Now the other thing about Whitechapel is that it's very narrow, has very narrow alleyways, and the streets are maze light, and obviously during the time uh because of the density of the fog and the pollution, visibility was very poor. The lighting was poor as well because you're using oil or coal, it's not that bright, it's not like a halogen or LED light, it's very dim and only travels for a very short distance, specifically when fog is in the way. And what this what this means is that if there's somebody that really knows the environment, it would be very easy for them to run away through these maze-like narrow corridors and escape pursuit. And because the visibility was so bad, they could hide in the shadows and you wouldn't even see them. So there's a lot of reasons why I think Jack the Ripper escaped detection, and that's because of some of these elements. Now, during that time period, the population in Whitechapel was all working-class poor people or immigrant communities, and specifically Eastern European communities, and there were also a bunch of transient laborers. There was no work to be had, and they were trying to move through town and get work any way they could. And that meant that this place was overcrowded and there was not enough food to go around, so there was malnutrition. And obviously, when there's a lot of uh poor, you know, poor, hungry people, there's going to be crime and instability. You're gonna have those people sort of uh pre predating, um, you know, like trying to be predatory against all these other people. Let's say if you're poor and hungry and you're stronger than someone else, you're likely in that situation to try to take their food or commit violence to take what's theirs. So that's the living conditions that they had. So in 1888, Whitechapel was desperately poor. It was overcrowded, and it had extreme filth, disease, and high crime rates. So roughly 80,000 people were packed into a tiny polluted area, and they faced rampant unemployment, filthy streets, and abysmal housing conditions that contributed to a 50% child mortality rate. So, this is how absolutely atrocious these conditions were. So there's loads of psychological effects that could happen there. There's chronic stress, emotional fatigue, and reduced empathy for others. Like I said, if you are stronger and you're starving and somebody has food that or something that you want, most likely in that desperate situation you would, you know, try to take what's theirs, you know, violently. And I hate to say that, but I think society as a whole is very close to a tipping point of chaos because if the food, you know, food goes away or electricity goes away, there's gonna be a load of people who are in a situation where they don't know how to farm or take care of animals or hunt, and they're gonna be desperate for those those types of um foodstuffs, and so they may actually attack people that have food. The other issue with this, so they have all those psychological effects effects. At that time, there was widespread gin consumption, right? So people were coping with this stress and anxiety through alcohol use, and the gin would actually help cope with the stress, obviously, but it would support and it would suppress hunger, but it would certainly lead to impaired judgment, aggression, and disassociation. Like if you're drunk, sometimes you do things that you wouldn't do normally, or your your mind is less restricted by your moral compass. And so all of this stuff was sort of happening in that space. Now, the other thing I want to say is along Whitechapel, I talked about Commercial Road, there was actually um a butcher's row in there, and what I think I'll talk a bit more about this later, but what I think is people were very close to their um food sources there. If there was an animal, you had to actually butcher it, or you would go to the butcher and watch them butcher the animal to give you the food. And so slaughterhouses and meat markets were very clo common, and the people that worked in those things had daily exposure to blood organs and taking the life of these animals. And not everyone does this, but I'm saying if you're already in a psychological state that's stressed and you already have a mental condition which uh has a predisposition to make you violent or angry, then that exposure to working with animals could cause a desensitization effect where basically the violence becomes normalized. I'm killing for food or I'm killing to achieve a goal. And the other thing is that it sort of you know lowers an emotional barrier. So we've processed our own uh meat birds, and every time you do it, it's not something that's enjoyable, it's not, it's it's something that you thank the bird for its sacrifice, and you know, you try to make it as humane as possible so they don't suffer, and then you still have to process everything. So, but if you worked in that day in and day out, you wouldn't have and and the animals were not yours, they were coming in, they were being brought in, and your job was just to you know end their life and then separate them out into some sort of um bit of food for people, that may be something that desensitizes you to those um to those acts, right? So you could be uh someone again with all of these different stressors in place, could be someone that actually experiences a psychological slip and then just sees everything as meat. So um, so like I said, people were not coping well in these conditions in white Whitechapel. And so based on um the available knowledge and regional information for poor law unions record, annual commitments into um lunacy bins or lunacy asylums were between 80 to 120 individuals um each year. And a total resident in care at any given time in 1888 was approximately 300 to 450 people from the White Chapel district alone. So um that means that people were uh being um being admitted to a psychological ward. They were being um I'm trying to remember the word here, they were they were being um committed by by friends or family. There were several people that um that their friends thought that perhaps they may be the um Jack the Ripper, and they committed those people. And one of those, I'll talk about it a little bit later, one of those actually um was committed, and then the the the murders stopped. So now the other thing I want to talk about at the time was this um, and I've I have an entire episode uh of the podcast about this, but at that time there was a rise in spiritualism, and there were seances and mediums of communication with the dead constantly. And during the 1888 Whitechapel murders, spiritualism became this desperate unconventional meth method for trying to identify Jack the Ripper. So uh because the police tried and failed many times to catch him. So the mediums would held would hold these seances to contact the victims with claims that the spirits identified the killer as a friend or a wealthy doctor, and others reported visions of the murder. So um uh there's this one there there's several that are um well known, but the Kentish Town sitting, so on September 6, 1888, this medium, Mrs. C. Spring, while in a trance, acted out the cutting of her own throat, stating that the victim, Marianne Nichols, predicted more brutal killings. Robert James Lees is a prominent uh spiritualist who claimed to have seen the murder in visions and allegedly led police to a wealthy West End physician, which was dismissed by the official investigations immediately. There was the Elizabeth Stride seance. So following the murder of Elizabeth, Stride, an elderly woman in Cardiff claimed that a seance with the victim revealed the killer was a middle-aged man living on Commercial Road, and that's why I brought up Commercial Road and Butcher's Row. Mary Malcolm incident. So Mary Malcolm claimed to be the sister of victim Elizabeth Stride, alleging Stride's spirit appeared at her at the moment of death to bid her farewell. And obviously there was media coverage with magazines like The Medium and Daybreak reported on these seances detailing all the alleged revelations from beyond the grave. Now another thing that was happening at that time was the um was the founding of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. And you've seen this probably in the Robert Downey Jr. version of Sherlock Holmes. So the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was a prominent 19th century British occult society from the 1888, the founding year of the Jack the Ripper killings, into the early 1900s. And it focused on the study and practice of ceremonial magic, Kabbalah, tarot, and Hermeticism. And it was founded by Masons W. W. Westcott and S. L. Mathers and W. R. Woodman. And it synthesized Western esotericism into a hierarchical initiatory system that influenced modern magic. So very similar to very similar to Mason or or Freemasons. And basically during this time, people were thinking that there was a demonic influence on whoever was killing, and this is not the act of a normal person. This person is either influenced by demons or they're possessed by demons. And um so they weren't just asking like who did this, they were asking what type of person, what force associated with this person would do this to them. And so I started thinking about this, and um there's loads of modern suspects uh who people think did it. So Aaron Kaminski is the most uh the most cited as being the one who did it. He's a Polish Jewish immigrant and a hairdresser living in London's Whitechapel district. And um there's some recent DNA studies that have accused him, but critics argue that the evidence is circumstantial for him. And there's a massive list, like I said, there was hundreds, but um Montague, John Druitt, Dr. Francis Tumbley, uh Tumblety, George Chapman, which was actually Severin Kolowski, um Walter Sicket Sickert, uh Joseph Bennett, Barnett, sorry, and Charles uh Cross. And then there were some others other ones that were considered, like David Cohen, who was also a Polish immigrant named Nathan Kaminsky, um, Thomas Cutbrush, um, he was incarcerated uh for stabbing a woman, which led to speculation that he was a killer, but that I think that's just separate. Um James Kelly, who was a killer who escaped from the asylum and then was never found again. And then Prince Albert Victor was a popular target, um, but it's largely discounted because it was conspiracy theory and they felt like people were just persecuting him because he was royalty. So here's what I think. I think based on the information that I can find and the things that happened uh that were happening in the world at that time, I think the Ripper might have been a local person living in Whitechapel, and I think that he may have been a butcher. So in 1888, the the high density of butchers was a significant factor in the Jack Ripper investigation because the killer displayed anatomical knowledge, and the police interviewed local butchers and slaughterhouse workers, suspecting that the mutilator might be someone who was accustomed to using knives in their daily trade. Um and the the police, you know, logically went and monitored uh these shops to ensure that people were not um leaving the shops and going and doing these deeds. And there was an entire butcher's row row on uh Aldgate Street in sorry, Aldgate High Street, and it was located at the western end of Commercial Road, and this stretch had 17 listed butcher shops in 1888, and these businesses were run by individuals uh like Matthew Flicker, who was a carcass butcher, and James Tyler. There was a section called Blood Alley, which is a small alleyway in the Aldgate district, Little Somerset Street, and it earned its nickname Blood Alley because it was lined with butchers who slaughtered livestock just outside the city walls to avoid paying tariffs. And then on commercial road, there was a bunch of establishments there, and um there was there was a bunch of butchers. So the idea I have is that it's a local working class man, possibly a butcher or somebody with a similar trade that was familiar with cutting flesh, and they had a functional understanding of anatomy, not an academic version, so not a doctor. And it's possible, I think, that this person, whoever it was, also had prior exposure to violence through warfare. So my thought is that it's perhaps somebody between the ages of 30 and 50, and they likely served in the wars or in the military between 1855 and 1885. Um I'm assuming that it's probably a British enlisted soldier. And here's the thing: there was a loads and loads of um like battles and skirmishes that were taking place throughout uh this time. So there was the Crimean War, and there was thousands of British troops that were fighting here, and they had a you know a high survival rate, but there was extreme suffering during that, and the soldiers returned to civil li civilian life in large numbers. And the thing was that they were exposed to disease, rot, and exposure to death while there in Crimea. Um there was primitive surgery that took place, like amputations and open wounds. They uh, if this person was a medic or had a base knowledge of anatomy, they may have been forced to do some of those things to help support the doctors in the field by doing amputations or helping people with open wounds. And there was a long-term amount of uh hardship during that war. So I think statistically, this is probably the most plausible war background for a man living in Whitechapel during the 1888 time period. There are some other ones, like the Indian Rebellion of 1857, which had urban fighting and like brutal retaliation from the civilians while they were fighting. Um another one is the uh the second Anglo-Afro-Afghan War. Uh so this was only eight years before 1888, and the conditions were super harsh, and they were isolated and they were under a constant threat of ambush, and so that stress and unpredictability may have given them that sort of um mindset. Another one is the Anglo-Zulu War, which had intense close-quarter combat and extremely high-profile, psychologically shocking battles. You were dealing hand-to-hand combat with the Zulu tribe with their spears and their shields, and they had sudden over overwhelming attacks. Uh, so it was fast, violent, and it was high stress. So I think some of the trigger of um conditions could be this visual disorientation inside of England at the time or uh Whitechapel at the time, the blood-red skies, the thick fog, the alcohol, sleep deprivation, um, heavy metals and lead, and all of these things could gradually create a psychological break that could escalate into violence. So I think the theory around this person being a war a war time soldier and someone in a trade using knives and that sort of thing, it explains the speed at which he was killing, the skill at which he was dismantling um these victims, the calmness, like there was no it it it seemed very calculated and and almost um methodical, and then it would suddenly disappear. And this didn't need any sort of elite, you know, like doctor's education or certainly there's not a supernatural cause, right? So I think and again this is my theory, I think it's a uh ex-soldier who was under extreme stress and duress and the psychological and environmental elements of the day created this um psychological break, this uh psychotic break that could have started creating these situations where perhaps he thought he was fighting against someone or perhaps he was interacting with a prostitute and then became enraged when he wasn't getting what he was wanting. Um so there's loads of you know, who knows what madness dwells in the minds of men, right? So I don't know what was on their mind, but I'm wondering if that background was partially at fault for creating this um psychotic break in this means of attacking civilians. Now, I was going to go through um or maybe I'll do that briefly. So there's bunches of um psychological, sorry, there's a bunch of paranormal um presences and and activities that are taking place in Whitechapel currently, and I'm just gonna do a quick listing of them. So the first is the Tim Bell's pub. It's frequently reported as the most haunted, and it's linked to Annie Chapman and Mary Kelly, who were both seen there before their murders, and the vic visitors report seeing hearing Phantom's footsteps and being pushed by invisible forces. Or on Durwoard Street, formerly Bucks Row, this is the site where the first victim, Mary Ann Nichols, was found, and this area is associated with the apparition of a glowing woman in the gutter. On Minor Square, on the anniversary of Catherine Edo's murder, some say the cobblestones glow red. In the former Truman Brewery, this is on Hanbury Street, located near the site of Annie Chapman's murder, this area is associated with a distinctive unnatural chill. And then Aldgate Station, employees have reported mysterious footsteps in the tunnels during night shifts. So the commonly reported things are phantom sounds, cold spots, violent apparitions, so reports of a Victorian gentleman, sometimes mistaken for the ripper himself, appearing in local pubs. So all of these experiences create a sense of unease and oppression and this sort of environmental discomfort because they feel like they're being watched or being followed. So I think, like I said, the ripper may have been a man that was shaped by his environment and a product of pressure, violence, and instability. Um and I feel like, you know, all of these victims were because that person um they were victims because the that person had this disorientation and psychological imbalance that you know pushed them over the edge. So this has been uh my interpretation of you know the the Jack the Ripper legend. Um there's some interesting information about someone who um may have committed crimes in the United States prior to uh the Jack the Ripper sequence, and it could have been that this person left the United States and went to England and continued his killing spree. I'll maybe put that in a case file because I think that would be a little bit more in-depth. Um and others, you know, I'll add more detail about all the other suspects. All right. Thank you so much for listening. This has been Mike Porter, your host, talking about the strange, unusual, and crazy things that I think about. Um join us each week. Um I also have my YouTube channel where I do shorts, and every day I come up with a different one. So cryptids, um, folklore, high strangeness, true horror, um, paranormal, and UFO short topics that I do within a minute or so, and then that way I'm giving you a bunch of different information, and perhaps one of those may turn into a longer length episode like this. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful evening.