0:15

Pushkin. It's

0:26

the coldest of cold cases.

0:31

A murder of the most brutal kind

0:34

was committed in the neighborhood of Whitechapel in

0:36

the early hours. But by whom

0:38

and with what motive is at present

0:40

a complete mystery. In

0:43

the fall of eighteen eighty eight, woman

0:46

after woman after woman was

0:48

murdered in the dark backstreets of

0:50

poverty stricken East London. This

0:53

poor creature was taken into

0:55

the yard and butchered. Are

0:57

nearly finded away at what I saw. The

1:00

killer struck and then disappeared,

1:03

leaving the police baffled. All

1:05

that was certain was the awful

1:07

severity of the wounds inflicted

1:09

on the women. The

1:12

poor woman's throat was cut, the inside

1:14

of her body was lying beside her. She

1:17

was quite ripped open. The

1:21

murders were so violent that

1:23

the killer earned a nickname known

1:25

the world over, armed

1:28

down on halls and are shap

1:31

Quinn ripping them. Even today,

1:34

his name ranks among the cruelest and most

1:36

notorious of serial killers, Jack

1:39

the Ripper. This

1:47

podcast isn't about Jack

1:49

the Ripper, at least, it's

1:51

not about the Jack the ripboat you've heard of.

1:55

I can pretty much guarantee that up

1:57

until now, everything you've been told

1:59

about The Ripper, that original serial

2:02

killer, that knife wielding victorian

2:04

bogeyman is wrong. But

2:07

don't feel bad about that. I

2:10

too was none the wiser when I started

2:12

researching a book about the events in Whitechapel

2:14

in eighteen eighty eight. My

2:18

name is Hallie Rubinholt and I'm a historian.

2:21

More specifically, I'm a historian

2:23

of prostitution. In the seventeen and eighteen

2:25

hundreds, I'd enjoyed

2:27

some success with a book on the sex trade

2:29

and Brothels of George in London. It got

2:31

picked up and made into a TV series called

2:34

Harlots. So I was casting

2:36

around for a promising follow up project.

2:39

And who were the most infamous prostitutes

2:41

in all of history? The victims

2:43

of Jack the Ripper? Of course, can you

2:45

tell me one fact that you know about

2:47

Jack the Ripper? They never got caught. Oh

2:49

God, he's rumored to be a butcher? Was

2:51

I think he was like quite good at killing people? And

2:54

who did he kill? Prostitutes?

2:57

He killed prostitutes. Before

3:00

I began my research, no author

3:02

had attempted to really build out the worlds

3:05

of these women to fully put their lives

3:07

into context. The last movements

3:09

on the days they were killed had been painstakingly

3:12

researched and rehearsed. But what about

3:14

the other days and years of their lives?

3:17

Who were they and how did

3:19

they cross paths with a killer? Hello?

3:21

Love? Yeah, you don't like a sport.

3:23

As I browsed the books and films out there,

3:26

I noticed that wherever the Ripper's five victims

3:29

were mentioned, they were usually

3:31

characterized as society's waste.

3:34

Yeah so bad, I writ led as

3:37

filthy, ruined, pitiful, drink

3:39

sodden whores. You don't fasible

3:42

pain of Dulia. I'm cutting the price tonight.

3:44

Polly Annie, Elizabeth Kate,

3:47

and Mary Jane were so reduced,

3:50

so simplified, that they were little

3:52

more than cartoon characters. You can

3:54

have it for not believe you want to. I

3:57

began excavating their lives from

3:59

start to finish, and

4:01

what I found out amazed

4:04

me. So

4:07

what is the original story the

4:09

cartoon version of a very real

4:12

and very awful murders? Brie? Well,

4:14

it goes something like this. It's

4:18

August eighteen eighty eight in

4:21

the vile slums of London's East End.

4:25

This is a bleak and squalid warren. Criss

4:28

crossing thoroughfares are smothered by thick, noxious

4:31

fog, and the streets swarm with

4:33

prostitutes, thieves, and drunks.

4:39

Life here is an endless grind of

4:42

illness, crime and poverty.

4:46

It's nighttime and prostitute Polly

4:48

Nichols is out soliciting. She's

4:51

been drinking and she just needs one more

4:53

client to pay for her bed. That night, a

4:56

gentleman approaches Crown.

4:58

He's wearing a hat and a cape, a

5:00

doctor perhaps. Polly

5:03

takes him to a quiet side street, which

5:05

is where he attacks her over

5:08

and he stabs him, and

5:10

he cuts her throat, then

5:15

he vanishes into the night. Over

5:18

the coming months, four more prostitutes

5:21

are murdered by the diabolical Whitechapel

5:24

fiend. Annie Chapman is

5:26

found with her throat cut, her uterus and

5:28

part of her bladder excised. Elizabeth

5:31

Stride and Kate Edo's are murdered on the same

5:33

night. The ripper carves out

5:35

and steals away Kate's left kidney and

5:37

part of her womb. Finally, in

5:39

November, he claims the life of pretty

5:42

Mary Jane Kelly. The youngest

5:44

of the victims, and he evisceerates

5:47

her. What remains of Mary Jane

5:50

is unrecognizable. The

5:52

city is paralyzed by fear

5:54

and the police are baffled. Suspects

5:57

are pursued and then dropped. A

6:00

taunting letter of confession is sent to the press.

6:02

The author revels in the crimes, promises

6:05

more, and signs off as Jack

6:08

the Ripper. The name sticks

6:11

and a terrible legend is born. So

6:20

much has been written about Jack the Ripper and who

6:22

he might have been. There are endless

6:24

books about his crimes. I assume

6:26

that there would be an agreed narrative

6:29

running through that catalog, some undisputed

6:32

hard evidence, like

6:34

an archeologist I dug and

6:37

I dug. But instead of a sturdy

6:39

bedrock of written records, I

6:42

just met with more sand. Police

6:44

and court records were lost or incomplete.

6:47

The case records that did exist contain

6:49

things that just didn't add up, and the

6:52

rest of the story was filled in with reports

6:54

taken from newspapers which took certain

6:56

liberties with the truth. To put it mildly,

6:59

so, the famous Jack the Ripper story

7:01

that you just heard is built on nothing.

7:05

It's propped up by hearsay and by the

7:07

work of true crime enthusiasts and amateur

7:10

sleuths who all think they'll crack

7:12

the case. It's true that Jack

7:15

was never caught, but fantastical theories

7:17

about his identity have flourished. Perhaps

7:20

he was a barber, Maybe he was an abortionist

7:23

or a surgeon. Perhaps he wasn't

7:25

Jack at all, but Jill. At

7:28

one point, Queen Victoria was even

7:30

implicated. I realized that

7:32

for generations we've been passing down pure

7:35

myth, and someone needed

7:37

to set the record straight. While

7:41

I couldn't trust much of what had been written about

7:43

their killer, I did manage

7:45

to uncover a wealth of material about the women

7:48

themselves, and they

7:50

weren't at all what I was expecting. Each

7:54

woman was at one time what Victorian

7:56

society would have regarded as respectable.

7:59

Almost all of them had been married, All

8:02

but one of them would mothers. None

8:04

of them came from London's notorious East

8:07

End. Each woman's life was

8:09

extraordinary and unique. They

8:11

began life as the daughters and wives

8:13

of carpenters, gentlemen's valets,

8:16

coachmen, and soldiers. They

8:18

glimpsed Queen Victoria and were neighbors

8:21

of Charles Dickens. They were talented,

8:24

rebellious, brave, and kind

8:26

hearted. Their individual

8:28

journeys threw up all kinds of intriguing

8:30

questions. But to me, there

8:33

was also a larger mystery to be solved

8:35

here. How did these mothers,

8:37

wives and daughters end up as beggars,

8:40

street walkers, addicts, and eventually

8:43

as murder victims. What

8:45

was to blame for their fates? That's

8:48

why this series is called bad

8:50

Women. The Ripper retold. I

8:53

strongly disagreed that they were bad

8:55

women. It wasn't their fault that

8:58

they ended up poor and vulnerable in

9:00

Whitechapel, or that they were targeted

9:02

by a serial killer. And the

9:04

more I learned about what really led

9:06

to their deaths, the angrier

9:09

I got. But more of

9:11

that when we return The

9:32

White Trouble murders might have taken place more than

9:34

one hundred and thirty years ago, but

9:36

how we think about them still matters. Getting

9:39

this story wrong is hurting people

9:42

even today. We'll start

9:44

recording Grace. First

9:46

of all, I want to say, it's just so I'm so pleased

9:49

that I've got you. Thank you for envirotingment.

9:51

Oh, it's absolute pleasure. Oh

9:55

the SNS at the door. This is Grace.

9:57

Oh God, hang on, somebody's

9:59

at the door. Do you want to go? Go get the door. Don't worry.

10:01

She's a graduate and works for a charity.

10:04

She loves dogs. She's also a

10:06

sex worker. Now I think it's next door. Don't worry.

10:08

Abou sure. Sorry. We've

10:11

been messaging each other on social media since

10:13

she read The five, my book about the murdered

10:15

women. Another sex worker recommended

10:17

the book and I was like, well, I don't

10:19

know anything about Jack the Riffer. I remember learning

10:21

about it when I was at school and it was always the old

10:24

archaic. Oh, these prostitutes

10:26

were murdered, and that's all I knew. I didn't

10:28

really know anything else, so I thought, well, I probably

10:30

shouldn't know because I'm a sex worker. It

10:33

was quite eye opening, but also disheartening.

10:36

As Grace worked her way through my research, she

10:38

was struck by the lack of sympathy. The dead

10:40

women were shown. These women sort of deserved

10:43

it or did they expect to happen? You know, they

10:45

were poor, they were prostitutes. But

10:47

I'm still really shocked by these attitudes. And I just

10:49

thought, well, nothing exchanged, nothing

10:52

has changed. Up until

10:54

today, the idea that Jack was killing

10:56

disreputable women has made it easier

10:59

for us to make light of his violence and

11:01

even to treat his murders as a source of entertainment,

11:04

which in turn makes us more callous

11:06

when women like Grace experienced violence. Today,

11:09

if you continue to dehumanize the woman,

11:12

and you'd continue to put them down

11:14

as the prostitute, it's almost

11:16

seen as acceptable to do this because

11:18

it's perfectly fine. The killer sex worker. Oh,

11:21

who cares, you know, let's just glorify the murderer,

11:23

because actually just sex worker, and it's all part

11:25

of history, it isn't. These

11:28

things persist and you're basically victim

11:30

blaming us and saying it's our fault, when actually

11:32

it's the opposite way around. Men

11:35

are violent in society, but they choose

11:37

sex workers because we are the most vulnerable,

11:40

We are the most visible, and people feel

11:42

they can get away with it, so they do it. We've

11:45

never really faced up to this part of the Jack

11:47

the Ripper myth. By being so uninterested

11:50

in their lives, by feeling even to

11:52

double check the details, we push

11:54

the murdered women into the background,

11:57

and given the killer center stage.

12:00

Jack the Ripper has never left us. Jack the Ripper

12:03

has seeped into our culture, and

12:05

we don't really seem to want to get rid of him.

12:08

That's right, joined historian Matthew Sweet.

12:11

He also worries that we've sanitized these

12:13

ghastly murders and cozied up to the killer.

12:16

Jack himself is jolly

12:18

Jack. He's a kind of ghost

12:21

that we've made sort of friends

12:23

with. He's a party entertainer. He'll

12:26

come on and he'll give us a bit of a thrill. Somehow,

12:28

it's fine for children to consume stories

12:30

about him. He's a sort of bogey man. And

12:33

I think that this could only have happened

12:36

because we have absolutely no idea who

12:38

he was, and so into that vacuum

12:41

spills our fears and our fantasies

12:44

and our perverse pleasures

12:46

too. But somehow it's all totally acceptable

12:49

because it's a parlor game. Jack the

12:51

Ripper has become the oddest of things,

12:53

a socially acceptable serial killer.

12:56

And the more you know about his victims, the

12:59

more that seems really wrong. Fine,

13:04

Jack River a commemorative con and Zacano

13:07

classes Thank you, rush Oh Chapter

13:10

for Teddy Bear. Even though no

13:13

one really knows what he looked like. You

13:15

can buy Jack the Ripper Halloween costumes,

13:18

and he's printed on all manner of merchandise

13:20

too, from mugs to coloring

13:22

books and T shirts. How

13:24

much is the T shirt? Okay,

13:27

right, it's all I can dream quite clear. If

13:30

you haven't seen it, it really is the worst, big trush on

13:32

the tour. Every now and again the tour is

13:34

still happily flock from all over

13:37

the world to visit the sights of the murders.

13:39

That's Mary Kelly. He's gotten off

13:41

face the killer. I went under cover to

13:44

join one guided tour and stand

13:46

at the spots where each of the women bled

13:48

to death. That is five was

13:52

as bad as I feared it would be. Blackling

13:55

in between our At the end of

13:57

the tour, after more than an hour

13:59

of gleefully describing the women's

14:01

wounds, the guide even tried

14:03

to sell me a book. It detailed

14:06

his own theory of who the killer was and how

14:08

he evaded the tection. I

14:10

politely declined. I

14:14

currently have over a hundred books about

14:16

Jack the Ripper. Rebecca Frost is

14:18

an expert on true crime literature and

14:20

specifically on how we talk and write

14:22

about Jack the Ripper. In most

14:24

of these books, people are upset that he

14:27

was never caught. They are not upset that

14:29

women were murdered. People want to know

14:32

the killer. They want to understand the killer.

14:34

They want to know what drove him to it, and people

14:36

are really fascinated by the fact that he got

14:38

away with it. Nobody's concerned about

14:40

the women. That's the problem in the

14:42

great game of unmasking the murderer.

14:45

The victims only add to what we know about

14:47

Jack. They are bits of evidence that might

14:49

flesh out his identity. It's

14:51

that half an hour contact between them and the

14:53

killer that makes them interesting. They're intertwined

14:56

with this person who used them for

14:58

his own devices and his own pleasure in his

15:01

own way. They had no say in this whatsoever.

15:03

And that is how you're known for the rest of eternity.

15:06

With advances in forensic technology, interest

15:09

has been rekindled in the women as handy

15:11

sources of DNA to help identify

15:14

Jack. I'll tell you about a bizarre

15:16

and upsetting plan to dig up their corpses

15:18

another time, but I quickly want to mythbust

15:21

one of the sillier scientific stunts

15:23

you might have seen. If you've watched

15:26

any TV show about the White Chapel

15:28

murders, you're bound to have noticed people

15:30

in white lab coats and latex gloves

15:33

taking swab samples from a beautiful,

15:35

dark Paisley shawl. This crops

15:38

up in nearly every documentary. Scientists

15:40

at King's College, London are analyzing the

15:43

material on the chance that the killer's

15:45

DNA may have transferred to the shawl and

15:47

survived. This time,

15:50

it's a show called American Ripper

15:53

and Jeff mudget is having his DNA compared

15:55

to samples from the shawl. Waiting

15:58

for these results has been really nerve racking,

16:00

because if the killer's DNA remained on

16:03

the victim's shawl from the night of her murder,

16:05

this is the evidence that could prove once and for

16:07

all that my aunt's sister h Holps

16:10

was Jack the Ripper. The shawl

16:13

was supposedly found by a policeman

16:15

near the body of one of the Ripper's last victims.

16:18

The murder of Catherine or Kate Edo's

16:21

was particularly vicious, and the fabric

16:23

is said to be covered in her blood. The

16:26

police officer kept the shawl as a souvenir,

16:28

and it's been handed down through the generations

16:31

of his family. This

16:33

could well be the only piece of physical

16:35

evidence left that contains the DNA

16:38

of both a victim and the nameless

16:40

Ripper. It's said that scientific

16:43

analysis has already pointed

16:45

to a suspect, a Whitechapel barber,

16:48

at long last, solving the mystery.

16:52

Where do I start? There's all sorts of issues

16:54

with this. My friend Professor Tory King

16:57

as a leading expert on genetics. She's

16:59

successfully identified human remains

17:02

dating back centuries and centuries,

17:04

and she's less than impressed with the shawl.

17:07

Things to consider, even just at the outset,

17:10

I think, is the provenance of this

17:13

shall. Is it even anything

17:16

to do with Katherine Edo's or

17:18

Jack the Ripper, or any of those cases.

17:21

I can't find any documents saying

17:23

Katherine was found with a shawl, particularly

17:26

not one is fine and delicate as the one

17:29

in question. Did the killer drop

17:31

it unlikely, and the

17:33

policeman said to have taken it wasn't even part

17:35

of the unit investigating Katherine's death.

17:38

The next thing to think about is contamination.

17:42

Because this has been in the

17:44

family for many, many generations,

17:47

It's going to have been handled by numerous

17:49

people. A family heirloom,

17:52

unfolded and taken out to show friends

17:54

and relatives and curious journalists

17:57

and excited TV producers over

17:59

and over and over again. Isn't

18:02

exactly a forensic scientist

18:04

dream fine and the DNA

18:07

supposedly linking Katherine the all

18:09

in the murderous barber. It was reported

18:12

that the sample contained a mutation shared

18:14

by the suspect and passed down to his

18:16

descendants that was unbelievably

18:19

rare, so case closed.

18:22

Then the barber did it and left

18:24

traces of his mitochondrial DNA mutation

18:26

three one four dot one C, an

18:29

identifying mark almost as unique

18:31

as a fingerprint. It's

18:34

not. It's three one five dot

18:36

one C, which is very, very very common

18:39

in the population, something like over

18:41

ninety percent in Europe. It's very very

18:44

common. The shoal is just one

18:46

blind alley in this case. There

18:48

are many others I'll share with you in

18:50

this series, but I've told you about

18:52

this one because I want you to start questioning

18:55

what you've been told about Jack the Ripper

18:58

and the qualifications of the people doing

19:00

the telling. Jack the Ripper is

19:03

one of these cases that does seem

19:05

to bring out certain things in some

19:08

people. Personally wouldn't

19:10

have touched this for the barge pole. By

19:12

the end of this series, I'll have shown you why

19:14

I think the case will never be solved.

19:17

The interesting part that but we can all learn

19:19

from is why these women

19:22

died. They weren't killed because

19:24

they'd engaged in any particular trade

19:26

or activity. They were in harm's

19:28

way simply because they were women

19:31

and because they were poor. Jack

19:33

the Ripper may have killed these women, but

19:35

Victorian society was the accomplice.

19:38

That's the new story I'm going to tell you, and

19:41

it's the one that's made me a lot

19:43

of enemies. The

19:46

Ripper told will return shortly. It

19:58

seems I've committed three unforgivable

20:01

crimes. I've revealed

20:03

that quite a lot of what we're told about Jack

20:05

the Ripper is wrong. I've laid

20:08

out why the case will never be solved,

20:10

and finally, I've shown a light

20:12

on the lives of the victims and asked

20:15

why no one else has really bothered to do

20:17

so before. That's made a lot

20:19

of people very angry. She's

20:23

ignored sources to present her own theories,

20:25

and when questioned, has behaved in a very

20:28

non professional and arrogant way. Just

20:30

my opinion, of course, quasi

20:32

feminist claptrap taking those

20:35

poor women's lives out of context.

20:38

I think Rubinholt can benefit from growing a

20:40

thicker skin like the White Chapel victims

20:42

would have needed. The

20:45

reason a lot of the Jack the Ripper story

20:47

that gets served up is wrong is

20:49

because of people like that. When

20:52

it comes to the examination of most other

20:54

historical events, from the American Revolution

20:56

to the Great Depression, the people publishing

20:59

the books and speaking at conferences

21:01

tend to be qualified historians, economists,

21:04

or archaeologists. Rightly or

21:07

wrongly, most professional historians

21:09

have avoided studying the White Shovel murders,

21:12

and given the abuse I've suffered, I

21:14

can't exactly blame them. That

21:17

means most of the books and articles have been

21:19

written by amateurs who are often

21:21

obsessed with the blood and gore. They

21:24

call themselves ripparologists.

21:27

I do believe that if you call yourself a riparologist,

21:30

you probably should get a real job. This

21:32

is Ginger Frost, a professor at Samford

21:34

University in Alabama. That is

21:37

not a job. Trying to figure out who Jack the Rippery

21:39

is Number one, You're not going to do at a number two who

21:41

cares At this point if we put a name on it, would

21:43

it change it? Would it make any real difference.

21:45

The important thing to think about is the position

21:48

of women and the level of poverty in

21:50

the East End, and the difficulties of

21:52

the police in the nineteenth century. Their forensics were

21:54

terrible. Those are the kinds of things you can learn

21:56

about this, not endlessly

21:59

trying to chase some name to put on this guy.

22:02

He's not that interesting. Believe

22:04

me, Ginger, I've tried to make these

22:07

very points in public. It's

22:09

simple. Have you got any suspects I

22:13

don't care. I

22:17

don't care. Often when

22:19

I give talks about the five women, I have

22:21

ripparologists coming along to tell me I'm

22:23

wrong. There is professional

22:26

prostitution customer. You

22:30

need to read mine. On

22:33

the other hand, some ripparologists confine

22:35

themselves to being nasty about me and my work

22:37

and Facebook groups and on Twitter. Threads

22:40

have appeared on online forums too, attacking

22:43

me personally and tearing into my research.

22:46

One of those threads is now over two

22:48

hundred pages long. And

22:51

don't bother trying to amend the Wikipedia

22:53

page on the murders. Any reference

22:55

to my work gets deleted straight away.

22:58

My personal favorite, though, is a podcast

23:02

rippercast. It compared

23:04

me to a Holocaust

23:06

denier. People have course

23:09

to flawed methodologists, like

23:12

those adopted by people who

23:14

thinked deny the Holocaust. We

23:17

had below the threshold for historical

23:19

responsibility at that point. One prominent

23:22

repparologist, a retired policeman

23:24

called Trevor Marriott, is particularly

23:27

upset that in my work I don't describe

23:29

every cut and slash of the actual

23:32

murders. It thanks a false picture

23:34

of the Ripper mystery and the Rapper

23:36

investigation. In fact, Trevor

23:39

got very angry on Twitter just before

23:41

International Women's Day. He was

23:43

annoyed about what he saw as feminism

23:46

creeping into his hobby. I

23:48

have no flawed view of women, he tweeted,

23:51

other than you need us men because

23:53

vibrators can't cut the grass.

23:56

It was a jokingly comical off

23:58

the cuff remark, which,

24:01

in my opinion, has got blown up beyond

24:03

the proportion. The comment was made

24:05

that in relation to a

24:08

man in a that normally in

24:10

relationships it's the men that cut the grass.

24:13

Trevor and many other reparologists

24:16

seem to see themselves as gatekeepers,

24:19

the owners of the facts. About Jack

24:21

the ripper. I trespassed

24:23

on their territory and dared to talk

24:25

about the women, and to add

24:27

insult to injury. I didn't

24:29

even ask their permission. I think the

24:32

response she's received is fully justified.

24:35

Perhaps if Hallie Ha'd have taken the time

24:37

to speak to somebody like me

24:39

or somebody else that is fairly

24:42

knowledgeable about these crimes, it

24:44

may well have given her a much wider

24:46

perspective. Even

24:49

if you do have the patients to engage with riparology,

24:52

it can be like banging your head against a

24:54

brick wall. I think I changed my email,

24:56

and I also left Facebook.

24:58

We decided to cut loose and that was it. Neil

25:01

Sheldon's written about the women too, and

25:03

his work has been a useful resource for me.

25:05

He spent twenty eight years in the riparology

25:08

community before leaving it. He

25:11

remembers going to an exhibition about the murders

25:13

and getting into an argument with another ripparologist

25:16

about how victims like Kate Edo's were

25:18

being represented. He said, I'm

25:21

sorry, but I really cannot see

25:23

how the victims have been ignored. There are

25:25

several pages from Edo's inquest papers

25:27

on display, including the list

25:29

of Edo's possessions. Now, as far as

25:31

I'm concerned, that suggests that what he

25:34

believes is that Edo's life story

25:36

can be summed up by the fact that she had

25:38

a kidney removed and that she was

25:40

mutilated. That to me sums

25:43

up a lot of how reparology people feel

25:46

just unbelievable. I tell you all this not

25:48

to get even with my critics, but so that

25:50

you know why the story of the White Couple murders

25:53

has been so badly told up

25:55

until now. The people telling it often

25:58

don't know what they're doing. They

26:00

aren't very good at historical research, and

26:02

they often flunk when they try to involve science.

26:05

Remember the shawl and the rare not rare

26:07

DNA very very very

26:09

common. And also, and

26:12

it pains me to say it, I get

26:14

the feeling that a lot of the people who are deeply

26:16

interested in Jack the Ripper aren't

26:18

all that keen on women. For

26:21

me, the worst aspect was just

26:23

the sort of casual misogyny of it all,

26:26

the ranking of the victims. It's

26:28

just the way they talked about them. Like Neil

26:31

Melanie Clegg also fled riproology,

26:34

and yes, you heard her right, She

26:36

says some rippologists rank the

26:38

murder victims in order of their

26:40

physical attractiveness. The reason

26:43

I left ripprology was actually just

26:45

someone who made a really disgusting rape

26:47

joke on Facebook, and that was for

26:49

me the final straw. I presume

26:52

that's why a lot of the story has never been

26:54

told, right, Why the women and the

26:56

vital part they play in this fascinating

26:58

historical event have been misrepresented

27:01

or forgotten. The only

27:03

people telling the story wanted it

27:06

that way. They didn't think the women

27:08

were worthy effort. I mean,

27:10

the public face is all the tours, the

27:12

conference, the articles, they've

27:15

all written, books, they really underline

27:17

the fact that it's an academic thing

27:20

that they could all be, you know, proper historians,

27:23

if any of them are gone to school. But the undercurrent

27:26

is very prurient and

27:29

it's just awful. They do talk a lot

27:31

about, oh, you know, maybe we should have more women

27:33

in ripparology and staff, but you

27:36

know, most reasonable women just aren't gonna stick

27:39

around for that sort of thing. So

27:43

that's the myth out of the way, and

27:45

now we'll turn to the real job at hand. I'm

27:48

going to introduce you to Polly Annie,

27:51

Elizabeth Kate, and Mary

27:53

Jane You'll learn how these

27:56

five very different individuals

27:58

navigated a world which was inherently

28:01

hostile to women and the underclass.

28:03

They weren't angels, but neither were

28:06

they the labels that Victorian society and

28:08

our own culture has hung on them. You'll

28:11

meet a cast of historians, criminologists,

28:13

crime writers and more who will

28:15

help me reveal how laws around

28:18

wages, health, divorce, and addiction

28:20

put these women, and in fact all

28:22

women, at a huge disadvantage.

28:25

I'll show you where things have changed and

28:28

where things are still frustratingly

28:30

the same. The stories

28:33

of these women will blow your mind,

28:36

and I promise you this, after

28:38

hearing them, you will never see

28:40

the case of Jack the Ripper in quite

28:43

the same way again. You

28:46

can start right away. Episode two is

28:48

available to download. Now, come

28:50

with me back to Whitechapel on an

28:53

August day in eighteen eighty eight, when

28:55

Jack the Ripper's campaign of terror is

28:58

about to begin. Bad

29:09

Women the Ripper Were Told is brought to you by Pushkin

29:12

Industries and me Hallie Ribbinhold,

29:14

and is based on my book The Five. It

29:17

was produced and co written by Ryan Dilley and

29:19

Alice Fines, with help from Pete Norton.

29:22

Pascal Wise sound designed and mixed

29:24

the show and composed all the original

29:26

music. You also heard the voice

29:28

talents of Soul Boyer, Melanie

29:30

Guttridge, Gemma Saunders, and rufus

29:32

Wright. The show also wouldn't

29:34

have been possible without the work of Mia La Belle,

29:37

Jacob Weisberg, Gen Guerra, Heather

29:40

Fane, Carlie Migliori, Maggie

29:42

Taylor, Nicole Morano and

29:44

Daniella La Khan were special

29:47

thanks to my agents Sarah Ballard

29:49

and Ellie Karn.