Bad Women: The Ripper Retold Trailer

In late 1888, five women were brutally murdered in a slum neighborhood of London. The violent killer earned himself a nickname - Jack the Ripper. But everything you think you know murders and those murdered women is wrong.

In a new 15-part series, historian Hallie Rubenhold tells you the real story of those victims and how they came to be in the path of a serial killer - completely overturning the Ripper story we've been told up until now.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
It's a bad habit we have we tell the tale
of the murderer and not the murdered. The clock on
White Chapel Church was striking half past two when Ellen
Holland watched her friend Polly Nicholls sway off into the darkness.
Polly was drunk, penniless, and broken. She was inconsequential in

(00:34):
the minds of most people she met, But she was
about to cross paths was some one who would give
her a grisly, unenviable place in history. In the autumn
of eighteen eighty eight, Polly and four other women were
brutally killed in a slum neighborhood of London. Their unsolved

(00:55):
murders were so violent, so cruel, that their killer earned
a nickname that is still known the world over. I'm
down on halls and are sha'n't quick ripping them? Jack
the Ripper? But in the greatest cold case in history,

(01:17):
few of us have stopped to question the basic facts.
One fact that you know about chr. Ripper that he
never got caught and who did he kill? Prostitutes? I'm
Hallie rubbin Hold as a historian interested in the stories
of women, I'd assume the lives of the five victims

(01:39):
had been thoroughly researched long ago. I was wrong when
I dug into the records. I began to reveal rich
and interesting lives. Most of the time women leave if
they're being beaten to a pulp or he put out
an eye, lives blighted by problems and prejudices. Most women
today would recognize. There wasn't a great deal of sympathy

(02:01):
for alcoholics, so one had to sign a temperance pledge
saying I will not drink. If only it were so simple.
I identified with the women, sympathized with the tough life
choices they made, and admired their determination. She gets on
the boat and comes to England. She seeks why the horizons.
I came to know them and like them. She wants

(02:23):
more than she's been born into. But I also discovered
something else, something new, something troubling. It was just so
obvious to me the very first time I looked at
this file. How could we have gotten this this wrong
for this many years? And something that chips away at
the foundations of the ripper myth nam shure, all of
you here today, do you know that Jack's victims were ladies?

(02:45):
Of the night, weren't they They were forced to choose
the myth still served up by tour guides to visitors
who flocked the murder scenes each evening. And now, ladies,
you might be thinking, well, I'd never think that work ever,
but didn't Okay, Well, certainly the answer is yes, Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine,

(03:07):
and Mary Jane were not killed while selling sex. It
was other, no less troubling factors that put them in
the path of their murderer. In this podcast, I'll tell
you how I know that and why it still matters
very much even today. Kelly has upset the world of
rippology by her general attitude towards ripparologists. I'll also explain

(03:31):
why my research has enraged so many people who claimed
to be experts in the Ripper case. The attacks have
just been relentless and malicious, But actually I think they
just don't really want other people talking about the murdered
women and challenging their views in any way. If you
want to know how we got the Ripper story so wrong,

(03:54):
what those mistakes tell us about ourselves, and why putting
the record straight makes some people so very me angry,
join me. Hallie rubin Hold for bad women. The Ripper
Retold starting October five, wherever you get your podcasts,