February 13, 2025 • 50 mins
There are at least five murders attributed to "Jack the Ripper".
- Mary Ann Nichols: The first confirmed victim, murdered on August 31, 1888
- Annie Chapman: Murdered on September 8, 1888
- Elizabeth Stride: Murdered on September 30, 1888
- Catherine Eddoweson: Murdered on September 30, 1888
- Mary Jane Kelly: Murdered on November 9, 1888
Some people believe there were victims prior to August 31, 1888, and after November 9, 1888. That is a discussion for a different day. Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack discuss the evidence that includes DNA from one of the victims as well as a possible suspect and how working with genealogists led investigators to the only person that could have provided the DNA found on the shawl of Catherine Eddoweson. Case Solved!
Transcript Highlights
00:00.46 Introduction of Jack The Ripper case
04:02.28 Joe Scott describes time in London
09:11.12 Immigration impact
13:35.86 Murders included in the Jack the Ripper case
18:35.25 Studying the case
22:25.38 Developing skills with knife
28:47.48 Suspect described - leather apron
34:15.31 Ripper Case sold a lot of news papers
38:55.85 DNA from Shawl
43:45.68 Victim and suspect DNA evidence
49:28.75 Suspect was "hair dresser" as well as barber
50:13.83 Conclusion
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Quody Balus, but Joseph's gotten more. I travel a lot
now at this stage of my life. You think that
it's going to be kind of the opposite. You know
that you would slow down maybe the more miles you
get on your tires. But for me that's sped up,
(00:24):
and I go to go to Great Britain a lot now,
you know, a couple of times a year. It seems
I'd be going back again in June. As a matter
of fact, for crime con The thing that's so attractive
to me about London and Great Britain in general is
(00:45):
how ancient it is from our sensibilities, not if you're
a Greek obviously, but anxient enough. And one area in
London in particular is notable cause of maybe some infamous
things you've heard about it relative to homicide, but because
(01:08):
an old Roman road ran through it. As a matter
of fact, that old Roman road made up the outer
defenses of what was once called not London but Londonium,
which is the old Roman settlement right along the Thames
River that runs through the middle of London. Today we're
(01:33):
going to talk about something I think in our modern
minds it seems ancient, but really wasn't that long ago,
just over one hundred years ago that happened that since
shockwaves through London and by that measure, around the world,
and that is the murders that occurred in Whitechapel. Those
(01:57):
murders have been famously connected to one individual that went
by the name of Jack the Ripper, And the question
is has his identity as this perpetrator been finally positively identified.
(02:19):
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is bodybacks David no
a priddle on and on about Great Britain and my
travels over there, and probably get tired of hearing about it.
I just wish I could drag you along with me.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Much to do it.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
I think we'd have a glorious time. But you know,
this last time that Kimmy and I were in London
for Crome Con, we'll see it would be the London
Crome Con twenty twenty four. We stayed adjacent to where
(03:04):
the meeting was being held, but we stayed over a
few extra days because I went and visited universities while
I was there, and we wound up staying in Whitechapel.
And I got to tell you, I know you're gonna
laugh at me. We did a lot of touristy things
because I'd never spent time in Whitechapel and all of
my visits to London. So with that said, let me
(03:28):
tell you what we did that was kind of touristy.
I love fish and chips, I do. It's better than
any kind of American fast food. I love fish anyway.
And you get these big, deep fried, golden pieces of heaven,
you know, and you put the malt vinegar on it
(03:49):
and maybe a little tartar sauce and just one the
pieces are so big, just one piece of fish will
satisfy you. And it's golden brown, you know. And of
course they're famous for their chips, which are not chips,
they're French fries. And then here's the other thing that
Kim is like really into mushy peas, which are English
(04:11):
peas that are mashed up with a bit of onion
and garlic salting our garlic powder, I think in them,
and they're almost like mashed potatoes, and everybody eats them
and it's an interesting combination.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
And I do not have a palette that would survive
that just saying.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Well, I got it. The reason I'm telling you this
the restaurant that we went to, which is right on
the main drag through the middle of White Chapel where
Jack the Ripper probably strode about. The name of the
chip stand is actually called you ready for this, Jack
the Chipper, Jack the Chipper. So you know, we went
(04:58):
there like I don't know, three times and eight and
it was always late at night because their days ran
so long, and you're always kind of in a funk anyway,
because the time changed your body. It takes a while
for your body to get adjusted. For me, it does,
particularly at this age. But the other indulgence that I
that I have is I love going to the Turkish
(05:20):
barber shop. And Turkish barbers are all over Great Britain
and they're amazing at what they do. You know, everything
from the hot towel around your face to you know,
the shave with an actual straight razor, which is you know,
kind of I don't know, kind of interesting. In Whitechapel,
(05:41):
what do you put it that way? And you really
get tended to. They even give you a glass of whiskey.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
You probably need that just to survive the fear factor
of going in in the Whitechapel where Jack the ripper
is known worldwide, and you got a guy with a.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah and scissors. So anyway, the name of the name
of the barber is called Jack the Clipper. And so
I've got pictures. I'll post them of my social media.
So we went there, and but you know, when we
went back to the barbershop, Dave, this is when it
(06:22):
kind of hit me because the roads streets, I say roads,
but the streets that you run through they're paved, obviously,
but every now and then you'll see a crack in
the asphalt and you'll see the old cobblestones that are
immediately beneath. And just for a moment in my own
(06:42):
crazy mind, you can hear the clatter of horse hoofs,
or you can hear the sound of a buggy, you know,
kind of rumbling down the street. And the streets are
still very dark. It's very very dark, and everything is
kind of closed in. And yeah, it's obviously more illuminated
than it was back in the eighteen eighties, but just
(07:05):
for a moment, Tom, you can appreciate what a kind
of interesting environment it would have been in, particularly if
you're working as a prostitute turning tricks out there on
these dark looks, and there's these little cubby holes that
kind of extend. They're kind of like little back alleys,
(07:25):
and they would actually apply their trade. And not to
be too inappropriate, but you know, these prostitutes would many
times conduct their trades standing against a wall, you know,
with a john that would come along and either that
or they would take them back to and here's an
(07:48):
interesting bit of trivia as well, take them back to
their crib. And we hear, you know, we've heard the
word crib in the modern vernacular for ever and ever,
we're going to go back to the crib. Well, you know,
the or know the word crib as it applies to
a dwelling actually goes to prostitution. The prostitutes had cribs
(08:09):
that they would go to, that's what they referred to
them as. And a lot of these prostitutes had babies,
you know, they would be you know, in a crib,
within the crib in the same room while they're turning tricks.
It was a different world back then. And I hope
that I've kind of painted the picture from my you know,
(08:29):
through my own two eyes here relative to the best
that I can kind of target in for those that
have never been there. A lot of interesting little areas
and alcoves in Whitechapel, and you know, you've got big
businesses that have popped up headquarters for all kinds of
(08:50):
people there, lad Bible, which is internationally known. Actually I
did an interview on lad Bible taped it there just
adjacent to Whitechapel. Their studios are there. But you've also
got a large traditional and I'm saying not recent, but
traditional immigrant community. This is one of the first places
where people from Bangladesh that was part of the British
(09:14):
Empire came to the UK and set up businesses and
have restaurants and all these sorts of things. And then
there was a large Jewish population that was also also
part of this environment, along with other nationalities. So it
was we talked about being a melting pot here in America.
I don't think that people really realize the comings and
(09:37):
goings of immigrants in London because it's all long before
we ever existed as a country here in the US.
Great Britain has always been an international city and they
would hop right off the boat off the Thames, which
by the way, is I'm not going to say it's
a Stone's Throw. But as you start heading south, Whitechapel
(09:58):
is on the north shore of the Thame, and as
you start heading south and kind of southwest, you run
right into the Tower of London Day where you know,
people were held in prison and all that sort of thing.
This is an ancient, ancient area. It's where the city
actually kind of began all those you know, hundreds and
(10:18):
hundreds of years ago. So this kind of dark specter
that has always lingered over this area of London, it's
not necessarily surprising that something so ghastly would happen there,
and certainly by by the standards of those days, you know,
you had violence, but to the level that Jack the
(10:40):
Ripper quote unquote perpetrated these crimes, not nothing like this.
This is why it kind of grabbed the attention of
all of the you know, the newspapers and you know
rags of that day, you know, because everything was really
over the top with these events and people think, you
(11:03):
know that people think that Jack the Ripper was limited
to five to seven victims. It was actually there was
there was what was called the White Chapel murders. It
goes under different names. They actually extended out to eighteen
ninety one, there were actually eleven victims, but not all
(11:25):
of them had the same mo as Jack the Ripper.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
And that's why what made him think that those were
part and parcel of this. Because the five Ripper cases
that we're going to talk about actually do have a
number of similarities. But what about the other ones? Are
they dramatically different or just not? Were they earlier or later?
Did you say they were later? Okay?
Speaker 1 (11:47):
And so I think that some people kind of believe
that perhaps they were in a way of thinking, they
may have been kind of a cop cat type of event,
you know, that kind of went along with the narrative
of of Jack the Ripper. Now, there was one case
(12:10):
that occurred, I think it was like April the third,
eighteen eighty eight. Yeah, the ones that and that's kind
of outside of the descriptors for the actual Jack the
Ripper cases, which you know, I think ran pretty much
through the month of September of eighteen eighty eight and
wound up going I think the final one that they
(12:32):
really truly tagged him with was in November of night.
So they actually occurred over a very short period of time.
But you had other ones, You had other ones that
involved things like strangulation. You know what I'm saying, that
didn't necessarily necessarily fit the mo You had one of
(12:55):
the victims that was essentially gain raped, and they just
didn't fit them.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
And you know what they did with that one, you
mentioned the gang. You know, they actually tried that one
and ended up attributing it. They even though it didn't
match up, there was no evidence or anything else. They
they I think were like caught up in the swell
of the two and I think they just added it
to it because they didn't have a solved crime with it.
You know, it was a gang and it was because
(13:24):
I read up on those It was so funny, funny,
strange because when they had this one, it was different,
and yet they took it to trial.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Yeah, and you know, here's an interesting thing, David, you
know this area, I've been uh, you know, I've been
kind of you know with my amusements about this and
being kind of lighthearted. But these are real people, you know,
were real real people, and these were really you know, violent,
(13:55):
violent events that affected it. But you know, one of
the things, and this is kind of a thread that
runs through a lot of a lot of cases, even
now to this day, these were the poorest of the poor.
I mean, this was a slum area. And you know,
sometimes you know, I've talked to police officers that police
and really impoverished areas, and it's not necessarily that the
(14:20):
police don't want to do anything about it. Many times
it's because the people that are let's see that should
be the governmental benefactors of the individual that are intigen
and poor, don't put resources and nothing. You know, they say,
nothing's new under the sun. So the fact that these
(14:40):
poor women who were turning tricks in dark alleys, uh,
you know, with their babies maybe there and that sort
of thing. You know, they're they're forgotten, easily forgotten. Now
that this has happened adjacent to Buckingham Palace, uh, you know,
we it very well may have been a for an
outcome and it may have ceased a lot quicker. Here's
(15:03):
an interesting little aside too, and I you know, look,
I got to interject a little bit of my background
relative to working serial deaths, Dave. I've only been involved
in one set of serialized homicides where they weren't prostitutes,
and that was a group of elderly ladies that had
been strangled and sexually assault and strangled to death. Every
(15:27):
other series, whether it was in New Orleans or Atlanta
over the course of my career, always always involved prostitutes
every single time, So, you know, going back to the
old adage of nothing new under the sun. I've never
had cases though, like the Ripper where you had individuals
(15:51):
that were mutilated, and mutilation plays a big part in this,
and that's I think that that was really the start
of what was going on. The cases that I worked
primarily dealt with manual strangulation, literature strangulation, or execution style
gunshot wents to the back of the head. But they
were all to a person. Prostitutes I never worked. I
(16:12):
know a lot of I've had colleagues, you know, that
have worked cases over the years. You think of the
Golden State Killer out West obviously, where you had just
just random people that were being killed in their homes
Ted Bundy, for instance. Those poor women were not prostitutes,
you know, primarily young college students, those sorts of things.
(16:35):
But for me, and I think that a lot of
people that work in death investigation most are going to
be and it's that they're so easily targeted and that
they're attaining some kind of thrill off of this that
is the perpetrator and they're easily victimized. And again that
cycles back to this idea that it makes the cases
somewhat very difficult to solve. And of course, here we
(16:58):
are all these years later, Dave, from the eighteen eighties
to as we're taping right now, twenty twenty five, where
these cases still give us pause to scratch our head
and maybe, just maybe, as a result of recent information,
(17:18):
we're one step closer to solving one of the biggest
true crime mysteries of all time. Had the opportunity, and
(17:41):
I've mentioned this man before, to work with a fellow
named William Eckert. Doctor Eckert was a forensic pathologist, rather
famous in his time, and doctor Eckert, toward the end
of his career, well, I guess it was kind of
later mid range of his career, traveled all over the
(18:04):
world consulting on cases. And one of the one of
the cases that he did are cases plural, that he
consulted on was Jack the Ripper, And you know, he
was I think probably one of the first people to
visit Scotland yard He took a look at a lot
of the evidence that still existed, police reports, those sorts
(18:27):
of things, and you know, visited sites and this is back,
I think in the nineteen seventies, and he drew some
conclusions during that period of time. And I remember asking,
because I'd never really had a huge overriding interest in
the Ripper cases. I just and when you work, when
you're working in death investigation, it's like, it's not like
(18:50):
people that do death investigation as a profession sit around
and watch through crime. It's not like, you know, it's
a busman's holiday. It's not something that we're necessarily interested in.
But because he had been drawn into it, I was
We had just finished up an autopsy one day, and
I remember asking doctor Eckert, specifically doctor Eckert, I'm fascinated
(19:13):
by the fact that you went to Great Britain and
that you've consulted with Scotland Yard on the Ripper cases.
You know, a few years back. I said, what's your
overwriting opinion here? You know what you believe? And he
told me at that time, and I think that this
was probably pretty widely known, but to hear it coming
(19:33):
from him, a guy that works with scalpels and dissecting
knives and scissors every single day of his life and
had at that point in time, for over thirty years.
He pointedly said to me, this guy was skilled with
edged weapons based upon everything that he had seen, and
(19:56):
that you know that really, I'm not going to say
it's sent a chill up my spine, but it did
give me an insight I think into what those people
may have been looking at back then, and it you know,
I think that we're all of us would be fools
to assume that they didn't have violent crime back then.
They didn't have people that were mutilated. A lot of
(20:18):
people carried knives. They didn't just carry knives merely to
protect themselves. They carried knives because they were integral in
day to day life, you know, cutting things and prying things.
People carried knives back then, so it would not have
been unusual for somebody to carry a knife. But when
you begin to think about skill that goes to training,
(20:42):
doesn't it. It goes to a certain touch, if you will.
And so when doctor Eckert said that to me, it
really kind of grabbed me.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Well, Joe, when we look at these the five specific
ripper murders that all showed a talent medically speaking, that's
a pretty big deal when you're looking at the eighteen eighties,
it's not like what we have now with the education
we have. You've walked me through how medical schools have
(21:15):
come to be and what is and isn't expected from
back then. But what kind of a person would develop
these kind of skills that would not be known to
law enforcement? I mean, you mentioned barber, but is there
any other field where a person would develop the kind
of biological knowledge necessary to be able to do this.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
There's a plethora of them. Anybody that worked in anybody
that worked in a butcher shop, anybody that worked in
a slaughterhouse. For those of you that have never been
to slaughterhouse, which I have been, it's if you think
that morgs are ghastly, you cannot imagine carnage on an
(22:04):
assembly line level. And I've I've you know, I've I've
been to you know, chicken slaughterer houses. I've been to
hog hog uh slaughter houses, and it's it's something to
behold on it. And when you're holding a knife in
your hand, uh, you you just develop a skill set.
It's like swinging a golf club or a baseball bat,
(22:25):
or even using a sewing needle. It's just it's uh,
or if you're a cobbler, uh, working on shoes. I
don't know. Do cobbler still exist? I think they do.
They do. Yeah, but you know, it's just not to
say the cobblers, you know what I'm just saying. It's
just a skill set. You know that like cobbling with shoes,
you know, taking soles off and all that stuff. You've
(22:46):
become really good with hammers, right, you become really good
with tax and nails and all that sort of stuff.
And so yeah, we've got you know, we've got groups
of individuals that work at slaughterhouses. And there there were
open markets. As a matter of fact, one of the
biggest markets in in London is immediately adjacent to Whitechapel.
(23:07):
As a matter of fact, it was that particular market
supplied the royal family with a lot of their goods
and they would slaughter animals, you know, right there. So
you've got those individuals. It wasn't done in some distant
location where to be trucked in, because they didn't truck
stuff in back then. You had to do it there
because they knew that the meat would ride. Then, of course,
(23:30):
you know you had mentioned you had mentioned barbers. Well,
there's a long tradition of barbers going back hundreds and
hundreds of years where these individuals were not just there
to cut your hair, but they were also there to
do surgeries as well. That's one of the significance of
(23:51):
the barber pole. You know, the white stripe, the blue stripe,
and the red stripe. Every time you see that, those
colors are emblematic of different skills sets, and that poll
goes back a long long time, and that was to
give people an indication that if you, you know, if
you need a tumor removed from your neck, or if
you need a trim, come on in, we'll take care
(24:14):
of it. We'll take care of it. That puts the
whole jack the clipper thing all in a new perspective,
doesn't it. They did not offer to do surgery on
me there, but I have no doubt that they would
have been rather skilled. And then you have those that
are involved in medicine day, you had surgeons and for
(24:36):
many years there was a through line, a thread that
ran through everything that gave you an indication that well,
a lot of people have opined over the years. Everybody's
got an opinion. You know, that this was some kind
of maniac surgeon that was running about. And one of
(24:56):
the indications was that I think either one or two
of the women had had their wombs removed. And that's
that's a you know, that's a very specific anatomical feature
that you're looking for. And by the way, having worked
in the morgue all those years, the two see how
(25:18):
can I put this in order to remove female internal
sex organs is not something that's easily undertaken without a
level of skill, you know what I'm saying. It's something
that it takes a bit. Well, first off, you have
to have specific anatomical knowledge, and not to say that
(25:41):
the uterus the womb is not located approximating the same
location say in a hog or you know, in some
other goat or sheep. But you know, with the way
our anatomical orientation is set up, it's a bit different,
and that specific, that specific organ in and of itself,
(26:06):
a lot can be implied. Well, you know, some people
thought that, you know, if the womb is being removed,
that it would be for some type of medical purpose.
Perhaps I don't know what that might be. Maybe it
was just an exploration of female anatomy. But Dave, you
know now kind of understanding just at a baseline for
(26:28):
you and I both because neither one of us are
forensic psychologists. That's if this wasn't sexualized enough, that's very sexualized.
And then what are you going to do with it
once you get it? Are you in it?
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Is it? Is it a trophy? I mean precisely, But
let me ask you something quickly because I'm concerned that
you know, we're talking about an intense knowledge driven anatomical
you know, pulling out of something, and yet we're talking
about Whitechapel, which is dark, dank, scary at its best.
(27:03):
So when doing this type of carnage require light to
do it, I mean, when you need to have enough
light to see what you were doing.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Well, brother, that goes to skill again, right, I mean,
I'm not saying that there are people out there that
could do surgery in the dark, however, or autopsy in
the dark. First off, I've cut myself many times at autopsies.
I'd certainly be missing a finger. You know if you
(27:34):
try to do it in the dark, but you know
you still have. It's that tactile nature. So let's just
say they're using I don't know if that area was electrified.
I doubt that it was at that early on. I
would imagine street lights were probably I'm sure that they
had gas lamps at that point in time, but you know,
you're still talking about I guess they could have had.
(27:57):
I can't imagine the poorest of the poor in the
slum having access to a gas line coming into a crib,
you know, a prostitute. And some of these women were
found in yards, Dave. They're founding yards and alleyways. They're
not necessarily found within the crib itself. So to have
them kind of lying about that goes to your point,
(28:20):
doesn't it. This was done outdoors at night with whatever
this individual is carrying on their person. And here's another
interesting tidbit to all of this. It's this idea of
the leather apron. You know, because you've got many of
(28:42):
the prosecutes that were interviewed at that particular time had
stated that whoever this individual was, he he has a
rather hair suit, mustache, and he's wearing a leather apron. Well,
who wear who in the world would wear a leather apron. Well,
(29:02):
back then you didn't. I mean, they had vulcanized rubber.
But you know, in the Morgue people wore rubber aprons,
but not back then, people all wore leather. Surgeons wore
leather aprons, if not cloth, something that they could take
off and be washed, but leather aprons even I've seen
images of them from the Civil War, for instance, and
(29:26):
there are things that can be you can apply water
and soap to it and just kind of wash it off.
And butchers wore leather aprons. Medical professionals probably wore leather aprons.
I think the big question is would a barber wear
a leather apron or would they merely wear some kind
of overcoat, you know, or like almost like a lab coat.
(29:51):
But I would suspect that many of them wore leather aprons. Well,
why would you want to do that? And why would
that individual be walking around? Who's gonna you know, I
guess if you saw somebody back then with a leather
apron on walking about, you would assume that there's some
kind of tradesmen right that they're you know, uh, that
they're going from, you know, wherever it is they make
(30:13):
barrels or make shoes, or or maybe working a butcher
in a slaughterhouse, they're going to wear a leather apron.
But that, you know that that goes to the idea
that the individuals trying to protect their clothing and trying
to protect themselves from from being splashed with blood, not
that they necessarily had the DNA h Carl Einstein or
(30:33):
hadn't even come a wrong yet to invent blood typing,
that that would be a couple of decades later. You
know it, You're you're you're trying to protect your clothing
so that you don't get uh, you know, spattered with
blood at that point in time. So you've got these
little threads that kind of run run along with this
(30:55):
individual where you're looking at the subject that would have
done it. And we can talk all day about motivation.
Is it is it an individual that and I think
that we you and I both day can answer in
the affirmative that absolutely hated women because we don't have
any male victims. There's no male victims that we know
(31:18):
about from that period of time that are disemboweled, which
we have. We've got throat throats being cut, we've got
disfigurement in one where it's just ghastly. If you've ever
seen some of the images where they're twisted and mangled,
I mean, and and the amount, the amount of trauma
(31:39):
that these poor souls were subjected to, Dave, this would
take a copious amount of time to do this. This
is not like something that where you stick a knife
into their throat or slit their throat and then walk away.
(32:01):
This is somebody that truly truly hated these women. Who
knows what this kind of seed of evil was that
you know, kind of endwell this, but I do know
this that with every slice, with every cut, with every puncture,
with every mutilation, with every droplet of blood that was
(32:24):
found pulled in the yards, in the rooms and on
the streets of Whitechapel, that stain to this day, it
still exists. Dave. I'm viewing you here on the camera
(32:57):
and Bubba looks like you've got a fresh haircut.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
You thank you your hair.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
You look good man. I got to tell you, yeah,
dude's got a great, great crown of white hair. I'll
tell you what. Well, Uh, there's a barber we're going
to talk about.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Me and Santa have great hair. On her head and
great bellies above our way. So there you go.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Oh man, come on, old belly. Uh yet the barber
we're going to talk about is a fellow named Aaron Kasminsky,
and he is known to have been a Polish immigrant.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Can I add something here very quickly?
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Yeah? Sure, all right.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
It's something I didn't know about the story until you
and I started talking about and we talked about it
from the end and going back that there was a
lot of press coverage of these murders. There was a
lot of chatter social media. Would have been said of Twitter,
although people might not have used Twitter, but you know
what I mean. It was a much talked about thing.
(34:01):
They were constantly throwing out ideas and the media was
highly involved in sharing rumors and drawings of people that
were victimized or possible suspects. This was a case that
drew a lot of attention and sold a lot of papers.
And in looking at what some of the investigators did
to try to find, you know, a solution, they it
(34:25):
was just amazing to me. This was not something that
when you mentioned it earlier. First of all, it only
lasted a couple of months, you know, in these five
main ones. Now, the others could certainly be part of it,
but just these five. We're talking from August thirty first
to November the ninth in eighteen eighty eight. That's not
a very big window. And I don't assume that mary
(34:49):
Ann Nichols was butchered the way she was as a
first attack. And it just seems like they did escalate
from there. From Maryann Nichols attack to Annie Chapman's attack
to Elizabeth Stride, each one got progressively different and worse.
But there was that dread running through that tied them
all together. So there's got to be more.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
I'm thinking, yeah, yeah, I think that there has to be.
And there's a boldness that, you know that kind of
sets in with this, but you know, in in the
modern context now, I think that for us, what's so
striking about this recent news that has dropped. Not only
(35:32):
do we have a person that is named now because
of one alleged sampling that has been done relative to
a genetic finding, this Aaron Kominsky, but we have to
(35:53):
think about the source, you know, where did this come from.
We've got this connection now from DNA linkage from a
shawl that was possessed and owned by essentially the fifth
victim from September thirtieth, eighteen eighty eight, Catherine Edwardson and Dave.
(36:21):
I've seen the shawl. The shawl. You know, the shawl
is nothing like I thought that it would look like
because I was thinking, you know, when I think shawl,
I think kind of a loose woven you know, kind
of what am I saying? Almost looks like an Afghan
(36:41):
I guess kind of, you know what I'm saying, It's
not like that. The shawl is actually even today I'm
actually sitting here, you know, taking a look at this
thing is actually quite beautiful. It's a it's in two colors.
(37:02):
It's tightly, tightly woven. I would imagine that this that
this shawl is primarily made of wool, and you know,
Great Britain was known for the wool trade, and it's
been dyed. It's in two different colors. One color is
this striking kind of light blue color, and the rest
(37:25):
of it there's a distinctive dividing line that has almost
a silky looking appearance to it, that's a copper tone
to it. And it's it's tightly woven. It's it's literally
something that if you put it around your shoulders, you're
not going to uh, you're not going to fill the breeze.
(37:51):
If you will the cold kind of seeping through. It's
quite lovely actually to see. So when I think about out.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
The h the deposition of any kind of of DNA
or biological evidence that might be found on there, you
could see how it could get down into those really
tightly woven fibers and be retained.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Here's here's kind of the interesting thing though, it's through
this shawl. And by the way, this this individual's uh
Russell Edwards is his name. Who is the actual owner
of the shawl?
Speaker 2 (38:28):
And was this something passed down? Was he related or
is a body auction?
Speaker 1 (38:32):
That's the one. That's the one trick to this that
I've been unable to kind of put together succinctly. I
do know that this this journey starts back in two
thousand and six, so we're talking now, uh to two
decades I guess now, well one almost two decades since
(38:54):
this journey kind of started. Relative to this, this this item,
you know, what's the provenance of this? How did he
actually come into possession of this? And he started looking
at attempting because he knew what he had was connected
(39:14):
to a victim. You know, you would think that something
like a shawl like this would be retained, you know,
by the Metropolitan Police, which is Scotland yard. But you
know how many thousands and thousands of crimes have they
had that involve physical evidence? Since anybody wondering eighteen eighty
(39:37):
something's there's not enough room in the world to store
all of this stuff.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
The particular case of that shawl though, it actually was
a sergeant on duty and who actually he was acting
Sergeant Amos Simpson is the guy who was near the
crime scene, and he's the one that got Catherine shawl
and he's the one that passed it down to family
members until it pops up in two thousand and seven
(40:04):
and author Russell Edwards buys it. But according to Amos,
you know Simpson, this was the shaw that he picked
up near the scene. Well again, but where's the where's
the trade the.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Yeah, I know exactly. You begin to think about the
provenance of the of the Let me see, how can
I say this of the evidence?
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Yeah, the chain of custody.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Oh yeah, absolutely, thank you.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
I had did I did too. I was looking at
you going please, Yeah, there's no change of custody here.
We have to try to Amin Simpson recovered this shawl.
And then because they didn't have paper bags, I don't
know what they had then I was gonna say, didn't
have plastic bags. But they would have used paper bags
or cloth to store something like this, right, probably.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Cloth, I would imagine, particularly for a bloody item that
they didn't want to And they didn't wear gloves, so
you would unless they had leather gloves on.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
Right.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Uh. Yeah, you imagine taking those off and sticking them
back in your pocket and your wife says, hey, can
I bar your gloves and all manner of things that
you've that you've touched. But yeah, and so here, here's
here's the thing for me. If he's present, this acting sergeant,
if he's present at the scene, he's picked this thing up,
(41:24):
you would expect you would expect the victims DNA to
be on it. Okay, So what's the sourcing? What you know?
Where where did her DNA come from? Uh? Was it
blood or was it some other bodily fluid that had
leached onto the surface. But here's the big thing, Dave,
(41:46):
here's a big thing. If we're looking at Aaron Kaminsky,
who by the way, is Polish, but he's also Jewish.
And there's been a thread of anti Semitism that has
and through this for a long long time, I mean
dating well back decades. I think, you know, relative to
(42:09):
suspects where they were trying to put it on a
particular member of an immigrant population. I think that we
have to take due care in that as well, because
if Aaron Kaminsky was known to anybody with the met
and they had it in for him, how did they
(42:29):
you know, did they get a blood source for him
or is? And it would be also important is this
a seminal? This is this ejaculate that was left behind
on the shawl? And now we can say, you know,
I think you can say pretty confidently that if it's ejaculate,
then that bit of DNA would be harder to come by, say,
(42:52):
for instance, if it were you know, a touch of
his blood that was placed on it or whatever. But
you know, that still doesn't make sense because, as I said,
blood type, and it's not something that was done at
that point in time. It's not something certainly you know,
blood typing itself. I mentioned Carl Landsteiner a few moments ago.
Blood typing itself when it first came into being, was
(43:13):
not for the purposes of crime science on any level.
It was trying to find a match so that we
could do transfusions. And again we could do a whole
episode on that. They actually used to try to use
Lamb's blood to transfuse people with and as you can
imagine and work out too well, sheep's blood and so
(43:36):
you know that, you know, trial and error and so
but anyway, I digress the fact that you do have
both of these individuals, the victim and Aaron Kuzminski. You
have his DNA that is present here and Dave, this
is not something that's passing. I don't want you to
think that that this is something that you know, no
(44:00):
insult intended, but it's not something that the London Sun
merely conjured up. Okay, this was actually written up in
the Journal of Forensic Science, which is one of the
most esteemed academic journals in forensic science that exists. This paper,
(44:22):
I think, first appeared in twenty eighteen. This is something
that has been in the process of occurring low these
many years. Now, here's the big question. Okay, just because
you have and I hate to rain on everybody's parade here,
but just because you have Aaron Kosminski's DNA deposition on
(44:47):
that shawl, which again you cannot necessarily verify the provenance.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
Of Okay, it would not hold up in court.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
No, not in our course. I don't even think that
it would hold up in the courts. Then, But does
it mean that he's necessarily connected to the other homicides
that occur. So you've only got connectivity to this one
individual right now, and the odds that they're going to
(45:18):
have any other kind of physical evidence that can tie
it back, that can tie it back to this individual
I think would probably be slim and none right now.
And at this point, Tom, at least that's to my
way of thinking. I don't know how you feel about it,
but that's just my thought.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
I actually I did the same thing in my head, Joe.
I pulled a Nancy Grace and played Devil's advocate for
a minute, and I'm like, Okay, if we were in
a court of law, this would never make it because
of the chain of custody on the shawl in and
of itself, we have to trust Amos Simpson, and we
don't know anything about him in terms of his he
could be another Mark Furman for all we know. Yeah,
(45:56):
but in the court of public opinion, we actually have
a shawl that was from the crime scene. We have
an actual police officer who collected the shaw as evidence,
you know, for the future. But they couldn't do anything
with it. Then it was just a piece of evidence
that was attached to the victim. And so assuming we
can make a few assumptions here and based on those
(46:18):
assumptions that everything's the way it should be, then testing
and coming back with a positive result that actually is
a person who actually fits the profile of the potential
suspect in the crime. I think it's again part of
public opinion, we could get a conviction.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Well, I got to tell you the met Scotland Yard,
they actually had a Kosminsky Komensky am I pronouncing not
correctly Cosminsky. They actually had an individual listed on their
suspect list, but they had have it listed with a
(46:59):
first name. But they did in fact say that the
individual was in an insane asylum. And as it turns out, uh,
this individual wasn't an insane asylum, uh, and eventually died
in one and of all things, he had been committed
(47:19):
Are you ready for this? For threatening his sister with
a knife, and he had had you know, he had
had other problems quote unquote, if you will along the way. So, yeah,
does he Does he fit a particular type? Well? Yeah,
I'd say that he would be a good candidate if
you and I were working a case like this now,
(47:42):
he would certainly be somebody I would want to sit
down and have as the let's keep this British here
to have a chin wag with over you know, over
his whereabouts and his connectivity to any of these women
where he was domiciled, where he was living at this
particular time. Was he actually functioning as a barber? And
(48:03):
they don't just here's something else that's interesting. They don't
just list his occupation as a barber but also a hairdresser.
So I'm wondering, you know, is he attending to women?
Because in the modern modern parlance, you know, when you
think hairdresser, I don't know about you. I still go
to a guy named Pete to get my hair cut.
(48:24):
I don't go to a hairdresser. Hairdresser, that term is
generally associated with women having their hairstyle. Wow, isn't that
kind of fascinating as well when you begin to think
about that. And I know I'm running kind of far
afield here, but here he is lingering over over ladies perhaps,
and he's quote unquote dressing their hair, and all the
(48:45):
while he's circulating around them with sharp objects, you know,
fascinated by them. And I can't imagine that a prostitute
necessarily would have the type of money that would be
required to go to a formal hairdresser. I've actually had
cases involving serialized homicides, one in particular that stands out
(49:09):
that I had a gentleman that every time he would
go and get into a fight with his girlfriend, he
would go out and kill a prostitute. And so there's
that transference of anger, you know, that takes place. I
don't know, it's just look, we could speculate about this
all day long, but I think that it's interesting. It's
(49:33):
certainly interesting. I felt like that you and I were
you know, that we needed to talk about this on
body backs, because let's face it, whether you're interested in
crime science or true crime or not, you have to
admit that after all of these years, as we look
(49:55):
back through decades and article and verbiage and conversations and
whispers and rumors and everything. When it comes down to it,
those events that occurred in Whitechapel all those years ago,
that was really the first time that we begin to
(50:18):
think about a serialized event. Now, obviously it wasn't called
that back then, but this is the first, I believe,
and certainly the most widely known serial perpetrator in history.
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybacks.
Quody Balus, but Joseph's gotten more. I travel a lot
now at this stage of my life. You think that
it's going to be kind of the opposite. You know
that you would slow down maybe the more miles you
get on your tires. But for me that's sped up,
(00:24):
and I go to go to Great Britain a lot now,
you know, a couple of times a year. It seems
I'd be going back again in June. As a matter
of fact, for crime con The thing that's so attractive
to me about London and Great Britain in general is
(00:45):
how ancient it is from our sensibilities, not if you're
a Greek obviously, but anxient enough. And one area in
London in particular is notable cause of maybe some infamous
things you've heard about it relative to homicide, but because
(01:08):
an old Roman road ran through it. As a matter
of fact, that old Roman road made up the outer
defenses of what was once called not London but Londonium,
which is the old Roman settlement right along the Thames
River that runs through the middle of London. Today we're
(01:33):
going to talk about something I think in our modern
minds it seems ancient, but really wasn't that long ago,
just over one hundred years ago that happened that since
shockwaves through London and by that measure, around the world,
and that is the murders that occurred in Whitechapel. Those
(01:57):
murders have been famously connected to one individual that went
by the name of Jack the Ripper, And the question
is has his identity as this perpetrator been finally positively identified.
(02:19):
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is bodybacks David no
a priddle on and on about Great Britain and my
travels over there, and probably get tired of hearing about it.
I just wish I could drag you along with me.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Much to do it.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
I think we'd have a glorious time. But you know,
this last time that Kimmy and I were in London
for Crome Con, we'll see it would be the London
Crome Con twenty twenty four. We stayed adjacent to where
(03:04):
the meeting was being held, but we stayed over a
few extra days because I went and visited universities while
I was there, and we wound up staying in Whitechapel.
And I got to tell you, I know you're gonna
laugh at me. We did a lot of touristy things
because I'd never spent time in Whitechapel and all of
my visits to London. So with that said, let me
(03:28):
tell you what we did that was kind of touristy.
I love fish and chips, I do. It's better than
any kind of American fast food. I love fish anyway.
And you get these big, deep fried, golden pieces of heaven,
you know, and you put the malt vinegar on it
(03:49):
and maybe a little tartar sauce and just one the
pieces are so big, just one piece of fish will
satisfy you. And it's golden brown, you know. And of
course they're famous for their chips, which are not chips,
they're French fries. And then here's the other thing that
Kim is like really into mushy peas, which are English
(04:11):
peas that are mashed up with a bit of onion
and garlic salting our garlic powder, I think in them,
and they're almost like mashed potatoes, and everybody eats them
and it's an interesting combination.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
And I do not have a palette that would survive
that just saying.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Well, I got it. The reason I'm telling you this
the restaurant that we went to, which is right on
the main drag through the middle of White Chapel where
Jack the Ripper probably strode about. The name of the
chip stand is actually called you ready for this, Jack
the Chipper, Jack the Chipper. So you know, we went
(04:58):
there like I don't know, three times and eight and
it was always late at night because their days ran
so long, and you're always kind of in a funk anyway,
because the time changed your body. It takes a while
for your body to get adjusted. For me, it does,
particularly at this age. But the other indulgence that I
that I have is I love going to the Turkish
(05:20):
barber shop. And Turkish barbers are all over Great Britain
and they're amazing at what they do. You know, everything
from the hot towel around your face to you know,
the shave with an actual straight razor, which is you know,
kind of I don't know, kind of interesting. In Whitechapel,
(05:41):
what do you put it that way? And you really
get tended to. They even give you a glass of whiskey.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
You probably need that just to survive the fear factor
of going in in the Whitechapel where Jack the ripper
is known worldwide, and you got a guy with a.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah and scissors. So anyway, the name of the name
of the barber is called Jack the Clipper. And so
I've got pictures. I'll post them of my social media.
So we went there, and but you know, when we
went back to the barbershop, Dave, this is when it
(06:22):
kind of hit me because the roads streets, I say roads,
but the streets that you run through they're paved, obviously,
but every now and then you'll see a crack in
the asphalt and you'll see the old cobblestones that are
immediately beneath. And just for a moment in my own
(06:42):
crazy mind, you can hear the clatter of horse hoofs,
or you can hear the sound of a buggy, you know,
kind of rumbling down the street. And the streets are
still very dark. It's very very dark, and everything is
kind of closed in. And yeah, it's obviously more illuminated
than it was back in the eighteen eighties, but just
(07:05):
for a moment, Tom, you can appreciate what a kind
of interesting environment it would have been in, particularly if
you're working as a prostitute turning tricks out there on
these dark looks, and there's these little cubby holes that
kind of extend. They're kind of like little back alleys,
(07:25):
and they would actually apply their trade. And not to
be too inappropriate, but you know, these prostitutes would many
times conduct their trades standing against a wall, you know,
with a john that would come along and either that
or they would take them back to and here's an
(07:48):
interesting bit of trivia as well, take them back to
their crib. And we hear, you know, we've heard the
word crib in the modern vernacular for ever and ever,
we're going to go back to the crib. Well, you know,
the or know the word crib as it applies to
a dwelling actually goes to prostitution. The prostitutes had cribs
(08:09):
that they would go to, that's what they referred to
them as. And a lot of these prostitutes had babies,
you know, they would be you know, in a crib,
within the crib in the same room while they're turning tricks.
It was a different world back then. And I hope
that I've kind of painted the picture from my you know,
(08:29):
through my own two eyes here relative to the best
that I can kind of target in for those that
have never been there. A lot of interesting little areas
and alcoves in Whitechapel, and you know, you've got big
businesses that have popped up headquarters for all kinds of
(08:50):
people there, lad Bible, which is internationally known. Actually I
did an interview on lad Bible taped it there just
adjacent to Whitechapel. Their studios are there. But you've also
got a large traditional and I'm saying not recent, but
traditional immigrant community. This is one of the first places
where people from Bangladesh that was part of the British
(09:14):
Empire came to the UK and set up businesses and
have restaurants and all these sorts of things. And then
there was a large Jewish population that was also also
part of this environment, along with other nationalities. So it
was we talked about being a melting pot here in America.
I don't think that people really realize the comings and
(09:37):
goings of immigrants in London because it's all long before
we ever existed as a country here in the US.
Great Britain has always been an international city and they
would hop right off the boat off the Thames, which
by the way, is I'm not going to say it's
a Stone's Throw. But as you start heading south, Whitechapel
(09:58):
is on the north shore of the Thame, and as
you start heading south and kind of southwest, you run
right into the Tower of London Day where you know,
people were held in prison and all that sort of thing.
This is an ancient, ancient area. It's where the city
actually kind of began all those you know, hundreds and
(10:18):
hundreds of years ago. So this kind of dark specter
that has always lingered over this area of London, it's
not necessarily surprising that something so ghastly would happen there,
and certainly by by the standards of those days, you know,
you had violence, but to the level that Jack the
(10:40):
Ripper quote unquote perpetrated these crimes, not nothing like this.
This is why it kind of grabbed the attention of
all of the you know, the newspapers and you know
rags of that day, you know, because everything was really
over the top with these events and people think, you
(11:03):
know that people think that Jack the Ripper was limited
to five to seven victims. It was actually there was
there was what was called the White Chapel murders. It
goes under different names. They actually extended out to eighteen
ninety one, there were actually eleven victims, but not all
(11:25):
of them had the same mo as Jack the Ripper.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
And that's why what made him think that those were
part and parcel of this. Because the five Ripper cases
that we're going to talk about actually do have a
number of similarities. But what about the other ones? Are
they dramatically different or just not? Were they earlier or later?
Did you say they were later? Okay?
Speaker 1 (11:47):
And so I think that some people kind of believe
that perhaps they were in a way of thinking, they
may have been kind of a cop cat type of event,
you know, that kind of went along with the narrative
of of Jack the Ripper. Now, there was one case
(12:10):
that occurred, I think it was like April the third,
eighteen eighty eight. Yeah, the ones that and that's kind
of outside of the descriptors for the actual Jack the
Ripper cases, which you know, I think ran pretty much
through the month of September of eighteen eighty eight and
wound up going I think the final one that they
(12:32):
really truly tagged him with was in November of night.
So they actually occurred over a very short period of time.
But you had other ones, You had other ones that
involved things like strangulation. You know what I'm saying, that
didn't necessarily necessarily fit the mo You had one of
(12:55):
the victims that was essentially gain raped, and they just
didn't fit them.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
And you know what they did with that one, you
mentioned the gang. You know, they actually tried that one
and ended up attributing it. They even though it didn't
match up, there was no evidence or anything else. They
they I think were like caught up in the swell
of the two and I think they just added it
to it because they didn't have a solved crime with it.
You know, it was a gang and it was because
(13:24):
I read up on those It was so funny, funny,
strange because when they had this one, it was different,
and yet they took it to trial.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Yeah, and you know, here's an interesting thing, David, you
know this area, I've been uh, you know, I've been
kind of you know with my amusements about this and
being kind of lighthearted. But these are real people, you know,
were real real people, and these were really you know, violent,
(13:55):
violent events that affected it. But you know, one of
the things, and this is kind of a thread that
runs through a lot of a lot of cases, even
now to this day, these were the poorest of the poor.
I mean, this was a slum area. And you know,
sometimes you know, I've talked to police officers that police
and really impoverished areas, and it's not necessarily that the
(14:20):
police don't want to do anything about it. Many times
it's because the people that are let's see that should
be the governmental benefactors of the individual that are intigen
and poor, don't put resources and nothing. You know, they say,
nothing's new under the sun. So the fact that these
(14:40):
poor women who were turning tricks in dark alleys, uh,
you know, with their babies maybe there and that sort
of thing. You know, they're they're forgotten, easily forgotten. Now
that this has happened adjacent to Buckingham Palace, uh, you know,
we it very well may have been a for an
outcome and it may have ceased a lot quicker. Here's
(15:03):
an interesting little aside too, and I you know, look,
I got to interject a little bit of my background
relative to working serial deaths, Dave. I've only been involved
in one set of serialized homicides where they weren't prostitutes,
and that was a group of elderly ladies that had
been strangled and sexually assault and strangled to death. Every
(15:27):
other series, whether it was in New Orleans or Atlanta
over the course of my career, always always involved prostitutes
every single time, So, you know, going back to the
old adage of nothing new under the sun. I've never
had cases though, like the Ripper where you had individuals
(15:51):
that were mutilated, and mutilation plays a big part in this,
and that's I think that that was really the start
of what was going on. The cases that I worked
primarily dealt with manual strangulation, literature strangulation, or execution style
gunshot wents to the back of the head. But they
were all to a person. Prostitutes I never worked. I
(16:12):
know a lot of I've had colleagues, you know, that
have worked cases over the years. You think of the
Golden State Killer out West obviously, where you had just
just random people that were being killed in their homes
Ted Bundy, for instance. Those poor women were not prostitutes,
you know, primarily young college students, those sorts of things.
(16:35):
But for me, and I think that a lot of
people that work in death investigation most are going to
be and it's that they're so easily targeted and that
they're attaining some kind of thrill off of this that
is the perpetrator and they're easily victimized. And again that
cycles back to this idea that it makes the cases
somewhat very difficult to solve. And of course, here we
(16:58):
are all these years later, Dave, from the eighteen eighties
to as we're taping right now, twenty twenty five, where
these cases still give us pause to scratch our head
and maybe, just maybe, as a result of recent information,
(17:18):
we're one step closer to solving one of the biggest
true crime mysteries of all time. Had the opportunity, and
(17:41):
I've mentioned this man before, to work with a fellow
named William Eckert. Doctor Eckert was a forensic pathologist, rather
famous in his time, and doctor Eckert, toward the end
of his career, well, I guess it was kind of
later mid range of his career, traveled all over the
(18:04):
world consulting on cases. And one of the one of
the cases that he did are cases plural, that he
consulted on was Jack the Ripper, And you know, he
was I think probably one of the first people to
visit Scotland yard He took a look at a lot
of the evidence that still existed, police reports, those sorts
(18:27):
of things, and you know, visited sites and this is back,
I think in the nineteen seventies, and he drew some
conclusions during that period of time. And I remember asking,
because I'd never really had a huge overriding interest in
the Ripper cases. I just and when you work, when
you're working in death investigation, it's like, it's not like
(18:50):
people that do death investigation as a profession sit around
and watch through crime. It's not like, you know, it's
a busman's holiday. It's not something that we're necessarily interested in.
But because he had been drawn into it, I was
We had just finished up an autopsy one day, and
I remember asking doctor Eckert, specifically doctor Eckert, I'm fascinated
(19:13):
by the fact that you went to Great Britain and
that you've consulted with Scotland Yard on the Ripper cases.
You know, a few years back. I said, what's your
overwriting opinion here? You know what you believe? And he
told me at that time, and I think that this
was probably pretty widely known, but to hear it coming
(19:33):
from him, a guy that works with scalpels and dissecting
knives and scissors every single day of his life and
had at that point in time, for over thirty years.
He pointedly said to me, this guy was skilled with
edged weapons based upon everything that he had seen, and
(19:56):
that you know that really, I'm not going to say
it's sent a chill up my spine, but it did
give me an insight I think into what those people
may have been looking at back then, and it you know,
I think that we're all of us would be fools
to assume that they didn't have violent crime back then.
They didn't have people that were mutilated. A lot of
(20:18):
people carried knives. They didn't just carry knives merely to
protect themselves. They carried knives because they were integral in
day to day life, you know, cutting things and prying things.
People carried knives back then, so it would not have
been unusual for somebody to carry a knife. But when
you begin to think about skill that goes to training,
(20:42):
doesn't it. It goes to a certain touch, if you will.
And so when doctor Eckert said that to me, it
really kind of grabbed me.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Well, Joe, when we look at these the five specific
ripper murders that all showed a talent medically speaking, that's
a pretty big deal when you're looking at the eighteen eighties,
it's not like what we have now with the education
we have. You've walked me through how medical schools have
(21:15):
come to be and what is and isn't expected from
back then. But what kind of a person would develop
these kind of skills that would not be known to
law enforcement? I mean, you mentioned barber, but is there
any other field where a person would develop the kind
of biological knowledge necessary to be able to do this.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
There's a plethora of them. Anybody that worked in anybody
that worked in a butcher shop, anybody that worked in
a slaughterhouse. For those of you that have never been
to slaughterhouse, which I have been, it's if you think
that morgs are ghastly, you cannot imagine carnage on an
(22:04):
assembly line level. And I've I've you know, I've I've
been to you know, chicken slaughterer houses. I've been to
hog hog uh slaughter houses, and it's it's something to
behold on it. And when you're holding a knife in
your hand, uh, you you just develop a skill set.
It's like swinging a golf club or a baseball bat,
(22:25):
or even using a sewing needle. It's just it's uh,
or if you're a cobbler, uh, working on shoes. I
don't know. Do cobbler still exist? I think they do.
They do. Yeah, but you know, it's just not to
say the cobblers, you know what I'm just saying. It's
just a skill set. You know that like cobbling with shoes,
you know, taking soles off and all that stuff. You've
(22:46):
become really good with hammers, right, you become really good
with tax and nails and all that sort of stuff.
And so yeah, we've got you know, we've got groups
of individuals that work at slaughterhouses. And there there were
open markets. As a matter of fact, one of the
biggest markets in in London is immediately adjacent to Whitechapel.
(23:07):
As a matter of fact, it was that particular market
supplied the royal family with a lot of their goods
and they would slaughter animals, you know, right there. So
you've got those individuals. It wasn't done in some distant
location where to be trucked in, because they didn't truck
stuff in back then. You had to do it there
because they knew that the meat would ride. Then, of course,
(23:30):
you know you had mentioned you had mentioned barbers. Well,
there's a long tradition of barbers going back hundreds and
hundreds of years where these individuals were not just there
to cut your hair, but they were also there to
do surgeries as well. That's one of the significance of
(23:51):
the barber pole. You know, the white stripe, the blue stripe,
and the red stripe. Every time you see that, those
colors are emblematic of different skills sets, and that poll
goes back a long long time, and that was to
give people an indication that if you, you know, if
you need a tumor removed from your neck, or if
you need a trim, come on in, we'll take care
(24:14):
of it. We'll take care of it. That puts the
whole jack the clipper thing all in a new perspective,
doesn't it. They did not offer to do surgery on
me there, but I have no doubt that they would
have been rather skilled. And then you have those that
are involved in medicine day, you had surgeons and for
(24:36):
many years there was a through line, a thread that
ran through everything that gave you an indication that well,
a lot of people have opined over the years. Everybody's
got an opinion. You know, that this was some kind
of maniac surgeon that was running about. And one of
(24:56):
the indications was that I think either one or two
of the women had had their wombs removed. And that's
that's a you know, that's a very specific anatomical feature
that you're looking for. And by the way, having worked
in the morgue all those years, the two see how
(25:18):
can I put this in order to remove female internal
sex organs is not something that's easily undertaken without a
level of skill, you know what I'm saying. It's something
that it takes a bit. Well, first off, you have
to have specific anatomical knowledge, and not to say that
(25:41):
the uterus the womb is not located approximating the same
location say in a hog or you know, in some
other goat or sheep. But you know, with the way
our anatomical orientation is set up, it's a bit different,
and that specific, that specific organ in and of itself,
(26:06):
a lot can be implied. Well, you know, some people
thought that, you know, if the womb is being removed,
that it would be for some type of medical purpose.
Perhaps I don't know what that might be. Maybe it
was just an exploration of female anatomy. But Dave, you
know now kind of understanding just at a baseline for
(26:28):
you and I both because neither one of us are
forensic psychologists. That's if this wasn't sexualized enough, that's very sexualized.
And then what are you going to do with it
once you get it? Are you in it?
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Is it? Is it a trophy? I mean precisely, But
let me ask you something quickly because I'm concerned that
you know, we're talking about an intense knowledge driven anatomical
you know, pulling out of something, and yet we're talking
about Whitechapel, which is dark, dank, scary at its best.
(27:03):
So when doing this type of carnage require light to
do it, I mean, when you need to have enough
light to see what you were doing.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Well, brother, that goes to skill again, right, I mean,
I'm not saying that there are people out there that
could do surgery in the dark, however, or autopsy in
the dark. First off, I've cut myself many times at autopsies.
I'd certainly be missing a finger. You know if you
(27:34):
try to do it in the dark, but you know
you still have. It's that tactile nature. So let's just
say they're using I don't know if that area was electrified.
I doubt that it was at that early on. I
would imagine street lights were probably I'm sure that they
had gas lamps at that point in time, but you know,
you're still talking about I guess they could have had.
(27:57):
I can't imagine the poorest of the poor in the
slum having access to a gas line coming into a crib,
you know, a prostitute. And some of these women were
found in yards, Dave. They're founding yards and alleyways. They're
not necessarily found within the crib itself. So to have
them kind of lying about that goes to your point,
(28:20):
doesn't it. This was done outdoors at night with whatever
this individual is carrying on their person. And here's another
interesting tidbit to all of this. It's this idea of
the leather apron. You know, because you've got many of
(28:42):
the prosecutes that were interviewed at that particular time had
stated that whoever this individual was, he he has a
rather hair suit, mustache, and he's wearing a leather apron. Well,
who wear who in the world would wear a leather apron. Well,
(29:02):
back then you didn't. I mean, they had vulcanized rubber.
But you know, in the Morgue people wore rubber aprons,
but not back then, people all wore leather. Surgeons wore
leather aprons, if not cloth, something that they could take
off and be washed, but leather aprons even I've seen
images of them from the Civil War, for instance, and
(29:26):
there are things that can be you can apply water
and soap to it and just kind of wash it off.
And butchers wore leather aprons. Medical professionals probably wore leather aprons.
I think the big question is would a barber wear
a leather apron or would they merely wear some kind
of overcoat, you know, or like almost like a lab coat.
(29:51):
But I would suspect that many of them wore leather aprons. Well,
why would you want to do that? And why would
that individual be walking around? Who's gonna you know, I
guess if you saw somebody back then with a leather
apron on walking about, you would assume that there's some
kind of tradesmen right that they're you know, uh, that
they're going from, you know, wherever it is they make
(30:13):
barrels or make shoes, or or maybe working a butcher
in a slaughterhouse, they're going to wear a leather apron.
But that, you know that that goes to the idea
that the individuals trying to protect their clothing and trying
to protect themselves from from being splashed with blood, not
that they necessarily had the DNA h Carl Einstein or
(30:33):
hadn't even come a wrong yet to invent blood typing,
that that would be a couple of decades later. You
know it, You're you're you're trying to protect your clothing
so that you don't get uh, you know, spattered with
blood at that point in time. So you've got these
little threads that kind of run run along with this
(30:55):
individual where you're looking at the subject that would have
done it. And we can talk all day about motivation.
Is it is it an individual that and I think
that we you and I both day can answer in
the affirmative that absolutely hated women because we don't have
any male victims. There's no male victims that we know
(31:18):
about from that period of time that are disemboweled, which
we have. We've got throat throats being cut, we've got
disfigurement in one where it's just ghastly. If you've ever
seen some of the images where they're twisted and mangled,
I mean, and and the amount, the amount of trauma
(31:39):
that these poor souls were subjected to, Dave, this would
take a copious amount of time to do this. This
is not like something that where you stick a knife
into their throat or slit their throat and then walk away.
(32:01):
This is somebody that truly truly hated these women. Who
knows what this kind of seed of evil was that
you know, kind of endwell this, but I do know
this that with every slice, with every cut, with every puncture,
with every mutilation, with every droplet of blood that was
(32:24):
found pulled in the yards, in the rooms and on
the streets of Whitechapel, that stain to this day, it
still exists. Dave. I'm viewing you here on the camera
(32:57):
and Bubba looks like you've got a fresh haircut.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
You thank you your hair.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
You look good man. I got to tell you, yeah,
dude's got a great, great crown of white hair. I'll
tell you what. Well, Uh, there's a barber we're going
to talk about.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Me and Santa have great hair. On her head and
great bellies above our way. So there you go.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Oh man, come on, old belly. Uh yet the barber
we're going to talk about is a fellow named Aaron Kasminsky,
and he is known to have been a Polish immigrant.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Can I add something here very quickly?
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Yeah? Sure, all right.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
It's something I didn't know about the story until you
and I started talking about and we talked about it
from the end and going back that there was a
lot of press coverage of these murders. There was a
lot of chatter social media. Would have been said of Twitter,
although people might not have used Twitter, but you know
what I mean. It was a much talked about thing.
(34:01):
They were constantly throwing out ideas and the media was
highly involved in sharing rumors and drawings of people that
were victimized or possible suspects. This was a case that
drew a lot of attention and sold a lot of papers.
And in looking at what some of the investigators did
to try to find, you know, a solution, they it
(34:25):
was just amazing to me. This was not something that
when you mentioned it earlier. First of all, it only
lasted a couple of months, you know, in these five
main ones. Now, the others could certainly be part of it,
but just these five. We're talking from August thirty first
to November the ninth in eighteen eighty eight. That's not
a very big window. And I don't assume that mary
(34:49):
Ann Nichols was butchered the way she was as a
first attack. And it just seems like they did escalate
from there. From Maryann Nichols attack to Annie Chapman's attack
to Elizabeth Stride, each one got progressively different and worse.
But there was that dread running through that tied them
all together. So there's got to be more.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
I'm thinking, yeah, yeah, I think that there has to be.
And there's a boldness that, you know that kind of
sets in with this, but you know, in in the
modern context now, I think that for us, what's so
striking about this recent news that has dropped. Not only
(35:32):
do we have a person that is named now because
of one alleged sampling that has been done relative to
a genetic finding, this Aaron Kominsky, but we have to
(35:53):
think about the source, you know, where did this come from.
We've got this connection now from DNA linkage from a
shawl that was possessed and owned by essentially the fifth
victim from September thirtieth, eighteen eighty eight, Catherine Edwardson and Dave.
(36:21):
I've seen the shawl. The shawl. You know, the shawl
is nothing like I thought that it would look like
because I was thinking, you know, when I think shawl,
I think kind of a loose woven you know, kind
of what am I saying? Almost looks like an Afghan
(36:41):
I guess kind of, you know what I'm saying, It's
not like that. The shawl is actually even today I'm
actually sitting here, you know, taking a look at this
thing is actually quite beautiful. It's a it's in two colors.
(37:02):
It's tightly, tightly woven. I would imagine that this that
this shawl is primarily made of wool, and you know,
Great Britain was known for the wool trade, and it's
been dyed. It's in two different colors. One color is
this striking kind of light blue color, and the rest
(37:25):
of it there's a distinctive dividing line that has almost
a silky looking appearance to it, that's a copper tone
to it. And it's it's tightly woven. It's it's literally
something that if you put it around your shoulders, you're
not going to uh, you're not going to fill the breeze.
(37:51):
If you will the cold kind of seeping through. It's
quite lovely actually to see. So when I think about out.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
The h the deposition of any kind of of DNA
or biological evidence that might be found on there, you
could see how it could get down into those really
tightly woven fibers and be retained.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Here's here's kind of the interesting thing though, it's through
this shawl. And by the way, this this individual's uh
Russell Edwards is his name. Who is the actual owner
of the shawl?
Speaker 2 (38:28):
And was this something passed down? Was he related or
is a body auction?
Speaker 1 (38:32):
That's the one. That's the one trick to this that
I've been unable to kind of put together succinctly. I
do know that this this journey starts back in two
thousand and six, so we're talking now, uh to two
decades I guess now, well one almost two decades since
(38:54):
this journey kind of started. Relative to this, this this item,
you know, what's the provenance of this? How did he
actually come into possession of this? And he started looking
at attempting because he knew what he had was connected
(39:14):
to a victim. You know, you would think that something
like a shawl like this would be retained, you know,
by the Metropolitan Police, which is Scotland yard. But you
know how many thousands and thousands of crimes have they
had that involve physical evidence? Since anybody wondering eighteen eighty
(39:37):
something's there's not enough room in the world to store
all of this stuff.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
The particular case of that shawl though, it actually was
a sergeant on duty and who actually he was acting
Sergeant Amos Simpson is the guy who was near the
crime scene, and he's the one that got Catherine shawl
and he's the one that passed it down to family
members until it pops up in two thousand and seven
(40:04):
and author Russell Edwards buys it. But according to Amos,
you know Simpson, this was the shaw that he picked
up near the scene. Well again, but where's the where's
the trade the.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Yeah, I know exactly. You begin to think about the
provenance of the of the Let me see, how can
I say this of the evidence?
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Yeah, the chain of custody.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Oh yeah, absolutely, thank you.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
I had did I did too. I was looking at
you going please, Yeah, there's no change of custody here.
We have to try to Amin Simpson recovered this shawl.
And then because they didn't have paper bags, I don't
know what they had then I was gonna say, didn't
have plastic bags. But they would have used paper bags
or cloth to store something like this, right, probably.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Cloth, I would imagine, particularly for a bloody item that
they didn't want to And they didn't wear gloves, so
you would unless they had leather gloves on.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
Right.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Uh. Yeah, you imagine taking those off and sticking them
back in your pocket and your wife says, hey, can
I bar your gloves and all manner of things that
you've that you've touched. But yeah, and so here, here's
here's the thing for me. If he's present, this acting sergeant,
if he's present at the scene, he's picked this thing up,
(41:24):
you would expect you would expect the victims DNA to
be on it. Okay, So what's the sourcing? What you know?
Where where did her DNA come from? Uh? Was it
blood or was it some other bodily fluid that had
leached onto the surface. But here's the big thing, Dave,
(41:46):
here's a big thing. If we're looking at Aaron Kaminsky,
who by the way, is Polish, but he's also Jewish.
And there's been a thread of anti Semitism that has
and through this for a long long time, I mean
dating well back decades. I think, you know, relative to
(42:09):
suspects where they were trying to put it on a
particular member of an immigrant population. I think that we
have to take due care in that as well, because
if Aaron Kaminsky was known to anybody with the met
and they had it in for him, how did they
(42:29):
you know, did they get a blood source for him
or is? And it would be also important is this
a seminal? This is this ejaculate that was left behind
on the shawl? And now we can say, you know,
I think you can say pretty confidently that if it's ejaculate,
then that bit of DNA would be harder to come by, say,
(42:52):
for instance, if it were you know, a touch of
his blood that was placed on it or whatever. But
you know, that still doesn't make sense because, as I said,
blood type, and it's not something that was done at
that point in time. It's not something certainly you know,
blood typing itself. I mentioned Carl Landsteiner a few moments ago.
Blood typing itself when it first came into being, was
(43:13):
not for the purposes of crime science on any level.
It was trying to find a match so that we
could do transfusions. And again we could do a whole
episode on that. They actually used to try to use
Lamb's blood to transfuse people with and as you can
imagine and work out too well, sheep's blood and so
(43:36):
you know that, you know, trial and error and so
but anyway, I digress the fact that you do have
both of these individuals, the victim and Aaron Kuzminski. You
have his DNA that is present here and Dave, this
is not something that's passing. I don't want you to
think that that this is something that you know, no
(44:00):
insult intended, but it's not something that the London Sun
merely conjured up. Okay, this was actually written up in
the Journal of Forensic Science, which is one of the
most esteemed academic journals in forensic science that exists. This paper,
(44:22):
I think, first appeared in twenty eighteen. This is something
that has been in the process of occurring low these
many years. Now, here's the big question. Okay, just because
you have and I hate to rain on everybody's parade here,
but just because you have Aaron Kosminski's DNA deposition on
(44:47):
that shawl, which again you cannot necessarily verify the provenance.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
Of Okay, it would not hold up in court.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
No, not in our course. I don't even think that
it would hold up in the courts. Then, But does
it mean that he's necessarily connected to the other homicides
that occur. So you've only got connectivity to this one
individual right now, and the odds that they're going to
(45:18):
have any other kind of physical evidence that can tie
it back, that can tie it back to this individual
I think would probably be slim and none right now.
And at this point, Tom, at least that's to my
way of thinking. I don't know how you feel about it,
but that's just my thought.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
I actually I did the same thing in my head, Joe.
I pulled a Nancy Grace and played Devil's advocate for
a minute, and I'm like, Okay, if we were in
a court of law, this would never make it because
of the chain of custody on the shawl in and
of itself, we have to trust Amos Simpson, and we
don't know anything about him in terms of his he
could be another Mark Furman for all we know. Yeah,
(45:56):
but in the court of public opinion, we actually have
a shawl that was from the crime scene. We have
an actual police officer who collected the shaw as evidence,
you know, for the future. But they couldn't do anything
with it. Then it was just a piece of evidence
that was attached to the victim. And so assuming we
can make a few assumptions here and based on those
(46:18):
assumptions that everything's the way it should be, then testing
and coming back with a positive result that actually is
a person who actually fits the profile of the potential
suspect in the crime. I think it's again part of
public opinion, we could get a conviction.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Well, I got to tell you the met Scotland Yard,
they actually had a Kosminsky Komensky am I pronouncing not
correctly Cosminsky. They actually had an individual listed on their
suspect list, but they had have it listed with a
(46:59):
first name. But they did in fact say that the
individual was in an insane asylum. And as it turns out, uh,
this individual wasn't an insane asylum, uh, and eventually died
in one and of all things, he had been committed
(47:19):
Are you ready for this? For threatening his sister with
a knife, and he had had you know, he had
had other problems quote unquote, if you will along the way. So, yeah,
does he Does he fit a particular type? Well? Yeah,
I'd say that he would be a good candidate if
you and I were working a case like this now,
(47:42):
he would certainly be somebody I would want to sit
down and have as the let's keep this British here
to have a chin wag with over you know, over
his whereabouts and his connectivity to any of these women
where he was domiciled, where he was living at this
particular time. Was he actually functioning as a barber? And
(48:03):
they don't just here's something else that's interesting. They don't
just list his occupation as a barber but also a hairdresser.
So I'm wondering, you know, is he attending to women?
Because in the modern modern parlance, you know, when you
think hairdresser, I don't know about you. I still go
to a guy named Pete to get my hair cut.
(48:24):
I don't go to a hairdresser. Hairdresser, that term is
generally associated with women having their hairstyle. Wow, isn't that
kind of fascinating as well when you begin to think
about that. And I know I'm running kind of far
afield here, but here he is lingering over over ladies perhaps,
and he's quote unquote dressing their hair, and all the
(48:45):
while he's circulating around them with sharp objects, you know,
fascinated by them. And I can't imagine that a prostitute
necessarily would have the type of money that would be
required to go to a formal hairdresser. I've actually had
cases involving serialized homicides, one in particular that stands out
(49:09):
that I had a gentleman that every time he would
go and get into a fight with his girlfriend, he
would go out and kill a prostitute. And so there's
that transference of anger, you know, that takes place. I
don't know, it's just look, we could speculate about this
all day long, but I think that it's interesting. It's
(49:33):
certainly interesting. I felt like that you and I were
you know, that we needed to talk about this on
body backs, because let's face it, whether you're interested in
crime science or true crime or not, you have to
admit that after all of these years, as we look
(49:55):
back through decades and article and verbiage and conversations and
whispers and rumors and everything. When it comes down to it,
those events that occurred in Whitechapel all those years ago,
that was really the first time that we begin to
(50:18):
think about a serialized event. Now, obviously it wasn't called
that back then, but this is the first, I believe,
and certainly the most widely known serial perpetrator in history.
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybacks.
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
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Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.