February 3, 2025 • 45 mins
Some of my most favorite true crime stories in history come from the UK, specifically London. So I was very excited to talk to author Simon Read about his book: Scotland Yard: A History of the London Police Force's Most Infamous Murder Cases. Read investigated some of Scotland Yard’s most interesting cases and now he’ll tell us about some of them.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
One of the things that struck me when I was
writing this book, Boks Scott people really put a lot
of grim effort into mergency people. You didn't just shoot someone,
you did really destroyed. The level of violence was really
off the charts.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor
in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the
podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,
research for my many audio and book projects has taken
me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down
with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists,
(00:53):
filmmakers and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious
true crime cases. This is about the choices writers make,
both good and bad, and it's a deep dive into
the unpublished details behind their stories. Some of my most
favorite true crime stories in history come from the UK,
(01:14):
specifically London, so I was very excited to talk to
author Simon Read about his book Scotland Yard, a History
of the London Police Force's most infamous murder cases. Read
investigated some of Scotland Yard's most interesting cases, and now
he'll tell us about some of them. So I erroneously
(01:36):
assumed that you were American or Canadian based on your accent,
and I was terribly mistaken. Tell me about your background before, briefly,
before we start talking about how you got involved with
a book about Scotland Yard and its history.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Sure, I am British by birth, born in London, North London.
Actually Hendon moved out to the States when I was seven.
My parents' job brought us out here. I am celebrated citizen.
I am very much English at heart, although having lived
in the United States for whatever is forty plus years,
so I've always been an angler phile. I'm always looking
for excuses to write about England or London in particular.
(02:12):
Most of my books. If you go back and you
look at the books that I've written, I think, with
the exception of two of them, they all have a
British theme. So any excuse i'd have to get back there,
do research, sit in a pub, I'll.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Go for it good well. As an American who has
written about a very well known British story, John Reginald Christy,
I wanted to really figure out what your bona fides were,
and it sounds like you're all set. You've grown up
with these stories.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
I'm sure, Yeah, I have, am I And by the way,
Reginald Christy one of the most disturbing cases. Yeah, I've
ever I've stood. I wrote about him in another book
of mine. But my paternal grandfather was a detective with
Scotland Yard.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Wow. Well, okay, what do you think he would have
thought of your book? You've gotten some really great reviews,
and I mean, I bet he would be thrilled. I'm
assuming you know, I think he would have. Well, let's
talk about this book. We much of the time talk
to people who are digging into one big story for
their book or for their piece of the film or
whatever they're doing. So for you, because we're talking about
(03:13):
the history of Scotland Yard, which is storied and traumatizing
and wonderful all at the same time. You know, you
cover a wide array of crimes and I wanted to
dig into two or three or more or less, like
we're just going to see how it goes that I
think are pretty pivotal. And I want you to start
with Ratcliffe Highway murders because it's one of to me,
(03:36):
the most interesting and so important because you know, I
know that these murders were really what led to the
organization of the Metropolitan Police, which was the first organization
in the world, the first police, real police organization, right right.
And what's great about that story is you get to
(03:57):
talk about and tell everybody who doesn't know out the
Bow Street Runners and how they interacted with the tams
River Police. And you know, I will tell you full disclosure.
I took myself down a couple of years ago when
I was in London teaching. I took myself down to
the River Police Museum and got a personalized tour from
(04:18):
Rob Jefferies, who is a I think he's I don't
know if he's a constable there, but he's retired and
he loves talking about that case and why it was important.
And so I'm going to geek out pretty big time,
I think on this story.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
And I'm jealous because when I researched this book, I
was working during the pandemic, during lockdowns, so I had
to rely on sort of online you know, newspapers and
so to go and like chop the ground as it were.
I wish I could have done more that. But you
have the Ratcliffe Liveway murders an extremely important case, and
you're right it does lead to eventually leads to the
establishment of Scotland Yard in eighteen twenty nine. But the
(04:53):
Raclife Liway murders actually happened in eighteen eleven. There's an
eighteen year stretch between the murders and the formation of
Scotland Yard. But the murders happened in December of eighteen
eleven on the Ratcliffe Highway, which is the main east
thoroughfare out of London, and it's a very it's a
dangerous place, doesn't have a great reputation. It's known for debauchery, drunkenness,
(05:17):
vice and violence. It's popular with sailors. In fact, it's
called the Regent Street for sailors of it. Today you
have a lot of men who work the Thames who
live off the highway. They frequent the bars, the taverns,
the shops there. The highway is the home of a
gentleman named Timothy Maher. He's a he's a former sailor
(05:39):
with the Easterndia Company and he sets up a shop
at twenty nine Ratcliffe Highway. He's twenty four years old,
and he establishes a lnen business on the highway in
April of eighteen eleven. It's him, it's his wife, it's
their three month old son, Timothy Junior, and he wants
to know become a businessman and the life at sea
(06:01):
behind him. So he sets up shot there and all
is going well. Business is doing good, and he has
a servant girl named Margaret Jewel. And on the night
of December seventh, eighteen eleven, he sends Margaret out to
fetch some oysters and pay the baker's bill. And it's
around midnight when she leaves Timothy Marris's shop. Timothy's wife,
(06:22):
Celia is down in the basement kitchen feeding the baby.
Timothy is preparing for the next day's business. And Margaret
leaves the shop, and like I say, it's around midnight.
Pretty much everything is closed up. She goes to pay
the baker's bill, she finds the baker's close. She goes
to get some oysters, she finds the oyster shop is closed.
She returns to Timothy morris shop and she's not gone
(06:44):
very long. But when she gets back, it's very strange.
The place is shuttered up. The chaser drawn across the windows.
The door is locked, all the lights are out, and
she knocks on the door and she doesn't get a response,
and she knocks again, no response. Her knocks on the
door become more panicked, and she hears a noise behind
(07:04):
the door. She hears what she describes as a footfall
on the stairs inside the shop, and then she hears
the muffled cry of the baby very month full of
Timothy Junior, and this sort of puts her into a panic,
and she starts really like patting on the door, and
this gets the attention of a night watchman who happens
to be walking by. Night watchmen were sort of an
(07:25):
early form of law enforcement in London at the time.
They patrolled the streets between sunset and sunrise, armed with
a rattle and a whistle, and they were meant to
sort of raise the alarm if they encountered any commotion.
And he comes across Margaret. He asks what the problem is,
She explains the situation. He starts banging on the door.
This attracts the attention of a neighbor who hops from
(07:49):
his house into Timothy Morris's backyard and he goes inside
the shop. He finds a lick candle on the stairs.
He picks it up. He goes into the shop and
he walks into a horrific, horrific crime scene. Timothy's Waxelia.
They've been butchered, now not just murdered, but butcherd horrendously,
throat slashed down to the bone. Their heads have been
(08:09):
carved in. They have a young servant boyd His brains
are actually spattered up onto the ceiling. I mean he's
been beaten with such vorocity. The neighbor opens the door.
A crowd that's been now gathered outside the marshop. They
rush in and see this awful scene, and someone says,
where's the baby, And they find the baby in its
crib down in the basement kitchen. The baby's throat's been splashed,
(08:30):
no mercy shown. This causes a huge shock. It's interesting,
you know, London in this time we tend to think
of it as this place where murder happened all the time.
I don't have specific numbers, but throughout the nineteenth century London,
seventy five percent of the crimes were theft and robbery,
and murder only accounted for ten percent of the crime.
So when a murder did happen, It garnered a lot
(08:52):
of a lot of headlines and so this murder obviously
sent shock waves. The city London doesn't have a police
force at this time, like we discussed, they have this
missmash patchwork of parish constables and night watchmen and then
the Bow Street Runners who are work out of the
Ball Street Magistrate's Court. They report to the Chief Magistrate
(09:15):
Henry Building. They have the power to investigate crime, but
they're they're they're a small force. And there's also the
Thames River Police and try to keep all on order
on the Thames. But there's no sort of there's no
coordination between any of these these entities. They don't they
don't talk to each other, they don't share information, so
there's there would be nothing what you consider sort of
(09:36):
coordinated investigation, certainly by today's standards, don't find really any
clues that the Marti crime team. What they do find
is a it's called a mall and it's a hamm
are used in shipbuilding. It has like a Wesdend use
for plying, hammering and spikes and playing out when when
building ships, and that's found upstairs. But the crime team
doesn't really yield anything else, and the city's kind of
(09:59):
reeling from all of this, and so trying to figure
out what happened. And then twelve days later, on December nineteenth,
the same thing happens again.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Let me ask you like a series of questions here. Yeah,
one thing that I wanted to make clear and correct
me if I'm wrong here. My understanding is that when
we say Ratcliff Highway, which was supposedly known as the
most dangerous road in the world, it's not a highway
the way we think, certainly at least Americans think of
a highway. What would you consider it like a large
road or.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
It's a large road. It's a large road. It's a road.
It's a road aligne with shops on either side. It's
got little alleyways going off the side of it, you know,
cram with tenement housing and sailors cottages. It was called
a highway back in the day because it was one
of the main thorough bears in an out of the
city on the east end. But it's not our highway
like we think of it today, with four lanes of traffic,
(10:51):
and so it's more think of it more like a
high street. A busy main road.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Yeah, okay, so in that area when there is a crime,
a theft or whatever, how is the decision made between
to what You've got the boat street runners, the night
watchmen and the tims River Police. Did I miss anybody?
Is there any other law enforcement entity?
Speaker 2 (11:11):
No, that's that's that's sort of yeah, that's a good question.
There wasn't really any sort of chain of command. This
is the problem. This is one of the problems with
London at that time. It doesn't have a centually organized
peace force. And by that we mean a force that
has the resources and command structure in place to ensure
uniformity and coordination across a large metropolitan area and across investigations.
(11:35):
So each sort of the constables, the nightwatchmen, bow street Runners,
the taserra police, they're all sort of doing their own thing.
And so this is one of the problems why nothing
sort of happens with this case in terms of white
cohesive investigation, because there's no cohesive law enforcement framework to
tackle a crime of this magnitude, and this crime it
(11:57):
generates a huge shockwave. It really generates a love look
shock that won't be seen until you know the jack
the Ripper killings in eighteen eighty eight. But the difference
is when Jack the Rippers doing his stuff in Whitechapel,
he's being hunted by a Metropolitan police force with more
than ten thousand officers. Yeah, now he's you know, the
(12:19):
Ratcliff Hyery murders being hunted by this ragtag, uncoordinated bunch
of unprofessional law enforcement officers.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Basically, I mean, I always got the impression that before
the Metropolitan Police were formed, these entities were always on defense.
They were never playing. There's no offense. Like it was like,
we're there if something bad happens, but we're not going
to like prevent you from you if we see something.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
You know, that's absolutely correct, that's actually correct. They're always
responding to stuff. They're never sort of like out there
trying to suck stuff from happening. They you know, like
I said, you've got the night watchmen who are meant
to patrol the streets at night, and if they see something,
they make a noise with their rattle and they blow
their w That's how it's mental work. But if you
read the newspaper accounts of the day, you find out
(13:04):
most of them are sitting in their guardhouses getting drunk
on gin, you know, and aren't very effective. You have
the parish constables who serve a law enforcement officers for
the various districts and parishes throughout London. They have law
enforcement power and that they can sort of make arrests
and you know, if they see trouble they can haul
someone off to court. But you know it's either a
(13:24):
volunteer gig or a low paying wage. You know, these
aren't they're not very effective. And then you know the
Bow Street Runners. They are sort of the first for
runner to a proper police force, but they're very limited
in their scope. And other magistrate offices in London set
up something similar to what Bow Street is doing with
these constables, but again there's no coordination. And then you
(13:46):
have the River Police wore out on the water, so
they're kind of like a forward of the identity.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
So let me summarize so far. So December eighteen eleven,
I have to assume it's just colder than hell in London.
In the most dangerous street in the world. You've got
the mar family, which is just an upstanding family with
their business. A young couple they are murdered brutally. I mean,
just horrifically murdered, as well as their baby and a
(14:11):
servant boy. How did we say the young boy was.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Twelve or fourteen? Can he's a young teen?
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Yeah? Not enough to defend himself, I'm assuming. Okay, now
we just jump in immediately into the mystery before we
get to the second set of murders here. I have
always wondered, and I don't remember if I asked Rob Jeffries,
my wonderful tour guide on the river, about this, But
did they really expect this was at midnight? Is that
when she went out?
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Yeah, she goes out. She goes out shortly before midnight.
And if I remember on the newspaper accounts, she's only
gone for about fifteen or twenty minutes or so.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
So is that normal that a bakery and an oyster
shop would be open at midnight in this area? I mean,
why would she do that? Why would he do that? Understand?
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I thought the same thing. So I'd heard of the
Ragnifiery murders prior to writing this book, but this was
the first time i'd ever sort of like researched the crimes,
and I didn't know the specifics necessarily about them, and
when I read that, I thought that was very very odd,
you know, like the righttically by the way, like you said,
very dangerous reputation back one of the newspapers said it
(15:16):
was representative all of all that was dirty, disorderly and debased.
So it seems sending out a young servant girl after midnight,
at midnight to you know, track down oysters and pay
the baker, it's a weird it's a weird decision to make,
and that the fact that you know, a baker would
be open at midnight or an oyster shot would be
open at midnight, doesn't make much sense. One of the
(15:37):
newspaper counts I found where they Margaret Jewel is giving
tesscona during an inquest. She says, you know, when she
stepped out on the street, the street was you know,
the street was quiet. You know, stores were closed. So
it seems an odd decision to do. Honestly, it was
probably a lucky decision though, because if she'd been around
in the house, she would have ended up suffering the
same fight.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Okay, so we're we're at a point where now you've
got who was responding to this, Who are the investigators
who come to Timothy Maher's place and see this just
cornage and begin to interview Margaret Jewele and trying to
figure out, you know, what has happened that night.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
I would say, I don't have the name, but it
was they were interviewed by us the night watchman who
showed up local constables, and then the local corner came
and there was an inquest held one or two days
after the murders at a pub right across the street
from the mar household. You know, Margaret Jewel gives testimony
in that inquest, and she's actually overcome with emotion recounting
(16:36):
what she saw. She breaks down on the witness stand,
you know, understandably, and she actually passes out. She's able
to sort of just recount the offense of that evening
and being sent out to get the oysters and pay
the Baker bill. And then when she starts recounting about
what she saw when she was led in to the
Mar home and she saw the baby in the crib,
(16:58):
she really loses it, rightfully, so she passes out, and
they do revive her, but they don't they don't make
her continue her testimony. The coroner's juryous brought across the
street to sort of view the crime scene. They view
the bodies, the nature of the wounds are discussed for
the first time. You know. The initial press reports just
(17:19):
say they were murdered brutally. Then during the corner's inquest,
they go into just how badly these people were. I mean,
they weren't just murdered, they were butchered, you know, throats
cut down to the bone almost at the point of decapitation,
facial bones smashed. It's really really horrendous. So the corner's
jury you know, returns a verdict of sort of you know,
(17:40):
murder against a person or person's unknown, and then the
family are are laid to rest in the local parish church,
Saint George's, I believe, and Timothy Maher is buried in
his own coffin, and then Cecilia is buried with her baby.
There's a huge turnout, huge turnout. People are you know,
ractive highway to bid their final respects. And during the
(18:05):
funeral service, the preacher who presides over the funeral service,
you know, he says, made God, you know, enact vengeance
against whoever did this awful deed. So this family's laid
to rest, but without any answers as to who did
this or even even why.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
So what is the speculation. We don't have very much
time between what happens with Timothy Moore's family and then
what happens next. What is the speculation so far? Do
people have any idea?
Speaker 2 (18:31):
They don't this And this is one of the things
when I was like reading the newspaper accounts from the day,
was that was one of the things that was so
puzzling about the case. This guy was, you know, it
was an inoffensive individual. He ran and he ran a
linen shop. He was a father, you know, young father,
he was twenty four years old. No one wished him
ill will, and so that's one of the things that
(18:52):
was so pleasant. There's there's nothing to point to a motive.
This was a guy who was folding linens for the
next day's business. His wife's beating the baby, and someone
barges in and butchers all of them. Because there was
no clear motive for why this happened, there is it
generates real fear in the area. If it can happen
to these people, it could happen again, and well and behold,
(19:14):
that's exactly what happens.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
I don't know if you know this. I have another
show with a cold case investigator named Paul Holes. It's
called Buried Bones. And if I were telling Paul this story,
he would say probably, I would guess if I'm going
to channel Poul Holes, he would say, it is fantastical
to think that there is somebody lying in wait, waiting
for the servant girl at midnight to leave, not knowing
(19:37):
when she's going to come back, and this guy has
just enough time to slaughter this whole family before Margaret
Jewel comes back. The more I think about it, the
more I think this is bus I don't understand.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
It's very strange. I don't understand it either. Honestly, would
your co hosts think maybe Margaret Jewel will somehow and involve.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Yes, I think he would. I think he would say
that seems odd. I mean, I guess, okay, was anything taken?
Is there robbery anywhere in this? Do you think nothing?
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Was in the newspaper council and I didn't see anything of
anything taken. The only thing odd that they found out
was the shipping mallet the mall. But then what would
Margaret jules motive? Maybe her freaking out on the stand
and passing out. Maybe that was an act she didn't
want to have to answer too many questions.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
So people are completely freaked out, even though this is
the most dangerous road in the world. Where do we
go next?
Speaker 2 (20:34):
The more murder is on December seventh, and then twelve
days later, on December nineteenth, just a two minute walk
from the Mars shop, there's a place called the King's
Arms Tavern. This is a place. It's owned by a
gentleman named John Williamson and his wife Elizabeth, and their servant,
a woman named Bridget. And they've owned the place. I
(20:56):
think it was fifteen years. They've run the place. They're
very well established in the area. They're very well h liked.
The press actually call out that the King's Tavern was
open to one and all foreigners of all kinds. There
was no discrimination. You know. Williams is a really friendly guy.
It's not as a place to go get a mail
and a drink and everyone's welcome. But on the night
(21:20):
of December and nineteenth, Williams and his wife and Serbra
went Bridget. They are also horribly murdered in much the
same fashion as the mar family. But what's different in
this case is there is a witness of sorts. So
the King's Tavern, it's u pub. It has rooms upstairs
that you can let. And there's a gentleman upstairs who's
(21:42):
been living living at the pub for quite a while.
He's and he's upstairs. He's he's getting ready for bed.
He came home from a night out on the town.
He sees John Willimson and his wife. He talks him
for a bit. They seem perfectly normal. He bets them
good night, and he goes upstairs and he's getting ready
for bed, and he's he's naked, and he suddenly hears
(22:04):
a commotion downstairs. He hears someone like barging into the place,
and he hears John Williamson cry out, we are murdered.
And there's a sound, there's there's screaming, there's sounds of
all this violence happening. He hears a number of really
heavy thumps, like something being bashed in and he's petrified,
and he's he's up there in his room, like he said,
(22:25):
he's naked. He doesn't, you know, because he's got ready
for bed. He opens his bedroom door and he sneaks
down the stairs and he gets to the bottom up
the stairs, and there's a door at the bottom up
the stairs, and the door is slightly ajar, and he
peers through it and he looks into the room and
the rooms lit by the fireplace, and he can see
(22:46):
a body lying on the ground, and he sees a
man kneeling over the body. And the man's back is
to him, so he doesn't see the face. But the
man appears to be wearing like a long leather trench coat,
and it seems to be going through the pockets of
the body. And he hears this man take change or
coins out of the body's pockets, sort of jangle him
(23:07):
in his hands and stick him in his pocket. He
is he's petrified, and he sneaks back upstairs as quietly
as he can, and he puts on a night shirt
and some pants, and he has to get out of here.
You know, he's terrified he's going to be slaughtered next
and so he takes a couple of sheets from his bed,
he ties them around his bed head, and he lures
(23:29):
them out the window of his room and he starts
crawling out. And as he's crawling out the window, a
night washman happens to come by and see a guy
crawling out the pulp window, you know, in his night shirt.
This raises the alarm, and the nightwashman sounds his rattle,
blows his whistle, and folks in the surrounding houses come
(23:49):
out and they break into the pub. They break down
the front door, and they smash a basement window. Call
and they enter in and they find again a horrible
seeing John Williamson. He's you know, his throat's been slipped
down to the bone. He's been beaten balley. He actually
has a broken leg. Looks like he took a tumble
down a flight of stairs into the basement level while
(24:10):
he was trying to defend himself. His wife, Elizabeth, she's
been stabs, throw slat, you know, head caved in. The
servant woman Bridget They said she had a huge, a
huge hole in the side of her neck where you know,
she'd been mutilated. And this time there's there's a clue
such as it was. It probably be a gold line
(24:31):
of the clue today back then, but there was a
like a bloody handprint on a window sill that led
out the back of let out the back of the pub.
The way it's described in the newspapers up the day
is the back of the pub fased out on. I
guess you could call it wasteland. It was wet clay,
and the killer climbed up this mountain of wet clay
(24:51):
and then ran away once he got to the top
of the hill. So the speculation is that this guy
would have probably been covered in clay when he when
he got to the top. But you know, except that
he left a handprint, well he handprint on the windowsill,
which today would have been a gold mine. Back then,
it didn't mean anything. And so you've got you know,
(25:12):
was it twelve days since the war murder and now
it's it's happened again. And one of the London newspapers,
which I caught in the book, they're almost like apologetic
that they have to report. Thence the following day they
actually start off with like, you know, we're sorry we
have to tell you this, but it's happened again. You
have you know, the Nightwatchman, the Constables. This sort of
(25:32):
mismashed investigation with no sort of like coordinated effort happening.
It kind of goes nowhere until a couple of people
stepped forward and you know, with some information that I
think is pivotal to the case.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Yeah, I mean I think this is this set of
murders too, is just so terrifying to think. Again, you know,
a well liked business owner, you know, at home late
at night into some birds cold outside the story of
the lodger. It's John Turner. I had remembered is the
guy's name?
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Thank you? Yes, thank you, yes.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
John Turner. And when he says that he sees a
tall man in a long coat standing over Missus Williamson's
body right at the bottom of the stairs and jingling
money and stuff like that. Yet again you've got another
character who's there who kind of a little bit like
Margaret Jewel. It's sort of like to me in a
little bit of a mysterious character. I mean, there's all
sorts of weird things happening. You always look at people
(26:27):
who are the survivors and think, how did that happen?
You know, when you have all of these victims. So
I find that interesting. And also, you know, I had thought, well,
there's you know, if maybe he's mistaken or I don't know,
we don't know if he's been drinking, and we you know,
we don't know if he's the one who did it.
There's just so many weird inconsistencies, I think, but this
had to have been terrifying.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Yeah, it is word and when I was researching this,
I thought, God, this guy had a lucky break, you
know the fancas he said with a tipsoe back up
the stairs without sort of sounding the a arm. And
then you're thinking, you know, these old pubger maybing around upstairs,
you know, aren't floor boards creaking and a massort? One
thing I didn't include it in the book, but one
thing also, The other person who was in the house
and slept the whole thing was John Wallinson's young granddaughter. Yeah,
(27:09):
she sleeps through the whole thing. She scares. But John
Turner us seem a bit of crief for, like, you know,
fleeing the place when there was a child sleeping sleeping upstairs.
On the flip side of that, you can't blame something
for trying to scarey out a window to escape. But
it is strange both the murders, you have the survivors. Hey,
who knows, maybe Margaret Jewel and John Turner were working
(27:30):
in cahoots.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
I think that's just as probable as what it sounds like.
We're going to learn about the main suspect here. Pretty
soon it gets a little confusing when we start talking
about the main suspect, because we have the victim, John Williamson,
and then we've got a suspect that has a very
similar last name. Well, before we get into that, is
there anyone who could say definitively that anything was taken
(27:52):
from the Williamson household, considering everybody is dead or too
young to know, or you know, is a lodger who
has bigger concerns.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Yeah, based on the newspaper accounts of the day that
I read, no one definitely said anything was taken from
the pub, except for John Turner, who witnessed the pillar
bending over the body of one of the victims and
taking you know, coins from the pocket and jangling in
his hands. And so from that point of view, the
murder is again it's a motiveless crime. You had another family,
(28:22):
a business owner, well respected in the area, well liked,
but sure for no apparent reason, which really adds to
the sort of terrifying nature of the crimes. You know.
The barbarity obviously is one aspect that makes it solf frightening,
but the fact that these people should be killed for
all apparent reason sort of makes it even more disturbing.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
No, I know, you said that they have a handprint,
and I was trying to remember or even sort of
process whether or not that was going to be helpful,
because I don't know if in eighteen eleven they realized
there was a distinctiveness, like an actual you can identify somebody.
We all have distinct handprint, fingerprint. I don't think that
came into a little bit later they did it.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Scullnyard does actually start using fingerprints until nineteen oh one.
But I'm just gonna jump ahead very quickly here. There
was actually a pretty infamous murder in eighteen forty where
a guy named Lord William Russell's murdered in his bed.
The butler ends up doing it. The press reports at
the time report that there's a bloody pomp print found
on Lord William Russell's pillow. At the time of this murder.
There is a country doctor up in Norfolk named Richard
(29:24):
Overton who has just out of his own interest, studied
the weird marks that human skin leaves on surfaces, and
he reads about this eighteen forty murder. You know, shortly
after it happens, and he sends a letter to Scotland
Yard and he says, you know, he's not very well known,
but human skin has ridges which is particular that each
individual and can be left on the surface. And so
(29:47):
if you arrest the suspect and you take their pondpernt,
he might be able to compare it with the pomp
print found on the pillow. And as a demonstration he
includes his own fingerprints on the layer and he sends
off to Scotland Yard. It gets stuck in the slush
file and is saying for fifty years. It's not found
until eighteen ninety and that is one of the great
what if What if scott Yard had opened that letter
(30:08):
when it arrived in eighteen forty well sort of followed
up in this Victorian crime fighting might have been completely
completely different. So in eighteen eleven go back to the
Poor Williamson's and yeah, they're pump They can't do anything
with it. All they meant was that they knew the
killer to escape through the back window.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
So they have no suspects. We don't think anything really
that we can actually confirm has been taken from either
of these households. They're brutal murders, including a baby in
the first household. Young people that just seemed to be,
you know, left with wreckage. You've got survivors, neither of
whom I'm sure I believe, I don't know. We'll see.
(30:44):
So where do we go next when we are not
living in an era of CCTV credit cards. What do
they end up doing next?
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Well, well, what happens as the investigation, if you can
call it that. And three days after the Williams some murder,
some people come forward and they name a guy named
John Williams. So back trigger Loving, there's no man named
John Williams. He's living at a pub called the Pear Tree,
and he has he has two roommates he's been bunking with.
(31:13):
John Williams is a sailor. He actually knew Timothy Maher.
The two had celts together at some point in their career.
And he sort of piques the suspicions of his two
roommates because in the wake of these murders, he suddenly
seems to have come into a little bit of money.
You know, he usually doesn't have a lot, but now
(31:35):
he's got a little bit to spend. And he's also
changed his appearance. He has shaved his beard. The women
who are doing his laundry at the pub, they report
having found what they believed to have been blood on
one of his shirts in the wake of the murders.
And he was also known to have possessed a knife
that had a quoe unquote peculiar blade that theory I
(31:58):
think could have inflicted the women's fans at the crime scene.
But what really sort of peaks the curiosity of the
constables I want to work in the case is that
the Pear Tree, the pub where John Williams is staying,
had a mall one of these shipbuilding hammers that went missing,
and the mall found at the Timothy Mahra residence is
(32:22):
identified supposedly as the mall that went missing from the
Pear Tree. Based on this eference, which is circumstantial. John
Williams is arrested and he is put through what one
newspaper calls a very thorough interrogation, and we can only.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
In America we'd call the third degree. Probably yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
He's put through this really brutal interrogation where we can
only assume is brutal. He's taken back to his cell
and he hangs himself with a handkerchief on a pipe
that is used to hang clothing, and his body's found
not long after he he hangs himself, So no one
really knows if John Williams did it or not. In
(33:05):
the eyes of the public, he certainly did.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
So let's talk about the evidence before we talk about
his death. I mean, again, this is one of the
most befuddling cases. I've always thought about why the Ratcliff
Highway murders were not as infamous as Jack the Ripper,
And I think it's the taunting part of it. The
murders that at least are a provable connected to this
have stopped after John Williams is dead. But if we
(33:28):
go back and look at the evidence, so the evidence
really was that he knew. I know that Tom de Quincy,
who was a very famous essayist, wrote and did kind
of an investigation also and wrote an essay right and
he said there was this definitive connection between Timothy Marr
and John Williams. What was the connection between John Williams
and John Williamson the victim? I feel like I read
(33:50):
that maybe he had stayed there at some point, but
I don't remember that could have been in a PD
James book, the P. D.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
James book. I mean colors like everything that does with
Williams and mar that there was a definitive connection and
that they and that they sell together. I don't know
how close they were, if they were friends or or
what not, but I mean that was definitely a damning
piece of evidence against him. The other stuff, Yeah, the
shaving of the beard.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
I just don't think there's no evidence.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
There's no evidence.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
And people steal tools all the time.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, And the blood found on his clothes,
it's not even sure it was blood. These two laundrywomen, Yeah,
two ways he did the laundry. He saw it and
just assumed it was blood.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yeah. My thought had been, of course, there's no way
that to definitively match the mall from the crime scene
unless there's fingerprints or something, and even then they wouldn't
have been able to use that. And people stole stuff
all the time. Weren't a terrible area of London. I
just don't none of this is compelling in any way
at all, especially his suicide.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Yeah, ef theft was an incredibly common crime. I think
I said the beginning of very I think seventy five
percent of all crimes. Yeah, in London at the time
our left and Roberty. So the evidence is purely circumstantial.
I think this is one of those things where authorities
just want this case to go away, so let's put
on this guy and be done with it.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Is there an insinuation that someone murdered him, that this
was not, you know, an act of suicide.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
I didn't se any insinuation in the you know, in
the newspaper coverage of the day. The newspapers were either
like happy this guy was gone or angry that he
didn't get justice in court. But I certainly wondered that
when I was when I was researching it. Now it
seems pretty convenient. So who who knows? You know, nothing's
beyond the remay. Hey, look, we've identified Margaret Joel as
(35:37):
a possible suspect now, so nothing's beyond the realm up
right possibility.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah, I mean, you know, you have two able bodied
people who are survivors, you know, John Turner on one
household and Margaret Jewel and another. And I'm not saying
they did it, but I'm just saying that there could
be a coordinated effort I have never thought that John
Williams was a decent suspect at all. But you know,
I'm missing some information. I would like you to talk
(36:02):
about the next level amount of just discussed and what
they did with John Williams after it was discovered that
he had died and they were not able to take
him to trial. What happens next.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
They yeah, they he's not let off the hook, even
in death. They take his body down, they strip him,
they stick him on a cart. They wheel him on
a cart through the East End of London. Crowds are
turning out to sort of jeer him, and you know,
they're throwing fruit and rocks at the guy, and it's
you know, at this corpse. And they take him to
(36:38):
an intersection, a main intersection in the East end of London.
They actually they drive a stake through him and then
they bury him in a hole in the road and
they cover him up there and that's where they leave him.
And then you're right, the case sort of after all,
it's sort of disappears. I'm surprised it's not as well
known as the Ripper case. But like he said, there's
(36:59):
an other sort of reper case is kind of the
first modern day serial killer case where you have the
killer taunting the press. Yeah, and kind of setting the
temb left for that, and the ractifying murders didn't sort
of have that element to it, so it's kind of
been forgotten.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Well, you know a couple of points. One was when
I know when John Williams was buried, he's buried at
this intersection. They did it because, you know, they wanted
to bury him at a crossroad so that when his
spirit rose, it wouldn't know where to go, it would
be perpetually confused, it wouldn't and I think they buried
him face down too. It's pretty awful. Rob Jeffrey said,
(37:33):
you should really go visit this place. The pub's out
there anymore. And I thought, Okay, well, I don't know
if I want to go to this intersection. That's really creepy.
But you know, that idea of sort of convicting somebody,
not letting it go until it was done. I'm sure
people in the mid eighteen hundreds to later eighteen hundreds
before Jack the Ripper knew a lot about Ratcliffe Highway.
And then you've got the Jack the Ripper with its
(37:56):
criminal profiling kind of the first well known case of
criminal profiling, which surprises me because you know, I think
that the Ratcliffe Highway murders is ripe for criminal profiling.
I think you could really have somebody now look at
that case and go, God, this doesn't make any sense,
this guy doesn't fit in at all, or oh yeah,
this is exactly what you would see. I just don't
think you have enough information to know. But it's an
(38:17):
enduring mystery.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
It is fascinating. You're right, it would absolutely be great
for a criminal profiler. And yes, Scott, you know that
Jack the Ripper case is the first attempt made at
criminal profiling. And I'm kind of bouncing around here, But
when I was thinking about writing this book, I know
it's going to have to write about the Jack the
Ripper case, obviously, because you can't write about Scotlan year
and uncluded the Ripper. But I was trying to think
of a different approach to the Ripper case, and that
(38:41):
was one of the things when I was researching. I
discovered that the Jack theap case, it's the first attempt
made a criminal profiling. It's also a first attempt made
at using sniffer dogs returned the scot returned Stellton Yard
a merciless amount of ridicule in the press, but that
sort of ties back into kind of the point of
the book and sort of showing how Scotton Yard really
sort of laid the foundation for a lot of modern
(39:03):
day investigative work and the things we see today and
sort of true crime documentaries and you know we read
about detective thrillers.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
Yeah, absolutely, I mean developing some really innovative techniques and
you know, I just think the history of Scotland Yard
is so fascinating. In the old building, finding Torso's you know.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
That's it's one of when I actually wrote the book
proposal for h for Scotland Yard. Yeah, when they were
building what became known as New Scotland Yard, their new headquarters,
they found a victim up the Thames Torso murder in
the in the basement who was actually killing at the
same time as Jack the Riper. A lot of people
don't realize the Yard was like pursuing two serial killers
(39:40):
at the same time, the Ripper in the tenth Social Order.
But because they found a victiamall the Tennis Sourzew murder
in the basement of Scotlan Yard's headquarters, the first. One
of my book proposal was Scotland Yard is built on
an nonsoul mystery because they never actually solved the Torso murders.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
I don't know if I've mentioned this on the show
before or not. I had heard of the Ratcliff Highway
murders for years because I had read through you know, P. D.
James book. My mom's a huge PD James fan, and
so I knew about the book. But one of my
favorite TV series is Whitechapel. Did you ever watch Whitechapel?
Speaker 2 (40:11):
No? I never. I never did, and I should.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
You got to watch it. I think it's on Prime now.
So the reason that I am fascinated by that show
is they do an excellent episode that mimics the Ratcliffe
Highway murders, where you have a tailor's shop where everybody's
murdered when the seamstress goes out to go get bagels
late at night and comes back and you know she's suspected,
(40:35):
and then there's like a series of other murders that
are very very similar, and they use a historian, a
crime history like me, a crime historian who knows all
about these stories and can say this is what you
can learn from the Ratcliff Highway murders to solve this
case now. And so that might seem like a really
silly premise, but it's an excellent way to talk about
(40:56):
what you and I both talk about, which is that
we can learn so much about current crime, current criminals,
why people kill, how to stop them by looking into
the past, you know. And I think that it's taken
a while for some of my listeners to kind of go, oh,
I get it. I see, these are real people from
the eighteen hundreds, and they are no different. They're no
different than us. I mean, you know, they had different money,
(41:18):
different jobs, different language, but the human emotions all the same.
Everything's the same, you know, everything's.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
You know, human beings do not change. Anything that changes
is that sort of the technology and the methods to
catch them. And that's one of the things with this
book is that, you know, it doesn't appeal just to
people who are fascinated by true crime, but it appeals
to sort of people who enjoy a detective thrillers now
Spelpi or sort of made it up as they went along,
case by bloody case. And so you do see the
evolution of you know, sort of no role book for detectives,
(41:47):
and then you see them sort of gradually developing the
trade craft of detective work, and it's fascinating. You know,
one of the early cases, one of the things that
I found fascinating was one of their early cases in
eighteen thirty seven. You know, we find this poor woman's
found this membered on blong edgeware road. Her head's missing,
her legs are missing. Her head eventually shows up in
(42:07):
a canal just north of central London. Scouting the artplusts
they had on display, they put it in a jar
of spirits. They put it on display in the Pattinson
workhouse to try and identify her, and it works. You know,
a guy comes through sees and goes, oh my god,
that's my sister. And then that leads to the rest
of the killers. So you see these sort of like innovative,
very sort of thinking out of the box approaches to
(42:27):
solving these conflicts times. The other thing too, you know,
when we're talking about murderers today, this is kind of
sound where it's relatively easy to kill someone. You just
have to pull a trigger, you can shoot them. One
of the things that struck me when I was writing
this book was Gott. People really put a lot of
grim effort into murdering people. He didn't just shoot someone. Yeah,
the level of violence was really off the charts.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
I talked on my show a lot about axe murders,
which I said, you know, Paul was sort of surprised,
and I said, people used wood to burn for heat,
and so there was an axe in every household and
if you wanted to kill someone, you could probably find
an axe in their house if you need it to.
And that happened a lot. It doesn't happen as much anymore.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
You've got to make use of the tools you have available.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Well, I mean, I guess if you're determined to kill
somebody and find the weapon there, I've never understood. We
could get into a whole other episode of people who
do that. I still don't get it. But well, this
has been really great, Simon, because I know that every
policing agency has their flaws, big flaws, and I know
that Scotland Yard is no exception. But between the history
(43:29):
and as we've said them, innovativeness and the determination for
a lot of the detectives who have worked for Scotland
Yard and Metropolitan Police to crack some of the cases
and to stop things terrorism, stop the things that they've stopped,
has been really incredible to just see develop over the
last you know, one hundred and fifty to two hundred years.
When you read all those old documents, I'm glad you
(43:49):
pulled them all together into a book.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Thank you very much. Gain No, it was great. One
of the things I wanted to do with this book
is Scotlan Yard has a certain mistique to it from
its very curious name. You know, why is it closer
to the fact that it has sold some of the
most infamous crimes in the history. And when I started researching,
five killings quickly turned into ten, turned into fifteen, turned
in I mean, it was just like a lot of
murders about. One of the things that came out during
(44:12):
the research was that the Yard did and I did.
I was sort of unaware of it, but the Yard
did play a pivotal part in sort of establishing the
foundation for modern day detective work. And so you know,
a lot of the crimes that are in this book
are in there for that very reason. They show the
advancement of police work and sort of investigative technique. So,
you know, I hope people come away thinking, Wow, I
(44:32):
didn't realize Scotlandyard did all this stuff.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
If you love historical true crime stories, check out the
audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That
Is Wicked, and American Sherlock and Don't Forget. There are
twelve seasons of my historical true crime podcast, Tenfold More
Wicked right here in this podcast feed, scroll back and
give them a listen if you haven't already. This has
been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alexis
(45:08):
a Morosi. Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This episode
was mixed by John Bradley. Curtis heath is our composer.
Artwork by Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen
Kilgarriff and Danielle Kramer. Follow Wicked Words on Instagram at
tenfold More Wicked and on Facebook at Wicked Words Pod
This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
One of the things that struck me when I was
writing this book, Boks Scott people really put a lot
of grim effort into mergency people. You didn't just shoot someone,
you did really destroyed. The level of violence was really
off the charts.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor
in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the
podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,
research for my many audio and book projects has taken
me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down
with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists,
(00:53):
filmmakers and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious
true crime cases. This is about the choices writers make,
both good and bad, and it's a deep dive into
the unpublished details behind their stories. Some of my most
favorite true crime stories in history come from the UK,
(01:14):
specifically London, so I was very excited to talk to
author Simon Read about his book Scotland Yard, a History
of the London Police Force's most infamous murder cases. Read
investigated some of Scotland Yard's most interesting cases, and now
he'll tell us about some of them. So I erroneously
(01:36):
assumed that you were American or Canadian based on your accent,
and I was terribly mistaken. Tell me about your background before, briefly,
before we start talking about how you got involved with
a book about Scotland Yard and its history.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Sure, I am British by birth, born in London, North London.
Actually Hendon moved out to the States when I was seven.
My parents' job brought us out here. I am celebrated citizen.
I am very much English at heart, although having lived
in the United States for whatever is forty plus years,
so I've always been an angler phile. I'm always looking
for excuses to write about England or London in particular.
(02:12):
Most of my books. If you go back and you
look at the books that I've written, I think, with
the exception of two of them, they all have a
British theme. So any excuse i'd have to get back there,
do research, sit in a pub, I'll.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Go for it good well. As an American who has
written about a very well known British story, John Reginald Christy,
I wanted to really figure out what your bona fides were,
and it sounds like you're all set. You've grown up
with these stories.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
I'm sure, Yeah, I have, am I And by the way,
Reginald Christy one of the most disturbing cases. Yeah, I've
ever I've stood. I wrote about him in another book
of mine. But my paternal grandfather was a detective with
Scotland Yard.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Wow. Well, okay, what do you think he would have
thought of your book? You've gotten some really great reviews,
and I mean, I bet he would be thrilled. I'm
assuming you know, I think he would have. Well, let's
talk about this book. We much of the time talk
to people who are digging into one big story for
their book or for their piece of the film or
whatever they're doing. So for you, because we're talking about
(03:13):
the history of Scotland Yard, which is storied and traumatizing
and wonderful all at the same time. You know, you
cover a wide array of crimes and I wanted to
dig into two or three or more or less, like
we're just going to see how it goes that I
think are pretty pivotal. And I want you to start
with Ratcliffe Highway murders because it's one of to me,
(03:36):
the most interesting and so important because you know, I
know that these murders were really what led to the
organization of the Metropolitan Police, which was the first organization
in the world, the first police, real police organization, right right.
And what's great about that story is you get to
(03:57):
talk about and tell everybody who doesn't know out the
Bow Street Runners and how they interacted with the tams
River Police. And you know, I will tell you full disclosure.
I took myself down a couple of years ago when
I was in London teaching. I took myself down to
the River Police Museum and got a personalized tour from
(04:18):
Rob Jefferies, who is a I think he's I don't
know if he's a constable there, but he's retired and
he loves talking about that case and why it was important.
And so I'm going to geek out pretty big time,
I think on this story.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
And I'm jealous because when I researched this book, I
was working during the pandemic, during lockdowns, so I had
to rely on sort of online you know, newspapers and
so to go and like chop the ground as it were.
I wish I could have done more that. But you
have the Ratcliffe Liveway murders an extremely important case, and
you're right it does lead to eventually leads to the
establishment of Scotland Yard in eighteen twenty nine. But the
(04:53):
Raclife Liway murders actually happened in eighteen eleven. There's an
eighteen year stretch between the murders and the formation of
Scotland Yard. But the murders happened in December of eighteen
eleven on the Ratcliffe Highway, which is the main east
thoroughfare out of London, and it's a very it's a
dangerous place, doesn't have a great reputation. It's known for debauchery, drunkenness,
(05:17):
vice and violence. It's popular with sailors. In fact, it's
called the Regent Street for sailors of it. Today you
have a lot of men who work the Thames who
live off the highway. They frequent the bars, the taverns,
the shops there. The highway is the home of a
gentleman named Timothy Maher. He's a he's a former sailor
(05:39):
with the Easterndia Company and he sets up a shop
at twenty nine Ratcliffe Highway. He's twenty four years old,
and he establishes a lnen business on the highway in
April of eighteen eleven. It's him, it's his wife, it's
their three month old son, Timothy Junior, and he wants
to know become a businessman and the life at sea
(06:01):
behind him. So he sets up shot there and all
is going well. Business is doing good, and he has
a servant girl named Margaret Jewel. And on the night
of December seventh, eighteen eleven, he sends Margaret out to
fetch some oysters and pay the baker's bill. And it's
around midnight when she leaves Timothy Marris's shop. Timothy's wife,
(06:22):
Celia is down in the basement kitchen feeding the baby.
Timothy is preparing for the next day's business. And Margaret
leaves the shop, and like I say, it's around midnight.
Pretty much everything is closed up. She goes to pay
the baker's bill, she finds the baker's close. She goes
to get some oysters, she finds the oyster shop is closed.
She returns to Timothy morris shop and she's not gone
(06:44):
very long. But when she gets back, it's very strange.
The place is shuttered up. The chaser drawn across the windows.
The door is locked, all the lights are out, and
she knocks on the door and she doesn't get a response,
and she knocks again, no response. Her knocks on the
door become more panicked, and she hears a noise behind
(07:04):
the door. She hears what she describes as a footfall
on the stairs inside the shop, and then she hears
the muffled cry of the baby very month full of
Timothy Junior, and this sort of puts her into a panic,
and she starts really like patting on the door, and
this gets the attention of a night watchman who happens
to be walking by. Night watchmen were sort of an
(07:25):
early form of law enforcement in London at the time.
They patrolled the streets between sunset and sunrise, armed with
a rattle and a whistle, and they were meant to
sort of raise the alarm if they encountered any commotion.
And he comes across Margaret. He asks what the problem is,
She explains the situation. He starts banging on the door.
This attracts the attention of a neighbor who hops from
(07:49):
his house into Timothy Morris's backyard and he goes inside
the shop. He finds a lick candle on the stairs.
He picks it up. He goes into the shop and
he walks into a horrific, horrific crime scene. Timothy's Waxelia.
They've been butchered, now not just murdered, but butcherd horrendously,
throat slashed down to the bone. Their heads have been
(08:09):
carved in. They have a young servant boyd His brains
are actually spattered up onto the ceiling. I mean he's
been beaten with such vorocity. The neighbor opens the door.
A crowd that's been now gathered outside the marshop. They
rush in and see this awful scene, and someone says,
where's the baby, And they find the baby in its
crib down in the basement kitchen. The baby's throat's been splashed,
(08:30):
no mercy shown. This causes a huge shock. It's interesting,
you know, London in this time we tend to think
of it as this place where murder happened all the time.
I don't have specific numbers, but throughout the nineteenth century London,
seventy five percent of the crimes were theft and robbery,
and murder only accounted for ten percent of the crime.
So when a murder did happen, It garnered a lot
(08:52):
of a lot of headlines and so this murder obviously
sent shock waves. The city London doesn't have a police
force at this time, like we discussed, they have this
missmash patchwork of parish constables and night watchmen and then
the Bow Street Runners who are work out of the
Ball Street Magistrate's Court. They report to the Chief Magistrate
(09:15):
Henry Building. They have the power to investigate crime, but
they're they're they're a small force. And there's also the
Thames River Police and try to keep all on order
on the Thames. But there's no sort of there's no
coordination between any of these these entities. They don't they
don't talk to each other, they don't share information, so
there's there would be nothing what you consider sort of
(09:36):
coordinated investigation, certainly by today's standards, don't find really any
clues that the Marti crime team. What they do find
is a it's called a mall and it's a hamm
are used in shipbuilding. It has like a Wesdend use
for plying, hammering and spikes and playing out when when
building ships, and that's found upstairs. But the crime team
doesn't really yield anything else, and the city's kind of
(09:59):
reeling from all of this, and so trying to figure
out what happened. And then twelve days later, on December nineteenth,
the same thing happens again.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Let me ask you like a series of questions here. Yeah,
one thing that I wanted to make clear and correct
me if I'm wrong here. My understanding is that when
we say Ratcliff Highway, which was supposedly known as the
most dangerous road in the world, it's not a highway
the way we think, certainly at least Americans think of
a highway. What would you consider it like a large
road or.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
It's a large road. It's a large road. It's a road.
It's a road aligne with shops on either side. It's
got little alleyways going off the side of it, you know,
cram with tenement housing and sailors cottages. It was called
a highway back in the day because it was one
of the main thorough bears in an out of the
city on the east end. But it's not our highway
like we think of it today, with four lanes of traffic,
(10:51):
and so it's more think of it more like a
high street. A busy main road.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Yeah, okay, so in that area when there is a crime,
a theft or whatever, how is the decision made between
to what You've got the boat street runners, the night
watchmen and the tims River Police. Did I miss anybody?
Is there any other law enforcement entity?
Speaker 2 (11:11):
No, that's that's that's sort of yeah, that's a good question.
There wasn't really any sort of chain of command. This
is the problem. This is one of the problems with
London at that time. It doesn't have a centually organized
peace force. And by that we mean a force that
has the resources and command structure in place to ensure
uniformity and coordination across a large metropolitan area and across investigations.
(11:35):
So each sort of the constables, the nightwatchmen, bow street Runners,
the taserra police, they're all sort of doing their own thing.
And so this is one of the problems why nothing
sort of happens with this case in terms of white
cohesive investigation, because there's no cohesive law enforcement framework to
tackle a crime of this magnitude, and this crime it
(11:57):
generates a huge shockwave. It really generates a love look
shock that won't be seen until you know the jack
the Ripper killings in eighteen eighty eight. But the difference
is when Jack the Rippers doing his stuff in Whitechapel,
he's being hunted by a Metropolitan police force with more
than ten thousand officers. Yeah, now he's you know, the
(12:19):
Ratcliff Hyery murders being hunted by this ragtag, uncoordinated bunch
of unprofessional law enforcement officers.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Basically, I mean, I always got the impression that before
the Metropolitan Police were formed, these entities were always on defense.
They were never playing. There's no offense. Like it was like,
we're there if something bad happens, but we're not going
to like prevent you from you if we see something.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
You know, that's absolutely correct, that's actually correct. They're always
responding to stuff. They're never sort of like out there
trying to suck stuff from happening. They you know, like
I said, you've got the night watchmen who are meant
to patrol the streets at night, and if they see something,
they make a noise with their rattle and they blow
their w That's how it's mental work. But if you
read the newspaper accounts of the day, you find out
(13:04):
most of them are sitting in their guardhouses getting drunk
on gin, you know, and aren't very effective. You have
the parish constables who serve a law enforcement officers for
the various districts and parishes throughout London. They have law
enforcement power and that they can sort of make arrests
and you know, if they see trouble they can haul
someone off to court. But you know it's either a
(13:24):
volunteer gig or a low paying wage. You know, these
aren't they're not very effective. And then you know the
Bow Street Runners. They are sort of the first for
runner to a proper police force, but they're very limited
in their scope. And other magistrate offices in London set
up something similar to what Bow Street is doing with
these constables, but again there's no coordination. And then you
(13:46):
have the River Police wore out on the water, so
they're kind of like a forward of the identity.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
So let me summarize so far. So December eighteen eleven,
I have to assume it's just colder than hell in London.
In the most dangerous street in the world. You've got
the mar family, which is just an upstanding family with
their business. A young couple they are murdered brutally. I mean,
just horrifically murdered, as well as their baby and a
(14:11):
servant boy. How did we say the young boy was.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Twelve or fourteen? Can he's a young teen?
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Yeah? Not enough to defend himself, I'm assuming. Okay, now
we just jump in immediately into the mystery before we
get to the second set of murders here. I have
always wondered, and I don't remember if I asked Rob Jeffries,
my wonderful tour guide on the river, about this, But
did they really expect this was at midnight? Is that
when she went out?
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Yeah, she goes out. She goes out shortly before midnight.
And if I remember on the newspaper accounts, she's only
gone for about fifteen or twenty minutes or so.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
So is that normal that a bakery and an oyster
shop would be open at midnight in this area? I mean,
why would she do that? Why would he do that? Understand?
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I thought the same thing. So I'd heard of the
Ragnifiery murders prior to writing this book, but this was
the first time i'd ever sort of like researched the crimes,
and I didn't know the specifics necessarily about them, and
when I read that, I thought that was very very odd,
you know, like the righttically by the way, like you said,
very dangerous reputation back one of the newspapers said it
(15:16):
was representative all of all that was dirty, disorderly and debased.
So it seems sending out a young servant girl after midnight,
at midnight to you know, track down oysters and pay
the baker, it's a weird it's a weird decision to make,
and that the fact that you know, a baker would
be open at midnight or an oyster shot would be
open at midnight, doesn't make much sense. One of the
(15:37):
newspaper counts I found where they Margaret Jewel is giving
tesscona during an inquest. She says, you know, when she
stepped out on the street, the street was you know,
the street was quiet. You know, stores were closed. So
it seems an odd decision to do. Honestly, it was
probably a lucky decision though, because if she'd been around
in the house, she would have ended up suffering the
same fight.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Okay, so we're we're at a point where now you've
got who was responding to this, Who are the investigators
who come to Timothy Maher's place and see this just
cornage and begin to interview Margaret Jewele and trying to
figure out, you know, what has happened that night.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
I would say, I don't have the name, but it
was they were interviewed by us the night watchman who
showed up local constables, and then the local corner came
and there was an inquest held one or two days
after the murders at a pub right across the street
from the mar household. You know, Margaret Jewel gives testimony
in that inquest, and she's actually overcome with emotion recounting
(16:36):
what she saw. She breaks down on the witness stand,
you know, understandably, and she actually passes out. She's able
to sort of just recount the offense of that evening
and being sent out to get the oysters and pay
the Baker bill. And then when she starts recounting about
what she saw when she was led in to the
Mar home and she saw the baby in the crib,
(16:58):
she really loses it, rightfully, so she passes out, and
they do revive her, but they don't they don't make
her continue her testimony. The coroner's juryous brought across the
street to sort of view the crime scene. They view
the bodies, the nature of the wounds are discussed for
the first time. You know. The initial press reports just
(17:19):
say they were murdered brutally. Then during the corner's inquest,
they go into just how badly these people were. I mean,
they weren't just murdered, they were butchered, you know, throats
cut down to the bone almost at the point of decapitation,
facial bones smashed. It's really really horrendous. So the corner's
jury you know, returns a verdict of sort of you know,
(17:40):
murder against a person or person's unknown, and then the
family are are laid to rest in the local parish church,
Saint George's, I believe, and Timothy Maher is buried in
his own coffin, and then Cecilia is buried with her baby.
There's a huge turnout, huge turnout. People are you know,
ractive highway to bid their final respects. And during the
(18:05):
funeral service, the preacher who presides over the funeral service,
you know, he says, made God, you know, enact vengeance
against whoever did this awful deed. So this family's laid
to rest, but without any answers as to who did
this or even even why.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
So what is the speculation. We don't have very much
time between what happens with Timothy Moore's family and then
what happens next. What is the speculation so far? Do
people have any idea?
Speaker 2 (18:31):
They don't this And this is one of the things
when I was like reading the newspaper accounts from the day,
was that was one of the things that was so
puzzling about the case. This guy was, you know, it
was an inoffensive individual. He ran and he ran a
linen shop. He was a father, you know, young father,
he was twenty four years old. No one wished him
ill will, and so that's one of the things that
(18:52):
was so pleasant. There's there's nothing to point to a motive.
This was a guy who was folding linens for the
next day's business. His wife's beating the baby, and someone
barges in and butchers all of them. Because there was
no clear motive for why this happened, there is it
generates real fear in the area. If it can happen
to these people, it could happen again, and well and behold,
(19:14):
that's exactly what happens.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
I don't know if you know this. I have another
show with a cold case investigator named Paul Holes. It's
called Buried Bones. And if I were telling Paul this story,
he would say probably, I would guess if I'm going
to channel Poul Holes, he would say, it is fantastical
to think that there is somebody lying in wait, waiting
for the servant girl at midnight to leave, not knowing
(19:37):
when she's going to come back, and this guy has
just enough time to slaughter this whole family before Margaret
Jewel comes back. The more I think about it, the
more I think this is bus I don't understand.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
It's very strange. I don't understand it either. Honestly, would
your co hosts think maybe Margaret Jewel will somehow and involve.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Yes, I think he would. I think he would say
that seems odd. I mean, I guess, okay, was anything taken?
Is there robbery anywhere in this? Do you think nothing?
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Was in the newspaper council and I didn't see anything of
anything taken. The only thing odd that they found out
was the shipping mallet the mall. But then what would
Margaret jules motive? Maybe her freaking out on the stand
and passing out. Maybe that was an act she didn't
want to have to answer too many questions.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
So people are completely freaked out, even though this is
the most dangerous road in the world. Where do we
go next?
Speaker 2 (20:34):
The more murder is on December seventh, and then twelve
days later, on December nineteenth, just a two minute walk
from the Mars shop, there's a place called the King's
Arms Tavern. This is a place. It's owned by a
gentleman named John Williamson and his wife Elizabeth, and their servant,
a woman named Bridget. And they've owned the place. I
(20:56):
think it was fifteen years. They've run the place. They're
very well established in the area. They're very well h liked.
The press actually call out that the King's Tavern was
open to one and all foreigners of all kinds. There
was no discrimination. You know. Williams is a really friendly guy.
It's not as a place to go get a mail
and a drink and everyone's welcome. But on the night
(21:20):
of December and nineteenth, Williams and his wife and Serbra
went Bridget. They are also horribly murdered in much the
same fashion as the mar family. But what's different in
this case is there is a witness of sorts. So
the King's Tavern, it's u pub. It has rooms upstairs
that you can let. And there's a gentleman upstairs who's
(21:42):
been living living at the pub for quite a while.
He's and he's upstairs. He's he's getting ready for bed.
He came home from a night out on the town.
He sees John Willimson and his wife. He talks him
for a bit. They seem perfectly normal. He bets them
good night, and he goes upstairs and he's getting ready
for bed, and he's he's naked, and he suddenly hears
(22:04):
a commotion downstairs. He hears someone like barging into the place,
and he hears John Williamson cry out, we are murdered.
And there's a sound, there's there's screaming, there's sounds of
all this violence happening. He hears a number of really
heavy thumps, like something being bashed in and he's petrified,
and he's he's up there in his room, like he said,
(22:25):
he's naked. He doesn't, you know, because he's got ready
for bed. He opens his bedroom door and he sneaks
down the stairs and he gets to the bottom up
the stairs, and there's a door at the bottom up
the stairs, and the door is slightly ajar, and he
peers through it and he looks into the room and
the rooms lit by the fireplace, and he can see
(22:46):
a body lying on the ground, and he sees a
man kneeling over the body. And the man's back is
to him, so he doesn't see the face. But the
man appears to be wearing like a long leather trench coat,
and it seems to be going through the pockets of
the body. And he hears this man take change or
coins out of the body's pockets, sort of jangle him
(23:07):
in his hands and stick him in his pocket. He
is he's petrified, and he sneaks back upstairs as quietly
as he can, and he puts on a night shirt
and some pants, and he has to get out of here.
You know, he's terrified he's going to be slaughtered next
and so he takes a couple of sheets from his bed,
he ties them around his bed head, and he lures
(23:29):
them out the window of his room and he starts
crawling out. And as he's crawling out the window, a
night washman happens to come by and see a guy
crawling out the pulp window, you know, in his night shirt.
This raises the alarm, and the nightwashman sounds his rattle,
blows his whistle, and folks in the surrounding houses come
(23:49):
out and they break into the pub. They break down
the front door, and they smash a basement window. Call
and they enter in and they find again a horrible
seeing John Williamson. He's you know, his throat's been slipped
down to the bone. He's been beaten balley. He actually
has a broken leg. Looks like he took a tumble
down a flight of stairs into the basement level while
(24:10):
he was trying to defend himself. His wife, Elizabeth, she's
been stabs, throw slat, you know, head caved in. The
servant woman Bridget They said she had a huge, a
huge hole in the side of her neck where you know,
she'd been mutilated. And this time there's there's a clue
such as it was. It probably be a gold line
(24:31):
of the clue today back then, but there was a
like a bloody handprint on a window sill that led
out the back of let out the back of the pub.
The way it's described in the newspapers up the day
is the back of the pub fased out on. I
guess you could call it wasteland. It was wet clay,
and the killer climbed up this mountain of wet clay
(24:51):
and then ran away once he got to the top
of the hill. So the speculation is that this guy
would have probably been covered in clay when he when
he got to the top. But you know, except that
he left a handprint, well he handprint on the windowsill,
which today would have been a gold mine. Back then,
it didn't mean anything. And so you've got you know,
(25:12):
was it twelve days since the war murder and now
it's it's happened again. And one of the London newspapers,
which I caught in the book, they're almost like apologetic
that they have to report. Thence the following day they
actually start off with like, you know, we're sorry we
have to tell you this, but it's happened again. You
have you know, the Nightwatchman, the Constables. This sort of
(25:32):
mismashed investigation with no sort of like coordinated effort happening.
It kind of goes nowhere until a couple of people
stepped forward and you know, with some information that I
think is pivotal to the case.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Yeah, I mean I think this is this set of
murders too, is just so terrifying to think. Again, you know,
a well liked business owner, you know, at home late
at night into some birds cold outside the story of
the lodger. It's John Turner. I had remembered is the
guy's name?
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Thank you? Yes, thank you, yes.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
John Turner. And when he says that he sees a
tall man in a long coat standing over Missus Williamson's
body right at the bottom of the stairs and jingling
money and stuff like that. Yet again you've got another
character who's there who kind of a little bit like
Margaret Jewel. It's sort of like to me in a
little bit of a mysterious character. I mean, there's all
sorts of weird things happening. You always look at people
(26:27):
who are the survivors and think, how did that happen?
You know, when you have all of these victims. So
I find that interesting. And also, you know, I had thought, well,
there's you know, if maybe he's mistaken or I don't know,
we don't know if he's been drinking, and we you know,
we don't know if he's the one who did it.
There's just so many weird inconsistencies, I think, but this
had to have been terrifying.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Yeah, it is word and when I was researching this,
I thought, God, this guy had a lucky break, you
know the fancas he said with a tipsoe back up
the stairs without sort of sounding the a arm. And
then you're thinking, you know, these old pubger maybing around upstairs,
you know, aren't floor boards creaking and a massort? One
thing I didn't include it in the book, but one
thing also, The other person who was in the house
and slept the whole thing was John Wallinson's young granddaughter. Yeah,
(27:09):
she sleeps through the whole thing. She scares. But John
Turner us seem a bit of crief for, like, you know,
fleeing the place when there was a child sleeping sleeping upstairs.
On the flip side of that, you can't blame something
for trying to scarey out a window to escape. But
it is strange both the murders, you have the survivors. Hey,
who knows, maybe Margaret Jewel and John Turner were working
(27:30):
in cahoots.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
I think that's just as probable as what it sounds like.
We're going to learn about the main suspect here. Pretty
soon it gets a little confusing when we start talking
about the main suspect, because we have the victim, John Williamson,
and then we've got a suspect that has a very
similar last name. Well, before we get into that, is
there anyone who could say definitively that anything was taken
(27:52):
from the Williamson household, considering everybody is dead or too
young to know, or you know, is a lodger who
has bigger concerns.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Yeah, based on the newspaper accounts of the day that
I read, no one definitely said anything was taken from
the pub, except for John Turner, who witnessed the pillar
bending over the body of one of the victims and
taking you know, coins from the pocket and jangling in
his hands. And so from that point of view, the
murder is again it's a motiveless crime. You had another family,
(28:22):
a business owner, well respected in the area, well liked,
but sure for no apparent reason, which really adds to
the sort of terrifying nature of the crimes. You know.
The barbarity obviously is one aspect that makes it solf frightening,
but the fact that these people should be killed for
all apparent reason sort of makes it even more disturbing.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
No, I know, you said that they have a handprint,
and I was trying to remember or even sort of
process whether or not that was going to be helpful,
because I don't know if in eighteen eleven they realized
there was a distinctiveness, like an actual you can identify somebody.
We all have distinct handprint, fingerprint. I don't think that
came into a little bit later they did it.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Scullnyard does actually start using fingerprints until nineteen oh one.
But I'm just gonna jump ahead very quickly here. There
was actually a pretty infamous murder in eighteen forty where
a guy named Lord William Russell's murdered in his bed.
The butler ends up doing it. The press reports at
the time report that there's a bloody pomp print found
on Lord William Russell's pillow. At the time of this murder.
There is a country doctor up in Norfolk named Richard
(29:24):
Overton who has just out of his own interest, studied
the weird marks that human skin leaves on surfaces, and
he reads about this eighteen forty murder. You know, shortly
after it happens, and he sends a letter to Scotland
Yard and he says, you know, he's not very well known,
but human skin has ridges which is particular that each
individual and can be left on the surface. And so
(29:47):
if you arrest the suspect and you take their pondpernt,
he might be able to compare it with the pomp
print found on the pillow. And as a demonstration he
includes his own fingerprints on the layer and he sends
off to Scotland Yard. It gets stuck in the slush
file and is saying for fifty years. It's not found
until eighteen ninety and that is one of the great
what if What if scott Yard had opened that letter
(30:08):
when it arrived in eighteen forty well sort of followed
up in this Victorian crime fighting might have been completely
completely different. So in eighteen eleven go back to the
Poor Williamson's and yeah, they're pump They can't do anything
with it. All they meant was that they knew the
killer to escape through the back window.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
So they have no suspects. We don't think anything really
that we can actually confirm has been taken from either
of these households. They're brutal murders, including a baby in
the first household. Young people that just seemed to be,
you know, left with wreckage. You've got survivors, neither of
whom I'm sure I believe, I don't know. We'll see.
(30:44):
So where do we go next when we are not
living in an era of CCTV credit cards. What do
they end up doing next?
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Well, well, what happens as the investigation, if you can
call it that. And three days after the Williams some murder,
some people come forward and they name a guy named
John Williams. So back trigger Loving, there's no man named
John Williams. He's living at a pub called the Pear Tree,
and he has he has two roommates he's been bunking with.
(31:13):
John Williams is a sailor. He actually knew Timothy Maher.
The two had celts together at some point in their career.
And he sort of piques the suspicions of his two
roommates because in the wake of these murders, he suddenly
seems to have come into a little bit of money.
You know, he usually doesn't have a lot, but now
(31:35):
he's got a little bit to spend. And he's also
changed his appearance. He has shaved his beard. The women
who are doing his laundry at the pub, they report
having found what they believed to have been blood on
one of his shirts in the wake of the murders.
And he was also known to have possessed a knife
that had a quoe unquote peculiar blade that theory I
(31:58):
think could have inflicted the women's fans at the crime scene.
But what really sort of peaks the curiosity of the
constables I want to work in the case is that
the Pear Tree, the pub where John Williams is staying,
had a mall one of these shipbuilding hammers that went missing,
and the mall found at the Timothy Mahra residence is
(32:22):
identified supposedly as the mall that went missing from the
Pear Tree. Based on this eference, which is circumstantial. John
Williams is arrested and he is put through what one
newspaper calls a very thorough interrogation, and we can only.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
In America we'd call the third degree. Probably yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
He's put through this really brutal interrogation where we can
only assume is brutal. He's taken back to his cell
and he hangs himself with a handkerchief on a pipe
that is used to hang clothing, and his body's found
not long after he he hangs himself, So no one
really knows if John Williams did it or not. In
(33:05):
the eyes of the public, he certainly did.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
So let's talk about the evidence before we talk about
his death. I mean, again, this is one of the
most befuddling cases. I've always thought about why the Ratcliff
Highway murders were not as infamous as Jack the Ripper,
And I think it's the taunting part of it. The
murders that at least are a provable connected to this
have stopped after John Williams is dead. But if we
(33:28):
go back and look at the evidence, so the evidence
really was that he knew. I know that Tom de Quincy,
who was a very famous essayist, wrote and did kind
of an investigation also and wrote an essay right and
he said there was this definitive connection between Timothy Marr
and John Williams. What was the connection between John Williams
and John Williamson the victim? I feel like I read
(33:50):
that maybe he had stayed there at some point, but
I don't remember that could have been in a PD
James book, the P. D.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
James book. I mean colors like everything that does with
Williams and mar that there was a definitive connection and
that they and that they sell together. I don't know
how close they were, if they were friends or or
what not, but I mean that was definitely a damning
piece of evidence against him. The other stuff, Yeah, the
shaving of the beard.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
I just don't think there's no evidence.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
There's no evidence.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
And people steal tools all the time.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, And the blood found on his clothes,
it's not even sure it was blood. These two laundrywomen, Yeah,
two ways he did the laundry. He saw it and
just assumed it was blood.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yeah. My thought had been, of course, there's no way
that to definitively match the mall from the crime scene
unless there's fingerprints or something, and even then they wouldn't
have been able to use that. And people stole stuff
all the time. Weren't a terrible area of London. I
just don't none of this is compelling in any way
at all, especially his suicide.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Yeah, ef theft was an incredibly common crime. I think
I said the beginning of very I think seventy five
percent of all crimes. Yeah, in London at the time
our left and Roberty. So the evidence is purely circumstantial.
I think this is one of those things where authorities
just want this case to go away, so let's put
on this guy and be done with it.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Is there an insinuation that someone murdered him, that this
was not, you know, an act of suicide.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
I didn't se any insinuation in the you know, in
the newspaper coverage of the day. The newspapers were either
like happy this guy was gone or angry that he
didn't get justice in court. But I certainly wondered that
when I was when I was researching it. Now it
seems pretty convenient. So who who knows? You know, nothing's
beyond the remay. Hey, look, we've identified Margaret Joel as
(35:37):
a possible suspect now, so nothing's beyond the realm up
right possibility.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah, I mean, you know, you have two able bodied
people who are survivors, you know, John Turner on one
household and Margaret Jewel and another. And I'm not saying
they did it, but I'm just saying that there could
be a coordinated effort I have never thought that John
Williams was a decent suspect at all. But you know,
I'm missing some information. I would like you to talk
(36:02):
about the next level amount of just discussed and what
they did with John Williams after it was discovered that
he had died and they were not able to take
him to trial. What happens next.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
They yeah, they he's not let off the hook, even
in death. They take his body down, they strip him,
they stick him on a cart. They wheel him on
a cart through the East End of London. Crowds are
turning out to sort of jeer him, and you know,
they're throwing fruit and rocks at the guy, and it's
you know, at this corpse. And they take him to
(36:38):
an intersection, a main intersection in the East end of London.
They actually they drive a stake through him and then
they bury him in a hole in the road and
they cover him up there and that's where they leave him.
And then you're right, the case sort of after all,
it's sort of disappears. I'm surprised it's not as well
known as the Ripper case. But like he said, there's
(36:59):
an other sort of reper case is kind of the
first modern day serial killer case where you have the
killer taunting the press. Yeah, and kind of setting the
temb left for that, and the ractifying murders didn't sort
of have that element to it, so it's kind of
been forgotten.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Well, you know a couple of points. One was when
I know when John Williams was buried, he's buried at
this intersection. They did it because, you know, they wanted
to bury him at a crossroad so that when his
spirit rose, it wouldn't know where to go, it would
be perpetually confused, it wouldn't and I think they buried
him face down too. It's pretty awful. Rob Jeffrey said,
(37:33):
you should really go visit this place. The pub's out
there anymore. And I thought, Okay, well, I don't know
if I want to go to this intersection. That's really creepy.
But you know, that idea of sort of convicting somebody,
not letting it go until it was done. I'm sure
people in the mid eighteen hundreds to later eighteen hundreds
before Jack the Ripper knew a lot about Ratcliffe Highway.
And then you've got the Jack the Ripper with its
(37:56):
criminal profiling kind of the first well known case of
criminal profiling, which surprises me because you know, I think
that the Ratcliffe Highway murders is ripe for criminal profiling.
I think you could really have somebody now look at
that case and go, God, this doesn't make any sense,
this guy doesn't fit in at all, or oh yeah,
this is exactly what you would see. I just don't
think you have enough information to know. But it's an
(38:17):
enduring mystery.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
It is fascinating. You're right, it would absolutely be great
for a criminal profiler. And yes, Scott, you know that
Jack the Ripper case is the first attempt made at
criminal profiling. And I'm kind of bouncing around here, But
when I was thinking about writing this book, I know
it's going to have to write about the Jack the
Ripper case, obviously, because you can't write about Scotlan year
and uncluded the Ripper. But I was trying to think
of a different approach to the Ripper case, and that
(38:41):
was one of the things when I was researching. I
discovered that the Jack theap case, it's the first attempt
made a criminal profiling. It's also a first attempt made
at using sniffer dogs returned the scot returned Stellton Yard
a merciless amount of ridicule in the press, but that
sort of ties back into kind of the point of
the book and sort of showing how Scotton Yard really
sort of laid the foundation for a lot of modern
(39:03):
day investigative work and the things we see today and
sort of true crime documentaries and you know we read
about detective thrillers.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
Yeah, absolutely, I mean developing some really innovative techniques and
you know, I just think the history of Scotland Yard
is so fascinating. In the old building, finding Torso's you know.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
That's it's one of when I actually wrote the book
proposal for h for Scotland Yard. Yeah, when they were
building what became known as New Scotland Yard, their new headquarters,
they found a victim up the Thames Torso murder in
the in the basement who was actually killing at the
same time as Jack the Riper. A lot of people
don't realize the Yard was like pursuing two serial killers
(39:40):
at the same time, the Ripper in the tenth Social Order.
But because they found a victiamall the Tennis Sourzew murder
in the basement of Scotlan Yard's headquarters, the first. One
of my book proposal was Scotland Yard is built on
an nonsoul mystery because they never actually solved the Torso murders.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
I don't know if I've mentioned this on the show
before or not. I had heard of the Ratcliff Highway
murders for years because I had read through you know, P. D.
James book. My mom's a huge PD James fan, and
so I knew about the book. But one of my
favorite TV series is Whitechapel. Did you ever watch Whitechapel?
Speaker 2 (40:11):
No? I never. I never did, and I should.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
You got to watch it. I think it's on Prime now.
So the reason that I am fascinated by that show
is they do an excellent episode that mimics the Ratcliffe
Highway murders, where you have a tailor's shop where everybody's
murdered when the seamstress goes out to go get bagels
late at night and comes back and you know she's suspected,
(40:35):
and then there's like a series of other murders that
are very very similar, and they use a historian, a
crime history like me, a crime historian who knows all
about these stories and can say this is what you
can learn from the Ratcliff Highway murders to solve this
case now. And so that might seem like a really
silly premise, but it's an excellent way to talk about
(40:56):
what you and I both talk about, which is that
we can learn so much about current crime, current criminals,
why people kill, how to stop them by looking into
the past, you know. And I think that it's taken
a while for some of my listeners to kind of go, oh,
I get it. I see, these are real people from
the eighteen hundreds, and they are no different. They're no
different than us. I mean, you know, they had different money,
(41:18):
different jobs, different language, but the human emotions all the same.
Everything's the same, you know, everything's.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
You know, human beings do not change. Anything that changes
is that sort of the technology and the methods to
catch them. And that's one of the things with this
book is that, you know, it doesn't appeal just to
people who are fascinated by true crime, but it appeals
to sort of people who enjoy a detective thrillers now
Spelpi or sort of made it up as they went along,
case by bloody case. And so you do see the
evolution of you know, sort of no role book for detectives,
(41:47):
and then you see them sort of gradually developing the
trade craft of detective work, and it's fascinating. You know,
one of the early cases, one of the things that
I found fascinating was one of their early cases in
eighteen thirty seven. You know, we find this poor woman's
found this membered on blong edgeware road. Her head's missing,
her legs are missing. Her head eventually shows up in
(42:07):
a canal just north of central London. Scouting the artplusts
they had on display, they put it in a jar
of spirits. They put it on display in the Pattinson
workhouse to try and identify her, and it works. You know,
a guy comes through sees and goes, oh my god,
that's my sister. And then that leads to the rest
of the killers. So you see these sort of like innovative,
very sort of thinking out of the box approaches to
(42:27):
solving these conflicts times. The other thing too, you know,
when we're talking about murderers today, this is kind of
sound where it's relatively easy to kill someone. You just
have to pull a trigger, you can shoot them. One
of the things that struck me when I was writing
this book was Gott. People really put a lot of
grim effort into murdering people. He didn't just shoot someone. Yeah,
the level of violence was really off the charts.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
I talked on my show a lot about axe murders,
which I said, you know, Paul was sort of surprised,
and I said, people used wood to burn for heat,
and so there was an axe in every household and
if you wanted to kill someone, you could probably find
an axe in their house if you need it to.
And that happened a lot. It doesn't happen as much anymore.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
You've got to make use of the tools you have available.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Well, I mean, I guess if you're determined to kill
somebody and find the weapon there, I've never understood. We
could get into a whole other episode of people who
do that. I still don't get it. But well, this
has been really great, Simon, because I know that every
policing agency has their flaws, big flaws, and I know
that Scotland Yard is no exception. But between the history
(43:29):
and as we've said them, innovativeness and the determination for
a lot of the detectives who have worked for Scotland
Yard and Metropolitan Police to crack some of the cases
and to stop things terrorism, stop the things that they've stopped,
has been really incredible to just see develop over the
last you know, one hundred and fifty to two hundred years.
When you read all those old documents, I'm glad you
(43:49):
pulled them all together into a book.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Thank you very much. Gain No, it was great. One
of the things I wanted to do with this book
is Scotlan Yard has a certain mistique to it from
its very curious name. You know, why is it closer
to the fact that it has sold some of the
most infamous crimes in the history. And when I started researching,
five killings quickly turned into ten, turned into fifteen, turned
in I mean, it was just like a lot of
murders about. One of the things that came out during
(44:12):
the research was that the Yard did and I did.
I was sort of unaware of it, but the Yard
did play a pivotal part in sort of establishing the
foundation for modern day detective work. And so you know,
a lot of the crimes that are in this book
are in there for that very reason. They show the
advancement of police work and sort of investigative technique. So,
you know, I hope people come away thinking, Wow, I
(44:32):
didn't realize Scotlandyard did all this stuff.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
If you love historical true crime stories, check out the
audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That
Is Wicked, and American Sherlock and Don't Forget. There are
twelve seasons of my historical true crime podcast, Tenfold More
Wicked right here in this podcast feed, scroll back and
give them a listen if you haven't already. This has
been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alexis
(45:08):
a Morosi. Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This episode
was mixed by John Bradley. Curtis heath is our composer.
Artwork by Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen
Kilgarriff and Danielle Kramer. Follow Wicked Words on Instagram at
tenfold More Wicked and on Facebook at Wicked Words Pod
Host
Kate Winkler Dawson
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