One of the strangest unsolved mysteries in the world started around 3.30 p.m. on August 31st 1888. The sun had yet to rise leaving only the dim street lamps to light the narrow streets of Whitechapel, London. Charles Cross was on his way to work when he noticed something in the road: he thought it was a tarp, maybe a bundle of loose cloth left behind in the night. He got a little closer and made a grisly discovery. True Crime Recaps: Jack the Ripper: The World’s Most Famous Unsolved Case, Youtube 15.20, 2023
Mary was the first in a line of dead women around Whitechapel, London, the hunting ground of the one and only Jack the Ripper. ibid.
While Jack is grabbing all the headlines, there’s another monster lurking around. This one is just as brutal, leaving a trail of dismembered victims that has everyone on edge. They call him the Torso Killer … Was this second fiend actually Jack playing a different kind of deadly game? True Crime Recaps: Jack the Ripper or Dual Depravity? The Thames Torso Killer Mystery, Youtube 2024
The four canonical Torso Killer victims, but that’s not to say this maniac only killed four women. ibid.
The fall of 1888. And the London streets of London were in a frenzied terror stalked by the evil presence of a depraved monster intent upon bloody murder, stealthily scouring the cobbled streets and dark, narrow alleyways for his next victim. A serial killer was moving amongst the poverty striken folk of London’s East End. Jack the Ripper Conspiracies, 2003, viz Amazon 2024
This is one of history’s greatest unsolved mysteries. ibid.
Take a look at the various suspects and you soon realise the lengths to which the theorists will go. ibid.
Jack might have been a Jill … Queen Victoria herself was considered by some. ibid.
Jack has taken on a life of his own that’s outside of what he actually did. But when you realise the full horror of his crime, your perspective changes. Unsolved Mysteries s4e1: Who Was Jack the Ripper? historian, Netflix 2024
Jack the Ripper! It’s a newsman’s dream! ibid.
[Rozzer as narrator]: In September of 1888 the streets of Whitechapel were a dark and frightening place at the best of times. The Unsolved Killings of Jack the Ripper, Amazon 2024
The hunt for one of the most elusive and mysterious killers in history. ibid.
On October 1st 1888 the Jack the Ripper letter went public. It was printed in newspapers, and a mania broke out. ibid.
On 7th October 1888 London was in the middle of a media frenzy. A tabloid newspaper had published a murder map. It showed the locations where just days earlier several women had been brutally murdered. Spectators flocked like tourists to London’s East End. Jack the Ripper: Lucy Worsley Investigates, BBC 2024
There murders are now more than 130 years old. And we’re still obsessed. ibid.
‘Dreadful murders of unfortunate women of a bad class in London’. ibid. Queen Victoria’s diary
Just how easy it was in Victorian London to fall far and fast. ibid.
It explores our deepest fears and anxieties about society. ibid.
The story of Jack the Ripper in 1888 set the template for a new kind of entertainment based on murder. How a crime story is constructed, commercialised and then consumed. ibid.
The London Thames. Winding silently through the capital. Though calm today, in Victorian times it was buzzing with trade, building and activity. But it also had a sinister side. Lucy Worsley: Victorian Murder Club I, BBC 2026
London 1887: This is a murderer you’ve probably never heard of. The killer’s hallmark was to dismember the bodies of his victims, and to scatter the body parts up and down the river. Given the name The Thames Torso Murderer he was never caught. ibid.
Who were the women? And who killed them? bid.
Why on earth would you take that risk? ibid.
Could it be the Thames Torso Murders could have been the work of Jack the Ripper all along? ibid.
It is truly remarkable that nearly 140 years after the man the press called Jack the Ripper stalked these streets people are still coming from all over the world. Lucy Worsley: Victorian Murder Club II
A terrifying series of unsolved murders known as the Thames Torso Killings. The case began in 1887 with body parts of an unidentified woman. ibid.
As the police investigated, clues were found, suspects emerged, but the investigation has hit a dead end. ibid.
Jack the Ripper v Thames Torso Murders: ‘It’s very close geographically, isn’t it?’ ibid. Kate Lister
Disappearances could slip by unnoticed. ibid.
In 1889 the area just south of Pinchin Street was dominated by the vast London docks … Today it no longer exists. ibid.
To make the journey with a body – it does sound to me challenging. ibid.
Jack the Ripper’ letter: ‘I am a horse slaughterer.’ ibid.
‘I think James Handiman is angry. I think he had a boiling rage at the class of women.’ ibid. comment
The streets round here were also infamous for sex work. According to the police there were around 60 brothels in the local area. And 1,200 prostitutes. ibid.
Whether he and his whole family had syphilis. ibid.
19th century London: ‘A woman who’d been sentenced because she wouldn’t submit to a veneral examination. Because she wouldn’t submit to a venereal examination, she was sentenced by a judge – who’s paid her for sex two days before.’ ibid. Kate Lister; viz R v Josephine Butler sentenced by magistrate
Two serial killers operating in London? ibid.
‘12 years after the Torso murders, a dismembered body was found near the river, and it was a woman.’ ibid. Kate Lister
A new suspect enters the frame: Polish immigrant and a known murderer, Seweryn Klosowski [George Chapman]. Is this the Thames Torso murderer? ibid.
Klosowski aka George Chapman: Some people believe that these three weren’t his only victims, and that in the 1880s he might have murdered many more. Lucy Worsley: Victorian Murder Club III
One of the 19th century’s most brutal serial killers. ibid.
Why does he have to leave Poland? ibid.
‘His Polish wife goes missing and is never seen again.’ ibid. comment
‘Klosowski found found guilty [poison x3] and sentenced to death.’ ibid.
‘It’s almost like the Thames is his [killer] accomplice.’ ibid. expert
Klosowki doesn’t have a connection to the river. ibid.
[Sarah Horton, researcher]: ‘I started searching in the records … a young waterman called James Crick … The first charge was of rape … again a case of rape and attempted murder …’ ibid.
‘She [wife] had been subjected throughout the whole year to his brutality.’ ibid. Horton
He’s got a long history of violence. People accusing him of violence. He’s kicked his wife so hard that she’s screamed so loud that the police have come. He works on the river. And he’s carrying out his violent assaults at exactly the same time as the Torso bodies have been found. ibid.
When he was imprisoned, the killings on the river stopped. ibid.
Crick to surviving victim Sarah, ‘I intend to settle you as I have other women that have been found in the Thomas, if you make a noise.’ ibid.
There’s only one man who the means, the skills, and the temperament. And we’ve been able to link him to the locations where the body parts were found. ibid.