Morbid - Episode 343: Jack the Ripper Part 1

Episode Date: July 25, 2022

Alaina takes us to the streets of Whitechapel for part one of Jack The Ripper, and boy is it a stark picture she’s painting us. Whitechapel was dark, damp, dirty and downright desolate at the time Jack The Ripper was roaming the streets. People were living in all kinds of horrible conditions, butchers and slaughterhouse workers were walking around covered in blood and because things were like this, it made the perfect stomping ground for a vicious murderer. Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols was the Ripper’s first victim and the main person that we’ll go over in part one while Alaina also gives us a background on a couple of other potential early victims. Stay tuned for (we’re thinkin’) three more!Check out these great books on the case:Jack the Ripper and The Case For Scotland Yard's Prime Suspect by Robert HouseThe Complete Jack the Ripper by Donald RumbelowThe Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie RubenholdThe Hidden Lives of Jack the Ripper's Victims by Robert HumeThe Ripper Code by Thomas ToughillAlso check out these sites on the case:JackTheRipper.orgCasebook: Jack The RipperSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Olena. And this is morbid and it's going to get really morbid in here today. See, I like to do the Hey Weirdos especially now because we were saying it, I think, last episode, whenever you finish saying, and this is morbid and then I have to comment, I'm like, it is. Every time it is. We're both like, yeah, it is.

That's all I gotta say. But today it really is, because we are starting what is going to be a four part series on Jack the Ripper. All right, wait, four part series. So, you know me. You know me. You know me. You know me.

I, this case, like just sucks to me right in. I have about five or six books to share with you guys already, and I'm not even done. Um, it's, I'm gonna try to keep it to four just so that you don't get, like, an entire month of Jack the Ripper, which I don't know if anybody would be down for, like, I could do, like, an entire, like, season about this, which I don't know if anybody would be down for, like I could do like an entire season about this if I really wanted to.

I feel like some people would definitely be down, but I think my psyche and others, like my who share the psyche that I have, would be like, please stop trying to break me physically. Exactly. And I feel like Albert Fish was for, everybody reached their breaking point at that point. I think it was a nice reprieve when it was done.

Four for these ones is the sweet. Yeah. So with that being center, you just kind of like eat yourself right into it. Yeah, we're gonna eat right into it. It's the first one. Have you ever even said yeet before? Hold on a second.

I feel like I have. I feel as though I've never felt this much happiness in my life though. Wow. I don't think you've said yeet before. I don't know. Let us know. Have've said yeet before. I don't know. Let us know. Have I said yeet before?

Well, I feel alive. So let's go. Whatever I can do to make you happy, you know? Yeah. Now we get into this. Well, I know. I was going to say, sorry about what's coming next. I just want to mention a few of the books

that I have used for this series so far. I am sure to be adding more by the fourth one, but I, by the fourth episode, but I will let you know when there's other ones. You're a cycle. These are really good books. You can get them on the Kindle. They're, you know.

Are you old? Yeah, you know. The Kindle. The Kindle app. Get them up. The Kindle Cloud Reader, whatever, man. You can get them on the Kindle on your old screen. Get them.

Get them on the internet, and then get off old screen. Get them. Get them on the internet and then get off my lawn. Get them on the worldwide web. So the first one is Jack the Ripper in the case for Scotland Yards Prime Suspect by Robert House. Okay. The second one is the Hidden Lives of Jack the Ripper's Victims by Robert Hume. That's a good one because it really focuses on the victims. by Robert Hume. That's a good one because it really focuses on the victims. The third one, which I think right now is my favorite comprehensive look at the case, is the complete Jack the Ripper.

That's by Donald's Rumble O. And then we have the five, which is a really good book and a really interesting one because it's another one that really focuses on the victims. Nice. There are stories you can get a lot of background. It's another one that really focuses on the victims. Next, there are stories you can get a lot of background. It's by Haley Rubenhold. She does an amazing job.

And the next one I'm going to talk about in the last one for now is called The Ripper Code by Thomas Tuffill, I believe it is. Tuffill. They're all really great. They all give different point of views. They all give really comprehensive looks at all the evidence and they're fascinating and I think you should read them, but I will link them all. Cool.

And again, I'm going to be adding to that list, so stay tuned for that. So what we're going to do with this episode is I want to talk to you about Whitechapel, the stand at the time, which is in the late 1880s. We're gonna talk about work houses because a lot of these women were spending a lot of their time in work houses and it gets mentioned a lot and you should know what those are. We're gonna talk about the first victim. We're gonna be talking about Mary Ann Nichols or Pauli Nichols as she was

known. We're gonna talk about some of the victims that they thought are still thought to this day, although I don't really think so. They thought may have been pre-ripper victims, like pre what they call the canonical five, which are the ones that most people know their names. But they think that there are a lot of people try to like connect a lot of other cases to this, which I'm sure. I'm sure there was more than five. I'm sure there could be some. I wouldn't say which I'm sure there was more than five.

I'm sure there could be some. I wouldn't say I'm positive there's more than five. Yeah, but I could see that being a possibility. It's entirely possible that there's more outside of the canonical five, but I don't think the two that I'm going to, or maybe three that I'm going to present to you are in any way connected. I just want you to know that they happened,

that they were talked about to be connected to this case and they kind of influenced how they looked at a lot of it. Okay. So in this one, we'll be covering that one for sure, canonical victim, that first one, going through the background, all that. So here we go. Okay. Let's talk about Whitechapel, the East End at the time. So the East End of London was not great at the time. I was going to say I'm already cold and I need a reject it. Not great. And some mace. I was going to say honestly the weather is the very least of your problem. This is the very least. The West End at the time was where the wealthy elite were hanging.

And it seemed that the East End was just kind of left to suffer, basically. It's always like the Upper West Side. Yeah, or like the Upper East Side, you hear, but it doesn't really work here. Which one was gossip girl? As soon as I saw that. Probably the Upper East Side, I would think it was. I don't know, not here. So in these times, the East End, there was rampant crime, violence, homelessness.

There was alcoholism, was a widespread issue, drug use, disease. It was, I mean, there were kids running around with no shoes on, no clothes on, barely fed, until the middle of the night when, you know, parents would be stumbling home from pubs and whatever else they were doing. It was just wild. It was dank and it was bleak. It was actually an English author, Arthur Morrison, wrote that the East End was quote,

an evil plexus of slums that hide human creeping things. That's a writer, which, whoa, that's a writer right there. What a like, beautifully crafted sentence. It's, that's just like, what a statement to put on one place. It's just like, yep, this is what that is. That's the blanket statement of White Chapel. It's unfortunate, because White Chapel was right at the center of the East End, and it was where crime was just normal and just constant.

It was also dark, and I don't mean dark. I was very dark like emotionally. You know, just like it was dark, but physically it was dark. It was only lit by sparse street lamps. So think about how dark those alleyways and streets were. Like we don't recognize a lot of us. Like we don't recognize how dark it can get outside. Yeah.

Until you're outside of suburban areas and heavily populated areas. If you go out to, you know, like going out to the birch here is there something. They're like outside New York. And you're out in a cabin in the woods, that's when you see dark. That's when you know what dark is.

And these people were living in it constantly. Oh yeah, I remember going to Maine for the first time when I was little and being like, oh, this is the dark that people are scared of. I get it now. Like I don't know dark. There were tenement homes where many, many, many families would cram together in one room to live and sleep.

There were more houses, like I mentioned. We're gonna talk about those later. I'm gonna explain all about those. And there were also docks houses where poor and homeless could pay a few pence for a bed for a night. In a survey done by Charles Booth that covered the years between 1886 to 1903, which is the Ripper murders happened in 1988. They started in. So this covers that time period. 1888, excuse me. I will say in 1988, probably a million times. I do that anytime I have the case from the 1800s. I don't know why.

My brain just won't say it. But he found that 22% of people in White Chapel were living below the poverty line. And another 13% were living and struggling to survive, quote, where a decent life was not imaginable. There were families, like I said, living in one room with people suffering from every disease you can imagine, like smallpox, tuberculosis, all manner of things. Kids, like I said, we're running around barefoot, sometimes nude because clothing was a luxury,

many couldn't afford. They lived in, and this is awful. They lived in literally like beds that were covered in black beetles and cockroaches. And rats would run all over everything, because they were never cleaned, because these, like, all these lodging houses, they were like, yep, there's a bed. And it was just, you just had to deal with it. And it was just to have some kind of roof over your head for a handful of hours before they would kick you out.

And just thinking about like little kids and these living conditions, think about anybody in this living condition is often, then you think about like kids that can't even wear clothing. And they're just getting like bitten by bugs. Yep. Oh.

And the thing is that these lodging houses, you would have to leave during the day. So if you were ill or you were old or you were hurt, they would turn you out in the freezing cold until the night when you could pay again to come sleep in these horrific conditions. Wow, I didn't realize that. You did not get to stay there during the day,

get the hell out in the morning, earn your lodging money and come back in and pay me for another night. And you couldn't even keep your stuff there, either I'm assuming. So it's like everything you have is just in one place. Because as we can see, even when like some of these women knew these managers of these DOS houses and work houses

really well after a while, because they were there for so long. Right. And they wouldn't even hold a bed for them or anything, even knowing them for so long, they'd be like, no, I'm going to earn my money if someone comes to pay for that bed, that's theirs. Wow. Robbing, stabbing, mugging, drunken brawls. They were literally a minute by minute occurrence here.

It was Mayhem. There were streets here where police wouldn't go down or they would only walk in groups. Police. Wow. Yeah. Thomas Arnold, the police superintendent of H division in the 1880s said, quote, there can be no doubt whatever, that whatever that vice in its worst form exists in White Chapel. Yeah, I would say so. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondries Podcast American scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in US history, presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our newest series, we look at the Kids for Cash Scandal, a story about corruption inside America's system of juvenile justice. In Northeastern Pennsylvania, residents had begun noticing an alarming trend. Children were being sent away to jail in high numbers,

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You can listen ad-free on the Amazon music or Wonder App. It was a night like any other. We ate some dinner, we we chatted for a bit about school and work and everything seemed normal. And then suddenly I was gone. work and everything seemed normal. And then suddenly I was gone. But they didn't need to worry. I was just off scoring some quality time with my best fiends. Others may wonder about your mysterious disappearances, but if you're having as much fun as I was with best fiends, then it's no secret why you go and you sneak off and play. I'm on a space level of best fiends, and you'll only get that if you watch the show that that comes from. I am so far into this game I cannot stop playing because I don't want to stop playing.

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or Google Play. You'll even get $5 worth of in-game rewards when you reach level 5. That is best friends without the R. Best Fiends. Mostly for men at the time, you know, slaughterhouses were a massive market here. Butchers and they were just men walking around covered in blood all the time. So because animals are being slaughtered like right out in the open, just like over there, like very brutal. So they're just walking, remember, covered in blood a lot. Right. So, that's why some of this was a little tough,

because we look at it and we're like, has this guy committing, as we're going to talk about, like we'll get at least a good taste of it here, these atrocities. Right. That he would be covered in blood, and no one's noticing him. Because would be covered in blood and no one's noticing him? Because everyone was covered in blood.

A lot of people didn't bat an eye at it. I mean, people were beating the shit out of each other and drunken brawls and walking down the street with blood coming out of their face and like no one's really thinking about it. There's slaughterhouses, butchers, all that stuff walking around covered in animal blood. Well, and I'm sure this was like the kind of place to

where because everything is so violent and scary, you might your damn business. That's what it is. And you don't pay too much attention anybody. You got your eyes straight ahead. Yeah, so a lot of people were like, yeah, I wouldn't have noticed. Right, I don't think I would have noticed

this person walking away covered in blood or if I did, it wouldn't have stuck in my brain because I see it all the time. And because these people are just so focused on survival. Yeah, exactly. And for women, sex work was also very rampant in the East End because it was really all they had at that point. Like, they didn't get a lot of other opportunities.

They were called unforechanates. And it was either a full-time gig where that was where their money was being made. That was the only way they were making their money. Or it was something that women would find themselves having to do on the side while also doing things like being a dressmaker, a tailor, a laundry, of other people's laundry, but they were only able

to do that if they had a place to laundry. Other people's laundry. If they didn't have a roof over their head, they don't have a lot of options. And even a tailor, a dressmaker, they had to buy the stuff to do that. Right. Some of them couldn't do it. So you can't just start that business. Yeah. You have to have like a little money set aside first. Exactly. And then like they would also, a lot of them would sell like paper and fabric flowers that they

would make. Like a lot of them were really adept at sewing and crocheting and all that. You had to be. And women at that time wore big fancy hats that had a lot of artificial flowers and stuff like the fancy women. And so these women would buy these artificial flowers. So they would travel into these wealthier areas to try to sell them. Right.

But then again, it's probably a means of traveling even. Exactly. There's so much against them. It was intense. And so when it came to sex work back here, once a client was secured, the act would take place literally anywhere in alleys, in doorways, against walls. Right. Usually, like I said, people didn't have anywhere to bring a client back. Because they can't go back into those houses. Yeah. And it's like sometimes they can bring them

back into these docile houses, but most of the time not. And it's like time. And most of the time it's just like, all right, do it and get the money and leave. That's it, because you're doing it to get your lodging. And then you think about like the filth that adds to the end of the season. I mean, sanitation. Sanitation wasn't real bad back then.

So it's like all this is happening in very unsanitary conditions. You would not want to go with a black light into white chapel during this time. Definitely not. Now according to Jack the Ripper and the case for Scotland Yarns Prime Suspect by Robert House, in 1868 there was a survey that showed there were 128 brothels in white chapel

at the time and 623 active sex workers. Wow. Stephanie, another part of the East End, had 932 active sex workers and 350 brothels. Wow. So as you can see, it was a big business. Now, any person would look at this and say that obviously the severely horrific living conditions and rampant poverty were likely the reason sex work was so rampant at the time because it was really no.

There was no other choice. Yeah. It was desperation. It was how you were gonna get your next meal. It was how you're gonna feed your kids. Right. They were doing it for usually just basic human needs that everybody deserves. But at the time, the social reformers were like,

no, women are just, these like women sex workers are just morally bankrupt sex scenes. Oh yeah, definitely. And they're doing it just because they like to. So can you just give them an opportunity maybe? Yeah, I don't know, give them any opportunity to have any other job as they want to. Like, so even at the time of the Ripper murders,

police commissioner at the time James Monroe said this about the victims. Quote, the only wonder is of the Ripper murders, police commissioner at the time James Monroe said this about the victims. Quote, the only wonder is that the Ripper's operations have been so restricted. There is no lack of victims ready to his hand. For scores of these unfortunate women, maybe seen any night muddled with drink in the streets and alleys, perfectly reckless as to their safety,

and only anxious to meet with anyone who will help them in applying their miserable trade. Wow. Yeah, it's definitely, it has nothing to do with the fact that there's no opportunity so that it's... Honestly, it's just on them. Yeah, that's what you problem. Not a me problem.

You're like, cool, cool, cool. And like, all right, so I think it's time to get into, now that we've like set the background at least for what is going on here, let's talk about Marianne Nichols better known to her friends as Polly. So sometime around 3.40 AM on August 31st, 1888, Charles Cross was on his way to work as a Carmen,

who which is somebody who drives a horse drunk carriage for like fancy people. Cool, a show four. Exactly carriage for fancy people. Cool. I show four. Exactly. A jives. A jives. Get it?

That's what he used to say. I know a jives. A jives. As you said, I think it was jives. Yeah. So he worked in Buck's Row, which in Whitechapel. And as he passed some gates in Fencing along the road, right in the middle of the road, he noticed what he initially said

he thought was a tarpolin, which is a big waterproof tarp, essentially. But when he got closer, he saw that it was a woman lying on her back. She was laying very close to a locked gate. And what we'll see is that because how white chapel was, almost all of this, so many of these women people saw them

at first and were like, oh, it's a drunk woman just passed out on the ground. Like, no one thought twice about it. It's the fact that that was like, oh, whatever. It just wasn't that. That was the first thing that popped into their head. Like, if you were, I saw that, like, you would never think, oh, no, that's just a drunk woman on the ground.

It must be a drunk woman. It's like wild. And she was laying very close to the locked gate. He took a closer look and saw that she was still and her skirt had been hiked up closer to her hips. Another man named Robert Paul, who was also on his way to home from work or to work at various, he noticed this as well and he came to help.

So they felt her. She was cold in her face and hands. It was still dark out so they couldn't see details. Paul immediately said he was like, by the way, she was positioned and her skirt was hiked up. I was worried she had been raped. So he said he pulled her skirt down to cover her. Oh.

Because he was like, I just didn't want to leave her out and they opened like that. And they ran to grab a police officer. Now at 3.45 AM, PC John Neal, which is police constable. He was walking his beat through Bucks Row and White Chapel when he came across this woman in the street as well. At this time, Paul and Cross had found PC George Mison and had told him what they had seen. He went straight to the scene as well and he met PC Neal there.

So PC Neal sent another police officer who showed up at the scene for Dr. Reswelflouin. I think it's Lulin to come. Okay. There was usually just like one doctor that they would go and have come for this. He arrived very close to 4 a.m. on scene. At this time workers from the surrounding butcher shops and other shops were coming on scene as well because everything's opening up. People are going to work. All of a sudden they're seeing this crowd. It was clear to the doctor, Dr. Lulun,

that this woman's throat had been cut deeply from ear to ear. Oh, man. In fact, there were two distinct slashes to her throat. One that was eight inches long and cuts so deep that it cut the vertebrae. Jesus. All the tissues and vessels had been savaged in her throat.

Later, he made very sure to state that he was completely sure that her injuries were in no way self-inflicted. Her eyes were wide open, staring at the sky, but not seeing anything. When the doctor felt her, her upper half was beginning to get cold, but her legs were warm. So they estimated she had been dead less than a half hour before they got there.

Wow. Now later in a report, PC Neal said, quote, I examine the body by the aid of my lamp and noticed blood oozing from a wound in the throat. She was lying on her back with her clothes disarranged. This woman was about five foot two with hair that was brown but turning gray. She was missing five of her front teeth. She was wearing a brown red ulster coat, black ribbed wool stockings, two petty coats, and a black velvet bonnet that looked to do. On the bands of her petty coats were the markings of the Lambeth workhouse. So obviously she

had been staying at a workhouse. Right, right. With the Lambeth workhouse markings on her petty coats were the markings of the Lambeth workhouse. So obviously she had been staying at a workhouse. With the Lambeth workhouse markings on her petty coats, they decided to look there first to try to identify this woman. It was someone from the Lambeth workhouse, a friend Polly had made while living there, named Mary Ann Monk, who came down to the morgue and identified the body as that of Mary Ann or Polly Nichols. So Polly was born August 26th, 1845. At the time of her death, she would have been around 42 years old.

Her father Edward Walker was a blacksmith, and her mother's name was Carolyn, or Caroline, and she was a laundress. Her mother died when she was young and so did her younger brother Frederick, who died when he was only two years old This was very common back then because did not last past two around this area and think about the conditions We're talking about here just disease alone She was one of three children with two brothers Edward who was older and Fredrick who was younger at 19 she married her husband William Nichols

He was a fleet street printer for Messer Perkins Bacon & Company in 1864. He worked there where they printed books, posted stamps, anything they needed to be printed, they printed. At one point, the couple lived with her father for, I think it was like 12 years they lived with him. And during this time, they had the first of what would later be five children together,

ranging in ages from eight to 21 at the time of her death. Luckily, after a lot of hustling in the printing business, they were able to afford their own home in 1876, where they accepted to live in the Peabody buildings, which were a new set of tenement housing units. And they were like pretty upscale. They looked really nice. They only accepted working class people of high moral character.

Okay. Now they lived together in like okay harmony, you know, whatever, for a while with their children. At one point, a widow moved in next door to them with her daughter Rosetta, who had separated from her husband recently. Rosetta helped with the kids while Polly was pregnant. And they were, yeah, there were rumblings

that William took a liking to Rosetta and Polly noticed. After their child Eliza was born in 1876, Polly began drinking gin, and the couple started fighting a lot. Yeah, gin will do that. Gin became her poison of choice. Now, there were several times when Polly would leave, but she went to live with her father for a while,

and then she returned back to William in 1877. Again, the fighting continued until she walked out again while very pregnant and ended up at Lambeth workhouse for the first time. Oh, no. She spent some time there working towards the end of her pregnancy, but once she was reaching that end of her pregnancy She was worried she would be separated from her baby. Yeah

If she stayed there so she went back to Williams or excuse me William and again We're gonna get into work houses for sure because her fears were not unfounded that she might be separated from her baby Oh In 1879 she gave birth to a son Henry, but things turned sour again with William when they started fighting over his possible infidelity at this point. Things got really bad between them

and she just packed and left. Left all her children, including baby Henry with William. Oh, no. So she just up and left. Which is like, you know, you wanna be mad at that, but at the same time, it's like, where were she gonna take all these kids? It's a very, it's a hard one to judge,

and that's why I'm not gonna judge it. Exactly. Because it's my initial, of course my initial thing is like, how could you ever leave your kids? Cause I, I don't get it. No. But I also didn't live in that time. Exactly.

So I'm not gonna say that I understood it. I'm not gonna say I get what was going through her head. I just, you know, that's a dire street. It is. Everything that happens in the story of Jack the Ripper, boils down to desperation and hopelessness, it's really, which is really sad. But, you know what, in her desperation, like we said,

she went to stay at Lambeth Workhouse again. This is a good time to get into exactly what a warehouse was and how they came to be. So it's important because many of the Ripper victims, like I said, were bouncing between these establishments, dost houses, lodging houses, or they had at least spent time in one of these workhouses. Now, in 1834 in England, a law referred to as the poor law was introduced. This law was introduced as a way to help and bring poverty-stricken people back into work and hopefully housing with the creation of work houses. It was supposed to be sort of a leg up.

That's what they were advertising at us. But it was proposed as the only way to get aid if you found yourself poverty-stricken. Otherwise, you get nothing. So it was built on desperation. Already, the power dynamic is fucked here. With this law, workhouses would be established where poverty-stricken people could be housed, closed, and fed. But in return, they would work extremely hard doing manual labor.

Things like breaking stones and shit. Like, like a fuck to they need people to break stones. Breaking them up into like gravel, literally. Children could also be put to work. One common thing that they would make workhouse inmates do as work was bone crushing. What? They would have to manually crush the bones of dead horses, cats, dogs, all to use as fertilizer.

What? There were a ton of rumors that there were grave robbing happening as well, and that these people were unwillingly crushing human remains as well. What the fuck? These work houses were feared and avoided by many. They were so- You don't say! They were sometimes referred to as prisons for the poor.

And mistreatment was rampant. That's what it sounds like. It literally sounds worse than prison. Yeah. Families would be pulled apart and forced to live in different parts of the workhouse. They had to wear uniforms and basically eat prison slop. Also immediately upon entering a workhouse formally, the person would lose all voting rates. What? Yeah. These workhouses were mandatory set up in different parishes around,

and these parishes were formed and broken up into unions for this. The unions would meet and all of, and what they called unions, they would meet and all of the parishes in that union would help decide what kind of facility they intended to use. And how intended to build, excuse me. For example, how many inmates would be housed in a particular workhouse? Each union was assigned to guardian of that particular workhouse parish in these guardians were supposed to visit the workhouses and make sure everything was up to code and that the conditions were not terrible. Totally. So what I found was a particular crazy scandal involving work houses around

this time. It was the Andover Workhouse scandal. And it changed the way that work houses run. It for good or bad. Yeah. Okay. It was run by what was referred to as a master of the house. This one was run by Colin McDougal, who was a sadist. Because that's the thing I was just going to say. As soon as you give somebody the title of master of the house, look out. Yeah.

Never give somebody the title of master too much. Yeah. Too much. Just not going to work out. He intentionally treated the poor like shit, and he actually took the food intended for his work house and just gave it to his own house. What? Like he would just feed his own family with that food. He was violent. He liked watching

poor people suffer. He also refused to allow guardians to come into the workhouse for a time, citing some loophole in the law that he was able to get away with it. Really? Yeah. Later sexual assault accusations were lodged against him. New that was coming. And soon it was clear that people living in this particular workhouse were so starving that they were skinned and bones. He was literally starving them all. Then rumors began to swirl that people would fight for the job of bone crushing in this particular workhouse just so they could eat the marrow from the bones and pick the rotting flesh off of them to eat.

So this is a prison camp. They were that hungry. This is literally a prison camp. This was confirmed. A man named Hugh Monday, who was, he was a magistrate and member of the overseers on the Amdover Board. He actually testified that this was true when he investigated it. He testified under oath, oath, and I quote, when a beef bone or chine bone was turned out of the heap, there was a scramble for it, described like a parcel of dogs, and the man who got it was obliged to run away and hide it until he had an opportunity of eating the marrow.

One man fetched two bones, which he had eaten that very morning in wet ashes. A portion of muscle, very offensive, was adhering to the ends of the bone. The med said that it was a considerable time before they could make up their minds to do so, but after they had once taken to it, they preferred that description of labor to any other because they could get bones to pick. Wow.

This got everything moving because they were like, oh, this is not okay. Like the thought of people doing this, like in being described as like a pack of animals. Yeah, fighting for. What makes a person a murderer? Are they born to kill or are they made to kill? I'm Candace DeLong and on my podcast, Killer Psychie Daily, which you can find exclusively

on Amazon Music. I share a quick 10-minute rundown every weekday on the motivations and behaviors of the criminal masterminds you read about in the news. I have decades of experience as a psychiatric nurse, FBI agent, and a criminal profiler. On Killer Psychie Daily, I'll give you my expert perspective on cases like the mysterious New York City drugings, Breaking Down Lori Vallow, a.k.a. Mommy Doom stays motives, and what drove Caitlin Armstrong to murder? I'll also bring on expert guests who add even more insight into these criminal minds.

I promise you won't regret adding these 10 minutes to your morning routine. Hey Prime members, listen to the Amazon Music exclusive podcast Killer Psychie Daily in the Amazon Music app. Download the app today. Er, bones to crush so that they can hide some to eat the marrow and the rotting flesh off. Fighting for sustenance. Yes.

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Eventually, the inquiry into this mistreatment and torture of inmates was just dropped. Just dropped? Right. But luckily, this did make people look closely at what the fuck was happening here. The Poor Law Commission was basically running itself and had no parliamentary oversight at all. This was unacceptable, and it wasn't working clearly. A bunch of newspapers reported about it, and this brought at least the removal of Colin McDougall and Andover, the master of the house there, but another asshole just took his place.

Right. Now, during the investigation, Holmes Secretary Sir James Graham was found to have basically told the commissioners to get the whole Andover scandal quieted and concluded quickly. He was like, just make it go away. All of this led to a committee being formed to take action and investigate the end over workhouse situation for real this time instead of just dropping the inquiry. Like, why would you just drop that? Because they just didn't, they didn't want to deal with it.

How do you drop that? Yeah, because they don't care. People don't care. They just don't understand. Yeah. Again, I think we said this last time, but the lack of empathy. Yeah. They were horrified at the findings.

This horror and mistreatment unfortunately ended up being in almost across the board situation when they started looking into other work houses as well. They completely dismantled the poor law commission at this time and changed it into a board that would have to have parliament oversight. It slowly got better. And eventually around 1930, the entire law and system was abolished. And that was in 1930. Good. So remember this while we speak about what these women were living through, it just kind of paints a bigger picture of where they were in life. And the fact

that it took from like this is the 1880s we're talking about and it took until 1930 to have this abolished like that's fucking wild. Yeah, and they were, I mean, there was something called like picking oakum and it meant like picking the, you would have to like untangle old like ropes from ships and you're, they would make your fingers bleed. Of course, yeah. And that was, it was, it was, it was the kind of manual labor they had to do was so tedious and so harsh and so intense. And just for a meal. And it would just drive you insane after like a month or so. And just for a meal and a bed for the night.

And then you'd be separated from your family because men and women were also separated from each other. They had to eat in separate places, work in separate places. It's like separate places. Why? As long as they're getting their work done and like, like, I mean, this is like ridiculous. Oh, you know why?

I can tell you why. Because they didn't want reasoning to have more babies. Yeah, they didn't want them to breed more poor people. Right. That's what their reasoning was that they would openly say. So fuck. Yeah. Wild.

So this is why we're going to now we're going to go back to the separation from Paulie's husband. OK. In her going and moving back into Lambeth workhouse around 1880. And do you know how bad Lambeth was? Lambeth I think was like just on par with shittiness with workhouses, especially in 1880. Like shit was still really awry. Yeah. Kind of sounds like a workhouse as a workhouse. It's really is. It's not great. You're not going to have a

good time there. You're not going to get rest there. It's just not good. So after the separation from her husband, he allowed Nichols five shillings per week, excuse me, which was actually required by law of him. Once you separated from your spouse, like the husband would have to pay a weekly allowance. It's like, what's that called? I know what you're talking about for my brain.

I think of it as you pay money. Yeah. So there you go, that's what it is. Now, at the time of her death, he said he had not seen her in about three years. Oh, wow. Now, in 1882, he found out through some channels that she had been living life as a sex worker

since their separation. And so he said, I'm not paying anymore, so he stopped paying the weekly allowance. Her friends told her that she needed to get a summons to force him to pay again, and so she contacted the guardians of the parish of Lambeth, who you would go to if you were living in that workhouse, and they were able to then summons William to come testify

as to why he stopped paying her weekly allowance. But after a bunch of witnesses, whereas to testify about her quote unquote street life and a quote unquote immoral character, the guardians agreed with William's reasoning for stopping his required payment, and that was it. That sucks. Kind of shows you how the guardians looked at the poor.

They kind of wanted to keep them desperate so that they were forced to work in that workhouse. Yeah. But they needed their work to get done. Now interestingly, later in 1896, this is just like a little side thing, this was after the Ripper Mirators, a seven-year-old boy named Charlie Chaplin, who would show up at the door of Lambeth's workhouse with his mother and brother, after their father abandoned them. You're telling me that is this Charlie Chaplin?

Yeah. What? They found themselves on very hard times after his dad had abandoned the family. Yes, that Charlie Chaplin lived at Lambeth's warehouse for a spell. Wow. Isn't that wild? That is. But back to Mary Pauli Nichols. After losing her allowance from William,

she tried to retain lodging in many different places around the area, but nothing stuck. She could get it for a night here and there. She stayed with her father for another stay, but her drinking caused him to them to have some issues. He said later he never threw her out, but there were times where it just got too bad and she would leave. Yeah.

So by this time, William had actually moved on with Rosetta. Yeah, I knew that all along. She was pregnant with his child. Fuck will yeah. She bounced again around to different work houses and lodging houses. And in 1886, her brother Edward actually died from a fire.

He died in a fire. His funeral was the last time her father saw Paulie alive. That's so sad alive in 1886. Also just a backup for a second. Fuck William for cheating on his wife and then saying, I'm not going to continue to pay her even though I'm the reason why she left. Yeah, it's like a real bad situation. That's just, that's a dick move on a dick move.

Exactly. It's sadness on every level because it's like, and just portrayal. She was drinking because she was depressed Because she was actually being unfaithful and she was feeling like this Rosetta was this younger pretty thing Yeah, she was having all these babies and probably like that can fuck with your home or hormones everybody course And it can make you feel they didn't know what postpartum was But of course and it can when he's Looking at this younger woman,

you're sitting here thinking like, what the hell is going on here? She starts drinking. It's bad decision making on every level and everybody's corner. I mean, you don't turn into drinking and that scenario is not the right choice. Of course not.

It happened and there were circumstances that led to it. And it's just bad choices. It just sounds like a single arena of this whole story. Well, it just sounds like he was gaslighting the shit out of her. Yeah, it's just, it's bad. It's just bad scenarios. It's just mean. It's just really bad.

So in 1887, she had been kicked out of a living situation. She had for a little bit of a time with a man named Thomas Drew. They had lived together for a little bit, but she started drinking again. He got tired of it and kicked her out. It was October, but she had to sleep outside and Trafalgar Square, which. After a bit of time there on October 29th, 1887, a bunch of people were arrested in the square. I found an article in the People's newspaper from the time listed and listed them under the headline, Trafalgar Square Vagrants. And said Nichols and five men and two other women were arrested there

and charged with, quote, sleeping in the open air and wandering without visible means. Yeah, because they don't have anywhere to go because your city sucks. And they got through the others. So they got through to the others. And they say that most of them agreed to go to work houses or they had somewhere work like to be.

So they were let go after they arrested them. But Nichols is stated in the article to be, quote, the worst woman in the square and labeled, quote, very disorderly. Oh, man. She was, however, released on her own reconnaissance. She went before the magistrate and was let off with a warning, but was forced to go back to Lambeth Warcoast.

So she went back to her old stomping ground at Lambeth, but only lasted 10 days before being kicked out of there. Oh, so she went back to her old stomping ground at Lambass, but only lasted 10 days before being kicked out of there. Oh my goodness. As we'll see, a lot of these women are very feisty, very fiery women. They had to be. Well, that's what I was going to say. It sounds like they didn't have a choice.

There's a lot of getting kicked out of places. There's a lot of brawling. There's a lot of real tough lifestyle because they had to, because it's fighting to stay alive. Yeah. Now, here's another interesting tidbit. We're going to be full of those during this. I mean, it's an interesting time. So, at this time, rooms for lodging were anywhere

from six to seven pence, usually. Like, that's what you would pay for one room for one night. Damn. And you had to share with multiple of the other people, and like I said before, you left the next morning. But there were a couple of things you could do if you paid less than that and they were pretty awful. For one, Pence homeless people could enter some lodging houses and sit on a bench all night, but they were not allowed to sleep. You could sit up and awake on a bench all night. Why can't they just sleep on the bench?

Like, yeah, that's the dumbest shit. For two pens, they could do something called a two penny hangover, which meant you could sit on the bench in a row next to other two pensors, like a whole row of them. And they would string a rope in front of all of you and you could hang over that rope to sleep. But you could only sleep if you were slung over that rope.

What the fuck is history? And a lot of people think the term hangover came from that. Oh, yeah, I mean, that makes sense. So for four pence, there were things called coffins that you could sleep in. Legit, you slept in a wooden box with a tarp over it. What the fuck? And it would have a ton of bugs and shit in it. It was, because it was not protected from the elements, it was just like in a wooden box with a tarp over it. What the fuck? And it would have a ton of bugs and shit in it,

because it was not protected from the elements. It was just like in a wooden box, essentially a coffin. So those are the choices you would have. And also just like the mind games that that, like that just fucks with your brain. It is, it's a lot of mind games. It's a lot of sadness at this time.

There was just a lot of sadness. Like psychological warfare. Yeah. So after getting kicked out of Lambeth again after those 10 days, Polly bounced around again, ended up sleeping in the square outside again in December. Oh, no. And then she finally stumbled into Mitchem workhouse in Holborn on January 4, 1888. At the time, she had a nasty cough and was very ill after sleeping

outside in December, so then when she came into the workhouse, they sent her right to the infirmary. Because they did have infirmaries here. Okay, that's good. She spent it off. Yeah, I know. She spent a good amount of time there. And in April, she was sent back to Lambeth because that was her home parish and apparently whole-born didn't want to pay to take care of her in their parish anymore. Wow. Yeah. She did pretty well this time around and the matron of Lambeth's workhouse actually ended

up recommending her for a job working as a domestic servant for a couple, Francis and Martha Cowdry, who lived in a newly built home called Ingleside in Wandsworth Common. Okay. This is beautiful looking like brownstone kind of thing. who lived in a newly built home called Ingle Side in Wandsworth Common. This is beautiful looking like brownstone kind of thing. And like a really great opportunity for the time. Opportunity get at least, I don't have a place to sleep. Yeah. On May 12th, 1888, she left Lambeth

and took this opportunity. So Marthand Frances, according to her, she wrote letters to her father explaining this, were very kind to her. Good, they were good people. I'm getting excited and I know what that is. And it's like a really bad ending. But they expected her to work very hard. She was the only, quote unquote, servant in the home.

And she was like, she was the only person on staff. She was expected to cook, clean, keep the fires going, keep the chimneys clean, polish silver, run errands, do sewing work, needle point, litter at laundry, she was run the house. That's everything. That will make you go crazy. Yeah.

It seemed for a while that she would at least attempt to throw herself into this kind of life. She was like, you know what, maybe this is my chance. And she had said that to her father, she wrote an email. I almost said, she opened her MacBook and said, tell me, type, type, she wrote a letter because we were talking about the 18s. She wrote a letter to him and said,

I'm really gonna try to get this going. I think this is my opportunity. It's really hard work, but it's also very tedious. I'm very bored, but like we can do this. And again, it was hard work, but it's also very tedious. I'm very bored, but like we can do this. And again, it was hard work, but it looked, it was looked at as honest work. And she was looking, you know, I'm gonna get myself up in the ranks of society.

Unfortunately, this life was not for Polly. Who knows what the reasoning really was, but she ended up just up and leaving. Exactly two months after she started to work there. She is feisty. I, I feel she's been bouncing around now for years. In work houses, lodging houses, she's tired. Been on the street, she's slept in the square,

she's been arrested, she's been in brawl. Her life is a constant fight. And I feel like this, I imagine, again, I have not been in this position, so I cannot say for sure, I imagine after again, I have not been in this position, so I cannot say for sure. I imagine after you have gotten used to that kind of fight or flight existence, settling to this and doing the same thing each day and every day

and then just sitting by yourself, too, must be lonely and must be a very hard transition to go through because she was never alone in the streets and only his workhouses and lodging houses she had people around her. She had people that she knew. At least she had friends. At least two people that were friends of hers.

She's really alone here. So who knows, though? She just two months after, up and left. Unfortunately, she left with stolen linens that were valued at over 300 pounds today. Damn. And fortunately, she left with stolen linens that were valued at over 300 pounds today. Damn. Mrs. Caldry immediately reported her

to Lambez Workhouse because after all, they recommended her and she now made them look bad. She took the linens immediately ponder them and she used the money for gin. She said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, sheets of Egyptian cotton. You won't get back because you've never seen uptown girls. No, I definitely don't know what that is, but there you go. She said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no Let's talk about your mind in different ways that we can take care of our mind. We can do yoga. We can talk to a professional. We can shop all our woes away if you're me. You know, it's like how well would you take care of your car if you had to keep the same car for your entire life?

You'd probably take care of it very well. So if that's how our brain works, then why don't we treat them the exact same way? How we care for our minds affects how we experience life. So it is important to invest time and care into keeping them healthy. You will notice when you don't, there are plenty of ways to support a healthy brain, like learning a new language or taking power naps and there's also better help online therapy. I am such a big proponent for therapy. I actually love talking to my therapist because she just has it this way of showing me like the bigger picture. You know what I mean? Like, I'm like, oh man, girl, like this is happening, this is happening and everything sucks. And she's like, no, check

this out. And you know, maybe think this way. And then my brain feels better. So it's nice of her to do that. Better help is the same. Better help is online therapy that offers video phone, even live chat only therapy sessions. So you don't have to see anybody on camera if you don't want to. It's much more affordable than in-person therapy and you can be matched with the therapist in under 48 hours. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash morbid. That's better-h-e-l-p.com slash morbid. She didn't know where to go or what to do at this point, so she turned back to sex work. She obviously had stopped while she was living with the cowdries, but this was all she could

do at this point. She could manage to say at some lodging homes or doles houses on both Thrall Street and Flower and Dean Streets around this time, but apparently according to the hidden lives of Jack the Ripper victims, Thrall Street was so dangerous that this was the street that police would only walk in, I think, groups of threes. Wow. Yeah. She was staying in a docks house on Thorall Street the night she was murdered.

What was a docks house? I think you said it before, but I can't tell you. A docks house? This is where you could get a room for like four pens, three pens. You basically could just stay there. Kind of like a motel. It was a bed. Okay, that's it. You're getting a bed there. Kind of like a motel. It was a bed.

Okay. That's it. You're getting a bed. You don't pay for your bed. Get the fuck out. You can stay for your bed. You can stay here till the morning and then get the fuck out.

Gotcha. Basically. And again, you could get some of these for four pens, three pens if you shared, and even two pens at the time, but that was rare. These were not you getting a room. It was you getting a bed. Yeah. And it was a shelter. It was you getting a bed. Yeah, and it was a shelter.

It was literally like a hostel. Oh, kind of thing. Like we're all staying in the same kind of, but like a really gnarly hostel. Yeah, it's so nice. You would all be staying in the same room. It was rough. Now, between August 24th and August 30th of 1888,

Polly definitely had a room at White House, which was at 56 flower and dean streets in Spittelfields. This area was a place where people were servicing clients and alleyways and doorways right in the open. People like the Spittelfields are very known. People were openly robbing passerbyes and stabb's were in everyday occurrence. The streets around it were called things like blood alley and due as you please street for real. Yep. At this time, she was sharing a room at 18th Raul Street in Spittelfields with a woman named Ellen Holland.

Okay. Now August 30th, 1888, witnesses saw Paulie leaving the frying pan, which was a pub that a lot of people frequented at the time. She left around 12.30 a.m. and at 1.30 ish in the morning, Witnesses saw her try to enter the DOS house that she had been staying at, but the owner said, no way because she didn't have her four pence. And again, she'd been staying there for a while, but they did not give you that high chance of this. She'd been staying there for a while, but they'd not give you that high chance. Yes. She was her laughing in his face and saying, quote,

and this is a quote that is like across the board. That people said they heard. She said, quote, I'll soon get my DOS money, see what a jelly bonnet I've got now. And she was showcasing a black velvet bonnet that appeared to be new. Oh. No one had seen it before on her.

So nobody really knows where it came from. But it was like, I guess it was like, it had like the almost that wicker look on part of it, but it was a black velvet on the inside. It was black like that wicker stuff. Right, right. Now, a bit after this, she ran into Ellen, who was her roommate at that Dawes house.

She ran into her around Osborne Street and they just chatted for a bit. Ellen said Polly seemed very happy, very drunk. And Ellen was like, hey, why don't you come back to the Dawes house with me? Like, you need to get off the street. And Polly responded, quote, I've had my lodging money three times today and I've spent it at the frying pan or the 10 bells. I won't be long before I'm back. So she was literally like, oh, I've made it three times stand, I've spent it. And she was like, okay.

So she left Ellen towards Whitechapel Road. Her plans were very clear. She was going to get a client, make her four pens, and she was going to head back to the DOS. That's what she told Ellen. OK. It was a very short time later, around 3.45 AM, that polynickels was found brutally murdered on the street in

Buxrow, Whitechapel. It's so sad because she was so close to just going in for the night. And she seemed to be having, like, she was just joking with people to just be like, ah, fuck it, I've spent all my lodging money, but I'm just going to go make some and I'll be back. Like, she just seemed like she was just having like a, whatever night. Like, yeah. And then she just leaves her friend, her roommate, and there it is.

And it was right around her birthday. It was, yeah, which is really sad. Now, after the initial examination after she was found, the doctor on scene ordered that she be taken to the mortuary that would be for the workhouses. Mortuary's were definitely not the works of today. So they waited and they left her there before there's left her in the open, before summoning to workhouse inmates, quote unquote, that's what they would call workhouse people.

So it was, basically, to come and move her. So they were like being, that was part of their workhouse job. So they came and immediately took her to the very crude mortuary that was where she was going to be examined. It's like a hut on the side of the room. It's like literally like a shed in like next to a workhouse basically. There she was stripped of all of her clothing and while this was happening, they noticed that besides the gaping and obvious neck wound that they saw, there was a hidden and rather

large and very jagged gash on the lower left side of her abdomen. Her intestines were literally spilling out of this wound. Now, according to the complete Jack the Ripper by Donald Rumbolo, quote, the abdomen had been cut open from the center of the bottom of the ribs along the right side. Under the pelvis to the left of the stomach, there the wound was jagged. The momentum or fatty membrane which covers the front of the stomach, was cut in several places. And there were two small stab wounds on the vagina. Just a warning for all four of these, there's a lot of shit that you're going to hear.

And these, they are gruesome, they are graphic. I'm going to give it all to you, so just know that ahead of time. There's a lot of like, you know, what appears to be sexual mutilation and brutality, so just so you know. Jack the gripper had a lot of issues. Yeah, obviously. There were several incisions made in her abdomen. Many of them were very deep.

When she was moved to take off her clothing, they saw that blood had soaked her clothes and the pavement beneath her. Immediately, they thought that this weapon was a blade around six to eight inches long, and they believed it could have been something like a shoemaker's knife. Mary Ann Monk, who was Paulie's friend who identified her, was also the one who connected police

with Paulie's father and husband. She was like, you should probably let them know. Yeah. Now William, her estranged husband, came right down to the mortuary and witnesses said when he laid eyes on her, he was silent and just stunned for a while. But he felt a little guilty.

Well, and after a long time, he said, quote, seeing you as you are now, I forgive you for what you have done for it to me. He then turned and said to the doctors, well, there is no mistake about it. It has come to a sad end at last. Okay. Which is sad. It seems like it's a sad, you know, you just like look at this and you're like, both

of you are just sad. Yeah, like you say to each other over. It was a toxic relationship that began, it's not a toxic relationship and that's sad. Yeah. And I think it was like, it's like you both had the best of intentions, but it really didn't end that way. And they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Exactly. Now, this case was already flamixing because she was laid right out in the open and also right under the windows of two women who were Mrs. Green and Mrs. Perkis, who were both home, and at least one of them was awake at the time of two women who were Mrs. Green and Mrs. Perkis, who were both home, and at least one of them was awake at the time of the murder. Damn.

And nobody heard anything. So this killer must have been fast and must have been efficient to sever that windpipe so quickly. So that she couldn't scream. To render her silent while he mutilated her. Right. Now Thursday, September 6, 1888 was Paulie's funeral. William paid for it, but did not come.

Six years later, he married Rosetta. Six years later. I'm done with Rosetta. I mean, six years later, at least, he didn't just run out and marry her, but that's a thing. That is a thing. That is a thing.

Now, interestingly, like I said, they were at a loss because this man or group of people, they were pretty sure it was one man, had done this quickly, very efficiently, and was able to run away without being seen, and would have been covered in blood, at least on his hands. But who wasn't? The only thing they could point to, like we talked about earlier, would be the various butcher shops in the area and slaughterhouses, which would make it easier for someone to go around. And I noticed notice would blood all over them.

It's so crazy to think about that. Yeah, especially in the early morning when everything's getting set up. Yeah. Of course they would be coming in. They're all setting up, exactly. So yeah, it's a little weird, but you know, it's a lot weird. A little weird, don't keep it that weird. But we have a couple of other murder victims that I mentioned before,

before Marianne Nichols that made investigators quirk their eyebrows a bit and wonder if they were connected. So what we are trying, so what a lot of people who look into this case says, they believe there are 11 murders that people end up trying to connect together. I didn't know that it was 11. Yeah, they try to form those together with the canonical five, and this is one of them. So there's hot debate about whether there were two victims before Nichols that seemed to be connected, or just one, or any before her at all.

All right. I am on the none before her at all. Oh, okay. So you don't think she is definitely a jack sparse. I believe she's the first one that we know about. But if I find another one, I will eat my hat. So the Newcastle Chronicle, and then the Hall Daily Mail wrote articles

claiming that there were six White Chapel murders as we know canonical five. Emma was the first that they cite, this woman named Emma. So they were at least at the time claiming that she was part of this canonical set. They looked at her as part of this five. We know the name of one victim for sure was Emma Elizabeth Smith.

This is one of the victims that they tried to claim. She was attacked April 3rd, 1888, which was only a few months before Polly. She was 45 at the time of her death and was working as a sex worker at the time and was living in a docile house at 18 George Street Spittelfields Not a lot is known about her But she's often described as a widow who had two adult children She had a tendency to drink a lot and when she did she often got herself into fights

She was seen many times with black eyes and other injuries which she would say was because of a bar fight or a fight in the street over some silly nonsense. It was 1215 am April 3rd that her friend and fellow law, fellow lodger at the Doss House, Margaret Hayes or Hayes, different, different sources. Margaret saw her speaking to a man dressed in a black suit with a white hankerchief around his neck. She said he was average to medium-build and unfortunately she could not identify him if she had seen him. She was like, I don't think I could pick him out of a line up, to be honest, which was good for her for being honest. Yeah, I'm just like, sorry, I can't do that. We appreciate it. You know, she was seen speaking to this man in the area of Fair and Street Lime House.

It was shortly after this that something terrible happened to Emma. She survived it, but she was badly injured. Oh shit. Yeah. So around four or five in the morning, she now, she initially survived it is what I should say. I had a feeling that that's what it meant. I was going to say around four or five in the morning, she stumbled back into the lodging house at 18 George Street. In the deputy of the lodging house, Mrs. Mary Russell, immediately saw that she was in terrible shape. She saw her face was a bloody mess,

and her ear had almost been completely cut off. She told her that she had been beaten, raped, and robbed on her way home to Osborne Street. She said she was in a lot of pain and her lower half of her body, and with that, she was taken to London Hospital. This is where it's really bad, and I'm going to warn you ahead of time.

It was found that she had walked a quarter of a mile to the lodging home from where she was attacked by herself. Wow. It had taken her four hours. Oh. And she had passed multiple police officers, none of which asked, she asked for help

and none of which they asked to help her. Jesus Christ. This is just so sad. And it's like she would have, when you find out what her injuries are, it would have been very clear that she was in pain. And I know it was in the, it's dark. And I understand that you couldn't see

that she was covered in blood. You're a police officer. But she had to have been moaning in pain. There's no way she was signally walking this for four hours. And she had four hours. And I'm sure she's walking like shuffling, basically. Oh, yeah. Because when you find out what her injuries are,

there's no way she was walking normally. It was discovered by Dr. George Haslip, who was the surgeon on duty when she arrived at the hospital that aside from her facial injuries, she was suffering from incredibly horrific internal damage, because a blunt instrument had been forcibly inserted into her vagina hard enough to cut the perineum, which is the skin between the vagina and anus.

Also, the peritoneum had been ruptured. This is the tissue that lines the abdominal wall and also lines most of your internal organs. Oh, my. She had torn a length of fabric from her shoulder strap and used it to hold between her legs and soak up the blood. So she walked the entire four hours with that between her legs, soaking up the massive amounts of blood she was losing.

Like she's hemorrhaging. Yeah. Unfortunately, she died the following day, from secondary parotonitis, which is an infection and inflammation of the parotonium from rupture. That's what they thought happened to Virginia Repair. Yeah.

But before her death, she had told those around her what had happened to her. She was like, I gotta tell you what happened. Now, an inquest was ordered into her desk, desk, desk, desk, April 7th, and apparently the police weren't even told about any of this until April 6th. So they didn't hear about this crime

that had been committed against her until after. Right. So they already lost a ton of investigation time. Right. Now, according to the inquest of which the transcript was posted in the Times in April, 1888, Mr. Win E. Baxter, the East Middle Sex Corner, held in inquiry on Saturday 7th April at the London Hospital,

and it says respecting the death of M.O. Elizabeth Smith, age 45, a widow, lately living at 18 George Street Spiddle Fields, who it is alleged had been murdered. Chief Inspector West of the H division of police attended for the commissioners of police. It says Mr. George Haslip, House Surgeon, stated that when the deceased was admitted to the hospital

she had been drinking but was not intoxicated. She was bleeding from the head and ear and had other injuries of a revolting nature. Witnesses found that she was suffering from rupture of the peritoneum, which had been perforated by some blunt instrument used with great force. The deceased told him that at half past one that morning,

she was passing near White Chapel Church when she noticed some men coming towards her. She crossed the street to avoid them, but they followed, assaulted her, took all the money she had, and then committed the outrage. She was unable to say what kind of instrument was used, nor could she describe her silence, except that she said that one of the youths was of 19 years old. Death ensured on Wednesday morning April 4 through paratonitis, set up by the injuries.

It's as chief Inspector West H. Division stated that he had no official information on the suspect and was only aware of the case through the daily papers. She's, imagine like you, you're reading the daily paper as the police chief and you're like, oh, cool, maybe somebody should have called me. He had questioned the constables on the beat, but none of them appeared to know anything about the matter. The coroner said that from the medical evidence, which must be true, it was clear that the woman had been barbarously murdered. It was impossible to imagine a more brutal and dastardly assault, and he thought the ends of justice would be better met by the jury recording

their verdict at once than by adjourning to some future date in the hope of having more evidence brought before them. When police did investigate the scene and the crime, it was tough. Because again, it was reported days after. When they looked at the scene, they found there was no blood on the pavement. So they assumed her clothing and especially the cloth she ripped from her shoulder strap had soaked it all up. They had no physical descriptions of the men or man, other than the notion that she kind of believed one of them was around 19 years old. Yeah. So this one, because she stated in no uncertain terms that it was men. I don't think this is it.

That's what I was thinking to because she said it was a few. Yeah. And it's the robbing thing. I think that most of the time when there was any kind of robbing associated with the Jack the Ripper case, it was fake staged or just say, it just, I don't know, it doesn't ring true to me and I don't think he would leave a victim alive. Yeah, I don't think you want to take in that chance. Yeah, I don't, he's, he's too efficient and he's too quick, he's too, as we'll see, most of these, some of them are done in under 15 minutes. Right. I mean, they're, and he

severs the windpipe. He severs the windpipe so no noise happens, and so that you bleed out. He wants that carotid artery done, so that he can just do his, he likes to do the mutilation postmortem. So, I don't think it fits. I don't think so either. I don't think Jack the Ripper is men.

I think it's a man. I, yeah, from what I know, I agree as well. That's just me. And I don't know, it's just like an entirely different attack. Yeah, that's a man. I, yeah, from what I know, I agree as well. That's just me. And I don't know. It's just like an entirely different attack. Yeah. That's the thing. It just doesn't feel the same to me.

But I mean, that's just my opinion. Now there is one mythical type case that doesn't really have a name attached to it. It's like an unknown victim. And this is before Emma's murder around October or Christmas in 1887, so the year before. I love that they're like, maybe Halloween, maybe Christmas. Well, because we don't even know if this happened. It might just be a total mythical thing. It's just a rumor.

But I had to look into it because it is mentioned so often that I was like, there has to be something here. With my schedule and how I am always on the go, I don't have a ton of time to do the things like I love to do and one of those things is reading. I used to be such an avid reader, but that is exactly why I love Audible because now I still can be. Audible offers an incredible selection of audio books across every genre. They've literally got everything. They've got best sellers, new releases, celebrity memoirs, mysteries, thrillers, motivation, wellness, business.

Maybe someday they'll even have the boater in the run. You'll discover exclusive audible originals from top celebrities, renowned experts, and exciting new voices in audio, like Alainus. No, I'm just kidding. As an audible member, you can choose one title a month to keep from their entire catalog, including the latest bestsellers and new releases.

All audible members get access to a growing selection of audio books, audible originals, and podcasts that are included with the membership. You can listen to all you want and more get added every single month. Something that I think you might wanna listen to is one of the 400 book recommendations that Elena has for Jack the Ripper. So once you're done listening to this episode, you can go see if any of those are unaudible.

And guess what? I think some of them just might be. Let Audible help you discover new ways to laugh, be inspired, or be entertained. New members can try it free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash morbid or text morbid to 500-500 days. Visit audible.com slash morbid or text morbid to 500 500. That's audible.com slash morbid or text morbid to 500 500 to try audible free for 30 days. Audible.com slash morbid. So it's an unknown woman who was also said to be found on Osborne Street or around Osborne Street. She was later referred to as Fairy Faye, that was her nickname.

But in an article in the New York Tribune, so another country, remember, we're over here, yeah. So take this with a giant grain of salt because news is like a giant telephone, as we well know. It said this, the history of the reign of terror, which now paralyzes all London with the panic of fear, reaches back for a year. The mutilators first, because they used to call this

the mutilation series and him the mutilator. Yikes. The mutilators first success was achieved early in the month of October 1887. When the dark hours of the morning, the frightfully lacerated body of a woman, was found lying in the passageway of a narrow alley in the immediate vicinity of Bishop's Gate Street East. The victim was an elderly woman, gin soaked, degraded, and lost. No one appeared

to be aware of her real name, her friends, if any, had long ago disappeared. She stood alone, let alone among her kind, a homeless, shameless wander. Nobody cared about her, nobody made the least effort to find out why she was murdered, or to discover her murderer. They regarded it as the most natural and fitting kind of death under the circumstances, shoveled her body underground and forgot the case within two days. Wow. Now, that's, so that kind of thing, that kind of statement, that kind of description of this particular case is mentioned

in a lot of newspapers, but they don't have a name for her. And there's a lot of debate since known real name is attached to it, and it has so many similarities when you really look into it to Emma Smith's case. That may be, it was just. The one we just talked about. A lot of researchers wonder if these two cases are actually just a jumbled misrepresentation of Emma's case.

And this second case is just pieces of the real Emma case that changed a bit to represent another fictional victim. Okay. Because I couldn't find reports of it in the year 1887. There might be some. Right. But it's just interesting. Well, you have to wonder, too.

Like, was that a filler article? Yeah, you don't know. Because, well, that's the thing. There are a lot of newspapers, though. And in London, she's mentioned that that case is mentioned in a lot of different newspapers all over the place. Do you think it could have just been like the hype about the case and like, well, there's another one?

And it definitely could have. That's the thing. But then I was like, why is it getting mentioned so much? I can believe that like, we jumbled Emma into another fictional victim just because of the hype. I can get that. But then I came across, because I was like really obsessed with this, and I really went crazy one night, and I came across this parliamentary debate from November

14th, 1888, where a guy named Mr. Pickergill, who was a member of parliament at the time, brought up the existence of a woman being brutally mutilated and murdered the Christmas before Emma Smith. Oh, so Mr. Picker's Guild brings up, he's like talking about Sir Charles Warren, who was, this is really funny, Sir Charles Warren. I had to talk to John about this because he was a criminal justice major too. He was an answer to many of my criminal justice tests in college, like as soon as I saw that name, I was like, oh, that guy. Yeah. Um, he's, so what they're doing in this, uh, debate. He talks about the Metropolitan Police force and how he is running it amid what they refer to as the mutilation series. And in this debate, it states, quote, two, at least of the murders in the East End did not belong to what we might perhaps call

the Mutilation series. So long ago, as Christmas Week last, a woman was murdered in the streets of Whitechapel, and again on Easter Tuesday, another unfortunate woman, while passing by Whitechapel Church, was done to death by a gang of three men. She lived long enough to state her story so far. It was perfectly clear that these crimes did not belong to the abnormal series, which was now baffling our detective system, but they rather pointed to that disorderly condition of the public streets.

So this, to me, this is a member of Parliament in 1888, talking about Emma and talking about one other case that happened sometime around Christmas the year before. Yeah, that's a valuable source. That's a... Feels like he's mentioning that fairy-fay. Yeah. And this also illustrates how people in the press

were likely trying to connect these murders to Jack the Ripper at the time, but even they state that it was, like, even the parliament debate, they're stating these are clearly not connected. But instead, just show how terribly dangerous the East end was at the time. Yeah, exactly. So, as far back as then, they were being like, no, I don't think these two are part of the medilation series.

I think they're just showing how shitty things are. No, we're not investigating these crimes properly. I mean, so that to me shows me Emma's not part of this series to me. Neither is potentially fairies. Neither is fairy-fay. So bringing us back to August 30th, there's also another woman named Martha who is like the third one after Emma, I believe. They try to connect her a lot to it.

That one has no connection to me. So I didn't even go into it because it doesn't connect to this case even slightly in my opinion. Okay. I also wish that instead of Jane, instead of Jane Doe, we said fairy, fairy, I know it's a really pretty way to describe someone. It is. It's like more, it just like feels better than Jane Doe. It's just nice, you know. you know. So bringing us back to August 30th when Pauli Nichols met her unfortunate end. There were cries for justice and the police wanted a suspect, obviously. They began speaking to sex workers in the area and women who they would have been friends with the victim to ask if they knew of any terrible men who could have done this, like have you run in 10-E bad clients. Many of these women had one name to say. And it was John or Jack Pyser. Better known for his nickname, Leather Apron. He was a boot finisher, finisher,

which is why he often wore a leather apron. And that's what they called him. That sounds so intense. I'm a boot finisher. He was a true asshole. He used sex workers, but also blackmailed them and physically salted them brutally. They were scared of him and conveyed this to the police. One newspaper described him as quote, a more ghoulish and devilish brute than can be found in all the pages of shocking fiction. Inspector Joseph Helson of Scotland Yard said quote, a man named Jack Pyser, alias Leather apron, has for some considerable period,

been in the habit of ill using and they referred to them as prostitutes in this and other parts of the metropolis. He went on the run when he heard that he was a person of interest. I will say right now, I don't believe Leather apron is the guy. You don't, I don't think a lot of people

believe Leather apron is the guy. He's just an asshole don't think a lot of people believe Leather Apron is the guy. He's just an asshole. I'm sure some people do, but I do not. Now, meanwhile, the police were a mess at this time. In August 1888, the head of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Metropolitan Police Force resigned right before Nichols was killed. So it was right before she was killed.

Not good. The Criminal Investigation department or CID were run by detective inspectors and their job was to investigate crimes that had already occurred, as opposed to the other side of the Metropolitan Police Force, which the police constable's patrolling beats were there to prevent crime from happening in the first place. So one side was preventing crime, the other side was the,

we deal with it after it happens. So the head of the Criminal Investigations Department resigned right before Nichols was murdered, and in step to guy named Robert Anderson. So Anderson worked for years in Secret Service and spy circles and was placed into the role of chief of the CID in August 1888. Now as luck would have it, and the ripper case is full of that luck, as we will see in further installments of this.

Anderson was a fucking mess in August 1888, too. He was so over-exhausted from his various dealings and work that he was on the brink of a nervous breakdown and a possible physical breakdown. Because he was like, he had a hundred different jobs, he was on the brink of a nervous breakdown and a possible physical breakdown. Because he was like, he had a hundred different jobs. He was the head of all these different departments. He was like, strong out to be furthest. Right.

So it got so bad that his doctor at this time told him you need to take a couple of weeks off and rest or like they were literally like, you need to separate from your work for two full weeks or you may die. Like literally, you might die. And so he listened. It's like it's exhaustion.

Yeah, he listened and he left for Switzerland to take a vacation for two weeks. Perfect place to go. When you're on the brink of a mental collapse, go to Switzerland. Head to Switzerland. He left on September 7th. So now the new head of the Criminal Investigations Department in charge of investigating this heinous crime,

and whether it was the work of a killer who'd strike again, is in Switzerland. Great. And the day after he leaves, another murder occurred. No. And that's where we're going gonna leave you for part one. All right. With the head of the criminal justice,

the criminal investigation department, in Switzerland on a doctor ordered holiday so he doesn't die from stress. Oh, we, what did they say in Hannah Montana? Ye doggy. I was gonna say I do not know. Yeah, I wasn't asking you. I was gonna ask a few. I wasn't asking you. I don't know. Yeah, I wasn't asked for you. I was gonna ask for you.

I was gonna ask for you. I don't know. Oh my goodness, dude. So that is, that's the beginning of Jack the Ripper. We are going to talk about Annie Chapman next, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Edo's. We're going to, we're gonna get into it. And I think, hopefully, if this is four parts, the fourth part will be us going deep in

the suspects and theories and all that. So don't worry, we're going to take the time on that. But yeah, that's our first victim, Mary or Polly is what she was known to as people who loved her, Polly Nichols. There's like so sad overall overall just it's really sad. The whole thing is sad. Like devastating. There's a lot of like really getting into Annie Chapman next to like it's just really

sad. Sad uh, life basically. All these women I feel just had like the saddest lead up to the most brutal end. Yeah, it really is. It's just like all of it is really brutal, but I'm gonna link all five of those books that I mentioned and I'm sure by part two, I will have that in more to your reading lists

on top of that. So people are gonna have to get new bookshelves after this. You're gonna have to get an entire shelf that's just for Jack the Ripper stuff. I mean, people are ripperologists. People who like, absolutely like dedicate their lives to this. So I get it. I used to not get that.

I get it. Oh, I get it. When you become, like, so enthralled, and especially with an unsolved case that has so many theories, I get it. Well, that's the thing. I used to, like, I always thought it was an interesting case, but I was like, how can you really be a ripperologist?

How much evidence can you really be looking at? Right. And then when you start diving into it, you're like, holy shit. It's like overwhelming. I remember my sophomore or junior year writing like a silly paper about it, you know, just a high school paper and being like,

oh my god, like, how am I gonna get all this information in one paper and very much did not. I very much did not do so. Well, the amount of witnesses that are involved, the amount of people who saw these women at different times in good state, what they saw is really interesting. Newspaper.com, I'm telling you, it's like, woo! It's such a gold mine.

I have been, and they're not, they don't pay us just so you know, like I'm just like, no, we pay them. Yeah, I pay them and I will continue to, because it's a great research source. And finding these old newspapers that were written at the time, I know. And in the panic, in the vernacular that was used, it's just all like, I couldn't get enough. I was freaking out so many of them and John was like, please stop.

It puts you there. Oh, it's wise. Why is that like with the vernacular and everything? And it's real. It is, yeah. It makes it real, because sometimes it's hard, you know, over a hundred years ago, it's hard to put yourself in this as like a reality. And then when you start reading the newspapers and reading these witness statements and the

corners reports and corners in quests, there's, you're like, holy shit, this really happened. Yeah. Because this is a real thing that happened and it it's really fucking brutal, and really awful, and these women, it's so sad. But there's also, there's a couple of websites I'm gonna link to that are just like fascinating, and you guys will get just taken down the rabbit hole with them.

There's like Ripper Case Book, and a couple of other ones that I really want you to go see, because they're just wealth of information. They have a lot of the inquests and all that. So, and actually one of them, after I found that parliamentary debate, I was kept searching further and I found that this other website

had also found that parliamentary debate. So I was like, cool, okay, so it's real nice. It was like, that's fun. But yeah, I'll link all of those, link all the books and get ready because it's gonna get worse and worse. Yeah, I apologize. In the meantime, we do hope that you keep listening. We hope you keep it.

We're here. But not so weird, is Whitechapel an 1880 baby? It got better. Guys, I promise. So. Promise. Hey, Prime Members! You can listen to Morvid, Early, and Add Free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen Add Free with Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts.

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