The Real Story of Jack the Ripper

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]Just before 4:00 a.m. on August the 31st, 1888, on London's CD Bucks Row, a car driver named Charles Cross saw the body of a woman lying on the ground. In the early morning gloom, it was initially impossible to tell if she was drunk or if she was dead. Cross was soon joined by another Carter, Robert Pull.

[00:00:17]The two men saw the woman's skirt was pulled up above her waist. They smoothed them back over her knees and went about searching for a policeman. What the two Carters didn't notice in the shifting shadows was that the woman's throat had been cut so brutally that her head had almost been decapitated. Beat officer John Neil discovered that gruesome fact on closer inspection of the body. He later testified at the inquest that when he had passed that way just 30 minutes earlier, there was not a soul about. PC Neil sent another colleague to fetch a local medic and soon Dr. Ree Ralph Llewellyn arrived on the scene. He quickly examined the body and found that the arms and legs were still warm.

[00:00:53]Llewellyn believed that the woman had been dead for less than 30 minutes. Her killer may have still been lurking nearby when Cross and Paul had come across the body. The victim was soon identified as Mary Anne Polly Nichols, a 44year-old alcoholic and prostitute. As noted, her throat had been cut ear to ear down to the vertebrae and the large blood vessels on both sides of her neck had been severed. There were also several very deep horizontal wounds on Pauliey's lower abdomen and three violent wounds running downwards as well. Nicholls had last been seen by her friend Emily Holland around 2:30 a.m.

[00:01:26]She was off to raise the money needed to secure a bed in a lodging house and assured Holland that she'd be back very soon. Polly said she had already made the money she needed to a few times over that evening, but drank her earnings instead of paying for a room. So Polly stumbled off into the night and her unhappy fate. On Bucks Road, the killer, most likely posing as a customer, managed to clap a hand over Nichols's mouth and slit her throat without a single person hearing, despite some workers being in a building very nearby.

[00:01:54]Even more incredibly, he had time to mutilate her and then slip silently into the night. One would think he'd be detected by the blood that he'd undoubtedly be covered in. But as the coroner testified at the inquest, if however blood was principally on his hands, the presence of so many slaughter houses in the neighborhood would make the frequenters of this spot familiar with bloodstained clothes and hands, and his appearance might in that way have failed to attract attention when he passed from Bucks Row in the twilight into White Chapel Road and was lost sight of in the morning's market traffic. And so it was that London's East End was put at the mercy of one of the most notorious serial killers in history, Jack the Ripper. A little over a week later, Annie Chapman likewise had need of money for lodging. Chapman had previously been married but separated from her husband after both became heavy drinkers, supposedly after the death of their 12-year-old daughter from menitis.

[00:02:48]From here, she received 10 shillings per week from her former husband. But when he died 2 years later, she ceased to be able to support herself. And the man she was with at the time promptly left her, at which point she made money doing a variety of things, including crocheting, selling flowers, and prostitution. This brings us back to September the 8th, when she went out on the streets to earn money at about 5:30 a.m. Just a half hour later, her body was found with her throat slashed and similar abdominal slashes as with Nicholls. A few weeks later, on September the 30th, 1888, Jack the Ripper emerged once again from the shadows of London's East End. He outdid himself this time. Two women, Elizabeth Stride and Katherine Edetos, were brutally attacked and murdered within an hour in what became known as the double event. Elizabeth Long Liz Stride was born in Sweden. Her marriage to John Stride had ended by 1881, and she entered a relationship with a laborer that was volatile at best. Over the years, her drinking problem worsened and she turned to prostitution to survive.

[00:03:47]She told prospective clients that her husband and children had died in 1878 when the Princess Alice sank on the tempames. On the last night of her life, Liz Stride was seen with various men around the area. She was last spotted at 12:30 a.m. by Constable William Smith.

[00:04:02]She was talking to a young man in a dark overcoat wearing a deer stalker hat.

[00:04:07]Nothing seemed a miss, so Smith just continued on his beat. Just 30 minutes later, the steward of the International Working Men's Educational Club, Lewis Demutz, found Stride's body outside the building. Demutz and other club members immediately set out to locate the police. He told reporters later that day, "I could see that her throat was fearfully cut. There was a great gash in it, over 2 in wide." Police Constable Lamb arrived at the scene and felt Stride's still warm face, but could find no pulse. When he was asked at the coroner's inquest if the victim's clothing had been disturbed, he testified, "No, I could scarcely see her boots. She looked like she had been quietly laid down." At almost the exact time Liz Stride's dead body was discovered, Katherine Kate Edetos was being released from the Bishop's Gate Police Station in London. She had been in protective custody since 8:30 p.m.

[00:04:56]when she passed out in a drunken stouper and could not be roused. Kate Edo's story was like so many other women of her acquaintance. failed relationships, few prospects of making a living, hard scrabble existence, and the descent into alcoholism, and ultimately resorting to prostitution to keep a roof over her head. When she came around and assured the officers she could take care of herself, they allowed her to go. At 12:55 a.m. on September the 30th, they sent her back to the streets of London.

[00:05:22]She was spotted at 1:35 a.m. by three men who saw her at the entrance to Church Passage, which led to Miter Square. Just 10 minutes later, PC Edward Watkins, who had passed the area recently on his beat, found her horrifically butchered body. The Ripper released more fury on Edetos than any of his other victims to date. Her throat was cut in his signature style, and she was disembowed like Nicholls and Chapman before her. But in Edos's case, her intestines had been placed over her right shoulder, and about 2 ft of her boughels had been removed altogether and positioned between her body and her left arm. He also slashed her face, removed most of her uterus, and took one of her kidneys. Some ripperologists maintained that the only authentic letter from Jack the Ripper to the London police was the one seemingly containing Edos's kidney.

[00:06:08]Additionally, while the other victims had been cut in a more precise manner, Kate's wounds were more erratic and jagged, almost as if the Ripper was in a frenzy. In contrast, as mentioned, Liz Stride only had her throat slit, perhaps because the Ripper was interrupted.

[00:06:22]We'll likely never know. Speaking of letters, as the murders stacked out, the similarities between the crimes led the public and the police to believe the murders were probably being committed by the same person. Letters poured into the police, some with leads about the crimes, others purporting to be from the killer himself. Naturally, the ones claiming to be from the murderer sparked the most interest. Most turned out to be useless, although a few warranted closer inspection. On September the 25th, one known as the Dear Boss letter that arrived in London Central News Agency was thought to be authentic. It was signed Jack the Ripper, a name so perfectly fitting that it stuck for all of time. Up until this point, it just been known as Leather Apron. On the 1st of October, the day after the double event, the Central News Agency received more correspondence from Jack the Ripper, and that was a postcard. He lamented the fact that he couldn't complete the job of slicing off one of his victim's ears. This made Scotland Yard take notice as part of Katherine Edetos's ear had been severed. Years later, a journalist reportedly admitted to writing both the dear boss letter and the subsequent postcard. His connections as a journalist would have made him privy to information about the crimes before the general public. There was no way to know for sure if he did it, and there still isn't. Whatever the case, on October the 15th, 1888, the most disturbing of all the Ripper letters was sent to Mr. George Lusk, the leader of the White Chapel Vigilance Committee.

[00:07:39]The letter came enclosed in a small box along with a portion of a human kidney.

[00:07:43]Perhaps not coincidentally, Ripper victim Katherine Edetos was missing half a kidney. The letter read as follows.

[00:07:50]From hell, Mr. Lusk. Sir, I send you half the kidney I took from one woman, preserved it for you. The other piece I fried and ate it. It was very nice. I may send you the bloody knife that took it out if you only wait a while longer.

[00:08:04]Signed, "Catch me when you can, Mr. Lusk." The doctor who examined the kidney, Dr. Thomas Openshaw concluded that it had belonged to an alcoholic woman in her mid-40s who suffered from Bright's disease, a form of kidney failure commonly found among heavy drinkers. This description fit Katherine Edto's to a tea. But George Lusk himself thought it was simply medical students playing a prank who sent him organs harvested from cadaavvers as a joke.

[00:08:28]Whatever the case, the final generally accepted victim of Jack the Ripper was Mary Jane Kelly with her death occurring on November the 9th. Little is definitively known about Kelly's history. She was supposedly married at one point, but her husband died while working in a coal mine, at which point she took up prostitution to support herself. Apparently extremely attractive and tall for the time, she was able to find work at a brothel frequented by the more affluent and later took up with one Joseph Barnett. They shared lodging together for a time. Not long after the two had ended their arrangement and Kelly had resumed her former profession, her horribly mutilated body was found in her room in the morning of November the 9th by Thomas Bowery, who had been sent to collect the 29 shillings Kelly owed for rent. Dr. Thomas Bond described the extremely gruesome scene later. The body was lying naked in the middle of the bed. The whole of the surface of the abdomen and thighs was removed and the abdominal cavity emptied of its viscera.

[00:09:19]The breasts were cut off, the arms mutilated by several jagged wounds, and the face hacked beyond recognition of the features. The tissues of the neck were severed all round down to the bone.

[00:09:29]The viscera were found in various parts viz, the uterus and kidneys with one breast under the head, the other breast by the right foot, the liver between the feet, the intestines by the right side, and the spleen by the left side of the body. The flaps removed from the abdomen and thighs were on a table. The face was gashed in all directions, the nose, cheeks, eyebrows, and ears being partly removed. Lips were blanched and cut by several incisions running obliquely down to the chin. There were also numerous cuts extending irregularly across all the features. The neck was cut through the skin and other tissues right down to the vertebrae, the fifth and sixth being deeply notched. The skin cuts in front of the neck showed distinct echimosis.

[00:10:07]The air passage was cut at the lower part of the larynx through the cricoid cartilage. The skin and tissues of the abdomen from the costal arch of the pubes were removed in three large flaps.

[00:10:17]The right thigh was denuded in front of the bone, the flap of skin, including the external organs of generation and part of the right buttock. The left thigh was stripped of skin fascia and muscles as far as the knee. The left calf showed a long gash through skin and tissues to the deep muscle and reaching from the knee to 5 in above the ankle.

[00:10:35]Both arms and forearms had extensive jagged wounds. The right thumb showed a small superficial incision about one inch long with extraversation of blood in the skin and there were several abrasions on the back of the hand.

[00:10:46]Moreover, showing the same condition. On opening the thorax, it was found that the right lung was minimally adherent by old firm adhesions. The lower part of the lung was broken and torn away. The left lung was intact. It was adherent at the apex and there were few adhesions over the side. In the substances of the lung, there were several nodules of consolidation. The paricardium was open below and the heart absent. After this, while there were other murders sometimes connected to Jack the Ripper, the general consensus was they were committed by others. As for who Jack the Ripper was and why he ceased his killing spree, this has been lost to history, but this hasn't stopped ripologists from speculating pretty much ever since. So, given that description we just went through, I'm not going to ask if you enjoyed this video, but I do hope you found it interesting. If you did, subscribe to this channel. Hit that bell so you know when we put out a new video.

[00:11:33]And as always, thank you for watching.