WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.160 It is a Tuesday evening, October 16th, 1888. 00:00:05.059 --> 00:00:09.779 And we are in Mile End, which is a hamlet just 00:00:09.779 --> 00:00:11.859 on the eastern edge of the Whitechapel district 00:00:11.859 --> 00:00:14.240 in London. Setting the scene perfectly. You know, 00:00:14.320 --> 00:00:17.199 the fog is rolling in as it tends to do in literally 00:00:17.199 --> 00:00:21.699 every story about this era. But. We aren't standing 00:00:21.699 --> 00:00:24.399 over a body in a dark alleyway. We aren't at 00:00:24.399 --> 00:00:26.460 Scotland Yard looking at a murder board. No, 00:00:26.640 --> 00:00:28.460 we are definitely not. We are standing at the 00:00:28.460 --> 00:00:31.460 front door of a very normal, very terrified civilian 00:00:31.460 --> 00:00:33.640 house. And that's the thing that always gets 00:00:33.640 --> 00:00:36.579 me about this specific moment in history. We 00:00:36.579 --> 00:00:41.380 tend to mythologize the Ripper case as this grand 00:00:41.380 --> 00:00:44.000 gothic opera. Right, the gas lights and the cobblestone. 00:00:44.060 --> 00:00:46.920 Exactly. But the most significant piece of evidence, 00:00:47.219 --> 00:00:49.039 and perhaps the only genuine piece of evidence, 00:00:49.399 --> 00:00:51.560 didn't appear at a crime scene? No, it didn't. 00:00:51.659 --> 00:00:53.780 It arrived in the Evening Post, delivered to 00:00:53.780 --> 00:00:56.859 a builder's home. A builder named George Lusk. 00:00:57.259 --> 00:00:58.880 And I think we really have to start with the 00:00:58.880 --> 00:01:01.600 package itself, because unlike the hundreds of 00:01:01.600 --> 00:01:03.240 letters the police were drowning in... Oh, there 00:01:03.240 --> 00:01:05.900 were thousands, yeah. Yeah, thousands of scribbled 00:01:05.900 --> 00:01:08.000 threats from cranks. But this was different. 00:01:08.060 --> 00:01:10.379 This was a three -dimensional object, a small 00:01:10.379 --> 00:01:12.939 box wrapped in brown paper postmarked London. 00:01:13.159 --> 00:01:15.420 And the sensory experience of opening that box 00:01:15.420 --> 00:01:18.219 is something the history books sort of sanitize 00:01:18.219 --> 00:01:20.859 or gloss over entirely. Right. Because Luss opens 00:01:20.859 --> 00:01:23.500 it and he isn't hit with a written threat immediately. 00:01:23.560 --> 00:01:26.239 He's hit with a smell. A very specific smell. 00:01:26.379 --> 00:01:29.659 Right. It's the pungent, overwhelming smell of 00:01:29.659 --> 00:01:33.340 spirits. cheap gin or wine used for preservation. 00:01:34.019 --> 00:01:37.079 And inside, nestled in that dampness, is a soft, 00:01:37.359 --> 00:01:40.260 squishy biological specimen. Half of a human 00:01:40.260 --> 00:01:42.459 kidney. Just sitting there. It is a grotesque 00:01:42.459 --> 00:01:45.140 physical intrusion into a private home. It's 00:01:45.140 --> 00:01:47.840 horrifying. And accompanying this horrific object 00:01:47.840 --> 00:01:50.379 is a letter. A letter that strips away all the 00:01:50.379 --> 00:01:52.359 saucy jack theatrics we usually associate with 00:01:52.359 --> 00:01:55.599 the case. No date. No Dear Boss. Just a header 00:01:55.599 --> 00:01:58.120 that functions as a return address. Right. From 00:01:58.120 --> 00:02:00.950 hell. From hell. Not a street name. not a district, 00:02:01.469 --> 00:02:04.129 just a state of eternal damnation. It is without 00:02:04.129 --> 00:02:06.569 a doubt one of the most chilling artifacts in 00:02:06.569 --> 00:02:09.370 criminal history. It changes the genre of the 00:02:09.370 --> 00:02:11.969 story from a mystery to a straight -up horror. 00:02:12.349 --> 00:02:15.370 And that is exactly what we are deep diving into 00:02:15.370 --> 00:02:18.430 today. We have a massive stack of sources to 00:02:18.430 --> 00:02:20.530 get through lots of ground to cover Yeah, we've 00:02:20.530 --> 00:02:22.610 got forensic handwriting reports from the 19th 00:02:22.610 --> 00:02:25.250 century in modern -day We have pathology reports 00:02:25.250 --> 00:02:28.509 on that kidney which by the way are wild truly 00:02:28.509 --> 00:02:30.669 bizarre and the historical records regarding 00:02:30.669 --> 00:02:33.909 George Lusk So the mission for this deep dive 00:02:33.909 --> 00:02:37.590 is to answer a singular nagging question the 00:02:37.590 --> 00:02:40.949 big one in a sea of thousands of fake ripper 00:02:40.949 --> 00:02:44.539 letters Why is this the one that experts? just 00:02:44.539 --> 00:02:47.680 cannot dismiss. It's the outlier. That's the 00:02:47.680 --> 00:02:49.360 best way to frame it. If you look at the Dear 00:02:49.360 --> 00:02:51.699 Boss letter or the Saucy Jackie postcard, they 00:02:51.699 --> 00:02:53.340 feel like they were written for an audience. 00:02:53.460 --> 00:02:56.300 Yeah, they're highly performative. Exactly. The 00:02:56.300 --> 00:02:58.379 From Hell letter, it feels private. It feels 00:02:58.379 --> 00:03:00.520 like a genuine transmission from a completely 00:03:00.520 --> 00:03:03.340 disordered mind. So let's contextualize the terror 00:03:03.340 --> 00:03:06.300 before we analyze the handwriting. We can't really 00:03:06.300 --> 00:03:08.180 understand the impact of this box without looking 00:03:08.180 --> 00:03:11.039 at the calendar. The timeline is crucial here. 00:03:11.219 --> 00:03:15.530 Mid -October, 1888. This is what historians call 00:03:15.530 --> 00:03:18.830 the autumn of terror. Right. By mid -October, 00:03:18.949 --> 00:03:21.349 the Whitechapel murders aren't just local news 00:03:21.349 --> 00:03:24.650 anymore. They are a global panic. The whole world 00:03:24.650 --> 00:03:28.050 is watching. Yes. You had Marianne Nichols murdered 00:03:28.050 --> 00:03:30.270 at the end of August, which started the whispers. 00:03:30.909 --> 00:03:33.569 Then Annie Chapman in early September. But then 00:03:33.569 --> 00:03:35.930 things escalated. Grastically. You had the double 00:03:35.930 --> 00:03:39.150 event on September 30th. The double event. Elizabeth 00:03:39.150 --> 00:03:42.639 Stride and Catherine Eddowes. Two women killed 00:03:42.639 --> 00:03:44.879 within an hour of each other. And that night 00:03:44.879 --> 00:03:47.259 changed everything. Before the double event, 00:03:47.319 --> 00:03:49.659 the police and the public, for that matter, thought 00:03:49.659 --> 00:03:51.379 they were dealing with a gang. Right, the high 00:03:51.379 --> 00:03:53.800 -rip gangs. Yes, the high -rip gangs of the East 00:03:53.800 --> 00:03:56.199 End were notorious for extortion and violence. 00:03:56.539 --> 00:03:58.479 So the early theories were that a group of men 00:03:58.479 --> 00:04:00.319 were doing this. It made sense at the time. It 00:04:00.319 --> 00:04:03.060 did. But after the double event, the ferocity 00:04:03.060 --> 00:04:05.400 and the specific mutilations made them realize 00:04:05.400 --> 00:04:08.580 they were hunting a lone, disorganized, highly 00:04:08.580 --> 00:04:12.039 violent predator. And the police force. The Metropolitan 00:04:12.039 --> 00:04:14.580 Police under Sir Charles Warren was failing. 00:04:15.419 --> 00:04:17.899 Spectacularly. Just completely floundering. Warren 00:04:17.899 --> 00:04:20.360 is a fascinating character in this failure, actually. 00:04:20.459 --> 00:04:23.519 He was a military man, totally obsessed with 00:04:23.519 --> 00:04:26.660 order, drilling his men like soldiers. Which 00:04:26.660 --> 00:04:29.160 doesn't work for detective work. Not at all. 00:04:29.540 --> 00:04:33.040 He was completely unequipped for urban policing. 00:04:33.660 --> 00:04:37.399 He was destroying evidence like the famous Goulston 00:04:37.399 --> 00:04:40.639 Street Graffito because he was afraid of anti 00:04:40.639 --> 00:04:43.199 -Semitic riots. He wiped away writing on a wall 00:04:43.199 --> 00:04:46.720 near a crime scene. Exactly, and the public lost 00:04:46.720 --> 00:04:49.339 faith in him almost immediately. There was actually 00:04:49.339 --> 00:04:51.439 a scandal right before this letter arrived where 00:04:51.439 --> 00:04:54.240 the police tried to use bloodhounds to track 00:04:54.240 --> 00:04:56.420 the killer. Oh, the bloodhound story. Yeah, it 00:04:56.420 --> 00:04:58.500 turned into a total farce because the dogs got 00:04:58.500 --> 00:05:00.560 lost. So you have the public seeing the police 00:05:00.560 --> 00:05:02.680 running around with lost dogs while women are 00:05:02.680 --> 00:05:04.560 being butchered in the streets. It was a disaster. 00:05:04.620 --> 00:05:08.410 Which brings us directly to George Lusk. Because 00:05:08.410 --> 00:05:10.889 the From Hell letter wasn't sent to Warren. No. 00:05:11.069 --> 00:05:12.850 It wasn't sent to Inspector Aberlein. It was 00:05:12.850 --> 00:05:15.870 sent to a civilian. Exactly. George Lusk was 00:05:15.870 --> 00:05:18.430 the chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee. 00:05:18.930 --> 00:05:20.670 And we should probably clarify what that was 00:05:20.670 --> 00:05:23.629 because Vigilance Committee sounds a bit like 00:05:23.629 --> 00:05:27.029 a superhero team or a lynch mob. Yeah. In reality, 00:05:27.110 --> 00:05:29.850 it was basically a frantic neighborhood watch, 00:05:29.910 --> 00:05:31.970 wasn't it? Pretty much. It was local business 00:05:31.970 --> 00:05:35.810 owners, publicans, tradesmen. Builders like Lusk, 00:05:35.870 --> 00:05:37.949 they were watching their profits vanish because 00:05:37.949 --> 00:05:40.470 nobody would go out at night. People were terrified. 00:05:40.810 --> 00:05:42.790 And they were frustrated that the home office 00:05:42.790 --> 00:05:46.009 refused to offer a reward for capture. So they 00:05:46.009 --> 00:05:48.889 pooled their own money, hired private detectives, 00:05:49.050 --> 00:05:51.569 and organized patrols. And Lusk was the face 00:05:51.569 --> 00:05:54.589 of this. He was a church warden, a respectable 00:05:54.589 --> 00:05:57.750 man, suddenly thrust into the center of an absolute 00:05:57.750 --> 00:05:59.910 nightmare. So by sending the package to Lusk, 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:02.240 The sender is making a very specific statement. 00:06:02.439 --> 00:06:04.839 Highly specific. It's not catch me if you can, 00:06:05.040 --> 00:06:08.079 Scotland Yard. It's I am watching you. It's a 00:06:08.079 --> 00:06:10.600 localized haunt. It targets the community response 00:06:10.600 --> 00:06:12.759 directly. It says you think you can organize. 00:06:12.959 --> 00:06:14.720 You think you can patrol the streets. I can walk 00:06:14.720 --> 00:06:17.079 right past your patrols, kill a woman, take her 00:06:17.079 --> 00:06:19.379 organ and mail it to your chairman. It's an act 00:06:19.379 --> 00:06:22.310 of dominance over the neighborhood itself. It 00:06:22.310 --> 00:06:24.410 establishes a relationship between the killer 00:06:24.410 --> 00:06:26.610 and the community that is much more intimate 00:06:26.610 --> 00:06:28.290 than the relationship between the killer and 00:06:28.290 --> 00:06:30.850 the state. Now, speaking of relationships, we 00:06:30.850 --> 00:06:33.129 really have to talk about the brand because by 00:06:33.129 --> 00:06:35.990 the time Lusk gets this kidney, the name Jack 00:06:35.990 --> 00:06:38.569 the Ripper is already world famous. And this 00:06:38.569 --> 00:06:40.470 is where we have to separate the mythology from 00:06:40.470 --> 00:06:42.569 the reality. Right. The name Jack the Ripper 00:06:42.569 --> 00:06:45.410 comes from the Dear Boss letter, which was received 00:06:45.410 --> 00:06:48.110 by the Central News Agency in late September. 00:06:48.649 --> 00:06:51.300 Dear Boss. I keep on hearing the police have 00:06:51.300 --> 00:06:54.120 caught me, but they won't fix me just yet. It 00:06:54.120 --> 00:06:57.220 reads like a script. It reads exactly like a 00:06:57.220 --> 00:07:00.079 penny -dreadful villain. And there is a very 00:07:00.079 --> 00:07:02.680 strong consensus among historians, and frankly 00:07:02.680 --> 00:07:04.680 even among the police at the time, that Dear 00:07:04.680 --> 00:07:07.920 Boss was a complete hoax. Specifically, a journalistic 00:07:07.920 --> 00:07:10.540 hoax. The sources point to a journalist named 00:07:10.540 --> 00:07:13.480 Tom Bulling. Tom Bulling of the Central News 00:07:13.480 --> 00:07:16.290 Agency. The theory, which is backed by quite 00:07:16.290 --> 00:07:18.589 a bit of correspondence from police officials 00:07:18.589 --> 00:07:20.889 like Robert Anderson, is that the agency needed 00:07:20.889 --> 00:07:23.750 to keep the story alive to sell copy. To sell 00:07:23.750 --> 00:07:26.529 newspapers. Exactly. The Whitechapel Murderer 00:07:26.529 --> 00:07:29.430 is a boring name. Jack the Ripper. That's a brand 00:07:29.430 --> 00:07:32.129 that sells papers in New York and Paris. The 00:07:32.129 --> 00:07:34.930 Dear Boss letter is written in this jaunty, confident 00:07:34.930 --> 00:07:39.930 style. It uses Americanisms like boss and fix 00:07:39.930 --> 00:07:41.990 me. It's almost cheerful. I love my work and 00:07:41.990 --> 00:07:44.680 want to start again. It's a caricature. It creates 00:07:44.680 --> 00:07:47.560 the image of the gentleman killer, the top hat, 00:07:47.740 --> 00:07:50.560 the cape, the medical bag. The pop culture version. 00:07:50.639 --> 00:07:53.199 Right. It suggests a killer who is intelligent, 00:07:53.540 --> 00:07:56.139 literate, and playing a game. It frames the violence 00:07:56.139 --> 00:07:59.040 as work or art. Now let's contrast that with 00:07:59.040 --> 00:08:01.600 the text of the From Hell letter. When you look 00:08:01.600 --> 00:08:03.459 at the facsimile of this letter, and for you 00:08:03.459 --> 00:08:06.220 listening, Try to visualize a piece of dirty, 00:08:06.439 --> 00:08:08.379 rough paper. The first thing that hits you is 00:08:08.379 --> 00:08:11.000 the visual chaos. It's a mess. Ink blots everywhere. 00:08:11.180 --> 00:08:13.399 Cramp spacing. The handwriting slants downwards. 00:08:13.699 --> 00:08:16.019 Which graphologists, handwriting analysts often 00:08:16.019 --> 00:08:18.819 associate with depression, fatigue, or a deteriorating 00:08:18.819 --> 00:08:21.360 mental state. And the language is not jaunty. 00:08:21.839 --> 00:08:24.939 It's guttural. Let's look at the opening. Mr. 00:08:25.120 --> 00:08:28.459 Lusk. Sarah. S -O -R. Immediately, we are in 00:08:28.459 --> 00:08:31.500 a completely different linguistic world. Sore. 00:08:31.660 --> 00:08:34.379 is a phonetic spelling that suggests a specific 00:08:34.379 --> 00:08:37.519 dialect, likely working class, possibly Irish. 00:08:37.559 --> 00:08:39.440 We will get to that later. But notice the lack 00:08:39.440 --> 00:08:42.740 of a date. Yes. The Dear Boss letter was dated. 00:08:42.960 --> 00:08:45.440 This just says, from hell. It's not a location. 00:08:45.519 --> 00:08:48.500 It's a state of being. And then the body of the 00:08:48.500 --> 00:08:50.379 text. I'm going to read it exactly as it's written, 00:08:50.659 --> 00:08:53.559 mistakes and all. I send you half the kidney 00:08:53.559 --> 00:08:56.820 I took from one. Women preserved it for you to 00:08:56.820 --> 00:08:59.779 the pieces it. I fried and ate it. It was very 00:08:59.779 --> 00:09:02.830 nice. That sentence changed the entire psychological 00:09:02.830 --> 00:09:05.590 profile of the killer. I fried and ate it. The 00:09:05.590 --> 00:09:07.690 Dear Box writer talked about clipping ears. It 00:09:07.690 --> 00:09:10.429 was about mutilation as a signature. The From 00:09:10.429 --> 00:09:13.850 Hell writer talks about consumption. Cannibalism. 00:09:13.929 --> 00:09:16.070 It's deeply disturbing. It moves the crime from 00:09:16.070 --> 00:09:18.669 a lust murder or a statement to something primal. 00:09:18.789 --> 00:09:20.649 It's an act of total possession. You don't just 00:09:20.649 --> 00:09:23.049 kill the victim, you consume them. And the spelling 00:09:23.049 --> 00:09:27.110 of nice. N -I -S -E. It's chilling because it 00:09:27.110 --> 00:09:30.500 feels almost childish. It's that exact juxtaposition 00:09:30.500 --> 00:09:33.580 of childish misspelling and horrific content 00:09:33.580 --> 00:09:35.779 that makes it feel so much more authentic than 00:09:35.779 --> 00:09:39.259 the Polish Dear Boss. Right. A chaotic, disorganized 00:09:39.259 --> 00:09:41.820 killer wouldn't write in copper plate script. 00:09:41.919 --> 00:09:44.200 They would write like this. And the signature. 00:09:45.179 --> 00:09:48.320 Or rather, the lack of one. This is the smoking 00:09:48.320 --> 00:09:51.080 gun for me regarding the authorship debate. How 00:09:51.080 --> 00:09:53.720 so? Well, if you are the killer and you know 00:09:53.720 --> 00:09:55.620 the world is calling you Jack the Ripper and 00:09:55.620 --> 00:09:58.320 you want fame, You sign it, Jack the Ripper. 00:09:58.500 --> 00:10:00.919 But he doesn't. He signs it. Catch me when you 00:10:00.919 --> 00:10:05.460 can, Mr. Lusk. Mr. Again, that phonetic shh sound. 00:10:05.559 --> 00:10:07.120 He doesn't care about the brand. He doesn't care 00:10:07.120 --> 00:10:09.820 about the nickname the papers invented. He is 00:10:09.820 --> 00:10:12.500 entirely focused on Lusk. It suggests the author 00:10:12.500 --> 00:10:14.659 of this letter is completely disconnected from 00:10:14.659 --> 00:10:16.639 the media narrative that bullying and the others 00:10:16.639 --> 00:10:19.600 were spinning. So we have a letter that sounds 00:10:19.600 --> 00:10:22.179 authentic because it's messy, disturbing, and 00:10:22.179 --> 00:10:25.320 ignores the media hype. But words are wind, right? 00:10:25.450 --> 00:10:27.850 You can fake being illiterate. You can fake being 00:10:27.850 --> 00:10:30.830 creepy. True. People sent hoax letters claiming 00:10:30.830 --> 00:10:33.529 to be the killer all the time. But you can't 00:10:33.529 --> 00:10:36.330 easily fake a kidney. Yeah. And this is where 00:10:36.330 --> 00:10:38.769 the deep dive gets technical. We really need 00:10:38.769 --> 00:10:41.309 to look at the pathology of that specimen. The 00:10:41.309 --> 00:10:44.870 grim artifact itself. This is what separates 00:10:44.870 --> 00:10:48.009 this letter from the thousands of others. Lusk 00:10:48.009 --> 00:10:50.879 receives this box. He initially thinks it's a 00:10:50.879 --> 00:10:52.759 prank. He actually thought it was a dog's kidney, 00:10:52.820 --> 00:10:55.240 right? Yes. Put there by some medical students. 00:10:55.299 --> 00:10:58.179 Which was a totally valid suspicion. Medical 00:10:58.179 --> 00:11:00.779 students in Victorian London were notorious for 00:11:00.779 --> 00:11:03.879 gallows humor, and they had easy access to organs. 00:11:04.379 --> 00:11:05.919 Right. Lusk wants to throw it right in the fire. 00:11:06.039 --> 00:11:08.519 He's disgusted. That would be too. But the vigilance 00:11:08.519 --> 00:11:10.820 committee members, men like Joseph Aarons and 00:11:10.820 --> 00:11:13.860 Harris, they stop him. They basically say, George, 00:11:14.000 --> 00:11:15.860 look, we have to be sure. So they take it to 00:11:15.860 --> 00:11:17.960 a doctor. They take it to a local doctor, Dr. 00:11:18.080 --> 00:11:20.639 Frederick Wiles. So his assistant examines it 00:11:20.639 --> 00:11:23.179 first. Then it goes to the heavy hitter, Dr. 00:11:23.220 --> 00:11:26.139 Thomas Openshaw at the London Hospital. He is 00:11:26.139 --> 00:11:28.840 the pathological curator. Exactly. And this is 00:11:28.840 --> 00:11:31.159 where history gets muddy, because the newspapers 00:11:31.159 --> 00:11:33.799 reported one thing and the medical records suggest 00:11:33.799 --> 00:11:37.269 another. What did Openshaw actually find? The 00:11:37.269 --> 00:11:39.990 press went completely wild. They ran headlines 00:11:39.990 --> 00:11:43.009 saying, OpenShaw confirmed it was Catherine Eddow's 00:11:43.009 --> 00:11:45.090 kidney, that it was from a woman of the exact 00:11:45.090 --> 00:11:47.669 same age, same drinking habits. But that wasn't 00:11:47.669 --> 00:11:50.330 exactly true. No. If you look at the contemporary 00:11:50.330 --> 00:11:52.870 police reports, specifically from Inspector Swanson, 00:11:52.970 --> 00:11:55.750 OpenShaw's actual findings were more conservative, 00:11:55.870 --> 00:11:58.590 but honestly still damning. He confirmed it was 00:11:58.590 --> 00:12:03.230 human. Yes. Not a dog, not a sheep. Human. And 00:12:03.230 --> 00:12:06.539 he confirmed it was a left kidney. Which is highly 00:12:06.539 --> 00:12:08.659 critical because Catherine Eddowes had her left 00:12:08.659 --> 00:12:11.299 kidney removed by the killer. Now, let's talk 00:12:11.299 --> 00:12:13.740 about Bright's disease. This comes up in every 00:12:13.740 --> 00:12:16.059 single Ripper documentary, but what is it actually? 00:12:16.240 --> 00:12:18.600 Bright's disease is a historical medical term 00:12:18.600 --> 00:12:21.080 for a form of nephritis. Inflammation of the 00:12:21.080 --> 00:12:24.259 kidneys. Yes. In the Victorian era, it was highly 00:12:24.259 --> 00:12:27.100 correlated with chronic alcoholism. And physically, 00:12:27.179 --> 00:12:29.600 what does it do? Physically, it changes the organ. 00:12:30.139 --> 00:12:32.980 A healthy kidney is relatively smooth. A kidney 00:12:32.980 --> 00:12:35.679 with Bright's disease becomes granular, tough, 00:12:36.220 --> 00:12:39.240 and the cortex, the outer layer, thins out. It 00:12:39.240 --> 00:12:42.500 looks visibly scarred. So it's visually and texturally 00:12:42.500 --> 00:12:44.980 distinct from a normal kidney. Highly distinct. 00:12:45.700 --> 00:12:48.700 Now, Katherine Etos was 46 years old and a known 00:12:48.700 --> 00:12:51.700 alcoholic. Her autopsy noted that her remaining 00:12:51.700 --> 00:12:54.679 right kidney showed clear signs of Bright's disease. 00:12:54.899 --> 00:12:57.740 In the specimen sent to LUSK. Reports do vary 00:12:57.740 --> 00:13:00.080 slightly, but the prevailing narrative in the 00:13:00.080 --> 00:13:02.820 investigation files, and certainly the firm belief 00:13:02.820 --> 00:13:05.240 of Major Smith of the city police at the time, 00:13:05.659 --> 00:13:08.240 is that the kidney sent to Lusk also showed signs 00:13:08.240 --> 00:13:10.960 of Breit's disease. So, if we play devil's advocate 00:13:10.960 --> 00:13:13.379 for a second and say this is just a hoax, the 00:13:13.379 --> 00:13:16.879 hoaxer would have to, A, acquire a human kidney, 00:13:17.580 --> 00:13:20.460 B, ensure it's a left kidney, C, ensure it's 00:13:20.460 --> 00:13:22.940 from a female, which OpenShot couldn't definitively 00:13:22.940 --> 00:13:26.000 prove, but thought was likely. And D, ensure 00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:28.500 it has this specific alcoholic disease that matches 00:13:28.500 --> 00:13:30.500 the victim perfectly. The probabilities just 00:13:30.500 --> 00:13:33.000 start to collapse. It's possible medical museums 00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:35.379 had jars of diseased organs. A student could 00:13:35.379 --> 00:13:37.620 have picked a gin kidney on purpose. But the 00:13:37.620 --> 00:13:39.980 timing. Exactly. Two weeks after the murder. 00:13:40.360 --> 00:13:43.539 The preservation in spirits. It aligns too perfectly. 00:13:43.919 --> 00:13:45.980 Speaking of preservation, the letter says, preserved 00:13:45.980 --> 00:13:49.559 it for you. Open Shaw noted the kidney was in 00:13:49.559 --> 00:13:52.759 spirits. But not just spirits. This is a detail 00:13:52.759 --> 00:13:55.860 that often gets completely missed. Openshaw noted 00:13:55.860 --> 00:13:58.320 that the kidney wasn't preserved in a standard 00:13:58.320 --> 00:14:00.820 medical preservative like formalin. It was in 00:14:00.820 --> 00:14:03.299 wine or gin. Which heavily suggests it wasn't 00:14:03.299 --> 00:14:05.259 just pulled off a shelf in a medical school. 00:14:05.519 --> 00:14:07.899 Right, because if a medical student stole a sesame, 00:14:08.360 --> 00:14:10.659 it would likely be floating in formalbehyde or 00:14:10.659 --> 00:14:13.159 a similar medical compound. Exactly. This was 00:14:13.159 --> 00:14:15.759 preserved in hard liquor. That speaks to a killer 00:14:15.759 --> 00:14:18.139 acting in a domestic setting using whatever he 00:14:18.139 --> 00:14:22.980 had on hand. I fried and ate it. The very idea 00:14:22.980 --> 00:14:25.740 that he kept the other half for dinner implies 00:14:25.740 --> 00:14:29.059 he had the time and the privacy to actually do 00:14:29.059 --> 00:14:31.740 that. It implies a terrifying level of comfort 00:14:31.740 --> 00:14:33.740 with the atrocity, and it brings us right back 00:14:33.740 --> 00:14:36.039 to the writer's profile. Because if we accept 00:14:36.039 --> 00:14:38.139 the kidney is real, then the handwriting on that 00:14:38.139 --> 00:14:40.019 letter is the handwriting of the actual killer. 00:14:40.299 --> 00:14:42.820 And that handwriting has been analyzed by modern 00:14:42.820 --> 00:14:46.919 experts who found some very specific very strange 00:14:46.919 --> 00:14:49.620 quirks. We're talking about the literacy versus 00:14:49.620 --> 00:14:53.379 deception debate. This is a huge area of contention 00:14:53.379 --> 00:14:55.980 among historians and linguists. When you first 00:14:55.980 --> 00:14:58.659 look at the letter, it looks illiterate. Right. 00:14:59.039 --> 00:15:02.720 Kidnan is missing the Y. Nif is missing the E. 00:15:03.179 --> 00:15:05.480 But linguists point out something called cognitive 00:15:05.480 --> 00:15:08.090 dissonance in the spelling. How so? Well, take 00:15:08.090 --> 00:15:11.350 the word nif, K -N -I -F. He drops the E, but 00:15:11.350 --> 00:15:14.169 he keeps the K. Now, the K in knife is silent. 00:15:14.809 --> 00:15:17.309 If you were truly uneducated and writing purely 00:15:17.309 --> 00:15:19.789 by sound, you would just write N -I -F. That 00:15:19.789 --> 00:15:21.929 makes total sense. The fact that he includes 00:15:21.929 --> 00:15:24.769 the silent K means he knows how the word is spelled 00:15:24.769 --> 00:15:27.990 visually, but he is actively choosing to truncate 00:15:27.990 --> 00:15:31.129 it. Same with wilt for a while. W -H -I -L. He 00:15:31.129 --> 00:15:33.789 keeps the silent age. Exactly. This leads to 00:15:33.789 --> 00:15:37.289 two competing theories. Theory A, it's a disguise. 00:15:37.570 --> 00:15:39.690 Someone pretending to be uneducated. Right. This 00:15:39.690 --> 00:15:42.490 is an educated man, maybe a doctor, maybe a gentleman, 00:15:42.669 --> 00:15:44.429 pretending to be uneducated to throw the police 00:15:44.429 --> 00:15:47.190 off the scent. He's slumming it on paper. And 00:15:47.190 --> 00:15:50.169 theory B. Theory B is that it is the work of 00:15:50.169 --> 00:15:52.710 a partly functional but deranged individual. 00:15:52.960 --> 00:15:55.159 Someone who actually had schooling in their youth, 00:15:55.340 --> 00:15:58.059 but has deteriorated mentally. So they remember 00:15:58.059 --> 00:16:00.179 the shape of the words, but their execution is 00:16:00.179 --> 00:16:02.440 breaking down. Exactly. The brain knows the K 00:16:02.440 --> 00:16:05.179 is there, but the hand forgets the E. This brings 00:16:05.179 --> 00:16:08.320 us to the Irish connection. I watched the documentary 00:16:08.320 --> 00:16:10.740 where forensic handwriting expert Michelle Dresbold 00:16:10.740 --> 00:16:14.600 analyzes this, and her theory blew my mind. Michelle 00:16:14.600 --> 00:16:16.919 Dresbold is fantastic. She did a deep dive for 00:16:16.919 --> 00:16:19.440 the History Channel. She identified something 00:16:19.440 --> 00:16:22.080 called the invasive loop. What's that? Look at 00:16:22.080 --> 00:16:25.179 the letter Y in the From Hell note. In standard 00:16:25.179 --> 00:16:27.539 English cursive of the time, the tail of the 00:16:27.539 --> 00:16:30.700 Y goes down and loops up. In this letter, the 00:16:30.700 --> 00:16:33.419 loop is heavily exaggerated. It's invasive. Meaning 00:16:33.419 --> 00:16:35.700 it cuts into other lines. It swings back and 00:16:35.700 --> 00:16:38.059 cuts right through the other words on the line 00:16:38.059 --> 00:16:40.360 below it. And apparently this isn't just a sign 00:16:40.360 --> 00:16:42.740 of being a messy writer. It's a sign of where 00:16:42.740 --> 00:16:45.379 you went to school. It tracks perfectly with 00:16:45.379 --> 00:16:48.039 Irish copybook styles from the late 19th century. 00:16:48.279 --> 00:16:50.860 In Irish schools at the time, that specific flourish 00:16:50.860 --> 00:16:53.139 was extremely common. And when you combine that 00:16:53.139 --> 00:16:54.899 with the phonetic spellings we talked about, 00:16:55.279 --> 00:16:59.100 mister for mister, preserved for preserved, you 00:16:59.100 --> 00:17:01.259 start to build a really compelling profile of 00:17:01.259 --> 00:17:04.859 an Irish author. Preserved, P -R -A -S -A -R 00:17:04.859 --> 00:17:06.980 -V -E -D. If you say that out loud with a broad 00:17:06.980 --> 00:17:09.359 Irish accent. It sounds exactly like preserved. 00:17:09.640 --> 00:17:12.519 Which leads us to the one suspect who actually 00:17:12.519 --> 00:17:16.940 fits this specific bizarre Venn diagram, Francis 00:17:16.940 --> 00:17:19.500 Tumbley. Francis Tumulty, he is a real piece 00:17:19.500 --> 00:17:22.160 of work. To say the least. He was an American 00:17:22.160 --> 00:17:25.279 quack doctor, but he was of Irish descent. He 00:17:25.279 --> 00:17:28.059 was in London during the murders, and he was 00:17:28.059 --> 00:17:30.240 actually arrested on suspicion of the crimes. 00:17:30.420 --> 00:17:33.200 He wasn't just a random suspect swept up in a 00:17:33.200 --> 00:17:36.359 dragnet, though. He had a very specific psychological 00:17:36.359 --> 00:17:39.690 fixation. He absolutely hated women. We have 00:17:39.690 --> 00:17:42.130 historical testimony that he would go into wild 00:17:42.130 --> 00:17:44.029 tirades at dinner parties about the sinfulness 00:17:44.029 --> 00:17:47.190 of women. But more importantly, embrace yourself 00:17:47.190 --> 00:17:50.190 for this, he collected uteri. He collected body 00:17:50.190 --> 00:17:52.369 parts. He kept a collection of preserved female 00:17:52.369 --> 00:17:54.529 reproductive organs in jars. He showed them to 00:17:54.529 --> 00:17:56.869 guests. He was actively proud of them. OK, so 00:17:56.869 --> 00:17:58.789 let's track this. We have a guy who collects 00:17:58.789 --> 00:18:01.400 female organs, hates women. is in Whitechapel 00:18:01.400 --> 00:18:03.740 and is Irish -American, and we have a letter 00:18:03.740 --> 00:18:05.960 written in an Irish dialect sent with a female 00:18:05.960 --> 00:18:08.359 organ. It's the strongest circumstantial chain 00:18:08.359 --> 00:18:10.700 we have for any suspect regarding the Lusk letter 00:18:10.700 --> 00:18:13.460 specifically. Tumblety fled the country shortly 00:18:13.460 --> 00:18:15.480 after being released on bail. He went to France, 00:18:15.579 --> 00:18:17.900 right? He went to France, then sneaked back to 00:18:17.900 --> 00:18:20.819 the States. And the murder stopped. But here's 00:18:20.819 --> 00:18:22.920 the kicker regarding Tumblety in the handwriting. 00:18:23.579 --> 00:18:26.440 If Tumblety wrote the From Hell letter, he definitely 00:18:26.440 --> 00:18:29.599 didn't write Dear Boss. They are completely mutually 00:18:29.599 --> 00:18:32.480 exclusive. The handwriting is fundamentally different. 00:18:32.539 --> 00:18:35.400 So if Tumulty is the Ripper, then Jack the Ripper 00:18:35.400 --> 00:18:38.099 doesn't exist. Jack is the fiction. Yes, Jack 00:18:38.099 --> 00:18:40.579 is a literary invention. The Fromhill Cannibal 00:18:40.579 --> 00:18:43.940 is the reality. It's a bifurcated reality. We 00:18:43.940 --> 00:18:46.460 have the media monster and we have the actual 00:18:46.460 --> 00:18:49.319 man. And there is one witness account that ties 00:18:49.319 --> 00:18:52.359 into this Tumulty theory perfectly. The Emily 00:18:52.359 --> 00:18:54.799 Marsh incident. This is a detail that often gets 00:18:54.799 --> 00:18:56.759 left out of the general summaries, but it's vital 00:18:56.759 --> 00:19:00.069 to the story. This happened the day before Lusk 00:19:00.069 --> 00:19:03.109 received the kidney. October 15th. Emily Marsh 00:19:03.109 --> 00:19:05.170 is running a shop on the Mile End Road. Which 00:19:05.170 --> 00:19:07.730 is in the exact same area the letter was postmarked 00:19:07.730 --> 00:19:10.230 from. Right. A man walks in. He's tall, about 00:19:10.230 --> 00:19:12.730 six foot. He's wearing a long clerical style 00:19:12.730 --> 00:19:15.910 coat. He has a dark beard. And this matches the 00:19:15.910 --> 00:19:18.490 description of Francis Tumulty. It matches him 00:19:18.490 --> 00:19:22.109 perfectly. Tumblety was known for dressing flamboyantly 00:19:22.109 --> 00:19:24.789 and was very tall for the era. And he speaks 00:19:24.789 --> 00:19:28.390 with an Irish accent. And he asks her, very specifically, 00:19:29.069 --> 00:19:32.430 for the home address of Mr. George Lusk. Marsh 00:19:32.430 --> 00:19:34.710 gives it to him, he writes it down in a little 00:19:34.710 --> 00:19:37.730 notebook, and he leaves abruptly. It's chilling. 00:19:38.089 --> 00:19:41.569 It suggests the killer was actively hunting Lusk. 00:19:41.829 --> 00:19:44.150 Not to kill him, but to deliver the message. 00:19:44.410 --> 00:19:46.710 He was scouting the location to make sure the 00:19:46.710 --> 00:19:49.289 package arrived properly. It turns the From Hell 00:19:49.289 --> 00:19:51.730 letter from just a random piece of mail into 00:19:51.730 --> 00:19:54.730 the climax of a stalking event. But playing devil's 00:19:54.730 --> 00:19:57.349 advocate here, Lusk was a public figure by this 00:19:57.349 --> 00:19:58.990 point. His name was in the papers constantly. 00:19:59.089 --> 00:20:01.349 That's entirely true. Lusk was receiving dozens 00:20:01.349 --> 00:20:03.410 of threats. This Irish man in the shop could 00:20:03.410 --> 00:20:05.289 have been anyone. It could have been a crank 00:20:05.289 --> 00:20:07.849 who read about Lusk in The Star or The Telegraph. 00:20:07.970 --> 00:20:10.089 Right. But when you layer it with the tumbledy 00:20:10.089 --> 00:20:13.049 suspect profile, the preserved spelling and the 00:20:13.049 --> 00:20:16.000 physical kidney, The Emily Marsh sighting feels 00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:18.339 like a piece of the puzzle that fits just a little 00:20:18.339 --> 00:20:21.220 too well to ignore. It's tantalizing. It puts 00:20:21.220 --> 00:20:24.619 a face to the sender, a tall man in a long coat, 00:20:25.119 --> 00:20:27.559 speaking with an Irish lilt, clutching a notebook, 00:20:27.779 --> 00:20:29.960 and likely clutching a box with a kidney in it. 00:20:30.039 --> 00:20:33.000 That is a horrifying image. Speaking of things 00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:35.180 we can't be sure of, or rather things we are 00:20:35.180 --> 00:20:37.940 very sure are fake, we have to mention the Maybrook 00:20:37.940 --> 00:20:40.640 Diary briefly, because I feel like whenever the 00:20:40.640 --> 00:20:42.970 From Hell letter comes up, People mention this 00:20:42.970 --> 00:20:46.329 diary. The diary of Jack the Ripper. This surfaced 00:20:46.329 --> 00:20:49.890 in the 1990s. It was allegedly written by a Liverpool 00:20:49.890 --> 00:20:52.549 cotton merchant named James Maybrick. And in 00:20:52.549 --> 00:20:55.069 the diary, he supposedly confesses to the murders. 00:20:55.170 --> 00:20:58.009 He does. And he specifically references eating 00:20:58.009 --> 00:21:00.289 the kidney. He writes about the From Hell letter 00:21:00.289 --> 00:21:02.910 directly. But the handwriting doesn't match at 00:21:02.910 --> 00:21:05.109 all. It doesn't match the From Hell letter, and 00:21:05.109 --> 00:21:06.970 it doesn't match the Dear Boss letter either. 00:21:07.180 --> 00:21:10.259 So it's essentially debunked. Most experts, including 00:21:10.259 --> 00:21:12.980 the Kirkus Reviews and major historical societies, 00:21:13.240 --> 00:21:16.039 consider it a complete hoax. A modern hoax. Yes. 00:21:16.400 --> 00:21:18.700 Scientific testing on the ink was inconclusive, 00:21:18.819 --> 00:21:21.299 but heavily leaned toward being modern. It's 00:21:21.299 --> 00:21:23.480 essentially historical fan fiction. But it's 00:21:23.480 --> 00:21:26.440 interesting because it shows how deeply the From 00:21:26.440 --> 00:21:29.299 Hell letter has penetrated the lore. Exactly. 00:21:29.380 --> 00:21:31.619 If you're going to fake a Ripper diary, you absolutely 00:21:31.619 --> 00:21:33.940 have to include the kidney. It's the ultimate 00:21:33.940 --> 00:21:36.119 touchstone of authenticity. You just can't tell 00:21:36.119 --> 00:21:38.720 the story without it. It really is. The kidney 00:21:38.720 --> 00:21:41.700 is the anchor. You can fake a note. You can't 00:21:41.700 --> 00:21:44.259 easily fake a kidney with Bragg's disease. That's 00:21:44.259 --> 00:21:46.880 the bottom line. The physical evidence simply 00:21:46.880 --> 00:21:49.579 trumps the graphology, the linguistics, and the 00:21:49.579 --> 00:21:52.400 witness descriptions. The biological reality 00:21:52.400 --> 00:21:56.299 of that organ is what keeps historians and pathologists 00:21:56.299 --> 00:21:59.180 coming back to this letter. So let's zoom out 00:21:59.180 --> 00:22:01.799 a bit. We've looked at the evidence. Now let's 00:22:01.799 --> 00:22:04.460 look at the legacy. Because the actual phrase 00:22:04.650 --> 00:22:08.190 From Hell has taken on a life of its own entirely. 00:22:08.529 --> 00:22:10.890 It has transcended the forensic files and become 00:22:10.890 --> 00:22:13.269 part of our cultural language. It's the title 00:22:13.269 --> 00:22:15.609 of the definitive artistic work on the subject. 00:22:15.849 --> 00:22:18.009 Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's graphic novel 00:22:18.009 --> 00:22:21.210 From Hell. An absolute masterpiece. And notice 00:22:21.210 --> 00:22:23.809 the title. Moore didn't call it Jack the Ripper. 00:22:23.990 --> 00:22:26.309 He didn't call it Saucy Jack. He called it From 00:22:26.309 --> 00:22:28.970 Hell. Why do you think that is? Because Moore 00:22:28.970 --> 00:22:31.549 was interested in the psychology, not the cartoon 00:22:31.549 --> 00:22:34.329 villain. The graphic novel and the Johnny Depp 00:22:34.329 --> 00:22:36.410 movie that followed, although they are very different 00:22:36.410 --> 00:22:39.970 animals, uses the From Hell letter as a window 00:22:39.970 --> 00:22:43.470 into the killer's tortured mind. The letter represents 00:22:43.470 --> 00:22:46.869 the true madness. Exactly. Professor Elizabeth 00:22:46.869 --> 00:22:49.309 Ho has written about this extensively. She argues 00:22:49.309 --> 00:22:51.730 that the letter transcends being just evidence 00:22:51.730 --> 00:22:55.069 to become a symbol. It shifts the entire focus 00:22:55.069 --> 00:22:58.960 from the caricature to the grim demonic It grounds 00:22:58.960 --> 00:23:02.880 it. Dear Boss is a comic book villain. From Hell 00:23:02.880 --> 00:23:05.660 is a horror movie. It forces us to confront the 00:23:05.660 --> 00:23:08.359 fact that this wasn't a game. A woman was brutally 00:23:08.359 --> 00:23:12.460 mutilated. An organ was stolen. And a man, a 00:23:12.460 --> 00:23:14.720 damaged and incredibly dangerous man, sat in 00:23:14.720 --> 00:23:16.599 a room somewhere in the East End, likely with 00:23:16.599 --> 00:23:18.480 a glass of gin and a piece of human flesh on 00:23:18.480 --> 00:23:20.420 his table, and wrote a note to the guy trying 00:23:20.420 --> 00:23:23.259 to stop him. That image. I fried and ate it. 00:23:23.400 --> 00:23:25.460 It sticks with you. It's supposed to. It was 00:23:25.460 --> 00:23:28.390 explicitly designed to terrorize. And 130 years 00:23:28.390 --> 00:23:30.269 later, it still does exactly that. It still works. 00:23:30.490 --> 00:23:32.670 We've been deep in the fog for a long time now. 00:23:32.910 --> 00:23:35.230 And I feel like I've walked the streets of Whitechapel 00:23:35.230 --> 00:23:38.410 myself. So let's try to wrap this up with a big 00:23:38.410 --> 00:23:41.150 takeaway. Sounds good. What does the From Hell 00:23:41.150 --> 00:23:43.730 letter tell us that absolutely nothing else in 00:23:43.730 --> 00:23:46.750 the case does? The takeaway is that history is 00:23:46.750 --> 00:23:49.509 often written by the loudest voices. OK. The 00:23:49.509 --> 00:23:52.009 Dear Boss letter was loud. It was catchy. It 00:23:52.009 --> 00:23:54.890 gave us Jack. It gave us the top hat. The media 00:23:54.890 --> 00:23:57.450 sensation. But the From How letter is the quiet, 00:23:57.670 --> 00:24:00.789 nasty whisper that is probably the actual truth. 00:24:00.950 --> 00:24:04.849 We move from a media -fueled sensation to a potentially 00:24:04.849 --> 00:24:08.730 semi -literate, deranged man writing, Sore. And 00:24:08.730 --> 00:24:11.170 the killing remains the grotesque anchor for 00:24:11.170 --> 00:24:14.309 all of it. It is the physical evidence that refuses 00:24:14.309 --> 00:24:17.309 to be explained away. You can argue about handwriting 00:24:17.309 --> 00:24:19.690 until you're blue in the face, but you can't 00:24:19.690 --> 00:24:22.430 argue with a kidney exhibiting Bright's disease 00:24:22.430 --> 00:24:24.630 delivered two weeks after a murder. It's the 00:24:24.630 --> 00:24:26.890 one tangible thing that keeps the from hell letter 00:24:26.890 --> 00:24:29.029 from being thrown into the hoax pile with the 00:24:29.029 --> 00:24:31.369 other thousand letters. Precisely. It demands 00:24:31.369 --> 00:24:34.009 to be taken seriously. So here's the final thought 00:24:34.009 --> 00:24:35.970 I want to leave everyone with. And for you listening, 00:24:35.970 --> 00:24:38.450 it's a bit of a mind bender. Go for it. We all 00:24:38.450 --> 00:24:41.309 have this image of Jack the Ripper, the cape. 00:24:41.579 --> 00:24:44.940 The top hat. The medical bag. The sophisticated 00:24:44.940 --> 00:24:48.200 gentleman stalking the slums. That image comes 00:24:48.200 --> 00:24:51.019 largely from the Dear Boss letter and the massive 00:24:51.019 --> 00:24:54.200 media frenzy it created. Right. That is the cultural 00:24:54.200 --> 00:24:56.599 icon we've built. But if the From Hell letter 00:24:56.599 --> 00:24:59.500 is the only real one, and the Dear Boss letter 00:24:59.500 --> 00:25:02.500 was just a journalist's invention, then does 00:25:02.500 --> 00:25:04.720 that mean Jack the Ripper never actually existed? 00:25:04.819 --> 00:25:07.319 That is the lingering question. I mean, the murders 00:25:07.319 --> 00:25:09.680 definitely happened. The killer existed. But 00:25:09.680 --> 00:25:13.789 the character. The Jack we think we know. He 00:25:13.789 --> 00:25:16.089 might just be an illusion. Maybe he was just 00:25:16.089 --> 00:25:18.430 a ghost story created to sell newspapers, while 00:25:18.430 --> 00:25:20.809 the real butcher, the man who couldn't spell 00:25:20.809 --> 00:25:23.250 knife, the man who signed himself sore, the man 00:25:23.250 --> 00:25:25.569 who ate a human kidney, was watching from the 00:25:25.569 --> 00:25:27.490 shadows laughing at us for chasing a phantom. 00:25:27.869 --> 00:25:30.069 That is a terrifying thought, and probably the 00:25:30.069 --> 00:25:32.549 most accurate one we have. We spent a century 00:25:32.549 --> 00:25:34.470 hunting a gentleman when we should have been 00:25:34.470 --> 00:25:36.910 hunting a cannibal. On that cheerful note, thank 00:25:36.910 --> 00:25:39.309 you for joining us on this deep dive. Always 00:25:39.309 --> 00:25:41.920 a pleasure. We'll see you next time. Stay curious.