Claim OwnershipBad Women: The Blackout Ripper
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Description
The streets of wartime London are pitch black and the darkness offers cover to a murderer every bit as terrible as Jack the Ripper. During one awful week in February 1942 he viciously attacks women night after night. But the victims of the so-called Blackout Ripper are now all but forgotten.
In this season of Bad Women, historian Hallie Rubenhold and criminologist Alice Fiennes share new details from the archives to tell the extraordinary and moving stories of the women who died and why their deaths were swept from view.
And don't miss season one of Bad Women about a cold case like no other. In the fall of 1888, five women were brutally murdered in the slums of London. But everything you think you know about Jack the Ripper and those murdered women is wrong. Hallie reconstructs the lives of the five victims - revealing the appalling treatment they faced as women in the 1880s, and completely overturning the accepted Ripper story.
36 Episodes
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1Hallie Rubenhold joins Betwixt the Sheets host Kate Lister to discuss our culture’s fascination with serial killers. Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Peter Sutcliffe, Jack the Ripper…. these violent people are famous, but we only know them for their horrific crimes. What role does misogyny play in how these serial killers are portrayed on our screens and in our newspapers? And how does it affect court cases? Hear more from Betwixt the Sheets, from our friends at History Hit, wherever you get podcasts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In late 1888, five women were brutally murdered in a slum neighbourhood of London. The violent killer earned himself a nickname - Jack the Ripper. But everything you think you know about the murders and those murdered women is wrong.In a new 15-part series, historian Hallie Rubenhold tells you the real story of those victims and how they came to be in the path of a serial killer - completely overturning the Ripper story we've been told up until now. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jack the Ripper's victims were prostitutes murdered while selling sex on the streets of Whitechapel - that's what historian Hallie Rubenhold thought when she started researching the crimes. She was wrong. As she looked into the case, she discovered much of the familiar Ripper story is totally false. But by challenging that myth and trying to tell the true stories of the murdered women, Hallie attracted a storm of criticism. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
London on August 6th, 1888 is one of the greatest cities on Earth, but the Whitechapel neighborhood is a byword for poverty, violence, and vice. Jack the Ripper will slaughter his victims here.Join Hallie Rubenhold on a tour of this slum - with its busy markets, rowdy pubs, filthy lodging houses, and crowded police cells - and meet the real women who will soon cross paths with the Ripper. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Polly Nichols had a husband, a young family and lived in a brand new home built by a philanthropic millionaire. Then she walked out on it all. Why?Surviving without a husband was almost impossible for a lone women, so Polly began a slow spiral into desperate poverty that would eventually put her in the path of her killer, Jack the Ripper. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Standing over the corpse of Polly Nichols, police officers decided that in life she had been a prostitute. There's no evidence Polly ever sold sex, so why did the authorities reach this conclusion? And do the prejudices that warped the police hunt for the Ripper survive to this day? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Annie Chapman and her husband were making good on their ambitions to live a comfortable, respectable life. Only... Annie drank. Under pressure from her husband’s employer, Annie was sent away - and she fell deeper and deeper into the bottle. This addiction - and society's disgust with women who drank - also pushed Annie closer and closer to her killer. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Annie Chapman’s murder sparked fears that a crazed killer was on the loose in London, prompting the burgeoning newspaper industry to flood Whitechapel with reporters. Those journalists wrote the first draft of Jack the Ripper’s history, and much of it survives in the story we tell today. But can we really believe those newspaper reports? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Swedish farmer’s daughter Elizabeth fell pregnant out of wedlock. The authorities considered her no better than a prostitute and subjected her to myriad physical and emotional humiliations. After she lost the baby, Elizabeth fled Sweden - embarking on a life of deceit that would end in her vicious murder on the streets of Whitechapel. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Elizabeth Stride was supposedly seen by several eyewitnesses in her final hours. They also saw a man with her. At last, Jack the Ripper had a face. These descriptions are the bedrock of many well known theories about the killer’s true identity. But can they be believed? And was the Ripper even responsible for Elizabeth’s murder? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Kate Eddowes rejected the drudgery of conventional working class life and left the factory and hearth to roam the open road. She travelled the country, performing and selling songs she had written with her partner. But her existence was far from carefree and her lover turned violent. Eventually, Kate ended up penniless in Whitechapel - and an easy target for the Ripper. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Kate Eddowes was murdered in a dark London square in the dead of the night. What had she been doing there? It seems improbable that she was selling sex... and the more likely explanation totally upends the idea that Jack the Ripper posed as a "John" to launch his brutal attacks. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In October 1888, Jack the Ripper went to ground. Although the murders seemed to ceased, public interest in the killings remained intense. Entrepreneurs exploited this prurience for profit - even opening blood-drenched waxworks exhibits in Whitechapel. This melding of fact and fiction, murder and mammon persists to this day. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mary Jane Kelly's life ended brutally in a small room in Whitechapel - but what journey brought her to East London? She sold sex in her final years - but was she born to a rich family or was she the teenage bride of a coal miner? Had she been tricked into sex slavery abroad, escaped and gone on the run from her criminal traffickers? Was Mary Jane Kelly even her real name? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mary Jane Kelly was the final victim of Jack the Ripper. And the mutilation of her body was more horrendous than in any previous murder. But something also sets her apart from the other victims. Her youth, her reputed beauty and the nature of her death have resulted in a strange cult growing up around her. Even her corpse cannot rest in peace... with some demanding that her bones been exhumed for examination. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Children around the world are taught about Jack the Ripper and shown graphic images of his victims. Is that wise? Are we in danger of normalising his crimes and encouraging those who seek to venerate and even emulate him?Hallie Rubenhold talks to students and teachers, and hears from crime novelist and Ripper investigator Patricia Cornwell about finding a way to discuss the Whitechapel murders without glamorizing the killer. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Families of Ripper victims often suppressed the memories of their murdered loved ones - fearing the stigma of being related to supposed "prostitutes". And descendants of men accused of being the infamous killer have also had to endure seeing their ancestors' reputations sullied.We hear from a living relatives of Annie Chapman... and of Jacob Levy, a Whitechapel butcher whose appalling struggle with mental illness has caused unsympathetic observers to conclude that he was Jack the Ripper. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We’ll be back on October 11th with a brand new season of Bad Women, but in the meantime, we wanted to give you a taste of another history podcast we think you'll like. From History Daily, host Lindsay Graham takes listeners back in time to a certain day in history to explore a momentous event. On this episode, we'll go back to August 10, 1993 when Ruth Bader Ginsburg was sworn in as the U.S. Supreme Court’s 107th justice, becoming only the second woman in history to serve on the country’s highest court. Find History Daily wherever you get podcasts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We'll be dropping a trailer for the new brand new season of Bad Women next week. But in the meantime, here’s a preview from Death of an Artist, a new podcast from Pushkin Industries. For more than 35 years, accusations of murder shrouded one of the art world’s most storied couples: Was the famous sculptor Carl Andre involved in the death of his up-and-coming artist wife Ana Mendieta? Host Helen Molesworth revisits Mendieta’s death, taking a closer look at how she might have fallen out of the window of Carl’s 34th floor New York apartment, and the following trial which has divided the art world since 1985. Hear more from Death of an Artist at https://podcasts.pushkin.fm/artist?sid=women.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
London is pitch black. It's wartime and the lights are out to confuse Nazi bombers. But in this darkness a killer as warped and as violent as Jack the Ripper is hunting for women night after night in the bomb-damaged streets. The women murdered by the so-called Blackout Ripper received little sympathy at the time and have been largely forgotten since. So historian Hallie Rubenhold and criminologist Alice Fiennes have gathered fresh evidence about the rich and complex lives of the women - and revealing what put them in the path of a killer. Bad Women: The Blackout Ripper starts with a double episode drop on Oct 11. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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One hour of an ignorant male interviewer being shocked to hear that misogyny exists whilst constantly interrupting the two female experts patiently trying to educate him, and answering his mundane questions that he would know the answers to just by listening to an episode of the podcast. Couldn't get to the end because he annoyed me more than the blackout ripper does.
Trevor is shite!!
Loving this. The author paints a vivid and fascinating picture of the area and makes the characters real and human Great Stuff
This series is beautifully done, thoroughly researched, intelligently considered and “rings true” logically. Absolutely heartbreaking, yet a wonderful honoring of the lives of the victims.
Klllfff_1
I thought they proved it was H. H. Holmes years ago
He's a piece of work. omg.
This podcast is wonderful! I'm so happy to listen to the second season. Hallie's book The Five is also wonderfully researched. I have been writing out my father's genealogy. Even when I know very little about an ancestor, reading more about their community, time period, even larger social issues, really helps me form a better snapshot of that person. Your amazing storytelling, including the info about showgirls, is fantastic! It helps me see a much fuller picture of how women lived during these time periods. Thank you! ❤️
Telling a story that is "unknown" I wonder why the decision was made to use the killer's title "The Blackout Ripper" ?
Great podcast looking at it from the victims. forget the pc wording sex worker vrs prostitute, these were vulnerable women in a terrible environment. I'd hate to be a male let alone a woman. I think Hallie over eggs the pudding, but why not. As these ladies stories have been ignored for too long.
loved listening to this podcast. great work.
it's absolutely baffling to me that it's a normal thing to teach about a serial killer to children. There is absolutely no need to have anything like that in the education system
The more than man talked, the less credible he sounded. Any man that actively denies the mistreatment and inequality women have faced throughout the course of human history can't be trusted
great podcast. very insightful. thank you
Homeless women in Victorian England,, according to Trevor, "brought it on themselves" and was the consequence of "their own doing"... good lord, the lack of empathy is shocking, and the ignorance displayed by this "Ripper-ologist", within the context of his police work, makes me shudder for the biases which must have drove his investigations
Ugg...I was super interested until you started doing the same badmouthing your critics are doing to you! Your work will justify itself...who cares what others think. If there is one thing we have ALL taken away from social media, it that now everyone has a voice, whether or not they should! still going to listen!!
I've been studying the case now for over 40 years. I knew the women were considered "casual" prostitutes. But this Podcast makes me rethink what was a misogynist assumption. That alone makes it powerful to me.
Two episodes in, but I'm struggling with this podcast. The premise is very worthy, but there's so much about the execution that rubs me up the wrong way. An introductory episode that centres not the five women but the author, as the brave victim of defensive 'ripperologists'. A second episode that keeps telling us what it is going to tell us, rather than just telling us. But most of all, the author's excruciating attempts to be more English sounding than she obviously is. Her wavering accent is so clearly fake that, as it leaps from one side of the Atlantic to the other and back again, often within a single sentence, I struggle to believe anything it tells me.
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Awesome podcast! It is long overdue we hear the stories of the victims. I enjoy the historical stories of their lives. They mattered!
Many of the experts consider the women at worst "casual" prostitutes. I've always thought the women killed in their sleep. Great episode.