All language subtitles for Lucy Worsley Victorian Murder Club s01e01 (2026) 1080p [SubRipper.com].en

SOUND OF OARS

The London Thames, winding silently
through the capital.

Though calm today, in Victorian
times, it was buzzing with trade,

building and activity,

but it also had a sinister side.

Built in the 1880s
as part of Tower Bridge,

this is known...

..as Dead Man's Hole.

Traditionally, this is where
dead bodies

would be fished out of the
river...

..brought up these steps
and then taken through

to the mortuary over there
for identification.

Sometimes they were
accidental drownings,

sometimes suicides,

but just occasionally,
they were also victims of murder.

And there's one story about bodies
in the Thames

that ever since I first heard it,

has always haunted me...

..and captured my imagination.

This is the extraordinary,

forgotten story of a Victorian
serial killer.

He may have killed
as many as five women

in 19th century London.

Cold and calculating,

he taunted the police
and shocked the newspapers.

But he wasn't Jack the Ripper.

This is a murderer
you've probably never heard of.

The killer's hallmark
was to dismember

the bodies of his victims

and to scatter the body parts
up and down the river.

Given the name
the Thames Torso Murderer,

he was never caught.

But ever since I heard
about this case,

I just can't shake these questions.

Who were the women,
and who killed them?

A body has been found
in the streets of Whitechapel.

Now, I'm hunting that murderer down,
and I'm not doing it alone.

I'm consulting professionals

from the fields of pathology
and psychology,

and independent researchers

who have their own theories
on the case.

And I've hand-picked
a team of writers

and historians to help me navigate
Victorian London.

They've scoured the surviving
police case files

and original records
about the victims and their deaths.

We're checking leads
that were followed

and discovering ones
that were missed.

Together, we'll build a picture
of the women who were killed

and will finally unmask

one of the 19th century's most
brutal serial killers.

1887, London,

the most populated city in the world
and growing fast.

People are flocking here

in the hope of well-paid work
in new urban industries.

But as the city swells,
living standards fall,

homelessness rises, poverty grows,
and crime is rife.

For many, it's a risky place
to be and for some, truly dangerous.

Whereabouts are we heading?

Well, this is a Victorian map,

but I think that you'll know
Rainham Ferry.

Yes, absolutely.

And I want to go to Hempelmann's
Fish Manure Works.

OK.
About 40 minutes from here.

But for the first case, I need
to leave the city and head east.

I've come 15 miles
out of central London,

downriver to what, in 1887,
would have been

the peaceful farming village
of Rainham.

Just here on the bank, was
Hempelmann's Blood Fish Manure plant

producing fertiliser
for the market gardens around here.

And this is
where the case really begins.

Here's a newspaper account of
the horrible discovery at Rainham.

A lighterman called Edward Hughes
was at work.

And it says here that at 11.30
in the morning,

Edward was by the jetty.

The tide was flowing out to sea,
and he saw what appeared to be

a bag which the tide
was carrying along.

It was about 33 feet from his barge.

Now, Edward goes to retrieve
this parcel,

and he manages to fish it out
and get it onto the land.

He discovers that it contains
the lower torso of a woman's body.

Here's a reconstruction of the scene
in a newspaper.

Because this is the Illustrated
Police News,

which is a really trashy paper,
they sensationalised the image.

But just think,
for poor Edward Hughes,

what a distressing thing to find.

But the gruesome discoveries
at Rainham were only just the start.

On the 5th of June,
here at Temple Pier,

right in the heart of the city,
16 miles upstream from Rainham,

a woman's thigh wrapped in fabric
is found floating in the water.

A few days later,
up here at Battersea Park,

on the foreshore
was found another parcel

wrapped up in canvas this time,
and tied with string,

and inside it was the upper part
of a woman's torso.

Three weeks later,
in the north of the city,

some boys are fishing
in Regent's Canal,

right here by St Pancras Lock.

They noticed something unusual.

It's a right arm.

Later the same day, further up
the canal by Regent's Park,

someone finds two severed legs.

The police begin to drag the canal,

and the next day a left arm
is pulled out of the water.

Finally, on the 16th of July,

so that's more than two months
after the torso is found at Rainham,

a labourer spots a left thigh
floating in the water

between two barges
here at Camden Lock.

A total of eight body parts

have now been found all over London,
in the Thames, in the canal.

And when they're pieced together,

they make the almost complete corpse
of a young woman.

The only parts missing
are the shoulders and the head.

As public horror mounts,
the police begin to investigate,

but with no head to identify her,
no obvious cause of death,

and not even a crime scene to go on,
they quickly draw a blank.

Now, can I do any better?

In the early 1900s,

Sherlock Holmes creator,
Arthur Conan Doyle

met up with other amateur sleuths

to investigate infamous
and unsolved cases,

especially murders.

They called themselves
the Crimes Club.

So, to help me uncover
the Thames Torso Murderer,

I've brought together
my own crack team.

Rose Wallis, a social historian
with an expertise

in 19th century crime
and criminal justice.

Nadifa Mohamed, a novelist
with a passion for history

and bringing the past to life.

And Kate Lister,

a historian of sexual behaviour
and women's rights.

They've been combing
through original documents

to see if immersing ourselves
in the fabric

of 19th century London
can help us find out more

about the victims
and ultimately solve this crime.

I want to know who did this

and how they did it - we don't know
the cause of death -

and why they did it.

That intrigues me.

Reading the details of how the body
parts were found across London

and into Essex
is incredibly disturbing.

I mean, it's extraordinary
how kind of disparate,

how spread apart everything is,

that there are these pieces
of a person.

Even 100 years later,
it's still...it's really shocking.

Turning their body
into a jigsaw puzzle.

Our first question is, who was she?

Are there any leads in the papers?

There was one promising lead.

A Miss Cross.

She is about 28 years old
and she has gone missing in January.

Nobody has seen her.

She is described in the reports
as being of weak intellect,

having a speech impediment.

She is described
as being very trusting,

that she did have a habit
of going missing from time to time.

Do you think she's
what we might describe

as somebody
with learning difficulties?

That probably is how we would
describe her today.

We certainly wouldn't say
of weak intellect.

So we've got a woman, late 20s,

who's been missing
for several months.

- Yes.
- Do we know anything more
about this woman?

We do.

We can track her through
the family address

that's reported in the newspapers.

So that means we can go into

the wonderful census records
and we can find them.

In 1871, the Cross family
are living in Guildford in Surrey.

Big family,
one of which is Emmeline.

Oh. So the missing
woman is called Emmeline?

- Yeah.
- Wow.

Which also helps us
because we can work out

that this family were originally
from Norfolk.

Oh...

The experience of the Cross
family is, I think,

quite representative
of a lot of people

moving from agricultural
areas that were hit

by what we call the great
agricultural depression

in the 1870s, having to then move
elsewhere, to urban areas,

particularly from Norfolk
to the south-east,

to try and find new opportunities
in this kind of ten-year period.

So, we've got a woman in her late
20s who's gone missing.

Her family are concerned for her.

She's somebody who perhaps is a bit
at risk in an urban environment.

Somebody who grew up in the country,
is very trusting.

This is promising.

While the club pursues this lead
on a possible victim,

I'm on the trail of the murderer.

The one thing that seems a clue
to me is the fact

that all the body parts were placed
into London's waterways.

So, I want to talk to someone
with first-hand experience

of the river as a crime scene,

a former member of the Metropolitan
Police Marine Unit.

So, Rob,
I want to show you my map

with all of the locations marked of
where the body parts were found.

Despite where they ended up,
do you think they could have

been placed at the same time
in central London

and then flowed west downstream?

Normally, in my experience,
any object in a river

will normally turn up downriver
from where it went in.

But for me, what stretches
the imagination

is to drop three body parts into
the water in central London

and then for one to turn up in
Rainham, which is a long way away.

Much more likely
that we've got an individual

putting the parts in at separate
spots along the bank of the river,
you'd think?

- That would be my thoughts.
- Mmm.

What about these ones up here
that are in the canal?

Because I think that does connect
to the river, doesn't it?

- The Regent's Canal?
- It does.

Could they have been sort of
washed up somehow?

Um...well, no. The canal system
is completely separate.

To get onto the canal system,
you have to go through a river lock,

and then you've got to navigate
several locks on the inside.

There's very little current
on the canals.

There's nothing to move...

- So these were definitely put in at
that spot.
- That would be my guess.

Mmm. Interesting.

There's clearly a sort of release
strategy here,

and if I've understood
you correctly, Rob,

if the murderer has an HQ then,
it's likely to be upstream

from Rainham
because stuff generally goes down.

Really, the heart of London
is our hot spot.

Yeah, I think so, I think so.

That would fit
with just about everything we have.

Um...and it fits quite nicely.

We've now got a theory

that the killer's working out
of central London.

But shockingly,
by the following year,

he's not the only murderer
in the capital on the loose.

The body has been found in the
streets of Whitechapel...

Police are asking for any witnesses
to...

In August 1888,

Jack the Ripper kills
for the first time,

cutting the throat of Mary Ann
Nichols in the city's East End,

followed days later
by Annie Chapman.

But as terror spreads through
the streets of London,

the Torso Killer makes
his next move.

Oh, yes. These steps going
down to the water are,

I'm pretty sure,
the steps just here on my map.

On the 11th of September, 1888,

a porter called Frederick Moore

spots something
in the mud of the foreshore.

He goes to get it.

It's a woman's arm.

It's been tied around the upper part
with a piece of string.

For almost a month,

the origin of the severed arm
remains a mystery.

But then, the police get word
that a woman's torso

has been found with
the arms missing.

There's a crucial difference,
though.

The torso isn't in the river,

but it is very close,
on the Embankment.

But it's found wrapped up
in a black skirt

and placed in the vaults
of this building,

which in 1888 is still
under construction.

It's a building site.
But there's something else.

This isn't just going
to be any old office block.

It's the brand-new headquarters
of the Metropolitan Police.

We have another body,
and this time

part of it's been found in the
river, but part of it on land

and in the basement
of the new police headquarters.

The plot is thickening.
Things are developing.

I think the killer is coming out
of the shadows a little bit.

- Gaining in confidence.
- Mmm.

This is really, really weird.

Terrifying as well.

This is a second body.

Before we get into that,

did you make any headway with
the first victim from Rainham?

Could she be the missing Miss Cross?

Well, obviously her DNA
is of no use to us here,

and it's very difficult to make
an identification of her.

But her family said she had
two distinctive birthmarks.

She had one on her breast,

which wasn't found,
and she had one on her wrist.

The wrist was found.

- The wrist was found.
- Yes?
- No birthmark.
- Oh.

It's not her.

- Huh. Frustrating.
- Mmm.

I'm glad she's not in eight pieces
though, as far as we know.

What about this latest body,
the Whitehall torso?

I know you've been looking into
who the victim might have been.

- Have you found any leads on her?
- Yes, I have.

A family in Chelsea

who were missing their 17-year-old
daughter, Lilly Vass.

Lilly Vass.

She was a servant working
in Wandsworth Common.

A sensible girl, apparently,

who'd been in service most
of her teenage years,

and the only associate
that her mother is aware of

is this girl in Notting Hill
who is a pen pal of Lilly's.

She reports her missing

after this body is found
in Whitehall,

and the parents are invited to come
and look at the body parts.

Oh.

And poor Mrs Vass can't bring
herself to go into the room

where the body parts are, so all she
can do is look at the skirt

that some of the remains
were found in.

It's a black satin skirt which
she doesn't have any memory

of Lilly having, and so that
reassures her that this isn't Lilly.

But she doesn't return home either.

So what happened to Lilly, then?

Thankfully, two years later, there
is a sign of her in the records.

- There is?
- Yeah.

So Lilly is alive.

Married to a man called Joseph Hale.

And he's a wheelwright
from Notting Hill.

And I don't know if you remember,

but in Notting Hill was Lilly's pen
pal, the servant girl.

And I'm now wondering if it wasn't
a servant girl, but it was Joseph.

Who she would end up married to.

And maybe - this is another kind
of conjecture -

maybe that was the reason
she went missing.

Because her mother didn't approve
of this relationship?

- Possibly.
- That would make sense.

- Well, good for Lilly.
- Good for
Lilly.

But we still don't know
who this body belongs to.

And it belongs to somebody,
it's someone's daughter.

Exactly. It's just so easy to
disappear in London at this point.

And not to leave very much
of a trail at all.

That blows my mind that they
couldn't identify...

That nobody came forward

to say it could be this person...

It's really frustrating, isn't it?

The killer is in charge.

The murderer may have
obscured his victims' identities,

but I'm hoping there were clues
to their lives he couldn't erase.

So, I've asked a modern
forensic pathologist

to review the postmortem reports
from the coroner's inquests

for the Rainham and Whitehall
victims, and see what she can add.

So, Marie,
what does the Victorian doctors

who looked at these bodies
in the first instance work out?

They made a thorough examination

and they found no evidence
of any significant trauma,

no evidence of stab wounds,
no breaks.

So we can't account for the death
from the parts that we have.

But the commonality is
that the heads are missing.

And that would suggest to me

that that's
where the cause of death lies.

This killer has not
made things easy.

What did the doctors work out about
the identity of the victims?

With the Rainham body, we had the
pelvis with the pelvic organs.

The uterus was still present,
so we were dealing with a female.

We then tried to age the person.

Now, they could look at the bones
themselves

and look where bones fuse,

and from that then they could
infer how old somebody is.

All the bones were fused,

which meant they thought
that the person was over 25.

What was the profile they came
up with for the body in Whitehall?

They thought it was probably
somebody between about 25 to 30,

and they described her
as being well-nourished.

Mmm. Somebody with a good diet?

So somebody who's not living on
the streets,

living in the workhouse,
something like that?

That's the assumption
you could make.

So, in the case of the Rainham
body parts,

do they tell you anything
about her social class?

They did notice indentations
on the lower legs...

- Yes.
- ..which they said were garter marks.

Mm-hm.

And that appears to be
how the lower classes

wore their stockings, with the
garters low on the legs.

Higher class, they wore their
garters higher up the legs.

That seems to be their assessment.

So we're dealing with somebody
of a lower class.

Were they male, these doctors?

Of course they were male.

Do you think they really knew
about women's underwear?

Well, now, that's a completely
different story.

But I think they did
a fantastic job.

- Really? Hmm.
- Definitely.
- Yeah.

They got all of the information they
possibly could out of what they had.

- Yes, yeah.
- And there is nothing
else that I could tell them

that they didn't find.
Marvellous.

We've talked about what
we can learn about the victims -

what can we learn about the killer
from this information?

There are some similarities in how
the bodies have been dismembered.

Now, dismemberment just means
taking the body apart,

dividing it into pieces.

But it's been very cleverly done.

If we look at the Rainham body,

the arms have been removed -

and they've been removed
through the joint.

So, it wasn't anybody taking
tentative cuts, or trying to

work out and jagged, you know -
sort of working their way through.

It was somebody with
some confidence.

Somebody who knew what
they were doing?

Somebody who knew their way around
a body who could remove a limb,

and do it quite efficiently.

It comes into the realms then of,

who would have that
kind of knowledge?

Somebody with medical knowledge
would. A surgeon would.

Butchers.

- From cutting up animals?
- Animals!

This isn't just somebody
randomly doing this.

- They've got some key bits
of knowledge.
- Mm.

More devilry.

I've learnt that the police surgeons
really combed the bodies of

the victims for clues
that might be written there,

to tell us who they were.

It's interesting that
they are interested in it,

- at least, right?
- Yeah.

- And they are pulling every
detail they possibly can.
- Yeah.

So, at Rainham,
they look at the sacking,

they look at the twine.

- The knots.
- Exactly, the knots.

What can be deduced from the knots?

Well, I think the thing
with the knots is,

there are different types of knots,
and that if it's -

and again, by the water,
is it a knot that indicates...

- A sailor.
- ..a sailor's knot?
Or is it kind of a slip knot?

Unfortunately, it's just
a kind of fairly ordinary knot.

It does lead me to think,
are there other physical clues

that we should look into?

There was this skirt that was
wrapped around the torso.

What do you think?

Absolutely,
that's brought up at the inquest.

They've traced it back to
a Bradford manufacturer.

- Really?
- Yeah.
- This is proper police work.

THEY CHUCKLE

It really is.

Erm, and it was acknowledged that
it was made of "common material",

that "there was one flounce" -

the decorative frill round
the bottom - "six inches wide",

and that "the material could
probably be bought

"at six and a half pence per yard".

What kind of level of fashion
is that, do we think?

Expensive? Cheap?

This is where it gets,
I think, a bit ambiguous,

because it's black fabric,

but then, it is patterned, as well,
so it's a bit fancier.

Erm, satin is perhaps
a higher end-fabric.

Most poorer people were wearing
second-hand clothes,

- third-hand clothes even,
weren't they?
- Yeah.
- Yeah.

It's hard to pin down, but they
are paying attention to it.

LUCY SIGHS

Quite impressed by the levels of
investigation the police are doing.

Mm. But it's a really interesting
period that we're looking at,

in terms of policing,
particularly perhaps in London.

I mean, London's always been
the kind of focus of concerns

about crime and disorder -

that's why we see the foundation
of the Metropolitan Police,

our first professional police force,
in the city in 1829.

But they were very much
a kind of preventative force.

But in 1842, they set up
the first detective branch,

and this was plainclothes
police officers.

They'd go undercover,
they can investigate clues,

they talked to witnesses.

But then, in 1878,

they established the Criminal
Investigation Department -

- CID...
- Wow!
- ..as we know it.

And this is a great image
of H Division,

which is the Whitechapel CID.

- There are some amazing moustaches
in that photo.
- Yeah.

Was it part of the job description
to have a moustache?

THEY CHUCKLE

By the time we get to 1883,

there's, like, 800 CID officers.

And these have local divisions,
like the Whitechapel one,

spread out all over the place.

What does it show? A rise in crime?

A rise in concerns about crime?
Or both?

I think probably both.

The 1880s are a really
tense and fraught time,

particularly in London.

And there are those concerns
about increasing crime,

about public disorder.

So, there's a much kind of bigger
presence of the detective branch.

These local detective offices were
run from a riverside command centre,

just next to Big Ben,
in the very heart of London -

which brings me back to
our second torso.

There's something about
the Whitehall murder

that's still really bothering me.

It's the fact that the body was left
in the headquarters of the police.

And it was extremely hard to access,

as an article in
The Times made clear.

You go down
"some underground steps"...

..and then, a ramp down
to the lower level,

which is "a vast place of arches",

which is very dark.

And then, you can take
"a dangerous way to another recess",

that's totally dark, and then,
there's a piece of board.

And it was under the board,

"within this space, that the parcel
containing the body was found".

And it goes on here, "The devious
ways which have to be taken to

"reach this secret spot,

"and the fact that this is
the most secret spot on the site"

have led people to think
that it must have been a workman

who put the body there,

cos nobody else would have
known the way.

The police investigated,

but they couldn't link any of
the workmen to the crime.

The newspapers speculated that maybe

"entrance was obtained
from the Thames Embankment",

because there was
this side entrance there

where the supplies came in by boat.

Now, that is a connection
to the other body parts

which were all found in the Thames.

This is leading me to wonder,

why on earth would you put
the body in a place where

only a closed circle of
suspects had access,

the people who knew this
very complicated labyrinth

of a building site?

And that's even before we get on
to the connection with the police.

Why on earth would you
take that risk?

To try and understand
the killer's thinking,

I'm meeting someone who
regularly works with the police

to help them understand
criminal behaviour.

Investigative Psychologist,
Professor Sam Lundrigan.

Sam, so, this torso has been
discovered in the basement

- of the new police headquarters.
- Mm-hm.

Why would a killer put a body
in such a risky, weird place?

It's really striking, isn't it?
It immediately stands out.

And I think, for this offender,
the locations where he is

disposing of his victims' bodies,
or body parts, is integral

to understanding why he's offending

and what he's trying to achieve.

What about the disposal of
the body parts along the river

- and the canal, then,
in the earlier case?
- Yeah.

Do you think that that had
any meaning, beyond just

getting rid of the body?

What we know, from my research,

is that where offenders decide
to dispose of bodies will have

meaning to them, in terms of
the world they operate in.

He has some connection,
I would imagine,

with the Regent's Canal area,
from that initial...

And obviously, the Thames.

He's got a familiarity
with those areas of London,

and the waterways in particular.

I think it's one of
the most important stages in this

offender's murderous activity,
is that final resting place.

Because he knows
they will be eventually found.

And so, I think, for him,
it's really important that

the placement and the posing
of the body parts

is bringing some sort of reward.

The posing of the body parts,

- do you mean like, kind of,
almost displaying them?
- I do.

- With the gaze of the finder in mind?
- Absolutely.

I think he's thinking about
that ultimate public display...

- That is dark!
- ..and the discovery. It is.

I think we're dealing with a very,
very dark individual.

Can you read into the Whitehall case
something about the killer's

thoughts towards the police?

Possibly taunting them
by putting the body parts

in the police basement?

It absolutely could be.

Of course, we don't know.

Erm, but psychologically,
it makes sense to me.

You're making me think about
this picture in

the Illustrated Police News,

depicting the finding of
the body in a new way then.

- Hmm.
- Do you think that the person
who did the crime would want

to know that this picture existed?

I do. I do.

I know many examples where
serial killers have followed

the media coverage like this,

because that brings a reward.

They're looking for
some validation or notoriety,

if you like, through their acts.

- That is so creepy.
- Mm.

Do you see there's a kind of
development from the first killing

to the second?

- The first, the body parts are
all over the place.
- Yeah.

The second, the body part is placed
in the police headquarters.

While he's remaining actually
quite remarkably consistent,

because the core behaviours
that make up his signature -

the dismemberment, the lack of
frenzy, the lack of mutilation -

that stays the same.

But what he's starting
to do is branch out

and use different environments.

So, you've gone so far as to say
this person likes to be in control,

- is probably familiar with
the waterways of London.
- Yeah.

What do you take away from
these two cases?

I think that we're dealing with
an incredibly dangerous individual.

He's becoming more audacious.

He's almost saying,
"Yeah, game on.

"Catch me if you can."

Given the pathology shown here,

the calculation, the experience,
how methodical he is,

I would already be calling
this individual a serial killer.

This person will kill again.

I think we are at the early stages

of an unfolding criminal career.

We've got a killer who's
taunting the police, it seems,

playing a game of cat-and-mouse.

On the one hand, he's ever so
cautious and methodical.

But on the other hand,
he's taking these crazy risks.

It seems that, the more
I learn about this killer,

the more complicated he becomes.

What I've learned from Sam
is just so dark,

you won't believe it.

She thinks that the placing of
the torso in the vaults

was something that the killer
did very deliberately,

and that he maybe imagined
the feelings of the people

who came across it.

That feels like a sort of
step up in levels of darkness

- and weirdness, doesn't it?
- It really does.

If he was, to some extent,
taunting or teasing the police,

then, how did they respond?

So, we've got to remember
when this is happening,

it's October 1888.

Four women have already been
brutally murdered in Whitechapel,

and that's been attributed
to Jack the Ripper.

And now, another
Thames Torso mystery,

and the body, you know,
right under their noses.

And they're - I mean, they're
being taunted in the press.

- Look at the character there,
laughing.
- Yeah.

And it gets worse for the police,
because they found the torso

in this vault under what
will be Scotland Yard,

but they think there's
nothing else down there,

until a journalist, Mr Waring,
comes with his little dog, Smoker,

and they find more body parts...

..under the nose of the police.

- They missed it.
- They missed it.

A journalist?

- Smoker the dog?
- Yes.

What is he, a kind of
canine detective?

- Apparently, yes. That's exactly
what the press call him.
- Ha!

- "Smoker the Dog Detective!"
- There we are, in a bowler hat.

Oh, look at him
in his actual outfit!

Is this real, then? What does he do?

So, I don't know why Mr Waring
thought it was acceptable to

bring his dog to the place
where the body had been found,

but he does.

And he gives him a scent
and sets him loose in the vault,

- and they find a leg.
- No!
- A woman's leg.

The police had missed it?

They actually trialled
sort of sniffer dogs,

potentially with the idea of
using them in Whitechapel.

But there's a sort of
moral outrage of,

- "how could you possibly
set bloodhounds..."
- Loose.

"..on Englishmen," you know?

"It's a breach of
our civil liberty."

When they had been used quite
freely in the Caribbean

to hunt people who
escaped from plantations.

Yeah, it's that distinction
between, you know,

these things may be considered
appropriate in colonial context,

- but...
- But not in England!
- Not in London.

Not in London, the home of liberty!

Even when the police are being
ridiculed and criticised

very heavily for not catching
Jack the Ripper, or indeed,

- the Thames Torso killer...
- No.

..they aren't trying every
method at their disposal

- because of these really
entrenched ideas.
- Mm.

The Victorian police are
making no progress.

So far, not a single arrest
has been made

for either the Rainham
or the Whitehall killings.

With no clue about where
the murders had taken place,

who the victims had been,

with no known cause of death,

and possibly with the killer
taunting them, as well,

the police are stuck.

They just need more information.

And seven-and-a-half months later,
they get it.

On the 4th of June, between
8 and 9 in the morning,

some boys are bathing here
at Albert Bridge.

It's not something
that's allowed today.

And they spot a parcel being
nudged along the foreshore

by the tide.

A 15-year-old called Isaac Brett

goes to get this parcel
out of the water.

And he takes it up the steps
to the road,

where it's unwrapped to reveal...

..a woman's leg.

It's been cut off between
the hip and the knee.

Later that day,
four miles downriver,

a workman called John Reagan is
hanging around just here

at St George's Steps, Horsleydown.

Tower Bridge is under construction,

and he's hoping to pick up
a day's work as a labourer.

And he sees something floating
in the water.

When he gets it out,

he realises it's the lower half
of a woman's body.

Soon, more remains of the victim
are found in the river.

And, on land, too,
here in Battersea Park,

and even across the water
in Chelsea.

A total of ten body parts
are discovered.

Some of them are wrapped
in pieces of a woman's

black-and-grey checked coat.

It's an Ulster coat, one of those
ones with a little cape attached.

And, just like in the Rainham
and Whitehall cases,

no head is ever recovered.

And there's something
even more horrifying.

It turns out that
the victim had been

around seven months pregnant.

Looking at the map of
all the murders,

especially this latest one,

you can see that many of the body
parts were found in West London,

in Battersea, Chelsea,
and Pimlico,

and often around the river.

This stretch of the river

had recently undergone
enormous change.

In the preceding decades,

ambitious Victorian engineers
had reclaimed the marshy land

along the river banks,
creating new embankments,

with public gardens and
fancy promenades.

But by the 1880s,
these new public spaces

also attracted London's
destitute and vulnerable.

I'm increasingly convinced
these locations hold a clue

about these crimes.

And I'm meeting Murder Club
member Kate Lister

to test out a theory on her.

- Here's our torso, Kate, on the land.
- Yeah.

And then, the thing
that's nagging at me

is this other body part over here,

the part of the leg
that was also on the land.

On the other side of the river.

That's different to all
the other body parts,

- which are in the water,
on the foreshore.
- Yeah.

So, here's my theory, Kate,

which is that the killer had a boat.

They could have come up the river
through, around this part,

and parked up at the Battersea
Park Pier that's marked on the map.

- Yes.
- Come ashore, dumps the torso,

zips across the water,

- perhaps to that little staircase
over there?
- Yeah.

And drops the thigh
that was over on that side.

That makes much more sense
than attempting to carry

body parts all around London.

- Although the body parts were
found on the land...
- Yeah.

..it could be that the important
thing here is the river.

And do you know what, Kate?

There's something else about
this house here,

- where that body part was found,
that's really weird.
- OK.

I think we should go
and take a look.

Now, this is where
I wanted to bring you.

Things have changed quite a lot,

but in 1889, that was a house,
that was its garden,

and it was in that garden
that the leg was found.

Why come to the other side
of the river,

scramble up the Embankment,

and throw a leg over there? Why?

- Here's my theory, Kate.
- OK.

It's a bit far-fetched,
but bear with me.

It's because of whose garden it was.

This house was built for a man
called Percy Shelley,

who was the son of Mary Shelley...

- OK.
- ..who was the author of...

- Frankenstein.
- ..Frankenstein.

In which a monster is made
out of body parts.

What do you think about that?

Do you think he knew that?

Do you think he knew
that this was their house?

It was called Shelley House,
so the connection was quite obvious.

That would be the only reason,
wouldn't it, would be

to come up here and throw a leg,
is for the shock factor,

there's no other reason
for doing it at all.

We do suspect that
the killer puts body parts

in places of significance.

Yeah. Like in the police building
that was under construction.

Exactly so.

And do you know what, standing here,
as well, looking at the other side -

see how easy it would be
to get across by boat?

But just when everything is starting
to point towards the river,

in 1889, the Victorian police
make a major breakthrough...

..and it's linked to the clothing
the victim's body parts

were wrapped in.

Several local women come forward
to say they think that

they've recognised the checked coat.

They think it belongs to
a friend of theirs,

24-year-old Elizabeth Jackson.

Elizabeth Jackson's sister,
Mary, also comes to the police

to tell them that her sister
has a little scar

just here on the wrist.

It was an accident with a vase
when she'd been 12.

The body is re-examined,
and the scar is found -

confirming that this must be
Elizabeth Jackson...

..or, as her friends call her,
Lizzie.

It's easy to think of her
as just a crime victim,

but these little details
kind of bring her alive.

And just think about her sister

and her friends wanting to know
what's happened to her.

Elizabeth's remains were taken
30 miles south-west of London

to Brookwood Cemetery,

then the largest graveyard
in the world.

It was built in the 1850s because

the swelling capital had run out
of space to bury its dead.

I've come today to see for myself

where Elizabeth was finally
laid to rest.

So, here we have Elizabeth Jackson.

- 2nd of July burial...
- Mm-hm.
- ..1889.

- Age - 24.
- Yes.

It is a pauper burial,
indicated by "third class",

which you had no memorial or marker.

But she does have her own
individual grave.

And do we know where that is?

- Not exactly, but we do know areas
in the cemetery...
- Mm.

..where pauper burials were.

So, we found Elizabeth.

But there's also something else.

We think we've found
the Whitehall murder victim.

- No! Really?
- Yes. Yes.

Ah, here we are.

108525.

There was another murder
in Whitehall...

That says...

..so, "The remains from Whitehall".

- The Whitehall murder,
the Whitehall mystery.
- Yeah.

And it does fit in with
the dates of death

and the time of investigation.

That's amazing.

It's lovely to know that somebody's
still thinking about these women

- after all these years.
- Yeah. I agree.

Yes. They shouldn't be forgotten.

Poor Elizabeth had
a pauper's burial.

It's possible that her family
weren't even there.

I hope that she'd be glad
that somebody's come

looking for her now.

Someone who's on her side, as well.

She deserves to have her story told.

I'm very curious to know more about
who she might have been.

So, Elizabeth Jackson,

the only identified known
victim of this killer.

Rose and I have been doing
some digging and,

because we have a name,

- we can start to put a life
back together.
- Mm.

Born in Chelsea, 1865.

She is the daughter of Roman
Catholic Irish immigrants.

Her mum, Catherine, and her dad,
John, who was a stonemason.

If we jump forward to
the 1871 Census,

we get a little bit more background
on who this family was...

Now on Oakham Street, right?

- Yeah.
- OK.
- Oakham Street.

So, love this map.

This is part of Charles Booth's
Map of Poverty in London.

He mapped all the different areas
to understand the nature of

the communities, their affluence -
or lack thereof, at this point.

And we can find
Oakham Street just here,

and the blue indicates sort of
the poorer parts of society.

Whereas then, the red up here is
kind of the greater affluence.

It looks like they're in this
little island of poverty

in this sea of wealth which,
for a girl of her background,

I guess would give the pick
of domestic service jobs.

It's like you're reading my mind,
Nadifa.

We find Lizzie Jackson, aged 16 -
so it's ten years after 1871,

and she is indeed
in domestic service.

So, Lizzie Jackson is there.

"General servant."

So, how does she end up as
a body in the river?

Well we think that she continues
to work in domestic service,

and then, something happens
that sees her whole

life circumstances really shift.

And we find her, in 1888,

in the local workhouse.

- Oh!
- So...
- The workhouse!

..it's the first of three records.

Scarily, the last record
we have of her at the workhouse

- is on the 12th of May, 1889.
- Mm-hm.

- So, this is just...
- Weeks before she's murdered.
- Yeah.

There's something really wrong here.

People didn't go to the workhouse

unless it was
an absolute desperate state.

Not only was it
a horrible experience,

- but there was so much shame and
stigma attached to it.
- Yeah.

- Yeah.
- And she's not going home.

- Why not?
- What would cause a Roman
Catholic girl from an Irish family

to go to the workhouse,
instead of not?

- She's pregnant, out of wedlock,
isn't she?
- Yes.

- Oh.
- That does seem to be
what's happened here.
- Yeah.

And, thanks to the fact that
we know who she is,

we do have a reasonably
comprehensive account of

her last few weeks from her friends.

Mrs Margaret Minter,
who was the wife of a labourer -

and working in a laundry,
she knew Lizzie,

and she talks about
how shabbily-dressed she was,

and how dishevelled she looks.

And her mum described how she tried
to avoid her in the street.

She avoids her mother?

Yeah, the mother describes her
as trying to run away,

- to hide her state.
- Oh, that's so sad.

It's really sad, isn't it?

How do we think Lizzie might
have been supporting herself?

In the inquest, it comes out people
talk about her in terms of that

she was leading a loose life,

that she was well-known
to the police,

that she was well-known
to the lodging houses.

There's some suggestion that
she was selling sex.

But this is such a dangerous
position for her,

and we even know that
she was sleeping rough

- at this point, as well.
- Oh! Where?
- Yeah. Where?

She was sleeping on
the Chelsea Embankment at night,

which does place her right in
our murderer's line of sight.

And across the river from Battersea.

Mrs Minter says that
Jackson slept outside.

You can see how vulnerable
that would make her.

She's 24. She's pregnant,

possibly with alcohol problems,
sleeping rough.

She really didn't want her parents
to know that she was pregnant,

- did she?
- No.

And it does keep getting worse.
It keeps deteriorating.

One of the last people
to see Elizabeth alive was

the rather fabulously-named
woman Ginger Nell,

who is identified in the press
as "an unfortunate".

- Unfortunate!
- That's significant,

because that's the
Victorian euphemism for

a woman who sells sex.

And apparently, Ginger Nell was
trying to look after Elizabeth,

and she warned her specifically
about a "dangerous class of boatmen

"who infest the locality,
who took advantage of unfortunates".

- Ooh, that's very chilling.
- Mm, it is.

And we know that Elizabeth
was sleeping rough

- on the banks of the river.
- Yes, we do.

It's the river again.

The river again.

But in 1889, the investigation
takes a dramatic turn,

when new information comes to light,

giving the Victorian detectives
their first prime suspect.

And he's no stranger prowling
the river bank,

but someone much closer to home.

Police discover that
before her death,

Elizabeth had been living
with a man, Jack Fairclough,

believed to be the father
of her unborn child.

A troubling picture of this
Jack Fairclough starts to emerge.

According to this report,

"Their life was a most unhappy one.

"Their quarrelling was incessant.

"At times, she was
unnaturally used..."

That means violence.

"..and on one occasion,
was badly wounded in the arm

"by a knife thrust from him."

And, really worryingly,
since Elizabeth's body was found,

no-one has seen him.

He's disappeared.

Finding Jack Fairclough becomes
the police's top priority.

They circulate this sketch of him
all over the country.

He's a wanted man.

The hunt is on for Fairclough.

The Murder Club have done
a deep dive into his background,

and I've shared their findings with
our investigative psychologist.

I want to see if Sam thinks
he could really be our man.

We know now,
and it was the same then,

that most female victims of homicide

are killed by somebody
that they know.

And that will typically be
some sort of romantic partner.

So, on that basis alone,
it would be worth looking at Jack.

But then, if we delve a little bit
more into actually who he was,

as an individual, we can see
some indications that actually,

this may be a man who is
capable of murder.

We know that age 18, he was arrested
for a crime against a person -

that was robbery of a watch,

but he was never convicted
for that offence.

But it starts to give us
a little bit of an indication of

the individual we're dealing with,

and the type of lifestyle he led,

and perhaps the way he dealt
with people in his life,

how he got what he wanted.

And if you add to that,
that he was also...

..led a very transient lifestyle,
he was actually quite mobile.

And we know already,
we've established that the person

responsible for these crimes
is quite mobile,

in that he's using multiple
disposal locations.

He led a rather chaotic lifestyle.

And that is evidenced in his
military records where we know,

not once, but twice,
he deserted from the military.

- He ran away from the Army?
- He ran away.

There's a number of references
in statements from individuals

who knew them both as a couple,
that suggests that they had quite

a dysfunctional relationship,

and that it was not unusual
for him to use violence.

So, again, it's sort of starting
to build up this picture,

not necessarily that points
directly that he killed Elizabeth,

but that he is potentially a man
who is comfortable using violence

to get what he wants.

He sounds like a bad 'un.

What do you think? Do you think
he could have been the killer?

Put it this way -
if I was advising the police,

I would want them to find this man
as quickly as possible.

Shortly after Fairclough's
image is released,

an eagle-eyed policeman spots
a man matching his description.

Fairclough's in a lodging house
in the Devon village

of Ottery St Mary.

The local constabulary
wires Scotland Yard,

using a private telegraph system

connecting police stations
across the country.

The inspector in charge
speeds down to Devon.

And the next morning,
he brings Fairclough

back to London for interrogation.

When Fairclough is questioned,
he tells the police that,

at the time Elizabeth Jackson
was killed,

he was outside London,

travelling around the country,
looking for work.

He says that he's been up
to Huntingdon,

and down as far as to near Exmouth,

right down here.

And that is where the police
caught up with him.

Two police officers are sent
to follow his route,

to check out his alibi.

And here is their report.

"The police have travelled through
many counties making enquiries,

"and have spent a great amount of
time upon the case, but..."

Goodness!

"..it was shown beyond all doubt

"that he was miles away from London,

"both for ten days before and
ten days after the first remains

"were discovered in the Thames."

I can hardly believe it.

But that seems pretty conclusive.

Unless the police have made
some gigantic mistake,

Fairclough was nowhere near London
when the killing happens...

..which means that Fairclough
cannot be the killer.

With no arrest made,

the Thames Torso Murderer
remains at large.

Then, on the 10th of
September, 1889,

three months after Elizabeth
Jackson's body was found,

yet another dismembered corpse
is discovered.

But this time,
the victim's headless torso

isn't found in the Thames,

or even on the banks of the river.

It's found here in East London,
in Whitechapel -

the very heart of the territory
of Jack the Ripper.

Found less than two months after

the Ripper's most recent
suspected murder,

the discovery sends shock waves

through the terrified
streets of London.

And it begs a horrifying question.

Could it be that the Thames
Torso Murders have been the work

of Jack the Ripper all along?

That smacks of there being
a sexual connotation to this.

There's such moral panic,
and such fear.

His crimes scream power and control.

"I am the man who committed
all these murders.

"My name is..."