Happy Halloween!! Today, we tell the classic tale of Jack the Ripper - who was he? We probably will never know, but we learned some stuff along the way. Like - most of his victims were not sex workers; they were poor and unhoused, and in 1888, London's mind was the same thing. PLUS - it has to be considered that they were killed while sleeping (and this blew Taylor's mind, but would make a lot of sense!). Join us today if only to remind yourself that this is not the worst time to be alive!
Happy Halloween!! Today, we tell the classic tale of Jack the Ripper - who was he? We probably will never know, but we learned some stuff along the way. Like - most of his victims were not sex workers; they were poor and unhoused, and in 1888, London's mind was the same thing. PLUS - it has to be considered that they were killed while sleeping (and this blew Taylor's mind, but would make a lot of sense!).
Join us today if only to remind yourself that this is not the worst time to be alive!
Many Sources:
Hi Friends! Our transcripts aren't perfect, but I wanted to make sure you had something - if you'd like an edited transcript, I'd be happy to prioritize one for you - please email doomedtofailpod@gmail.com - Thanks! - Taylor
Taylor: Happy Halloween! Happy Halloween, right? Happy Halloween
>> Taylor: In the matter of the people of the State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson, case number BA09. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your. Boom.
>> Farz: We are back. Taylor, how are you?
>> Taylor: Good. How are you? Happy Halloween, right? It's Thursday. Are you trick or treating? Halloween?
>> Farz: No, I'm gonna trick or treat. My last trick or treat, I wanted to dress like a werewolf and my mom was trying to do it on the cheap and so she ended up like doing my makeup and I ended up looking like a kitty cat with like whiskers. And I was like, this is really embarrassing. I never want to do this again.
>> Taylor: Were you like 15?
>> Farz: It's like, yeah, probably like 18, but yeah.
>> Taylor: You don't get trickortreaters. Your house is really far from the street.
>> Farz: Yeah, actually. Yeah, that's good point. yeah, I don't think last year I got any trick or treaters. Yeah. So. But you do, right?
>> Taylor: I don't get trick or treaters. No, because there's no. I live like up a hill. Yeah, there's really. It's a lot of work to walk up this hill for very little reward just to see if we're there. but we'll go to a different neighborhood and go trick or treating.
>> Farz: Hey, what's trunk or treat? I've heard people say, say that it's.
>> Taylor: Where you go to a parking lot and people have their cars decorated and they're like parked in the parking lot, have a trunk open and there's candy in the trunk. So like you can decorate your trunk. Spooky. Or like, like my, my brother in law just had a picture. They did a, had like their back of their minivan open with like big eyes and teeth. And then you just go. So you just like, you get the experience of like stopping at different places to get candy, but you're just like in a parking lot.
>> Farz: Interesting.
>> Taylor: Okay, so they'll do it at like a church or a school or something. So like kids who aren't in the neighborhoods like can trick or treat, can go. You know, things like that.
>> Farz: Is that what you're going to do with the kids?
>> Taylor: No, we're gonna go actual trick or treating. There's like a neighborhood that has it. So I think we're gonna go there.
>> Farz: Nice.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: What are they dressing as?
>> Taylor: Florence is gonna be a lion because she loves lions and Miles is going to be a cow.
>> Farz: All right. Very, very.
>> Taylor: It's gonna be cold too. Yeah, it's gonna be in the 60s, so it'll be fun. We had Florence's birthday party yesterday and some of them wore costumes and stuff and we had a thing last week and yeah, it's been cute.
>> Farz: Fun.
>> Taylor: oh, and I'm making everybody dress up at work every day. Today I was a jar of olives. I don't know if you've seen my jar of olive costume, but this is the headpiece. My sister made it. And then it's a dress that I don't have in here, but it's like this is big olives all over it.
>> Farz: That is very funny. That's very cute. Technically I'm supposed to wear costume tomorrow on Zoom and I literally have nothing.
>> Taylor: Planned, so I am, Yeah, it was cute this morning. like someone in our dev call was dressed like a chicken. Like a full body chicken outfit. That's fun. Do you remember that today's theme was food? Tomorrow's theme is. Tomorrow's theme is pop culture. I'm going to be Bruno Mars. Going to be awesome.
>> Farz: Do you remember that time that someone ordered a chicken comedian at work?
>> Taylor: Yes.
>> Farz: Was that horrible and embarrassing for everyone?
>> Taylor: Why does he do that? That's horrible.
>> Farz: It was for a birthday. So sad.
>> Taylor: Anyways, anyway, wait to introduce us. This has been terrible. Happy Halloween. Welcome to Doom Shuffale. We are the podcast that brings you history's most notorious disasters and epic failures twice a week, every week. Today is Halloween and I'm Taylor, joined by Fars.
Fars and Taylor discuss some of their favorite Halloween movies
>> Farz: I'm Fars, joined here by Taylor. And we are going to be discussing a topic that I'm probably not gonna be able to guess.
>> Taylor: well, I do wanna say as Halloween comes to an end, a big thank you to our friend Jay. and a big no thank you to Fars, because you didn't join any movies, but it was very fun. And we've watched many, many a film, with J. Over the past couple, couple, weeks. And some of the scary ones we watch, we watch Incantation, that was on Netflix, that was super scary. And watch Oddity, that was on Shutter last night and that was pretty good. Or two nights ago. So we've watched.
>> Farz: What's been your favorite?
>> Taylor: looking at it. We haven't watched all of them. We saw Wishmaster. I don't know if you've ever seen that. It's from the 80s. It's like actually pretty fun.
>> Farz: Yeah, the, I can picture the, the vhs.
>> Taylor: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
>> Farz: It was very scary.
>> Taylor: A thousand percent. There's like a gin and he like, you know, for some reason he has to, like, he has a grant three wishes to, like, get out or something of the, like, lamp that he's in. And like, he does hilarious things. Like he. One guy wishes for a million dollars and the next scene is that guy's mom getting on a flight and signing up for insurance for a million dollar insurance policy and the plane just explodes.
>> Farz: It's like, this is not good wish making.
>> Taylor: It's hilarious. So, yeah, that was a good one. I liked. I liked Oddity a lot that we watched the other night. We watched, mine was the People under the Stairs. That was fun. That was fun to.
>> Farz: Oh, my God, I haven't.
>> Taylor: It's so stupid.
>> Farz: So long.
>> Taylor: Yeah, it's fun to watch again. Winnie the Blood and Honey was exactly what you expected to be.
>> Farz: It was great. I love that movie.
>> Taylor: Maybe even weirder, but it was fun. Yeah, super fun. So, yeah, it's been really fun. So I have one more then, thing for Halloween. Hold on, I'm looking up what it was in the Cleansing Hour. Did I watch this one? Oh, yeah. The Cleansing Hour was not. Cleansing Hour was not good until the last 10 minutes. And then you were like, that was real fun.
>> Farz: So are you able to share the she with me? I don't think I have access to this one.
>> Taylor: I guess. No, I'll share.
>> Farz: No, because I want to watch, like, horror movies, like the Waning Days, of October, and I just want to, like, not have to pay for it, so. And Jay does an incredible job of telling you which ones are free and which one aren't.
>> Taylor: I know. He was a great job carrying it. I sucked it too. Yeah, super fun. So, anyway, anyway, Anyway, let's talk.
No one really knows who Jack the Ripper is
I, will tell you a story, Farmers, about a very classic crime that is very spooky and scary and that we still talk about today. Actually mentioned it in the most recent, what we do in the Shadows last night. So it was like. It just is something that we'll talk about forever. So I'm not going to make you guess, but I'm going to talk about Jack the Ripper.
>> Farz: Ooh, fun.
>> Taylor: I read a lot of books. I read the Complete Jack the Ripper by Donald Rumblo. I read, the Five the Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Haley Rubenhold. I listened to the After Dark podcast and this isn't. I can really talk about this, but I read a book called the Lodger by Marie Bella. It was written in, like, the early 1900s. About the idea that Jack the Ripper could have been someone that was like, lodging at someone's house. You know, like, someone who's renting a room in your house and they just like, he like, sneaks out in the middle of the night and she hears him and then she like, the next morning knows that there was a murder and like, trying to figure out what to do, you know?
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: And I watched the movie the Lodger by alfred Hitchcock from 1927, which is a silent film and one of his first films. And it's pretty great. You can see it on, on YouTube. it's a totally different ending than the book, so you gotta do both if you ever want to, but they're pretty fun. so, in reading this. So the book I read was the Complete Jacks the Ripper. And there was another one that was like, the complete and final Jack the Ripper. And then there's like the Complete and I'm, Right. You're wrong. Jack the Ripper, like, no one fucking knows what happened.
>> Farz: You know, Jack the Ripper was the Diddy of his generation.
>> Taylor: I mean, we know it. We know what happened. We know who Diddy is. We don't know who Jack the Ripper is.
>> Farz: I mean, like, that's what, like, you would do if you were probably super rich and like, wealthy. It had to be a rich, wealthy person. It had to be a doctor.
>> Taylor: No. It didn't have to be. Okay, I'll tell you why.
>> Farz: Educate me.
>> Taylor: Okay, so no one really agrees on anything. but some of the facts are actual facts. So we'll talk about those. people who are obsessed with Jack the Ripper are called Ripperologists. And there's thousands of books on him, you know, some of the stuff that I read was like, everything comes. Comes at it from a different angle. You either like, this is, like, wait, where I go, oh. So some people are like, it doesn't matter who he was. You know, like, it's just like we shouldn't talk about, or we shouldn't talk about how gruesome the crimes were, or, you know, it doesn't matter really. It just matters. Like, the people who were, you know, killed, they're the ones that matter or whatever. I think that I still want to know who he was. If we could ever figure that out, but I don't think we ever would, you know? Yeah, yeah. and like, there's stuff that is like, there's like, maybe DNA evidence that could, like, find him. That's just like, never gonna work. You know, it's like over a hundred years old. Like, it's just not a thing. and the. Also, like, I do think also, like, you know, it's interesting that there are modern rippers. You know, like, Peter Curtin was, like, 100 years ago, but he was, like, the vampire of Dusseldorf. Like a ripper. There's the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter, Sutcliffe. And then I was like, wait a minute. Maybe it's someone named Peter who's Jack the Ripper? Because those two other rippers are also named Peter.
>> Farz: How do you define a ripper?
>> Taylor: It's really just like, a press moniker for, like, a fun. Like. Like a. They, like, wanted to be a ripper. I think that it was like, he was initially called, it was like, the White Chapel Murders, and also the. Called Leather Apron for a little bit, because they were thinking he would have been, like, a butcher. Someone who wears a leather apron, which is weird and gross. Like, I get the idea that you would have an apron out of leather, but I also hate that word. Those words together.
>> Farz: If you want to walk around the city just completely covered in blood, you should dress like a butcher.
>> Taylor: That's exactly true. Exactly. Right. So, I also, like, definitely would love to know who the Zodiac was, you know, Like, I think the mystery keeps it mysterious. M. But it's also. I think we should. It'd be cool to know, you know.
>> Farz: That one's a weird one that we don't know, given how Pop. I mean, I don't know. Maybe it's not that weird, because didn't Richard Ramirez get pulled over in a stolen car and then write, like, the devil sign on the hood of the car and then run away in the night? Like, I mean, they weren't. They weren't gonna catch him either.
>> Taylor: Yeah. yeah. So I don't know, but I think. So we're gonna talk a little bit about the crimes. mostly about the women, and then a couple of the suspects and, like, what happened. And then some stuff that I learned that, like, negates other stuff that I've learned, like, listening to, like, other podcasts about it or just, like, what I thought I knew, you know? So I think that it's interesting because this is the one where there's, like, a thousand different perspectives on what happened. more than you would think.
So it is 1888, and we are in London, and it is awful
So it is 1888, and we are in London, and it is awful, basically.
>> Farz: Obviously. Yes.
>> Taylor: Yeah. especially awful if you are poor, and you are probably poor. Most people are poor. the Queen Victoria just had her 50 year Jubilee the year before. and people were obviously like, excited about that, but also like, just like the coronation of King Charles the other day. I don't know when was that? Like a year or two ago. But you're like, he's driving in his, like, golden carriage through the town. People, like, can't afford food, you know.
>> Farz: Crazy.
>> Taylor: Yeah. So, the poor in London, they're like, really poor. It's like Oliver Twist poor. hundreds of people sleep on the ground. you've been to London, right?
>> Farz: Actually, I've been to London several times, but I've literally never left the airport.
>> Taylor: Oh, well, you had not been.
>> Farz: I landed in the city. I just never went into the city.
>> Taylor: But Trafalgar Square is like a big square. You can go there now as like a big statue. People would just, hundreds of people would sleep there every night. they'd sleep in corners, they'd sleep in alleys, they sleep behind houses, which is like the unhoused population was out of control. some things that you could do to get aid from the city of London, you, could get outside aid, where you would, like, apply for it and say, like, you know, I'm having trouble getting employment. I have nowhere to live. And they would give you money. Like, they would give you like, a little allowance every day so that you could eat. you could also use that money to potentially get like a bed and a lot in like a lodging house for a night. But you paid by the night, so you had to like, pay to get in and then, and then you stayed. the money in these, in this story, it's a little bit hard to understand. Like, I don't really understand how much a shilling is, or like a pence or like, what that means. But, like, if you did have a Queen Victoria gold shilling, now, it'd be worth like $400. But I think it's like not that much money in, this time. you could also live technically inside of a workhouse, which is a place where you go when you have, like, pretty much given up. You get to stay there, but you have to do like manual labor. Like, for some reason, part of one of the jobs was breaking rocks to, like, move rocks to a different place. Like, really bad work, they're dirty, there's bugs everywhere, everyone is sick. Like, it's terrible. you would also go there if you need like a doctor, you were homeless, or like, have a baby, you would go to these workhouses and just like, really really bad conditions. Like women would be in labor next to like a drunk person, next to an old person dying. You know, like it was just a terrible place to be.
>> Farz: Was like a government paid.
>> Taylor: Yeah. But you had to do the manual labor and you would get let in in the evening and you would get let out at like 9am in some cases like you couldn't leave any earlier than that. So you couldn't find any other work either. Like you only had to do the jobs there because by 9am all of the other like day to day jobs are already taken.
>> Farz: So don't we like kind of currently do this where if you are on like a social welfare program, you can't actually get a job because if you get a job you'll make too much money and. But you don't have enough to get on your feet.
>> Taylor: Yeah, like you can't have more than like $2,000 in savings ever in some, some cases like disability. So you can't save like you can't do. You are, you are stuck.
>> Farz: Glad the cycle is just repeating itself.
>> Taylor: I know John Oliver did something about it recently. It was terrible.
>> Farz: yeah, that woman who was sleeping in her car and then her car got. That's what it was. She was like, I had to sleep in the car because I can't have $2,000 or whatever you said in my account.
>> Taylor: Yeah, that's wild. another option that's a little bit that a lot of people would do was a lodging house. You paid by the day, but it was gross. You would like share bath water with people, you know, like it's not like the beds were clean and any of that. But if you didn't have the money, you didn't get a bed. So you would like, you know, you'd leave every morning, try to come back at night, but like if you didn't have the money they wouldn't let you stay. And it also means like you had to carry everything that you owned. You know. So people had like pockets full of like a couple things but they weren't like able to like leave their stuff anywhere. we're also in Whitechapel, London, which is like a, just a terrifyingly poor part. A lot of people would immigrate to that part and start to try to like, you know, ah, join society from there. And that was like made it really difficult. It was you know, the kind of thing where it's like 17 people living in a 10 by 10 room. You know, like if you did own or were able to like, rent like an apartment, like a house or a place to stay. a lot of alcoholism, lots of violence, lots of sex work, lots of antisemitism. So just like a really, really rough place to live. You can imagine.
>> Farz: Yeah, it just sounds like literally skid row right now.
>> Taylor: Yeah. And yeah. Yeah. Also, have you ever seen Sweeney Todd? I feel like that's the same time as well. It's like, you know, it's just very gray. Everything's. Everything's awful. I only know this was most time it is a musical.
>> Farz: Yeah. Well, I only know the song because it was in the office.
>> Taylor: Oh, fun. Yeah, I like that. Anyway, everything's terrible.
Who are the five women that they believe were the victims of Jack the Ripper
So let's talk about the crimes of Jack the Ripper. So people have been murdered, are murdered all the time. They were murdered all the time in this area. People are always murdered all the time. But there are the, quote, canonical five. Who are the five women that they believe were the victims of Jack the Ripper? Donald Rumbolo, who wrote the Complete Jackson Ripper, thinks that there were four. I'll tell you about that later. So, like, you don't really know. There could be up to 11. there were like 11 of these style murders, like, around this time. they were not all sex workers. You. You hear that over and over again. Some of them were, but they were not all that, in this time. Like, being a poor woman and being a sex worker was kind of the same thing. In, like, the record books, you know, they would look at you the same way. It didn't really matter whether you did it or not. they're, also like. So I'm gonna tell you about the lives of the women and then the. They're where they were found. Then a couple suspects, but one I'm not really gonna really talk about how they were killed. Like, how they were like, maybe snuck up or maybe like in the middle of doing something. Because, like, in the Rumbolo book, his opinion is that for all of the murders that they were in the middle of, like, having sex and the woman was leaned towards the wall with her skirts up, you know, like, that's what. How he thinks that they were killed. But then Haley Rubenhold, who wrote the book the Five, she makes a statement that I was like, whoa, this actually makes a lot of sense, is that maybe they were just sleeping when he attacked them.
>> Farz: Well, how did he kill them?
>> Taylor: I'll tell you. He, like, mostly he was. He for the most part, slit their throat first, and it would be. But no one, no one really ever heard any scuffling or anything. So, like, they were 100% nights when these women were sleeping in doorways, you know, when they were drunk sleeping in doorways, drunk sleeping in alleys. So it seems easier to slit the throat of a drunk person, you know, or, of a, like a drunk sleeping person.
>> Farz: It just seems weird that they, like, made up the whole dress flung. It's like. Well.
>> Taylor: Cause no one knows.
>> Farz: Yeah. Cause you can slit their throat anyway. It doesn't. That's a weirdly specific way to slit someone's throat.
>> Taylor: I know. Yeah. So I don't know. I don't mean I was. I don't know. I've been reading books this week, so no one knows. But, I mean. But the sleep thing kind of made a lot of sense because, like, not even asleep, like, passed out, you know?
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: in some cases. so there were inquests in quests into all the murders to kind of figure out exactly what happened. Between 1888 and 1891, there were, like I said, 11 murders that could potentially be these. But the five. These are the five that they, think are most likely actual Jackson Ripper. If he was one person. I don't even know. We're not going to even get. Get there, you know?
>> Farz: Right.
Mary Ann Nichols was born on August 26, 1845 in London
>> Taylor: So first we have Mary Ann Nichols, AKA Polly. So she went by Polly. She was born on August 26, 1845. she went to school until she was 15. She was literate, which was a big deal. Like, not everybody in this time was. Her, parents were a laundress and a locksmith. They did not live in workhouses. They lived in, like, their own home, which was a big deal. but it was still, like a very dirty. Dirty and crowded, like, area that they lived in London. But, she. Her parents tried their best. Her mom died of tuberculosis because, like, everyone's half dead in this. In these stories. but her dad kept the kids and didn't abandon them, which is, like, wow, great. You know, like, he tried, so, like, good for him, you know? so her dad, you know, stayed with the family, took care of the kids. Polly, when she was 18, got married to a man named William. And in the beginning, they were very happy. They were actually invited to live in a special new kind of apartment. So there was a man, with a last name Peabody, who came from America with this idea of making better housing for these, like, slum neighborhoods. And the idea was, like, you know, we will give, like, young families, you know, our Rooms, maybe a shared kitchen, maybe a shared, like, laundry area. But you could stay in these apartments, for like, reasonable prices. But you have to like, abide by certain rules. So there's no drinking, there's no like, violence, there's no, you have to have a job, like, things like that. So his idea was like, the incentive to stay here is to like, live a better life so families would, would, be able to like, move up from there. So it's a pretty good deal considering everything else is terrible. So her and William got this. Got this apartment and it worked for a while. but still, like, in this time, there's no birth control. There's just. Everyone's just having babies all the time. And so Paulie has her fifth baby. I mean, things are not like, great. So while she's having her fifth baby, they hire a neighbor to come and, and help. And her husband ends up having an affair with that neighbor. her name is Rosetta. And eventually William and Rosetta will get married and have more children. But they did have to leave the Peabody buildings because you weren't allowed to like, live with your mistress. You get kicked out. Pretty straight kicked out. But Holly left her husband after he had this affair. And she had to go to a workhouse where it's like the place where you really don't want to go. Like, the hard labor to prove that she was in like, distress and to get a divorce. But it was like almost impossible to get divorced. And she couldn't just get a divorce. Like, she couldn't just. He would be like, I didn't do anything wrong, you know, whatever. So she just lived apart from him. But she was able to get like a little bit of a settlement from him. so he was. He, ah, paid her five shillings a week for a while to like, help her. But basically him and Rosetta took the kids and she was just like on the streets, by herself. And so she was also started to drink a lot during this time. And like, like these a lot. Most, of these women are going to be like, very severe alcoholics, you know, so she's drinking all the time.
>> Farz: Your life sucks. You got like 17 kids, you're homeless, you're breaking rocks for a living. Like, why wouldn't. What are you going to do?
>> Taylor: No, like, it'd be like, everything's fine. No, things are not fine. So even though Polly was not fully divorced, there is no way for a woman to make enough money doing women things like sewing and whatever to take care of herself. So she needed to have a man to like live with so they could like, try to get in it together. So she was. Ended up seeing a m man. and because she moved in with someone else, her husband was able to go to the court and stop giving her five shillings a week. So now she was like, had even less money. she would be in and out of workhouses. She would sleep in Trafalgar Square. in April 1888, she got a job as a servant through a work program. she. Which is a pretty good job. She lives in a nice house. But they were very, very religious and they didn't drink. And they probably made her do things like read the Bible to like, atone for her sins, you know, like, it wasn't great.
>> Farz: They made her stop drinking. I mean, I could do that if I was drinking.
>> Taylor: Oh yeah, they made her stop drinking. So she was fired for three months, probably for drinking.
>> Farz: Got it.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Didn't last long. Unfortunately, she's in and out of lodging houses, like paying, you know, her pennies to get. Get a bed. Finally, it's 11pm on August 30, 1888, and she's drunk. She's trying to get a bed in her usual lodging, lodging house. And the witnesses say that she said a couple things. She said, I've had my lodging money three times today and I've spent it, which you can imagine in a drunk voice. And all I, you know, all I had to make money us. So you know what I mean?
>> Farz: She sounds fun.
>> Taylor: and then she said to someone, so dos money is like your money for your bed. D O S S. I don't know, I've never heard that before. That's what that is.
William says Polly was probably drinking when she died in 1888
She says, I'll soon get my dos money. See what a jolly bonnet I've got now. So I think jolly bonnet, that she was going to pawn her hat, some people have said that meant that she was going to go and, you know, do some sex work because she looked great. I don't think she looks great, but you know what I mean? She was nice.
>> Farz: Great for like what you had on the streets there.
>> Taylor: Yeah. So whatever she said, she said something. She was definitely drinking, definitely spending all of her money on booze that night, as she did most nights. A lot of the people in these stories would pawn things for like a day, you know, so you like pawn your boots for a couple pence and then you get them back. If you don't get them back within a certain amount of time, then they can sell them or whatever. So, like, a lot of stuff was pawn. So she probably went to go pawn her thing. And I mean, also then, like, it's 11:00 at night, it is dark as shit. there is m. I think I've mentioned it before, and I have it here, this book, the Invention of Murder. I've, like, tried to slog through it a couple times, but it has a bunch of stories in it by Judith Flanders. And it starts with the story of, you know, a servant going out, and then while she's gone, her, the family she's working for is murdered. But, like, they talk about how you get lost in your own neighborhood when it's that dark. You know, I'm sure it's just. It's just. You walk out the door and it might as well be in, like, a black hole. So it's dark. and she's. She's, you know, walking around. At 3:40am A man named Charles Allen Cross finds Polly's body laying on a sidewalk. Her body's on the sidewalk and her left hand was reaching out, touching a gate. So she's a little bit, like, spread out. Her throat had been cut, her vagina had been stabbed. Her stomach was opened with huge cuts across her abdomen. And they found out that when they found her, her face was still warm, but her hands were cold because she would have died immediately from having her throat slit. But it would have taken at least five minutes to do the rummaging around in her belly. But nothing was missing. William, nothing was.
>> Farz: He was literally rummaging in her belly.
>> Taylor: But he didn't like, taking organs or anything. Oh, because some of them, they think that he took, like, a kidney. I wrote that down. I think he took, like, kidney from another one. I was also thinking he mailed a kidney to the police at one point and was like, oh, this is a lady's kidney. So he, like, was taunting the police a little bit. I don't think I'm gonna get to that because there's so much but. No, but just he's kind of like, rummaged in her insides. It's gross.
>> Farz: The way you replied to me was like, almost like a. Yeah, of course he was rummaging in her organs. Like.
>> Taylor: He'S not like, patting her on the head and kissing around the cheeks. so, William, her. Her. Her first husband and her friend Ellen, identified her body. William hadn't seen her in three years. both William and her friend Ellen testified that Polly did not do sex work. So, like, they Were like that. She just was. She was an alcoholic and not well, but she. She was not. they. They testified that she's not a prostitute. so she died a few days after her birthday on August 31, 1888. She was 43 when she died.
Annie Chapman Smith was born on September 24, 1840
our next victim is Annie Chapman Smith, or Annie Smith Chapman. she was born on September 24, 1840. She was the daughter of a soldier. She went to school. they had a military school, so she went to school. and things were going pretty well. And then scarlet fever came through their, like, barracks or wherever they were living. And four of her siblings out of six died in two weeks of scarlet fever. So just like, so fast, her family was, like, destroyed. Her father died by suicide by slitting his own throat because he was so upset. her mother ended up, renting out rooms in. In her home. And one of the people she rented to was a man named John Chapman. And John and Annie got married. There is a wedding picture of. Of them, where they are dressed very nicely, and he's, like, leaning against a cabinet. And they, like, paid a good amount of money for it. as well as when they would have children later, they would take pictures of. Which is, like, in a time where you didn't really do this yet, which I think totally makes sense for someone who lost so many siblings so young. You'd, like. You'd yearn for a photo of someone, you know, of course. So she did that. but she was also definitely, like, a very severe alcoholic for a very long time. And also during her pregnancies, her children were, Either they died early or they were, like, obviously disabled. And now we'd say it was fetal alcohol syndrome. But they didn't, like, know that then that was happening. And she could not stop. John got a good job as a driver out in the country, but she had to leave because she was making a scene every night. Like, he was, like. He kept the children and kept his job, and she, she had to leave. When she went into the city, he gave her a little bit of money each week, but, like, never really saw her again. He did die a few years later of cirrhosis of the liver. So, like, he wasn't innocent in the drinking, you know, most likely.
>> Farz: What are these people drinking?
>> Taylor: That's such a good question, I think, like, rum and, like, weird British moonshine.
>> Farz: It can't be, like, good rum. It's gotta have, like.
>> Taylor: Oh, no horrible stuff in there. There's beer. It's definitely not good. Yeah. and she would walk 25 miles from the center of London to where John was to say goodbye to him when he passed away. She, lived in those common law situations. Like I was saying, like, you couldn't really be by yourself if you're a woman. You need to have a man to like take care of you in some way for like a protection and like getting, they could get better jobs. So she had a couple of those common law situations. you would maybe take someone's last name, but like, not officially. That was really common where you like didn't really get married, but you would take their last name for a certain amount of time, which seems nice because less paperwork.
>> Farz: Right.
>> Taylor: she was also not a sex worker. She sewed and crocheted and would sell the things that she was making. she also. But when she's in 1888, she's very sick. She also has tuberculosis. So I mean, imagine everyone's coughing also up blood.
>> Farz: Yeah, it seems like a horrible time to be alive.
>> Taylor: Horrible. So on September 7, 1888, she went to her usual lodging house but didn't have any money. She asked them to hold the bed for her and she went looking for money to borrow from a friend. she probably. So she ended up being found sort of in between two houses in a, in a yard. It was a place that was known as like a safe place to sleep. The yard was not locked. it was like a little bit covered and she probably wandered in there to, to go to sleep. she. At 5:15am Someone said that they heard a woman say like yell, no. But she was already dead by then because they found her body at 6:00am and she'd been dead for at least two hours. her throat was cut so badly that like her head was like nearly cut off.
>> Farz: She,
>> Taylor: There were no signs of a struggle. She had been totally disemboweled. A section of her stomach was on her left should shoulder and another section of her skin, plus her small intestines were on her right shoulder.
>> Farz: I'm just trying to envision that.
>> Taylor: Just like gobs of like innards on top of you.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: And then some of her organs may have been missing and they. It's either. I mean, this is like a big. No one knows anything. I mean either he took them or whoever killed her took them, or they took them in the hospital when they were doing the autopsy. Which totally makes sense because they would like do that all the time, like take bodies to like study them, you know. I, guess like that's what they remember. They grave rob to be able to see bodies.
>> Farz: Yeah, I guess I'm hearing somebody like, looking at the body in the moment and realizing that it's missing organs versus we send the body off somewhere.
>> Taylor: Yeah, I mean, you wouldn't know until you send the body off somewhere, but it's like they could have gotten lost in transit.
>> Farz: They're gonna like, just hack it up right there in the middle of the alley.
>> Taylor: Yeah, I mean, it was already pretty hacked up. she.
Annie Chapman died on September 8, 1888; she was 47
So Annie's, her brother was, last name Smith, was also an alcoholic, just like, you know, several members of their family. After he identified his sister's body, he got sober and he moved to Texas. So if your last name is Smith and you live in Texas, you could be related to Annie Chapman.
>> Farz: This is probably only one of you.
>> Taylor: she died on September 8, 1888. She was 47. So all these women are like, that's.
>> Farz: All this shit for like, rough age time.
>> Taylor: Absolutely.
Elizabeth Stride was murdered in 1888 by serial killer Jack the Ripper
our next victim is Elizabeth Stride. Elizabeth was born November 27, 1843 in Sweden. So she grew up on a farm in Sweden. She was basically, primed to be a servant. She moved from her farm to the city to. To be a servant. And she ended up getting pregnant. And so someone got her pregnant. We don't know if it was like, mutual or if it was like an assault or like a power thing. Like, who knows? he got her pregnant and he gave her syphilis.
>> Farz: Cool as you do.
>> Taylor: Uh-huh. And at seven months, she had a stillborn baby. but her reputation then was tarnished because you can't get pregnant without being married, obviously, in this time. So she moved to London, to kind of start over again. She learned English, by the end, she spoke. You couldn't even tell if she was Swedish. She spoke English just, you know, as well as they did. she married an older man and they ran some coffee houses and it was like, kind of a good business, like some. There were some coffee houses in town where you could, like, I don't know, just like a cafe. You go and sit for a little bit and read and then like, not drink booze, just drink coffee. And it started to be kind of fashionable. So they did that for a little bit, but then that failed and she ended up kind of out on her own. She, ended up being going on, like living in the streets and becoming kind of a grifter. She would kind of make up, make up these lies to get sympathy to get people to give her money. So there was a thing called the Princess Alice disaster, which was a, boat that sank. And she said that she was on it and lost her children and husband just, to get more money from people. she was back and forth between like different men, getting money from them. At one point, like a more well to do woman saw her and thought she was her sister. And she just said, yep, that's me. And she started spending time with her and taking her money. So like, she just was kind of doing whatever it takes to. To survive. M. As she was getting older, she was getting into her 40s. She ended up having seizures from the syphilis. Just like gets worse and worse. And on September 29, 1888, some people saw. Saw her talking to some different men. but who knows if those witness statements are true?
>> Farz: You know, who knows if any of it is true? It's so long ago. There's no records. Nobody cares about these people. Like, there's no law. There's no nothing.
>> Taylor: Like, yeah, I feel like there's. I mean all his witness statements are like, yeah, you know, I saw her walking down the street. I knew her, but it's like one in the morning. Like, you're drunk too, dude. You know?
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: How am I believing what you said? So her body was found at 1am and her throat had been slit, but that is it. So Elizabeth Stride died on the 30th of September, 1888. She was 44. Elizabeth is the one that Donald Rumblo thinks was a domestic situation and not Jack the Ripper. because this is the first of two that he killed on the same night, which is called the double event, which, you know, was possible because remember when Ted Bundy killed those two women at that lake?
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: The same day. So like.
>> Farz: Well, no, it wasn't a lake. It was the. The. Was it sorority house?
>> Taylor: Yes. He killed several people at sorority or on the same day, but he went to a lake and he got one woman to help him with his car, took her away, murdered her, came back upon another woman and murdered her before they even knew the first woman was Ms. Missing.
>> Farz: Yeah. So it's not even any aberrant behavior. Like, it's just there wasn't any history of serial killers. So like they. To then they're like, this possibly can't be the same guy because this guy doesn't do it this way.
>> Taylor: Well, they thought that it was. The author said that thinks that it wasn't. So who knows?
>> Farz: Got it.
Kate Eddowes was found dead on September 30, 1888
>> Taylor: But anyway, the Same day. So, the same day, September 30, they also found Catherine Eddowes. she calls herself Kate. Kate was born on April 14, 1842. She lived with a pretty normal family. She went to school as well. and her parents passed away in the same year. So she went to live with relatives, in and, like, work for them, but they kicked her out. So she was probably, like, stealing or doing something that, like, they didn't like, and they kicked her out. She married an Irish man named Thomas Conway. they had a baby, and they would do things. They were. He was a peddler and, like, a seller. So go around. They'd go from, like, town to town, and she would write limericks and songs for people. And they would, like, give people little poems, write, poetry. They never got married, but they cohabitated. And she. One of the towns they went to was Loxley, like, in Robin Hood.
>> Farz: That's fun.
>> Taylor: Yeah, that's fun. she also had a tattoo of his initials, which was, like, really wild because, like, ladies and have tattoos, you know? eventually, both her and her husband were drinking in excess, and her husband got violent. And she took her children to the workhouse, which is, like, not anything that you would want to do, but something that, like, you would have to do if you're in, like, a really dangerous situation. she also. Her sister would help her sometimes. Eventually, her children grow up, and she's estranged from her daughter because she keeps, like, stealing money from her daughter as well to keep drinking. So, so Kate is known in the neighborhood. she eventually meets a man named John Kelly. He didn't abuse her, but they're both drinking a lot. and they were in and out of different houses. she was arrested for being drunk and disorderly a lot, which is, like, terrible, but also, you gotta sleep inside, you know?
>> Farz: Yeah. That's all you have to do.
>> Taylor: Yeah. So she. In on, In September, 1888, Kate and John went, to Kent, the area of England, to pick hops. And they. Which was, like, a thing you could do seasonally, and you would, like, make a good amount of money. So they did that when they got back to London. they. And they were trying to find a room where they could both be in together, because you could. You could rent a bed for two people. But she, didn't have enough money, so he ended up pawning his boots and, like, finding a bed for himself. And she was on the streets. So it's Saturday, September 29, 1888, and at 8:30pm she was drunk and passed out on the street. she was arrested because she was passed out on the street. And at 1am they let her go. They said that she was sober enough to get out and they let her go. so they. She got out of. Out of the, police station at 1am they found her body at 1:44. So in those 44 minutes, he found her and killed her. I wrote she had also been disemboweled in all caps by accident. So it just jumps out at me. but her face was cut up. Her intestines were put on her shoulder. Again. her. And the next one, there's. On their Wikipedia pages, there's some really gruesome pictures of their bodies. it is very bad. she is the one where. Oh, she's the one where. Okay, this is like a weird theory. There was like, a part. Do you remember this? It was like a part of her apron with poop on it. Found in an alley.
>> Farz: No.
>> Taylor: So, like, they knew it was part of her apron because it was, like, pulled off. But, like, the theory is, like, people would just go to the bathroom in alleys, right? And they would, like, rebuff it to their clothes to clean themselves. So that's not like, it's gross, but it's not like, abnormal, you know?
>> Farz: You know, it's funny, Taylor is when you said that her and her husband would go, hop picking. I just pictured, like, this cute couple and they would go like, cherry picking when it's cherry season. And I was like, oh, no, this is like covered hell in London in the 1840s. And that's probably not.
>> Taylor: It was definitely the best time of their life, though, when they were hot picking because it was like, finally.
>> Farz: It's just not like a cute romantic date.
>> Taylor: It's like, no, they slept in a barn. Yeah. No, but at least that it had a roof. You know what I mean? so this little piece of apron is found in an alley, like, nearby. And they know that it's hers because, like, the pattern matches all the things. And then above it on the wall is graffiti that says, the Jews are the men that will not be blamed for nothing. Which doesn't make any sense. It's like a weird double negative. But this is like a weird thing. So they say you can write it for real. So they say that it's graffiti. It's in my head. I imagine it really big written on the wall, right?
The chalk was written in short letters and then police erased it
But it's not. The letters are three quarters of an inch high. So it's very small. And I learned in the After Dark podcast that everybody always had chalk with them because you would, like, maybe, like, need to write a note on the street or, like, tally up something at a restaurant or like, whatever. So chalk was not something that was weird. So it was written in chalk in these short letters. And then the police officer who found it erased it right away because he was afraid of, like, violence, if people were blaming Jewish people for the Jack Ripper murders or whatever. So it was erased. So we don't even know if it was really there. We don't know what it looked like. We don't know what it said. So, like, it's. People take that and run with it and say, Jack the Ripper must have been Jewish. But, like, it could have been totally unrelated, you know.
>> Farz: So was it like, just anti Semitism? M. Just generally rampant?
>> Taylor: Like, at first I thought that it was like, most things I read, like, make it sound like it's part of it, but I feel like it's not part of it at all, you know?
>> Farz: Right.
>> Taylor: when she died, so, Kate eddowes died on the 30th of September, 1888. She was 46 when she passed away. 500 people came to her funeral. She had a glass hearse take, her through town because people, like, genuinely cared for her and were afraid, you know, looking at her pictures.
>> Farz: This is what, like, it looks like a grizzly just.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: Went to town.
>> Taylor: And that's why I think a lot of other podcasts are like, we're not going to talk about the gruesome part. And like, I want to mention it because it's so interesting, but, like, like, what was he doing? Why is he doing that? Why is he Roman render there? And also in the middle of this, he does send a kidney to the police. And there's always, like, a couple letters. Some of them are, like, potential hoaxes. Some of them aren't. Like, he's kind of toying with the police. Maybe it's just like, very. It's all stuff that we'll never figure out.
>> Farz: So crazy.
Our last victim, um, is Mary Jane Kelly. Most likely she was born around 1863
>> Taylor: So our last victim, is. What is our last name? I think I lost it. Our last victim, is Mary Jane Kelly. There it is. Mary Jane Kelly. Her past is a little bit more murky. She kind of, like, made up her past. So she didn't tell anyone the truth. Most likely she said she was born around 1863. That's makes her a lot younger than the other victims. She said she was from Ireland or Wales, so that she had children, that her husband died. But there's no, there's no paper trail for any of that. So they don't know what happened. she was absolutely a sex worker. So this is the one where like that was her job. She would live, she works in a high class brothel, in another part of London where it would be like, you would have like a fancy dinner and go to a show and then go home with someone. So you could like pretend that it was a little more up and up than a thing.
>> Farz: Oh, does Wikipedia have these pictures up?
>> Taylor: Like they shouldn't, like, I almost feel.
>> Farz: Like they shouldn't do this.
>> Taylor: I totally agree. And it didn't come up until, until Kate's and I was like, oh my God. And then like the Mary Jane Kelly is a really bad. They're wild. Let me tell you a little bit about her first. so she was a high class sex worker. she was sex trafficked to Paris by her, by her like madam. And she managed to escape, but she had to work in like a worse neighborhood after that. So she was working on the East End, and in Whitechapel and she was seeing a man named John Barnett. So Mary Jane and John shared a room. And I'm pretty sure that I've been there because I'm pretty sure I went on a Jack the Ripper tour when I was in London in grad school and that we like walked past Mary Kelly's house. so it was like a 10 by 10 room on the first floor of a building with a door like heading into an alley, that she shared with John. They at 13 Millers Court. they had a little bit of a tumultuous relationship. They would fight. At one point they were fighting and someone threw something and it broke the window next to the door. So you could move the curtain, put your hand through the window and open the door from the outside. So like the room didn't lock basically. So on November 9, she's out late with her friends. John came by and he left. A friend named George and one named Mary visited. Mary left at 1:00am when she came back at 3, lights were off so she thought that Mary was asleep. George said that he was, that he saw her with someone and she said he can come back later. They think that that could be Jack the Ripper, but no one really. But it's who knows and who knows what the fuck George's deal is, you know. but 11:00am, someone came to collect their rent and he opened the door by putting his hand through the broken window and opening it. And, he found her body, and you can see it online. It is awful.
>> Farz: Like, what is that? Like, did he saw her in half?
>> Taylor: Sort of. So he took the flesh out of her thighs, so her legs are really far apart. He took everything out of her stomach. she. Her legs were cut open. Her abdomen was removed. Her uterus, kidney, and one breast were under the bed. Her liver was between her feet. Her intestines were to her right. The other breast was by her right foot. Her skin removed from her thighs and stomach was on the table. Table next to her. So she is mutilated.
>> Farz: Yeah, just.
>> Taylor: It.
>> Farz: It looks like an animal just got to her.
>> Taylor: Yeah. So that was November 9, 1888. And Mary Jane Kelly was only 25. So she's the youngest of all of our victims. So those are the main ones. As I said, there might be others. what are your thoughts right now? I'm gonna tell you a couple suspects after this.
>> Farz: Yeah, I'm just shocked that Wikipedia puts the pictures up.
>> Taylor: Like they should be blurred. You should have. You have to choose to click on that at the very least.
>> Farz: So there was one when it was the face look like it was like.
>> Taylor: Like a baseball mitt.
>> Farz: Yeah. And I was just like, I really probably. I probably still would have clicked show me the picture. But, like.
>> Taylor: Yeah, but you would have about it. We would have consented to it.
>> Farz: Yeah, it would have just like, popped out at me the way that one. That one was, like, even grosser almost. In the Mary Kelly one.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Yeah, they're really bad. So, like you were saying before, like, could it be a doc? Like, the assumption that it had to be a doctor. Who knows?
Taylor: Some people think Jack the Ripper did it, others don't
Like, you. It wasn't, like, as surgical as I thought it was, you know, like, definitely someone, like, escalating from the first one where he just, like, stabbed her belly, but, like, moving the intestines to, like, the shoulders and moving them around and stuff. It's really like. It feels exploratory and weird. Yeah, Taylor. Jack the Ripper is weird. You heard it here first. some. Yeah, some people think that, So some of the people that they think it could be, there's a man named Montague John Druitt. He was a lawyer and a teacher. He died by suicide after the last murder, so things stopped after that. So that's, like, convenient that it could be him. M. I don't know. None of these guys, I think. I don't. I don't have, like, a Favorite. there was a guy named Aaron Kosminski. he was a Polish Jewish barber, and he was later committed to an asylum. And he's the one where, like, the DNA evidence says it could be him, but, like, that DNA evidence is crap. And he was also, like, very disturbed. Like, his family was like, yeah, he should probably be in an institution, you know? but he is brought up because he's Jewish, and because of the graffiti about Jews not being blamed for nothing, which I don't even think. I can't. I don't believe that that's 100% related.
>> Farz: You know, why would you do that yourself if you're Jewish?
>> Taylor: I know. That doesn't make any sense. there is, someone who. Named George Chapman, who was a Polish immigrant and another barber, which I guess probably is the reason that the guy's a barber in Sweeney Todd. but he poisoned his victims, and he was in prison in the U.S. during most of the things, like, probably wasn't him. there is. Oh, no, no. I'm sorry. George Chapman. He was executed in 1903 for killing his wife. So he's definitely, like, not great. It was Dr. Thomas Neil Cream, who was in the United States. United States. But he was a serial killer who poisoned his victims. But also, the MO doesn't match. there's the artist Walter Sickart, who is a British painter, and he sort of made himself a, suspect because he painted things like a painting called Jack the Ripper's Bedroom, where it's like he painted his own bedroom, and there's, like, a weird figure in it, and he painted, like, a man next to dead bodies, you know, like, looking upset about it. So you're like, well, stop painting yourself doing these murders.
>> Farz: Yeah, that's weird.
>> Taylor: So, people think that it could have been him, but, I don't know. And then the other fun suspect is Prince Albert Victor, the Duke of Clarence, who is the grandson of Queen Victoria. So they said that he did it to kind of, like, cosplay as a poor person, slam it down in Whitechapel, potentially because he was gay and, like, hated women. Like, a bunch of weird things. but he probably didn't do it either. Like, he was kind of a weird guy. He wasn't very smart, probably because of, like, royal family inbreeding, et cetera. But I don't think he did it. I don't know who did it. Yeah, it was all. If it's all one person, even, you know, there's nothing like, they think they call him like Gentleman Jack. And they think that potentially he was like a higher upper class person because of, like, the witness statements who may have saw someone who looked like that. But I'm like, again, like, I don't think any of these witnesses are credible.
>> Farz: No, I think. I think it has to be someone who is, like, rich or royalty or of status. Because if you're a normal run of the mill sociopath, then why not make it so that your true identity is discovered after your death? Unless you have a family that you need to preserve their credibility for.
>> Taylor: Like, do you think the Zodiac might be alive and have, like, a letter after he dies that finally lets us know who he was?
>> Farz: I hope so.
>> Taylor: I hope so too.
>> Farz: Wasn't. Did I live across from the Zodiac guy? Remember the Jaws house across from my place off Western?
>> Taylor: I don't remember.
>> Farz: The house looked like a shark.
>> Taylor: Oh, yeah, yeah, no, that was a Black Dahlia thing that. Ah.
>> Farz: Ah, yeah, sorry.
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah. yeah, but they also think that could have been a doctor. but I mean, anyone can get a knife, you know? Like, I don't know. I feel like that doesn't prove anything to me either. And also, I like the leather apron idea because, like, like you said, like, yeah, I'm covered in blood. I'm a butcher. Leave me alone. You know?
>> Farz: But are you butchering, like, 1:00 in the morning?
>> Taylor: I guess you could be, probably. I feel like, yes, that's a very good alibi. You know, I feel like that's the time.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. It's. It's,
Skid: It's hard to wrap your head around 170 year story
Again, like, with stuff like this, like, it's so hard for me to wrap my head around it because, like, understanding the time in which this story occurred is, like, so hard to actually really internalize. Like, the police don't give a. Everybody smells. Like, everybody's homeless, they're half drunk. It's like nothing makes sense. So why not just throw this in the mix?
>> Taylor: Sure.
>> Farz: Just start gutting people. Who cares?
>> Taylor: Like, for real.
>> Farz: We're sleeping in an alleyway covered in rats.
>> Taylor: Like, oh, yeah. Oh, my God. I didn't think that. You're covered in vermin. I'm sure, like, all sorts of, like, bad bugs.
>> Farz: Would it be better to be just killed?
>> Taylor: Like, I mean, it's definitely a. It's a rough life, you know, it's very, very sad that you would even die of tuberculosis.
>> Farz: That one died of scarlet fever. This one's gonna die of starvation. Rise to the liver, like, end it.
>> Taylor: I know, it's pretty, pretty Fucking terrible. Yeah. I hope that makes a lot of sense to me that they would have been asleep.
>> Farz: Yeah, of course. Yeah, that's the most logical thing.
>> Taylor: Yeah, like I didn't think about that, but when like I read that in the intro to the five book, I was like, oh, well, it totally makes sense, you know, like, because they're going to be passed out on the street whether they're like. And like the most of them were drinking so they're not going to hear you coming up behind them with their little clickety clack shoes on the cobblestones, you know, so you can just kill them. Hold on, are you looking at dead bodies?
>> Farz: No. anyways, no, I'm just like reading some random stuff. anyways, no, that's, that's a fun story. It's fun. I don't know, it's too far in the past. We really give a. But I mean it's fun because people.
>> Taylor: Still talk about it though, you know.
>> Farz: Sorry, I don't mean like don't give. I mean it says like usually it's like, oh, it's a sad story, but it's like, who cares? People all would have been dead like you know, three years after this happened anyways.
>> Taylor: Yeah, but it's. I care about it. I think, I think it's so hard. It's so hard to be a woman now. Even things like getting your period in this place, like it just must have been so hard and having babies and like a gross workhouse situation and things like that. Just like you really didn't have a chance.
>> Farz: Okay, 170 years after the fact. Was it not worth it for them to lose their lives so that media could have so much fun content to go off of?
>> Taylor: I know, and that's on us. That's an indictment of the. All of us. We're the killers, the reprologists. Yep. Who are we?
>> Farz: I mean look at you. You're generating content.
>> Taylor: Well, I'm saying you're not wrong.
>> Farz: But I'm glad you're generating the content because I think it's a really interesting thing also. It really adds to the mystique of like old timey London where it's like you can just like kind of close your eyes and like imagine like, just like someone secretly like walking through like the cobblestone alleys with like a trench coat on, like it's foggy and like a little rat stories out on the side.
>> Taylor: Like I mean a thousand percent.
>> Farz: It's a whole vibe. Like it is a little like like when you. When you ask about Halloween Horror Night, like.
>> Farz: All they're really trying to ultimately create is that moody of an atmosphere.
>> Taylor: If you weren't inside when the sun went down, like, good luck, you know.
>> Farz: Again, something you would say about modern day Skid Rogue.
>> Taylor: Yeah, totally. Totally. yeah, pretty terrible. Also, there's like, the. Yeah, the. Oh, my God, there's looking at pictures again. yeah, it's just hard. It reminded me a little bit of like. So the other day I got in the. I was in a parking lot, whatever, and I got in the car and immediately I locked my doors. And I was thinking to myself, oh, I have to remember to teach Florence that, you know, because, like, that's like, you have to do that immediately. And then, like, you know, we talk about this all the time. Like, all the times I would walk home with my keys in my hand, just in case, you know, like in New York, in Queens, like in, like, places that, like, are a thousand times more safe than Whitechapel in 1888. But still never 100% safe, you know.
Taylor says sleeping alone in your house can be incredibly vulnerable
>> Farz: I, got home yesterday. Luna was still the border. And, like, you've seen my house, but you've never been here when it's like, night. And like, when it's night and you're alone in the house and, like, everything is a window around you.
>> Taylor: I know. I was gonna say, I feel like you have not put curtains up, have you?
>> Farz: No, I have not. It is a little bit like, okay, somebody could just like, walk straight into my yard and just be staring at me in bed. And usually I don't even think about it because it's like, Luna's here. And like, she's so horrible. But, she's just a mean dog. And like, like. And I feel it makes me comfortable that she's so mean.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: I mean, I get that feeling too, of, like, the vulnerability of, like, somebody could be out there, somebody could be trying to get in. Like, it's freaky.
>> Taylor: And I think we don't think about how dangerous it is to be, you know, an unhoused person on the street. You know, someone could stab you, like you said, because you're vulnerable, because you're sleeping, like you said in your sleep. 1. You know, like, at some point your body has to shut down. So whether you find, like, a little dark corner to sleep in or, like, you know, a tent in skid row or something, like, it's not safe. You should also get curtains. It's weird.
>> Farz: Lost Angels Watch that that is a document documentary from 2010, filmed on Skid Row, interviewing eight individuals who ended up there. And it is the stuff you hear that those people experience. Like, like crazy.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: Like, you wouldn't wish that on anybody.
>> Taylor: I know. That's really sad.
>> Farz: Taylor, thanks for sharing. We'll leave it on a beat note.
>> Taylor: Woohoo. yeah. Read any of the thousand books in Jack the Ripper. They're all fun. It's fun to be like, I think it's this guy. I think it's this guy to be like, wait a minute, there's this, you know. Oh, that's fun.
>> Farz: do you have anything to sign us off with?
>> Taylor: I do not, but happy Halloween, everyone. I hope you had a nice October. and thank you for listening. Find us on all socials at Doom to fail Pod. Email us. Doom to fail pod gmail dot com. Wait, who do you think Jack the Ripper is? Tell me, let me know.
>> Farz: That'd be a great thing to write.
>> Taylor: In about, but it was obvious. Oh my God. If you are the Zodiac, please call us. Or if you, like, found a letter in your grandpa's house that, like, confirmed that he was Zodiac. You're not sure where to go with that information. We'll take it.
>> Farz: We get press immunity.
>> Farz: Because we're press.
>> Taylor: Yep. We, we can scoop that and be awesome.
>> Farz: sweet. We'll go ahead and cut things off.
>> Taylor: Thank.