Thinking Sideways: The Atlanta Ripper

and Steve. So you guys ready to talk about a mystery? Yeah? Sweet? Yeah, yes, we haven't done in a while. Yeah you like this one's got lots of it. It's been literally days, has been hasn't been a week now? Yeah? Okay, Well, so this week we haven't done a nice bloody one for a while, so you're gonna make us do a bloody one. We're going to talk about the Atlanta Ripper, uh serial killer in the early twentieth century that probably most of you have not heard about. I hadn't beforehand. I didn't

hear about this until pretty recently. Actually, how did you hear about it? I don't remember. Look a like mysteries that will make you like poop your pants, probably something like that. I was doing some random googling, just looking for fund new mysteries, and I don't I don't remember to tell you the truth exactly where I stumbled across

this one somewhere, but yeah, that was kind of interesting. Yeah, so the Atlanta Ripper, um, the Atlanta Ripper murdered a bunch of people, actually young women, uh in the year's nineteen ten. Some say through nineteen twelve. Others say through late nineteen eleven. He killed more people than Jack the Ripper, but Jack gets all the glory. Everybody knows who Jack the Ripper is. We did an episode on Jack the Ripper. We actually did. Yeah, it eventually got big enough to

make the national news. The New York Times May twelfth, nineteen twelve said, quote Jack the Ripper and quote claimed his twentieth woman victim Atlanta sometime last night. The Blacks, who are in a state of terror and try to keep their women off the street at night, have offered a large reward for the arrest of the murderer. I didn't mention this. The Ripper only killed black women, so they called him Jack the Ripper, even in Atlanta, and

they did. They did go and Jack the ripper. Yeah. Interesting, Yeah,

and eventually got one that all this national attention started happening. Um, eventually, you know a lot of the city's leading leading commerce leaders and politicians and everything started pressuring the mayor, who started pressuring the police to actually get serious about this because apparently the Atlanta police, I mean, it's not like they didn't investigate, but you know, I kind of doubt they were working as hard as if it had been

white women who have been getting killed. Probably gonna say, this is nineteen eleven. Yeah, it's a very racially segregated area and not even just nared just a time in this country, and so their priorities were very reflective of that. Well, not to like spark up political debate, I'm just gonna like one off say, even now in America, oftentimes crimes against minorities are not as investigated as crimes against white people.

There is a different effort level. It does appear, sometimes not always, but the fact that that still remains as testament to how how incredible it must have been, you know, in the early ninets. I and I that also makes me want to point something out to our listeners, because I know that there are some quotes as we're going to go through this, and some of that stuff is very reflective at the times. So please, if we're we'll tell you when we're quoting something, but just be aware

of that we're different us. Don't worry. Yeah, alright, here's what's known about the Ripper, at least if you go out and look up the Ripper on the web. He killed his victims every Saturday night like clockwork, and there he bashed him over the head, and then he would drag them into the book and cut their throats and then he would from yeah, from ear to ear, and then he would eviscerate and cut cutting out their lady parts. Like. Yeah, it was hard, right, because all of the articles from

the time are very polite. Yeah, none of them ever say anything explicitly, So they say, you know, cutting out parts, and you're like, what does I don't know what that means. I'm sorry, Yeah, yeah, well, actually I think I know what I'm supposed to infer from that, but I don't know. Yeah, but you know, actually, it turns out the Atlanta Ripper didn't slice up on his victim and take organs out. Yeah, he just bashed them over the head with a rock

or a brick and then would slit their throats. In one case, this is the last really confirmed victim, he did actually remove the victim's heart. Yeah, yeah, but it was the last case, right, probably the last case, so likely the highest escalation that we will have seen. Probably. Yeah, And we don't actually know how many women he killed. And besides that, one other thing that's not true is that killings actually did not happen on Saturdays most of

the time. And actually it's it's really hard to say exactly when some of them did happen because in some cases the body was not actually found for a few days, and back in those days of the state of medical science was not such as it is today, you know, they really and even today it's kind of vague sometimes. Yeah, if a body has been sitting out for several days, it makes it a little more difficult to pin down an exact time of death, especially especially in a hot

place like Atlanta pace. Yeah. Yeah, uh so we don't really know that all of them were killed on Saturdays. Again, we don't know how many women that the ripper murdered. What's the what's the there's a number here. I know that there's there's a range that are believed to be committed by the Atlanta Ripper. Yeah, if you talk to if you read the papers, there's something between nineteen and twenty one. Okay, because I remember being like hugely high

and I was, how how have we not heard this? Yeah? Yeah, it's a lot more than Jack the Ripper. You know, of course Jack the Ripper was killing white people, so maybe that's why you know, it's still a well known thing. And also there actually is more documentation about Jack the Ripper than there is about this guy. That didn't really surprise me that much. Yes, yeah, so I guess our mystery here as well, Who was the Ripper? How many people did he really kill? And he actually even exist?

Because at the time the killings were happening, this is between late nineteen ten and mid nineteen twelve, a lot of people in Atlanta didn't think there actually was a serial killer and all this head bashing and throat slashing was just random murders happening. Well, and there was a there was a number of cases that were attributed as being Ripper cases that it was really There was a lot of assumptions made to say that the m O was the same. Yeah, I think that I think that

usually connected, is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, the press, I think the Atlanta press, I think started going back and adding sort of adding people in to really juice up the story. And a lot of a lot of these nineteen one victims were victims of gunshot wounds, uh and stuff like that, and so there was stabbings. There was stabbings, but not throat slidding and all that. So it doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't him. I mean, maybe you'd like to mix up his m O a little bit.

I don't know. But at the same time, a big city like Atlanta, murders are going to happen anyway, even you don't even if you don't have a ripper on the loose. So anyway, I talked to a guy named Vance McLoughlin, retired professor of Criminal Justice, and he he wrote a paper on the ripper with Robert being the third And you guys have seen that paper, right, yeah, I guess, like, yeah, no, that was that study was actually really really well done. It was, yeah, it was.

He's he's pretty thorough guy. But anyway, he and being looked at the nineteen victims and because they're one when we're referring to one the most. Most of the papers even think that the murders ended in mid nineteen twelve, but there are some people who claim that there was another murder in nineteen thirteen and another one in nineteen fourteen, So that's where generally believe those were just on. Yeah,

so we're gonna start at the number nineteen. They went to all the information they went to like newspaper archives, looked at death certificates and all that, and they managed to remove all the eight from the list, although there's one of them. I'm questioning a little bit. I was. I was thinking I might add it back in, but I'm not really sure. It's got on defense about that

it might be a copycat killing. In fact, there's probably a good good I was gonna say this, this case, because of the publicity, lended itself to have a lot of copycasts. But not at first. Well, I'm talking about it in the in the in the height of it, you know, from from midway on it was would have been such an easy situation for somebody to just do what they thought it was going to be, and it

just gets lumped in. Yeah, but yeah, we've got And there was one person I'm going to talk about a little later on who actually had the clever idea to go murder arrival. She she she kind of got busted and didn't succeed in her crime. But I'll tell you about that. Yeah. Uh. Also getting back to Professor Mittal Offlin again. Um, he writes and researches about his story and obscure serial killers, and he's done a lot of research in the Atlanta Ripper, I think more than anybody really.

I managed to track him down and I gave him a call, and mostly because I wanted to confirm myke my claim that the Ripper didn't mutilate his victims and the Saturday night thing too, and he and he did confirm that, Yeah, there was no mutilation and it wasn't like clockwork or anything like that. That sometimes there would be months in between killings, and there was a period in mid nineteen eleven where there was for about four

murders came along about once a week. That's and that's where it's every Saturday Night I think came because it was about a week apart. Yeah. Anyway, Yeah, the Professor was a was a real nice guy. And we had a nice talk because we don't we both like to talk about murdering Mayhem. Yeah, he was friends and influencing people. I know, I know, I know. I he was like telling me about this this crime that some crimer or other. I can't remember even not what the crime was. It's

not the Atlanta Ripper. And and then that reminded me of Jeremy Bamber. So I was like, I was like, hey, have you ever heard of Jeremy bamber case. He said, no, tell me about it, you know. So I told him about that. I think he's probably gonna check it out, that that's the juicy case. Yeah. Yeah, And we would just going that baton mysteries back and forth like that. But I also wanted to mention the professor's written two books. I told him he didn't ask you too, but I

told him I would give him a plug for his book. So, oh yeah for the healthy gave Yeah, yeah yeah, and uh so as two books are about serial killers. One is called The Postcard Killer. He's about about a pedophile and serial killer named j. Frank Hickey Um and he was finally arrested in nineteen twelve died in prison in ninety two and why he didn't get strung up. It's kind of a mystery to me because the guy's crimes. I don't know if you've read about this guy. Yeah, yeah, yea.

The criming got caught for is uh he lured a seven year old boy with promises of going to a candy store, took him to an outhoud. Is gonna be heinous, Oh, it's heinous. It's gonna gets more heinous. Well, he so he rapes a little boy, strangles him, stuff them down in the outhouse, and then eighteen days later, the chief of police in this town gets a postcard basically saying where you can find the body, and he sends he sends two cops around to check the outhouse. Oh, I

forgot to mention. After he murdered the little boy, he went into the saloon and started drinking. That's palsy um. So anyway, the cops did not see the body down there. Apparently some other people who come along go figure eighteen days later and the body was covered with something. Yeah, body didn't get fine found until like a year later. Well, so many time the boys, the little boys still missing. His parents are of course, are quite anguished about it.

He started sending postcards to to the parents, taunting them. It's a common sentiment with psychopaths. Yeah, well, actually there's I can't think of a single case where somebody has sent postcards to the family of their victims. There a number of things that I've read about where people have been sending stuff to the families. It's a terrible, terrible thing. I don't understand why he didn't get the death penal

team that. Anyway. That book is The Postcard Killer, and the other book that he's written is called The Mail Order Serial Killer, and then about it's about a guy named Harry Powers who it is thought to have killed as many as fifty people. And he did get strung up. He was let's see when it was. I think it was caught in nineteen late nineteen one and put on trial, and he was strung up about six seven months later

in early nine two. A fair and speedy trial. Yeah, they didn't waste a lot of time back in those days. Uh So, Anyways, enough of that. I haven't read the books yet. They get good reviews on Amazon, except for one guy is one guy who ordered The Postcard Killer. And there's another book out there called The post Killers by James Patterson. You know that guy who writes a lot of crime novels. Yeah, I guess, I guess he was wanting to get that book he actually done ordered

The Postcard Killer. He ordered this one instead, and he posted a one star review because he was so he was because he got the wrong book because he ordered because it's like, yeah, this is a bone head. Yeah. The other reviews are five star reviews. Okay, yeah, yeah, anyway, I back back to our our Atlantic killings. H. McLoughlin and being took two of the victims off the list because they died of gunshot wounds. Yeah not really. One was. Their throat was slashed, but she was thrown into the

river afterwards, and so that one I didn't match. It doesn't quite match. CMO was to bash him in the head, cut their drag him somewhere secluded, and then cut their throats. Yeah yeah, another victim and added her skull crush, but her throat was not slit. Another one was stabbed in the throat and um for those were eliminated because someone other than the ripper had been convicted for killing them.

Two more were eliminated because they were probable suspects, and but one of them is the one that I was thinking maybe possibly should be on the list. But that could also be the copycat killing that I was talking about. So anyway, they neared a way down to a still still a pretty decent amount of people. It's still quite a number of people for one person say it's more than I plan on killing. I was just saying I

haven't gotten a killing yet, not me neither. Yeah, despite all of your hard work, you know how hard it is to kill people from my office chair. It's really difficult. I don't lift a finger and they don't die, and it's really sith. Yeah, this is there's no working out. Yeah yeah, but the problem is is with with committing murders unless you go out and the totally randomly kill somebody, if you kill somebody because you're highly motivated to murder them,

and that's kind of points a finger back at you. Yeah, so probably never gonna kill anybody. So I don't like blood. So I also mentioned, didn't mention this one person saw the ripper and lived to tell the tale. Yeah that was Emma Lou Sharp. She described him as a tall black man with broad shoulders, wearing a black suit and a wide brimmed hat. Uh. There was one other account that I read said another woman named Mary Adell had

met the ripper. She left her employer's lists and went out in the alley and she saw a tall black man. I think this was right after the reports in the newspapers from Emily Lou Sharp seeing a tall black man. She goes out of the alley, sees a tall black man and runs back inside and tells her employer. He goes out and confronts the guy. The guy just left, but he had a gun. The the employer went out with a gun. Well, yeah, and just because he was

tall and black doesn't really make him the ripper. When you see somebody run into the where I think he was in an alleyway, right, Yeah, run into the alleyway brandishing a firearm. I'm gonna leave. I'm gonna leave it as well. Yeah. So you know, Emma Lose the only one who saw him and lived to tell. But because she got attacked, she did get attacked. Yeah, she got stabbed in the stabbed in the back. Yeah. Yeah. So I'll talk about that in a minute here, just in

in chronological order. We'll talk about the murders. First one was October three, nineteen ten. That was Maggie Brooks, Stage twenty three, walking home from work one night and somebody bashed her on the head and and slit her throughout. And then months later rose a Trice her body was found really close to her house, like about seventy five yards away. This is but three or two months later, So yeah, January nineteen eleven, two months Yeah, yeah, yeah,

I'll tell you. Let's see, and I say, bore more like three and a half months, but you know whatever. Her husband was arrested for this. He was released for lack of evidence. Um and that it does fit the m O pretty well. Next up, Made seven, nineteen eleven, Mary Walker, age unknown. Her body was actually found in the rear of her home. She had left her job as a cook the previous night, and I'm guessing that

the ripper followed her home. And people say, I'm not sure what these accounts mean, that she was actually in her home or in the yard behind her home. I'm not totally sure. Every time I read it, I got the impression that she was outside. Yeah, it never I never got the idea that the ripper was killing people inside of their home. Yeah, I don't think so. Yeah, I don't think. I don't think. I don't think so. I think it's a heck of a lot more work

than he was up for. Yeah, I think so. Uh So. Anyway, still at this time, there's still months going by, but now it's sped up a little bit. Next one was June nineteen eleven, so you know a little over two weeks later. That was Addie Watts and she'd been hit with a brick instead of a rock and then dragged into the bushes and her throat was cut. Next up, June, only nine days later, Lizzie Watkins SMMO she was hit with a rock row cut. And then came Lena Sharp.

That's Emma Lou Sharp's mother mother. Yeah. There are two versions of this. The version, the version you hear the most is that Lena had gone to the store and when she hadn't come back in about an hour, Emma Lou got worried and went looking for and went to the store and she hadn't been to the store. So she's walking back home. We're frantically worried about her mother. And this runs into this black guy, tall, black guy, broad shoulders and all that stuff, and and he said

to her, how are you feeling tonight? And she said she was feeling fine, and she tried to walk past him, and he says, don't be afraid. I never hurt girls like you, and then stabbed her in the back and laugh was a great joke. Yeah, I don't think that's a joke at all. Yeah, it's sick. Yeah. Yeah. And and of course the body of her mother was found

not too much longer after that. The second the second version, I forgot to mention, by the way, that first story was from the Atlantic Constitution, and there were several papers in Atlanta at the time. Yeah. Yeah, the ex version is from the Atlanta Journal. And this version of it, Lena and Emily were out walking and then he together, yeah, together, and he jumped out of the bushes. He hits Lena on the head with a brick, and then she's she's

knocked unconscious. So he starts slashing at Emma lou who screams and runs but faints from blood loss because apparently he did connect a few times and then and then she ran off. The ripper cuts Lena's throat and then follows Emma lou She wakes up and finds him standing over her with a knife. But then the sounds of people running, footsteps and everything. People came running, and so he took off into the darkness. So one of two stories,

you know, I'm inclined to believe the first one. The second one sounds like it's from a John Gresham novel. You know, it's just just it's just perfect. Oh that the high tension of it all, Like it just sounds like he is a reporter running off his little deal. I don't know, you don't think that him say don't worry, I never hurt girls like you, and then stabbing her in the back and laughing. That's not out of a John Grisham novel. Like that's not so you think that's

more believable. I do, really dicer Manson saying that as he walked by you on the street. I mean, I just think this the second one sounds more like his m O. You know that he like passed her over the head and then was standing over her, and she happened to come to, but he never attacked a pair of all of the cases that of the that we there are, this this central core eight murders that are believed that he attributing they're always alone, so this is

a real jump. She was alone too, You mean it's just single a night by themselves, one at a time, alone walking down the street. I don't know she was alone walking down the street. No, No, it was her and her mother walking together in the second version version, Yeah, which is the one you're saying that you find more plausible. But I don't know. I just I think the m

O of that second one sounds more plausible. Well but but okay, so, but so why not keep in mind why not both keep in mind that Emma lou is the mother, correct, was the daughter? Okay, so it's Lena. Lena was hit in the head with a rock, and she did have her slow or her throat slit, and she was drug away from where it appears she was hit. So that's consistent with the m O, right, I think that. Yeah. The other thing about it is is I don't think he would have stuck around to slit Lena's throats. If

Emma los running away there's a witness. Yeah, you gotta go catch her and bash her head in and then you're gonna do all the throat slit and part of that. Yeah. But anyway, after that, after Lena's or sees Me, after Emma Lose account hit the papers and everybody had heard of the description of the killer, we had our first confirmed attempt at a copycat killing. Yeah. Yeah, it's somebody named Katie Cochrane. Um. She wanted to murder her husband's girlfriend.

Who doesn't Yeah, I know, I know. Her name was Maddie Alexander. So Mrs Cochrane was tall, so she figured she could pass herself off as a ripper. So she dressed herself up in a black suit and a wide brim, stets and hat and then over yeah, and then went

over to Maddie's house with a straight razor. And by the way, you know, the whole thing about about him boring a black suit and the why white brim had he probably didn't necessarily wear the same costume every time, you know, all the one person saw him one time. I mean, he might have mixed up his boardrobe a little bit. So anyway, he goes over to Maddie's. It

doesn't matter. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Okay, Now what I was just gonna say, Like in the early it's not as though people had like extensive wardrobes, clothes where it's not as though you had a closet full of clothes. You had different I mean there was a thing. There was such a thing as having different collar pieces. You were replaced the collar on your shirt because that was what would get dirty and sweaty. You would wear the same shirt, the same suit jacket, the same pants really

as long as you could. So it's not reasonable to think that he might have had something the same or even very similar. That we're all interchangeable. Well, any other reason to wear dark clothes is that night blood doesn't show up on them. Well, they just don't show dirt as much. Yeah, probably just thinking about the blood in general, and then you want to wear red probably yead, I mean black is probably better blood and Deadpool obviously joke is coming from I have not seen Deadpool yet. I

want to see it. I can tell you, as a lady who has to deal with blood on a fairy regular basis, black is the colors. Yeah, but we were talking about the confrontation between Katie Cochrane and Maddie Alexander. So he goes over to a house with a straight razor and her idea was to lure out of the house and then can kill her. Maddie answered the door, but not surprisingly, refused to leave her house because yeah, well because you know, it was out. It was out,

it was out in the news. And maybe Katie cochrane shouldn't have telegraphed her intentions by dressing up like the Ripper. Yeah. She made also made the mistake of talking about this to a couple of women, one of whom ratting around. Yeah, I love that. You know what I think I'm gonna do tonight. I think I'm going to be the Atlanta Ripper. Yeah, I'm just gonna go murder somebody, kill somebody. I just don't like her very much. I'm gonna kill her. She's

screwing around with my husband. I'm gonna go slit her through. So she got thirty days in jail for that one days. Well, I mean she didn't actually attempt the murder. She I mean she she kind of attempted the murder she was planning on. She didn't do anything. She didn't actually, you know, there's a lot of rulings that are around this case that are so twenty seven days in jail, what why?

But today that would be a five year sentence. Yeah, there was some guy who was arrested and tried for next We're gonna talk about him in a second anyway, all right here he is, Yeah, nineteen July nineteen and right around the same time, a guy named Jim Murphy was put on trial. It wasn't it wasn't like the trial of the century because his his crime was threatening to cut his wife's throat. So it's a threat. Yeah,

it was a threat. Apparently it was. It was motivated by jealousy, and so he wanted to cut a throat. And at trial somebody mentioned the possibility that Jim Murphy might actually be the ripper. Uh, this is one of the guys who was one of the doubters. A judge at the trial, again named and Are Broyles, said, and I'm quoting here, quote, there is no such thing in

Atlanta as a negro jack the ripper unquote. And he didn't want on to say, quote there are at least one thousand negro men in Atlanta today who stand ready to cut the throats of their wives at the slightest provocation. I feel like you could like edit that to say there are at least ten thousand men in Atlanta today

who stand ready to cut their throats of their wife. Yeah, I mean right, yeah, this guy's got Anyway, this guy was you know, didn't we say it wasn't that a quote that we had recently that was like the only thing that makes you a murderer's matrimony? That it was some months ago. There was something about that that sounds vaguely familiar. Yeah. So anyway, he was kind of a skeptic about this, uh, and appears a lot of the

white population of Atlanta. I thought that this was just a case of black people doing what black people do, which, in their opinion, was just killing each other, which is kind of a shame. Yeah, it is. It is Julia Wallace. Julia Wallace from a similar time period. In fact, yes, that was right about that time now before nineteen fifty. That's all the same time period, right between eighteen fifty and nineteen fifty. Well, according to some people, that era in time was made up, So I don't know if

it was that particular, It wasn't that. Yeah, that's a different episode. Yeah, we'll talk about that. That's kind of an interesting theory. Yeah, Anyway, most people thought this was most of the white population kind of thought it was a hoax. Time. No, I wouldn't even say most, but there was a substantial the people who maybe you wouldn't want to think it was a hoax, like judges and police officers and sheriffs and stuff. Well, if if not a hoax, it wasn't connected, so you know, it wasn't

one guy doing at all. It just happened to be a bunch of murders that happened to look similar that we're not, according to the authorities, done by the same person. Yeah, you gotta like kind of like smiley face murders. Yeah, it's like, yeah, I mean it's like it's it's entirely possible. I think it's unlikely, but it's entirely possible. If these were all just random murders, it could be. I doubted.

Another theory that was out there was a local chriff named Plenty Minors actually said that the killings were probably jealous wives knocking off their husband's girlfriends. Just maybe he was inspired by Katie Cocker And I don't know. Uh, And of course we should remember it. Back in those days, the whole phrase serial killer had not yet been invented. And maybe some people just couldn't wrap them. It's around the idea that a single person would go around murdering

random people. Well, it took serial killers who were quite prolific to be busted and have very concrete evidence brought forward before I think that people just would actually accept It's like, no, there's no way that that guy killed all those people and stuffed him in his basement and then they called them all out of his basement. They go, oh, that's weird. That's a weird thing. Maybe we should like investigate at some point, what did did this thing not

exist before this time? Was it way less prevalent or was it just not the concept of a serial killer? Not the concept? Did people just you know, in like seventeen hundreds, did people were there not serial killers? Actually? I mean I would assume there had to have been, But were there not as many because there weren't as many people? Or like, that's an interesting question to me again for another episode. All there. I actually now that

you imagined that. I heard a very interesting theory regarding that, and that is that serial killers have always been with us, and that is actually quite possibly the genesis of a lot of our monster tals, things like the werewolves and vampires and things like that. A lot of those superstitions might be from these weird killings that were happening, you know, thousands, thousands of years ago. People in the village was showing up and disemboweled and cut into pieces and stuff like that,

and so people admitted monsters. So maybe it's it's an interesting theory, it is, and it's kind of hard to check out if it's true or not without getting in the way back machine. At this time, of course, in black in Atlanta, you can imagine black folks, uh mostly believed in the Ripper's existence because I mean, he was

killing them. Yeah, it was a scary time. A lot of people started spending a whole lot more time at home, believe it or not, especially at night, which probably you know, escalated the killing because oh my god, I'm around my family all the time. Yeah, yeah know that feel yeah

uh yeah. Anyway that they were Black women were afraid to be murdered and black men were afraid of getting arrested and accused of being the Ripper because especially after the after total climate yeah well yeah, definitely, and you know, after the started putting pressure on the police. You could see why how the cops might just decide to paint it on somebody, which they did. Yeah, a couple of times. They at least tried. They arrested some people for it.

Let's go back to our victim list. So we're almost done with that. The next murder, number seven was on July tenth, nineteen eleven. That was Sadie Holly. Her body was found by some workmen. She'd been bashed in the head with a large stone which was found nearby, and that she was dragged off in her throat was cut and in this case, her shoes had been cut off her feet, which was kind of an interesting things. And that was not nor that was not indicative of I

don't think so. Now, Okay, it's it's indicative. It's indicative of the weird psychology of a serial killer, right, but it's not something that we had seen in the Pritor six cases that we know of. Her shoes had been cut off her feet, her feet hadn't be correct. Yeah, my brain is yeah, I'm sorry, my brain interpreted that the wrong way. Yeah, her shoes were caught were her shoes found close to her body? Pretty close they were, but they were found. They were found, so it wasn't

as though they were taken as a souvenir. No, No, they weren't. When the next murder I'm going to talk about this is the one that might be real or it might be a copycat. This is one of the ones that McLoughlin and being took off their list. But I'm gonna put it back on at least for a second. Here her her shoes were also removed. Uh. And other than that, it was the usual m O except for one of the things. This was many wise by the way, and her right index finger had been hackedocked off at

the middle joint. Was a little change up in the m O. And I had no idea why that happened. There's no real earthly reason for it that I can think of, although maybe again just some escalation or it was a defensive maybe seen him coming and put up her hand and he took a swipe badder and happened to catch fingers what I had to have been a woll sharp knife cut through a fingerbone. Some of these, some of these attacks, they are the bodies are described

as the heads nearly being taken off. Okay, but so like just in terms of like the physics of cutting a finger off. He would have to hit it perfectly. It would have had to been super sharp and super on target. I get the but I'm just saying that,

you know, so like, but that's a different thing for me. Like, it's pretty easy if you're sorry for the morbidity of this, But if if a victim is laying, you know, on their back on the ground, it's not so hard to shove a sharp knife in and pull it across to almost sever ahead versus like in the air, my hands are up. I think he probably deliberately took it off. It would have to have been like she was laying there, and it's not so hard to just something off if

it's against solid ground. That's why we use cutting boards. That's why we don't like cut carrots in the air. Point right. I've actually heard that apparently fingers are similar to carrots that you're talking about flavor or what in ease of cutting. Okay, that's what I would think they'd be tougher, because I would think that that would be the case, But apparently it's I mean, carrots, you know,

like they really thick ones. They can be pretty hard to cut through suppose, Yeah, especially we will how you cut fingers off? Whoa okay after after the shows that we're done recording, or we're gonna rosembo and pick one person to be rooms all over again. Right, it's a lighter Yeah, I haven't seen that one. You don't know? Yeah, okay, what was it talking about? Many Wise? Yeah? Many Wise? Because the finger, I'm thinking she also had a husband. Do you have a husband? But I was sticking with

a finger. I was sticking. I wonder if she had a ring on that finger, and it just didn't want to come off. But yeah, well, anyway, she her husband. His name was Bud Wise. I think it's a cool name. Yeah. I like that he was arrested. Apparently she was jealous of her. Apparently she was was jealous of he was

jealous of her. Yeah, she was apparently sort of interested, I don't know, seriously or not in some other guy, and he had threatened to kill her, and the detectives in this case felt like he was just taking advantage of the whole Ripper thing to camouflogeist on murder and that it was, you know, actually a copycat murder. But

which is something Joe thinks about a lot. Yeah, exactly, you know, you know, well, yeah, I mean aware if if a serial killer ever comes to light in Oregon, I'm going and hiding from Yeah, I know, I know exactly because my name. Time time to kill Devan and replace her with somebody else. Yeah, just hiding his gun closet. She doesn't have the combination. Yeah, and I come in here. You'll be safe. Yeah. And it's possible this is a

copycat killing. As possible. A few of the other ones were copycat killings because this is a great time to go settle the score. You just want to be really careful not to get arrested. You know, you got to kill just one person and they all get picked on you, so that wouldn't be so good. And that's that's why so many people, I think, I feel like so many deaths were attributed to the Atlanta Ripper because people were like,

somebody's out there killing women. I really hate that. Broad perfect opportunity and just you know, kill her in some fashion that you know it has something to do with cutting the neck, and then it gets lumped on like that's why I feel like the number was so was it? Eighteen was the nineteen or something. It was just ya, Can we just pause to say that that really upsets me?

What's that? Just the fact that there are so many dudes out there in this like in that supposition, right, there's so many dudes out there in Atlanta who are like, I really hate this lady. I'm going a killer within like a year's two year span. But a lot of women out there thinking, what's her name? Who got in trouble for dressing? I'm sorry, let me amend that there are that many people out there like that's actually very

upsetting to me. I am more comforted by the fact that it's one single psychopath who's just like killing people at will than it is that there are twenty or thirty people who are like, you know what, this person, I don't like them very much. There's a serial killer out there. I'm just gonna kill this person. Somebody else will get the credit. That's fine. I have no more a quandary with that at all. That is way more upsetting to me than a serial killer who might have

killed twenty people. Way more upsetting. That's the thing. I guess. This is why I don't like people in rule as a rule. That's why my like I'm I'm much happier with the theories of like it was one person. It's fine. Yeah, well if it makes you feel any better though, as overall trend murders murder was going down, it's been going Yes, that does make me feel better. I have not yet been murdered that you haven't not yet, so that's good.

So next victim, Yeah, what are we talking about? Oh yeah, we're our last victim, at least according to the professor. And I was writing partner Murder number eight, Mary Putnam. This is the one that was different. Her body was found in a ditch and it had been covered with some loose dirt and her heart to bury it. Yeah, I wasn't a serious attempt. It's just like kicking dirt over it, I think, you know. Yeah, but any attempt to bury it shows some remorse, right, that's the typical Like,

that's how people is that. I'm sorry. You guys are both looking at me like the brand new concept to you. I don't take that as remorse. I take that as I normally hide it in the bushes, and there's no bushes. How do I hide it so I can get away? So that's probably it was what it was. But this was different than that her heart was cut out. It

was laying next to her. So yeah, that's a deviation. Yeah, and usually you don't see that kind of escalation at the very right the that kind of escalation continues usually unless that person is caught. That's the thing is that, like, as far as we know, the ripper wasn't caught. Again, it's just like the the British Jack the Ripper, just this is it. But I mean with the British the peak and then it just goes away. With the British

Jack the Ripper. I feel like there was a natural peak of like that's about the worst thing you could do to a body, kind of again, we're okay, we're gonna go down the same rabbit holes and then it stopped right. But but I mean like that the thing for me is like, okay, so like if the escalation of the ever psychosis that's going on is this is literally the worst thing you could do to the body. The worst thing you could do to body is like kind of cut a heart out and leave it next

to it. Like that's not true. There's so much more so you would I for me, as a total armchair person who I guess has a couple of years of experience of reading about cases like this. At this point, I would expect that if this person were free, that that there would be that escalation, unless we're going to go to Joe's de facto explanation of there was one person in the mix that was the intended target and everybody else was just like to cover up the rest

of it. Yeah, there is always that, I think though, if there that this had been somebody just wanted to kill one person. Non't need to kill eight people or nine or whatever. K. Yeah, So can we go back and re record the Jackie the Ripper episode because they feel like that was the argument with Jackie? Right? And I mean, am I crazy that? Like? Did you not make that argument there? Yeah? Well, that that's the thing about it. You know, jack the Ripper murdered five women.

No need to murder five women. Just the question is is like, is like up to the point he started murdering them, why wasn't he murdering them before? And why wasn't he murdering them afterwards? You know? Why? Yeah? Well, I mean I think that the general assumption is that you read about people who are serial killers who have been caught and their parents are people who are close to them say yeah, they were like it was weird.

They were mulated squirrels all over the place, or like he beat the dog up and then suddenly he was big enough to take it into human realm and then he was caught, or the escalation finished, or he moved out of that area, yeah or she? I mean, serial killers are by a large male, but there are some females, So I just default to the male pronoun. I apologize. Most murders are I apologized all of the female serial killers out there who were like, hey, what about me?

I apologize that's last name. I mean, yeah, that's true. No, I mean that's but that's that's the general slope of escalation. What are you going to call that? The general something of escalation, general path of escalation. Maybe that's the word I'm looking so, yeah, I mean, well there wasn't there was some escalation here. I mean he cut off a finger and the victim number section and then the heart, the heart. That's that's a big jump I have to jump. Yeah. Yeah.

And then if he did stop, why because out of the yeah, he moved, he moved out of town. Maybe. I mean by this time, it was kind of late nineteen eleven and the police were really serious about it and everybody was on edge. Maybe he just set the decided to just move on. You know, it's hard to say, you know what England man, well, you know what tooth that life was more dangerous back then. Maybe somebody murdered him. Yeah,

you know, you don't know work environment. Yeah yeah, I mean we didn't have antibiotics back in those so yeah, I mean it's really easy to get done in by just an internal infection. Yeah, yeah, yeah. According to the papers, the killings resumed in nineteen twelve, and they were five maybe ripper murders that year, and then it ended. I did come across one source you claimed that there was another one as I mentioned before, in nineteen thirteen, and

another in nineteen fourteen. This is a guy I don't take very seriously because he's one of the people that makes the claim that the the Ripper mutilated his victims, and as we know, that's not true, and it's based on the death certificates that were looked up talking about specifically what was done to the body. Yeahs Professor Moriarty. Yeah, Professor McLaughlin. Uh. He said that they almost just about in all cases got ahold of the death certificates. And

so do we believe those five in nineteen twelve? I don't think so. So these got the five in nineteen twelve. I mean, let me think here, three of them, three of them were eliminated because somebody was arrested and convicted for their murders. Yeah, and then the other two another one with one of them was stabbed and another one that d m O was different. So it's really just the media sensationalizing these Yeah, I mean, I mean once they had this whole, this whole state of killings. You know,

obviously these weatheren are showing up dead. Obviously the person in your conclusion you're going to jump to is that the horrible thing that happened to you? And this this guy too, this guy is I don't know if you watched any of that video? Is the link to the really awful one? Did you want? You? In fact, advised me to not watch it. I did after watching a little bit of it, but then I said, if you were a call, I told you should watch at least a few minutes like I did. Watch a few minutes

just to find out how bad that is. Was it bad or what? Yeah, I mean it was not good. Now, it's hard. There's so many Sometimes I am tempted to say, Steve, let's post the link to this thing so that people can understand the hardships that we face when we research our episode. Yeah, because I can't do that now. This one, this one was an hour and a half long interview,

and I suffered through about an hour of it. Right. Yeah, it's like her so her on video facing the camp round, then a picture of the guy, but he was mostly talking, and so she was kind of bored the whole time. Yeah, she would be looking around or just making weird expressions. She also was thick, Yeah, and she was had running

eyes and yeah, watering eyes. But no, I mean so that that guy that she was interviewing, uh, claimed to be an expert on this and he said another thing, Yeah, and he said he also said that black serial killers are extremely rare and that all serial killers are almost all of them are white, which that's offensive. Well, let's complete bonk. I mean, actually, the serial killers are are

very well distributed among the races. I was gonna say, I'm just I'm sorry, I'm staring, and I know that you're both looking at like I'm a weirdo, because I'm just baffled by that it is. It is not attributed to any race, and while it is to one gender more than another, it's it's a distributed Oh yeah, that's I mean in America, obviously it's a majority white country, so obviously the majority of sailor killers are gonna be white.

But but personally, personally percentage maybe accurately, yeah, as as a percentage of the population that it's demographic same, about the same percentage of each it's going to be roughly the same. When you're talking about you know, crazy people transcend everything, Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, yeah, you know, it could be that one particular race. I doubt it is more susceptible to this kind of stuff, but I don't think so. I really kind of doubt that because we

hear about this all over the world. Oh yeah, oh yeah, it does happen everywhere. You just take different forms. I mean sometimes, right, you are are extra smart, and so you figure out how to say, like, oh, I'm a witch doctor, so it's okay that I'm murdering all these people right, or oh hey I'm a savior, so it's okay that I'm murdering all these people, or oh hey I'm the king. You know, it's it just goes on and on, but you find them everywhere. Yeah, pretty much theories.

Yet we're gonna we're gonna start theories. Yeah. Now, we usually get to the theories a lot sooner than this theory is gonna be short. Actually, so our theories are one, the Ripper did not exist? Well, I do the way this means that every one of these was every unique murder was by a unique perpetration, and it just happened to be that some of them shared some similarities. Yeah, I think it's fair to say that it's possible that not every murder attributed to the Ripper was done by him.

But but I do think especially in middle two thousand or nineteen eleven, mid nineteen eleven, do yeah, yeah, I do lanswer Ripper had a time machine. What do you got? But what do you guys think? Do you do buy into the whole Ripper didn't exist things? Yeah? So our next theory is that this put forth by a plenty of minors. The sheriff that was black, wives, murdering their husband's girlfriends. Please. Yeah, well, I know that there's a lot of wives who would like that to be the case.

I don't think that's I also don't think they are that. I don't think that that it's that rampant right that husbands kind friends. Yeah. So there's the thing. A lot of dudes like to think that they are cool enough and hot enough and suave enough to get a girlfriend. I'm sorry, we're all fat and ugly. The one we got lucky with, the one that one now nine percent of men can't manage to get to handle to it one. It's not it's it's it really is hard to keep

all your lives straight and everything. But really, yeah, so it's better and better just to keep it simple, you know, it really is. So so what's our next one? Well, our next series is that the Ripper did exist. Yeah, I think he most likely did. Uh. For one thing, throat cutting I think is not a really it's not a really typical murder method. It's not. It's also fairly gruesome. We're saying, if we were going to go with the

Ripper was just a bunch of black lives murdering husband's girlfriends. Like, that's an intense way to do it. It's also not well, I guess bashing someone over the head hard enough to knock them out, that sars a significant amount of physical stress. And then on top of that, the will or guile even to split someone ear to ear intense, you guys, that's really yeah. I think that most people that get

killed with knives are usually stabbed. Yes, So I would say, I mean, you know, once, right, you do the one and you're like, oh god, that was right, But I don't have to do it again. I don't have to,

you know, drag that knife anywhere. So I would say, it's one person who And here's a great the thing about stabbing them is that if if you stabb somebody, if you're strong enough and accurate enough that you can hit it, hit a vital organ and just you just walk away, pull a knife out, and there's not going to be that much blood, nothing, nothing at all compared to the kind of blood you're gonna get on you

when you cut somebody's throats. So that's right, you yeah, when you like, especially when you split the jugular, yeah, spread all over the place. Yeah, I know. And of course there's always you know, there's always I think if this was random people, I think it would be more stabbings and shootings and nuts throw cuttings. So I think this was truly a serial killer with pop the majority. There were some outliers, possibly a copycat in there. But yeah,

so who was nobody knows. Yeah, nobody knows that where some guys arrested. There were suspects, right, there were six guys. Thought I saw the names of like five, but they always say there were six people. Yeah, well, and that's that, that's if you count there were a couple of other people who were arrested for individual murders. People that were that were counted in, they were lumped in with those guys and so yeah, so, but but I came across four.

So there's Todd Henderson. Then he was arrested, but he was he was actually in custody when several murders happened the whole either that, yeah, either that he has some really good friends on the outside that went out and murdered people just to give him a good alibi. I doubt it. Yeah, I kind of doubt that. Another guy was Henry Huff who was He was arrested for the murder of City Holly. But again it appears that one more murder happened while he was in custody, and so

he was also acquitted. Me. Yeah, they were both trying and to quitted. Uh. Next up was Henry Brown. He was put on trial for the killings, but it turns out the Atlanta police had beating a confession out of him. He was acquitted. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, so that it's doubtful. And then he said, yeah they figured out once they figured out that the police had done that, it was because he was willing to say anything. Basically, Um, you

want me to say, I have wings. I have wings and I flew from the top of a building and I got him. Yeah, yeah, is that what you want? Okay, great, no, no flinching, don't come near me. That that's House of Yearly. They beat this guy. To be honest with you, I don't think I would have to get beat that hard to be in that mindset, you know, with a night stick, I'd be like, yes, I will say literally whatever you want. Yes I am I'm Russian. But yeah, yeah, never reminds

me of a joke. But I'll tell you guys later. Yeah. Yeah, who else Charlie Owens was considered, but he was arrested for the murder of his wife, A Lacey Owens and nineteen twelve, and I think this was after the murders stopped. He was sentenced to life. I'm just not seeing him as a suspect because he just had a good motive for murdering his wife. Yeah, and not necessarily murdering people

that he doesn't know. That's a weird way to work up to killing your own wife practice maybe, yeah, I guess, Yeah, I have a wife. You have a wife. You tell me I've been practicing killing her for a while, and yeah, she's going to kill you first, know you. Yeah, you don't know Steve's wife as well as I do, but she's a lot more intense than he is. Yeah, I've met her, Yeah, I have met I've met the Mrs Steve. Yeah. Yeah.

Now that's it for our suspects. Were It's just about certain we're never going to find out who the ripper was. I do believe he existed. The only chance is if somebody stumbles across their great great uncle's journal maybe and some whole family papers. Chances are good that if somebody stumbles across that, they're not gonna probably want to share it. I gotta be honest, I wouldn't. I don't know. I'd be highly tempted myself. But there's not that much money

in it though, that's true. But yeah, people think, oh wow, I've got this great sensational story and one place offers you a little bit of cash. It's gonna be a cash cown trying to tell the world, and the world doesn't care well exactly it. If you came across the same thing for after ripper, that's a different story. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, like even for me though, it's it's you know, it's one thing if the cases

involved are like missing people. If you find a diary of your great uncle who says I murdered all of these missing kids and the bodies, that's a matter of closure for those families, these families, right, These families all know their family members were murdered for what reason who knows? And by who? Who knows. But I don't think these families, I don't get the sense that these families are searching for some kind of like grandiose closure, right, so that

like what what what good does it do? At that point. Well, you know, frankly, it's subsidy. It's like us from talking about it. Yeah, it's probably a pointless discussion. Realistically, they're not that many idiots like us talking about this, though according to the Internet there is there's a lot of them. Well, I think it's academic because it's very unlikely anybody's going

to come across anything. So come across that old, that old journal of your great uncles and you read the three pages of it and you said you're a great uncle was a boring guy, and you stopped reading it, and that's that. And so I don't think it's gonna happen. We'll never know unless one day we go back in the way back machine. We will, Yeah, because I know the thing about it is I know the dates of the murders, and I know the addresses. Yeah, we've got intersections,

and we are white people. Yeah, it would be very easy lend right in. Yeah. Yeah, so so much for the Atlanta River. But anyway, folks, now, now you know a little bit more about one more serial killer than you ever heard of. Yeah, it's perfect. That's why you listen to us, Right, You shouldn't leave your house because they're everywhere. Just stay inside and listen to us from home. Don't even work from home. No, there will be no

working from home. Just shut yourself in the basement, build yourself a little bunker that you can live in, sell the house to other people, live in your bunker in your basement. It sounds good, right, perfect? Yeah, you guys have any more theories? Yeah? Yeah, okay, well let me let me hand out a few useful factoids here. You probably want to like know what our website as well.

Our website is thinking Sideways podcast dot com, where you can download episodes, you can leave comments, check our links because we always post links to the various resources for these mysteries. And of course you're probably listening to us on iTunes. If you're not listening to us on iTunes, you can subscribe to us there and also leave us a review, a good review, preferably, And you can stream us from anywhere. I think every website, yeah, not even

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and there's all kinds of fun in that group. On Twitter, Thinking Sideways we left off the g because we're so hip and there was a character live it too, right yeah yeah, and our email of course Thinking Sideways podcast at gmail dot com. You can communicate with us with us there. We just want to tell us how awesome we are. That's cool, or how not so awesome, or if you have a suggestion those are nice. That's a

good place, you know. Uh. I guess I'm just gonna go ahead and say again, uh, leaving us a comment on like iTunes of like why you don't like the show or like the sound quality is bad? Don't Those are all email at well. The problem is a lot of that is episode specific, and that we've been saying that in the last six months. It's in the back catalog, and usually it's folks who have listened to one episode

and have made their decision. I just if you have something you want to discuss with us, do it in a format that you can discuss with us, send us an email to meet at us, do it on Facebook. Something that we can interact with you on or reddit. You know, that's supper, and frankly, if it comes to our email account, we're a lot more likely to see it. Yeah, I don't know. I patrol those other ones pretty heavily. Yeah. Well, I mean there's nothing you can do on things like iTunes.

That's what you're getting. That's what we can't say anything when iTunes is iTunes and we're done. But if you genuinely don't like us, leave us about a review on iTunes on I prefer you go to the Humpington Post and leave. That's some nasty comments in the comments section. But yeah, whatever, if you have to do that, I guess, uh, we have a subreddit, so go check out the subreddit. I'm not sure. I haven't. I haven't looked at it for a while. Is anything going on out there? It's great? Yeah,

that's cool. Okay. Oh and last of all, this is a part where the phone start ringing in the background. You can go to patriarch dot com if you want to support us. You can actually pledge money, like, you know, a dollar an episode or gud knows what. And if you send an episode, who absolutely stripped the optional folks you don't have to do it at all, but if you feel like it and you want to support us, and you know, that's cool. So that's Patreon dot com

slash thinking sideways. And we've also got the PayPal which is also on the website if you just want to do it one time, which is awesome. And we've got the merchandise. Got cool merchandise. Yeah, and so yeah, that's a little through the right hand panel on the website. Yeah, yeah, right on. Anyway, that's about it from here. Um uh, you guys have any more thoughts about the line ripper or anything else? Yeah, I just don't. Yeah, I think

he's dead by now. Probably doesn't. Yeah, You're logic's quite sounding. I love you. Put it another way as sure as hell. Hope he's dead. Yeah yeah, okay. Anyway, so for this week, I'm signing off to lu by guys by