Charles was headed to work in the early morning darkness when he saw something lying on the cobbles, slumped against a gate. It was the body of a woman. A passer by joined him, but at first the two men couldn't tell if she was asleep, so Charles tried to wake her up. Her face was still warm, but her hands were deafly cold. Charles spoke their greatest fear into the silence, I think she's dead. When the woman's body was examined in the mortuary, the doctor began by cataloging
the wounds that would become a shocking media sensation. Her throats had been cut and several deep, jagged wounds crossed her abdomen. Experience and evidence led the doctor to surmise that the cuts had been made with a very sharp knife. It was an ominous way to begin a man hunt that would become the center of an international media frenzy. Soon all of London and everywhere else around the world where they read the London News would have a name to pin the murders on, a name that we still
whisper today, Jack the Ripper. After the body was found, the Metropolitan Police examined the surrounding roads to see if there were any marks or traces nearby. They checked the neighborhood's railway lines and embankments. They scoured the streets, but they found nothing. Here's Adam Wood, executive editor of Ripparologist magazine. There were virtually no forensics. They couldn't tell the difference
between human and animal blood let alone blood type. Obviously, the idea of fingerprinting had been discovered, but it hadn't been at it wasn't adopted to the police were knock another fifteen years after the watch up Or murders, so at this time there was virtually no evidence that could be gleaned from clues. For almost one hundred years, the police files from that investigation were sealed behind closed doors,
plenty of time for the legend to grow. Some have been entertainers telling stories about Jack the Ripper to help build up that legend. Others have claimed that their hunches were nothing short of the truth. But in recent years, historians and writers have gone back to the source with a fierce determination to understand these famous and heinous crimes for what they really were, and in recent decades some truly groundbreaking research has helped us. See Victorian East London
more clearly than we ever have before. Of course, some of the stories we find there can only be described as horrifying. On this season of Unobscured, with experts to guide us, we will go back to the streets of Victorian Whitechapel to follow the trail of Jack the Ripper.
We'll join the police and their attempts to solve a series of brazen and brutal murders, will see through the eyes of London's East Enders as they try to make sense of the violence taking place right in their midst, and will explore the alleys, yards and homes where a series of monstrous murders became the most infamous true crime story of modern history. Unobscured Season three premiers on Wednesday, October seven. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, I Heart Radio,
or wherever you listen to podcasts. H