In a startling revelation that challenges a century of true crime lore, historian Lucy Worsley's new BBC2 series, Lucy Worsley's Victorian Murder Club, exposes a dark secret from London's past. The programme presents compelling evidence that Jack the Ripper was not the only serial killer stalking the impoverished East End in the late 1880s.
The Overlooked Thames Torso Murderer
While the Ripper's five (or more) gruesome killings in Whitechapel have spawned an industry of speculation—with four million words on the online resource casebook.org alone—another predator has been almost entirely forgotten. Worsley's three-part documentary asks a provocative question: who, until now, had heard of the 'Thames Torso Murderer'?
This unidentified killer's methods were, if anything, even more brutal. His victims were dismembered, with their body parts discarded in the River Thames or left in alleyways. The crimes remain shocking nearly 140 years later. One theory posits the murderer was a sailor or dockworker with easy access to the river. Another, more intriguing suggestion explored in the series is that he was a 'cats-meat man', a trader in horseflesh for pets, who could have moved human remains through crowded areas like Petticoat Lane market without arousing suspicion.
A Murder Club's Painstaking Investigation
For her most detailed investigation to date, Worsley enlisted three experts to form her 'murder club': historians Kate Lister and Rose Wallis, alongside novelist and presenter Nadifa Mohamed. Their central challenge was to definitively separate these atrocities from the work of Jack the Ripper, a task fraught with conflicting evidence.
One expert, Dr Drew Gray, pointed to a startling coincidence: a prime suspect for the torso murders lived in a house where the Ripper's second victim, Annie Chapman, was discovered. This seemed too significant to ignore. However, former pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy provided a crucial counter-argument, insisting the killers were two different men with distinct psychological profiles. The Ripper mutilated his victims at the scene, while the Torso Murderer dismembered and disposed of bodies, often wrapping them in sacking.
Presenting London's Brutal History
The documentary series delves deep into the grim realities of Victorian London, presenting clues and red herrings with forensic detail. While Worsley's occasionally lighthearted tone—such as murmuring "Ooh... creepy!" at a crime scene—might feel at odds with the subject matter for some viewers, the insights into the city's brutal past are undeniably fascinating.
Ultimately, Lucy Worsley's Victorian Murder Club does more than revisit well-trodden ground. It successfully resurrects a chilling, parallel narrative of murder that has languished in the long shadow of Jack the Ripper, proving that history's darkest chapters can still hold astonishing secrets. It is, as the series concludes, a genuinely ripping yarn.
