The Trial of Jack The Ripper?
Investigations
•
54m
In 1888 and 1889, a vicious serial killer haunted the streets of London. Five women were brutally murdered in Whitechapel, and all except one of the five victims - Elizabeth Stride - were horribly mutilated. And those are only the murders officially linked to the killer; it’s likely he took the lives of many more. To this day the identity of the murderer is unknown, but he has a name – Jack The Ripper. One theory is that he was the convicted killer William Bury. Unlike most of the suspects, Bury was hanged for murder after brutally killing and disfiguring his wife. The similarities between the brutalities inflicted on Mrs Bury and those suffered by the Ripper victims are remarkable. And when Bury handed himself in to police in Dundee, claiming that his wife had committed suicide, he said he was worried that people might think he was Jack the Ripper. Today we restage the trial with new witnesses and new evidence. In the very same courtroom that Bury was tried in, we sit as the jury on the case with modern technology and forensic experts. HistoryHit.TV have teamed up with the forensic science unit at the University of Dundee, and legal teams from the University of Dundee and the University of Aberdeen to see if we can, at long last, find the truth. Did William Bury, hanged for the murder, kill his wife? And was he Jack the Ripper?
Up Next in Investigations
-
Edgehill: A Fight of Spite and Spleen
When Charles I acceded to the throne in 1625, there was every reason to hope his reign would be as peaceful and prosperous as any. But by 1642, after almost two decades of religious aggravation and personal ‘tyranny’, tensions reached boiling point. The chance for peaceful resolution and diplomat...
-
Anne Boleyn and Katherine of Aragon -...
Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn - the first two wives of Henry VIII - are so often portrayed as opposites. Katherine as the loyal, scorned wife - Anne as the bright, bewitching upstart.
But now Prof. Suzannah Lipscomb returns to Hever Castle to explore what Anne and Katherine were really l...
-
Independence or Death: The Haitian Re...
The Haitian Revolution caused a seismic shift in global politics. When a mixture of different groups on the French colony of Saint Domingue rose against the colonists, few expected the rebellion to succeed. However, under the leadership of figures such as Toussaint L'Ouverture, Henry Christophe a...
