Bad Women: The Blackout Ripper

Bad Women: The Blackout Ripper

The streets of wartime London are pitch black and the darkness offers cover to a murderer every bit as terrible as Jack the Ripper. During one awful week in February 1942 he viciously attacks women night after night. But the victims of the so-called Blackout Ripper are now all but forgotten.

In this season of Bad Women, historian Hallie Rubenhold and criminologist Alice Fiennes share new details from the archives to tell the extraordinary and moving stories of the women who died and why their deaths were swept from view.

And don't miss season one of Bad Women about a cold case like no other. In the fall of 1888, five women were brutally murdered in the slums of London. But everything you think you know about Jack the Ripper and those murdered women is wrong. Hallie reconstructs the lives of the five victims - revealing the appalling treatment they faced as women in the 1880s, and completely overturning the accepted Ripper story.

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From The Burden

From The Burden

Detective Louis N. Scarcella was a legendary figure in New York City during the '90s. In a city overrun with violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. But the story changed when a group of convicted murderers-turned-jailhouse lawyers made a startling discovery that linked all their cases: Scarcella was the cop who helped put many of them away. They made a vow: Take down Scarcella. And with the help of a relentless New York Times reporter, they did just that. Thirty years later, 20 people who Scarcella helped put behind bars have since walked free. In the media, he’s known as the disgraced, rogue cop who hoodwinked an entire system. But was this really the workings of one person?  The team behind The Burden spent hundreds of hours talking with witnesses who were coerced, jailhouse lawyers, outraged attorneys, and righteous cops. Scarcella insists he didn’t do anything wrong. And after finally tracking him down, he agreed to take us into the belly of the beast... where justice is done (and undone). Listen to The Burden wherever you get your podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

28 Maalis 202416min

Serial Killers & Misogyny: Hallie Rubenhold on Betwixt the Sheets

Serial Killers & Misogyny: Hallie Rubenhold on Betwixt the Sheets

Hallie Rubenhold joins Betwixt the Sheets host Kate Lister to discuss our culture’s fascination with serial killers. Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Peter Sutcliffe, Jack the Ripper…. these violent people are famous, but we only know them for their horrific crimes. What role does misogyny play in how these serial killers are portrayed on our screens and in our newspapers? And how does it affect court cases? Hear more from Betwixt the Sheets, from our friends at History Hit, wherever you get podcasts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

4 Huhti 202339min

Raising the Dead - Behind the Scenes of Bad Women

Raising the Dead - Behind the Scenes of Bad Women

The rich and famous leave many traces in the historical records, but how can you reconstruct the lives of ordinary people who lived decades and decades ago?  That was the challenge facing the team behind the Bad Women podcast. Hosts Hallie Rubenhold and Alice Fiennes sit down with genealogist Kate Healy to discuss the detective work involved in scouring the archives for the scraps of information which - when gathered together -  created a richer picture of the women chronicled in seasons one and two. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

22 Joulu 202244min

S2 E11: The Killers and The Hangman

S2 E11: The Killers and The Hangman

Season Finale: Marjorie Cummins is certain that her husband is innocent - he's not the violent Blackout Ripper and he shouldn't hang for murder. She loyally supports him in court - refusing to believe the compelling evidence against him. Will the jury agree with her? In wartime London, it seems, men could murder some women and still escape the hangman. Some juries defied the directions of judges to reach 'not guilty' verdicts if the female murder victims were painted as being promiscuous, immoral or unfaithful.    One heavily-pregnant mother - Kathleen Patmore - was fatally stabbed by her soldier husband. Seemingly an open-and-shut case of murder, many instead felt that Kathleen deserved her fate and that her husband was the innocent party.    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

20 Joulu 202255min

BONUS: Hallie Rubenhold and Julia Laite on We Have Ways...

BONUS: Hallie Rubenhold and Julia Laite on We Have Ways...

The murders of The Blackout Ripper - indeed many of the crimes committed against women in World War Two - aren't often spoken about by historians of the conflict. That's changing. The co-host of Bad Women Hallie Rubenhold and regular guest Dr Julia Laite recently appeared on the WW2 podcast We Have Ways of Making You Talk to talk to James Holland about the wartime experiences of women. Here's chance to hear the conversation.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

15 Joulu 202244min

S2 E10: Olga Hangs Up Her Whip

S2 E10: Olga Hangs Up Her Whip

Doris had made her living as "Olga" - a dominatrix alter ego charging men handsomely for sex involving corsets, whips and "unusual methods". But when she married aged businessman (and former client) Henri Jouannet, she'd promised to give it all up.   The coming of war put a strain on the couple's finances and their relationship - and Doris secretly returned to selling sex. But the trade had changed - instead of seeing her regular clients, "Olga" now meets strangers on the street... including The Blackout Ripper.  Further reading: Billock, Jennifer. ‘Five Hotels That Were Occupied by the Military During World War II’, Smithsonian Magazine, 28 October 2019 Laite, Julia. Common Prostitutes and Ordinary Citizens: Commercial Sex in London, 1885 - 1960 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

13 Joulu 202239min

BONUS: The Music from 'The Blackout Ripper'

BONUS: The Music from 'The Blackout Ripper'

The story of the Blackout Ripper partly takes place in the wartime bars and clubs of West End London. To recreate their sound, Bad Women's composer and sound designer Pascal Wyse put together a quartet to play jazz tunes of the time.   Here Pascal and guitarist Ed Gaughan talk about the history of that music and play some of the numbers in full on this episode on Pushkin Industries' Broken Record show, hosted by Justin Richmond.  The band included Ed Gaughan, Ross Hughes, Christian Miller and Marcus Penrose. They were recorded by Nick Taylor at Porcupine Studios, under the direction of Pascal Wyse. Pushkin’s Ben Tolliday mixed the tracks.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

8 Joulu 202259min

S2 E9: The Blackout Ripper on the Run

S2 E9: The Blackout Ripper on the Run

Greta Heywood is being strangled in a Piccadilly doorway when a passerby interrupts the Blackout Ripper, who disappears into the night. Greta survives the attack and the killer leaves vital clues as to his identity.  The police are now closing in on their man - but can they catch him before he can claim more victims? Further reading: Andrews, Maggie and Lomas, Janis. The Home Front in Britain: Images, Myths and Forgotten Experiences since 1914 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) Laite, Julia. Common Prostitutes And Ordinary Citizens: Commercial Sex in London 1885 - 1960 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) Lewis, Jane. ‘The problem of lone mother families in twentieth century Britain’, The Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, Vol. 20 No. 3 (1998),  pp. 251-283 Reeves, Josephine. ‘The Deviant Mother and Child: The Development of Adoption as an Instrument of Social Control’, Journal of Law and Society, Winter, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Winter 1993),  pp. 412—426) Roberts, Elizabeth. A Woman’s Place: An Oral History of Working Class Women, 1890 – 1940 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984) Slater, Stefan. ‘Prostitutes and Popular History: Notes on the ‘Underworld’ 1918 - 1939’, Crime, History and Society, Vol. 13, No. 1 (2009), pp. 25 - 48 Sweet, Matthew. ‘The West End Front' (Faber 2012)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

6 Joulu 202240min