Monday, January 20, 2024
7pm ET (NYC Time)

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Before Jack the Ripper, another monster prowled the waterways of Victorian London …

Jack the Ripper is often called the world’s most notorious unidentified killer, but he was not the first modern serial killer on the streets of London. Before him was another murderer who hunted from the River Thames – one arguably more sadistic and mercurial.

The Thames Torso Killer has always lurked in the Ripper’s shadow, despite the fact he murdered and dismembered at least four women over two years in an overlapping period of time. He started to kill in April 1887, over a year before the Ripper, and his last murder was in September 1889, almost ten months after the death of Mary Jane Kelly, the Ripper’s last victim. The Torso Killer deposited his victims’ body parts at diverse locations including the tidal River Thames. His crimes were named after the places where the torsos or first body parts were found: Rainham in Essex, Whitehall, Battersea and Pinchin Street in Whitechapel. Each murder is discussed in detail in her talk.

When genealogist Sarah Bax Horton discovered a police ancestor who worked on the Jack the Ripper investigation, her research led her to write two non-fiction books based on the Metropolitan Police “Whitechapel Murders” files. Her second book Arm of Eve: Investigating the Thames Torso Murders proposes a new prime suspect as the Thames Torso Killer, a serial killer active at the same time as the Ripper in the nation’s capital.

The police were unable to place the Torso Killer in any specific area of London, a difficulty which was aggravated by the non-identification of all but one of his victims. Unlike Jack the Ripper, who was a silent and terrifying marauder on the streets of Whitechapel, the Torso Killer posed a threat that might be termed “non-specific”. His murders were equally grisly and horrific, targeting vulnerable victims that included a pregnant woman and her unborn child, yet their perpetrator did not form a lightning rod for the nation’s fear.

In this talk, Sarah Bax Horton—author of Arm of Eve: Investigating the Thames Torso Murders—describes her own investigation and use of modern criminal profiling to come up with her own suspect. Previously unexplored as the Torso Killer, river worker James Crick is arguably the best yet. One hundred and thirty-five years later, it is likely that no better will be found. In his mid-twenties at that time, Crick was a violent sex offender who was mobile on the capital’s waterways, meaning that he could access the diverse locations which feature in the case.

Sarah Bax Horton is a British writer and researcher. A former civil servant, she has an MA Joint Honours degree in English and Modern Languages (German) from Somerville College, University of Oxford. She is the author of Arm of Eve: Investigating the Thames Torso Murders (The History Press, 2024) and One-Armed Jack: Uncovering the Real Jack the Ripper (Michael O’Mara Books, 2023).