Jack The Ripper: The First Serial Killer
11 Jul ABC's blog | Email this page | 139 reads
Thursday, 07 August
8.30pm
The head of Scotland Yard's Homicide Prevention Unit, Laura Richards builds a psychological portrait of history's most notorious murderer by going inside the mind of Jack the Ripper.
No one was ever charged with the brutal Whitechapel murders of 1888, which continue to fascinate the public. It was rumoured that the horrible mutilations of the victims' bodies were the work of a doctor. Others said the culprit was Queen Victoria's grandson.
Modern police have tools that the original crime investigators could not have dreamed about; DNA profiling, CCTV, fingerprinting even geo-profiling. Richards sifts details about the victims and decodes their injuries to bring her closer to the Ripper than anyone has ever been before.
This documentary is due to air here this week. I've already seen it and frankly it's much ado about nothing. It starts off with a group of serious looking coppers telling us that all the past stories and theories about the ripper are a load of ol' cobblers and then proceed to go through each murder using the latest in TV dramatic reenactments - and at the end of it all they offer us nothing more.
The only thing that kept me watching this well below par doco - was the bit about the shawl that was handed in that was supposed to have belonged to one of the victims which could have had the killer's DNA on it.
But guess what nothing.
So at the end this what more do we know about Jack the Ripper?
What great mystery was revealed - zilch.
Personally I'd stick to Dalziel & Pascoe and Wire in the Blood.
5 Aug 08 at 4:34 pm
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