The identity of a Victorian serial killer who terrorised London before Jack the Ripper – and whose crimes some believe were even darker – has finally been uncovered, according to TV historian Lucy Worsley.
Nearly 140 years after dismembered female bodies were pulled from the Thames and its surrounding waterways, Ms Worsley says compelling new evidence points to a violent bargeman as the long-elusive Thames Torso Murderer.
‘I think there’s a very compelling case that we’ve got the guy,’ Ms Worsley said, after reinvestigating the killings for the BBC series Lucy Worsley: Victorian Murder Club.
The murders began in 1887, a year before Jack the Ripper’s reign of terror. Instead of frenzied knife attacks on darkened streets, the Thames Torso Murderer methodically dismembered his victims and scattered their remains across the capital, dumping body parts in rivers, canals and building sites.
The killer struck repeatedly and was never caught.
Ms Worsley worked alongside fellow historian Sarah Bax Horton, whose research in her book Arm of Eve proved pivotal.
Together with a team of experts, they re-examined the crimes, police records and forgotten newspaper reports, uncovering a suspect who had both the opportunity and the chilling intent.
The murderer targeted vulnerable women in late Victorian London, but Ms Worsley believes his eventual exposure came about because of the courage of two women who survived attacks and spoke out.
‘It was really important to me to have visited the places where we know the remains of at least three of [his victims] are buried in their pauper graveyards,’ Ms Worsley said.
Contemporary newspaper illustration of the Whitehall murder, when a torso was found on a building site destined to become Scotland Yard
The identity of a Victorian serial killer who terrorised London before Jack the Ripper – and whose crimes some believe were even darker – has finally been uncovered, according to TV historian Lucy Worsley
‘That’s honouring people who have got missed out of the traditional way that history’s been written.’
The first killing came to light on May 11, 1887, when Edward Hughes, a lighterman working on the Thames at Rainham, spotted a package floating in the water.
Inside was a woman’s lower torso. Over the following months, more body parts surfaced in the river and London’s canals. The careful dissection suggested anatomical knowledge, yet the victim was never identified.
In September 1888 – just weeks after Jack the Ripper’s murders began in Whitechapel – another torso was discovered, this time on a building site destined to become Scotland Yard itself.
Then, in June 1889, a third victim was found. Her remains were scattered along the Thames in Battersea and across west London.
A distinctive wrist scar finally gave police a name: Elizabeth Jackson, a workhouse inmate who was heavily pregnant when she was killed.
A fourth body was discovered away from the water in Pinchin Street, Whitechapel, in September 1889. Some historians also link a fifth possible murder in Vauxhall in 1902. At the time, the case utterly baffled police.
‘They did a pretty good job of analysing the body for clues,’ Ms Worsley said. ‘They were being really assiduous in following up all sorts of mad leads.’
Unlike Jack the Ripper, whose killings were chaotic and brutal, the Torso Murderer displayed control and precision.
Contemporary illustration of the discovery of the Pinchin Street torso. A fourth body was discovered away from the water in Pinchin Street, Whitechapel, in September 1889
Ms Worsley worked alongside Nadifa Mohamed, Dr Kate Lister and Dr Rose Wallis
Forensic pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy, who appears in the documentary, is convinced London was being stalked by two serial killers at the same time.
Ms Worsley and Bax Horton revisited long standing theories, including claims that the murderer was George Chapman – also known as Seweryn Klosowski – later hanged for poisoning three of his mistresses.
But while he was active at the right time, there was little evidence to connect him to the dismemberment murders.
The breakthrough came when Bax Horton trawled historic newspaper archives for reports of violence against women near the Thames.
One name repeatedly appeared: James Crick.
Crick was a bargeman with a known history of violence and unrestricted access to the river.
Bargemen, at the time, were often involved in sheep rustling and butchery – giving them the skills needed to dismember bodies.
In 1889, Crick offered a woman named Sarah Warburton a lift across the Thames. Once on the water, he issued a chilling threat, telling her that if she made a noise he would ‘settle you as I have done other women that have been found in the Thames’.
Ms Warburton was taken to a steamboat moored under Tower Bridge, where Crick assaulted her. She fought back, striking him with a piece of iron and raising the alarm. A passing police boat intervened, and Crick was arrested.
He was convicted on the testimony of Warburton and Inspector Charles Ford, receiving a 15-year sentence, of which he served eight and a half. During his imprisonment, the torso murders stopped.
Crick later returned to river work and would have been free by the time of the suspected Vauxhall killing. He died in 1907.
Disturbingly, Ms Worsley uncovered evidence suggesting he could have been caught earlier.
In early 1889, another woman, Jessie Miller, accused Crick of attacking her. She was rescued by passing rivermen, but her account was dismissed and the case dropped.
Ms Miller never recovered, later becoming an alcoholic before dying after falling under an omnibus at the age of 43.
For Ms Worsley, the case highlights a grim continuity between the Victorian era and today.
‘It’s Inspector Charles Ford’s backing up of Sarah Warburton in court which really puts the murderer away. Jessie wasn’t believed,’ she said. ‘It’s really frustrating that they didn’t manage to get Crick sooner.’
If Ms Worsley and Bax Horton are right, the Thames Torso Murderer was hiding in plain sight all along – a violent man of the river whose crimes were overshadowed by Jack the Ripper, but whose legacy may be even more disturbing.