Was Jack The Ripper Actually Caught?

[Music] White Chapel East London here in 1889 a vicious killer roam the streets the identity of the murderer is still unknown but he has a name Jack the Ripper one theory is that he was William Barry unlike most of the Ripper suspects Barry was hanged for murder the brutal killing of his wife but was he guilty did today we restage the trial with new Witnesses and new evidence this is the trial of William Barry who some believe was Jack the river it's a Sunday afternoon in dunde Scotland William Barry is drinking as usual he's 29 years old unemployed and recently moved from London today he seems troubled he's about to do something that will result in his own death around 7 p.m. William Barry walks into dundy police station and says he has to talk to a policeman he sits down with Lieutenant par and tells him an extraordinary story he says his wife is dead and that he is afraid he might be accused of being Jack the Ripper so what do we know about William Barry William Barry was born in stowbridge which is near wolver Hampton uh he was an orphan by the time he was 6 months old his father died when he's about 3 months old his mother was incarcerated in in booster city and county Lunatic Asylum by the time he's in his late teens he's already becoming uh somebody that's kind of dropped off the edge of you know normal society if you see what I mean he's he's he's he's not able to hold in a job he's not seem form regular relationships with people he doesn't have a proper home in 1887 William moves to London and settles in B just to the east of White Chapel here he gets a job working for a man called James Martin now James Martin was a sis Merchant now in those days a sis Merchant took saus from sis Mills you pick it up from sist Mills or Joiner shops and whatever Carpenters workshops and you would sell it to like of public houses bocher shops when they would scatter on the floor because if you just think back to the time you walk into a public house what what's going on it's just floorboards and saus that's what you're walking on and then they would sweep it away when it was filthy okay so he's selling sorus this is James Martin but in reality the sorus business is the cover for the brothel that he's running out of quicket Street 80 quick Street he's running a brothel course you don't want to say that so you you POS as a sort mer William Barry gets a job with him Hawking sis so he's picking up sist and taking it around pubs of course the problem there is as soon as he goes into a pub with some s what's he going to do he has a drink he never gets out of the pub so he was never making any money um now Ellen Elliott was a prostitute working for James Martin and that's where William Berry met Ellen Elliott in April 1888 William and Ellen are married but from the start it's clear that the marriage is an unhappy one many testimonies will tell you how badly he treated his wife he been seen sitting on top of her with a knife and all kinds of things he seems to have been somebody that didn't work very hard she had money that she'd been left by an aunt in form of shares and um increasingly he was taking her money to fund his drinking speed although it was supposed to be um to pay for horses and carts and things but he saw us business a year after William Berry moves to East London the White Chapel killings begin between August and November 1888 at least five women are murdered the victims of a serial killer who became known as Jack the Ripper the last Jack the Ripper murder occurs on the 9th of November now what's interesting about this is that a change takes place in William Berry's Carri so from being this violent abusive aggressive man suddenly became his caring doting husband and he got a job in Dundee for2 pound a week and he got Ellen a job for one pound a week he um told his wife that he had been offered employment up in dunde for both of them in the Juke trade where they lived there was a Juke Mill quite near them so that's how he knew about Juke it was a forge document the docu the letter he had was didn't even know the company name spelled properly but they came up here she reluctantly but he made her come up here on the 22nd of January 1889 William and Ellen Barry traveled by ship from London to Dundee they came in on the SS Cambria the steamer uh they stayed overnight and then on the 23rd of January they came here looking for accommodation so here we are in Union Street and they came to number 43 at the time Mrs Margaret Robertson had rooms to let which suit William Berry I'm quite sure there was a public house they stayed here 8 days but William decided the 8 Shillings a week rent was too expensive so at the end of January they left Union Street their new home was considerably less [Music] comfortable well they had a property quite like this one this is not it because the property has been demolished but here we have what we call a moates now people think of castles and water when they think of Moes but you'll see the space between the street and the building they had what they call the sunk flat the basement flat down below street level so here's the street you have this Gap and then there in the sunk flat access to the property would be down these stairs and if you can think how cold it would have been we're in February it's February 1889 they don't have a proper fireplace in the basement flat it would have been very cold less than 2 weeks after moving to Prince's Street William Barry presents himself at the police station and tells them his wife is dead he turns up at the police station on Sunday he speaks to the priests about hoping not to be considered to be Jack the Ripper um the policeman takes what he's saying with a pinch of salt he thinks it's a crank um he tells the police then that his wife is in a is in the flat and that she's dead and she'd strangled herself and that he's put her under a box and he does mention that he mutilated the body out of fit of temper and Lieutenant par took him upstairs to detective David lamb David lamb then told Lieutenant part to keep Barry in custody while he went to uh have a look at the property apparently Barry was not too happy when he was asked to produce the keys but wasn't allowed to go there with the policeman he wanted to be present and he wasn't allowed to do that the police immediately go to Barry's apartment there they make a gruesome find first they enter the small kitchen bare and apparently unused then they go through to the back room here they find a bed and a fireplace in the fireplace they find the burned remains of women's clothing on the floor they find some rope and on the window ledge they find a knife with traces of blood and Flesh on it in the middle of the room is a box and inside the body of Ellen Barry she has been mutilated and her leg broken in order to fit her corpse into the box there was one other intriguing clue that they found at the rear of the flap was another entrance with a staircase leading to it written on the wall was the message Jack Ripper is in this Cellar and on the door was written Jack Ripper is at the back of this door you and mcferson thinks this can only have been written by William Barry himself can we consider Jack Ripper is at the back of this store Jack Ripper is in the cell can we consider these things to be a confession well obviously it's not signed and we don't really know but what I would ask you to think about is how many people could have produced that the writing was older than the discovery of the tragedy it's not me that saying this is the dundy advertiser so somebody has put this there how many people knew there was a dead body in that property well nobody except for him who else could it have been there are no candidates the identity of Jack the repper is a mystery which continues to Fascinate even now every night of the week doesn't of people take to the streets of East London to find out more about the White Chapel murderer I'd like to welcome everybody to White Chapel my name is Mick I'm going to be your T guys what I'd like to do this evening is take everybody back to 1888 Victorian London if you prefer when things were very different around here you see when we think of victoriia London what do we think of with think top hats everybody wore those top hats those hor drawn carriages passed through the Cobble streets past those gas lamps everybody likes so much Queen Victoria was on the throne Charles Dickens novels we're doing really well was fantastic in the West End you see all of that was taking place in the West End of London here in the East End generations of extreme poverty extreme unemployment and extreme overcrowding it turned the whole area here into slum ghettos this was very much the poorest part of town and not somewhere you wanted to live it's worth remembering as well that this is a long time before the benefit system you see if you lost your job or you couldn't find one which was almost certainly the case around here you couldn't just sign on the doll keep sticking food in your face and wait for something good to come along there was none of that it was up to you one way or another to find the money both to feed yourself and to put your head down for the night in the lodging house there were lodging houses all around this area these streets were full of them and if but somewhere like that you would have been living you didn't get a nice house moving with the wife and kids this was the poor part of town instead you lived in a lodging house where you paid your rent on a nightly basis and it wasn't very nice but it did keep you off the street you see because the streets were dangerous and people were starving to death in the streets around here I read one account where a woman was found starved to death right here on Wentworth Street where we're standing now by The Talented founder the rats had eaten what was left of her Mick Priestley is an author and True Crime expert as well as a ripper tour guide I think the reason people continue to be interested in it I think it it was the the environment it happened in like with the the slums and the gas lamps and the top hats and this kind of thing but I also think it's the first time you had a serial killer in a major capital city like this with a modern press following it so it was such it was a bigger sensation at the time than any case had been before but it it still continues to Captivate people because they never caught him if the whole case was somebody did some murders they caught him they hanged them it would be a mildly interesting footnote in history but it wouldn't have got anywhere near the publicity and now there's so many books and movies and everything it's one of those names that everybody's heard of there are five murders generally agreed to be the work of one man all the killings occurred in a small area of White Chapel right we're now standing right outside of what was number 29 hury street it's since been demolished to make way for that lovely tasteless extension to the Truman Brewery car park all of the Builds on this side though down in the next street pretty much older than we just passed on Brick Lane are all the same ones the event that happened here on Saturday the 8th of September 1888 would actually take place at 5:45 that morning quarter to 6 The Brick Lane Brewers clock down at the bottom on the left hand corner hit the quarter hour and on the top floor of number 29 in the front room with his wife and three fully grown sons packed in there with him 56-year-old John deis gets out of bed he goes through the back door he opens it outwards and looking out into the yard discovers the horribly mutilated body of Annie Chapman lying at the bottom of a few steps there and to the left in between the steps and the fence now speaking on day three of Annie Chapman's inquest Dr Phillips was very reluctant to reveal the full extent of what had actually happened here in the art stating that to make such details public would simply be disgusting at this point a corer wi bter was overseeing proceedings he suggested maybe all the women and children in the gallery should leave and and any when they did was Dr Phillips persuaded to continue it would appear she was tripped onto her back punched in the face and strangled violently in the early morning Gloom here on hury street we know this because her face was swollen classic signs of strangulation according to Dr Phillips her throat was then cut in two places with Savage determination severing her left heroded artery spraying blood 3 ft to the left with this them the killer opened her legs lifted her dress to her chest leaving a naked from the chest down and eviscerated her she was cut from all the way down to the genitals large chunks of Flesh were cut from the stomach removed and placed over our left shoulder the kill put his hands inside pulled out 3 and 1/2 ft of Annie's small intestine and threw it into her face the horrific violence of the murders made the killings Infamous and the public interest only increased when a letter arrived claiming to be from the killer it was signed Jack the Ripper but was it really written by the murderer there's two schools of thought on that uh the first school of thought is oh yes the killer Ro it the second school of thought is that it was a man called Thomas bulling who was the the boss if you like at the newspaper agency he's the man that said hey look at this look at this letter I've been sent and once he printed that in the newspaper the next day he he was selling triple the amount of newspapers so some people think maybe he wrote it himself and it was a big scam to try and sell more newspapers but regardless of who wrote it once that letter went into the newspaper signed Jack Ripper that was the one that gave him the name ever since the called Ripper murders have appalled and intrigued in equal measure but the central mystery remains who was South London so that brings us to the big question the big question of course being who the hell was Jack the riffer who was it when strolling around the eastn doing these things to people really did get away with it really did take the secret withm to his grave see it turns out just about everybody who was alive in 1888 has at some point since been accused of being Jack the Ripper including uh Queen Victoria who who uh probably had a crown on when she went into dorsed Street I can only assume uh Lewis Carol wrote Alice in Wonderland he's been accused of being Jack the Ripper The Elephant Man has been accused of being Jack the Ripper yeah he lived two minutes down the road at the time fortunately though we do have some better suggestions this over the years dozens of suspects have been proposed so was the evidence for William Barry he was certainly in East London at that time and he left for dund around the time the murders stopped Well Jack Gan never committed any more crimes in London after or anywhere after that the event so that circumstantially might make you think that he was there the he lived near enough to White Chapel that he could certainly have been the person that committed these crimes um he lived in BO and it's not that far from White Chapel so there's a lot of circumstantial evidence that could make you believe it could have been him so people were putting two and two together and very much getting four this was his excuse for not coming to police on this the 6th of February he thought he might be rested as Jack the Ripper now I would have to say to you if you're an innocent man and you woke up and your wife has killed herself why would you think people would think you are Jack the Ripper it doesn't make sense you know your wife has strangled herself to death while you're asleep this is in dund ja repres active in London it it doesn't match it it doesn't make sense the fact that he brought up the he alluded to the fact they thought he might be Jacker it was interesting and it did set tongues wagging and the newspaper reports of the time that came out almost only two days after the uh event they spoke about this horrible mutilation and it reminded them of the outrages in White Chapel so from two different angles we're getting the sense that might this be Chuck the Ripper there is only one suspect for the crimes of Jack the Ripper who is known to have murdered a woman in the style of Jack the Ripper and that was William Barry but the Dundee police were concerned with the death of Ellen Berry rather than the crimes of White Chapel and on the 28th of March 1889 William Berry stood trial here in dunde court number one for the murder of his wife with no witnesses to the death the key evidence as to what happened in the flat was the body itself in total five pathologists examined the corpse and their reports would be key to the trial of William Barry the most important expert Witnesses in the courtroom that day were the medical doctors because almost the entirety of the evidence relied on their testimony and templeman and stalker who were the doctors for the crime because in Scotland everything has to be corroboration their view was that Ellen had been strangled her body had then been cut open perhaps while she was still alive maybe just shortly afterwards but certainly possibly a real possibility while she was still alive her leg broken and her body stuffed in the trunk the defense Medics on the other hand said we believe there's evidence here of suicide we think she's self- strangulated and yes he's cut her open he says he has but it was in a moment of passion and she was dead by that point so the two pieces of evidence are say saying one murder and disembowelment was possibly still alive and the other is saying suicide and a moment of passion that he just can't explain why he did that for 13 hours the jury heard evidence from both sides before retiring to consider their verdict he's found guilty and Lord young therefore has no alternative but to deliver a death sentence and so the death sentence formally goes out that William Berry will be hand hanged in dande the previous hanging in Dandee had been 40 years before cuz dunde just didn't believe in it so they were really worried about how the public were going to react and so his death sentence would be carried out in private here we are standing where dundy prison would have been so we have the sheriff court and next to the sheriff Court was the prison once you were convicted in the courthouse you never saw daylight you were just taken in a down a passageway into the into the prison across road is the old lolium works and from the top floor of lenum works you could see into the prison yard and people gathered on the top floor of the lenum works to watch the execution it it was not a public execution but if you could get to the top floor of the lolium works you would be able to see it William Berry was hanged by the neck killing him instantly and we know that because we still have his neckbones so what we're holding here are the six vertebrae that are the neck of William Berry when he was hanged and he was cut down from The Gallows because he was a convicted criminal his body was taken to the anatomy department when they got there they would have dissected his entire body but his area of his neck would have been of real interest to them and as they went down through the different layers then they would have got to this layer which is the bone and they retained these so they kept his neck vertebrae when the rest of him went off and got buried in the the area outside the prison this was kept in the anatomy department and you can see on his second vertebrae here which is right up at the basee of his neck you can see that there are two little gaps there these are the fractures these are The Hangman's fractures and so when the body drops and the Rope tightens around the neck this part of the bone plows forward into this space here which is where the spinal cord sits and it would have crushed a spinal cord if he would have stopped breathing his heart would have stopped beating and so it's a good execution the bones give Sue an idea this is the3 30th anniversary year of anatomy being taught at Dundee and we thought wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if we could celebrate it with lots of different kinds of Engagement so we started looking at what was happening in the world 130 years ago and was there something that we could link into and when you looked back of course in White Chapel at that time the murders were occurring in London and we knew that up here in Dundee we felt we had our own Jack the Ripper our own William who some people had thought could have been responsible for those murders and we thought wouldn't it would be a wonderful idea if we could actually reenact reconsider the evidence the forensic evidence given at William Berry's trial in relation to modern day cuz at the time the jury had a little bit of a wobble as to whether in fact he was going to be found guilty and we want to know will they come back with the same response now that perhaps we know a little bit more about forensic medicine than we did at the time and so today February the 3rd 2018 129 years after Ellen's brutal murder William Barry is once again on trial this is the Very Room in which William Barry was convicted presiding is Lord Matthews a judge in Scotland's Supreme Court and just as in the original trial the evidence will be considered by a jury of 15 Ordinary People [Music] William Barry though present chose not to give evidence instead his statement was read to the court I simply deny the charge of murder made against me I do not want to make any statement whatever either as to the time or manner of her death all which is truth now it's the task of the prosecution law students from the University of Dundee to present the evidence against Berry the first witness is Dr John Clark a forensic pathologist with over 30 years experience now how often do you conduct postmortem Dr CL well I reckon I've done over the years about 17 18,000 post morms the detailed autopsy accounts from 1889 have been convert into modern style reports these now provide the key evidence for both sides what we we'll start at the head and work our way down um on the body map in front of you can can you see a line across the neck yes yes so that's the uh the ligature Mark which is obviously the most important injury in this case and can you tell us what a ligature Mark is please well it's a mark uh which you get on an neck uh that's been compressed by by some some item okay um pull pulled tight around the neck and it so this this item will dig into the neck and produce a sort of pressure Mark which will often remain there uh afterwards so well can we have a a closer look at the leature Mark then on the neck can you tell us what these images are it's obviously looking at the face uh straight on and you can see this double tra line uh going around the neck it's a horizontal line so it's got an upper Edge and and a lower Edge and it and it's running horizontally around the neck so not upwards um and that's a typical a typical impression of a lature mark okay and then on the evidence here um what sort of death is consistent with a horizontal continuous lature Mark around the neck that you've just described well typically a mark like that you would get in a ligature homicidal ligature strangulation so strangulation which some something has been put around the neck and pulled the Lage is pulled tight by someone else that's that's the that's the most common situation we get that having said that you can get uh inide some types of hangings like suicidal hangings can produce a mark very similar to that but that's in a in a specific situation specific situation and is it possible for somebody to strangle themselves it is it's uh very uncommon I think I've only seen one case in my whole career of somebody strangling the elv on the evidence then that you've just described in front of you are you make it able to make any conclusions about this particular luggage Mark I mean the findings overall cuz we're not just looking at the Mark we're looking at the other evidence in this you know there are what's called a fixi signs in the face which I mentioned there but uh I've got to take that into account I got to take account in the fact that there is some bruising in internally in the neck um and with all that that would certainly favor to me the legure translation by applied by someone else by somebody else yes okay thank you now can you tell us in your experience what somebody's natural reaction to being strangled is uh I have no experience because I've never been there um so but I I think I know what you're trying to say um what what what might happen yes um I would have thought um it could be it could be quite variable it could be quite passive and the person would just lose Consciousness sometimes very quickly um and there would be little in the way of struggle um at The Other Extreme person could be struggling and it could be quite a quite a violent struggle perhaps attempting to get the ligature off their neck and can you identify any major injuries to the body other than the leature mark there's um a major wound in the middle of the ab lower abdomen so this is a a a deep insided wound so this is actually going right through the skin so really from about theas uh down to the pelvis in the midline it's a deep wound going right into the abdominal cavity and a bit of bow has been protruding out out of that uh all the evidence with that injury and all the other sort of cutting injuries in the abdomen are that would suggest they were inflicted after death after death now it's a matter of a agreement that um Lieutenant lamb of dunde police found the body of Mrs Ellen bur in a box these injuries but can you tell me how common it is for victims of suicidal strangulation to end up with these sorts of injuries in a box well as I've only seen one case of suicidal strangulation you mean strangulation uh uh I've never seen any body um hanging strangulation ending up inside a box with lots of wounds in their abdomen and given all of the evidence that we've discussed does this look like any suicide you've ever came across I mean suicides are some of the most bizarre types of death has to be said um I don't think there's any evidence suggests this is a a straightforward suicidal hanging you know from from a high point um I cannot completely exclude uh suicidal hanging from a low Point suspension and nor can I completely exclude suicidal strangulation um but then you know pathologist we always say nothing is impossible so that's why we' got to say these things um but there's a l an awful lot more evidence for this being a ligature strangulation caused by someone else and I say that because additional injures on the body um because they have uh fixel signs uh the nature of the ligature Mark some bruising inside the neck all these things sort of point to that and not least how the body is ended up in a box thank you very much Dr Clark thank you now it's time for Dr Clark to be questioned by the defense team students from the University of aine good afternoon good afternoon some hangings take place from a high point as suspension as mentioned before by you sir where the body swings freely and the gravity of feet off the ground and major majority of hanging so I like that yeah however hanging can also occur with a person kneeling seating or half line from a relatively low point of suspension such as a door knob or a bed post yes suspension of a whole body is not necessary to cause death no indoors there was a large range of suspension points doors as well as raised objects such as a door frame I'm not sure there was a large range there's I don't I got the impression this is a a pretty sparsely furnished place answer thank you for your quantification the second report was um prepared by doctors Kier and Lennox and it was dated on the 14th of February 1889 yes 3 days after the initial postmortem exam kir and Lennox who appeared for the defense in the original trial reached a very different conclusion from the prosecution experts typically if a person wishes to take her own life there is a rising lature Mark left on the neck from this report yes would you be able to see that these doctors describe this Mark as being that over Rising lature Mark yeah they described it as a as a a lature mark same sort lure Mark but but rising up from front front to back mhm but that it did rise upwards at a point I stress the word slightly it's it's not it's not not a major um even with uh Li strangulation caused by someone else you you you could get the mark going up a SL angle so and if we continue at the page two of this report their opinion was that the constriction was probably affected by strangling and that the strangulation was suicidal yes I mean I I find out remarkable that they come to such a definite opinion of suicide this is the same this reports produced same day as the postmortem um they haven't had a chance to go and look at the books or or things like this so I find that quite a um interesting observation the defense also draws attention to the fact that neither report mentions damage to the tissues of the larynx in a case of a homicidal strangulation there is typically more damage to this area where the lure is applied yes um I agree I mean it's a major remission in both reports neither them speak describe the lyrics which is is crucial in a case like this the implication would have to be that it was uninjured uh otherwise I think they would have said it was an injury um yes it's it's true to say that uh in a li strangulation it's quite common in fact it's it's probably more common than not to find bruising inside the neck and fractures I mean that's the expectation um it doesn't doesn't always occur but we do have actually bruising in this case um so there is there is some internal damage but there seem to be no fractures so in in a case of ligature strangulation there is typically more damage to this area than in a suicidal hanging yes thank you so much Dr Clark no further questions thank you thank very much next the defense team get to call their witness Dr Richard Shepard one of the UK's leading forensic Pathologists so in this case we have two possibilities homicidal strangulation and hanging are there any differences generally speaking uh and we have to talk generally here as you've already heard there's a lot of variation in all of the these possibilities but generally speaking a ligature Strang a lature strangulation the Mark is lower down the neck and in hanging the Mark is higher up the neck so is it possible to hang in places other than high suspension Point yes and any attachment that would allow some weight of the body to apply the pressure to the neck through the ligature and we all know just look at the back of our own hand hands how easy it is to compress a vein on the back of a hand and stop the blood flowing through it that's the sort of level of pressure that needs to be achieved to stop the veins in the neck allowing blood to drain away as well so we're not searching for huge pressures in order to constrict the neck to a point where death May ensue in the report from Dr Kenya and Lennox they describe the marking as follows encircling the neck is a band of blue discolored skin the upper being more marked than the lower viewed from either side the band has therefore a slightly oblique direction from below and upwards and from before backwards in distinction perhaps from temper and stalker that the can and lenux felt this line sloped from the front to the back of the neck so what caused these marks they're clearly ligature marks passing around the neck what can be used as a ligature well anything can be used for the ligature it may be a torn piece of sheeting it may be an item of clothing but more commonly it's something like a piece of rope a piece of cord a piece of flex something that will bend around the neck obviously in order to cause compression encircling the neck so what does the presence of rising ligature Mark indicate a SE on production five a rising ligature Mark has a significance in forensic pathology because it suggests that there is a point of attachment it suggests that the point that's highest is being held up whilst the body is sagging down and that's the significance of a sloping ligature Mark as opposed to a horizontal ligature Mark so from the material that you have had is it possible for you to be definitive about whether this was a rising ligature Mark or not no we have two reports that have essentially equal weight because we have no photographs we have no method of checking or crosschecking any of the information contained within them but we have two groups of two Pathologists who have described things slightly differently and taking slightly different views upon them turning now to the issue of the larynx did you consider both the postmortem reports in relation to the injuries recorded as found on Mr Bar's neck there were no comments in either report as we've heard about the larynx and the presumption here is that there were no injuries present it would appear in 1888 or thereabouts um positive findings were recorded in other words if there was an injury it would be noted but the absence of injury wouldn't be specifically excluded so there's no damage recorded to lenx there is no damage recorded to larynx and I agree with Dr Clark on that basis we assume that no damage was present is this more consistent with hanging once again it Shades and it has to be Shades in this area of forensic pathology it would Point towards the use of less force and it would Point towards hanging as opposed to ligature strangulation if those are the two ends of the spectrum that we are looking at the jury have heard two rather different accounts from the Pathologists in 1889 this led to the jury giving an unusual verdict what they said was we think he's guilty but we're asking you for mercy and the reason that they' hesitated and asked for mercy in the first instance was because they said they felt there was a conflict within the medical evidence so there was in fact in their mind for some of them anyway some doubt and Lord young quite rightly said you can't do that you come back and you either tell me that he's guilty he's not guilty or the third verdict that we have in Scotland which is not proven you can't give me a verdict and ask me to qualify it so go go back into the Jury Room and come back with one of those three verdicts and they came back 5 minutes later and 5 minutes later they said he's guilty now the prosecution are hoping to convince today's jury to reach the same verdict so they're going to question Dr Shephard's evidence can we focus on the examinations by doctors can and lenic yes of course of course um how many days had passed before doctors kir and Lennox were able to access the body of Mrs buy for her postmortem the original postmortem was on the 11th of February and doors kir and Lennox were on the 14th of February and I I my memory is I'm sure you'll correct me if I'm incorrect that she was found dead on Monday the 11th so potentially the body could have been dead for almost around name 10 days yes well clearly the body has been dead for three three more days so we shift that along it's between six and six and nine days when uh doctors caner and Lennox are performing their examination what levels of deterioration would you tend to find on a body that had been left for that period of time it's very difficult to be certain um neither of the sets of Pathologists gives us a clue what they use to make these assessments uh doctors caner and Lennox don't say the body was so badly decomposed that they were unable to see Mar marks they comment on the marks that they saw and seem to have had no difficulty in seeing them um it has to be any comment I make has to essentially be a educated guess uh Feb and Dundee isn't warm I once again I would guess and therefore 3 days or six days in the house is not in a cold flat is not going to cause the degree of deterioration of the body that one might see nowadays in a centrally heated house likewise if the body is placed into a refrigerator after the first examination deterioration will occur but probably not hugely in that situation would it be fair in saying that doctors templeman and stalker were at a significant advantage over can and Lennox having had essentially a first glance and a fresher eyes yes it it's it's always a difficult question and it's always a difficult thing to cope with as the pathologist coming to do the second examination things have changed uh but experience will tell you how they are likely to have changed so yes there would have been changes but I do this on a regular basis not day after day but certainly month after month and I'm aware of the changes that occur as would I'm sure Dr kir and possibly Dr Lennox thank you and the ligature line is particularly important to determine the nature of M body's death in this case the ligature line is is crucially important certainly yes and so the internal examination of course and other circumstantial factors of evidence of course are important to this case well we PA pathologist worry about pathology and I leave the court to worry about the the other findings in their considerations Dr Shephard how many cases of suicide have you saw and where the deceased has been found with their intestines hanging outside of their body as a result of their partner finding them deceased well it would be very rare case um certainly cases of postmortem mutilation are significantly common um but I would have to accept that suicide and then mutilation is an extremely rare event one would hope and how common is it of people to hide the bodies of suade victims that they come across that's not uncommon um all sorts of of reasons that they could do that um it doesn't happen every day but it's not not uncommon but it would be safe to say that it's more common that people tend to hide the bodies of people that they have killed yes I think that would be a fair assessment upon considering the actions of Mr buy and including his mutilation of the corpse would the circumstances in this case be wholly un familiar to a homicide could I exclude a homicide on on all these features um I don't think it's possible given the shades of the spectrum that I've described to say this could not be a homicide what I'd say is there are significant features within it that cause me great concern to call it a homicide the lack of injuries that I've already described they are very worrying features to me uh in saying saying I think this has been definitely inflicted by a third party okay thank you finally the prosecution then in the defense present their closing arguments to the jury ladies and gentlemen of the jury it is my role to sum up the case for the prosecution this is the tragic story for the relationship where the husband was an abusive drunk repeatedly beat his wife was only with her because of her money she was dragged to dundy from London on a lie and just two weeks later this poor innocent woman who' been left penniless by her husband was murdered I'm sure the council for the defense are going to try and convince you this was suicide this is not the case the accuse states that he found his wife's body sumped on the floor surely if she had hanged herself she was still been suspended from whever she hung herself from not s on before ladies and gentlemen I ask you to put yourself in the C's shoes for a moment you wake up in the morning F the loved ones hang themselves what's your first reaction grief to try and save them to get help surely it's not to brutally disfigure the body and try to dispose of it who other than a Moder would do this there is no dispute over the cause of death being strangulation however if this were suicide by hanging more often that not there have been a much more significantly upward slope in leature of the neck as we have heard also to sum up ladies and gentlemen there is but one explanation for the death of Mrs Ellen bur her husband the accused Mr William bur murdered him he carefully prepared for planned her murder then carried out this horrific plan he strangled her stabbed her and disfigured the corpse of his wife shoved her carelessly into a customade Coffin by folding her leg across her body and left her there I ask you to consider all of the evidence you've heard and you've seen and in doing so ladies and gentlemen I urge you to find in favor of the University of dundy today thank you [Music] you ladies and gentlemen of the jury it is now my duty to speak to you on behalf of the Aberdine student team who here with represented the defense and in doing so I shall seek to persuade you in our favor to find our favor and to hold that the Dundee team who here represent the crown have not proved their case Beyond a reasonable doubt they of course contend that the cause of death was homicidal strangulation that what took the life of Ellen Barry was a murderous Act as opposed to a tragic self-inflicted hanging our case is that when the forensic science this is science here is carefully considered and properly analyzed you will find that the postmortem findings are consistent with Alan bar losing her life because of self-inflicted hanging that this homicide has not been established Beyond A Reasonable Doubt to do just as such a sad case and doing so in the right way means separating our hearts from our heads and yet admitting it will be affected all the same to illustrate the strength of our case we can look together at the medical evidence one by one first the lack of the damage to the larynx and neck if this wasn't a violent attack of a man who was trying to kill his wife would there not be more evidence of this the lack of injury to the deeper muscles of the neck and the larynx is more in keeping with hanging than in homocil strangulation can I move on to my now my second point the leature mark and the suspension Point through extensive exam examination the lature Mark has become a source of controversy on both sides in templeman and stalker's postmortem and to which Dr Clark agrees with on this matter the horizontal Mark found the neck is indicative of homicidal strangulation on the other hand Ken your lennox's postmortem document expresses a rising lature Mark which is more indicative of hanging can I now say something of the facts looking at both together demonstrates the power of our case William bur brought the circumstance of his wife's death to the police he went to the authorities and Lieutenant James par reported that he had found his wife on the floor and she was dead that she'd hung herself with a rope if genu he' wanted to ship her off in a box in his actions are completely at odds with that at all you will see that there is reasonable doubt and if there is reasonable doubt in this case then this should be compell you to dismiss and to follow with the abine case so the abine team submit this this was a hanging now it's over to the jury so ladies and gentlemen the other thing I usually tell jues is that there is no pressure of time on them whatsoever they can have as much time as they want or as little time as they want in this case you've got 15 minutes so so can I ask you please to retire and consider your decision thank you in the original trial the jury reached a verdict in just minutes this jury have to be even quicker so if we think that dundy proved the case that he was guilty could you put your hand up please in Middle two three four five six for Aline for the defense if you feel that they presented their case so 1 two six seven so we'll need to have a discussion and then we have about 10 minutes at the most before we vote again I wasn't sure about as to whether it was a a strangulation or a hanging and I don't think either side to me felt like they were actually I just couldn't decide which which way it was both of the guys who gave evidence more or less indicated that there was more evidence in their minds in different areas to suggest that the lady had been hung could he have um strangled her with her being asleep so that there was no Force he slept beside her no evidence but she struggled there was no evidence of a not NE well I just wondered because it can be very very fast if he was to quickly WAP or the force that he would exert would be enough to cause damage to lenx or yeah the first guy the first expert witness mod said um it could be really quick when he went to the police just said he found wife and who FL with the roope around her neck if you went if you found your wife or your partner hanging from a door you would surely say I found her hanging from a door hand on the floor State of Mind thing okay we were asked by the judge to vote on whether dund had proved the case that he was guilty of murder so if you believe Dand have proved the case that he was guilty put your hand up okay I I think so too okay so that's two so who thinks abine proved the case that he that that on their evidence that there's Reasonable Doubt yeah okay so so there should be 13 1 2 3 four five 6 seven8 11 12 was there Reasonable Doubt okay okay that's fine so Aberdine prove the case I I personally think he's guilty but I couldn't commit is that what okay so we're saying make sure you say the right one find for the prosecution or the defense um we find for the defense by majority 13 for the defense thank you well William brry stand up for a moment please I've got some good news and some bad news for you the good news is that you've been acquitted of the murder of your wife the bad news is that I'm quite convince your Jack Ripper and to be in the safe side I'm going to S you to death anyway verdict was incredible because we couldn't lose either way regardless of how the verdict came out 130 years ago they find him guilty and if today they find him guilty then that would support what happened then but bearing in mind at that time they came back with guilty but they asked for Mercy suggested that they had some doubt and this jury today clearly had doubt as well so that nobody's found him innocent um he could still well have been guilty but there was sufficient doubt that needed more investigation and if you're going to condemn a man to death you have to be certain and nobody then or now is actually certain of William Barry's guilt so where does that leave the theory that William Barry was Jack the repper we have a mopan that matches we have a person who was in the right location at the right time you know so I think you know when you look at the ber case compared with the other cases I think it's very it's a very very strong case was he Jack the Ripper I don't know on that one either I have to say but it's a rather compelling Theory and it makes a great story thanks for watching this video on the history Hit YouTube channel you can subscribe right here to make sure you don't miss any of our great films that are coming out or if you are a true history fan check out our special dedicated History Channel History hit. TV you're going to love it

Channel: History Hit

Views: 119,293

Keywords: history hit, history hit youtube, jack the ripper, whitechapel murders, serial killer documentary, victorian london, victorian true crime, jack the ripper documentary, jack the ripper documentary 2023, new jack the ripper, new jack the ripper documentary, jack the ripper new evidence

Id: z3weSNS3hoU

Length: 54min 0sec (3240 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 29 2024