Episode three of Lucy Worsley’s Victorian Murder Club aired on BBC Two last night (January 5) at 9pm.
It delved into a series of murders between 1887 and 1889 where the bodies of multiple women were found dismembered in and around the River Thames.
Historian and presenter Lucy Worsley described the murders as “terrifying”.
In May 1887 the first discovery – a human torso – was found floating in the water near Rainham.
On May 11, 1887 a river worker named Edward Hughes discovered a woman’s torso wrapped up and floating on the river.
Edward Callaway, a local surgeon, examined the torso and deemed the dismemberment was performed shortly after death and the cuts showed a degree of anatomical skill – but not necessarily a surgeon’s precision.
On June 5 that year, a right thigh was found near Temple Pier in central London and on the same day a lower thorax and upper abdomen were found as one piece on the south bank of the Thames near Battersea pier.
Dr Callaway confirmed these body parts fitted with the torso found at Rainham.
A head was never found and the woman could not be identified.
At the inquest, doctors could not determine how the woman had died, so the jury returned a verdict of ‘found dead’ because there was not enough evidence to prove murder.
The body of three other women were found across 1888 and 1889.
Although the case went cold and nobody was ever charged with the murders, Worsley investigated a potential new suspect, James Crick, in this episode.
Crick was a bargeman on the Thames and had a history of violence against women.
He was sentenced to 15 years and served eight and a half in prison in 1889 for assault, which is when the murders stopped.
A team of historians and writers discussed the possibility of Crick being the killer and Worsley even claimed the case to now be “closed” but officially, the case remains unsolved.
Lucy Worsley’s Victorian Murder Club is available on BBC iPlayer.
