The streets of wartime London are pitch black and the darkness offers cover to a murderer every bit as terrible as Jack the Ripper. During one awful week in February 1942 he viciously attacks women night after night. But the victims of the so-called Blackout Ripper are now all but forgotten. In this season of Bad Women, historian Hallie Rubenhold and criminologist Alice Fiennes share new details from the archives to tell the extraordinary and moving stories of the women who died and why their deaths were swept from view. And don't miss season one of Bad Women about a cold case like no other. In the fall of 1888, five women were brutally murdered in the slums of London. But everything you think you know about Jack the Ripper and those murdered women is wrong. Hallie reconstructs the lives of the five victims - revealing the appalling treatment they faced as women in the 1880s, and completely overturning the accepted Ripper story.
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Gesamtlänge aller Episoden: 23 hours 46 minutes
episode 3: S2 E3: The Butchers of Germany
Evelyn Oatley dreams of becoming a stage star in London's glamorous theaterland. It's a world away from her grim provincial upbringing. The daughter of a German immigrant, her troubled home life was compounded by a wave of anti-German rioting that broke out during World War One.
Tiring of both her job at a textile mill and her relationship with a local farmer, Evelyn ran off to London and transformed herself into budding starlet "Lita Ward"...
episode 3: BONUS: Hallie Rubenhold and Julia Laite on We Have Ways...
The murders of The Blackout Ripper - indeed many of the crimes committed against women in World War Two - aren't often spoken about by historians of the conflict. That's changing. The co-host of Bad Women Hallie Rubenhold and regular guest Dr Julia Laite recently appeared on the WW2 podcast We Have Ways of Making You Talk to talk to James Holland about the wartime experiences of women. Here's chance to hear the conversation.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
episode 4: S2 E4: "Lita Ward" the Soho Girl
Though married to chicken farmer Harold, Evelyn Oatley has given up on rural life and returned to live in seedy Soho under her showgirl alias "Lita Ward". The coming of war has meant a boom time for those selling entertainment, liquor and sex to the servicemen flooding the area. It is in this world of dancing and drinking that Evelyn lives.
But beneath a fun-loving facade, Evelyn is lonely. Her male callers help stave off this sense of isolation, but only temporarily...
episode 4: Raising the Dead - Behind the Scenes of Bad Women
The rich and famous leave many traces in the historical records, but how can you reconstruct the lives of ordinary people who lived decades and decades ago?
That was the challenge facing the team behind the Bad Women podcast...
episode 5: S2 E5: 'Men Dodge Bullets, Girls Dodge Men'
The Blackout Ripper wasn't the only serviceman attacking women in World War Two. In cities, towns and villages women were being harassed and abused by men in the military - and the women who chose to join the armed forces weren't immune from such treatment.
Those women who signed up for the army, navy or air force to fight Hitler were dogged by crude insinuations that they were promiscuous - especially if they went to dances and drank alcohol...
episode 6: S2 E6: "The Lady" of Gosfield Street
Around Piccadilly she's known as "The Lady" - a quiet, rather remote figure. Widow Margaret Lowe tries to keep herself to herself and stay out of trouble - but trouble is never far away.
The other residents of her building on Gosfield Street are used to hearing crashes and cries in the dead of night. Margaret sells sex in her flat, and with the coming of war that's an increasingly dangerous business...
episode 7: S2 E7: Shootout at the Dress Shop
Seamstress Doris Staples doesn't want to see Private John Waters any more... but the American soldier has other ideas. He goes to her workplace to make sure she doesn't "step out" with any other man... and carries with him a pistol.
Men were expected to seek an outlet for their sexual appetites, but any women who saw multiple partners or wanted to exit a relationship faced stigma, hostility and deadly violence...
episode 8: S2 E8: Madam Nerva Sees Death
Rachel Dobkin has come to see her psychic advisor, Madam Nerva. After years of bitter disagreements and financial wranglings with her estranged and violent husband, Rachel wants to know what the spirits think she should do next. Through Madam Nerva the spirts tell Rachel not to go near her husband again... but will she heed their warnings?
The case of Rachel Dobkin is another face of wartime crime and not the work of the Blackout Ripper - but it reveals a common thread...
episode 9: S2 E9: The Blackout Ripper on the Run
Greta Heywood is being strangled in a Piccadilly doorway when a passerby interrupts the Blackout Ripper, who disappears into the night. Greta survives the attack and the killer leaves vital clues as to his identity.
The police are now closing in on their man - but can they catch him before he can claim more victims?
Further reading:
Andrews, Maggie and Lomas, Janis...
episode 10: S2 E10: Olga Hangs Up Her Whip
Doris had made her living as "Olga" - a dominatrix alter ego charging men handsomely for sex involving corsets, whips and "unusual methods". But when she married aged businessman (and former client) Henri Jouannet, she'd promised to give it all up.
The coming of war put a strain on the couple's finances and their relationship - and Doris secretly returned to selling sex. But the trade had changed - instead of seeing her regular clients, "Olga" now meets strangers on the street.....