Jack the Ripper – The Case Reopened BBC1

When I was on the last day of filming for BBC4’s Dark Son back in August, the film’s presenter and top criminologist David Wilson was chatting about the Jack the Ripper documentary he had just made with Emilia Fox. He was talking about how the programme shed new light on the case. Let’s face it, the Ripper industry of books, conventions and fansites can be tawdry. Many new publications are boring and often exploitative. However, having read David’s A History […]

The Yorkshire Ripper Files

I remember as a student being woken by the radio alarm to news that police had finally arrested the Yorkshire Ripper – after long six years of hunting him. That was 1981. Big news. The murderer had spread fear across the North of England with his cowardly, obscene hammer attacks on women. The media had started by loyally reporting police efforts to catch the culprit, but this switched to doubts and criticism. Politicians turned on the police. The Reclaim the […]

Dark Son on BBC4

This intriguing documentary is now scheduled for next Tuesday (12 Feb) at 9pm on BBC4. Dark Son: The Hunt for a Serial Killer is a 90-minute look into one of the most appalling and unsolved serial killer cases in British history. In 1964-65 a kerb-crawler murdered six women in west London. He left their naked bodies in the River Thames or various outdoor secluded spots. Scotland Yard mounted its biggest ever manhunt but could uncover no strong suspects. The killer […]

Guesswork and the release of murderer Harold Jones

Thanks goodness deference to authority largely gets the middle finger today. This means we can give short shrift to claptrap like this: ‘Sadistic crime is probably more rare in England than in any other country in the world. Curiously enough, even the few known exponents in our English records are apt to bear an alien name.’ So, just to be clear – sadism is a vice of foreign blighters. The English do not stoop to such shameful behaviour. This view, […]

Murder by the Sea

First posted on robinjarossi.com 2 4 18 I spent Good Friday working on a documentary being made for CBS Reality called Murder by the Sea. The setting was a chilly boatyard in Cardiff. The premise of this 12-part series is fascinating. It is about how the seaside has been the setting for a spectrum of homicides down the years. Coastal towns can be quiet and idyllic, faded and in decline, or well-off and socially conservative. But they are often shaken […]

Documentary puts Harold Jones on trial for Jack the Stripper crimes

First posted  1 10 17 on robinjarossi.com Despite the huge difficulties in unmasking the man who got away with the murder of at least six women in 1960s London so long after the event, efforts are still ongoing in 2017 to unravel this chilling mystery. Since the publication of The Hunt for the 60s’ Ripper in July, I’ve been in touch with author Neil Milkins. In his 2011 book Who Was Jack the Stripper? he makes an interesting case for Harold […]

Did Michelle McNamara help crack the case?

Originally posted on robinjarossi.com 29 4 18 I’ve just finished the fascinating I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara. What an amazing coincidence that California police finally nabbed a suspect for the Golden State Killer crimes so soon after its publication. Finding the perpetrator is the subject of McNamara’s book. Or was it a coincidence? It looks as if McNamara’s investigation may have inspired the capture of suspect Joseph James DeAngelo. The cops somehow surreptitiously got his DNA from […]