Imagine you are standing in the middle of London's East End.

It's 3.40 in the morning on August 31, 1888.

Now, when you think of London, you probably think of Big Ben or the Queen.

But forget all that.

You're in Whitechapel, a place that contemporary writers literally call the metropolis of the abyss.

The air here isn't just air.

It's thick, soot-laden.

Key soup fog that smells like coal smoke and rotting garbage.

It's so dense that you could barely see your own hand in front of your face.

You're walking down a narrow back street called Buck's Row.

It's quiet.

Too quiet.

And then you see something.

It looks like a bundle of rags lying near a stable entrance.

Two cart drivers, Charles Cross and Robert Paul, stumble upon it first. They think it's a

woman who just had too much gin and passed out on the cobblestones. They even consider propping

her up so she doesn't get arrested for public intoxication. But then one of them reaches down to

touch her face and sees that it's cold.

When the police arrive and shine a lantern on her, they realize that this isn't just a nap.

It's a massacre.

This woman is Marianne Polly Nichols.

Her throat hasn't just been cut, it's been severed down to the bone.

...