Jack the Ripper, arguably one of the most recognizable names in the world of true crime.

The legends of the unknown culprit who haunted the streets of London in the 1800s.

The heinous nature of his crimes felt like the work of fiction, and the grisly displays he left behind were chilling for a city without answers.

Today we're going to be diving into some of the most infamous scenes he left behind in East London,

and the marks he left on England as one of the most cruel and mysterious killers in recent history. So where exactly do we begin? Our story starts on the streets of

East London in 1888. The area near East Chapel was extremely overcrowded, and by all accounts it was considered a slum.

Packed in with more than half a million of London's poorest citizens,

it became a breeding ground for theft, manipulation, greed, and

unspeakable crimes.

The conditions of the area were known to be rough, Many suffering from addiction and alcoholism, most notably for the time,

many of the women who lived on these streets resorted to prostitution. It was the only way to make ends meet.

But conditions were dangerous.

It left many women out in the open and in full view of harmful men, dangerous men,

which is exactly how we would meet the first victim of the Ripper.

Her name was Mary Ann Polly Nichols.

She was a 44 year old prostitute in East London, and although there's some speculation on this,

she is widely believed to be the very first victim of Jack the Ripper.

Mary Ann Nichols was originally employed in East London as a domestic servant, but she struggled with alcoholism, a feat that she could never really get over and one that would ultimately cost her her job, to which she turned to the streets and eventually

prostitution. Around the time that she turned to the streets, she had eventually

moved into a lodging house, but given some of her struggles with alcoholism, she was unable to pay for her

room. So she roughly left around 11 p.m. one night hoping that she could raise the

money by prostituting.

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