Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. Welcome back once again to betwixtor sheets.

Because let's face it, warning you that a show called Betwixtor Sheets, the history of sex scandal and society is going to contain sex scandal and society. Seems a little bit bonkers to my way of thinking, so we may as well have a giggle with it.

But I'm actually being a bit serious today. I've got my serious face on. This is seriously an adult podcast, spoken by

serious adults to other serious adults about adulty, serious things, covering a range of serious

adult subjects and used to be a serious adult as well. Right, no, serious face back on. We're

actually covering murder today. Murder and Mayhem in

Victorian London and you just might not want to listen to that one today, in which case, scroll

back and find something more suitable and we will see you next time. Right, for the rest of

you morbid little goblins. Let's crack on. When the sun is out in 19th century London, the tem glitters its

snaking path to the city, but get a little bit closer and you'll realize it is anything but sparkly

clean. This is a working water where. Boats of all sizes are carrying their

wares to port and dumping their waste into the river. And they aren't the only ones dumping waste here,

industrial, domestic, bodily, you name it, all of London's effluence is here. With the shouts of

workmen echoing across the water and human waste floating

downstream, the river has none of the tranquility expected for a final resting place. And yet,

in the late 19th century, it was just that for so many. In 1882, for example, 544 bodies were found in the Thames.

And those were just the ones that they found.

And in the 1870s and 1880s, an even stranger set of discoveries was being made.

Body parts.

Unidentifiable torsos being spread across the banks of the River Thames.

It is a case that has gone unsolved.

Until now.

...