Bad Women Presents Stolen Sister
Bad Women Presents Stolen Sister is a limited series from RTÉ about the murder of Elizabeth Plunkett, a 23-year-old woman from Dublin who was killed by Ireland's first serial killers in 1976. The podcast follows her family's decades-long fight for justice. It also includes the series Bad Women: The Blackout Ripper, which explores the forgotten victims of a WWII-era murderer in London.
Episodes
Stolen Sister Bonus: Petition and Witness Accounts
Over the last seven weeks we have heard from many people who have had interactions with John Shaw and Geoffrey Evans. Up to twenty people have provided us with accounts of attempted abductions, sightings and various interactions with Shaw and Evans. In this episode, we bring you these accounts in full. An Garda Síochána have now appealed to anybody with information to report it to an
Stolen Sister 07: A Chance for Justice
As this series has been publishing, we’ve been contacted by many listeners, including about a dozen contacts from people who are new witnesses to events around Ireland in September 1976—and who it appears could have been potential victims of John Shaw and Geoffrey Evans. Even after all these years, new information is still out there on Elizabeth’s story - and with new witnesses s
Stolen Sister 06: Irrelevant Victims
Having lived over 40 years with the loss of Elizabeth, the Plunkett family are taken aback when in 2023, they’re approached by the Parole Board. John Shaw is looking to get out of prison. Elizabeth’s family are invited to submit their views on his potential release. Can they stop him from getting freedom? This process unlocks a series of events where Elizabeth's siblings begin to reali
Stolen Sister 05: The Trials
With the heartbreaking recovery of both Elizabeth and Mary’s remains, the investigation’s focus sharpens. The men, isolated in solitary confinement for months, are finally brought before the courts. But things take a strange twist when Shaw and Evans, once united in their actions, now turn on each other—each blaming the other for the murders. This results in a judge deciding ther
Stolen Sister 04: Confessions
With the nation on high alert, two Gardaí in Galway spot and arrest Ireland’s two most wanted men. Quickly brought in for questioning, Shaw and Evans find themselves at the center of a desperate investigation. Gardaí believe Mary Duffy could still be alive, and now they need the suspects to tell them where Mary and Elizabeth are. As the interrogation unfolds, the entire country
Stolen Sister 03: On the Hunt
As suspicions grow around two Englishmen roaming freely around Ireland, Gardaí issue a nationwide alert for their capture. But no one knows these men have already hatched a chilling plan: to abduct, rape, and murder one woman every week. The only question now is can they be stopped before they kill again? Binge all episodes of Bad Women Presents Stolen Sister early and ad-free with a Pushki
Stolen Sister 02: Missing
On Saturday, August 28th, 1976, Elizabeth Plunkett walked out of a pub in Brittas Bay - and vanished without a trace. Over the following week, her distraught family and friends launched a frantic search, desperate for any sign of her. Though they didn’t find Elizabeth, a series of puzzling clues began to emerge. And at the same time, two suspicious men were seen lurking in the area, but with
Stolen Sister 01: Elizabeth
The summer of 1976 brought an extraordinary three-month heatwave to Ireland. 23yr old Elizabeth Plunkett had just fallen in love and been on holiday to France. On the last weekend in August, Elizabeth headed for an overnight getaway with friends to the beach resort of Brittas Bay to mark the end of that summer. No one could have imagined what happened next… Binge all episodes of Bad Women P
Introducing Bad Women Presents Stolen Sister
On the last weekend of the summer of 1976, a young woman named Elizabeth Plunkett went away for a night with friends to Brittas Bay in county Wicklow. Nobody knew it then, but that was the last time she would leave home. Elizabeth was brutally murdered by two men who would go on to continue to rape and kill until they were stopped. Bad Women Presents Stolen Sister is a special limited series from
Introducing: The Chinatown Sting
Here's a preview of a new Pushkin podcast, The Chinatown Sting. Over the next few weeks, we'll be sharing the series right here for Bad Women listeners to enjoy. In the late 1980s, federal authorities laid a trap. They’d gotten a tip that huge amounts of heroin were being mailed to New York City inside boxes filled with tea. The investigation would uncover a network of drug smugglers who use
Serial Killers & Misogyny: Hallie Rubenhold on Betwixt the Sheets
Hallie Rubenhold joins Betwixt the Sheets host Kate Lister to discuss our culture’s fascination with serial killers. Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Peter Sutcliffe, Jack the Ripper…. these violent people are famous, but we only know them for their horrific crimes. What role does misogyny play in how these serial killers are portrayed on our screens and in our newspapers? And how does it affect court c
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. Hosts Hallie Rubenhold and Alice Fiennes sit down with genealogist Kate Healy to discuss the detective work involved in scouring the archives for the scraps of information w
S2 E11: The Killers and The Hangman
Season Finale: Marjorie Cummins is certain that her husband is innocent - he's not the violent Blackout Ripper and he shouldn't hang for murder. She loyally supports him in court - refusing to believe the compelling evidence against him. Will the jury agree with her? In wartime London, it seems, men could murder some women and still escape the hangman. Some juries defied the directions of judges t
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 chan
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 change
BONUS: The Music from 'The Blackout Ripper'
The story of the Blackout Ripper partly takes place in the wartime bars and clubs of West End London. To recreate their sound, Bad Women's composer and sound designer Pascal Wyse put together a quartet to play jazz tunes of the time. Here Pascal and guitarist Ed Gaughan talk about the history of that music and play some of the numbers in full on this episode on Pushkin Industries' Broken Record
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. The Home Front in Britain: Ima
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 crim
BONUS: Black GIs and their "Brown Babies"
Unlike white GIs, it was made virtually impossible for African-American servicemen to marry the women they met and fell in love with in the UK during World War Two. If these couples had children, those so-called "Brown Babies" were stigmatized and scorned - with many ending up in grim children's homes. Pausing the story of the Blackout Ripper - this episode examines the experiences of those Black
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 de
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 busin
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 - espec
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 m
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 tran
S2 E2: The Death of a Quiet Druggist
Evelyn Hamilton has annoyed her bosses in the male-dominated world of pharmacy - they find her quiet and independent nature mystifying and odd. After an unhappy stint at a druggist shop outside London, she's landed a new job and a fresh start in a faraway town. In February 1942, Evelyn sets out on her long journey – just as the Blackout Ripper is hunting for his first victim… Join hosts Hallie R
S2 E1: Murders in a City Without Light
London's West End - once a glittering Mecca of nightlife - is pitch black. The lights are off to hide the city from waves of Nazi bombers - but in the darkness a merciless killer is hunting down the women of this district. Join hosts Hallie Rubenhold and Alice Fiennes as they walk those bomb-damaged streets to tell the stories of the women targeted by this "Blackout Ripper" over the course of jus
NEW SEASON: The Blackout Ripper coming Oct 11
London is pitch black. It's wartime and the lights are out to confuse Nazi bombers. But in this darkness a killer as warped and as violent as Jack the Ripper is hunting for women night after night in the bomb-damaged streets. The women murdered by the so-called Blackout Ripper received little sympathy at the time and have been largely forgotten since. So historian Hallie Rubenhold and criminologi
Death of an Artist: Ana Mendieta and Carl Andre
We'll be dropping a trailer for the new brand new season of Bad Women next week. But in the meantime, here’s a preview from Death of an Artist, a new podcast from Pushkin Industries. For more than 35 years, accusations of murder shrouded one of the art world’s most storied couples: Was the famous sculptor Carl Andre involved in the death of his up-and-coming artist wife Ana Mendieta? Host Helen Mo
From History Daily: Ruth Bader Ginsburg
We’ll be back on October 11th with a brand new season of Bad Women, but in the meantime, we wanted to give you a taste of another history podcast we think you'll like. From History Daily, host Lindsay Graham takes listeners back in time to a certain day in history to explore a momentous event. On this episode, we'll go back to August 10, 1993 when Ruth Bader Ginsburg was sworn in as the U.S. Supr
S1 E15: The Madness of Jacob Levy
Families of Ripper victims often suppressed the memories of their murdered loved ones - fearing the stigma of being related to supposed "prostitutes". And descendants of men accused of being the infamous killer have also had to endure seeing their ancestors' reputations sullied.We hear from a living relatives of Annie Chapman... and of Jacob Levy, a Whitechapel butcher whose appalling struggle wit
S1 E14: The Monster Among Us
Children around the world are taught about Jack the Ripper and shown graphic images of his victims. Is that wise? Are we in danger of normalising his crimes and encouraging those who seek to venerate and even emulate him?Hallie Rubenhold talks to students and teachers, and hears from crime novelist and Ripper investigator Patricia Cornwell about finding a way to discuss the Whitechapel murders wit
S1 E13: The Bones of Marie Jeanette
Mary Jane Kelly was the final victim of Jack the Ripper. And the mutilation of her body was more horrendous than in any previous murder. But something also sets her apart from the other victims. Her youth, her reputed beauty and the nature of her death have resulted in a strange cult growing up around her. Even her corpse cannot rest in peace... with some demanding that her bones been exhumed for
S1 E12: The Mystery of Mary Jane Kelly
Mary Jane Kelly's life ended brutally in a small room in Whitechapel - but what journey brought her to East London? She sold sex in her final years - but was she born to a rich family or was she the teenage bride of a coal miner? Had she been tricked into sex slavery abroad, escaped and gone on the run from her criminal traffickers? Was Mary Jane Kelly even her real name? Learn more about your ad
S1 E11: Chamber of Horrors
In October 1888, Jack the Ripper went to ground. Although the murders seemed to ceased, public interest in the killings remained intense. Entrepreneurs exploited this prurience for profit - even opening blood-drenched waxworks exhibits in Whitechapel. This melding of fact and fiction, murder and mammon persists to this day. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comS
S1 E10: In a Dark, Dark Corner
Kate Eddowes was murdered in a dark London square in the dead of the night. What had she been doing there? It seems improbable that she was selling sex... and the more likely explanation totally upends the idea that Jack the Ripper posed as a "John" to launch his brutal attacks. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy inform
S1 E9: The Ballad of Kate Eddowes
Kate Eddowes rejected the drudgery of conventional working class life and left the factory and hearth to roam the open road. She travelled the country, performing and selling songs she had written with her partner. But her existence was far from carefree and her lover turned violent. Eventually, Kate ended up penniless in Whitechapel - and an easy target for the Ripper. Learn more about your ad-c
S1 E8: The Face of The Ripper
Elizabeth Stride was supposedly seen by several eyewitnesses in her final hours. They also saw a man with her. At last, Jack the Ripper had a face. These descriptions are the bedrock of many well known theories about the killer’s true identity. But can they be believed? And was the Ripper even responsible for Elizabeth’s murder? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork
S1 E7: Public Woman 97
Swedish farmer’s daughter Elizabeth fell pregnant out of wedlock. The authorities considered her no better than a prostitute and subjected her to myriad physical and emotional humiliations. After she lost the baby, Elizabeth fled Sweden - embarking on a life of deceit that would end in her vicious murder on the streets of Whitechapel. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcas
S1 E6: The Gentlemen of the Press
Annie Chapman’s murder sparked fears that a crazed killer was on the loose in London, prompting the burgeoning newspaper industry to flood Whitechapel with reporters. Those journalists wrote the first draft of Jack the Ripper’s history, and much of it survives in the story we tell today. But can we really believe those newspaper reports? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodca
S1 E5: Dark Annie and the Demon Drink
Annie Chapman and her husband were making good on their ambitions to live a comfortable, respectable life. Only... Annie drank. Under pressure from her husband’s employer, Annie was sent away - and she fell deeper and deeper into the bottle. This addiction - and society's disgust with women who drank - also pushed Annie closer and closer to her killer. Learn more about your ad-choices at https:
S1 E4: Polly the "Prostitute"
Standing over the corpse of Polly Nichols, police officers decided that in life she had been a prostitute. There's no evidence Polly ever sold sex, so why did the authorities reach this conclusion? And do the prejudices that warped the police hunt for the Ripper survive to this day? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy inf
S1 E3: Polly Walks Out
Polly Nichols had a husband, a young family and lived in a brand new home built by a philanthropic millionaire. Then she walked out on it all. Why?Surviving without a husband was almost impossible for a lone women, so Polly began a slow spiral into desperate poverty that would eventually put her in the path of her killer, Jack the Ripper. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodc
S1 E2: Welcome to Whitechapel
London on August 6th, 1888 is one of the greatest cities on Earth, but the Whitechapel neighborhood is a byword for poverty, violence, and vice. Jack the Ripper will slaughter his victims here.Join Hallie Rubenhold on a tour of this slum - with its busy markets, rowdy pubs, filthy lodging houses, and crowded police cells - and meet the real women who will soon cross paths with the Ripper. Learn m
S1 E1: The Ripper Myth
Jack the Ripper's victims were prostitutes murdered while selling sex on the streets of Whitechapel - that's what historian Hallie Rubenhold thought when she started researching the crimes. She was wrong. As she looked into the case, she discovered much of the familiar Ripper story is totally false. But by challenging that myth and trying to tell the true stories of the murdered women, Hallie att
Bad Women: The Ripper Retold coming October 5
In late 1888, five women were brutally murdered in a slum neighbourhood of London. The violent killer earned himself a nickname - Jack the Ripper. But everything you think you know about the murders and those murdered women is wrong.In a new 15-part series, historian Hallie Rubenhold tells you the real story of those victims and how they came to be in the path of a serial killer - completely overt
