Blood on the Page

From the acclaimed author of American Sherlock and host of multiple true-crime podcasts—including her newest podcast, Buried Bones—this Audio Original tells the story of the infamous but relatively little-known Ratcliffe Highway Murders and the indelible print they left on literary and law-enforcement history.

In 1811 London, two families were brutally murdered in their homes, just five blocks apart. Four members of the Marr family, including a baby, were butchered with an axe. Twelve days later, three people in the Williamson family were slaughtered with a knife and a crowbar.

Nothing was taken from either home, and the motive remained a mystery. A serial killer was stalking Ratcliffe Highway, an area so violent it was now nicknamed “the most dangerous street in the world.”

Panic spread like a contagion across England. The extreme violence, the paucity of clues, and the lack of a clear motive proved maddening for Londoners. The disorganized local investigators rushed to arrest anyone who could reasonably be pegged. Collaboration among the Bow Street Runners, the Thames River Police, and the local constables was poor and fueled public criticism of all three. In the wake of the investigation, Scotland Yard was formed, and its structure became the blueprint for police departments in England.

The Ratcliffe Highway Murders were not only the catalyst for proper investigations and the formation of modern-day police departments—they also sparked a creative fire, giving birth to a seminal generation of crime writers. Plots devised by many suspense writers since have centered on a stranger creeping around the one place you should feel safe, your home. The random, motiveless nature of the attacks, not seen before, shaped the future of literature, including the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Truman Capote.