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Hello there, friends. I hope everyone in the SYSK Army has had a nice pre-Halloween week. Things around the office are buzzing with activity — people dressed up in weird costumes, Josh shirtless. Actually, it’s about like any other Friday morning, come to think of it.

This week on the SYSK podcast program, Josh and I covered a couple of crime oriented topics. Tuesday’s show was about the witness protection program. There are programs in many countries, but the one in the United States is the measuring stick against all others, maybe because we’ve been at it longer. Or maybe because of all of the organized crime we’ve seen over the years thanks to the mafia and gang activity. If you decide to turn states evidence and rat on some former criminal cohorts, you can get protection and possibly even relocation, complete with name change, from the federal government. Not only that, but you can also pull in a cool $60k per year as long as you abide by the rules of not trying to contact anyone from your former life.

Yesterday we covered the grizzly crimes of one Jack the Ripper — the notorious murderer in 19th century London. Old Jack did his dirty work on alcoholic prostitutes, and while there have been more than 150 people named as possible suspects over the years, nobody has ever proven who Jack was. There are some good theories out there, but if you’re like me, many of them sound like plausible suspects. Ripperologists, the folks who are still REALLY into researching Jack, take all this pretty seriously and we can’t wait for fan mail trashing our research!

Let’s hear about your Halloween plans, folks. What cool traditions do you take part in?

Have a great weekend!

Read:
How Jack the Ripper Worked
How Witness Protection Works
Could Jack the Ripper have been an artist?