Where it all started: it was while writing the following extended essay that I first stumbled across the case of the Italian Boy, in a very brief newspaper report, written decades after the event, tantalisingly mentioning the multiple murders committed by one J Bishop, bodysnatcher. This essay also led me into a deeper exploration of the labyrinthine East London slum the Old Nichol, which I subsequently went on to write about in The Blackest Streets.

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