C-5: Killed While Soliciting or Not?

[Debra Arif]

I very much doubt the ‘find trade’ wording comes from a press report. I would imagine it’s the interpretation of whoever wrote the Casebook article.

This is something I have mentioned to a couple of people-
The Casebook is the first point of call for anyone wanting to read anything about the case online but it has not been updated in a very long time and some of the information given about the victims is not obviously taken from any contemporary source. I used this as an example from The Casebook Wiki (not the Casebook victims page) from the page about Polly Nichols and teh incident where Emily Holland and Polly Nichols talk-

Polly tells Emily that she had had her doss money three times that day and had drunk it away. She says she will return to Flower and Dean Street where she could share a bed with a man after one more attempt to find trade.

Perhaps we really do need to suck up some of the criticism aimed at us and our interpretations if we have let things like this slip through the net unchallenged?

[Sam Flynn]

What’s the source for that? It doesn’t read like a contemporary press report.

It isn't. Trevor's source is a summary page about the events in Annie's life and her death, evidently drawn from a number of other sources.

https://www.casebook.org/victims/chapman.html

[Howard Brown]

Thank you for creating this thread, Anna.

[Robert Linford]

The words "where...trade" should have been in brackets.

[Anna Morris]

Even if some of the women intended to earn the few pennies by prostitution, what if they were unable to do so? Say, no one was interested, likely clients went home, pubs were long closed.

IMO, there had to be a turning point when the women knew the doss houses were closed, the likely customers were not around, etc. What was Plan B?

Sleeping rough was one possibility. I have suggested they may have known a man from who they could get a few pennies when they were in dire straits. What about a man, a night watchman or similar, who could be induced to let the women sleep inside a building, perhaps in return for favours? They were not all found in the same exact area but a number of accounts of the actions of unfortunates or prostitutes in the day, included the man asking the woman to ´take a walk´ with him. That seemed to be a normal part of the transaction for obvious reasons. Were they asked to take a walk on the way to a place to sleep?

If the women were unable by 3:00 AM or so, to earn money the usual way, did they have a destination in mind--physical location or finding a certain man-- to solve their immediate problem of homelessness?

[Trevor Marriott]

Even if some of the women intended to earn the few pennies by prostitution, what if they were unable to do so? Say, no one was interested, likely clients went home, pubs were long closed.

IMO, there had to be a turning point when the women knew the doss houses were closed, the likely customers were not around, etc. What was Plan B?

Sleeping rough was one possibility. I have suggested they may have known a man from who they could get a few pennies when they were in dire straits. What about a man, a night watchman or similar, who could be induced to let the women sleep inside a building, perhaps in return for favours? They were not all found in the same exact area but a number of accounts of the actions of unfortunates or prostitutes in the day, included the man asking the woman to ´take a walk´ with him. That seemed to be a normal part of the transaction for obvious reasons. Were they asked to take a walk on the way to a place to sleep?

If the women were unable by 3:00 AM or so, to earn money the usual way, did they have a destination in mind--physical location or finding a certain man-- to solve their immediate problem of homelessness?

Anna
Plan B would no doubt be to find somewhere to sleep, but In my opinion would not amount to just lying down on a footpath in a street. I am sure these women knew locations where others of a similar disposition would all go to sleep, after all we are not talking mid summer

The doctors stated that the victims were killed where they were found. We still have photographs of those crime scenes, and if anyone believes that the women were sleeping rough at these precise locations needs a reality check, and in particular Hallie Rubenhold

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Anna Morris]

Anna
Plan B would no doubt be to find somewhere to sleep, but In my opinion would not amount to just lying down on a footpath in a street. I am sure these women knew locations where others of a similar disposition would all go to sleep, after all we are not talking mid summer

The doctors stated that the victims were killed where they were found. We still have photographs of those crime scenes, and if anyone believes that the women were sleeping rough at these precise locations needs a reality check, and in particular Hallie Rubenhold

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

Thanks, Trevor. I am not suggesting the women were sleeping in those places. (I once suggested something a little similar, it was fully discussed on the Forum and I saw where I was wrong in that theory.)

Another plausible angle would be, for instance Polly and Annie, weary and penniless around 3:00 AM, sitting on steps or leaning against a wall somewhere when a man comes along and makes an offer. There are lots of possibilities.

[Trevor Marriott]

Thanks, Trevor. I am not suggesting the women were sleeping in those places. (I once suggested something a little similar, it was fully discussed on the Forum and I saw where I was wrong in that theory.)

Another plausible angle would be, for instance Polly and Annie, weary and penniless around 3:00 AM, sitting on steps or leaning against a wall somewhere when a man comes along and makes an offer. There are lots of possibilities.

I dont believe these women were killed by a blitz attack in the first instance. The killer would have had to have some control of the situation. Simply accosting any woman in the street would be problematic because of the likelihood of them running away or screaming out, and in none of the case were screams heard.

The women in my opinion were killed by having their throats cut in a way which suggests the killer was behind the victims. I also believe they were turning a trick with the killer, with them standing in an upright position against a fence or a wall and hitching their clothes up and leaning forward. thus giving the killer the element of surprise to cut the throats with the force needed to be able to almost decapitate some of them.

I also dont subscribe to the belief that they were strangled first I did put questions to Dr Biggs on this issue below is the question and his answers, so I believe my original scenario is the more likely

Q. The Doctors, in fact, do report that in some cases bruises were found around the victim’s throats and in the case of Annie Chapman her tongue was found to be protruding. Does this point to her being strangled first before her throat was cut?

A. Strangulation can (and usually does) leave a bruise or bruises, but this is not always the case. Suffocation is perhaps less likely to result in bruising, but it would of course be possible. So the presence or absence of bruising around the neck does not either prove or exclude strangulation / suffocation.

A swollen tongue and / or face are findings that are non-specific. Many people try to attribute such findings to particular causations, but often it means nothing as a variety of mechanisms (natural and unnatural) can result in the same appearance. There is also no guarantee that somebody’s description of a ‘swollen’ tongue or face represents genuine swelling, as appearances of bodies after death can appear peculiar to observers and prompt all sorts of not-necessarily-objective descriptions.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Anna Morris]

Hi, Trevor. One thing that is peculiar in these cases is there is evidence throats were cut while the victim was on the ground, thus strangulation or other means of control.

For instance with Annie, there was arterial blood spray on the fence, only a short distance up from the ground. With Polly and Kate, blood was running down the gutter or beneath them. (We could add Liz to this list.) The killer got Mary in bed, in the position he preferred.

It seems if the women were bent forward, skirts up, there would have sometimes been blood spray on skirts. I could see the skirts shielding the killer from gore but why would we not see a downward trajectory of arterial spray while the women were lowered to the ground? Or if most of the bleeding was done on the way down, why was there such a direct spray pattern on the fence, etc.?

I can see that pulling the head back would better expose the great vessels and lead to the near decapitations. Actually that activity alone tends to argue against throats cut while the victims were prone.

Yet arterial blood spray should be immediate upon severance of the artery.

[Sam Flynn]

I can see that pulling the head back would better expose the great vessels and lead to the near decapitations. Actually that activity alone tends to argue against throats cut while the victims were prone.

Should that be "supine" rather than "prone", Anna?

[Anna Morris]

Should that be "supine" rather than "prone", Anna?

Thanks for pointing that out. It is OK to use ¨prone¨ as I did, meaning lying flat. The more definitive meaning of prone is, lying flat, face down. Supine can mean lying down but in a more exact meaning, face up. In discussing forensics, the stricter meanings are better used.

All of which means I just looked up both words and learned a lot. Thanks, Sam!

[Trevor Marriott]

Hi, Trevor. One thing that is peculiar in these cases is there is evidence throats were cut while the victim was on the ground, thus strangulation or other means of control.

For instance with Annie, there was arterial blood spray on the fence, only a short distance up from the ground. With Polly and Kate, blood was running down the gutter or beneath them. (We could add Liz to this list.) The killer got Mary in bed, in the position he preferred.

It seems if the women were bent forward, skirts up, there would have sometimes been blood spray on skirts. I could see the skirts shielding the killer from gore but why would we not see a downward trajectory of arterial spray while the women were lowered to the ground? Or if most of the bleeding was done on the way down, why was there such a direct spray pattern on the fence, etc.?

I can see that pulling the head back would better expose the great vessels and lead to the near decapitations. Actually that activity alone tends to argue against throats cut while the victims were prone.

Yet arterial blood spray should be immediate upon severance of the artery.

Anna

Can I again refer to questions put to Dr Biggs

Q. Evidence from the crime scenes seems to show a distinct lack of arterial blood spray. Now given the throats were cut, and in some cases the carotid arteries were severed is there any explanation for the absence of arterial spray?

A. Blood loss could have been great if major neck vessels were severed. It is possible for much of the bleeding to remain within the body, though, so it would not necessarily result in a large volume of blood being visible externally. The lack of documented arterial blood pattern is not surprising as, despite being common in textbooks; arterial spurting is actually quite uncommon ‘in the wild’. Arteries, even large ones, usually go into acute spasm when cut, providing very effective control of bleeding (at least initially). The large arteries in the neck are quite well ‘hidden’ behind muscles and other structures, so they can be missed by even very extensive cuts to the neck. Also, even if cut, the initial ‘spray’ is blocked by the surrounding structures such that blood either remains inside the body or simply gushes / flows / drips out of the external skin hole rather than spurting.

Q. The doctors in their reports offer opinions as to in which position the killer was in relation to the victims when carrying out the murders. Are these opinions reliable or simply guesswork?

A. In answer to your question, it is really impossible to say with certainty how the wounds were inflicted in terms of ‘reconstructing’ events from the appearance of wounds. This is something that used to be quite ‘popular’ even up until relatively late on in the 20thcentury, with pathologists stating confidently that a left-handed dwarf with a limp inflicted the injury from behind using a specific knife, etc. Nowadays it is accepted that there is so much variation that in such cases, apart from a few ‘extreme’ scenarios that can be more-or-less excluded, just about anything is possible.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[Sam Flynn]

Polly tells Emily that she had had her doss money three times that day and had drunk it away. She says she will return to Flower and Dean Street where she could share a bed with a man after one more attempt to find trade.

Perhaps we really do need to suck up some of the criticism aimed at us and our interpretations if we have let things like this slip through the net unchallenged?

I'd suggest we can underline "one more attempt to find trade", too, Debs. I've not found that, or anything like it, in any contemporary source. Emily Holland, the last witness to see Nichols alive at ~2:30, said that Polly went on her way after resisting Holland's attempt to persuade Polly to come home with her. On parting, Polly said that she was going to get the money to pay for her lodgings, but nothing is said about how she intended to do it.

One has to wonder why Polly refused Emily's offer, preferring to stay out in order to get the money. Whether that was by prostitution, begging or some other means, it does seem to suggest that Polly's intention wasn't to sleep rough, at least not at the point of her encounter with Emily Holland.

It's also interesting that Holland found Polly very drunk, so had she got hold of some more alcohol since being turfed out of her doss-house? Sure, she'd been the "worse for drink" when evicted, but apparently "not drunk" (several papers; Press Agency source?), however this was an hour earlier. If she'd been walking around for an hour in the fresh air, one might think that Polly would have sobered up somewhat, yet she was "very much the worse for drink" and "staggering" when Holland met her.

[Sam Flynn]

Thanks for pointing that out. It is OK to use ¨prone¨ as I did, meaning lying flat. The more definitive meaning of prone is, lying flat, face down. Supine can mean lying down but in a more exact meaning, face up. In discussing forensics, the stricter meanings are better used.

All of which means I just looked up both words and learned a lot. Thanks, Sam!

You're welcome, Anna. Don't worry, most people use "prone" to mean both. In this context, though, it's good to have the clarity.

[Debra Arif]

I'd suggest we can underline "one more attempt to find trade", too, Debs. I've not found that, or anything like it, in any contemporary source. Emily Holland, the last witness to see Nichols alive at ~2:30, said that Polly went on her way after resisting Holland's attempt to persuade Polly to come home with her. On parting, Polly said that she was going to get the money to pay for her lodgings, but nothing is said about how she intended to do it.

One has to wonder why Polly refused Emily's offer, preferring to stay out in order to get the money. Whether that was by prostitution, begging or some other means, it does seem to suggest that Polly's intention wasn't to sleep rough, at least not at the point of her encounter with Emily Holland.

It's also interesting that Holland found Polly very drunk, so had she got hold of some more alcohol since being turfed out of her doss-house? Sure, she'd been the "worse for drink" when evicted, but apparently "not drunk" (several papers; Press Agency source?), however this was an hour earlier. If she'd been walking around for an hour in the fresh air, one might think that Polly would have sobered up somewhat, yet she was "very much the worse for drink" and "staggering" when Holland met her.

Thanks, Gareth. I had the same results when I looked for actual or similar wording.
I agree that Polly not going with Emily Holland suggests she wasn't interested solely in just finding a place to sleep at that particular moment, otherwise why not take Emily up on the offer?