Annie Millwood

[Howard Brown]

Forum for discussion and background on this February 25th, 1888 assault victim who later died on March 31st due to a rupture to her pulmonary artery and not from the horrific assault upon her 40 days previously.....Yet:

This case has similarities with the Tabram murder,as she lived near George Yard and like the unfortunate Martha Tabram,was stabbed repeatedly. Its also possible she was a prostitute.

[Iris84]

How, is there anyway that Annie's injuries could have caused a ruptured artery? Like a clot or something like that?

[Howard Brown]

Dear Iris:

I am sure some others have thought if not necessarily said what you just did...but yes,I would give serious consideration that her death was due to the initial injuries she suffered and survived shortly before she collapsed and died some 6 weeks later. Good thinking !

There are many occasions where initial injuries don't manifest themselves immediately into something of a more serious nature..

[Stan Reid]

I have also thought she and Tabram might have been attacked by the same person even if it wasn't JtR. Also, that the death was a little too much of a coincidence, that is, it likely was the result of the assault, whatever the diagnosis.

[Ultra Violet]

I, too, think that it's very likely that both women were attacked by the same person. Aside from the location, both attacks involved a small knife pen knife / clasp knife.

What I find interesting in relation to JtR is the fact that Martha Tabram was murdered on a Bank Holiday and the attack on Annie Millwood occured on Saturday.

Concerning the cause of death of Annie Millwood - as far as I remember arterial ulceration can be caused by poor circulation (most commonly due to arteriosclerosis), but a blood clod not big enough to completely block the artery would have a similar effect , imo.

[Howard Brown]

Dear Ultra Violet:

Let me put the question to you....

If you, as Stan Reid has mentioned as well, give the possibility that Ms.Millwood and Martha Tabram were assaulted by the same man...

1. Might this indicate to your mind a separate killer other than the individual(s) who killed Nichols,Chapman,etc...?

2. Might this be the same individual(s) who subsequently killed the victims from Nichols to Kelly...with,of course, your preference/decision to eliminate Stride or Kelly from this chain ?

3. Is it possible, if you DO consider question number 2 to be plausible...that the killer simply developed a better way of dispatching his victims ?

Thank you.

[Ultra Violet]

Hello Howard,

I actually have a hard time making my mind up here. Some things might point towards JtR - the dates, the position Martha Tabram was found in, dress pulled up, the high risk of discovery. Other things are debatable - mutilations, victim type. Concerning the victim type - for one thing there were a lot of these poor women in that area and they are an easy target. So it can mean either that JtR was looking for a certain type of victim or he just took what was easily available.

To me the mutilations seem to mainly target the lower torso, but it could equally be argued that the attacker was just stabbing away. I think that JtR could have gone from stabbing to cutting, while other people are likely to disagree. So to me it feels consistent with what JtR did, but I'm aware of the fact that this is a very subjective point of view.
If I take that subjective and speculative stance, I say, he developped. Killing someone by slashing the throat is certainly a more efficient way to kill. There are some serial killers, especially those for whom the killing wasn't the main part of the deed, that killed in different ways. And moving from stabbing to cutting doesn't seem so outrageously a change in behaviour either. It could be likewise regarded as an increase in violence.

What really irks me about the murder of Martha Tabram are the two knives. First of all it seems somewhat impractical to use two knives. Further I have no idea how he would handle them - stabbing her with one knife, then pulling the other one from his pocket (or whereever he carried it) and stabbing her in the heart, or the other way round or somehow simultaneously. It just seems very awkward. It could imply that there were two attackers which would lead to a whole new bunch of questions. Or maybe Killeen just has drawn a wrong conclusion concerning the wound inflicted on the heart and it wasn't two knives after all.

So if I just look at the things that relate to JtR and allow myself to have a very subjective opinion, I would say that Martha Tabram was most likely attacked by JtR, but seeing how much of this is based on mere speculation, having no experience with forensic pathology and not being able to make heads or tails of the two knives I have to say: I really don't know and more than one scenario would be plausible in that case.

Heh, and before I get nailed for that one - the inclusion of Annie Millwood is kinda subjective, too, just going by the few facts that I already mentioned and additionally, the fact that the attack against her mainly targeted the groin and legs.


Helga

[SirRobertAnderson]

This case has similarities with the Tabram murder,as she lived near George Yard and like the unfortunate Martha Tabram,was stabbed repeatedly. Its also possible she was a prostitute.

As she was a soldier's widow, I presume she was entitled to a pension of some sorts. Has this been verified ? Did her husband die in combat or of natural causes and would that make a difference in terms of the monies received?

[Howard Brown]

Bob:

I never thought of looking into that aspect of Millwood's case. Good thinking buddy.

Ultra Violet:

Very fine response,if I may say so.

Thanks for the elaboration and sorry if the questions "put you on the spot", since the issue of Tabram being considered a Ripper victim is always a matter of accepting that a change in m.o. occurred and accepting that unlike the other murders that followed, two knives are mentioned by a medical man or anyone for that matter, despite the possibility that in the subsequent murders,two knives may have been employed,...only we couldn't and can't know about it and never will. The risk factor in certainly there: the social strata is certainly there as far as victim type: genital area attacked...and so on and so forth, not to overlook the proximity to Nichols' murder either.

A man walking about in the East End with more than one weapon on his person may have been uncommon or not the norm, UV...but for a certain type of man...someone who was not averse to confrontation, a little whacked out upstairs, or someone who was a frequenter of the rougher areas of an already rough area, it might have been less uncommon, lets say... and thats where Charles Ludwig's saga is of value in the scheme of things. Ludwig had a few weapons on his person when arrested for an assault after the Chapman murder at a coffeestall.

Having said that, using them is another story altogether,isn't it?

Perhaps the blade of an inferior-made knife broke off.... necessitating the use of a second and available one in Tabram's case? Maybe a thread for these two knives is in order,Ultra Violet?

Anyway....back to Millwood !!!

[SirRobertAnderson]

Bob:

I never thought of looking into that aspect of Millwood's case. Good thinking buddy.

My thought of course was that with a reasonable pension, we could ASSume away her being a prostitute.

However, over in the Casebook News archives, I see that she was taken to a workhouse infirmary, so I guess she was another poor soul at rock bottom.

It would be interesting to learn about what happened to her pension as a soldier's widow.

East London Advertiser
Saturday, 7 April 1888.

SUDDEN DEATH AT THE WHITECHAPEL WORKHOUSE.

An inquest was held on Thursday at the Baker’s-row Infirmary, touching the death of Annie Milwood, aged 38. Thomas Badcock stated – I am the master of the Whitechapel Union Workhouse, South-grove. The deceased was admitted to the workhouse on the 21st ult., and on Saturday the 31st ult., my attention was drawn to her as she was then laying down in the corridor, apparent [sic] in a fit.

[Ultra Violet]

@How - no problem. I didn't feel "put on the spot", but when I was posting I was still slightly impressed how my (in my eyes) harmless question in the Hutchinson thread went off. Hehehe
But I'm here to discuss, so it's fine when someone asks questions. :-)

Concerning the pension - due to Jack London's book I have a rough idea about wages back then, but I have no idea how much a pension would be. That would be interesting to know.

[Paul]

An interesting thread to revive, unless it has been revived on another thread. Did anyone ever find out more about Richard Millwood, Annie' husband? Was her real name Millward, as Mark Ripper suggested?

[JTRSickert]

Here is my own personal theory about the Millwood attack, if the attacker was indeed JTR:

Annie said the man that attacked used a clasp knife (sorta like what you would see with a Swiss army knife); now, this is important if the attacker was, in fact, the Whitechapel killer. A clasp knife would be considerably smaller than the knives that were used in the later killings. So, I don't think the intention in this attack was meant to be fatal. I personally think the attacker was becoming overwhelmed with his lust of violent fantasies and decided to do a "practice run"; picking out a random target and then proceeding to stab her a few times in the fleshy areas of her body (it does say the attack was directed towards her "lower torso," which could mean the upper legs, thighs, and maybe her backside). So, I think the attacker wanted to see how it felt to sink his weapon into warm flesh, but not with intent to kill. That would come later...as his M.O. would begin to develop and grow.

[Howard Brown]

J.T.
Here I was all set to debate your point about someone pulling a knife out and using it on someone without wanting to commit murder...or using a knife on someone and caring whether they died or not....and at the last second, I remembered Renwick Williams and Thomas Cutbush.
Interesting thought,pal.

[m_w_r]

Did anyone ever find out more about Richard Millwood, Annie' husband? Was her real name Millward, as Mark Ripper suggested?

Hi Paul,

I never went any further with this than is shown in my article in the WS1888 Journal (October 2008). Incidentally, in that article, I suggested that the spelling was Milward, with one l.

However, Rob Clack and Philip Hutchinson went a little further in the second and paperback editions of their book TLOJTRTAN. They identified Annie in the 1881 records of the Whitechapel Union Infirmary (she was admitted shortly after the census of that year was taken).

As for Richard Milward ... he was a devil to find - not so much in the censuses and so on as in military records and other sources: I thought I might be able to locate some interesting stuff there. But of course Annie herself never seems to have been much more specific about the nature of Richard's service than to say that he was a soldier, so one doesn't really know where to begin to look. More details - details we don't have - would have been very helpful here, and, as the world's least enthusiastic searcher of military records, I never got very far with this. With infinite patience, or with new information, or with a bit of luck, I suppose that Richard could be found. I don't plan to look for him myself, however.

I continue to feel that the identification of Annie Milward is the correct one, for whatever good that does. But I don't suppose that the spelling of her name is really up for general review - I wouldn't be surprised if she remained a Millwood in 90%+ of references over many, many years to come. Why, even in the recent A-Z ... ahem ...

Regards,

Mark