George Bagster Phillips - Annie Chapman

Annie Chapman

Phillips was called by the police to 29 Hanbury Street at 6.20 a.m. on Saturday 8 September 1888 and arrived there at 6.20. He then immediately examined the body of Annie Chapman where it lay in the back yard. He stated that "the body was cold, except that there was a certain remaining heat, under the intestines, in the body." He added that "stiffness of the limbs was not marked, but it was commencing." At the post mortem, conducted at 2.00 p.m. that afternoon, he also noted that "the stomach contained a little food." From this information he estimated Chapman's time of death at some time before 4.30 a.m. However, eyewitnesses claimed that the yard was empty at that time, and at the inquest Coroner Wynne Baxter, who had no medical background, chose the witness testimony over the doctors' opinions and argued that the time of death was 5.30 a.m. After examining Chapman's body he concluded that her reported recent ill health was due to tuberculosis. Phillips also concluded that she had been sober at the time of death and had not consumed alcohol for at least some hours before it. The Lancet quoted Phillips on the surgical proficiency of Chapman's killer. 'Obviously', Phillips wrote, 'the work was that of an expert- or one, at least, who had such knowledge of anatomical or pathological examinations as to be enabled to secure the pelvic organs with one sweep of the knife'. His original opinion, given at 6.20 a.m. and backed up by 22 years as a police surgeon, was that Chapman had been dead "for two hours, probably more." When a witness said that he had not seen Chapman's body in the yard when he went there at 4.45 - when by Phillips' original estimate she would have been dead for over half an hour - the doctor qualified this by saying that with the coldness of the morning and the amount of blood that she had lost, the victim might have appeared to have been dead for longer than she was. This gave credence to the dubious evidence of Mrs Elizabeth Long, who claimed to have seen Chapman alive at 5.30. Chapman was found about 20 minutes after the alleged sighting and Phillips estimated that it would have taken much longer than that to have inflicted all the injuries that he found on her body.