Later Cases
During the later Whitechapel murder investigation, Phillips performed the post-mortem examination of Alice McKenzie (nicknamed "Clay Pipe" Alice and who used the alias Alice Bryant), who was killed on 17 July 1889 in Castle Alley in Whitechapel. At the coroner's inquest on 22 July 1889, Phillips stated that the injuries to her throat had been caused by someone who "knew the position of the vessels, at any rate where to cut with reference to causing speedy death." She had two jagged wounds in the left side of her neck. Phillips also found five superficial marks on the left side of McKenzie's abdomen, which had been made, he thought, by the pressure of a right thumb and fingers prior to mutilating her body with a knife that was held in the murderer's left hand.
Phillips was involved in investigating "The Pinchin Street Murder," a term coined after the headless and legless torso of a woman was found under a railway arch in Pinchin Street in Whitechapel on 10 September 1889. After examining the medical evidence Phillips, Commissioner James Monro and Chief Inspector Donald Swanson concluded that the murder was not committed by Jack the Ripper
He also performed the autopsy on Frances Coles (also known as Frances Coleman, Frances Hawkins and nicknamed "Carrotty Nell"), born in 1865 and killed on 13 February 1891. He believed that the minor wounds on the back of her head suggested that she was thrown violently to the ground before her throat was cut three times. Otherwise there were no mutilations to the body. Phillips did not believe that her murderer displayed any medical knowledge. Cole's body was found under a railway arch in Swallow Gardens, Whitechapel.
His obituary in The Lancet on 13 November 1897 described Phillips as "a leading police surgeon in London". In it he was described by his assistant, Dr. Percy John Clark, as "a modest man who found self-advertising abhorrent... under a brusque, quick manner engendered by his busy life, there was a warm, kind heart, and a large number of men and women of all classes are feeling that by his death they have lost a very real friend".
Phillips died from apoplexy on 27 October 1897.
Read more about this topic: George Bagster Phillips
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