Bruises on Victims, Is This JtR's Identifying Mark?

[Wickerman]

Hello Velma. I thought that he referred to the marks on Stride--that he was watching the changes in them, becoming more distinct?

Cheers.
LC

I think you're correct there Lynn.

Regards, Jon S.

[curious]

Hello Velma. I thought that he referred to the marks on Stride--that he was watching the changes in them, becoming more distinct?

Cheers.
LC

Gotta say, Lynn, that was not how I read it, but I can see that possibility. It had not occurred to me that coroners kept going back to the same body after having performed the examination. . . He did mention examining the body at the scene, then the autopsy at 2 p.m., when the body was in full rigor.

How disappointing if that was all he meant.

[lynn cates]

dating bruises

Hello (again) Velma, Jon. From Chapman's inquest:

"The bruises on the face were evidently recent, especially about the chin and the sides of the jaw . . . ." ("Ultimate Companion" p. 88)

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

Stride

Hello Velma. I thought that he referred to the marks on Stride--that he was watching the changes in them, becoming more distinct?

Cheers.
LC

[curious]

Those bruises on Stride were undeterminable as to time of origin, hours or days. The same bruises on Chapman, each the size of a man's thumb, were days old.

Regards, Jon S.

Hi, Jon,
I had noticed the information about the "days old" marks on Chapman.

But the doctor makes the point of watching for them and having seen them twice since (the first time).

Perhaps they were "kept back" and not mentioned earlier . . . ?

[lynn cates]

bruises

Hello Jon. Yes, the ones on Annie's chest, but the face and neck were recent.

Cheers.
LC

[curious]

Hi, Lynn,
Thanks. I don't remember seeing that discussion.
But isn't the interesting part of the quote that he had seen these marks before, had watched for them and seen then twice since he first saw them?

That's what I find so fascinating, the possibility of the killer leaving tell-tell marks.

[Wickerman]

Those bruises on Stride were undeterminable as to time of origin, hours or days. The same bruises on Chapman, each the size of a man's thumb, were days old.

Regards, Jon S.

[lynn cates]

hypotheses

Hello Velma. This has been mentioned, but mostly on the Stride threads.

There was some notion that these were received as Liz was placed on the ground. But from my point of view, I don't think that could happen whilst clutching cachous without spilling them.

There was also an hypothesis that she got then in her supposed fracas with BS man.

At any rate, I cannot imagine them being inflicted too long before her death.

Cheers.
LC

[curious]

Quoting Dr. George Bagster Phillips at the inquest of Elizabeth Stride:

Over both shoulders, especially the right, and under the collar-bone and in front of the chest there was a bluish discolouration, which I have watched and seen on two occasions since. (My italics)

I have never seen this discussed.

The quote appeared in the Times (London) Thursday, 4 October 1888, and appears here on Casebook under Victims, Elizabeth Stride.

Phillips appears to be saying that he noted distinctive bruises on a body, kept looking for it, and had seen it twice since he first observed it, which I take to mean Chapman and Stride.

1. Does anyone have any idea what these marks mean? how the killer may have inflicted them?

2. Is this the way the authorities arrived at the number of victims of the killer who came to be known as JtR? Were these marks JtR's trademark that perhaps the authorities kept quiet, but which were so distinctive, even unique, that only one killer was leaving them on his victims?