September 12, 1898: Massachusetts Doc Dumps Body

SUMMARY: Emma Gill, age 26, died in Bridgeport, Massachusetts on September 12, 1898 after a botched abortion perpetrated by Dr. Nancy Guilford.

A Gruesome Discovery

On September 12 1898, three young boys discovered rubber-wrapped parcels containing the dismembered body of a young woman near Seaview Avenue Bridge in Bridgeport, Massachusetts. The coroner determined that she had died within the previous 7 to 12 hours from a botched abortion.

Thousands of people went to the morgue in Boston to examine the head of the decapitated brown-haired blond (scroll down for picture), and although several false identifications were made, the woman was eventually identified as 26-year-old Emma Gill. The identity was confirmed through dental records

Finally Identified

Emma had been missing since the first week of September, when she had left her home in Lynn, Massachusetts, saying that she felt ill and was going to spend some time with her future mother-in-law to take in the healthful sea air. Emma, it turned out, had been pregnant to a man who was not her fiancé. This man, Harry Oxley of Southington, Massachusetts, had arranged the abortion and sent payments to Guildord.

Oxley was arrested for his complicity.

Investigation

Police investigated intensively, finding the quarry whence the stones weighting down the parcels had come and the stable from which the carriage used to dump the body parts had been rented. Of particular interest was a laundry mark, "G. 51," on some of the cloth used to wrap body parts. The laundry mark was eventually traced to the son of Dr. Nancy Guilford, a known abortionist. Because Guilford was a woman and practiced ob/gyn, she was typically referred to as a midwife. She was identified as the abortionist, and her son as an accomplice.

Flight

The day after Emma's dismembered body was found, Guilford fled the country, first to Canada, then to England where she was very nearly apprehended by Scotland Yard thanks to the dogged persistence of journalists who chased her when she got off the boat. She fled to France but returned to London where she was finally captured and brought back to the U.S. to stand trial.

While law enforcement abroad was tracking down the abortionist herself, Bridgeport police were busy. In addition to arresting Oxley, they arrested Guilford's daughter, Eudora, and son, Harry, along with washerwoman Rosa Drayton and her daughter, Clara, who worked as a maid. Police were also searching Guilford's home. There they found paperwork related to the money transfers for the abortion fee.

Guilford's murder trial came to an abrupt end when a juror became too ill to continue. Rather than go through another trial, Guilford pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to ten years in prison and, for some reason, a one-dollar fine. Due to legal wranglings, the charges against her accomplices were dismissed. Guilford was released from prison after eight years due to time off for good behavior. She moved to Hartford, Connecticut and practiced medicine under the assumed name Alice Gibbs. There, in 1920 and at the age of 66, she was arrested for another abortion death.

Source:

• Wicked Bridgeport

-------------------------------

Veteran pro-life investigator Kevin Sherlock asks people of good will to help him have Planned Parenthood prosecuted for profiteering from the rapes and incests of underage girls many thousands of times each year.

Sherlock has  pulled the police records of hundreds of cities and has pulled the child protective services records of multiple states to prove Planned Parenthood staffers are violating mandated reporting laws designed to protect girl victims.   But there is more to be done. Sherlock will make sure more and more evidence gets to federal and state prosecutors who care about protecting girls from abusers and profiteers.

If you would like to help, please click the following link:

https://www.givesendgo.com/stop-pp-from-profiteering-from-the-rapes

Sherlock has talked to many girls and young women who trust him. Their stories and the forensic evidence shows most of them undergo pill abortions or humiliating invasive surgical abortions due to fear or ignorance or pressure or coercion. He treats the girls or women carrying children or devastated from their abortions as friends and neighbors in his home town, not afterthoughts.

Thank you for doing what you can to help girls and fight sexual predators and rape profiteers.