Cold Case - Crossbones Girl
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00:00Britain's finest unit for forensic investigation is embarking on a new and ground-breaking
00:12mission.
00:13Experts in human identification, they use the full arsenal of modern technology.
00:19But now, for the first time, they're applying these skills to identify bodies from the long
00:28distant past.
00:29It's very exciting for us to be able to take the skills that we use on a daily basis and
00:35apply them to look at historical skeletons to see just how far we can go.
00:41Forensic anthropology, facial reconstruction and painstaking research will be used to open
00:47new windows on history as dramatic personal stories emerge from long forgotten bones.
00:55My research is allowing me to investigate people's experiences at different times throughout
01:00history.
01:01He certainly had a nasty crack to the top of his head.
01:04That could well have contributed to his death.
01:07So we've got the face, the facial reconstruction, and we've added some textures.
01:12Fantastic.
01:13That is just superb.
01:19The latest case surrounds the heavily scarred skeleton of a woman that has puzzled historians
01:24since it was excavated by the Museum of London in 1992.
01:29It's just horrendous.
01:30That must have been so painful.
01:36The bones reveal shocking new truths about life on the streets of Victorian London.
01:40That's just an open wound.
01:42That's right.
01:43And the case takes a dark and dramatic turn.
01:46Men, I'm afraid, will find children sexually attractive.
01:52Can they piece together the woman's identity and discover why she was left in an unmarked grave?
01:58This one doesn't add up.
02:00This is a mystery, isn't it?
02:02The cold case team is heading back to one of the darkest chapters of the 19th century.
02:22This is the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification at Dundee University.
02:28Professor Sue Black will carry out the initial observation on this mysterious skeleton
02:34with her colleague Dr Xanthi Mallett.
02:36We have KCW 1211, excavation site of specimen burial ground located in Borough Central London.
02:44Oh, I know Borough.
02:45Do you?
02:46Yes, I know Borough.
02:47I used to cycle round Elephant and Castle roundabout in another life.
02:51Good.
02:55At this stage, they have very little information.
02:58Oh, it's very heavy.
02:59But as they lay out the bones, it's clear this skeleton has a story to tell.
03:04Oh, there's lots of interesting things going on in there.
03:06Good.
03:08The gender and age quickly become apparent.
03:11Everything about it shines female.
03:15Grass on.
03:16So, in terms of supraorbital ridges, mastoids, nuchal lines.
03:21You can see just the edge of the epiphysis there.
03:23It's not finished growing.
03:25So that puts her down into the 20s category quite comfortably.
03:30By measuring the long bones of the leg, they can estimate this young woman's height.
03:34That equals 4 foot 7, which is tiny.
03:38Absolutely tiny.
03:40But the most dramatic aspect of her skeleton are the scars visible on almost every bone of her body.
03:45We've got significant evidence of an infective situation.
03:52Right.
03:53Which is throughout the body, very prominent within the skull.
03:57We've even got it on the back of the manubrium.
04:00So it's just following absolute textbook syphilis, the whole thing.
04:05Look at the thickness of it.
04:06Syphilis was once one of the most feared bacterial diseases in the world.
04:11Arriving in Europe around 1490, it once affected up to 15% of the British population.
04:18It's just so heavy because there's been so much bone alteration and deposition.
04:22That must have been so painful.
04:24OK, female.
04:26Young adult.
04:27Very, very, very short.
04:28Very, very, very short with syphilis.
04:35She's just a little, small, young adult.
04:39And at the same time, what you've got is superimposed upon this, the horror that would have been syphilis.
04:46The fact that not only is her bone being eaten away and the pain associated with that,
04:52but the disfigurement that comes with it as well.
04:55And the disfigurement that comes with it is a cruel disfigurement
04:59because preferentially it wants to go to your face.
05:02It's not the kind of face that children would happily look at.
05:05It's the kind of face that children would cry at.
05:08And that's quite sad for someone who's so very young.
05:16So this is the body of a young woman.
05:18Probably in her twenties, she was around four foot seven tall and was ravaged by syphilis.
05:25To reconstruct the details of her life,
05:27the team will need to delve into a murky world of quacks
05:30and agonising treatments for a disease that remained a medical mystery.
05:38Case reference C, W...
05:40Sue and Xanthi bring together the rest of the team at the evidence board.
05:46Dr Caroline Wilkinson will carry out the facial reconstruction
05:49while Dr Wolfram Meyer-Orgenstein will analyse trace minerals in the bones.
05:54These will reveal information about her diet, her social status
05:58and where she might have lived and died.
06:01There's an area of, quite an extensive area of alteration on the frontal bone.
06:06The other area where the changes are most extensive
06:09are down at the lower end of the lower limbs.
06:12And this is a fairly typical pattern for syphilis,
06:15which is quite far advanced.
06:17It's not the stage of syphilitic change where the face is eaten away in terms of bone.
06:24There may be a little going on on the nasal bone.
06:27What those photographs also show is extensive bowing on the legs as well.
06:32I think that's probably as a result of rickets.
06:35I think we've got a dietary deficiency in there as well.
06:38And then you would say basically somebody from a lower social status.
06:42I think that's probably true.
06:44Presumably the archaeologists will be happy about the dating and the location.
06:49You need to go and find out.
06:51You need to go and find out any artefacts associated with her,
06:54anybody else in that vicinity.
06:56Is she on consecrated ground or not?
06:58All of those sorts of things.
07:01In terms of hard evidence, all they have is a set of bones.
07:04But they're a doorway into the story.
07:07And for Sue Black, that's the beauty of the challenge.
07:14She was dealt a fairly mean set of cards.
07:17It wasn't a good hand she was given.
07:20If you just looked at it as being a skeleton,
07:24nothing more than a skeleton,
07:26nothing more than a skeleton,
07:28then you're just not seeing below the surface.
07:32And everybody, every single person has got a story.
07:37And it's our job to try and find the story.
07:41And the more we can personalise that person,
07:44the more we can feel we get to know them.
07:51Xanthi's job is to go in search of historical clues
07:54about who the woman was and what kind of life she had.
07:58The trail will start in London,
08:00at the site where her body was discovered.
08:06Facial reconstruction expert Caroline Wilkinson
08:09often has to deal with badly damaged skulls
08:11when trying to rebuild a person's face.
08:14Caroline and I have known each other for a number of years.
08:18And I actively sought to take Caroline to Dundee
08:22because she has a skill set
08:24that I am not aware that anybody else possesses.
08:27She is the best at what she does.
08:29So that anything that comes into here that involves faces,
08:33it's Caroline because that's her area
08:36and nobody will beat her in that.
08:39But the diseased head of our woman will pose a unique challenge.
08:43Before Caroline starts work on the reconstruction,
08:46she examines the skull with her colleague Caroline Needham.
08:52Hmm.
08:56Now, what have we got there?
08:58We need to know about these nasal bones
09:00because there's quite a bit missing.
09:03And that would obviously have an effect
09:05on what her nose is going to look like.
09:08Well, this is an interesting skull
09:10because it's clearly got some pathological condition
09:13that we need to take into account with the reconstruction.
09:16Things like syphilis can affect the shape and form
09:19of the soft tissues of the face.
09:22So we need to assess the severity of it,
09:25how long-standing it will have been,
09:27how long the person had it for,
09:29so that we can make a best estimate
09:31of how that would have affected the features of their face.
09:36I always enjoy reconstructions
09:38where we've got more of a challenge.
09:40And it's nice to be able to show conditions,
09:43especially conditions that we might not necessarily see
09:47in contemporary population,
09:49in an archaeological investigation.
09:53With the visual examination complete,
09:55laser technology creates
09:57a detailed 3D representation of the skull.
10:00The laser scan will be used as a base
10:02on top of which the complex layers
10:04of muscle and tissue can be added.
10:06But it will be a few weeks
10:08before the unique face of our woman starts to emerge.
10:11We all have the same muscles on our face,
10:13but because each skull is a slightly different shape,
10:16one skull may be thinner and longer than the other,
10:18another may be fatter.
10:20So once you model each of those muscles in place,
10:23then you will automatically get a different face shape
10:26with different proportions
10:28because it's the skull that dictates the muscle structure.
10:40Zanthi arrives in London
10:42to learn more about where the skeleton was found
10:44and start building a picture of her life.
10:47What this historical research is allowing me to do
10:50is to really investigate
10:52people's experiences
10:54at different times throughout history
10:56because normally I actively
10:58don't look into the person's history
11:00because your report has to be
11:02objective, scientific,
11:04there can be no personal influence.
11:06I start with the science
11:08and it ends with the science
11:10because it has to,
11:12you know,
11:20Tucked away in a back street of Borough
11:22near London Bridge
11:24is a burial site known as Crossbones.
11:26This was the last resting place
11:28of the young woman.
11:33Zanthi is here to meet Adrian Miles
11:35from the Museum of London
11:37who excavated the body in 1992.
11:39The site was actually
11:41underneath this big brick building here
11:43which is an electricity substation
11:45that was built as part of the Jubilee Line extension.
11:47So you wanted to excavate the site
11:49before that building was actually placed?
11:51Yes, yes.
11:53I think we had six weeks to do it in total.
11:55Six weeks?
11:57What happened to this site after you excavated it?
11:59Did you remove all of the remains?
12:01All the remains from underneath the building were removed.
12:03The unexcavated areas
12:05still have the burial ground.
12:08We are now standing on
12:10untouched burial ground, yes.
12:12There are several thousand burials
12:14beneath our feet.
12:16There's a theory that it was
12:18a single women's burial ground
12:20prostitutes basically.
12:22By the period that we're excavating at
12:24it's very much
12:26the poor ground for the Parish of St Saviours
12:28in that the people
12:30who would be buried here would be
12:32the poor of the parish, bodies
12:34found in the river,
12:36people who couldn't afford
12:38to pay for their own burials.
12:40The history of the site
12:42immediately suggests this woman
12:44came from a very poor background.
12:46All the burials were in coffins
12:48but they're
12:50the poorest standard that I've ever seen.
12:52Really?
12:54You're looking at reused wood
12:56it's probably cheap wood that's coming off the docks
12:58I mean there's a couple of photos here
13:00from the excavation as we were...
13:02Very tightly packed obviously aren't they?
13:04Not only are they tightly packed
13:06horizontally, they're also
13:08up to 9 or 10 deep.
13:10So this whole ground basically would have been
13:128 or 9, 10 deep in coffins
13:14that's basically what you're walking on with some soil over the top.
13:16Yes, and
13:18not a lot of soil.
13:20And how far down was the young woman
13:22we've been talking about?
13:24Within a metre of the top of the excavation.
13:26So she would have been one of the latest burials
13:28that we've dug here.
13:30Is there anything that could help us really pin down
13:32a date or at least a time specifically
13:34when she might have actually been interred?
13:36The burial ground closes in
13:38October 1853
13:40So we know it was obviously pre-this.
13:42So it must be pre-that.
13:44Given the intensive use of the burial ground
13:46and the amount of burials that were going in
13:48you wouldn't have survived in place long.
13:50Yeah.
13:52Maybe as little as 10 or 20 years.
13:54So really from
13:56post 1830s really.
13:581830s to 1853.
14:00Yeah.
14:02The Crossbones woman was clearly not
14:04among those benefiting from the burgeoning
14:06wealth of the Victorian Empire.
14:08At that time the borough
14:10area of London was a slum
14:12filthy and overcrowded.
14:16Having learned that the woman was most
14:18likely buried around the mid 19th century
14:20this gives the team a window
14:22in which to research historical records.
14:25The Victorians
14:27are known for keeping
14:29detailed population registers
14:31but could the young woman
14:33be among the names?
14:37Zunthie has come
14:39to the London Metropolitan Archive
14:41to meet Dr David Green
14:43from King's College London.
14:45We found this young woman
14:47she's in an unmarked grave
14:49I was really hoping you could find
14:51a potential name for her
14:53Is that something you think you could do?
14:55It's possible.
14:57Year of death is going to be difficult
14:59because it's unmarked but I've got a time period
15:01when I think she may have been buried within.
15:03We can look at burial registers
15:05each parish kept a burial register.
15:09We could look at hospital records
15:11there's a couple of hospitals in the locality
15:13there's also a workhouse
15:15in the locality and if she was poor
15:17she may well have died in the workhouse.
15:19She was very poor and interestingly
15:21we know that she was suffering from syphilis
15:23I don't know as yet whether she's been treated
15:25for that but certainly she had
15:27medical conditions so that might be a good place
15:29as well.
15:31Well those would be the three places I'd start
15:33once we've got a set of names
15:35we might even get an age
15:37let's see what we can find.
15:39Over the next few weeks
15:41David will look through hundreds of records
15:43from the borough area
15:45he will cross-reference the results of the team's forensic
15:47investigation with hospital and burial records.
15:51It's a long shot
15:53but can he put a name to the skeleton?
16:01The context of where
16:03and how the skeleton was found
16:05points to the woman having come from a very poor background
16:09now it's up to science to confirm
16:11whether her bones back up the historical evidence.
16:17In Dundee
16:19he's carrying out further analysis of the bones
16:25He knows what he's talking about
16:27he, to my mind, is the grandfather
16:29of all stable isotope analysis
16:31there is nobody else
16:33that I would go to
16:35there is nobody else that I would trust
16:37in terms of relaying that information
16:39for a forensic investigation
16:43By studying the carbon and nitrogen isotopes
16:45within the bones
16:47he can gather more details about the person's diet
16:49and geographical movement during their lifetime
16:53but in this case
16:55the fact that she was riddled with syphilis
16:57has broken down the composition of the bone
16:59and is affecting the results
17:03Just by looking at the bone
17:05you can see the attack that has taken place
17:07no matter which bone you're looking at in the skeleton
17:09it has a pitted appearance
17:11so the chances are
17:13that we will not get any meaningful data
17:16that's an indication about geographical provenance
17:20Although he won't be able to reveal
17:22the woman's geographical movements
17:24Wolfram has been able to uncover vital information
17:26about her diet
17:28The carbon signature was suggesting
17:30a diet that's sort of at the lower end
17:32omnivore
17:34not that much meat in the diet
17:36more vegetables and what not
17:40This means our woman ate very little protein
17:42confirming that hers was not a life of privilege
17:46Xanthi's arrived
17:48at the Museum of London
17:50one of the world's largest collections of skeletons
17:52holding an extraordinary
17:5417,000 bodies
17:56in its vaults
17:58The crossbones woman
18:00was one of 148 skeletons
18:02found at the same burial site
18:04a high proportion of them were infants
18:06reflecting the high mortality rate
18:08in poor areas of Britain at the time
18:12Xanthi is meeting curator
18:14Elena Bekvalac
18:16to see if the bones of the children
18:18can shed new light on the early life
18:20of the crossbones woman
18:22That area particularly wasn't
18:24a very nice area at all
18:26it really was named for being quite a slum area
18:28bad cases of things like cholera
18:30infection
18:32so not a very good environment at all
18:34for being born into
18:36and then trying to survive and living
18:38so you were doing very well actually
18:40to live and survive in that sort of condition
18:42Are there any skeletons that can indicate
18:44that they had poor diet
18:46so a relationship to their lifestyle
18:48Yes there are
18:50something like rickets
18:52is something that we might see in the skeletons
18:54this is a femur, so that's your leg bone
18:56this is on the right hand side
18:58How old is this individual?
19:00This individual is probably aged about one and a half years old
19:02what we were seeing in these children
19:04is that we saw a much higher rate of rickets
19:06and also things like scurvy as well
19:08which would indicate to us
19:10So they're not eating fresh fruit and vegetables
19:12No they haven't got a very good diet
19:14you've got pollutants
19:16industrialisation
19:18and poor diet
19:20so we're seeing that in the skeletons
19:2219th century Burra
19:24would have been covered in thick smog
19:26caused by industrial pollution
19:28and the bending of the bones
19:30that characterised rickets
19:32was caused by lack of exposure to sunlight
19:34as well as a poor diet
19:36Xanthia is starting to build up
19:38a compelling profile
19:40of our young woman
19:42her circumstances weren't unique
19:44but if we can reclaim her
19:46as an individual
19:48what can we learn about the time she lived in
19:50seen through her eyes
19:54What's really come out from talking to Jelena
19:56is that the people buried in this gravesite
19:58and the people living in that area of London
20:00at that time really were the poorest
20:02of the poor
20:04they were suffering from disease, poor diet
20:07she was only in her early twenties
20:09when she died
20:11so really she's had quite a sad
20:13desperate existence
20:23Back in Dundee
20:25Caroline is starting the facial reconstruction
20:31The first thing that we do
20:33is to build up the muscles of the face
20:35so we have a database of pre-modelled muscles
20:37we import each one
20:39and then alter it to fit
20:41the new shape of the skull
20:47Each muscle will give the shape
20:49of the face at that point
20:51so the skull dictates the muscle structure
20:53and the muscle structure dictates
20:55the overall facial appearance
20:57and then we can look at the details
20:59of the face such as some of the features
21:01like the nose and the mouth
21:03and position those
21:05from looking at the morphology
21:07which is the shape of the bone
21:12The next stage will be to uncover
21:14precisely how the syphilis would have
21:16disfigured the woman's face
21:22With the different areas of the investigation
21:24having made good progress
21:26the team reassembles at the evidence board
21:30We think that our young woman
21:32died towards the end of use
21:34of this particular graveyard
21:36because of where she was located
21:38she's quite close to the top
21:40but she was left in situ
21:42the grave wasn't marked
21:44so we don't know who she is
21:46exactly when she was buried
21:48but there may be records
21:50that may help us indicate
21:52who she might have been
21:54The team now turn their attention
21:56to finding out how this young woman
21:58caught her disfiguring disease
22:00If this was congenital syphilis
22:02that means it was passed
22:04to her from her mother
22:06then the effect
22:08as the bones
22:10and the teeth are growing
22:12they are deformed
22:14Congenital syphilis shows
22:16specific symptoms
22:18the most obvious of which
22:20are notches in the teeth
22:22Across bones women's however
22:24tell the story of syphilis
22:26caught through sexual contact
22:29The bones and the teeth are already formed
22:31you're looking at an after effect
22:33and so with the lesions
22:35that you have in the forehead
22:37it's a taking away of bone
22:39and a laying down of new bone
22:41it's not a malformed bone
22:43in terms of its development
22:45and so this has to be sexually transmitted
22:47I agree with that
22:49I think the next thing we have to do
22:51is go back to the clinicians
22:53so I think you've got to go
22:55and speak to them about
22:57to get to this level of a presentation
22:59treating her
23:01almost like a patient
23:03but I do think
23:05we can quite happily
23:07ignore this as congenital syphilis
23:09this has to be sexually transmitted
23:14Everything points to the fact
23:16that we're looking at somebody
23:18who's low socioeconomic status
23:20she has a sexually transmitted disease
23:22so it's not painting
23:24a wonderful Victorian
23:26Christmas card scenario
23:28for her
23:30it's the much more gritty
23:32realistic side of
23:34where do I find the next meal
23:36that will keep me alive
23:48By the 19th century syphilis
23:50was a plague in London
23:52affecting up to 20% of the population
23:54After the Great Scourge
23:56it was the AIDS of the Victorian era
24:02The disfiguring effects of the disease
24:04are well documented
24:06Joseph Towne was a medical artist
24:08at Guy's Hospital in the 19th century
24:10He created hundreds of wax
24:12anatomical models of patients
24:14showing a range of diseases
24:16including syphilis
24:20Xanthia is meeting Dr. Patrick French
24:22who still treats syphilis in the 21st century
24:24The remarkable thing about syphilis
24:26is that it's a condition
24:28which has these very distinct stages
24:30In the first stage
24:32two or three weeks after having sex
24:34with someone who's got syphilis
24:36you develop an ulcer
24:38but this is what it looks like
24:40this is an old 19th century wax model
24:42of a syphilis ulcer of the lip
24:44if you ignore it it will just get better on its own
24:46and it looks as though it's healed up
24:48but it hasn't
24:51and if you ignore it
24:53it will go away, it will get better
24:55and then
24:57a couple of months later
24:59you feel quite sick
25:01you get fever
25:03and the characteristic thing that happens
25:05in secondary syphilis
25:07is that you develop a rash
25:09this is a pretty extreme model
25:11of a secondary syphilis rash
25:13affecting the face
25:15these kind of pustules
25:17again it gets better
25:19and of course
25:21she'd be living at a time when there are all sorts of illnesses going around
25:23and if you had something that didn't get worse
25:25and it got better from you
25:27then just ignore that
25:29and then a large minority of people
25:31maybe about 40% of people
25:33develop tertiary syphilis
25:35and there are three sorts of tertiary syphilis
25:37there's syphilis affecting the heart
25:39syphilis affecting the brain
25:41which sometimes can take decades to occur
25:43but also, and clearly what she had
25:45was something called gummitus syphilis
25:47which is pretty nasty lumps
25:49of dead tissue
25:51of scar tissue
25:53which affect bones
25:55and particularly affect skin
25:57and this is someone with a gumma
25:59one of these horrible
26:01areas of dying tissue
26:03affecting the nose
26:05so this is necrosing tissue right in the centre of her face
26:07exactly
26:09the general view is that it's probably reinfection
26:11with syphilis that causes gummitus
26:13no one really knows for certain
26:15and in the minds of moralising Victorians
26:17repeated infection of syphilis
26:19could mean only one thing
26:21STDs including syphilis
26:23were strongly associated
26:25with prostitution at that time
26:29thinking about what Patrick said
26:31about the fact that it's sexually transmitted
26:33and how this was associated
26:35largely, rightly or wrongly
26:37with prostitution
26:39so I think that's quite a dark
26:41line to travel down
26:43certainly there's some indications
26:45that this young woman could have caught it
26:47as a result of being a prostitute
26:55now the team has more information
26:57about how the disease would have affected
26:59the woman's face
27:01Caroline can start adding the scarring to facial reconstruction
27:05I'm now trying to add
27:07the disease process, the syphilis
27:09so that we can see the lesions
27:12I can make the skin layer transparent
27:14so that I can see the bone beneath
27:16and I can use the lesions on the bone
27:18to tell me where the lesions on the soft tissue will be
27:20so I've just been positioning
27:22lumps of clay over the surface
27:24of the skin, coming through the skin
27:26that are related to the lesions on the bone
27:30and then we can go in
27:32and once we've got the position correct
27:34we can alter the details so that we can see
27:36more of these type of lesions
27:38and more of the destruction of the soft tissues
27:42slowly
27:44she's coming back to life
28:00the pomp and prosperity
28:02of the Victorian era masked a dark side
28:04of poverty and prostitution
28:08unless she were born or married
28:10into wealth, 19th century London
28:12could be a harsh place for a woman
28:16sadly, with few employment options
28:18and barely any state support
28:20it was all too easy for a single woman to fall on hard times
28:26many found themselves trying to gain entry
28:28to the refuge of the destitute
28:32founded in 1806, it was a charitable alternative
28:34to prison for petty criminals
28:36who the authorities thought could still be reformed
28:41Xanthia's come to the Hackney archives
28:43in London
28:45she's here to look at the details
28:47of people who applied for entry
28:49into the refuge of the destitute
28:51the entries reveal just how many young women
28:53turned to prostitution
28:55number 68, narrative of Mary Harris
28:5718 years of age, of Bath
28:59her father and mother died when she was very young
29:01about three months since
29:03she was enticed from the service of a Mr. Levy
29:05at Westcott Street, Bath
29:07by a gentleman's footman and brought to London
29:10he forsook her a week after the trial in town
29:12and she has been a prostitute in the house
29:14to which he brought her
29:16about a week later
29:18he read the petition of Sarah Wade
29:2018 years of age, of St. Xavier's Parish, Bath
29:22before she became a prostitute
29:24she lived a servant with a Mrs. Beaumont
29:26a foreign lady, upon whose leaving England
29:28the petitioner was left destitute
29:30when she was seduced by some young women
29:32who persuaded her that she might earn more money
29:34by prostitution
29:36on account of disagreement, she left her father in
29:38England to become a prostitute
29:42all of these women, even though they're only young
29:44they're only 17, 18 years of age
29:46are really at the stage of desperation
29:48where they need somebody to help them
29:50I mean, this is, you know, their last hope
29:58but if that last hope of refuge failed them
30:00then prostitution was often the only option
30:02it's very plausible the crossbones woman too
30:04survived by these means
30:08Xanthe has discovered that the burial ground
30:10where her body was found
30:12had a long association with the profession
30:18in the medieval period, the area around the burial ground
30:20was owned by the Bishop of Winchester
30:22he licensed prostitutes
30:24who became known as Winchester Geese
30:28when they died, they were buried at crossbones
30:32to this day, people tie names of so-called
30:34single women, known to have been buried
30:36in the area, to the gates
30:38it had become a shrine to their memory
30:48by the 19th century, prostitution was a major industry
30:50in Victorian Britain, bringing in over
30:5220 million pounds a year
30:54London was known as
30:56the whore shop of the world
31:00it's been estimated that a fifth
31:02of the female population of London
31:04are involved in the profession
31:06although disapproved of by some
31:08prostitution was not illegal
31:14Xanthe is meeting historian
31:16Hallie Rubenhold to find out what life was like
31:18for the Victorian prostitute
31:22women's work is so poorly paid, you can never support yourself
31:24and maybe your six children
31:28so you find yourself in a situation
31:30where you quite literally have to
31:32exchange sexual favours
31:34for food in many cases
31:36and that's what a lot of these women
31:38were forced into
31:40prostitution was rife, and especially
31:42in the slums, and Borough
31:44actually was one of the worst
31:46slums in all of London
31:48what dangers would have been involved for her
31:50if she was doing this on a daily basis?
31:52well obviously there were tremendous dangers
31:54involved in a life of prostitution
31:56disease being
31:58the foremost among them
32:00people didn't use
32:02prophylactics in the same way that we would
32:04use them today, and those
32:06they did use, the condoms, tended
32:08to be reusable
32:10and weren't
32:12weren't always
32:14the cleanest
32:16things, you would wash it and
32:18reuse it, and they weren't always
32:20the most effective things either
32:22so taking what we know about
32:24the woman where she was buried, a particular female
32:26we've been looking at, we know
32:28from the skeleton that she had syphilis
32:30was that a common problem for prostitutes?
32:32it most certainly was, and actually
32:34the lowest prostitutes
32:36were generally those
32:38who had contracted syphilis
32:40and they were on the way out
32:42so she would have been in that very possibly lowest
32:44class of prostitutes?
32:46it's where prostitute meets beggar
32:48basically, so really
32:50destitute, and these are the people who
32:52generally were found dead the next
32:54morning in the alleyways
32:56having frozen or starved
32:58or died of
33:00whatever illness they were suffering from
33:04sadly the evidence for our young woman
33:06having been one of these lower class prostitutes
33:08is growing
33:10she was ravaged
33:12with syphilis, presumably through
33:14repeated sexual contact
33:16and her body was discovered in a burial ground
33:18with a long association with prostitutes
33:26but what can the woman
33:28herself tell the team?
33:30Sue is putting the skeleton through a very
33:3221st century examination
33:34to see inside the bones
33:40this CT scanner
33:42can create a three dimensional x-ray
33:44image of the skeleton
33:46this allows Sue to look for signs of trauma
33:48or illness not visible to the naked eye
33:56and the data has revealed some
33:58information that will take the investigation
34:00in a new and horrifying direction
34:02we'd felt
34:04that by looking at everything that we could find
34:06on the skeleton, she was probably
34:08into her twenties
34:10the x-rays tell us something very very
34:12different, if you can see
34:14there's a very well defined
34:16line that passes across
34:18there, and there's another one
34:20that passes across there
34:22and that tells us that that growth
34:24that fusion that's happened there
34:26wasn't that long ago
34:28so I think in terms of putting her
34:30into her twenties
34:32I'm afraid we were making her a little bit older
34:34than she probably was
34:36I think it's more likely that she was
34:38a late teenager
34:40so that she may have been 17, 18
34:42perhaps even 19 years of age
34:44so in some ways it's really even sadder
34:46that what we're looking at
34:48is a teenager
34:50wracked with the amount
34:52the amount of disease that we could see
34:54apparent on her skeleton
34:56and she's actually a whole lot younger
34:58than we thought
35:04it means that if she was suffering from advanced
35:06tertiary syphilis, which often takes years
35:08to develop, that she was probably
35:10infected as a child
35:23Sue calls the team back
35:25to the evidence board to discuss
35:27the disturbing discovery that this isn't
35:29the body of a woman in her twenties
35:31we didn't expect
35:33to see anything terribly interesting
35:35in the CT scans, we thought we might pick up some
35:37Harris lines and other things
35:39but what we did pick up
35:41is something that's likely to change
35:43what we thought was
35:45the original age for the
35:47young lady
35:49so I think we need to bring her down
35:51to a teenager
35:53is the truth
35:55so if you think that we're looking at
35:57a teenager, maybe
35:59even 15 or 16 years of age
36:01and you're saying that the
36:03level of
36:05disturbance that we're seeing
36:07physically in relation to her
36:09could be anything that's 3
36:11to 10 years in the making
36:13then you take 3 years off that
36:15you're in 13
36:17you take 10 years off that
36:19why not take 10 years off it
36:21have you any idea
36:23on a daily basis how many
36:25cases we work on paedophiles
36:27so that, you know, men
36:29I'm afraid will find children
36:31and teenagers
36:33sexually attractive
36:35what's really tragic is you're talking about
36:37a first infection that
36:39was certainly at a very young
36:41possibly even pre-teen
36:43but early teens
36:45with the age of consent
36:47at 13 years old
36:49girls were sexualised at a young age
36:51in Victorian Britain
36:53it was also wrongly believed
36:55that sleeping with a virgin could cure
36:57a man of syphilis
36:59in the absence of
37:01medical knowledge about syphilis
37:03quackery and superstition often took hold
37:07so for the Victorians
37:09the syphilis that seemed
37:11to go away and then came back
37:13and seemed to go away and came back
37:15it must have been a really difficult
37:17thing to try to manage
37:19when you have this
37:21lack of knowledge and lack
37:23of understanding of
37:25why something occurs
37:27how it progresses, how to stop it
37:29you are in many ways
37:31open to
37:33the quacks
37:35there will be an entire raft of treatments
37:37that will have no effect
37:39whatsoever and there will be those
37:41that just become myth
37:43and for people who can't even afford
37:45those remedies, what else could I try
37:47that might try to save me
37:49it's a desperation element
37:51but if you're desperate
37:53you'll try almost anything
38:09Xanthias returned to London to discover
38:11how the Victorians tried to cope with a disease
38:13that was so little understood
38:15at the science museum
38:17she's meeting Julie Peekman
38:19who has researched Victorian treatments for syphilis
38:23so what we've got here
38:25are some of the treatment bottles
38:27that looks like a lotion or a cream
38:29which might have been applied to the skin
38:31and there are also treatments
38:33which can be ingested
38:35so this is a mercury based treatment
38:37now I'm looking at this vial here
38:39and it says mercurial cream
38:41poison
38:43so this is obviously a very poisonous treatment
38:45it was a poison
38:47but mercury was thought to be the best cure
38:49for syphilis
38:51mercury was believed
38:53to help expel syphilis from the body
38:55but the hideous side effects
38:57were well known as illustrated
38:59in this Victorian cartoon
39:01on the left hand side here
39:03we have a man who's purging
39:05and being sick into the bowl
39:07that was one of the symptoms of mercury
39:09because it was a poison
39:11spitting and salivation
39:13was very important
39:15one of the effects was balding
39:17as you can see this man in the chair here
39:19having his head attended to
39:21by one of the hospital interns
39:23would you lose your hair in patches
39:25or would you lose it all over?
39:27it would drop off rather like with chemotherapy
39:29as the toxin starts to work
39:31it would start to fall out
39:33I think you'd lose patches
39:35wouldn't you because you've got the pustules on your head
39:37but then the mercury would cause you to lose
39:39all your hair
39:41and as you can see to the right here
39:43this man's having his teeth seen to
39:45and that was another problem
39:47that the teeth fell out
39:53not only did the mercury do nasty things to you
39:55it was also expensive
39:57so if you were poor
39:59and suffering from syphilis in Victorian London
40:01you had little choice but to throw yourself
40:03on the mercy of charitable hospitals
40:05some of which had wards for the condition
40:09only one, the Loch hospital
40:11was dedicated to treating venereal disease
40:13but getting in was no easy matter
40:17she would have had to plead her case
40:19to access that hospital
40:21she would, you had to go through the governors
40:23to be accepted
40:25and they would have had to vet her
40:27and see her as a person
40:29that they would have wanted to support
40:33even if our woman had managed to gain access
40:35to mercury treatment
40:37would it have had any positive effect
40:47Zanthi is meeting chemical engineer
40:49Hal Sosabowski
40:51to recreate a Victorian mercury treatment
40:53we're going to start making an ointment now
40:55an old fashioned anti-syphilitic ointment
40:57using a recipe from this pharmacopoeia
40:59British pharmacopoeia
41:01this is the 1869 version
41:03this is unguentum hydragyrum
41:05subchloride
41:07that's the ointment
41:09of liquid silver
41:11the subchloride thereof
41:13it's only got two ingredients
41:15it has, it's got the active ingredient which is the mercury chloride
41:17and the lard which is the dispersant
41:19this is mercury 2 chloride
41:21this used to be called corrosive sublimate
41:23and the reason this is so toxic is
41:25it's got mercury ions in it
41:27rather than elemental mercury
41:29which are the best soluble in water
41:31and B are just the right form to do damage to cells
41:33by damaging the enzymes
41:35we need to make sure we don't breathe any of this in
41:37because this really is hideously toxic
41:43not healthy at all
41:45so as you can see
41:47there's the two parts of the ointment
41:51so this would be what you'd be given by the apothecary
41:53the chemist of the day
41:55the pharmacist
41:57and this would spread on the pustules
41:59so if I rubbed this onto my skin regularly
42:01as a treatment, what would the effects be?
42:03well you couldn't have designed a better way
42:05of getting mercury into the body
42:07in its worst possible form
42:09and what would happen is the patient would be absorbing mercury
42:11into the bloodstream effectively
42:13and therefore they would get the bleeding gums
42:15the irritability
42:17the amnesia
42:19perhaps the depression
42:21all associated with mercury poisoning
42:23so this is a really bad idea
42:25if we were in Victorian England now
42:27this would be one of the
42:29or the treatment for syphilis
42:31then
42:33but did mercury have any medicinal value at all?
42:35well there was some evidence
42:37in stage 3 syphilis
42:39it was spirocydal
42:41i.e. it would kill the bacterium that causes syphilis
42:43by that point you'd certainly reach the point of no return
42:45and because there was no penicillin at that time
42:47once you got it, you got it
42:49so all it did was slow down
42:51there was no cure for syphilis
42:53right so there we are
42:55nice
42:57although mercury couldn't cure advanced syphilis
43:01it could have given the sufferer like our woman
43:03some relief
43:07it may seem ridiculous that people would have
43:09inhaled mercury or rubbed it on their lesions
43:11or taken it as a pill
43:13but it could be argued that we use
43:15treatments that are equally as damaging
43:17now if you think of chemotherapy
43:19we know it has beneficial effects
43:21obviously
43:23but the harmful effects are clear to see
43:33but this has highlighted
43:35another unknown aspect of this case
43:41Xanthi still doesn't know whether or not
43:43our woman ever received any medical treatment
43:45for a disease that she clearly lived with
43:47for some time
43:51archaeologist Fiona Tucker
43:53might have the answer
43:55Fiona has been analysing skeletons
43:57from the Victorian era
43:59for traces of the mercury treatment
44:01one of the skeletons in her study
44:03is the crossbones woman
44:05and the amount of mercury in our woman's bones
44:07is significant
44:09in your opinion
44:11did she show signs of having
44:13mercury treatment and poisoning
44:15in her skeleton
44:17no
44:19no
44:21no
44:23no
44:25no
44:27no
44:29no
44:31no
44:33no
44:35no
44:37no
44:39no
44:41no
44:43no
44:45no
44:47no
44:49no
44:51no
44:53no
44:55no
44:57no
44:59no
45:01no
45:03no
45:05no
45:07no
45:09no
45:11no
45:13no
45:15no
45:17no
45:19no
45:21no
45:23no
45:25no
45:27no
45:29no
45:31no
45:33no
45:35no
45:37no
45:39no
45:41no
45:43no
45:45no
45:47no
45:49no
45:51no
45:53no
45:55no
45:57no
45:59no
46:01no
46:03no
46:05no
46:07no
46:09no
46:11the syphilis did not kill her it was still disfiguring. Back in Dundee
46:17Caroline is almost ready to reveal the woman's face. What we have now is the
46:23surface shape of the lesions as well as her face shape. What we need to do now is
46:29to take those lesions and add texture to them so that some of them will become
46:34transparent so they'll be fluid filled and some of them will be more hard and
46:39scar-like and that's where the texture comes in it gives it a more realistic
46:43surface so she's going to look less like her face is made of porridge which is
46:48what it looks like now and more like she's got syphilitic lesions.
46:54Well we can take this reconstruction that we have with the syphilis and we
46:58can try and depict her as she would have looked without this severe disease.
47:02Part of it will involve some degree of estimation because some of her nasal
47:07bones have been disrupted through the disease process and so we'll have to
47:12estimate the nose but we should be able to get enough of a likeness of her as she
47:16would have looked without the syphilis which would be nice to see as well
47:19especially as she had this mercury treatment.
47:24Musanthi has one last crucial job to do in London at the Metropolitan Archive.
47:40For the last few weeks Dr. David Green has been going through 19th century
47:44records for the area around Crossbones Cemetery. He's been cross-referencing
47:50burial records and hospital records trying to find the names of people with
47:54similar stories to the Crossbones woman. David has focused his research on the
47:59last three years of the Crossbones Cemetery from 1851 to 1853 because the
48:05skeleton was found near the surface. If we go to the burial registers we've done
48:11it for about three years or so we can narrow it down because that age group
48:16was it was quite rare for someone of that age group to die so yeah I mean you
48:22know you either died young or you died old but actually in the middle there's
48:27relatively few people. David has narrowed down his research to a few
48:31names but one of them stands out. So here we have the dead book. Yeah. The burial
48:38registers of St. Thomas's Hospital in Southwark. It's a charity hospital, takes
48:44a lot of poor patients and if she died in hospital then it may be that she's in
48:51here. Okay. We went and looked at the ages of people who died and here we have
48:59this woman called Elizabeth Mitchell. She's aged 19. The date she was admitted
49:075th of August of 1851. The date that she died 15th of August she only lasted
49:1410 days there. This woman, there's something about her because she comes from or she's
49:22in the hospital in Magdalene Ward. That was a ward for women with venereal
49:28disease. Oh right. So and on the right-hand side is a column marked
49:35medical remarks, cause of death. These are scrawled in so doctor's
49:40handwriting doesn't change. But it looks like it says ask the physician, came in
49:48for discharge and sores, died under physician's care and it looks like that
49:56then says with pneumonia. Elizabeth Mitchell fits the profile of the
50:02skeleton. Aged 19 she came to St. Thomas's syphilis ward for treatment of
50:06sores and discharge but died on the 15th of August 1851 of pneumonia.
50:15Next David looks at the burial records of the parish of St. Saviour's where the
50:20Crossbones Cemetery was located. Well here we are in August of 1851. We know
50:29that she died in August 1851 and there she is. Yeah number 2090, St. Thomas's as
50:38you said. 22nd of August 1851, 19 years. Is that Mr. Day is the minister? Mr. Day
50:45the minister buried her. So she went from the hospital and was buried by the
50:51parish. Her abode was the Thomas's Hospital so they didn't know where she lived.
50:58Oh right, okay. I don't know why but for some reason I kind of got a feeling
51:04about this woman. I think she's a possibility. Oh that's quite exciting.
51:08That's exciting, not for her but for us. Yeah fair enough, yeah historically it's
51:13quite exciting. Historically exactly.
51:21Xanthi heads back to Dundee. The investigation of the Crossbones woman is
51:26nearing its end. When it began all the team had was an
51:31unknown skeleton from a burial ground in Burrow. But a combination of historical
51:36and forensic analysis of the bones has brought the case to its conclusion.
51:48The team gather for the last time at the evidence board. Caroline is ready to
51:54reveal the face of the woman. But first Xanthi reveals the name and profile she
52:00discovered. So the name that came up was Elizabeth Mitchell and she was 19.
52:06So kind of at the top end. 19 is not an issue, it's at the top end of a possibility.
52:13She was admitted to Magdalen Ward which is known as the foul ward. So anywhere
52:17where the venereal disease is. In St. Thomas's Hospital which is why we have
52:23records that... I know it very well, I used to work there. Okay, in the records from the
52:30hospital it says she died of pneumonia on the 15th August 1851. So that makes perfect sense.
52:39The records show that she was later buried in the parish of St. Saviour's which is
52:43where the Crossbones graveyard is. Okay. We've got some some documentary evidence of
52:48somebody like this girl who may have had a similar treatment in this area. Which is quite nice.
52:55So you obviously will never know, but this does fit with her. She is in the right ward, she's the right kind of age.
53:00Excellent, well done. I was really impressed.
53:07With the historical research complete, it's now time for Caroline to reveal the final piece of evidence.
53:13We've done two here. So first of all we've got the reconstruction that's done with the disease.
53:18So showing the signs of syphilis.
53:26The face shows how the young woman would have been horribly disfigured by sores associated with the disease.
53:32So the position of these lesions is based on the position on the skull, as you can see.
53:38There was some destruction to her nasal bones at the top, but not at the base of the aperture.
53:43So we've got a loss of shape of the nose a little bit here with these lesions, but you can still see the overall structure.
53:49So that is pretty horrendous, isn't it?
53:51Yeah, and it's quite extensive, isn't it? It covers quite a lot of the surface of her face.
53:55Some of them are fluid filled.
54:01Presumably there's a bad smell element to this as well.
54:05I would have thought so. This is an infection.
54:08At the end of the day, you can't hide any form of a disfigurement really that occurs on face.
54:13There's no escaping your portrayal to the world that you're carrying this disease.
54:18So it would have been quite obvious that she was suffering.
54:23Then what we decided we were going to do was to try and depict her without the syphilis.
54:30Because it would be useful for us, I think, in terms of seeing her as an individual,
54:35to see her facial appearance without this awful disease which had such an effect on her physical appearance.
54:42And if she'd had access to penicillin and such things, she could technically have been cured from it.
54:47Absolutely.
54:58We had to obviously estimate some areas.
55:01So the nose, for example, because we've lost some of the nasal bones is an estimation.
55:05But certainly her facial proportions will be accurate and the details of the mouth is the same as with the...
55:12That's quite a pretty face. I know you don't seem to think so.
55:14Yeah, I think she's quite pretty.
55:15I think that's a quite a pretty face.
55:16Do you? See, I was a little bit disappointed by her.
55:18No?
55:19Oh, I do.
55:20From a male perspective.
55:27Excellent.
55:28Yeah, I think that's really good.
55:30So it might be Elizabeth Mitchell.
55:31It could be.
55:32Age 90.
55:36So I think if we bring this one to a close, because I think we are as far as we can go,
55:42the summary on this seems to be that we have a teenage female, probably working as a prostitute,
55:49certainly suffering from sexually transmitted syphilis, who did receive treatment for it,
55:56because we know that there's mercury within her bone.
56:01We suspect that she may have ended up, like many would have done, in a poor hospital,
56:08receiving some treatment, and like so many, she may have succumbed to a secondary condition,
56:13presumably as a result of her own decreased immune system.
56:17Pneumonia would be a very common one, and as a result, she's buried, effectively, in a pauper's grave.
56:24That's very sad, really, isn't it? I have to say.
56:26Yeah, it is.
56:27We kind of knew this was never going to be a happy tale.
56:30Well, no. Yeah, from the outset.
56:33But I think this has gone as far as it can.
56:36And I think it's produced an amazing amount of information, really, that we hadn't anticipated.
56:42Yeah.
56:43And so I think it's a job well done.
56:44Who would have thought we got to know?
56:45Yeah, absolutely.
56:46Sue and the team have been on an extraordinary journey to piece together the identity of a girl who died more than 150 years ago.
56:53I think the first impression that we had of the crossbones lady was just how small she was.
57:02And we had no understanding of the enormity and the strength of the story that was going to eventually materialise from this investigation.
57:15Being able to go back in history and using science as the tool to take you back in that history,
57:22and still working at the lowest, almost the lowest level of the sector of society,
57:29to still come out with a possible name, that's astounding.
57:33That really is astounding.
57:34That's not something we could ever have predicted as a possibility.
57:41Elizabeth Mitchell was one of thousands of people buried around Crossbones.
57:45In its time, it was a pauper's burial ground, but now it's become a shrine.
57:51One night a month, a group of volunteers assemble to remember and pay tribute to the dead.
57:57We gather here to remember the outcast dead, the paupers and the prostitutes who were buried here.
58:06People like the woman discovered at Crossbones led a life cursed by poverty and disease.
58:14And her story would have stayed buried forever if it weren't for the efforts of the Cold Case team willing to dig up the truth and disinter history along with the bones.
58:28And you can catch up on any you've missed on the BBC iPlayer.
58:32Britain's welfare system is bust, according to the minister in charge, and those who take jobs can seem like morons.
58:39So how can it be fixed?
58:40Claimants take on the government over reform.
58:42News Light, 10.30, here on BBC Two.