adesman and a uniformed policeman observing the body. The wounds are referred to but not shown onscreen, except postmortem. However, reference is made to the fact that the intestines plus an organ have been removed.
The actual facts of Polly's career revolve around her alcoholism. Barbee presents a time line of Polly's last day that has her explaining "that she had had her doss money three times that day and had drunk it away" (Barbee). The location and circumstances of the murder may have been Buck's Row; witnesses report that blood was coming from the throat. However, Constable Neil's testimony is that at the mortuary it was discovered Polly had been disemboweled suggests that, after all, Buck's Row was dump site, not murder site. Testimony conflicts about circumstances of the discovery. According to Neil, he found the body, still breathing, and hailed one policeman to fetch one Dr. Llewellyn and another to fetch an ambulance. According to Constable Mizen, he was hailed by a carman to help Constable Neil, who sent him for the ambulance. The carman's story is that he and another man came upon the body, then left it when they heard a policeman approaching. He did not get a policeman, did not even see one. Polly seems to have been found breathing, moments from death ("Inquest: Polly").
Where film and actual events agree most is in the presentation of Polly's fatal wounds. As Llewellyn testified:
The large vessels of the neck on both sides were severed. The incision is about eight inches long. These cuts must have been caused with a long-bladed knife, moderately sharp, and used with great violence. No blood at all was found on the breast either of the body or clothes [another indication of the killing taking place away from Buck's Row] ("Inquest: Polly").
The disemboweling is referred to in the film, but the a shot of postmortem repair to the neck and torso does not reflect the near decapitation, with one incision "completely ...