A fifty-three year old merchant seaman and fireman on the S.S. Fez ship, James Thomas Sadler was discharged on February 11 1891 and proceeded to make his way toward Commercial Street and the Princess Alice pub. While having some drinks he met Frances Coles, of whom he had been a former client, and the two decided to spend the night together. They did so at Spitalfields Chambers, a common lodging house at 8 White’s Row, Spitalfields, and both spent the rest of the next day barhopping across the area.
Sometime around 7:30pm on Thursday February 12 1891, Frances went to a millinery shop at 25 Nottingham Street, Bethnal Green, and purchased a new black crêpe hat with the 2s. 6d. Sadler had given her some hours before.
Between 9:00pm and 11:00pm James Sadler was robbed by a woman in a red shawl and two male accomplices in Thrawl Street: “I was then penniless,” he said, “and I had a row with Frances for I thought she might have helped me when I was down.” After this argument, both went separate ways.
At 11:30pm Frances is drunk when returns to their lodgings at Spitalfields Chambers. She sits at a bench in the kitchen, rests her head on her arms, and quickly falls asleep. Sadler soon returns, face bloodied and bruised, and in a belligerent mood. “I have been robbed,” he says, “and if I knew who had done it I would do for them.“ Charles Guiver, the night watchman at the lodging house, helped Sadler wash up in the back yard but was forced to ask him to leave as he hadn’t the money for a room. Frances remains on the bench at the table, fast asleep until about an hour later, when she wakes up, according to lodger Samuel Harris, and leaves White’s Row since she also lacks her doss money. According to watchman Guiver, however, Frances wasn’t to leave until around 1:30am.
Is around that time that Joseph Haswell, an employee in Shuttleworth’s eating house in Wentworth Street, is asked by Frances Coles for three half pence worth of mutton and some bread. She eats her meal alone in the corner, remaining there for some fifteen minutes. Hassell asks her to leave three times, but Frances refuses, telling Haswell, ‘Mind your own business!” She finally leaves about 1:45am and headed toward the direction of Brick Lane through Commercial Street. Frances bumps into fellow prostitute Ellen Callana on Commercial Street. Soon afterward “a violent man in a cheesecutter hat” approaches Calana and solicites her. Calana decides to refuse his offer. The man punches her in the face, giving her a black eye, then walks over to Frances. Ignoring Calana’s advice, Frances walks away with the stranger, headed in the direction of the Minories.
Meanwhile, at 1:50am James Sadler gets into his third brawl of the night with some dockworkers at St. Katharine Dock as he tries to force his way back onto the S.S. Fez ship. He is left bleeding from a rather sizable wound in the scalp after calling his attackers “dock rats.” He then makes two attempts to enter a lodging house in East Smithfield, but was refused. Soon after, at 2:00am he is seen drunken and bloodied on the pavement outside the Mint by a Sergeant Edwards. He was ‘decidedly drunk’ at the time.
At 2:15am from Friday February 13th 1891, P.C. Ernest Thompson was on his beat along Chamber Street, only minutes away from Leman Street Police Station. He had been on the police force less than two months, and this was his first night on the beat alone. Thomspon heard the retreating footsteps of a man in the distance, apparently heading toward Mansell Street. Only a few seconds later he turns his vision to the darkest corner of Swallow Gardens and shines his lamp upon the body of Frances Coles. Thompson had passed the spot 15 minutes before and was adamant that she hadn’t been there then. Blood was flowing profusely from her throat, and to Thompson’s horror, he saw her open and shut one eye. Since the woman was alive, police procedure dictated that Thompson remain with the body – his inability to follow the retreating footsteps of the man he believed to have been her killer would haunt him for the rest of his days.
When the mutilated corpse of a 31-year-old girl was located at 5 o'clock in the morning of February 13, 1891, the police undertook an extensive search that concluded with the arrest of the victim's boyfriend. He said that he had met her 18 months ago while on leave, and from the on, met Frances several more times.
He said:
"What a blessing my case will be for the police!" - he exclaimed in an ironic argument; "They would solve all the unsolved crimes if they could only send me, no matter how innocent I am, to the gallows".
Harry Wilson, a lawyer hired by the firemen's guild to which the accused belonged, defended his client skillfully. He demonstrated the truthfulness of the street attack suffered that night, and succeeded in getting boat captains to provide testimony for the court. Finally, Sadler's cause was dismissed due to lack of evidence.
Police also investigated his movements during Jack the Ripper's killing spree.