On the morning of December 8 1887, Margaret was attacked in Osborne street/Brick Lane vicinity (Whitechapel), receiving face and chest injuries that kept her in Whitechapel Infirmary until 28 December. It is possible that a misrecollection of her assault as fatal may have lain behind references to the Fairy Fay murder at Christmas 1887.
On the evening of the Easter Monday bank holiday, April 3, 1888, both Margaret and fellow lodger Emma Elizabeth Smith went to Limehouse, a district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in East London two miles away from Whitechapel, but they did not necessarily go together.
The midnight hour found Margaret walking alone when two young men approached her. While one distracted her by asking the time, the other hit her in her face and then bit runaway. Margaret then decided to return back to the 18 George Street lodging house.
While rushing along Burdett Street in Limehouse, Margaret saw Emma Elizabeth Smith at 12:15 AM standing at the corner of Farrance Street talking to a man dressed in black and wearing a white scarf. Margaret didn’t stop to let Emma know she was leaving nor asked if she’d like to join her.
Approximately four to five hours after, Emma would be beaten and raped by a gang of three or four young men whom she didn’t know.