Medical Detectives (24 page)

Among the remains were portions of various newspapers including part of the
Sunday Graphic
, dated 15 September 1935. This was to prove particularly significant as it was a special ‘slip’ edition of the paper published only in the Lancaster district. Consequently, the attention of the police was immediately directed towards Lancaster and, at the same time, it became known that a Scottish newspaper had reported as missing a Lancaster woman who had disappeared three weeks previously. She was Mary Jane Rogerson, employed as nursemaid in the household of Dr Buck Ruxton who had a medical practice at Lancaster. Rogerson’s disappearance had been notified to the police and it seemed a sinister coincidence that the doctor’s wife was reported as having left him. Officers contacted Mary Rogerson’s stepmother who identified the blouse that had been used to wrap some of the human remains. The garment had a patch under one arm which she had sewn in place for her stepdaughter.

Attention turned to Dr Buck Ruxton, an Indian born in Bombay who had Anglicised his name. He had gained his medical qualifications in India and London and had spent time in the Indian Medical Service. He met his future wife in 1927 and they lived together in London. Although her former marriage was dissolved, she and Ruxton never married. The couple moved to Lancaster in 1930, where he established himself in medical practice at 2 Dalton Square.

Dr Ruxton, it appeared, had asked the Lancaster Borough Police several times for their help in finding his wife. He expressed annoyance at veiled suggestions which he believed were being made in the press connecting the discovery of human remains in Dumfriesshire with her disappearance. ‘This publicity,’ he informed the Chief Constable, ‘is ruining my practice.’ He seemed distressed at times, tearfully enquiring if it was not possible to publish a denial that there was any connection between the two occurrences in order to ‘stop all this trouble’. Ruxton was arrested on 13 October and charged with the murder of Mary Rogerson, an accusation which he vigorously denied. After several remands, he was also charged with murdering his wife, Isabella.

John Glaister had already been called in to examine the remains of what appeared to be two bodies. After Ruxton’s arrest, he visited the house at Dalton Square, Lancaster, with his colleague Dr Gilbert Martin and arranged for a number of articles including pieces of the house itself to be taken to the forensic laboratories at Glasgow for detailed examination. Particular attention was paid to the bathroom, wherein it might be supposed that the bodies had been dismembered for subsequent disposal. Glaister was nothing if not thorough; Item 7 was labelled ‘bathroom door’, Item 9a, ‘linoleum, bathroom floor’, Item 23a, ‘bath and fittings entire’, Item 75, ‘trap from waste pipe and bath’. The bathroom at 2 Dalton Square was virtually dismantled in its entirety and removed to his laboratory.

While Glaister and his team were looking for evidence of blood traces on the artefacts taken from Ruxton’s home, his colleague at Edinburgh University, Professor James Couper Brash, was attempting to reconstruct the bodies, of which the various remains had once been part. Brash was an anatomist and, from the start, Glaister had been convinced that specialist skills would be required to solve this unusual case. Two large, coffin-like boxes had been constructed at Glaister’s instructions to convey the remains from the scene of discovery. The boxes were labelled ‘Body No. 1’ and ‘Body No. 2’ and their contents allocated on the basis of the best decisions that could be made on the spot. Of the two likely destinations, Edinburgh or Glasgow, the former was geographically closest and it was there that the grim freight was taken in a police van.

Brash found that Head No. 1 had four complete cervical vertebrae attached to it, while Head No. 2 had five vertebrae attached. The upper portion of trunk found among the remains included two cervical vertebrae so that, on the logic that the body normally had seven cervical vertebrae, he assigned the trunk to Head No. 2. The two sections of spinal column fitted well together and their matching characteristics were confirmed by X-ray. The vertebrae attached to Head No. 1 were generally smaller than those on Head No. 2 which tended to support his judgement about where the trunk belonged.

By a painstaking process of fitting bone to bone and piece to piece in all the possible permutations, the two bodies began to take on some semblance of form. Early on, the anatomical experts had concluded that the dismemberment of the bodies had been carried out by someone with medical and anatomical knowledge. The bodies had been cleanly disarticulated at the joints; there was little damage and no evidence that a saw had been used. The sole instrument used in the dismemberment was a knife.

The nature of some of the mutilation confirmed the use of medical knowledge. An illustration of this was the removal of the larynx from the head of Body No. 2. The size of the larynx is a means of determining the sex of an otherwise unidentified corpse as this structure in the neck is usually a third larger in the male. It was apparent that the person who carried out the dismemberment was using medical knowledge to destroy those parts of his victims’ bodies which might aid their eventual identification.

The doctors had agreed at an early stage in their examination that both bodies were female. This was an important point of confirmation for the police in pursuing their case against Dr Ruxton. The final reconstruction of the bodies indicated that Body No. 1 was a woman aged between eighteen and twenty-five years, weighing about 105lb with a height of less than five feet. Body No. 2 was a woman aged between thirty-five and forty-five years, weighing between 126lb and 140lb and with a height of a little less than five feet five inches. These characteristics broadly matched those of the two missing women; Mary Rogerson was aged twenty and Isabella Ruxton, thirty-four years.

Vital though this reconstruction work was, it still fell short of providing positive identification. So the work of medical detection proceeded and the murderer’s cunning became ever more apparent. For example, there was a piece of skin missing from the right forearm of Body No. 1 in a position where it was known Rogerson had a distinctive birthmark. Similarly, Body No. 2 had tissue missing from the big toe on the left foot where Mrs Ruxton had a bunion. Casts were made of the feet of the two bodies and tried for size in the shoes of the missing women – they fitted in both cases. Vaccination marks and dental histories were also checked, along with any other individual characteristics that would help to build up the bigger picture.

Fingerprint examination was an obvious means of identification but the mutilated condition of the bodies made this nearly impossible. The fingertips had been completely severed from the hands of Body No. 2, although there was a left hand for Body No. 1. By scouring the house at Dalton Square over an eleven-day period, detectives found matching prints. A number of right hand fingerprint impressions were also found but proved valueless for several weeks until the right hand of Body No. 1 was located by the search team still working in and around the original discovery site. Although badly decomposed and having shed the outer layer of skin, it proved possible to visualise fingerprint impressions on the under layer of skin, or dermis, by means of photography. A perfect match was thus obtained with a thumbprint found at Dalton Square. Glasgow detectives had their work corroborated by the FBI in Washington DC and, thus, were able to satisfy themselves and, ultimately, the court, that Body No. 1 was Mary Rogerson who at one time had lived in the Ruxton household at Lancaster.

There remained the questions posed by the two heads. While photographs existed of both women, no comparison of skull and portrait had been attempted before in a criminal investigation. Undaunted, Glaister had a life-size print made from the negative still in the portrait photographer’s possession. In the original photograph, Isabella Ruxton had been pictured wearing a tiara and a diamante-trimmed evening dress. These articles, which were still available, were used to ensure that the life-size print was true both optically and geometrically. Next, life-size negatives of the skull of Head No. 2 were superimposed on the portrait. The outcome was a stunning match between the two, although John Glaister’s conclusion was typically restrained; ‘The result convinced us,’ he wrote, ‘that skull No. 2 could have been that of Mrs Ruxton, but not of Mary Rogerson.’

Applying this technique to Mary Rogerson proved more difficult, mainly due to the lack of a good portrait photograph. There were two snapshots of her, one of which pictured her against a backdrop of an iron gate in a low brick wall. Ascertaining that the location was outside a house in Morecambe, Glaister urged the police to find it and arrange for it to be photographed. His wishes were duly carried out, thereby making it possible to enlarge the young woman’s head in the snapshot to life size. The results of superimposing the negative of skull No. 1 on the portrait photograph were less impressive than in the case of Mrs Ruxton but nevertheless showed a close comparison. As Glaister put it, ‘We could not say that the skulls were positively those of the dead women. But the probability had been established.’

As the various aspects of the investigation proceeded, there was much toing and froing between Glasgow and Edinburgh. John Glaister noted that the Lancaster police officers at Dalton Square had ‘blinked’ when he told them he wanted to move whole parts of the house to Glasgow. Because of the intense public curiosity in the case, the blinds of the house were kept drawn so that the investigators could at least work in privacy. The disadvantage of this, as daylight faded, was that at times they were practically working in the dark. This resulted in at least one amusing interlude when a detective working in the house for the first time appeared in a state of panic convinced that he had found a body. While groping in the dark for a light switch in the drawing room his hand had touched the cold features of a marble bust which was part of the furnishings of the room.

Once the interiors of parts of the rooms had been re-assembled in his forensic laboratory at Glasgow University, Glaister had all the time and light he needed to carry out his detailed examinations. His insistence on removing a large section of staircase from the house led to another amusing situation. In order to reach the top of the house, it was necessary to climb a long ladder, stretching almost vertically through three floors. Having ascended to the top with a colleague to work in one of the uppermost rooms, he found himself stranded because it proved impossible to come down without help to guide his feet onto the rungs. As the policemen who were stationed below had gone off to lunch, he had to wait for an hour and a half until they returned.

Having ready access to parts of the rooms reconstructed in his laboratory paid dividends in terms of the detailed examinations he was able to carry out. He tested numerous stains for human blood and found positive results on the stairs and in the bathroom. His report was meticulous. For example, Item No. 9a – ‘linoleum, bathroom floor’ – consisted of two portions; of his examination of the larger piece, he recorded, ‘A. There are two areas of brownish staining situated 9’ and 15’ respectively from the extreme left end facing bathroom cupboard.’ These and general scrapings were removed, labelled ‘A’, and were submitted to microscopic, chemical and spectroscopic tests for blood pigment with positive results for mammalian blood. They were further submitted to the serological test with positive result giving indication that the blood was human.’

The report signed by John Glaister and Doctors Millar and Martin confirmed that human bloodstains were present throughout the house. They were on and around the bath and hand-wash basin, on and under the bathroom linoleum, on the stairs and banisters, on the stair carpet, on a leather coat belonging to Dr Ruxton, on his wife’s corsets and even on the chamber pot in Mary Rogerson’s bedroom. Glaister acknowledged that dismembering a human body was a formidable task and he thought that, allowing for a murderer equipped with skill and the proper instruments, eight hours would have been needed to complete the job.

While the doctors had been engrossed in their examinations and tests, the police had been pursuing their side of the investigation which included an analysis of Dr Ruxton’s movements and behaviour. It appeared from entries in his diaries that he and Isabella frequently engaged in bitter arguments. There was ample evidence to indicate his jealous and sometimes violent character. He uttered threats and abuse to his wife in the presence of witnesses and had menaced her at various times with both knife and gun. On two occasions, the police were called to the house on account of his explosive behaviour. Isabella had threatened to leave him and he let it be known that she had tried to commit suicide.

Friends and relatives alike believed that Ruxton’s jealous attitude bordered on the unbalanced. In early September, a week before she disappeared, Isabella, travelling alone, visited some friends in Edinburgh. They stayed overnight at a hotel and, Ruxton, riven with jealousy, convinced himself that his wife had embarked on an assignation with one of their hosts. Consequently, he followed them in a car in order to satisfy himself on this point. The event passed and, on 14 September, Isabella drove to Blackpool to see the illuminations with her two sisters. She left to return home to Lancaster at about 11.30 p.m. This was the last time that she was seen alive.

Ruxton employed two women to carry out the menial tasks in his house. They normally worked every day of the week but on Friday 13 September the doctor told Mrs Elizabeth Curwen there was no need for her to come back to work until the following Monday. Mrs Agnes Oxley who usually worked on Sundays was informed by a message delivered by her employer to her husband, ‘not to trouble to come down this morning’. At about 9 a.m. Sunday morning, the papers were delivered to 2 Dalton Square. The ring on the front door bell summoned not a servant, as expected, but Dr Ruxton himself who appeared to be in an agitated state. Later in the morning, the milkman called and was dealt with by Ruxton and, at 11 a.m. he turned away a woman who had brought her son along by appointment for a minor operation. He explained that his wife was away and that he was busy taking up the carpets in readiness for the decorators. He invited his visitor to see how dirty his hands were. Shortly after 4.30 p.m., he went to the home of one of his patients, Mrs Mary Hampshire, and asked if she would help him prepare the house for the decorators, because he had cut his hand while opening a tin of fruit.