The crime that fascinated Agatha Christie – How Buck Ruxton committed a double murder
| Published date | 24 June 2021 |
It culminated in the execution of a charismatic and popular Lancashire doctor, Buck Ruxton, convicted of murdering his wife and his children's nanny.
The landmark case is still remembered almost 90 years on because of the incredible forensic breakthroughs made by investigators.
Some of these pioneering techniques are still in use today.
A key aspect of the investigation was the brilliant teamwork of the pathologists and police.
Before the Ruxton case, forensic scientists generally worked alone, impervious to outside criticism or scrutiny.
The most famous pathologist was Sir Bernard Spilsbury, whose evidence convicted Dr Crippen in 1910.
However, his influence on the field of forensics would swiftly wane after the Ruxton case.
Spilsbury's dogmatism and unwavering self-belief were at odds with this new culture and his professional opinion would now be challenged in court.
In fact, the brilliant, pioneering work done at Edinburgh in the winter of 1935 would set the template for the now classic team-led forensic science investigations familiar to fans of TV dramas such as Silent Witness and Crime Scene Investigation.
In September 1935, walkers in the remote Scottish Borders saw a strange bundle lying beside a stream in a ravine below a bridge.
Protruding from it was a human arm.
Police recovered 70 dismembered pieces of human remains, including two mutilated heads.
Eyes, teeth, fingertips and other identifying features had been removed.
Detectives called upon eminent Scottish forensic scientists from the universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow to piece together the gruesome human jigsaw puzzle.
The scientists quickly realised the killer was someone with surgical knowledge.
Professor John Glaister and Professor James Couper Brash led the reconstruction of the remains.
There had been murder cases before involving dismembered body parts, but the intermingling of multiple bodies was unprecedented.
Glaister and Brash were initially uncertain how many victims lay before them.
Meanwhile, policemen who examined sheets of newspaper wrapped around the body parts established they were from the Sunday Graphic, a national newspaper.
They were also found to be from a local edition that circulated only in the Morecambe and Lancaster area.
In Lancaster, there was gossip about respected local Indian GP Dr Buck Ruxton. His...
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