Yahoo News The Lancashire doctor whose gruesome double-murder pioneered the use of forensics
The murders of a doctor's wife and their maid almost 90 years ago are once more in the headlines after the discovery of their remains.
Isabella Ruxton and Mary Jane Rogerson were murdered in Lancaster in September 1935 by Mrs Ruxton’s husband, Buck Ruxton. Their bodies were disposed of in woodland in Dumfriesshire, where parts of their remains were later found.
The remains were examined and identified at the University by experts from the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. The forensic results helped to secure a conviction of Buck Ruxton and the court case is considered the first in forensic medicine to do so.
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The murders
On the evening of 14 September 14 in 1935 Isabella Ruxton left the family home to view Blackpool Illuminations and visit two of her sisters (both of whom lived near Blackpool). She left Blackpool to return home at approximately 11.30pm.
When she returned home Dr Ruxton was overwhelmed by jealousy and paranoia and he murdered his wife. Either to prevent their housemaid from discovering his crime or because she had actually witnessed the act, Ruxton also murdered Mary Jane Rogerson.
After murdering the two women, Ruxton dissected the bodies, wrapped them in newspaper, old clothes and sheets and drove north. He dumped their bodies in a stream near Moffat in Scotland. Their bodies were discovered on the morning of 29 September 1935 by a young woman named Susan Haines Johnson.
Five days before the discovery of the human remains in Moffat, Ruxton had visited Lancaster police, claiming his wife had "once again" deserted him.
He had earlier visited the Morecambe household of the parents of the family maid, Mary Jane Rogerson, claiming their daughter, having recently engaged in an affair with a local youth, had become pregnant and that his wife had agreed to discreetly take her away from their home to arrange an abortion. As abortions were at that time illegal in Britain, Ruxton had urged the Rogersons not to contact the police.
On 1 October the Rogersons visited Ruxton at his practice. With their suspicions raised by his changing account they reported Mary missing the following day.
The investigation
A team led by Prof John Glaister of the University of Glasgow worked on the investigation. They used pioneering techniques to get fingerprints from one of the badly damaged bodies and also superimposed photographs onto one of the skulls they had found to help identify one victim.
Several of the pages of the Sunday Graphic in which the remains had been wrapped had been a souvenir edition of the newspaper which had been printed and circulated solely in the Morecambe and Lancaster area of England on 15 September, strongly suggesting the two victims and/or their murderer lived in North West England.
Another significant piece of work was their use of entomology to establish the time of death "really conclusively" based on the life-cycle of maggots.
The trial
The trial of Buck Ruxton at Manchester lasted eleven days, with the majority of the testimony delivered being from eyewitnesses and from medical and forensic experts who testified on behalf of the prosecution.
Despite both defence counsels subjecting the numerous eyewitnesses, and the medical and forensic experts whom the prosecution introduced as witnesses, to intense cross-examination in an effort to challenge their findings, the vast majority of prosecution witness—including all medical and forensic personnel to testify—remained steadfast as to his conclusions regarding the identification of the victims, and that their murders had been committed by Ruxton at his practice at 2 Dalton Square in Lancaster.
The evidence gathered in Moffat helped to convict Ruxton of the murders and he was sentenced to death.
The present day
Edinburgh University, whose experts were instrumental in convicting Dr Ruxton, has now discovered that the skulls and other bones are still in its archive. It is trying to trace the women's relatives to ask if they wish these to be returned.
Isabella and Buck Ruxton’s three young children were fostered and it is not known if they were ever told how their parents died.
Mary Rogerson is known to have relatives in the Morecambe area, while Isabella's sister Jeannie Nelson was living in Edinburgh at the time of the murder.
The university decided to issue a public appeal through the BBC instead of approaching the families privately, because it is not known whether Isabella and Buck Ruxton’s three orphaned children were ever told that their father had been hanged for murdering their mother.
The university is now hoping to hear from anyone who thinks they, or someone they know, is a relative of either Isabella Ruxton or Mary Jane Rogerson. If you have information which might help, you can contact the university.
