Murder in Moffat: The crime that shaped forensic science

The Herald Scotland

16 hours ago

On a Sunday morning in late September 1935, she had set off with her mother for a leisurely hike, towards the waterfall and the peaceful countryside on the edge of the town.
As they paused on Gardenholm Bridge, Susan glanced over the wall to take in the view of the cascading water.
A strange bundle among the mossy rocks below caught her eye.
Poking out of it, what appeared – to her horror – was the grotesque shape of a human arm.
Onlookers at the bridge on the outskirts of Moffat, overlooking where dozens of body parts were found (Image: Newsquest Media Group)
Before long, a search of the scene revealed not just the arm, but in the stream and the waters feeding the nearby Annan River, more body parts tied up in fabric and newspaper.
There were two human heads – one had been wrapped in a child's romper suit – and four bundles of mutilated and decomposing remains: thigh bones, legs, a torso, pelvis and slices of flesh.
In all, there were 70 separate sections of human remains.
As police picked over the distressing evidence, it became clear the killer had done their utmost to clinically remove any trace of features that might solve the mystery of their victims' identities – fingers, teeth, eyes were all mutilated.
Laid before detectives was a puzzle that would push them into new and ground-breaking areas of forensic science.
Now, as the 90th anniversary of the so-called Jigsaw Murders looms, events of September 1935 are being revisited for a fascinating backwards glance at how efforts to pin down a killer helped lay foundations for modern forensic science.
A new University of Dundee Inside Forensic Science podcast series – the fourth to explore a notorious Scottish crime – and forthcoming Royal Society of Edinburgh 'Curious' presentation will examine events near the quiet Dumfriesshire town and how, despite the killer's desperate efforts to obscure his victims' identities, he ignited new methods of solving crimes.
Ground-breaking at the time, some methods kickstarted by the crime remain almost unchanged nine decades later.
Rooted in suspicion and domestic violence, the 'Moffat Murders' is also a gripping true crime story that illustrates the worst of human violence and deviousness, set against a 1930s landscape when detective work was the stuff of notebook and pen, legwork and without modern benefits of DNA and push-button technology.
'The case involved a number of elements of forensic science where people of the day were really breaking boundaries in new techniques and technology,' explains Professor of Forensic Science Niamh Nic Daéid FRSE, Director of the University's Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Science (LRCFS).
'They were real pioneers in terms of some of the types of evidence – in particular, cranial facial reconstruction.'
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The killer's efforts to remove the identities of his victims left investigators facing a difficult task, she adds.
'Hands were removed so they couldn't find fingerprints, the bodies were dismembered, facial features were damaged.
'Forensic scientists of the day worked very hard to give that identity back to the victims."
While for the despicable killer – once a respectable and well-liked member of his local community – the gallows would await.
And that was far from what the Lancaster patients of a certain Dr Buck Ruxton ever expected might happen.
Buck Ruxton murdered his wife and nanny (Image: PA)
To them, he was a caring medic committed to the community, to his family and tending to their health needs.
Behind the polished brass plaque at Number 2 Dalton Square in the heart of the Lancashire town, however, lay a far darker truth.
Ruxton, born Bukhtyar Rustomji Ratanji Hakim in Bombay, had met Isabella Kerr while studying to become a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.
Before much longer, they had become parents to the first of three children, and had left Edinburgh to set up home in Lancaster.
Professor Niamh Nic Daeid, FRSE Professor of Forensic Science, University of Dundee (Image: Stewart Attwood Photography) Family life, however, was blighted by dreadful violence: he was obsessively jealous, frequently accusing his wife of infidelity despite any trace of clear evidence.
His fear festered and eventually exploded into violence.
Unfortunately, events in September 1935, were witnessed by the couple's maid. Mary Jane Rogerson, just 20 years old, would suffer the same fate as her mistress.
Faced with two bodies to dispose of, Ruxton's solution was meticulous and monstrous.
A remote waterfall and river in Dumfriesshire might well swallow the evidence, swirling the packages of body parts out to sea never to be seen again. Or so he thought.
Instead, the devious doctor would meet his match in Scotland's top minds in the fledgling landscape of forensic science and medicine.
Police search the ravine where body parts wrapped in newspaper and material were found (Image: Newsquest Media Group)
Led by Prof John Glaister of the University of Glasgow and Sir Sydney Smith at University of Edinburgh, scientists and medical experts from across the country were called in to help unravel the mystery.
At first, it wasn't clear if the body parts belonged to men or women, never mind how they had reached their terrible fate.
Over several months a range of pioneering techniques spanning three branches of forensic science – dermal fingerprinting, cranial facial 'reconstruction' and forensic entomology – were used to help identify the victims and build the case.
A new technique was developed to reconstruct mutilated fingerprints – a delicate process never tried before that even saw one investigator burn his own fingers to remove the top layer of skin in an effort to show how prints could be found on underlying layers.
Meanwhile, thoughts turned to whether the victims' skulls – which already offered insight into the ages and sex of the victims – might shed further light on their identities.
In another pioneering move, an X-ray of one skull was superimposed on a photograph of Dr Ruxton's wife, Isabella. Carefully positioned at matching angles and forensically analysed, it was revealed to be a remarkable match.
As the pieces of the human jigsaw puzzle took shape, Alexander Gow Mearns, an entomologist and public health specialist at the University of Glasgow, was figuring out the time of death based on the life-cycle of bluebottle maggots.
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It was yet another landmark moment in forensic science and one that remains a feature of such cases today.
There was traditional detective work too: clues were unpicked from the fabric and newspapers in which the body parts had been wrapped. One edition of a certain publication, The Sunday Graphic, found at the scene had only been distributed in the Lancaster area. It all helped to join the dots.
As the case took shape however, a major issue was how this ground-breaking evidence might be accepted – or not – by the criminal justice system.
The new podcast series and RSE talk – part of the Curious programme which spans presentations on artificial intelligence to the 1960s' moon landings – brings together legal and forensic science experts to explain how the case broke barriers.
They also examine the case through a modern lens, to consider how it might be handled with the benefits of modern forensic techniques and technology.
Professor Nic Daéid, who will be joined at next month's RSE talk by, among others, leading lawyer Alex Prentice KC, says modern forensic science bears the fingerprints of the Ruxton investigation.
'Something that comes across very strongly is the excellence of the police work in those days, how they recorded the crime scenes very carefully and were meticulous when taking notes and recording information.
'The detail in their notetaking is as good as it is now or even better, yet back then they didn't have what we have now.'
Indeed, there was not even a specialist forensic laboratory in Scotland at the time, she adds.
'If it happened today, the immediate 'go to' for linking body parts would be DNA, which has revolutionised the way we make use of science in the criminal justice system.
'Of course, they didn't have DNA – they were still dealing with things like blood grouping,' she adds.
Perhaps what's also remarkable is how quickly the case came together: by March 1936, Dr Ruxman was in the dock facing murder charges.
Although the case saw a range of breakthroughs in the emerging field of forensic science, taken in isolation it's likely that none would have been enough to secure a conviction.
Ruxton went on trial five months after his victims' remains were found, and was later hanged (Image: Contributed)
However, together they formed enough individual pieces to solve the jigsaw puzzle.
'It was a link in a chain,' Prof. Nic Daéid says.
'Taken separately, each would not stand up but when put in context of other information and how the police used it, we can draw out the tendrils of the rest of the story.
'Forensic science and criminal investigation are very much teamwork,' she adds.
'And this case is a fantastic example of different elements of forensic science and forensic medicine coming together.'
RSE Curious event, A case of stolen identity: the 1935 Moffat murders, is on Friday, September 12 at the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
The Dundee University Inside Forensic Science Podcast exploring the Moffat Murders, is now available.