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Buck Ruxton Case

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The Case of Buck Ruxton
In September of 1935, a bundle of human remains was found by a tourist, under the bridge of a small stream in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. The authorities were notified and police quickly recovered approximately thirty different body parts from the stream. That discovery also led to the retrieval of body parts in other dumping sites across the neighboring area (Goff, 2000). The body parts were secured in various items of clothing and some were wrapped in sheets of newspaper. The special edition of the newspaper, as well as the presence of Calliphora vicina (blowflies), found on the bodies would inevitably lead investigators to the English town of Lancaster and the arrest of one Buktyar Rustomji Ratanji Hakim (Goff, 2000). …show more content…

The two bodies were dissected with great skill and precision, leaving investigators to put the pieces back together (Goff, 2000). Subsequently, the devil was found in the details, and on November 5th, 1935, Dr. Ruxton was charged in the double murder. Although he had gone to extreme lengths to hide the identity of the victims, Dr. Ruxton could not fool investigators, and it would be his costly mistakes that secured him an execution by hanging.
Fingerprint Evidence. Dr. Ruxton had gone to great lengths to cut off fingers, feet, and the heads of the women. He also removed all prominent features to include, eyelids, skin around scars and birthmarks (Owen, 2009). However, investigators were still able to match the fingerprints of remains to dinnerware at the Ruxton home. This provided conclusive evidence that one of the bodies belonged to Mary Jane Rogerson (Owen, …show more content…

Several maggot specimens were recovered from the remains. The maggots were sent for testing at the University of Edinburgh. The samples were examined by Dr. Mearns, who made the determination that they were Calliphora vicina, a species commonly known as blowflies (Goff, 2000). This entomological evidence led to the conclusion that the flies were approximately twelve to fifteen days old. Investigators honed in on the newspaper that was used to wrap the victims, that was dated September 15th, 1935. Fortunately, the newspaper was a special edition issue that was only distributed across a small area, so law enforcement subpoenaed the list of subscribers. This allowed police to shift their attention to the town of Lancaster, England (Goff,

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