A Bad Wrap 54:40

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In June's Journey, you have the chance to solve a captivating murder mystery and reveal deep-seated family secrets. Use your keen eye and detective skills to guide June Parker through this thrilling hidden object mystery game. June's Journey is a mobile game that follows June Parker, a New York socialite living in London. Play as June Parker and investigate beautifully detailed scenes of the 1920s

while uncovering the mystery of her sister's murder. There are twists, turns, and catchy tunes, all leading you deeper into the thrilling storyline. This is your chance to test your detective skills. And if you play well enough, you could make it to the detective club. There, you'll chat with other players and compete with or against them. June needs your help, but watch out.

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Discover your inner detective when you download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android. That's June's Journey. Download the game for free on iOS and Android.

I'm Kate Winkler-Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the last 25 years writing about true crime. And I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator who's worked some of America's most complicated cases and solved them. Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most compelling true crimes. And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring new insights to old mysteries.

Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime cases through a 21st century lens. Some are solved and some are cold, very cold. This is Buried Bones. ♪♪

Hey, Kate. How are you doing? I'm doing well. How are you? I'm doing good. You know, many people out there know I have a dog by the name of Cora. Yellow Lab. I think she's eight and a half years old now. But has been such a joy to have for the family. And I've previously had dogs.

And I know how much, you know, from getting them as a young puppy and raising them and training them, how much work they are. My wife didn't have dogs before. And so when Cora was a puppy, my wife was so frustrated. And the reason we got Cora was because my son wanted a dog. And I was like, are you sure? I know what this is like having another child. Yeah.

And of course, we went through some struggles with a yellow lab. I mean, everybody's familiar with Marley. Yellow labs for the first four or five years of their life are trouble. They're great dogs, great dogs, great personality, but they get into trouble and they're high energy dogs.

And then Cora at, you know, at eight and a half, she's, she is very docile and just so easygoing and well-trained too. She's your companion. I mean, that's a companion dog. I think that's great. And she wants to be around the family. We can't put her outside by herself. You know, it's like you put her out on our rear deck, you know, in Colorado, you have to be careful because of the wildlife.

You know, but we have a rear deck where she would be protected. You put her out there and all she does is lean up against the rear door wanting to come back inside and be around people. Oh, sweet. We're getting a new puppy and we're struggling with the name. How did you pick out Cora's name? Oh, this was literally my youngest daughter came up with the name Cora. Just out of the blue. And I can't even know where that name came from. It's just...

what are we going to name this puppy? We came home with Cor. She was, I think, 10 weeks old when we got her. Yeah. It was like, well, what is going to be this dog's name? And then my youngest daughter, who was very young at the time, I would say she would have been on the order of five, six years old, came up with the name Cor. And so that's how that name came to be.

That sounds so simple. I'm jealous. We're in a huge, our whole family's in a big fight over the name of this puppy. And I did not think, the first dog, Ruby was, the girls were nine when we got her. And it was very simple because I just said, this dog is named Ruby. And they said, okay. And that is not the case now. Now they're in seventh grade and they have very strong opinions. Of course they do. I know. And we had to get a piece of paper out and have everyone list the

their top five names. We talked for two hours, top five names, one through five, because my theory was cross-reference the lists. Somebody will have, you know, a similar name and, you know, we'll all agree on it and it'll be very happy. And that was not the case. We're still arguing about it.

I said Millie, but that sounds close to Ruby because of the E at the end. And I've read that it confuses dogs to have similar names when you're trying to train them. So it is just nonstop stress over a dog name. But I guess it's identity for them too. So it's important. So we'll continue to argue, I'm pretty sure. Well, it's like naming a child, right? Yeah.

I had a friend who named their dog Doji. And I said, where does that come from, Doji? And he said, D-O-G. So that's creative. I've heard of that before, yes. My third dog who I was in love with, I found. And so I named her Jane Doe. And we just shortened it to Jane because I couldn't remember.

I wanted Clue for this puppy and everybody nixed Clue. So there's no Clue puppy, unfortunately. I'm horrible with coming up with names. You know, like when it came to the kids, I just said, I have veto rights. You know, I'm not going to be proposing names. I have veto rights. But with my first marriage, we ended up getting two Persian kittens. Aw.

My first wife was big into Persian kittens, but we couldn't come up with names. And so for the first year of their life, they were White Kitty and Gray Kitty. And then it came up to my daughter, my oldest daughter, who came up with the names Sumo and Nuzzle. Sumo being the gray one and Nuzzle being the white one. Oh, that's sweet. That stuck for the rest of their lives.

Well, I find that Ruby is definitely a Ruby, even though she is not red. She is light colored, very light, kind of blondie. So we'll see. I'll update everyone on the name of this dog. This was a lovely way to start optimistically for an episode that is...

a pretty intense episode about the deaths of two people. And this is going to be, you're really going to have to put your thinking cap on forensically. There's a lot of forensics in this story that I find really interesting. They did some things in 1935. I'm not sure are kosher, but we'll figure it out. You can tell me and I'm going to spring some photos on you you haven't seen yet. Okay, sounds good. Okay, let's go ahead and set the scene.

So it's 1935. We are in the UK. We start in Scotland and then we move over to Lancaster. So in September 1935, there's a woman who was walking in the Scottish town of Moffat.

And she's walking over a bridge, and inexplicably, she sees a human arm that's protruding from the stream below. And, of course, freaks out, calls the police, and the police are soon on the scene, and they start discovering what the killer did, which is very, very gruesome, even by my standards. I feel like...

A pretty high threshold for what I think is gruesome. And this was pretty gruesome to me. So listen to this. There are nearly 30 packages containing 70 pieces, 70 pieces of badly decomposed human body parts in the stream.

and surrounding the ravine. So let's just start with that. So 70 pieces in 30 different packages. This is obviously a dismembering technique. What is the point of this? Hoping they'll all float downstream or why make so many packages? Well, first, do we know, is this just a single body at this location? No. Okay. Okay.

offenders dismember bodies predominantly for ease of transport, for ease of hiding the body parts, for packaging them, for distributing the body across a wide geographic area to delay the bodies being found and with the ultimate hope that the body parts are never found and attributed back to the victim. So this offender who

take the time to cut the body up into 70 different parts if it's just one body, obviously is trying to really prevent the identification of the body. However, disposing of the body in the same location. So it's not like the intent was to, you know, distribute the body unless something interrupted the offender's plan. This is what's so interesting. This is the person who seems organized versus someone who seemed to be interrupted. So listen to this.

30 packages, 70 body parts. Some were wrapped in newspaper. Some were wrapped in clothing. Some were wrapped in sheets. And some were just dumped in without any wrapping at all.

So eventually, they find two severed heads, two upper chests, a pelvis, 17 pieces of arms and legs, and 43 pieces of soft tissue, which earned these murderers the name the Jigsaw Murders. Oh, wow. Two heads. So two people. Okay. So we have two bodies that are being dismembered, packaged up, but dumped in the same location. Were all these packages actually in this river? Yeah.

Yes, everything's in the stream after they searched the stream. I mean, I don't know how widely they had to search. And a stream indicates to me, of course, not a deep river. So it seems haphazard to me. Does it seem to you? I mean, that's not all neatly packaged in the similar wrapping. Clothing can be identified. Newspapers can be identified. Yeah, there's most certainly going to be evidence that

could hurt the offender down the road. I'm trying to think of why the offender would make all this effort to cut the body parts up and package them across 30 packages and then just dump all those packages in a single location. Now, this is 1935, you said? Correct, yep. Okay, so were vehicles being used...

heavily at the time? I would imagine there were vehicles. I assume that he used a vehicle to transport the bodies because we're going to find out that they were for sure killed in a different location. Okay. Because, you know, I think part of the limitation that the offender would have in 1935 versus today is motorized vehicles. Yeah. Even though these packages, each of themselves are small and relatively light, they're not

you still have 30 packages that contain two bodies. And if these are two adult bodies, even if they're, let's say, smaller stature adults, you've got probably a couple hundred pounds worth of human remains that you have to transport. So that could be playing into why you have such a limited geographic distribution. And what's interesting here is that there apparently is so much decomposition in these body parts that

that they can tell at least there's one female. I'm assuming maybe genitalia or breasts or something, but they don't know about the other one. They don't know if the other one's male or female. So they have heads. So this must have been severe decomposition. Okay. Soft tissue is gone. There's going to be an assessment by experts whether or not this decomposition is real.

It's possible maybe these bodies had been dead for a period of time before they were dismembered and then, you know, thrown into the water. That would show a different type of decompositional process than bodies that were dismembered fresh and then thrown right away into the river.

So that's where your experts will start weighing in. And that gives investigators information and insight as to how to proceed with their investigation. Well, I'm going to give you a clue. And the clue here is we're going to find out that they had been dead for 15 days.

So I think you're right. Kept them and then transported them after a week or two, perhaps. Because a stream, that doesn't seem like the ideal place to dump bodies because it just seems like they would be more visible. Exactly. That's what's really confounding me in terms of the effort the offender is making for the dismemberment and the disposal process, but then dumping them at a location where they're going to be readily seen, readily found. Yeah.

You know, is this stream something that would routinely flood? Maybe the offender's thinking there's going to be fast currents and was hoping to see these remains get distributed downstream. Yeah. But obviously that didn't happen. No, easily found. She's walking over a bridge.

I don't know what the depth is between the bridge and the stream, but stream just seems everything is shallow. So when they go to try to identify these people, they have two problems. One is that there's, as you had said, and as you guessed, and it's true, the soft tissue on the faces were gone. Okay. Okay, so they just had skulls. And that's going to play into a really important fact in a little bit. The other thing is that

Whoever did this had mutilated their fingers. So let me show you a photo. And no, listeners, we can't put this on the internet because it grosses me out. And as I said, it's a pretty high bar for me to get grossed out. So this is a severed hand. And you can see that this was not just someone taking a razor and marking up the fingertips to conceal the identity with fingerprints. These are, they look severed completely. Does it look like that to you? Yeah, in fact, it looks like

The fingertips, probably at the, I'll call it the second knuckle, the big knuckle of each finger, as well as the thumb, the fingers are completely gone from above that knuckle area. And I can't quite make out in the photo the type of tool used.

But it would not surprise me that if this was some sort of, whether it's a knife versus some sort of shear tool that could cut the fingers off.

The margins of the skin don't look exactly really clean. So that suggests to me that possibly there was some sort of sawing action going on to cut these fingers off. And you have told me in the past, I log everything Paul Hulls tells me in my little forensic notes.

mind bank. You've said in the past that if you just have a knowledge of maybe breaking down a deer that has been killed, you should know where to cut at joints or places like that to be able to dismember really easily. Because I'll tell you, the police think for sure this is somebody who is in the medical profession. And I know that you don't always agree with that assessment.

No, not at all. Especially when you start talking something as fragile, if you will, as fingers. This is not going to take a lot of effort in order to cut through these fingers if they're being cut through the joint. This is something somebody would naturally almost stumble across. If you are cutting through a body, let's say you're trying to cut through the vertebral column.

and you run into bone, you're going to start moving the knife around. And all of a sudden, you find, well, here's the intervertebral disc. Here's an area where now I can continue to cut without trying to saw through bone. This is where the autopsy, the pathologist observations, did the offender remove the fingers by cutting through the joint or were the finger, the metacarpals actually cut in half and the joint was left?

So the pathologist said that this had to have been someone that had surgical precision. He believed that it had taken in the realm of eight hours to dismember both of these bodies. I'm not sure how you would know that. And as you're talking about expertise in dismembering bodies varies from the person. No, for sure. Yeah, at least like with what I'm looking at from just this left hand perspective.

I mean, there's nothing surgical about what's happening here. This looks like it was done in haste. There is no efforts to try to make it clean. The offender is literally just trying to get rid of the identifying areas of the fingers and thumb that would have been recorded on a 10-print card, on a fingerprint card back in the day.

I agree. So one thing they noticed is the packaging. And this is why I think this person's sloppy. The packaging that they used, besides clothing and sheets that presumably belong to someone and could be identifiable. I don't know if this is someone who went to a store and bought these things, but that seems risky. But on top of that, this is what happened.

The killer included in these packages newspaper was one of the coverings. And in one of the newspapers, there was a special insert that was only distributed to newspapers in Lancaster District in England. Oh, so how far away is that from where the bodies are found?

Moffat, Scotland is about 100 miles from the Lancaster district in England. This is a long way for somebody to travel. In 1935? Absolutely. So, you know, of course, the assumption is that this newspaper, it's distributed in a very select area. You know, of course, that newspaper could end up anywhere. But making the assumption that

the offender got access from the newspaper in the region in which it was distributed. Now the offender is taking human remains from two bodies, again, probably at least a couple hundred pounds worth of human remains, 100 miles to dispose of them. This is effort. It takes time in 1935.

And it's just so bizarre to me because the amount of effort, you're right, to dismember in this fashion, to transport, and then to be sloppy. So detectives then go to Lancaster, of course, and start asking around, and they find out there are two missing people.

One is a woman named Mary Rogerson, and she's a nurse, a private nurse. She's been working as a housekeeper in the home of a doctor named Buck Ruxton. And we'll learn a little bit more about Buck Ruxton in a little bit. And at the same time, Dr. Ruxton's common-law wife, Isabella, has been missing too. So they have been, these two women, one who works in the house, so the nurse worked in the house, and the other one who is the head of the house, the female head of the house, worked

have been missing since September 14th, 15 days before these bodies were found. Who's reporting them missing? Family members. Honestly, it's the nurse. Mary Rogerson's family was alarmed at first. And then Isabella's family, of course, piped up also, but it's the nurse's family that speaks out first.

So, Buck Ruxton, who's the husband of Isabella, right? Mm-hmm. He's not the one reporting Isabella missing. No. The friends just said, we haven't seen her around for a while. And he says, you know, she travels, so I don't see her. What's interesting is, is still we are left with two bodies who are difficult to identify because of what was done as a forensic countermeasure of whoever the killer is did to try to hide their identities. Right.

Well, in 1935, to really identify these bodies, it's either going to be based on visual recognition, looking at the person's face or distinguishing features of their body. Let's say a tattoo or scars or, you know, size, shape, etc.,

But also fingerprints, and the offender has taken time to remove the fingers, I'm assuming off of both bodies. Yes. Right? Absolutely. And were these fingertips recovered in any of the packaging with the rest of the remains? Nope.

So that's the one thing the offender did place elsewhere. The one identifying feature from 1935, the fingertips, gone. Not with the primary body parts. Okay. Now, the way that they identify and connect, because spoiler alert, we do believe that this is Mary Rogerson and Isabella Ruxton. The things that they use to identify them, I think,

are unreliable, but you can tell me what you think. They contact Mary Rogerson's mother, who was the one that sounded the alarm on this to begin with.

and they wanted a thorough description of her daughter. The mother is able to identify part of a blouse that was recovered in the stream, one of the things that the killer used to wrap up the body parts. And the reason she's able to identify it is that there is a custom-made patch that she herself sewed on that shirt. So she said, this is clothing that belongs to my daughter and I recognize other clothing that belong to her boss here.

Isabella Ruxton. Is that reliable? No, but it's a clue. Okay. At least you have a witness who's able to articulate items. So, you know, from an investigative standpoint, you're going, okay, we're on the right track here. Now, to actually identify the human remains as Mary and Isabella, you know, there needs to be more done.

clothing items, et cetera, could absolutely be taken from them and then placed on other people's body parts. So you really have to, when you say I have identified the person, you have to identify the physical aspects of that body and not the associative items that could be found with the body. Now, here's the other sketchy forensics, and I'm going to need you to tell me if I'm overreacting or not.

Back in Scotland, there's a pathologist named John Glaister, and he was in charge of analyzing the scene, analyzing the bodies. He takes one of the skulls found in the stream, and he takes a picture of it, develops it, and then he superimposes a photograph of Isabella Ruxton

on top of it. So I see you nodding your head, which is good because I'm going to show you the photo. Okay. So with the photos laid on top of one another, it's easy to compare the respective features. And I need you to help me figure out if this is enough evidence to say this is conclusively Isabella Ruxton. So here is what they did.

You see her photo and then you see the skull that they cleaned out and they laid the photo on top of the photo of the skull. What do you think? Well, okay, so there's a couple things going on here that I would have some concerns about. Part of what I am not seeing is the use of a scale in the photographs. You have a photograph of the skull...

I'd want to see a scale in that photograph. And then the hard part, of course, is this living photo of the victim. You're not going to have a scale available. So you can ensure that the comparison, everything is to scale to the actual size of the two different images.

So the concern would be is how much manipulation of these images were done in terms of size in order to make things fit.

So they could have retrofit this, right, to fit their theory of what happened. And that's the concern. The one thing that I will say, you know, because taking a look at sort of the anthropological aspects, I am seeing that at least the skull is within the range of proportions of the victim's facial features and head features.

So it's not like there's an outrageous difference. However, there's no way this could be considered an identification, especially today.

It's just, okay, it's within the range. So you can't eliminate that this skull is not from this victim, but more work needs to be done. I agree. And I think you're right. This is an imperfect science, but this is it. This is the only way they have to identify who these two people are, except one more thing. And it's about the timeline. They want to put together a timeline so they know that Isabella and Mary have gone missing since two weeks before these body parts were found.

So we have a pathologist who looks at samples and sends it to the University of Edinburgh because there are bugs on the samples. So they've been in there, we presume, for a while. So there's an entomologist who studies the infestation of maggots in the remains. He determines that the maggots are 12 to 14 days old at the time of their collection, and they were born from eggs that were laid in the stream by blowflies.

And I know from American Sherlock that generally blowflies arrive to a body first, and then there's a list of bugs that usually come in a certain order. And that's how we are able to work with this. So the entomologist says that the remains have been in the ravine conclusively, he believes, between 12 and 14 days, which fits the timeline of when Isabella and Mary went missing. Is this reliable? Yes.

Experience the glamour and danger of the roaring 20s from the palm of your hand. In June's journey, you have the chance to solve a captivating murder mystery and reveal deep-seated family secrets. Use your keen eye and detective skills to guide June Parker through this thrilling, hidden

object mystery game june's journey is a mobile game that follows june parker a new york socialite living in london play as june parker and investigate beautifully detailed scenes of the 1920s while uncovering the mystery of her sister's murder there are twists turns and catchy tunes all leading you deeper into the thrilling storyline this is your chance to test your detective skills

And if you play well enough, you could make it to the detective club. There, you'll chat with other players and compete with or against them. June needs your help, but watch out. You never know which character might be a villain. Shocking family secrets will be revealed, but will you crack this case? Find out as you escape this world

and dive into June's world of mystery, murder, and romance. Can you crack the case? Download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android. Discover your inner detective when you download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android. That's June's Journey. Download the game for free on iOS and Android.

Insects are the best form of evidence to determine time of death under such circumstances. Here you have an entomologist who's studied the developmental stages of the larva of these blowflies. And there is variance.

based on weather conditions. Is it hot? Is it cold? How humid it is? But they generally are able to take a maggot, determine what type of fly that maggot belongs to, and how, based on the morphology, the physical characteristics of the maggot,

how old that maggot is, indicating, okay, now that maggot has been alive for, in this case, 12 to 14 days. So it narrows the window. Even today, it's never down to the minute, but it gives a window that has shown to be very reliable. The older the remains are, the bigger the window.

But I would say even in 1935, you know, they had done so much work studying insects and, you know, the developmental stages that if you have a true expert, which it sounds like this entomologist from Edinburgh, I'm confident that, yes, you are dealing with remains that if he's saying these are blowflies that are indigenous to where the stream is, where the body parts are found.

And they're 12 to 14 days. And that would tell me, okay, you had dead human remains that were there for approximately two weeks.

I have confidence in that for sure. Okay, so is this enough for you to let's just say, we're going to look at the husband now. We have two missing people. It seems like a big coincidence. Without conclusive DNA analysis and fingerprints, do we feel fairly confident that it's time to focus in on the husband because we're presuming it's these two women?

I think it's perfectly, there is sufficient information to be able to say that you think these human remains are these two victims. And most certainly, the husband, Buck Ruxton, needs to be interviewed about what he remembers two weeks ago when these two women reportedly went missing. Get his statement locked in.

And then you're proceeding with the investigation. They have not sufficiently identified these human remains, in my opinion, but I believe the circumstances strongly point that these human remains are from Mary and Isabella.

And now they are on the right track in terms of at least starting with the one person that both victims knew and knew well. Okay. Forensics at Buck Ruxton's house. Now they're able to say, we think that this man did it. They start investigating and of course they interview him. And you can imagine Buck Ruxton, just for context, and I'll give you a little bit more of this later, is a very well-respected physician. He was born in India. He came to the United Kingdom, was schooled there.

and very well respected in the community. He and Isabella were very social. They seemed to have, on the outside, a good marriage. When he is interviewed, he says, I have no idea where they went. Isabella has been in and out. I am not worried about her, and I have no control over Mary. So I don't know. I have no idea what happened.

And he has three children to worry about. So he has been concerned, but not concerned enough, which is why he never filed a police report. But Mary Rogerson's mother filed one for her. Sure. So now investigators are locking him into a statement, you know, and he's denying any knowledge of what happened to them.

So this is where we're going to kind of bifurcate the theory as to what happened to these two women. Maybe Mary and Isabella, they went out shopping together and were abducted and killed by somebody. Or you have the husband-

who ends up killing both of them and disposing of their remains. So here's the two competing theories that I am now going to be contemplating as I get more information, as you tell me more information. Because it's very reasonable to think that those two women were out and about or at the home at the same time if there was a home invasion. There are a myriad of other explanations other than this well-respected foreshadowing

physician who they are apprehensive about charging to begin with. So let's move on to some forensics at the house. If we are saying in theory that these women were killed at the house or dismembered at the house,

There are a couple of things that I think are interesting that police really hone in on. One is 13 days before the discovery of the body parts, Buck Ruxton was seen with a cut finger, which he's a doctor and I just cut my finger yesterday. So is that really something that's in any way concrete evidence? No, not at all. That's just normal living. I'm constantly bleeding out here.

Good to know. I'm a DIY guy, you know, and so I'm constantly doing things around my house and cutting myself, burning myself. I'm physically active and, you know, whether I'm out mountain biking or working out in the gym, there's reasons for me to have different types of injuries that have nothing to do with homicide. A cut finger does not alert me to anything suspicious about Dr. Ruxton, but...

But if I think he's prime suspect, I would be alerted to the fact that, well, if this occurred during the commission of the crime, then there's the possibility that his blood would be present at the scene on the victim's bodies. And they could do blood typing in 1935, which we know is limited. Of course, it's not as good as DNA analysis. But if Isabella and Mary and Buck had different blood types, is that at all helpful to

Yeah, it's, you know, with the ABO system, that's one way to separate out that you have different bleeders that are contributing to blood that is present at the scene. But it's not very discriminating. You know, if Buck Rockston, let's say, is a blood type A, well, that's roughly 50% of the population that has that blood type. So all it does is it helps sort out the evidence. People have been convicted.

on apio typing but it doesn't have the discriminating power that you know modern dna technology has obviously right now to me it sounds like he could be railroaded a little bit we're gonna see he would be the obvious suspect if you've got two women from the same house who have gone missing but nothing is convincing me just yet that this man is responsible

No, and this is where it's so critical. You know, I keep going back to these initial statements, locking him in. You have to do a thorough interview. And it's not only his memories of what was going on with Mary and Isabella, the last time he saw them, when he saw them, but it's also establishing where he has been.

you know, since these two women went missing. And you want to lock him into those statements. And if he is saying, well, I was at a store on this date or I was at work, then you have to follow through and interview witnesses to corroborate or refute his statements. But fundamentally now, if we have a theory that Dr. Ruxton is possibly responsible for the homicide and dismemberment of these two women, then

Where would he possibly have done these acts? Would it be at his house? Would it be at his workplace? Does he have another location? Investigators need to be drilling down on those potential locations. And then now, I think there's sufficient probable cause here in the United States to get warrants in order to be able to go in and do a crime scene search to see is there any evidence that any locations that's under the control of Ruxton

to indicate that, you know, homicide and body dismemberment had occurred at one of these locations. Well, you hit the nail on the head, and that was an excellent transition because they've placed Ruxton at this point under arrest.

and they go and search the house and they find some things that he can't explain away. There are little bits of blood in different areas of the house that they see at first. Preliminarily, they walk in, they see blood and he says, I cut my finger on a can of vegetables. I already had told you I had a cut finger. That's not hard evidence. Here's the issue.

Things get much more serious forensically for him. So there was a housekeeper who came in and out who said that she reported smelling foul odors from the property. Now, you and I have both smelled dead bodies. It's a pretty distinctive smell. I'm not sure if a layperson would be able to distinguish the smell of a dead body from maybe a dog who had recently died. What do you think? Basically, humans, when they die, when we die...

I guess I am human too, right?

You know, during the decompositional process, we have the same odor as if you were to be out, like when I go trail running, you know, and there's a dead deer that's decomposing. It's the same type of smell. Us humans don't have the ability to differentiate that smell, whether it's, you know, some carrion out in the field or it's an actual dead human body. They smell the same to me.

And it is a very distinctive odor. In fact, you know, one of the primary chemicals that contributes to the smell of death is called putrescine. It's a very descriptive name, you know, putrid, right? Putrescine. And then there's other chemicals that also have been identified as part of, you know, the decompositional gases that are released.

And they're sulfur-containing. And sulfur is a very pungent type of element. It really contributes. Like the rotten egg smell, that's a high sulfur content in that molecule as well. Pollution, that's what you smell during a smog is that sort of smell. It's disgusting. Yep.

So things get worse for him. They rip up the carpet and find several bloodstains throughout the house soaked into the carpet. And then you mentioned the location for the dismemberment. This is what they theorize. They looked at the home's bathtub, and they took a very close look, and they determined that there was blood in the bathtub. Hmm.

So they theorized that he dismembered each woman in the bathtub and then the blood went right down the drain. They did not use luminol because luminol would not be widely used for another decade. So I assume they just did what, like an ABO test? They scraped it off and what would they do, do you think? They had access to a variety of different presumptive blood tests that are color tests.

Okay. And we use these very tests today. And there's a variety, orthotolidine, leucomalachite green, benzidine. These are reagents that when blood is mixed with them, they change color. It's a catalytic reaction. It's the heme group of the blood that

causes this oxidative process. It's usually a two-step process with hydrogen peroxide being the second chemical added. But in essence, you now have this reaction where these agents go from typically colorless to bright pink or bright green. They're very, very

very sensitive, but not entirely specific. Other chemicals will cause the same reaction. But if I see a red stain that looks like blood, I test it with this presumptive blood test, you know, I walk away going, I believe that is a blood stain. And then, of course, modern technology, we follow that up with human DNA testing.

So the detectives determined that these two women were killed in the house, blood soaked through into the floorboards beneath the carpet, and then he carried each one, both of them, to the bathtub and spent an awful lot of time dismembering them. How much do you at this point care about motive? Does motive matter to you in these cases? Because I think it matters to juries, doesn't it? It matters. It matters.

But you don't have to prove motive to prove murder. You know, there is nothing about the criminal offense of murder that indicates that motive has to be part of what is proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Motive is something that you pay attention to, but especially in the cases that I typically work, the serial predator cases, the underlying motive besides the fact that this is a sexual fantasy that the offender is carrying out.

but what is causing this person to do it? Right. I don't care. So motive is something that can be added to the circumstantial aspects to say, yes, this case is getting stronger. And let's say Dr., I mean, this is sounding like Dr. Ruxin, who I'm assuming is,

He's got control over his house. He's made statements that he was at his house during the time that these victims went missing. The amount of blood that's being found in the carpeting sounds consistent with blood pools, like the victims had received significant injuries and now significant blood loss inside the house where you go, yes, this is consistent with like a homicide scene versus somebody who's menstruating or a cut finger, like Ruxton is saying. He needs to be confronted about what happened.

and then why it happened. Again, it's get the statements. And then those statements get sent up to the prosecutor and get put in front of the jury to assess whether or not they believe what he is saying. Well, Ruxton denies all of it. He says he and Isabella had a wonderful marriage. And of course, he had no problems with Mary, who was in the household at the time. He is pretty unshakable, even mentally.

when he's under arrest, but he does go to trial in 1936 for the murders of both of them. So as I said, Ruxton says great marriage. Isabella's family and friends disagree greatly. They said that on the outside, you know, Ruxton is this incredible physician that people in Lancaster really depended on. And he was a real inspirational story because he came from India and he came to the UK and had just a great education and was very successful there.

He was very, very controlling. So this is going to be a narrative. This is what I mean. Things repeat. This is an 80-year-old story at this point. He was intensely controlling. He was very abusive. He beat Isabella often and always accused her of having extramarital affairs, micromanaged her spending. He flew off the handle if she was friendly to anybody. They had three kids.

just someone who was intensely jealous. And it sounds like, this is what I want you to comment on, it sounds like paranoid on top of that. He said that she was poisoning his coffee and to make her atone for that offense of trying to kill him, he says, he would just punish her like having her run up and down the stairs at knife point saying, I'm gonna kill you if she didn't run up and down the stairs

for a certain amount of time. So this is an incredible, once the police do the research and find out that there were domestic violence reports made, this becomes the motive, which I think as someone, a layperson sitting on a jury, I think is a compelling narrative because doesn't a prosecutor want to be able to lay this out and say, this is what we think happened and can't you just see why?

physician who's so well-respected, can't we now see how he could have done something so terrible? No, well, absolutely. This has all the hallmarks of a domestic abuser.

You know, you've got the coercive control. He is manipulating Isabella. He is punishing Isabella. He's making her feel that she can't be anywhere without having to look over her shoulder because he's watching her, he's following her. The level of physical abuse. This is a tremendous predictor that this type of abuser is going to escalate. This is a very, very dangerous situation.

for a woman like Isabella to be in. And she probably didn't recognize how far he would be willing to go. But everything about what you just described that Ruxton was doing to his wife was

This in totality is absolute predictor that this is somebody who could potentially be capable of killing this woman that he's in a relationship with. I agree. And I think it's important to try to complete the picture if you can, because it can be very difficult to see someone who is charming and handsome. And Ruxton was handsome and well-educated and ambitious and on the outside seems very put together. It's so hard to imagine that somebody...

could do that when you are not, you and I, who know anybody is capable of doing that. I think just with the layperson, they just have to hear something. So here's the theory, and it makes sense to me, that something triggered him. He went into a jealous rage, and Mary Rogerson was collateral damage. She was a witness. And that makes sense to me. You know, his primary intended target, whether it

be in a fit of rage or he just decided he had enough with being in a marriage with Isabella, but she was the primary victim. And so the poor housekeeper was likely in the house when the initial violence was put on Isabella or the housekeeper had witnessed over time all the abuse that was going on by the husband to his wife and he decided she also needed to be removed to be executed.

So, he is not surprisingly convicted, still proclaiming his innocence.

He is sentenced to death because that would be the typical sentence in 1936. He is executed and hanging in May, but right before he is hanged, he does confess. Oh? And he says it happened exactly the way the police said it did. He was triggered by some interaction she had that I'm sure was innocent with another man, and Mary Rogerson was there, and he had to take care of both of them. Okay. Full confession, and then he's hanged.

So what does that mean when they confess before hanging? What does that mean? Is that atonement? Is that, what is it? Well, you could almost see that depending on his particular, let's say, religious faith,

that this may be a way to confess his sins, even though it's now damaging his reputation. You know, before being convicted, he's trying to preserve his life, his right to freedom, and is going to deny, deny, deny. But once, you know, he's walking to the gallows,

Now, maybe his religious philosophy is such where it's like, I need to atone for my sins because I'm about to meet my maker. When he receives his death sentence, he thanks the judge and the jury for giving him a fair trial. He salutes the courtroom. It sounds like what you said, he sort of just accepted that this is what's going to happen and then he's hanged.

This was a very important case for, you know, forensic entomology, putting it on the map. This was an important case for identifying, matching a skull with a photo, regardless of what you and I think it was a technique that people used in the future. No, you know, most certainly. And part of when we get into the anthropology aspects of identifying bodies, you know, that's something that has evolved over time.

And it really kind of hit a crescendo, if you will, I would say in the 1990s, right before DNA came in, where we were relying really heavy on anthropologists to help identify the bodies. And they're very highly skilled anthropologists.

relative to what I'm sure was being done back in 1935. And there's a lot of value that anthropologists bring to the table in terms of assessing what happened. They augment what the pathologist finds at autopsy because the anthropologists have a different expertise. But now the identification of human remains is generally going to be, we still pay attention to physical characteristics, whether it be behavior,

dental aspects, scars, tattoos, all of that is recorded. But if we have a DNA sample that's reliable from the deceased, let's say as an example, maybe somebody had been pulled over for a DUI and gave a blood sample and that's in police storage. Then now we have a dead body and we think it's that person. Okay, now we have a reliable DNA sample that we can use to compare.

And typically, we would be trying to do DNA today just about on anything. And it lessens the requirement to base the identification on physical characteristics. I am kind of curious, though, in Ruxton's confession, did he describe how he dismembered these two women?

No, he didn't talk about whether it was a saw or what he ended up using. They were right, though, that this was somebody with medical knowledge, certainly somebody who was meticulous. Yeah, and I'd like to see the totality of how the dismemberment occurred. It sounds like it was...

done to the extreme. But I've worked a case in which three bodies had been dismembered by the offenders and were distributed across multiple duffel bags and thrown in the Sacramento River area. And they went to great lengths to really cut these bodies up. Not to the extent it sounds like with Ruxton,

But these three bodies were absolutely mutilated, but we were able to identify all three victims very easily. Well, one thing about this case from 1935 that I will say astounds me is that if he had not chosen to use that particular newspaper with the insert in it to wrap these bodies up, it is unlikely that they would have ever identified these people at all because this was a

Even if they had printed the clothing, it would have been in the local paper. They would have assumed that this was a local case. So he could have gotten away with it, and he just made a mistake. Not only are you dealing with the distance of 100 miles, but their bodies are being deposited in a different country. Yep. You know, so you have jurisdictional boundaries that...

I don't know how closely British and Scottish authorities worked together back in the day, but I can imagine that it probably wasn't a great relationship if there was a relationship at all. Yeah. I would say I wondered once they had established that this happened in England, they obviously kept the body parts in Scotland because that's where the pathologist was. So regardless, this case, I think, is fascinating for me because it's

he could have gotten away with it. He should have gotten away with it. And he didn't, thank goodness. But it's a reminder to me of all the cases that you and I have to come that throughout history, how many people, number one, got away with murder.

And number two, how many people ended up in prison for things they didn't ever do? Sure. And those were prevalent in history, for sure. And we're going to hear about those cases. Yeah, and I like to point out that this offender is a very intelligent offender. He's very sophisticated, but he made mistakes. Yeah. He's not well-versed in homicide and getting away with homicide.

And that's what we rely upon in law enforcement is those mistakes. No matter how smart the offender thinks they are, we're hoping they made that critical mistake of putting the newspaper that could be tracked back to their geographic area. Well, the police in this case did a fantastic job, thank goodness. Quality investigation. And the family at least had some peace knowing where these two people were because I can't imagine having a missing family member.

So, I was happy to bring this case to you because your forensic knowledge is vast. I learn something every time you and I talk, and I log it away so that I can remind you of stuff that you've said trap you about things that you've said in the past so that I can quiz you again on it. And I can't wait to deliver next week's case. You're going to find it so interesting. Okay. Well, I'm looking forward to it. Thank you.

This has been an Exactly Right production. For our sources and show notes, go to exactlyrightmedia.com slash buriedbones sources. Our senior producer is Alexis Amorosi. Research by Maren McClashen and Kate Winkler-Dawson. Our mixing engineer is Ryo Baum. Our theme song is by Tom Breifogle. Our art

work is by Vanessa Lilac. Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer. You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at Buried Bones Pod. Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded Age story of murder and the race to decode the criminal mind, is available now. And Paul's best-selling memoir, Unmasked, My Life Solving America's Cold Cases, is also available now.