Yeardley:  This episode contains dramatic recreations of historical scenes and depictions of violence that some listeners may find disturbing. So, please take care when listening. Also, the words spoken by the actors in this series are taken from letters, diary entries, legal transcripts, and period newspaper interviews.

[music]

 Small Town Dicks presents Beyond Recognition, the First Modern Murder.

[somber music] [clock ticking]

 It’s the evening of October 12th, 1935, at 2 Dalton Square in Lancaster. John Milligan is a reporter from the UK’s biggest tabloid, News of the World. He’s sitting in Buck Ruxton’s house jotting down exactly what’s happened in the last few minutes. By the way, Ruxton is the one and only suspect in the disappearance and probable murder of his wife and nanny. Milligan’s reporting captures Ruxton’s panic at the recent developments in the case.

John:  Dr. Ruxton paced rapidly up and down the library floor, nervously fingering an oriental knife. He ran trembling fingers through tousled hair and occasionally thumped his forehead with the palm of his hand. Now and again, he stopped, swung around and almost screamed.

Ruxton:  I didn’t kill my Belle, I tell you. She had gone away. She will come back. Tell everybody I am not guilty.

John:  News of the World.

[music]

Yeardley:  Since Ruxton’s wife Isabella and their nanny, Mary Rogerson, vanished almost a month ago, this is the fiction Ruxton’s been trotting out to anyone who will listen, complete with his trademark histrionics. When mutilated body parts were discovered, fingers pointed toward him. But that’s not Ruxton’s version. According to him, these are deceitful, conniving women. Mary’s pregnant. Isabella’s stolen money from him to broker an illegal abortion. They’re in Scotland or Blackpool or God knows where, but they’re far from dead. And of course, he’s the abandoned, broken-hearted victim, as opposed to what he really is, a double murderer. Back in Ruxton’s study, Milligan, the reporter, is alarmed by the doctor’s agitated state.

John:  Please, try and calm down, doctor.

Ruxton:  Calm down? With accusations of murder hanging over my head. With my good name on the tongue of every blackguarding gossip in England, you want me to calm down?

Yeardley:  Milligan points out that just today, Lancaster police Captain Henry Vann was quoted in the newspaper stating there was no connection between the bodies and the two missing women”

Ruxton:  I know. It’s what I’ve been saying all along, but people don’t want to listen. They want to lock me up based entirely upon rumors.

Yeardley:  Ruxton doesn’t know it, but the police have a lot more than rumors. In fact, with the evidence mounting, the police’s statements to the press are intentionally misleading. A calculated maneuver to keep the doctor from running. They want him to stay put until they’re ready to make a move. But Milligan doesn’t know that.

John:  Seems you have nothing to worry about, Dr. Ruxton. I’m sure the truth will come out.

Ruxton:  I pray it will. The truth, that I’m innocent.

Yeardley:  Milligan offers a thin smile.

[phone ringing] [footsteps]

Ruxton:  Yes, Captain Vann. Oh, of course. Right away.

Yeardley:  Ruxton hangs up and turns to the reporter.

Ruxton:  Apologies, Milligan, but I’m afraid I need to stop the interview. Seems Captain Vann has some new information on my wife. Wants to see me at the police station right away.

Yeardley:  And with that, Milligan exits. Ruxton puts on his coat. He pauses at the front door. His three children are upstairs, fast asleep. Well, that’s fine, he figures. I’ll be right back.

[door closes]

 He won’t be. Previously on Beyond Recognition.

Caroline:  The pathological experts are examining the remains of the mutilated man and woman found at Gardenholme Linn.

Tom:  Body 2 had certain male characteristics.

Sue:  Because Isabella was so much larger than was Mary, I suspect it was a simple mistake that had made them think it’ll be a man and a woman.

Tom:  To get off on the wrong foot like that can be absolutely fatal to the investigation.

Yeardley:  I’m Yeardley Smith from Audio 99. This is Beyond Recognition. Episode 5, A Case for Forensics.

[upbeat music]

 In our previous episode, Dr. Buck Ruxton dodged growing suspicion that he was responsible for the disappearance of his wife, Isabella, and nanny, Mary Rogerson. The police and forensic experts made headway in analyzing the evidence, identifying the victims and establishing a link to Ruxton. But that link is tenuous circumstantial evidence is all they have. Now the authorities have to create a solid case against the doctor, a case beyond reasonable doubt. But Ruxton is no fool. He knows what the police will be looking for and he’s used his deep medical knowledge to throw them off the scent.

 Now though, the authorities are pushing the case into brand new worlds of forensic science beyond anything Ruxton can imagine. They’re inventing a new fingerprinting technique for fingertips that are missing a layer of skin. They’re using cutting edge photography on the victim’s skulls. And they’re embracing maggots. The flesh-eating insects worming through the mutilated body parts are going to become the prosecution’s secret weapon. It’s the birth of modern forensics. But the team is winging it, trying methods never attempted before. And they’re doing it in the glare of unprecedented media coverage. But there’s still nothing to prove Ruxton actually killed anyone. And the doctor is admitting nothing.

[upbeat music]

 This isn’t the first time Ruxton’s been to the police station. In the last two days alone, he’s come three times, marching across the square to complain about the local gossip, about the bad publicity hurting his medical practice, about the invasion of his privacy and the effect these vile accusations are having on his good name. The officers he corners for these rants listen patiently. They gaze at Ruxton with their standard flat cop expressions as he weeps and yanks at his hair, as spittle gathers in the corners of his mouth. Then, they explain there’s nothing they can do, and they urge him to go home and bear up, things will get sorted. Now, you might think a freshly minted killer would be inclined to actually stay away from the police. But in this case, you’d be wrong.

Tom:  There’s a number of reasons for that. One is you want to protest your innocence, and you want to be seen to be protesting your innocence.

Yeardley:  Former Edinburgh detective, Tom Wood, is the author of Ruxton: The First Modern Murder.

Tom:  And the second part is that you want to be in on the action. You actually want to know what’s going on and controlling people have to be in control.

Yeardley:  And Buck Ruxton is as controlling as they come. At 09:25 PM, Ruxton walks into the station feeling confident they’re buying his story. They’re on his side. He’s ushered into Captain Vann’s office. A half dozen stone-faced detectives are in the small room, staring at him through a wall of cigarette smoke. Vann tells Ruxton they need to know where he was and what he was doing between September 14th and September 30th. Though he’s technically not under arrest at this moment, Vann cautions him, as they say in the UK, reads him his rights and announces they’ll be writing down everything Ruxton says. Then, Ruxton can review and sign the document. The doctor smiles, says he has no problem with that. Sure, no problem.

 Then, Ruxton does something that leaves even the veteran detectives in the room slack jawed. He hands Captain Vann an envelope. On the front are the words, “My movements.” It’s 10 typewritten pages. It’s a meticulous daily, at times hourly, accounting of exactly what he did in the exact period in question. It’s an unheard-of move. Murder suspects don’t just show up with bullet-pointed itineraries. Vann scans through it. It’s the story of 17 days in the life of an innocent man. And the details are glaringly mundane. Things like, children’s party in the evening, came home for lunch, work as usual, evening at home with the kiddies, shave.

Tom:  The police think it’s extremely odd, not to say suspicious, but actually it was a very good idea because Ruxton knew his weaknesses. He was intemperate and when he got excited, he started to go off script. And what Ruxton tried to do was try to form a narrative from which he would not depart. And so, his version of events are his script and he intends to stick to that script.

Yeardley:  The questioning of Ruxton lasts for 7 hours. The doctor yells, cries, stamps his feet, spitting out his words in bursts of rage. At times, his mood abruptly shifts. He becomes thoughtful and polite. He apologizes for his outbursts. Then, something sets him off and the cycle begins again. But he stays on script and he’s got answers for everything. The blood on the carpets. Oh, it came from his hand, remember? Sliced on a can of peaches. The blood on the suit he gave away. He says he wears a suit when he performs operations. Or it came from his wife’s unfortunate miscarriage and the car accident back in September with the bicyclist in a village across the border from Scotland. The location put him squarely in the dumpsite vicinity with no reason to be there. Ruxton’s been chastising himself for such a blunder.

 But now he calmly explains to Vann he was driving his children to a friend’s house and simply got lost. Yes, it was a full 20 miles from Lancaster, but still nothing more than that. Chief Constable William Black, the man in charge of the investigation in Scotland, raises his eyebrows and loosens his tie. He continues scribbling Ruxton’s words as the night moves toward the day.

William:  Ruxton begged to be allowed to go home and to come back at nine in the morning. This request was not granted. It took him 20 minutes to check the statement. He lay back in his chair and pondered over the value of a word or a phrase, making changes to suit him.

Yeardley:  Finally satisfied, Ruxton signs the 18-page statement at 10 minutes to 04:00 AM. Sunday, October 13th. The detectives leave the office to discuss their next move while Ruxton remains in the interrogation room. Three hours later, the cops have a decision. Vann steps back into the office. Ruxton looks up from his tea.

William:  I said to him, “Listen very carefully to me. You are charged that between 14th and the 29th September 1935, you did feloniously and with malice aforethought, kill and murder one Mary Jane Rogerson.” He said, “Most emphatically. Not. Of course not. The farthest thing from my mind. What motive and why?”

Yeardley:  Isabella’s body has yet to be positively identified. So, the charge is only for Mary’s killing. The arrest is based on forensic evidence, largely the clothing used to wrap the body parts. Mary’s stepmother had instantly recognized a blouse she’d mended by hand. A friend of Mary’s had positively ID’d the children’s shorts that she’d given to Mary for two-year-old Billy Ruxton to wear, the same shorts that Buck Ruxton used to wrap Mary’s head.

 In terms of concrete evidence, it isn’t much to go on. But it’s enough for the police to arrest the doctor and allow them crucial access to his three-story home and offices at 2 Dalton Square. Sure, they could have applied for a search warrant without arresting him, but police would need to be very specific about what they were searching for and that would be difficult.

[somber music]

 But really the biggest issue? They did not want Ruxton to panic and flee. Now, Professor John Glaister and his forensic team can finally do a deep dive into the scene of the crime, which is key to the entire case. Because unless Ruxton confesses, and there is no sign he’s going to do that, the prosecution will need to get a conviction solely on circumstantial evidence. Even to continue to hold him, they have to come up with something solid.

Tom:  The problem is that usually in these cases, before you arrest someone on a murder charge, you’ve got a fair amount of evidence. Here, they did things the other way around. They arrested him first and then went looking for the evidence. So, this puts you under the most enormous time pressure. Because, of course, once somebody is in custody, the clock is running and they start to get all sorts of legal representation, etc., etc. So, you are under the gun. So, this put the prosecution and put all the police and the scientists under the most enormous pressure.

[upbeat music]

Yeardley:  Ruxton’s arrest is huge news, to say the least. Captain Vann talked to the press Sunday morning. Early editions of the papers make the announcement public.

Reporter:  Dr. Ruxton charged with murder of nursemaid. At the home of Mr. and Mrs. James Rogerson, news was received that the police had linked the disappearance of their daughter with the Moffat discovery. It came as a terrible blow to the family’s hope that she might be still alive. The news is a great shock. “She was a happy girl who was fond of home life,” said Mrs. Rogerson, the Daily Independent.

Yeardley:  The news of Ruxton’s arrest travels through Lancaster and beyond at Twitter level speed. It’s shocking and explosive. But local opinion on the accusation is all over the map. In fact, people’s feelings on Ruxton’s guilt or innocence will be a source of serious concern for the prosecution. The all-male jury is culled from the general public, men whose view of science may well be at odds with scientific fact. It’s especially critical in a case that’ll be entirely won or lost on forensic evidence. And beyond that, thousands of people in Lancaster are judging Ruxton based on something else, his profession.

Tom:  Because many people didn’t believe that he was responsible and others believed he may be responsible but didn’t want to lose the good doctor. And I think it’s very hard for us to now imagine just what an absolute boon and lifesaver, and I mean literally a lifesaver, a good doctor within a community like Lancaster was, and Ruxton was a very good doctor.

[soothing music]

Yeardley:  It cannot be overstated how much Ruxton’s reputation served him for the better in this case, because Ruxton had a stellar reputation as a pediatrician. He was skilled at delivering healthy babies.

Tom:  At a time when infant mortality was high, that was valued beyond price. And still now, you can speak to people in Lancaster whose grandparents have told them stories about what a wonderful man Dr. Ruxton was.

Jan:  My name is Jan Parsonage and my mother-in-law, Mary Alice Parsonage, was a patient of Dr. Ruxton’s and spoke very highly of him as a doctor. Very caring, very professional.

Yeardley:  Despite the fact that Ruxton killed two innocent women in cold blood, his reputation is still untarnished among many folks in Lancaster.

Jan:  Local concept was that their marriage wasn’t a good one, mainly because the wife was having affairs with different people. Whether that was true, whether it was just bias, we don’t know.

Yeardley:  There is no evidence whatsoever that Isabella ever had a single affair, let alone a parade of sexual flings. But even almost nine decades later, you can see, local judgment is what it is.

Jan:  She got what she deserved, really, because, which is not very nice to say, but she’d been carrying on with various people having affairs. And clearly it was a crime of passion and he’d been driven to it. Which is not a great thing to say, but that’s just our local history that we’ve got in our family.

Yeardley:  Nevertheless, whether it was a crime of passion or not, it doesn’t make any difference to John Glaister and his forensic investigators. Ruxton did it and they need to prove it. But the truth is, by the time the forensics crew gets into Ruxton’s house, no one knows exactly how sanitized 2 Dalton Square actually is. If Ruxton has done a complete and thorough cleanup job, the forensics experts are in trouble. And that’s something they’re about to find out.

[bell tolls] [intriguing music]

 Sunday morning, a crowd of hungry crime hounds, men, women and children, gathers outside the empty house on Dalton Square. They are pressed up against the wrought-iron front fence, peering over the window boxes filled with pansies and violas, straining to see into the dark rooms, trying to get a glimpse into a blood-soaked death site. Instead, they catch a glimpse of Detective Lieutenant Bertie Hammond.

Tom:  So, no sooner Buck Ruxton been arrested, literally, Hammond sprinted across the road with the keys to the house.

[door opens]

 He closed it down as a crime scene and he started looking for fingerprints and for bloodstains and for all other forensic evidence associated with the disappearance of the two women.

Yeardley:  Hammond is a fingerprint and photography expert with the Glasgow police force. He’s been on this case since day one in Moffat, when he shot dozens of images of the maggot-infested body parts piling up in the local mortuary. Hammond will be in Ruxton’s house for the next 11 days.

Tom:  So, Hammond was meticulous, painstaking. And of course, one of the first things he did was he examined Mary Rogerson’s room and lifted finger impressions that she had left while she was there and matched them with the severed hand which had been found at Gardenholme Linn.

Yeardley:  If you remember, that’s the stream bed in Scotland where Ruxton dumped the body parts. They moldered there for over two weeks until they were discovered. That’s a lot of time for flesh to be exposed to the elements. Matching Mary’s fingerprints to the remains presents a massive problem. Here’s forensic anthropologist, Sue Black.

Sue:  Because the hands had been in the water for so long, the epidermis sloughs off, it’s called water woman’s hands. And you get left with dermal prints underneath, which are not an identical replica of the epidermal prints. But there are similarities. So, to be able to take the dermal prints and then to go around the house into places where they think Mary might have touched and to be able to take the epidermal prints and compare them, that was groundbreaking.

Yeardley:  Hammond comes up with an idea. If the top layer of skin epidermis has been obliterated, could the layer under that, the dermis, reveal a viable print? Though fingerprints have been used in murder trials in England since 1905, using dermal prints has never even been suggested before. It’s a radical, untested theory. So, Hammond tests it. Here’s Jeremy Craddock. He’s the author of The Jigsaw Murders.

Jeremy:  Prior to this case, fingerprint matches could only be done with fingerprints that were already on police records. But he did pioneer some new techniques, including burning off the tip of his own fingertip and then taking a print of the epidermal underneath the fingertip.

Yeardley:  Picture this, Hammond makes a print of his epidermal layer. Then, he presses a lit cigarette against his finger until his fingerprint is a massive red blister. Then, he takes a knife and scrapes away the top layer of that scorched skin, revealing the dermal print underneath. Are you with me? Then, he prints the dermal and compares it to his epidermal fingerprint. Guess what? It matches.

Jeremy:  And that was a way of proving that a print could be lifted and therefore the print that was taken from one of the bodies was what he said it was.

Yeardley:  Since this kind of print comparison has never been verified by forensic experts in the British Isles, Hammond decides to appeal to a higher authority to qualify the results, the FBI. Bureau director, J. Edgar Hoover, assigns three of his stateside experts to analyze Hammond’s work. They determine the fingerprints are a match. You have to understand, this is a pioneering advancement in the field and it will be powerful evidence in court.

[suspenseful music]

 Ruxton spends the rest of Sunday in a claustrophobic cell in the town hall jail. His three children are taken to stay with Dr. Herbert and Ethel Anderson. Remember them? Ruxton knows them well. Nevertheless, Ethel had a lot to say to the press.

Reporter:  The Daily Independent. They were delighted to come. They are three very bright and cheerful children and are quite enjoying themselves with us. Of course, they have been told nothing about the affair. They think their mother and nurse are on holiday.

Yeardley:  In the evening, Ruxton begs a guard for morphine. Maybe he wants a good night’s sleep or maybe he doesn’t want to wake up. Anyway, the request is turned down. The cops don’t want to rob the hangman, so to speak. The next morning, Monday, October 14th, the doctor is led into the courtroom for the first of four hearings. He looks exhausted, almost in a trance. This is not the way he expected things to go. The objective is to keep Ruxton in custody, buying more time to investigate. To form a case that will sell a jury on a verdict of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. As Ruxton stands in the courtroom, glassy eyed, the charge of murder is read. The clerk asks Ruxton how he pleads. His reply is a single word.

Ruxton:  Nothing.

 After emotional testimony from Mary’s father and Captain Vann, the judge’s decision is what the authorities hoped for. Ruxton will stay locked up. His next hearing is set for eight days from now. The same day Ruxton has his first hearing, pathologist, John Glaister, arrives at 2 Dalton Square.

John:  The first time I went there, walking around the large, unheated rooms with their oriental decor highlighted by blue ceilings scattered with gold stars, I soon found many traces of blood stains. Some were large, some, like petal-shaped peppering found on the stairway banisters were small.

Yeardley:  Meanwhile, outside Ruxton’s house, gawkers in the street finally get to see something. As detectives and scientists labor inside, scouring every inch of the place for evidence to convict the doctor for murder, Captain Vann arrives. The crowd parts for him. He strides up, hammer in hand, and nails a typewritten announcement to the front door. It’s a message Ruxton scribbled out and begged Vann to post.

Ruxton:  To all my patients, I appeal to you most humbly to remain loyal to me in this hour of trouble. I am an innocent victim of circumstances. Thanking you in anticipation of your loyal support. Sincerely, Buck Ruxton.

[upbeat music]

Yeardley:  Back at the laboratory in Edinburgh, Professor Glaister is confronting a crucial factor. How to determine Mary and Isabella’s time of death?

Tom:  Ruxton’s defense in all this was, “Look, I’ve no idea where they are, but they took off into the night round about the 14th or 15thof September.” They had to fill in the gaps. What they couldn’t have is a spare fortnight or three weeks where nobody knew where the women were, because Ruxton could reasonably have said, “They left me. I don’t know what happened to them. I don’t know where they went. And they must have met some murderer who did them in. How terribly sad.”

Yeardley:  By establishing when Isabella and Mary were killed, a tight timeline can be created. The investigators want a ticking clock of Ruxton’s movement starting on September 14th, allowing the doctor no room for reasonable doubt. But exactly how do you do that? Well, John Glaister has a moment of inspiration.

John:  A possible solution dawned on me one morning when I was lying half-awake in bed, putting off the moment of rising. My mind, a daze of fragmentary thoughts. One word came through that daze. Maggots.

[running water sounds]

Yeardley:  So, Glaister is familiar with the French entomologist’s theory that the maggot lifecycle could reveal how long something or someone has been dead.

[upbeat music]

 When Sergeant Sloan initially gathered the body parts of the bridge near Moffat, he didn’t brush off the larvae and Glaister preserved a number of the maggots just in case. These days, using forensic entomology is standard practice. But you have to understand, in 1935, it was revolutionary.

Erica:  The Ruxton maggots are really important because they’re the first time in the UK that we’ve used maggots, we’ve used forensic entomology to help prosecute a murderer in this case.

Yeardley:  Dr. Erica McAlister is Senior Curator of Diptera and Siphonaptera at the Natural History Museum in London. Or, as she says, flies and flees for the rest of us.

Erica:  They weren’t actually used in the main trial, but they were in the preliminary investigation where they were presenting evidence to see whether it would go to court. And the maggots were so useful because they properly gave a timeline, and using that timeline, they were able to incriminate Dr. Ruxton and his movements to link them in with the dumping of the bodies.

Yeardley:  So, here’s how it works. Flies lay eggs on decomposing tissue very soon after death. The larvae that come from the eggs are maggots which start eating the tissue. A forensic entomologist can determine what species the maggot is, what stage of life it’s in, and then work backwards. And that is your time of death equation. Glaister needed a specialist, and he knew the ultimate maggot whisperer, Dr. Alexander Mearns, an entomologist at Glaister’s own academic stomping ground, Glasgow University.

Erica:  We understood that the different species would have different lifecycles and would react differently. So, he knew enough about forensics, and he knew enough about life history analysis to be able to say, “Yes, it was these calliphorids, and therefore this was the timeframe.” So, he was very up on modern theory at the time.

Yeardley:  By the way, calliphorid is the scientific name for the common blue bottle fly.

Erica:  Now, they’re amazing. Maggots can arrive really quickly on the scene. The females, the mothers, have an incredibly strong sense of smell. They’ve done some amazing work looking at how far they will travel, and it’s kilometers. So, they’re a really good biological clock of telling us when they turn up.

Tom:  If you are lying somewhere outside and you are dead, the blue bottle will find you within 24 hours and it will lay an egg, usually in one of your orifices, your nose, your ears or your mouth. And it only lays an egg in one specific place. It does not come back and lay eggs the next day and the day after.

Yeardley:  That’s pretty incredible information. So, Mearns’ work provides the conclusion Glaister’s been hoping for. The remains of Isabella and Mary were dumped 12 to 14 days before they were found. That puts the date as September 16th or 17th, just 48 hours after the women were last seen alive. Now, here’s the cool thing. Those maggots that played such a key part in the Ruxton case are long dead. But deep in the recesses of the London Natural History Museum, seven of the original flesh eaters from the Moffat body dump site still reside to this day.

Erica:  The Ruxton maggots in the collection are in this beautiful little wooden box, which is a little hatch lid. And you open the hatch lid, and you take off this piece of foam to protect them. And then, there’s a little bag that lines this tiny little vial. It’s a tiny little bottle with this perfect little label that says, “These are the Ruxton maggots from the Moffat murders.”

Yeardley:  After almost two weeks of intense forensic scrutiny at 2 Dalton Square, John Glaister has reached his investigative limit. Sure, he and his team have found bloodstains, fingerprints and other evidence, but he needs a lab to learn more. And Glaister’s tired of the time-consuming commute from Scotland to Ruxton’s house. So, what does he do? He brings Ruxton’s house to Scotland. Later, he would describe the elaborate setup in his autobiography.

John:  Parts of the stairway, many doors and some sections of the wall were all carried north. In the forensic laboratories of Glasgow University, we reconstructed portions of several rooms, including the entire bathroom.

Yeardley:  Nothing on this scale has been done in an investigation before and I can see how you might be thinking, “That seems crazy. Wouldn’t deconstructing a crime scene potentially destroy forensic evidence?” Here’s former CSI and crime author, Paul Holes.

Paul:  Actually, what Glaister did is ultimately what is still being done today with crime scene investigation. CSI work, initially it has to stay untouched, as untouched as possible to preserve it as it was when the offender left.

Yeardley:  After everything is properly documented, it’s time to intensify the investigation. And Glaister wants to make absolutely certain he identifies every speck of blood. And remember, this is a doctor’s house. So, that’s potentially a lot of blood because blood comes with the territory. But the specific challenge is to identify Isabella and Mary’s blood.

Paul:  And sometimes, especially in a case where, let’s say you have a lot of bleeding from the victims inside a home and there’s been attempts by the offender to clean up, well, blood seeps into cracks and crevices. So even when I’m processing a homicide scene and the circumstances call for it, I am now pulling out baseboards, I’m pulling up the floor. And if I don’t have obvious blood and I think there’s trace blood there, I’m better off taking those items back to the laboratory to do further testing in a controlled environment. So, what Glaister did is perfectly appropriate.

Yeardley:  With the entrance of the house erected in the Glasgow lab, Glaister finds blood and plenty of it. But in 1935, blood typing is in its infancy. Pathologists can only use typing to distinguish between humans and other animals. But after laborious tests and blood spatter examinations, Glaister reaches a conclusion. The murders took place at 2 Dalton square and both bodies were drained of their fluids and dismembered in the bathroom tub.

 Meanwhile, Professor Brash has been focusing on the reconstruction of the bodies and what that might reveal and it’s a lot. Body number 2, assumed to be Isabella, had died of strangulation. Body number 1, Mary Rogerson, had been beaten heavily in the face, though that didn’t kill her. And what did is unknown. Because the torso has not been found. However, other discoveries will soon provide crucial evidence.

[somber music]

 In late October, a road worker on a job a few miles outside of Moffat finds a human left foot. The foot is delivered to the pathologists. What do you do with a mystery foot? You find a shoe that fits. It’s straight out of Cinderella. A new fresh idea in forensic science is sparked by a 200-year-old fairy tale. Glaister washes and powders the newly found left foot. He fits it with a silk stocking and places it into a shoe taken from the Ruxton home. It’s one of Mary’s shoes and it’s a fit. He then does the same with the left foot that’s still attached to body number 2. It fits into Isabella’s shoe. On its own, the finding is not going to carry a lot of weight in court, but Glaister knows it’s yet another brick in the wall of circumstantial evidence. At this point, all forensic signs point to body number 2 as the remains of Isabella Ruxton. But the authorities feel that’s still not quite enough to convince a jury.

Tom:  And they had to positively identify her or else the defense would say, quite rightly, “Excuse me, my lordship, but actually we don’t know this is Isabella Ruxton. You’ve charged Dr. Ruxton here with murdering his wife. But we have no idea these remains are hers.” So, they had to prove it.

Yeardley:  Throughout the forensic investigation, Glaister and his people have had to improvise. They’ve had to come up with entirely new techniques to discover and analyze evidence and they’re still doing it. Anatomy professor, James Brash, the specialist charged with reassembling the body parts, he has an idea. If it works, it’ll positively identify Isabella’s remains in a way that any juror can understand. Brash has his brainstorm when he sees a portrait of Isabella in the newspapers. The dimensions of her head remind him of the skull on body number 2.

Tom:  And so, what they did was they took the skull, which they believed to Bella’s, and then they stripped all the flesh, the remaining flesh, off the skull, using minute knives to do it, and they brought the skull down to just the bare bone and then they filled the sockets with wax, and they literally rebuilt the skull.

Yeardley:  Brash contacts the studio photographer who’d shot the portrait. Luckily, he still has the negative.

Tom:  So, they place the negative over the skull and what emerges is what only can be described as a spectral image of this skull with the superimposed face round it. And you can see straight away it’s the same person.

Yeardley:  Glaister’s forensic team has now built a solid body of evidence against Ruxton and it has indeed been a team effort. For the first time, specialists came together with new concepts and methodologies in order to dig up enough circumstantial evidence to mount a prosecution. Again, forensic anthropologist, Sue Black.

Sue:  The one that probably more than anything sealed it, was the superimposition of the skull onto the photograph of Isabella. Even today, that’s the one that is shown as being iconic. It was the first time that was done. That was compelling.

Yeardley:  On November 5th, the multitudes who’ve been devouring the lurid press coverage of the Ruxton murder case for the last five weeks finally get a chance to see the alleged killer in the flesh. It’s Ruxton’s fourth hearing and the first one the public has been privy to. Ruxton has been locked up in Strangeways Prison in Manchester awaiting trial. And now, he’s back in Lancaster.

 The gallery is jammed with press and spectators. Dozens of women are dressed up like its date night, eager to see the handsome young doctor. The man is still respected and beloved in Lancaster. It all adds up to sympathy, and plenty of it. For many locals, whether he’s guilty or not is irrelevant because they believe his wife was cheating on him. And in the 1930s, for many people, men and women alike, this was the ultimate deal breaker. If a married woman cheated, it was at her own risk.

 Ruxton is led into the courtroom. He’s pale and emaciated with a vacant stare. It’s hard to imagine him looking more dejected. But in just a few seconds, he will. Ruxton is about to be charged with the murder of his common law wife. A reporter faithfully recorded Ruxton’s courtroom outburst.

Reporter:  As soon as the new charge had been read out, Dr. Ruxton began shouting a torrent of sentences.

Ruxton:  It is a positive and damnable lie. It is all prejudice, Is there no justice? My home is broken up. My happy home. Do I look like a murderer?

Reporter: The Scotsman.

Yeardley:  Ruxton’s attorney, Edwin Slinger, tries to muzzle his client, but the screaming rant continues as the courtroom in ruffs and chaos. Finally, the police return the room to order. Ruxton, handcuffed and head bowed, is shuffled back to his cell. Over the next month, the pretrial hearings continue. Witnesses are deposed, among others, Mary Rogerson’s stepmother, Isabella’s sisters, and the forensic experts. Professor Brash offers a lurid version of assembling the puzzle of rotting heads and limbs. A woman in the packed gallery actually faints.

[upbeat music]

 The hearings are front page news. They’re the lead stories in newspapers not only throughout the UK, but around the world. There’s no doubt this case will go to trial and Ruxton is going to need a first-rate trial lawyer. Norman Birkett is one of the top counselors in the UK and he doesn’t come cheap. So, Ruxton sells the furniture in his home and hires him. A trial date is set for March 2nd. In the face of staggering incriminating evidence and intense international media scrutiny, Ruxton clings to the mantra that he’s recited from the start. He’s the victim, he’s an innocent man. And thanks to press coverage, even outside of Lancaster, there’s tremendous compassion for the doctor. The poor widower with the dead, cheating wife and three young children.

And though the case against Ruxton is strong, it’s going to be an uphill battle for the prosecution to convince a jury to send a man to the gallows based totally on scientific evidence. After all, this is a group of 12 men who may not be very educated. Men who then have to be able to understand this extremely academic, high-tech presentation. And if they don’t, there’s an undeniable chance that Buck Ruxton might walk away a free man. The doctor could very well go from mutilating his wife and nanny right back to delivering babies.

 On the next episode of Beyond Recognition, the prosecution struggles with how much blood, guts and maggots a jury can stomach. And forensic science, Buck Ruxton and Isabella’s reputation all go on trial.

[somber music]

 Beyond Recognition was written and produced by Peter Gilstrap. I’m your host, Yeardley Smith. Thanks to our story editors, Barbara Bogaev and Sasha Khokha. Logan Heftel was our sound supervisor with editing and sound design from Soren Begin, Sarah Ma, Christina Bracamontes, and Aaron Phelps. Field recordings in Moffat and Lancaster were captured by Sean Kerwin and Kit Cummings. Original music was composed by Logan Heftel.

 The series was produced by Audio 99 under the direction of executive producer, Gary Scott. Our social media maven is Monica Scott. Beyond Recognition was inspired by the book, Ruxton: The First Modern Murder, written by Tom Wood. Among our many other sources are The Jigsaw Murders by Jeremy Craddock, Written in Bone by Sue Black, and the Trial of Buck Ruxton, edited by R.H. Blundell and G.H. Wilson, as well as original interviews and period news accounts.

 The actors in this episode are Ramesh Matani as Buck Ruxton, Jason Kennett as Professor Glaister, Tom Bromhead as John Milligan, Time Winters as William Black, Gideon Emery as Henry Vann, Larissa Gallagher as Ethel Anderson, Caroline Feraday reading the news quotations.

[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]