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Dr. Buck RUXTON
Birth name: Buktyar Rustomji Ratanji Hakim
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics: Jealousy - Dismemberment
Number of victims: 2
Date of murders:
September 15,
1935
Date
of arrest:
October 13,
1935
Date of birth:
March 21,
1899
Victims profile: His
wife Isabella Kerr, 34, and their housemaid, Mary Jane Rogerson,
20
Method of murder: Strangulation
Location: Lancaster, Lancashire, England, United Kingdom
Status: Executed by hanging
at Strangeways prison, Manchester,
on May 12,
1936
Dr Buck Ruxton
(21 March 1899, Bombay – 12 May 1936, Manchester), also
known as Buktyar Rustomji Ratanji Hakim, was a
Parsi doctor and murderer, involved in one of the United
Kingdom's most publicised murder cases of the 1930s,
which gripped the nation at the time. The case is
remembered now for the innovative forensic techniques
employed in solving it.
Background
Buck Ruxton, a Parsi, was born
Bukhtyar Rustomji Ratanji Hakim but later changed his
name by deed poll. He was a practising doctor in
Lancaster, England, and was reputedly a diligent GP,
well respected and popular with his patients. He lived
in a large house at 2, Dalton Square (still a popular
area for practising doctors) with his common-law wife
Isabella Kerr and their three children. Isabella was an
outgoing lady who enjoyed socialising with Lancaster's
elite and was a popular guest at functions. Dr Ruxton
began to suspect that she was having an affair behind
his back, though there is no evidence of infidelity.
Murder
Ruxton became increasingly jealous of
Isabella's popularity, allegedly exploding into fits of
rage behind closed doors. Eventually his jealousy
overwhelmed him and, on 15 September 1935, Ruxton
strangled Isabella with his bare hands. In order to
prevent their housemaid, Mary Jane Rogerson, from
discovering his crime before he could dispose of the
body, he suffocated her too. Ruxton then proceeded to
dismember and mutilate both bodies to hide their
identities.
Various human body parts were found
over 100 miles north of Lancaster, dumped in a stream
crossed by the Edinburgh-Carlisle road, near the town of
Moffat in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. They were found
wrapped in newspaper on 29th September, 1935, by Miss
Susan Haines Johnson who was visiting from Edinburgh.
Unfortunately for Ruxton, one of the newspapers he had
chosen to use was a special edition of the Sunday
Graphic that was only sold in the Lancaster area.
The police were quick to investigate this lead.
Identification of the bodies
The bodies were identified using the
fledgling techniques of fingerprint identification,
forensic anthropology to superimpose a photograph over
the X-ray of a victim's skull and forensic entomology to
identify the age of maggots and thus the approximate
date of death. This was one of the first cases where
such forensic evidence was successfully used to convict
a criminal in the UK.
Experts
involved in the identification of the bodies
Professor John Glaister, Regius
Professor of Forensic Medicine at the University of
Glasgow
Dr Gilbert Millar, Lecturer in
Pathology at the University of Edinburgh
Professor Sydney Smith, Regius
Professor of Forensic Medicine at the University of
Edinburgh
Dr Arthur Hutchinson, Dean of the
Edinburgh Dental Hospital and School
Professor J C Brash, Professor of
Anatomy at the University of Edinburgh
A preliminary examination was made at
Moffat by Professor Glaister and Dr Millar, after which
the remains were taken to the anatomy department at
Edinburgh University for a more detailed investigation.
Punishment
Ruxton was arrested at 7.20 a.m. on
13 October 1935. His trial lasted for 11 days and ended
on 13 December 1935 when the jury had returned a 'Guilty'
verdict and Mr Justice Singleton sentenced him to death.
A petition urging clemency for Ruxton collected over
10,000 signatures. However, the Court of Criminal Appeal
dismissed Ruxton's appeal on 27 April 1936 and he was
hanged at Strangeways prison, Manchester on the morning
of 12 May 1936.
Trivia
The house on Dalton Square where
the murders were committed remained empty for
decades because of its notorious reputation.
Eventually, in the 1980s, the building was gutted
and underwent substantial internal alteration.
Thereafter, it became architects' offices. It
remains a non-residential building: nobody sleeps
there.
The bath in which Buck Ruxton
dismembered his victims was removed and used as
evidence during his trial. Afterwards, it was used
as a horse trough by the mounted police division at
its headquarters in Preston.
The dismembered remains of Mary
Rogerson were buried in the churchyard at Overton, a
small village near the neighbouring town of
Morecambe.
The newspaper in which Ruxton
wrapped the bones featured headline stories
involving Morecambe Carnival.
When initially questioned Ruxton
denied he had ever been to Scotland. However, whilst
he was in Scotland disposing of the evidence, his
car was stopped by a Police Officer who had made a
record of the registration number in his pocketbook,
vital evidence at the later murder trial. This case
took place long before the sophisticated forensic
evidence gathering techniques of today.
There was a pub called "Ruxton's"
less than 50 metres from where Dr. Ruxton lived.
However, the name was later changed to "The Square".
The Ruxton trial caught the
public interest to such an extent that there was
even a song about it as follows:
Bloodstains on the carpet,
Bloodstains on the knives
Oh Dr Buck Ruxton
You murdered your wife.
Then Mary she saw you
You thought she would tell
So Dr Buck Ruxton
You killed her as well.
References
Hodge, James H. (1964). Famous Trials 10.
Wikipedia.org
Dr Buck Ruxton. Murder, mystery and
a vital ingredient
Told by
local historian Susan Wilson
Dr Buck Ruxton was a good looking Parsi-Indian doctor who practised
in Lancaster in the 1930s. He was loved by many people in the community.
He was born in India of Indian and French parents. He was born on the 21st
March 1899 and his real name was Bukhtyar Rustom ji Hakim. He was known
as Gabriel Hakim.
Parsees are descended from the Persians and today most are found in
Iran, Pakistan and Bombay. Buck Ruxton was educated in Bombay where he
qualified as a doctor and he became Medical Officer to the Malaria
Commission. On 7th May 1925 he married a girl called Motan
who was a well to do Parsee girl. The marriage was short lived and he
came to England and concealed all evidence of it.
He came to Edinburgh where he took a post graduate course in
medicine and surgery. He then moved to London and that was the time he
changed his name to Buck Ruxton. Whilst he had been in Edinburgh he had
met a young woman called Isabella Kerr. Born in Falkirk she had worked
in Edinburgh in several jobs. It was love at first sight for her and
Buck Ruxton and romance blossomed very quickly.
They were married by 1930 and they came to live in Lancaster. At
that time they had only one child Kathleen Elizabeth but the family
eventually grew to three, the other two children being called Diana and
Billy. They inhabited No 2 Dalton Square Lancaster. They seemed at first
a contented family and the doctor’s surgery was rarely empty. However
the neighbours soon heard violent quarrels taking place. On more than
one occasion Isabella left Ruxton and took the children with her. She
took refuge with her sister Mrs Jeannie Nelson.
One of the worst rows took place in 1934. Isabella walked out yet
again threatening never to return. She did come back persuaded only by
her sister. A few months later she was dead and also dead was a 19 year
old Morecambe girl named Mary Jane Rogerson. She had worked as a maid
for the Ruxtons for 3 years. How these two women met their deaths is
still one of the most fascinating in the history of crime today.
The sheer gruesomeness of the Ruxton case caught the people’s
imagination. It was tragic but good reading for the sensation hungry
public. The first stories began rolling off the press when two women had
been taking a morning stroll along a road between Carlisle and Edinburgh
at a place called Devil’s Beef Tub. This was two miles from Moffatt. The
two women were walking over a bridge when one of them looked down and
set off one of the biggest murder hunts of all time.
She thought she saw part of a human arm sticking up through the
stream. Shortly after that more remains were sighted. It was the largest
event that had happened in Moffatt and outside the scope of local police
experience. Top Scottish experts were called in. The remains were so bad
that at first that at first they did not know how many bodies they were
dealing with. The main difficulty that the authorities had was that the
whole torso of one of the bodies was missing. On each the eyes, ears and
noses had been removed and the hands had been lacerated. Cuts showed an
amount of skill had been needed. There was also very little blood so the
bodies had been drained. This would have needed anatomical knowledge.
However the murderer had made one fatal mistake and that is the vital
ingredient. He wrapped some of the remains in newspaper. The newspaper
was a special edition of the Sunday Graphic which could have only come
from the Lancaster and Morecambe area.
Three eminent men from Scotland carried out much of the work on the
remains. Professor John Glaister and his assistant Dr Martin of Glasgow
University and Professor James Brash of Edinburgh University.
Within a few days the discovery of the remains and disappearance of
two women from Lancaster were linked. Buck Ruxton had said that Isabella
and Mary were away on holiday in Scotland but the police were
disinclined to believe him and his house was put under siege. The drains
and debris were collected from No 2 Dalton Square and examined.
Forensic found a photo of Isabella wearing a tiara. They measured
the tiara and calculated how far away from the camera Mrs Ruxton must
have been standing. They then took a photo of the skull at the same
distance and the two photographs produced a perfect match. They also
examined dental records. The discoveries in total were two heads, two
upper bodies and shoulder blades, seventeen limb portions and forty-three
pieces of soft tissue. The fact that two bodies had been drained of
blood meant that some pieces of flesh could be identified under the
microscope.
The chief constable of Lancaster at that time was Mr H Vann. It was
very handy for him because his office was at the Town Hall opposite the
Ruxton house. Large crowds of spectators gathered and patients still
remained loyal to Buck Ruxton and still came to the surgery.
The police made several public appeals for help. One was for anyone
who had seen a stone coloured car in the Milnthorpe area. They found out
that Buck Ruxton had knocked a man off his bike in that area when he had
gone on a mystery trip and they knew he had a stone coloured Austin 12
Saloon.
The police were able to draw up a timetable of Buck Ruxton’s
movements for several days before and after the alleged murder day of
September 15th 1935. His behaviour was certainly very strange
on all those days.
Buck Ruxton was finally arrested by Constable Vann after a two day
continuous investigation. He was charged early in the morning of October
13th a month and a day after Mary Rogerson’s father had last
seen her alive. Ruxton made an emphatic if not very original reply,
“what are you talking about”. However he was charged with only the
murder of Mary Rogerson at that time. It was not until November 5th
that he was charged with the murder of his wife. Remains of the bodies
when put together were labelled simply number one and number two. One
being Mary and number two being Isabella.
The trial opened on March 2nd 1936. It was Norman Birkett
for the defence and Jackson, Maxwell Fyfe and Hartley Shawcross for the
prosecution. The judge was Mr Justice John Singleton. They were all very
experienced. There were 115 witnesses for the prosecution and 209 crown
exhibits. The trial was held at Manchester Assizes and it took the
prosecution four hours to make the opening statement. The trial lasted
eleven days. One of the star witnesses against the doctor was his wife’s
sister Jeannie Nelson. The trial ended on 13th March 1936. It
was the biggest murder trial of the century. The verdict was that Ruxton
was sentenced to death by hanging. The jury had needed only one hour to
reach the verdict. There were two main reasons for this. One was the
volume of medical evidence. The other was that the carpets, wallpaper,
skirting boards and the entire contents of the bathroom of No 2 Dalton
Square had been taken to Glasgow University for examination and the
findings pointed to murders.
In Lancaster a petition was opened for Dr Buck Ruxton. Within four
days 2,500 people had signed it and within a week 6,000. It went before
the court of appeal but was rejected.
On May 12th 1936 Buck Ruxton walked from his Strangeways
cell to the gallows. He is buried in an unmarked grave in the grounds of
the prison.
The News of the World published a confession by Ruxton dated October
1935. This was intriguing because on every occasion bar this one Ruxton
had stoutly denied the killings. It is reported that the News of the
World paid £3000 for the confession. The confession said “I killed Mrs
Ruxton in a fit of temper because I thought she had been with a man. I
was mad at the time. Mary Rogerson was present at the time. I had to
kill her”.
His wife’s remains were taken back to Edinburgh. Mary Rogerson’s
remains were taken to Overton churchyard. Funds were set up to help the
Rogerson’s and the Ruxton children. The Rogersons suffered another
tragedy in February 1937 with the death of their son Peter.
After a short time a little ditty came to light to Red Sails in the
Sunset and it was:
“Red stains
on the carpet, red stains on the knife
For Dr Buck Ruxton had murdered his wife.
The maid servant saw it and threatened to tell
So Dr Buck Ruxton he’s killed her as well”.
The bath from the house is now used as a horse trough at Hutton
Police HQ.
