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Buck Ruxton Case Case Study

Buck Ruxton From the perspective of being a death scene investigator, the Buck Ruxton case was very unique and trend-setting for a number of reasons. The concept of a perpetrator killing a witness and/or a lover due to perceived or verified infidelity was nothing new, then or now, but a lot of the other components of the case and how it was solved were absolutely groundbreaking at the time and in several ways.

One thing that made the case quite unique was the fact that the murderer was a doctor. This probable became quite clear because of the way the bodies were dismembered in such a way so as to conceal their identities but the case was groundbreaking in the sense that fingerprint technology and other forensic methods were used to identify the body and the time of death. Analysis of the maggots on the body as well as looking the newspapers used to wrap the body were both instrumental in establishing cause and time of death and that along with the fingerprint identification sealed Ruxton's fate (NIH, 2013).

Another one of the ways that Ruxton was caught red-handed was much more basic and that was the fact that the newspaper in question was a "slip" edition that was unique to certain areas of the United Kingdom which made it much easier to pin on Mr. Ruxton. Tracking down the fact that the newspaper was a unique edition as well as the use of subscription lists to narrow down the potential recipients even further by looking at subscription lists for the paper made the...

If the newspaper was not unique to an area that Ruxton was in, this would have made pinning the murder on Ruxton a much more difficult task to accomplish. This is because the precision in which the bodies were dismembered and the distance from the murder scene and/or home of Ruxton or the victims was quite large (more than 100 miles)(NIH, 2013).
Something else that happened tied Mr. Ruxton to the disposal sites and that was his denial that he was ever in Scotland during the aftermath of the murder which was proven entirely wrong by the fact that he had apparently clipped a bicyclist in Scotland and also had an encounter with a Scottish police officer. Not only did this homework regarding where he was prove Ruxton was a liar, it also proved that he was tied to the area of the disposal of the bodies and this, in conjunction with the newspaper copies and the actual forensics, helped to seal Ruxton's fate because all of those aspects against Ruxton melded together could not be explained by Ruxton or his counsel in a way other than the fact that he was the murderer (NIH, 2013).

The triad of convicting a murderer is method, motive and opportunity and all three were very prominent in this case. The method, of course, was the dismemberment and disposal of the bodies and Ruxton was tied to both of those through this knowledge of medical terminology and physiology. He…

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References

NIH. (2013, September 6). Visible Proofs: Forensic Views of the Body: Exhibition: Technologies of Surveillance. National Library of Medicine - National Institutes of Health. Retrieved September 6, 2013, from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/visibleproofs/exhibition/views.html

NIH. (2013, September 6). Visible Proofs: Forensic Views of the Body: Galleries: Cases: The Buck Ruxton "Jigsaw Murders" case. National Library of Medicine - National Institutes of Health. Retrieved September 6, 2013, from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/visibleproofs/galleries/cases/ruxton.html

Scotsman. (2013, September 6). Till death do us part - News - The Scotsman. The Scotsman. Retrieved September 6, 2013, from http://www.scotsman.com/news/till-death-do-us-part-1-466109
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