Bloody Valentine

by Douglas Skelton

  By 1927, he was in Edinburgh, studying for a postgraduate degree in medicine. Then, using the name Captain Gabriel Hakim, the twenty-nine-year-old doctor frequented a restaurant in Princes Street, managed by a Mrs Isabella Van Ness. She was two years younger than her exotic regular customer and had married a Dutch seaman eight years earlier. However, the marriage had failed after only a fortnight and was annulled in Holland. She then reverted to using her maiden name of Kerr. Romance blossomed between the two and, the following year, she gave up her job and joined him in London where he was then practising. Two years later they settled as man and wife in Lancaster. However, they were never formally married for, although Isabella’s marriage had been legally terminated, Bakhtyar Hakim – who had by now changed his name by deed poll to the more Anglo-friendly Buck Ruxton – already had a Parsee wife back home in Bombay. At any rate, his religion forbade any such union.

  Dr Ruxton had bought a practice based in a three-storey, twelve-room terraced house at 2 Dalton Square in the old Roman town. They had three children together and were as devoted to them as any parents could be. They hired twenty-year-old local girl Mary Jane Rogerson to help look after the children. They also had two other ‘servants’ – women who came in to help with the household duties. But things between the couple were tempestuous to say the least. As Ruxton himself later said, ‘We were the kind of people who could not live with each other and could not live without each other.’ He also quoted a French proverb which translates as ‘Who loves most chastises most.’

  Some of that chastisement reared its head during his frequent outbursts of jealousy. Ruxton was convinced his wife was unfaithful. Even the sight of her talking to another man could ignite his rage and this, in turn, could lead to him beating the woman he professed to love. Sometimes things would reach such a stage that Isabella felt her life was in danger and, on at least two occasions, she turned to the police for help. Police officers claimed that he often acted like a wild man and threatened to kill her. ‘I would be justified in murdering her,’ he is alleged to have said on one occasion while, on another, it was, ‘My wife has been unfaithful and I will kill her if it continues.’

  One former maid, Scot Eliza Hunter, from Holytown in Lanarkshire, said that, on one occasion, Mrs Ruxton left her husband. The maid said that the doctor then told her that his wife ‘won’t come back alive. I will bring her back to the mortuary.’ On another occasion, Eliza said she heard Isabella crying out for help and she found the doctor holding his wife down by the throat. He turned on her when she appeared and told her it was none of her business.

  Despite the wild accusations and the violent fits of temper, despite his sleeping with a revolver under his pillow and despite reports by witnesses of his holding a knife at Isabella’s throat, the couple never separated for long. Once she ran home to mother in Edinburgh but Ruxton followed her and begged her to return to him. And, in 1932, one of her sisters was summoned urgently to Lancaster after being told by Ruxton that Isabella had tried to gas herself. It was not the first time she had attempted suicide, he claimed, and accused her of trying to ruin him.

  Then, in September 1935, matters reached a climax.

  The body parts were removed to a small mortuary in Moffat’s cemetery. Following an examination in situ by Professor John Glaister, Regius Professor of Forensic Medicine at the University of Glasgow, and Dr Gilbert Miller, Lecturer in Pathology at Edinburgh University, the remains were gathered together and shipped off to the latter university’s anatomy department for closer scrutiny under the direction of Professor J C Brash. Professor Sydney Smith, Regius Professor of Forensic Medicine at Edinburgh, and Dr Arthur Hutchinson, Dean of the Edinburgh Dental Hospital and School, completed the crack forensic squad. Professors Glaister and Smith had been on opposite sides during the Peter Queen case but here they were on the same team.

  The scientists had something of a jigsaw puzzle on their hands – and by no means a complete one. Their first task was to work out just how many bodies they were dealing with. After studying the various body parts rescued from the area around Moffat, they realised that there were two. At first, it was believed one was male and one was female – a fact duly passed on to a salivating press pack. But, as the pieces of the puzzle were slowly brought together, hip bones connecting to thigh bones, thigh bones connecting to knee bones, they heard the word of the Lord and that word was that they were wrong about one of the bodies – dead wrong.

  They worked out that they had, in fact, the remains of two females which, in the absence of any other identification, they named somewhat prosaically Body No 1 and Body No 2. They only had one pelvis. It fitted Body No 2 and it was obviously female. Body No 1 took some medical detective work. Although the head had been scalped, some hair fragments remained and they suggested the person was female. There was no sign of a beard and the larynx was small. The trunk of Body No 1 was completely missing but what they had of the body suggested that the person was small, between four feet ten inches and five feet, and had the rounded, slender limbs of a female. But what clinched it was that among the fleshy parts found were three female breasts. Once they had worked out they were working with only two bodies, it was then obvious that both were female.

  The victims’ sex had now been determined so the team now turned to establishing age. Bones and skulls take on different characteristics as a person grows older and, using X-rays, they estimated that Body No 1 was aged between eighteen and twenty-five while Body No 2 was aged between thirty-five and forty-five. A dental examination of Body No 1 revealed that there were wisdom teeth that had not yet come through, so the age was pegged at around twenty.

  The killer had dismembered the bodies to make disposal easier. However, he had also performed certain mutilations that may have had a purpose other than the gratification of his blood lust. The eyes of both bodies had been removed, as had the nose, lips, ears and most of the facial skin. Some teeth had been pulled from both. The flesh of the right thumb on Body No 1 had been peeled off while, similarly, part of the right arm had been stripped of its skin. Body No 2 had the ends of the fingers cut off and flesh had been sliced from the legs and cut away from part of the left foot. This was no mere butchery. There was method in this madness. But, before the scientists could understand why it was done, they would need to know who the victims were.

  By the beginning of September, Buck Ruxton’s insane jealousy was plumbing new depths. On 7 September 1935, his wife planned to go on a trip to Edinburgh with the Edmondson family with whom she had become friendly. However, the doctor had convinced himself there was something going on between Isabella and young Robert Edmondson, who worked for Lancaster Council. The original plan had been for them to drive north in two cars and Isabella would stay with her sister in Edinburgh. But, for some reason, that plan changed and, instead, they all took rooms in Edinburgh’s Adelphi Hotel. Ruxton, who had hired another car and followed them all the way, was furious. That they had stayed overnight in a hotel – despite the fact that there was never any definite proof that there was any sort of affair in progress – was enough for him. In his mind, Isabella was sleeping with young Edmondson.

  Unusually for him, given his volatile temperament, he did not burst into the hotel, screaming his accusations, but waited until she returned home before confronting her. He made his now customary wild reproaches and she denied them. Perhaps, after it all, they made up in their normal passionate way. But the following week, on 14 September, Isabella set off in the car again, this time heading south on her annual pilgrimage to see the illuminations at Blackpool with her two sisters. Ruxton knew she was going but could not shake off his dark jealousies. In his fevered mind she was not going to Blackpool to see the lights, she was going to meet him, she was going to see him, she was going to sleep with him.

  She would only be gone a day but that was long enough for him to sit at home and stew; long enough for him to imagine her walking hand in hand along the sparkling promenade with the younger man; long enough to
visualise them locked in a naked embrace in some seafront hotel. When she came home that night, he would have resolved to have it out with her once and for all.

  While the medical detectives were working wonders in Edinburgh, Scottish police were conducting their own painstaking investigation in an attempt to track the killer. The initial fear was that there was some sort of maniac at large in Britain, for there had been other dismembered bodies found in Brighton and London. However, a link to these other crimes was soon discounted. They knew the women had been murdered and mutilated elsewhere before being dumped in the ravine. They knew the packages had been disposed of some time between 15 September and 19 September. Both the Gardenholme Linn and the River Annan had been in spate following heavy rainfalls on 17 and 18 September and some of the bundles had been carried downstream before being left high but far from dry as the water level subsided. A car had no doubt been used to transport the body parts but no one saw a strange car on the bridge over the Gardenholme Linn.

  They examined the items that had been wrapped round the body parts. The edition of the Sunday Graphic newspaper, dated 15 September, was of particular interest. It was a ‘slip edition’ – a special limited print concerning the recent Morecambe Carnival – and was available only in the Morecambe/Lancaster area. On 9 October, the Chief Constable of Dumfries contacted his opposite number in Lancaster Borough, asking for assistance. This may have been the break they were looking for – but, on the same day, another newspaper was to provide the first real link to the murdered women. The Dumfries police chief was shown an item in that day’s Daily Record concerning the disappearance of a young woman three weeks previously. Her name was Mary Jane Rogerson. She was from Lancaster. She was employed as the nursemaid to the family of Dr Buck Ruxton.

  And Mrs Ruxton was also missing.

  At 6.30 a.m. on Sunday 15 September, the husband of charlady Mrs Agnes Oxley opened his front door to an unexpected visitor – his wife’s employer Dr Buck Ruxton. Mrs Oxley usually went to the Ruxton house at just after 7 a.m. every day but this day the doctor told her that she should not ‘trouble to come down this morning’. He added that Mrs Ruxton and Mary had gone away on a holiday to Edinburgh and concluded by saying, ‘I am taking the children to Morecambe.’

  At just after nine, a girl delivering newspapers to the Ruxton house was met by the doctor at the door. He held his right hand against his body, as if he was holding up his trousers, even though he was wearing braces. A woman delivering milk also saw him that morning. He told both that his wife and maid were away in Scotland. A third person called at the house that morning, making another newspaper delivery, this time the Sunday Graphic. Later that morning, Dr Ruxton visited a garage and bought four gallons of petrol in two two-gallon cans. He then visited another garage, his regular one, and had four gallons of petrol fed into his car. By 11 a.m., he was back home and a woman arrived for a small operation on her son. To her he said, ‘I am sorry but I cannot perform the operation today as my wife is away in Scotland and there is just myself and my little maid and we are busy taking the carpets up ready for the decorators in the morning. Look at my hands, how dirty they are.’ However, all the woman could see was his left hand as the doctor kept his right one hidden behind the door.

  At midday, he deposited his three young children with a family friend, saying his wife and Mary Rogerson had gone away for a few days. The woman noticed that his right hand was injured and he explained he’d cut it on a tin of peaches he’d been opening for the children’s breakfast. He then went home and was alone there until around 4.30 p.m. when he called on one of his patients, a Mrs Hampshire, saying that his wife was in Blackpool and Mary was on holiday. He had hurt his hand that morning and was unable to get the house ready for the decorators who were due to come the following day. He asked Mrs Hampshire if she would come and help him. She agreed and went back to Dalton Square with him. The woman’s husband later joined them.

  Mrs Hampshire found the carpets had been lifted from both the stairs and the upstairs landing and straw thrown down onto the dirty floors. She also saw straw poking out from under the doors to the bedrooms of Dr Ruxton and his wife. However, both doors were locked – the only doors in the house to be locked. There were carpets rolled up in the study and others stacked in the back yard. One carpet was stained with blood and also there were a bloodstained shirt and some partly burned towels. Ruxton said the blood was his – from his cut hand – and that he’d tried to burn them but they had proved too wet. He had even thrown petrol over them but had been unable to ignite them. He said the Hampshires could have the stair carpet and the underlay, as well as a blue suit that was bloodstained. He left them a key so that they could lock up after they were finished and then he went out. They cleaned up as best they could but Mrs Hampshire could not completely remove a stain that extended the length of the bath and up to six inches from the top. They also found what might have been blood on the bathroom linoleum and they managed to scrub this off. When they left, they took the suit and the carpets from the house that the doctor had offered them. However, they left the carpets in the yard as it had rained that afternoon and they were soaking wet.

  The following day a haggard Buck Ruxton called again at their house. He had obviously thought better of giving Mr Hampshire the suit for he asked if they would return it – ostensibly so that he could have it cleaned. Mrs Hampshire said she would get it cleaned herself so Ruxton had to content himself with making sure she cut off the name tab he had sewn into the sleeve and watching her burn it. After he left, the woman’s suspicions were finally aroused and she took a closer look at the garment. The waistcoat was so covered in blood that it was unredeemable so she burned it. She then looked at the stair carpet and found it, too, was soaked with blood. She took it outside where, she said later, she threw between twenty to thirty buckets of water over it but it was never properly clean. The water streaming off was red with blood.

  Mrs Oxley, the charlady, reported for work as normal the next morning to find the house locked and no answer to the doorbell. She went home again and returned at just after nine, when the doctor arrived in his car. He let her in and she helped him bandage his hand. She busied herself with cleaning until lunchtime when Mrs Hampshire arrived again. Later that day, Ruxton told Mrs Hampshire that his wife had gone off with another man. ‘You make a friend of a man,’ he said, ‘you treat him as a friend and he eats at your table and he makes love to your wife behind your back.’ He began to cry and said he could never forgive infidelity. However, he soon composed himself and was able to attend to some patients in his surgery.

  Later that day, Ruxton’s Hillman Minx was due for a service so he hired a four-seater Austin 12 saloon to use while it was in the garage. The registration number was CP 8415 – the same registration as a car involved in a hit and run in Kendal at lunchtime the following day, Tuesday 17 September. No one was hurt in the accident although a bicycle was badly damaged and, when police caught up with him, Ruxton said he’d been to Carlisle on business.

  Whether he knew it or not, the doctor was acting very suspiciously at this time. The bottoms of curtains on the top landing were bloodstained and he tore the stained parts off and burned them in the fire. He was up most of the night burning something in his back yard and neighbours said the blaze was bright enough to read by. On Thursday 19 September, he said he was going to visit a specialist about his hand but made sure his charlady was in the kitchen with the door locked before he made several trips to his car, which was parked at the back door. When he was gone, the doors that previously had been locked were now open and there was a curious smell around the house. He also changed his story concerning his wife’s disappearance, saying that she was in London not Edinburgh.

  However, as time went on, the police were convinced she was in neither city.

  It was Mary’s stepmother who had contacted the press about the girl’s disappearance. As soon as the Dumfries police chief saw the news item, he contacted Lancaster police again f
or a description of the missing maid. He also arranged for photographs of the blouse and child’s rompers found wrapped round some of the body parts to be published. Mrs Rogerson said the blouse was her stepdaughter’s – she recognised a patch she had sewn under one arm – and the rompers were identified by a woman who had given them to Mary Rogerson for the Ruxton children.

  Ruxton had told Mrs Rogerson that a laundry boy had been paying attention to Mary and had got her in the family way. His wife had taken Mary away to put the trouble right. Mr Rogerson did not believe the story and gave Ruxton an ultimatum – either his daughter was back by Sunday or he’d go to the police. The doctor begged him not to inform the authorities and promised Mary would be back soon. A week later, Ruxton told them that his wife and Mary had broken into his safe and stolen £30. He did not know where they had gone but said they would be back when the money ran out. The Rogersons, unconvinced by the doctor’s changing stories, finally reported Mary’s disappearance to the police.

  As time went on, people began to talk, as people always do. And police officers, despite what they might like us to think, can talk as much as anyone. Reporters soon got wind of a possible connection between the two missing women and the bodies in the ravine. Ruxton, in his now usual excitable manner, complained to the Chief Constable of Lancaster, saying, ‘This publicity is ruining my practice – particularly at a time when I am negotiating a loan on it.’ He wanted police to publish a statement that there was no connection between the two cases. Naturally, they could not do that but they did manage to mollify the irate doctor.