By the 1930s forensic police work had just begun to come into its own. The late 1920s had introduced advancements that had seen investigations using more than simple fingerprint evidence to solve crime and in America the FBI’s technical crime lab would firmly establish itself over the first half of the decade. Both in the UK and the USA experts from outside of the police or detective agencies were routinely drafted in to help on cases and in the UK there were none more qualified than the professors in the medical universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. In 1935 a grim discovery in a rural Scottish town opened a sensational case that would see the country's finest experts challenged to not only help the police to solve a murder case, but to pioneer multiple new forensic techniques along the way, creating innovative methods that would go on to be used right up to the modern day.

SOURCES




Craddock, Jermey (2021) The Jigsaw Murders. The History Press, Cheltenham, UK
 


Dundee Courier (1935) Moffat Crime: Devil’s Beef Tub Searched. Dundee Courier, Mon 07 Oct 1935. Dundee, UK.
 


Aberdeen Press and Journal (1935) Grim Discovery Made in Ravine. Aberdeen Press and Journal, Mon 30 Sep 1935. Aberdeen, UK.
 


Evening Sentinel (1935) Moffat Ravine Mystery. Evening Sentinel, 01 Oct 1935. Staffordshire, UK.
 


Aberdeen Press & Journal (1935) Nurse Girl Disappears. Aberdeen Press & Journal, 09 Oct 1935, Aberdeen, UK.
 


Dundee Courier (1935) Mr Buck Ruxton Charged With Murder. Dundee Courier, 14 Oct 1935. Dundee, UK.
 
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