Beyond Recognition: The First Modern Murder

The team behind the world-famous podcast Small Town Dicks analyzes the groundbreaking investigation that brought Buck Ruxton to justice for the murders of his wife and maid. Join Detectives Dan and Dave, forensic specialist Paul Holes, and Yeardley Smith as they breakdown what the police, scientists, and prosecutors got right and wrong in this fascinating summary of Beyond Recognition: The First M...

Lead prosecutor Joseph Cooksey Jackson sits with his right-hand man, Maxwell Fyfe, discussing their mounting concerns about the forensic evidence. Jackson knows the stakes are high. The success of their case hinges on presenting complex forensic evidence in a way that a jury of laymen can understand. They don’t want any doubts, reasonable or otherwise, sneaking in. Despite the damning evidence aga...

John Milligan, a reporter from the UK's biggest tabloid, News of the World , finds himself in the home of Dr. Buck Ruxton, now the prime suspect in the disappearance—and likely murder—of his wife Isabella and their nanny Mary Rogerson. Since the women vanished nearly a month ago, Ruxton has spun a web of lies, claiming they ran away to Scotland - or was it Blackpool? But with the discovery of the...

Content Warning: This episode contains dramatic recreations of historical scenes and depictions of violence that some listeners may find disturbing. Please take care when listening. The words spoken by the actors are taken from letters, diary entries, legal transcripts, and period newspaper interviews. Peter Rogerson is desperate and furious. His sister Mary, the Ruxton family’s nanny, has been mi...

Content Warning: This episode contains dramatic recreations of historical scenes and depictions of violence that some listeners may find disturbing. Please take care when listening. The words spoken by the actors are taken from letters, diary entries, legal transcripts, and period newspaper interviews. In the early morning of September 15, 1935, Agnes Oxley, a housekeeper at the home of Dr. Buck R...

The leading forensic scientists from Scotland have traveled to the tiny village of Moffatt to examine the body parts discovered in a ravine by a sister and brother out hiking. Authorities do not yet know how many people were killed, or by what method, or where or when; they certainly do not know who the victims are.  Whoever carried out this act of evil took great care to hide the victims’  identi...

It’s a crisp autumn morning in a serene Scottish town called Moffatt. A brother and sister have gone out for a stroll through the woods.  As they cross  an old stone bridge, they see something in the dry stream bed below. It appears to be a severed arm, the hand reaching up from the dirt. It looks like it’s waving at them. To their horror, they learn the hand is just one of dozens of pieces of hum...

From the creators of Small Town Dicks comes a story about the first modern murder investigation... It was a crime like no other, unleashing horrors not seen since Jack the Ripper.  On a crisp autumn morning in 1935, a brother and sister out for a walk in the Scottish countryside stumbled upon dozens of packages containing dissected human remains. Who - or what - could have done this? Now largely f...