The determining, as accurately as possible, the length of time the individual has been dead, is not only important in cases of murder; it may be highly essential to the ends of justice in questions of survivorship; the following curious case, cited by Dr. Male,[[11]] will not only serve to substantiate this assertion, but it will, at the same time, afford a triumphant instance of the application of chemical science in promoting the due administration of the laws. It is well known that when dead animal fibre is exposed, for a certain period, to the action of a current of water, it becomes converted into a fatty substance, resembling spermaceti, and known to chemists under the name of adipocire. The period of time required to effect this change has been the subject of dispute. At the Lent assizes held at Warwick, in the year 1805, a cause was tried, in which a gentleman, who was insolvent, left his own house with the intention, as it was presumed from his preceding conduct and conversation, of destroying himself. Five weeks and four days after that period, his body was found floating down a river. The face was disfigured by putrefaction, and the hair separated from the scalp by the slightest pull; but the other parts of the body were firm and white, without any putrefactive appearance. The clothes were unaltered, but the linen was exceedingly rotten. On examining the body, it was found that several parts of it were converted into adipocire. A commission of bankruptcy having been taken out against the deceased a few days after he had left his home, it became a question of great importance to the interests of his family, to ascertain whether he was living at that period. From the changes which the body had sustained, it was presumed that he had drowned himself the day he left home; and to corroborate this presumption, the evidence of Dr., now Sir George, Gibbs, of Bath, was required, as he had lately been engaged in experiments[[12]] upon this subject. He stated on the trial, that he had procured a small quantity of this fatty substance by immersing the muscular parts of animals in water for a month, but that it required five or six weeks to produce it in any quantity. Upon this evidence the jury were of opinion that the deceased was not alive at the time the commission was taken out, and the bankruptcy was accordingly superseded.
Whether any, and what marks, punctures, contusions, echymoses, dislocations, or other injuries, are to be observed about the face, neck, chest, or any other parts of the body; and how far their appearance and character demonstrate the nature of the operation, or instrument by which they were inflicted?—Upon the discovery of a dead body, it becomes one of the first objects to ascertain the nature, extent, and direction of any wounds, or marks of violence, that may be observed. Whether they be merely superficial, or extend beyond the local injury and penetrate the cavities, will be a matter of subsequent investigation by dissection. The examination of deep wounds, in the first instance, is comparatively unimportant, for they are not liable to obliteration by incipient putrefaction; whereas marks and bruises, unless they be carefully inspected before the body undergoes this change, will not be easily distinguished from spontaneous discolouration. This precaution is highly important in those cases in which we suspect the person to have been strangled; when we shall generally discover a circular mark about the neck produced by extravasated blood, or, if the act has been committed by the hand, irregular patches corresponding in some places with the fingers and nails of the assailant; traces of violence will be frequently also discoverable on the chest which will answer to the impression of the knees. Upon examining the body of Sir John Dinely Goodere, who was murdered on board the Ruby ship of war in 1741, the surgeon’s mate stated that he found the marks of nails and fingers on his neck; this testimony was satisfactorily fortified by another witness, who declared that on looking into the cabin, he had seen a hand on the neck of the deceased. An accomplice also confessed that after having strangled him with their hands, they drew a rope tight about his neck.[[13]] A very satisfactory instance of the same kind occurred to the author of the present work, during his residence in the county of Cornwall; and he feels no inconsiderable satisfaction in reflecting upon the train of circumstances, through which he was enabled, by his evidence at the assizes of the county for 1814, to secure the conviction of the murderer. The evidence was wholly circumstantial, and the relation of it is well calculated to illustrate the great importance of the particular line of investigation, which it is the object of the present chapter to elucidate. For these reasons he is induced to compile from his notes the following brief sketch of the case. A Cornish peasant, engaged in attending upon the light-house on the western coast, was found dead in a field near the public road leading from Penzance to the “Land’s end,” on Sunday, December the 12th, 1813; he was lying in a dry ditch, with his stick at a little distance from him; one of his shoes was down at the heel, and both were smeared with mud; his pockets were empty. The body was taken to a public house in the village, and the coroner having received notice of the occurrence, an inquisition was taken, and the verdict of wilful murder returned against some person or persons unknown. The body was afterwards buried, but a rumour having arisen that the anatomical inspection had not been sufficiently minute and satisfactory, it was, by an order of the magistrates, disinterred; and the author was desired to assist in the further investigation of the subject. Upon examining the body, which had not yet advanced so far in putrefaction as to obliterate the traces of violence, or to confuse the appearances they presented, patches, arising from extravasated blood, were seen in different parts of the throat, and distinct abrasions corresponding with the nails were visible; the face presented the physiognomy of a strangled man. On the chest, bruises, evidently occasioned by the pressure of the assailant’s knees, were also noticed. Upon dissection the brain was found excessively turgid with blood. The rest of the organs appeared in a perfectly healthy, and natural condition. It is worthy of remark that the field in which the deceased was found contained several shafts of abandoned mines; upon visiting the spot the author observed tracks in the grass, as if it had been scraped, proceeding in a direction from the hedge next the public road to that in the opposite part of the field, and under which the body was found; near the former hedge also some fragments of a glass bottle were discovered. The deceased, it appeared, had been at Penzance for some medicine, and it was proved that he had left that town, on his return to the light-house, with a phial in his pocket. All these circumstances combined, placed the matter beyond conjecture. He had evidently been strangled, probably at the spot where the glass fragments were found, which were undoubtedly the remains of his phial, broken during the scuffle; besides, it would appear that he had been dragged along the field from this spot to the opposite hedge, for marks denoting such an act were visible on the grass, and this received farther confirmation from the condition in which the shoes of the deceased were found. Who then committed the murder? From the circumstances of its having been perpetrated in a field containing several old mines, without any attempt on the part of the villain to avail himself of the advantage which these caverns would have afforded for the concealment of the dead body, the author was convinced that the perpetrator of the deed would be found in some stranger to the country, for such a one alone could be unacquainted with the mines to which we allude. The suggestion of this idea very naturally gave a direction to the line of inquiry. Were any suspicious strangers in Penzance or its neighbourhood? Had the deceased been seen in the society of any person unacquainted with the country? He had been seen, it was discovered, playing at cards in a public house with some of the privates of the artillery stationed in the Mount’s Bay, amongst whom was a very powerful and athletic Irishman, of the name of Burns, who had lately landed, and immediately enlisted into the corps. Burns was accordingly arrested on suspicion, when the purse of the deceased containing thirty shillings was found on his person. He was, moreover, unable to shew where he was at the time the deceased left Penzance, in the evening; and he was subsequently recognised by two witnesses who had seen him accompanying the deceased on the road towards the Land’s End. It is only necessary to add that he was convicted and hanged; and it is not the least satisfactory part of this case to state, that on the evening previous to his execution he confessed to the author, that all the circumstances of the case occurred precisely as we have stated, that he strangled his victim with a pocket handkerchief, but that from the difficulty of completing the act, he was compelled to press his knees upon his chest. In the year 1763, a person of the name of Beddingfield was found lying near his bed, with his face on the floor, and with one hand round his neck. It was argued that he had probably fallen out of bed in a fit of apoplexy, and that the pressure of his own hand had occasioned the marks that were visible on his throat; and a verdict was returned in conformity with such an opinion. Circumstances,[[14]] however, arose which excited a strong suspicion against the wife and a man-servant named Ringe, and they were accordingly charged with the murder, tried at Bury St. Edmonds, and condemned. Before execution the man confessed that he had strangled the deceased, having seized him while asleep by the throat, with his left hand.
Whether the wounds observed in the body were necessarily of a mortal nature, or sufficiently severe to have caused immediate death?—It will be generally impossible to solve this problem without the aid of dissection, for although such injuries may appear extensive, we have already in the course of the present inquiries shewn the fallacies to which such indications are exposed, (see our chapter on wounds, vol. ii, page 116) and the practitioner who ventures to give his judgment on such an occasion, without adequate data, will render himself contemptible in the eyes of the profession, and dishonest in the opinion of the public.
Whether they were inflicted during life?—In discriminating between a wound inflicted upon the living body, and one which has been artfully occasioned after death, for the purpose of embarrassing judicial inquiry, it will be essential to observe, whether any hemorrhage has taken place, externally, or internally, and, moreover, to ascertain whether the blood so effused had coagulated. An instructive illustration of this point is furnished in the very extraordinary trial[[15]] of Green, Berry, and Hill in the year 1678, for the murder of Sir Edmonsbury Godfrey, a zealous protestant magistrate, during the pretended popish plots in the reign of Charles the second. It appeared from the evidence of one Praunce, that Sir Edmonsbury was strangled by a handkerchief in Somerset house, on a Saturday night, and after remaining concealed until the following Wednesday, he was carried at midnight into the fields beyond Soho, where he was thrown into a ditch, and his own sword thrust through his body, in order to excite a belief that he had committed suicide. Upon the trial, Messrs. Skillard and Cambridge, surgeons, stated that the sword must have been passed through the body after death, as there was no evacuation of blood, which must have happened had such a wound been inflicted during life.[[15]] With regard, however, the fact of hemorrhage being received as a test of life, a few observations may be necessary; it must be remembered that extensive wounds may be inflicted on the living body, with but little or no effusion of blood, but such wounds always belong to the class of lacerations, see vol. ii, p. 123. On the other hand, the knife of the anatomist not unfrequently draws considerable blood from the dead body, and wounds have been known to bleed long after life has fled; a fact which, as we have already observed, has been raised by superstition into prophetic importance. The orifice of a vein that may have been opened during life will sometimes bleed afresh after death; this occurred to a very considerable extent in the body of the Prince Royal of Sweden, who had died of apoplexy. John Lees,[[16]] the subject of the noted inquest at Oldham, bled after he was laid in his coffin; but, under such circumstances, the blood is never found in the state of coagulation.
If it be determined that such wounds have been inflicted during life, it then becomes important to solve the following questions.
Whether they resulted from an act of suicide or otherwise; whether from accident or design?—There are certain acts of violence which we feel no hesitation in declaring are not likely to be accomplished by the individual himself; such are incisions, or gun-shot wounds on the back of the body, and, perhaps, fractures of the skull; with regard to wounds in the throat, the death of the Earl of Essex, during his imprisonment in the Tower, has given rise to much speculation, and the reader will find an interesting digression upon the subject in the history of Bishop Burnet. Some stress has, in a late case, been laid upon the fact of the wound being even and regular, which it was asserted would not have happened had it been inflicted by the hand of an assassin—because any struggle would have made it irregular. This is really a refinement that we do not pretend to understand. Is not convulsive action likely to disturb even the cold and calculating admeasurements of the suicide? instances have frequently occurred where even the chin has been cut during the operation, as in the case which lately occurred near the Serpentine river in Hyde Park, and yet no grounds existed to excite the least suspicion of murder.
Where the individual has perished by fire arms, the circumstance of his fingers being found discoloured by the combustion of the powder in the pan has been alluded to by authors as a proof of suicide, and it certainly carries some weight with it, although the crafty assassin might contrive to produce such an appearance. The state of the linen of the deceased, as indicating the effects of a struggle, may furnish some evidence upon these occasions; and cases have occurred where bloody marks have been discovered on parts of the body, which, from their situation, could not have been produced by the deceased. In Hargrave’s State Trials[[17]] there is a very remarkable instance of a woman who was found in bed with her throat cut, and a knife sticking in the floor near her; three of her relations were in an adjoining room, through which it was necessary to pass to the apartment of the deceased; the neighbours were alarmed, and the body was viewed; these relations declared she must have destroyed herself; but, from a particular circumstance, they were suspected, and found guilty of the murder; for on the left hand, was observed the bloody mark of a left hand, which of course could not be that of the deceased. How often has the left hand[[18]] of the murderer betrayed his deeds of blood!
Whether the cloaths of the deceased betray any odour of spirit, tobacco, sourness, or putridity?—In every case of mysterious death it is an important object to ascertain whether the deceased had been in a state of intoxication; of which the odour of the clothes may in some cases furnish a presumptive proof. It will be seen by consulting our chapter on “Death by exposure to Cold,” that the life of an individual may, under certain circumstances of intoxication, be extinguished by a very slight degree of cold; see vol. ii, page 60.
Whether any articles have been broken or injured in the pockets?—The case of the Cornish murder related at page [27] affords an example of the value of this inquiry; but in appreciating the indications which it may furnish, we must view the circumstance in relation to the other features of the case, when it may acquire an importance which the fact did not individually assume; or it may lose by such a comparison the little value which it appeared to possess.
Whether there is reason to believe that the deceased had been robbed?—We are to derive from this question a probable argument in support of the fact of suicide, for in such a case it is not reasonable to expect any evidence of robbery. In the unfortunate case of suicide lately committed in Hyde Park, a base sixpence was found in the pocket of the deceased; had he been plundered, the robber would not have left the base coin, which in the dark and hurry he could not have distinguished. In the instance of a travelling empiric, of the name of Evans, or Evando, as he called himself, for the sake of euphony, who was found dead in a ditch in Cornwall, the exact sum was discovered in his pocket, which he had taken in change at the last public house. Any memorandum found on the person of the deceased, in his own hand-writing intended to convey directions, or his last wishes, to his friends, is a strong presumptive proof that he fell by his own hand. The remains of any poison found about him is one of those facts that is equally favourable to the suspicion of murder as of suicide. We must be allowed to observe that upon the occasion of an unknown person being found dead, some responsible individual should examine the contents of his pockets, and having, if possible, acquired every information as to his name and residence, he should carefully enclose every article so found in a paper, and place his seal upon the packet, and his signature, and the date of the event, upon the cover.