True Crime-Paranormal-Conspiracy Theories Stories Part V #Wattys2023

Bodies Under the Bridge: Dr. Buck Ruxton Part I

Buck Ruxton (born Bukhtyar Chompa Rustomji Ratanji Hakim; 21 March 1899 – 12 May 1936) was an Indian-born physician convicted and subsequently hanged for the September 1935 murders of his common-law wife, Isabella Ruxton (née Kerr), and the family housemaid, Mary Jane Rogerson, at his home in Lancaster, England. These murders are informally known as the Bodies Under the Bridge and the Jigsaw Murders, while Ruxton himself became known as The Savage Surgeon.

The case became known as the "Bodies Under the Bridge" due to the location, near the Dumfriesshire town of Moffat in the Southern Uplands of Scotland, where the bodies were found. The case was also called the "Jigsaw Murders" because of the painstaking efforts to re-assemble and identify the victims and then determine the place of their murder. Ruxton earned the title of "The Savage Surgeon" due to his occupation and the extensive mutilation he inflicted upon his victims' bodies.

The prosecution of Ruxton's murders would prove to be one of the United Kingdom's most publicized legal cases of the 1930s. The case itself is primarily remembered for the innovative forensic techniques employed to identify the victims and prove that their murders had been committed within the Ruxton household.

Early life

Childhood and youth

Buck Ruxton was born in Bombay, British India, on 21 March 1899 into a wealthy middle-class Parsi family of Indian-French origin.

Ruxton received a respectable upbringing, and despite being a sensitive youth with few friends, he was highly intelligent and received a thorough education. By his teenage years, he had resolved to seek a career in medicine. With the financial support of his parents, Ruxton studied at the University of Bombay, where he qualified as a Bachelor of Medicine in 1922. The following year, he qualified as a Bachelor of Surgery at the same institute. Shortly after completing his studies, Ruxton obtained employment at a Bombay hospital, where he specialized in medicine, midwifery, and gynaecology.

On 29 October 1923, Ruxton was commissioned into the Indian Medical Service as a medical officer; he served in postings at Basra and, later, Baghdad, before relinquishing his commission in October 1926.

In May 1925, Ruxton married a Parsi woman named Motibai Jehangirji Ghadiali. The marriage was an arranged one, which ultimately turned out to be short-lived. When Ruxton relocated to Britain the following year, he concealed all evidence of this marriage, although in 1928, he did contact his father-in-law, Jehangirji, requesting he immediately send him the sum of £200 via telegraphic transfer.

Relocation to Britain

With financial assistance from his family and the Bombay Medical Service, Ruxton relocated to Britain in 1926. He attended medical courses at London's University College Hospital under the name Gabriel Hakim, before moving to Edinburgh in 1927 to begin studies towards obtaining a Fellowship of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons. Although Ruxton failed his entrance examination, the General Medical Council authorized his practising medicine in the United Kingdom on the strength of the qualifications he had earlier obtained in Bombay. Shortly thereafter, he legally changed his name via deed poll to "Buck Ruxton".

While studying to become a Fellow of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons in Edinburgh, Ruxton became acquainted with a 26-year-old woman named Isabella Van Ess, who managed a café in the city. At the time of their acquaintance, Isabella was still legally married to a Dutchman whom she had wed in 1919, but this marriage had only lasted a matter of weeks, and she had resumed using her maiden name of Kerr. The two began courting, and Isabella was with Ruxton when he relocated to England in 1928. He worked as a locum to a London doctor, a fellow Parsi named Manek Motofram, and later as an assistant to a Stepney-based doctor named. B. R. Rygate. The following year, Isabella gave birth to the couple's first child, a daughter they named Elizabeth.