April 30, 2025 • 52 mins
In this week's episode, the conclusion of a two-parter, Paul and Kate return to 1924 England to the investigation of a disappearance under questionable circumstances. After a body is found, a trial hinges on the testimony of one of England's greatest forensic pathologists.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the
last twenty five years writing about true crime.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
compelling true crimes.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
new insights to old mysteries.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
This is Buried Bones.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Hey Paul, Hey Kate, how are you.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I'm doing well. I'm ready to get into this case again.
This missing woman who goes to find her fiance on
his chicken farm and then vanishes and her parents are
so upset about it. And then we make some pretty
big discoveries. And I know I left you hanging on
this case the last time, and we know that things
have gone very badly for Elsie.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Well, I would say so, I mean, considering she's dismembered
and scattered around Norman's potato farm and chicken coop areas,
so it's not a good place to be.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
I want to give a little trigger warning. We have
some talk of suicide in this half of the episode,
so I just want everybody to know that we will
be talking about someone taking their own life. So we're
in England nineteen twenty four. There's a young woman you know,
named Elsie Cameron. She's engaged to a guy named Norman
(01:59):
Thorne who who has a chicken farm outside of London.
She lives in London there, as I said, engaged, but
he is creating some distance and after a few years
of dating and then they become engaged, maybe about a
year earlier. She says I'm pregnant. He says I'm in
love with someone else, and she says, I'm coming up
(02:21):
on December sixth. We know she shows up on December
fifth instead, and then her parents don't hear from her,
and it's total devastation I'm assuming from her parents when
the police do a search of his chicken farm and
they see some freshly dug dirt and they dig and
they find several key pieces of evidence, so her jewelry
(02:43):
a suitcase, and then of course they come up with
a human torso, which we were assuming is going to
be Elsie's. So Norman, when approached by the police, says, okay,
let me tell you what happened. First, I'll show you
where the rest of her body parts are fine, And
they find her legs, in her head and essentially enough
(03:04):
information to give them some idea of what happened. So
I think my big question was why would Norman do this?
I know that he's caught with a human torso on
his property. He's not admitting to murder. He is saying
I dismembered her. So then the big question is what
is Norman going to say happen to Elsie? Where he
(03:27):
is so willing to turn over all of this information
to the police and let them search wherever they want
on his chicken farm when he had denied even seeing
her before.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Sure, well, obviously he's caught in a lie, you know.
So now he's the evidence has been found, Elsie has
been found, and he's offering up information, you know. And
of course is he minimizing during you know, this stage
of confessing, there's always that possibility he may admit to
select acts that he think are relatively minor and try
(04:00):
to point the finger at somebody else who's actually the
one responsible for the homicide. Now, I think, did you
say that he admitted to the dismemberment.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
He will admit to the dismemberment.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yes, got it, But he's pointing the finger somewhere else
for the actual homicide.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Sounds like it. So I'll tell you what Helena Normanton,
the barrister, says, because she was really heavily involved in
observing this case with this you know, kind of ilegal
eye on it. So Helena says that Norman had severed
the head halfway up the back of the neck, but
low down by the breastbone in front. Yeah, what is
(04:38):
that exactly? Because then they found the torso, and I
guess I assumed sort of, I don't know, maybe I
don't know the boundaries of what's considered a torso versus
a decapitation, you.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Know, at least the way that Helena is describing that,
And I'm not sure it's indicating the direction that you know,
the cutting occurred, but she's describing that you have a
c that's halfway up the back part of the neck
and then it's angled downward to the front to where
your breastbone. This is your sternum. So for whatever reason,
(05:11):
this decapitation took that path to remove Elsie's head. Now,
typically a torso is usually just the upper body the
rib cage down to the pelvis, and that the extremities
have been removed, so the arms, the legs, and the
head have been removed. That's usually how a torso is defined.
(05:33):
And oftentimes you'll see where a torso is further dissected
into an upper and lower part.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Okay, so at least we have information because we have
these body parts. Like I remember reading how all pieces
of the body would be valuable, but a torso would
be value vulnerable organs, we will know if she was
actually pregnant. Is that right? Is that what we can
assume here with.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
The torso very possibly know with such a large part
of the body. Oftentimes the injuries that cause death are
present within the torso area, like a stabbing to the
heart or a gunshot wound, but not necessarily and with
Elsie's case, yes, it provided that the reproductive organs are
(06:20):
still present, that they would be able to determine if
she had been pregnant.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
What Helena says, which is interesting, is that he had
put her head in a tin, and she believed it was.
And I think the prosecutors eventually will say that he
put her head in a tin to prevent its quick
decomposition as part of evidence, because the way he severed
(06:46):
her head preserved the neck. So the prosecutors believe that
he put this head in the tin so that they
will be able to clearly see her neck. Okay, do
you see where this could be going? What his defense
could be here?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Well, at least with the way I'm interpreting that he's
wanting to preserve the neck as evidence that indicates that
the neck is demonstrating possibly cause of death ligature and
or manual strangulation cut throat stabbing to the neck, which,
considering in my assessment of Norman, he's stupid from a
(07:25):
committing crime standpoint. At this point, we don't know if
he's one who actually killed Elsie, but in essence to
scatter her body on his property, the suitcase is buried
on his property, her jewelry's on the property. You generally
don't want to do that because it just points the
fingers right back at you. And it doesn't sound like
(07:46):
he did really all that great of a job of
getting rid of this evidence in terms of hiding it.
But for him to claim that he's preserving Elsie's head
and neck because the neck is going to provide evidence.
That's why he's decapitating her in the way he did.
I'm surprised that he did that. I'm not sure how
(08:08):
it can be used as a defense just yet. So
I'm very interested to hear more as you go along.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
And you know, I don't think he said that. I
think that Helena, the barrister, assumed that's why he was
doing it. But now you're going to know why. So
the police interrogate Norman. He does admit to dismembering Elsie.
He's adamant he did not murder her, and so he
starts to unravel this story to explain to the police
(08:36):
how all this came about. He says that on December fifth,
she surprised him, you know, as was probably her point.
She shows up at the farm a day early. He
had gotten her letter saying she would be there on
the sixth. She shows up on the fifth. She says,
we're getting married. I'm moving in with you in this
tiny eighty five square foot renal hut, and sort of
(08:58):
that is that I don't think that this was a
romantic discussion. I think this was probably kind of a
threatening in some way discussion like this, you know, this
is the way it is. I don't care about your girlfriend.
We are doing this because this is the situation we're in.
They begin arguing, and Norman said to Elsie, I'm meeting
this woman. I had plans to meet her and her
(09:20):
mother at the train station later today. Norman says that
he promised to help Elizabeth and her mom carry some
packages back to their house. Remember I think that they're
close by, And he said, you're not moving in with me.
I'm going this is not happening. I don't want to
be in a relationship with you anymore. He didn't acknowledge
(09:40):
the baby, it sounds like, at least he says that
he didn't. He said, I am going to go find
a room for you to stay in where you know
you don't have to go back tonight if you want.
But he said, you know you're not going to move
in with me. He says he left the hut he
met with Elizabeth. He said when he came back a
few hours later, Elsie was dead. She had hanged herself
(10:03):
in his hut using his washing line. Okay, that's why
the barrister believes he preserved her head and neck so
you could see the mark and it would back up
his story. He said he found her body. He panicked.
He thought because of their what was turning into a
very acrimonious situation between the two of them, that he
would be pegged rightly for her murder. And so instead
(10:26):
of going to get help, you know, to see if
she was still alive or something, he chose to dismember
her body with a hacksaw. He buried her remains, which
we know, and then he said he burned her clothing
in his stove. And now you can react, and now
we know why he did this.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Well, you know, it is a plausible scenario in terms
of the relationship and the position Norman has taken somewhat
with Elsie's predisposition to depression. I guess you know, at
least with you know, some of the concerns about her
mental health. But this is where it comes down to, Okay,
what does this neck show. Are the injuries to the
(11:04):
neck consistent with the hanging or is there something more
going on? And my concern is is whether or not
they have a reasonably competent pathologist or medical personnel who
can assess that accurately.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
We do, but we don't know if he's on the
right side or not. So this is where we have
to figure out which way we want to go. There
is the finding of the corner's jury, there is the
corner's report, and of course the pregnancy, and then we
have the experts coming in and Bernard Spillsbury, who you've
(11:43):
heard of before because we've talked about him on several cases.
He is the most well known pathologist I believe, in
Great Britain history. So he ends up coming in on
this case. And I'm not going to tell you what
side he comes in on yet, but do we want
to go in order and just sort of see what
everybody's saying steps along the way, or do you want
to jump the neck doesn't come in until Spillsbury comes in.
(12:06):
I will remind you though they said advanced decomposition, even
though it was December, even though he put it in
a ten. Yeah, there's some difficulty in figuring out what
happened in this case. It's not clear cut.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Now, just go in order.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
So Norman makes this admission, and then of course investigators
and the Crown prosecutors say well, we're going to have
to figure out what's what here, because they did know
about her supposed mental condition. There's all sorts of misogyny
happening in the media and with doctors in this time period.
I don't know truly what Elsie's condition was. You know,
(12:45):
this is before she was pregnant, when they were calling
her kind of melancholy and everything else, she could have
truly been, you know, really going through something. I think
that was an observation from her parents. Also, it's just
hard to know because of this time period, how severe,
how competent the doctors were, any of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
You also just think about just her, you know, the
state of the relationship and where it's at. Yeah, I
think the average person is going to be upset, probably depressed.
This man that she loves is in love with another woman.
You know, life is going to get difficult to Elsie.
So just the observations of being melancholy depressed, you know,
(13:26):
I don't think that's indicative of somebody who is suicidal
or somebody who's going to strike out in a rage
or a violent act.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Absolutely, So you know, what we do know is that
she ended up dismembered and dead, and we're just trying
to figure out whether he was the cause of it
or whether she was the cause of it. So one
thing that was interesting from the book that I had
just written the Senners all about was, you know, this
was the story of a woman who was found hanging
just sort of like this, at least Norman claims that's
(13:56):
what happened. And the argument was that she was Sarah
Cornell was incredibly depressed, very upset about, you know, being pregnant,
and what she said was a sexual assault. And there
was a woman who got on the stand one of
the matrons. I don't think I told you this when
I talked to you about the book. There was a
woman who got on the stand in Sarah's case and
the prosecutor said to her, do you think Ephraim Avery
(14:20):
killed Sarah Cornell? And she was very cagy, but what
she said was one way or the other, he's responsible
for her death. So it's either he murdered her or
what he did to her, which she says was a
sexual assault and resulting in a pregnancy, resulted in her
taking her own life, which I thought was one of
the most interesting, you know, lines in the whole book.
(14:42):
One way or the other, this man is absolutely responsible
for her death, and I think that's what we're trying
to figure out. But this body is decomposing, you know
every second.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
With Elsie's case, you could have Norman who actually did
kill her and then is trying to cover up the crime.
Or if the circumstances of the relationship with Norman are such,
you know, then you could say, yeah, indirectly, you know,
Norman could be thought to be responsible for Elsie taking
her life. But you know, from a legal standpoint, you know,
(15:15):
homicide is defined as you know, death at the hands
of another. Fundamentally, you know, just because you get into
a bad relationship doesn't make that one person responsible for
somebody taking their own life. So that's just an interesting thought.
But again, I'm wanting the details about Elsie. I want
to see if we can, you know, kind of really
(15:38):
figure out what happened here.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Well, here's the first bombshell when they do an autopsy.
Elsie was not pregnant, So she could have legitimately thought
she was and didn't know that she wasn't. Maybe she
had an irregular period. I don't know. That's why I'm
saying I'm fairly certain she didn't go to a doctor
who would have confirmed it. I meane, teen thirty two
(16:01):
a doctor confirmed that Sarah Cornell was pregnant, so they
would be able to confirm it. She was certainly not pregnant,
but of course the rumor was that she lied to
pressure Norman into marrying her. So what you know about Elsie?
I have an opinion? What's your opinion about I don't
know if this is victimology, but what do you think?
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Well, I think the first thing that comes to my
mind is in terms of now law enforcement is investigating
this case, and at a certain point, Elsie is indicating
that she's pregnant. From Norman's perspective and maybe even from
the parent's perspective. You know, when did Elsie conceive? Did
she visit Norman three months prior? You know a Norman
(16:46):
say yeah we had sex, you know, and the parents said, yeah,
she was out there three months ago. Then I would expect,
you know, at autopsy, that they would be able to
even at this time frame to determine that, you know,
she was pregnant. But let's say she's only a couple
of weeks long. Right as she's mister period and advanced
state of decomposition, it may be tough, you know, for
(17:09):
pathologists to conclude whether she's pregnant or not. So that's
where I think, you know, the first part of what
I would drill down on with the medical side. But
most certainly you know, this is where you know, at
the very beginning, I could sense that this situation with Elsie,
Norman is feeling trapped and Elsie could be using, you know,
(17:31):
this fake pregnancy as a way to further kind of
capture Norman into maintaining a relationship with her.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
For sure, one of the things investigators do when he
says that she had hanged herself was they start looking
in his hut for evidence of a hanging. So it
sounds like Norman had said he found her hanging from
the beams in the hut. I'm assuming this hut looked
to me like if that was the hut. Low ceilings,
It's seemed like though that might not be the first
(18:03):
choice for someone to use. It seems like it could
be difficult. Would it be unusual to find somebody from
a beam in a ceiling rather than like a doorknob
or something that's a little bit more accessible.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Well, you know, and I think you just you know,
stated that, Yeah, hangings can be accomplished from remarkably low
items that all you have to do. You can literally
be laying down on the floor and just have let's say,
the ligature around the neck tied to a doorknob, as
you mentioned, versus you know, the thing you typically see
(18:38):
on TV shows or in the movies where somebody goes
over a wood beam and is standing on a stool
and then kicks the stool away. More of you know,
like being you know hung, you know, in public executions.
So at least with cases you know that we typically see,
you don't generally see the you know, the hangings where
(19:00):
somebody is hanging from something really high up. Yeah, I
most really haven't had a case like that. Plenty of
textbook examples of that.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Oh okay, well, this is an experiment. I always find
experiments interesting. This I'm sure would not be allowed in
a court of law, and I don't think was in
nineteen twenty four. So the investigators want to know whether
or not there's evidence in the beams, like Norman said,
of maybe grooves that have been kind of cut in
(19:32):
or impressions made from this washing line that she used.
So this is what they did. They did a little experiment.
They filled sacks with weights equivalent to Elsie's body weight,
and then they suspend these sacks from the beams using
this same type of washing line. They make a note
of the grooves. They must have taken photos that were
(19:55):
in the beams, and then they, of course they search
all the beams and they find no similar grooves in
the beams. That does not seem like a great experiment.
Am I wrong here?
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Well, it's well, certainly a step to take if you're
looking for some evidence. You know, if Norman saying she
was literally suspended from this washing line and it was
tied around the beam, what kind of wood is it?
Does it compress? You think about a beam with the
hard corners, you know, the squared off corners, and you
(20:26):
have this weight that is focused in that wood. I
would expect that there would be some evidence, but maybe
it's more of the beam is more of like a log,
it's more circular. Did she just step off of a
chair and there's not a lot of swinging? You know,
(20:47):
maybe you're not going to see a brace of actions
by this washing line, and it comes down to how
is the washing line actually you know, secured to the beam.
I mean, there's a lot of variables here. Yeah, so
you know, the experiment that they did is a step
to evalue weight, but there's probably more steps that need
(21:08):
to be thought of and looked at. But I go,
you know, back to the autopsy, and I know you're you're,
you're holding out on me with with the neck injuries,
because you know, what they see with the neck could
be pretty diagnostic in terms of whether you know, she
was truly hanging with full body weight or she was strangled.
(21:30):
You know. So that's where I'm kind of again, I'm
kind of focusing in on what I think is going
to answer the question.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Well, just to wrap up the question about the beams,
Norman's defense is later going to say this is all
bs because you know, we weren't there to supervise the
experiment number one, And just like what you said, there
are minute details about the wage distribution, the placement of
the washing line bodies are different than sacks full of
(22:00):
all of that stuff. So I think that was not
allowed in or dismissed, So don't worry about that too much.
There was a big question as they're going through their
investigation about her mental health. They said, you know, assuming
that she was genuinely pregnant, which seems possible, would she
(22:20):
actually take her own life and that of her unborn
child's life. To be honest, don't take that seriously at all.
I just think people can be in a desperate situation,
and I would never predict that a lot of the
people that I read about would have reacted the way
they reacted. So I think, you know, in a high
pressure situation where she is feeling like she's having a
(22:43):
mental break, nothing would surprise me. But the investigators are saying,
this is not really the way this woman would have reacted,
and I'm not so sure.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
You know, that's so subjective, yeah, you know, and oftentimes,
you know, where there's these questions deaths, there's what's called
a psychological autopsy where they do dig into the deceased
mental state, whether it be mental health issues, what's going
on in the victim's life at the time, what prior
(23:15):
psychological evaluations have occurred, you know, And these doctors, these
PhD psychiatrists, you know, they have a background of dealing
with a broad group of individuals where they can kind
of say, this person, the deceased is demonstrating certain behaviors
that would be consistent with somebody who is possibly going
(23:37):
to take their life, but you can't say it with
any type of confirmation.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Okay, we have to move on to stomach contents, which
you and I both have said, I mean varies. You
can tell me what you think about this. The corner
says that after they analyzed Elsie's stomach contents, it looks
like she had eaten around two hours before her death.
But I know that the rate of digestion can change
based on the person or the food, all of that stuff.
(24:06):
So do you put much you know, veracity in that
sort of a statement two hours is when she ate you?
Speaker 2 (24:13):
No, I wouldn't in terms of putting it at that
specific of a figure. You know, it's more of has
the stomach emptied or is there still stomach contents that
are recognizable food stuffs, whether it be visibly recognizable or
even microscopically recognizable. And then the pathologists can say, based
(24:34):
on sort of the averages the last meal that the
victim ate is consistent with whatever this. You know, the
witness statements are saying, but in terms of trying to predict,
let's say, her actual time of meal, without any other
corroborating investigative evidence to suggest what time she last ate,
that's really tough, especially just to say it was about
(24:56):
two hours ago.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Well, our barrister Helena Ormanton, who I respect incredibly, I
think is really stretching here when I tell you what
she says in a second. So Norman says they ate
dinner around nine ten together, Elsie stayed for dinner even
though you know they were arguing in everything, and that
put Elsie's death if this is right, and we know
(25:20):
it's probably not somewhere in ten forty to eleven ten,
but that's when Norman was picking up Elizabeth and her mother.
Because it was a train, it was on you know time,
there was a schedule there. So it sounds like he
could have been lying. This is what Helena says. If
Norman killed Elsie Cameron, it must have been by inflicting
(25:42):
upon her multiple injuries just after they ate and leaving
her in a dying state so as to expire in
his absence while he coolly went off to meet the
other girl and behaved in a manner which seems to
have aroused none of her suspicions. That seems pretty specific,
especially when we're relying on something that's not particularly reliable.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Yeah, you know. And then of course, the you know,
the details about multiple injuries to Elsie, you know, are
those present at autopsy? Even though we're dealing with a
decomposed body, there could be still evidence of those injuries.
So it's corroborating. It's corroborating and refuting these statements and
taking a look at what the evidence says.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Okay, well, let's get to what the prosecutor of the
crown prosecutor ends up doing. He is ultimately arrested, of course,
for her murder, and a few months later, in April,
his case goes to trial, and everybody starts, you know,
searching for their experts. From American sherlock Oscar Heinrich was
asked to buy the prosecutor to come down for the
(26:46):
David Lambson case, a man who was accused of murdering
his wife in the bathtub. And Oscar gets down to
their little cottage where this takes place, and the blood
is for him in all the wrong places, and he
tells prosecutor, I don't think this was murder. I think
this was a slip and fall, and now I'm going
to go call the defense team. So I wonder about
(27:08):
that with experts, you know, do you feel like most
experts have that sort of integrity? Oscar did not always
have integrity, But do you feel like that or do
you think that they are truly There are a lot
of them that are truly kind of guns for hire,
and they'll say whatever, you know, the prosecutor or the
defense team, whoever's got the money, they will say whatever
they need to say.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Well, when you when you start talking about experts, you know,
ethics is everything you know, and it's it's experienced, it's expertise,
of course, you know, but it fundamentally does come down
to ethics. And unfortunately, there are individuals out there that
will tailor their opinions based on who's paying them, or
(27:49):
if there's any other type of bias that they may have.
And even sometimes ethical experts may form an opinion that's incorrect,
particularly when it is a subject matter that you don't have,
you know, the black and white, objective type of information
to form your opinion with.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Well, we'll see, we've got Bernard Spillsbury who is the
greatest pathologist in the history of pathologists, at least in
the UK. And he is very very well known. I
believed worked on the John Reginald Christy case, the one
I mentioned before, and he's popped up in several of
our cases. Now, Maren has said to me, this is
going to drive you crazy. She's convinced that there are
(28:29):
autopsy photos out there of Elsie Cameron, but she wasn't
able to find them, and so that of course drove
me crazy. And I searched for him. I couldn't find him.
So I wish we had photos because sometimes in this
time period we get well documented photos. So you know,
you're just going to have to go off of an
incredibly well versed, well known pathologist who is going to
(28:54):
be for this time period. We'll have the most educated
information for us. We'll see.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
OK.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
So this is what he said. He looks at the
throat and the way that Norman says he cut up Elsie,
and he looked at it and he says she did
not have rope markings on her neck. There is a
mark there and it's irrefutable, he says it. Everybody says
it visible to anyone who saw her remains. There's a
(29:21):
mark there, but he thinks it was a crease or
like a wrinkle, anything that you'd find on a neck
of a similarly aged person. So it seems odd. I
know that she's decomposing, but would he really mistake a
crease for a rope you burn or what impression whatever
(29:41):
that would have been in her neck. That seems like
two very different things to me.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Norman's describing what Elsie hung herself with as a washing line,
So I'm I'm thinking that this is a cordage that's
roughly maybe a quarter of an inch in diameter. Is
do we have any information more specific than it's just
a washing line.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
No, just a washing line. And it doesn't talk about
how thick it is or thin it is. I mean
it could vary.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Well, this is where you know Norman's statements in terms
of how he found Elsie, and it sounds like she
is fully suspended from a beam using this washing line.
Her entire body weight is now being focused on this
very thin cordage around her neck. These lines in a
true full body weight hanging, these are very significant and
(30:33):
deep furrows that are left behind in the tissues of
the neck. In addition, the structures inside the neck show damage.
So if Spillsbury is looking for these furrows under this
type of hanging and he's not seeing anything like that,
that's hugely significant from my perspective. He's saying, there's a mark. Now,
(30:58):
what is that mark? Is something, you know, a normal crease,
a normal anatomy of the neck skin, or is it,
you know, maybe an abrasion or something else that could
have happened during a struggle, you know, don't know, you know,
especially without the photos. But the lack of evidence of
this ligature digging into Elsie's neck, I've got concerns.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Yeah, and even if there were, Paul he could have
done it, he could have strangled her.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
So let's say there's ligature strangulation. That often is you've
got a different configuration in terms of how the rope
goes around the neck, and there can be variants. In
a hanging, a full body weight hanging, that rope is
going to be up under the jaw, and if the
person is like leading you kind of forward with the
(31:50):
rope going up from behind, you'll see abrasions and everything
else that show such a steep angle because the entire
body weight is pulling that rope up versus strangulation. It's
more parallel if you will, to the ground. If I'm
going to put somebody like in a standing position, now
it will vary, and you can also have it differ
(32:13):
from side to side. But a true full body weight
hanging is pretty obvious looking. That's where I'm going. Okay,
how Spillsbury is, he is a very experienced pathologist, and
he knows what to look for, and he's not seeing that.
I'm thinking, I've got concerns about Norman telling the truth.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
So let me tell you about the physical evidence that
Spillsbury says to him proves that she did not take
her own life with hanging. And then I'll tell you
what he says he sees probably happened to her. Okay,
so two different things for you to react to. So
here's the first thing. He said. Of course, she's in
a state of decomposition, so this makes it more difficult.
(32:56):
Buddy said that had she hanged herself, there would be
bruises and blood leakage into the tissue around her neck,
or he said, I would have seen signs of asphyxiation.
Do those make sense to you? No?
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Absolutely, Okay, you know the signs of the blood and
the tissues inside the neck as well as asphyxiation aspects.
You know, you're cutting off the blood flow to the brain,
you're increasing blood pressure initially when the heart is beating.
So now you get the blood vessels in the eye
starting to you know, kind of burst, These little capillaries burst,
and its classic patikia, these little red dots as well
(33:36):
as other blood vessels and capillaries in the face. And
then the neck. You know, you've got this tremendous force
in a full body weight hanging around the muscles inside
the neck, and so you'll see bruising or that you
know that noose is digging in the trachea, the larynx
(33:56):
can be damaged. So this is where all of the
this is absent. I was thinking, well, maybe there was
manual strangulation or ligature strangulation. But if he's not even
seeing damage to the neck nor you know, the signs
of asphyxiation, then maybe this is not a strangulation either.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Okay, now this is not me holding out on you,
but I did want to delay Spillsbury's observations because I
think he is the most reliable source here. And I
think it would have been case closed if I had
disclosed this earlier. So Spillsbury says, this is what I
think happened. Her glasses were broken nearby, her necklace was
broken nearby. He thinks that she was severely beaten and
(34:42):
suffered a lethal head injury which resulted in her dying
of shock. He says she had bruises on her ankles,
her elbows, her shins, some hemorrhage inside her eyeballs, and
a particularly large bruise on her head, which he he
says is a crushing blow. And I was wondering if
(35:03):
this memorment could have caused any of.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
This, But you know, well, I would say that Spillsbury
probably can account for what he can see in the
tissues based off of the dismemberment. Some of these bruises
and stuff most certainly could indicate a struggle with what
he is seeing internally is that there's a significant blow
and is this from a weapon? Is this from her
(35:27):
head being thrust up against the wall or down on
the floor. But it sounds like he is attributing her
death possibly to the head injury, and the other injuries
indicate that there was a struggle between Norman and Elsie.
You know, this is homicide.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Yeah, that's what he says. So of course Norman's defense
team disagrees. They hire three well known experts who, as
you can imagine, are going to contradict everything that Spillsbury says.
They say that the marks on are consistent with rope
marks made by hanging, not wrinkles. They were able to
(36:06):
see the body several weeks after Spillsbury saw the body,
and the body had already been in the ground for
several weeks, so you have to think that there. I
don't know why they were so late to the game,
but you have to think that the body had really
decomposed at that point. So I don't know, aside the
fact that they're contradicting, you know, this pathologist who is
(36:28):
well known, I don't know. I guess I would think that,
you know, they weren't given enough information to begin with
because they were so late to the party.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Here. Well, it also could just be battle of the experts. Yeah,
you know, the defense. You know, over here in the
United States, the defense has to put on a you know,
competent trial and find find experts to contradict somebody with
the reputation of Spillsbury, you know, and whether or not
(36:57):
these other medical experts or pathology truly have any expertise,
or if they do, are they altering their opinion right
now at least with what you told me. They said,
I mean, it sure does not add up. You know,
this is again taking into you have to take this
in context with Norman's statement of how he found Elsie hanging.
(37:21):
She's not laying down on the ground from a doorknob.
She is hanging from the beam, full body weight hanging.
That is so informative to what kinds of injuries her
neck is going to have. And Spillsbury knows that, and
it would be very easy in this day and age
to demonstrate that through photos of other cases, and people
(37:46):
would see, oh yeah, that's unmistakable.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Well let me just tell you for fun to you
know what they said. First of all, one interesting piece
of information is, you know you had asked about whether
the skull was fractured. It was not. One thing that
the original coroner noted about Elsie in her body was
that she had particularly delicate bones, so delicate that he
(38:11):
pointed it out in this report, which had been documented
in the autopsy and they were called as thin as
blotting paper. That's then one of the experts for the
defense said that if Elsie had been beaten to death
and suffered a forceful blow to the head, surely her
skull would have been fractured. Does that make sense to you.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
I don't think anybody could could make that statement. Yeah,
the observation of her being in anthropological terms, grascile versus robust.
You could have like a very robust person right with
robust structure, and you can have somebody who's grascile or
more petite in their structure. And yes, there's mechanical advantages
(38:51):
for strength purposes or resistance to forces with somebody who's
more robust. However, you know the skull itself. We don't
know the circumstances of how the hemorrhaging inside her brain occurred,
but the fact that the skull is not crushed in
tells me, well, it's not that big of a force,
(39:13):
and it's probably a very broad surface that the skull
is hitting. It's not in narrow it's not like a
hammer with a very focused force that can punch through
the skull. You can have a significant blow and I'll
use the example of somebody taking somebody's head and thrusting
it really hard onto a floor. It may not even
(39:36):
lacerate the scalp. However, the force is internal to the
skull potentially could cause hemorrhaging in the brain, subarachnoid hemorrhaging,
you know. And then so that's that autopsy where they
will take the calberium off, they take the brain out,
and they can see the hemorrhaging inside and go, yes,
definitely could be cause of death. So Spillsbury, I think
(39:58):
a spot on seeing something to his level of expertise,
to his eyes, that is significant enough to be a
cause of death.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Well, the doctor say he's all wrong, of course, I
mean they're getting this body. Several weeks later, one of
them said the marks on her neck did have blood
that leaked into the surrounding tissue, so that is indicative
of a hanging. That Spillsbury exaggerated the bruising on Elsie's body.
(40:28):
He said that it might have been caused as Elsie's
body fell to the floor after Norman cut the washing
line that she was hanging from. The hemorrhaging in her eyeballs,
he said, could in fact be produced by a hanging,
So I'll pause there before we get to their theory
about when she died and how she died. Does any
(40:49):
of that stuff add.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Up for me to differentiate Spillsbury and what he is
concluding versus these doctors, I'd have to see the photos,
you know, and maybe even take those foot photos to
a pathologist that I trust. If it's outside of my
experience and expertise. You know, this is where now it's
so hard to differentiate that kind of detail. You know,
(41:12):
It's just Spillsbury is a very experienced and competent pathologist.
I don't know the background of these other doctors. Are
they even pathologists?
Speaker 1 (41:22):
They are, they're professional pathologists who have testified, you know,
But again, even if they are being honest here, they're
getting the body so many weeks later she to be exhumed,
you know, her body was not being held in some
secure area.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
And also recognize, you know, right after she's recovered, technically
there should have been an autopsy done. Then you pull
in this noted pathologist who's now doing his own assessment
of the body, and we don't know exactly to what
extent he is altering the body, And then the body
goes into the ground, you know, and what kind of
(41:56):
process did the body undergo? You know, it's dismember They're
not going to embalm this body. How were these body
parts handled before they were dug up? Yeah, so, you know,
I think to your point, you know, you're recognizing, Yes,
the defense experts are having a worse starting point, you know,
(42:17):
in terms of what they might be able to see
so many weeks later.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
You know, they have to explain why there weren't clearer
signs of damage to her neck and bringing lungs and
all of that, you know, everything that Spillsbury's saying should
be there with a hanging that isn't there. So this
is what they say happened the defense. Instead of this
being a simple hanging where she, you know, her neck
(42:42):
breaks or she dies quickly, what they think happened was
she was only partially suffocated. By the time she was
found by Norman. He cut her down, she was not dead,
she was unconscious. He did not know he thought she
was dead, And they think she might have been alive
for several more minutes and then died of shock, which
is the only thing that they agree with Spillsbury on.
(43:04):
I mean, Spillsbury thought he hit her in the back
of the head and she died of shock.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
I mean, it's a possibility, you know, but that's where
you know, how long was he gone? You know, when
did she hang herself relative to when he came in
the door. I just go back to what I feel
is the most objective evidence that contradicts Norman's statement about
what happened, and that has to do with the Spillsbury's
(43:29):
observation of the lack of a rope furrow, a lack
to the damage to the next structures, a lack of
hemorrhaging to the strap muscles, you know, or any of
the other next structures, and these other pathologists are trying
to suggest that some of these other minor injuries to
the neck area are consistent with a full body weight hanging.
(43:50):
I put so much more veracity on what I'm hearing
from Spillsbury than these other doctors. And it has nothing
to do with Spillsbury's reputation. I just know what he
would be looking looking for and he's not seeing it.
And I'm going, Okay, she wasn't hanging the way Norman
says she was hanging. Mm, whether she's alive or not.
When he cuts her down. I mean that becomes trivial
(44:10):
yet O, because I don't think he's cutting her down.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Yeah. So with thank goodness, we're moving finally off of
the medical stuff. Norman takes the stand idiot and he
taught I mean, this guy, he talks about his romances
with both Elsie and Elizabeth, and he's definitely not doing
himself any favors. At one point, when he's asked which
woman he likes more, he says, I do not know.
(44:36):
I was particularly desirous of marrying any at the time
of the two. I suppose I thought more of the
other girl, which is Elizabeth. And then Maren has a
cheeky little note in here. She said, of course, it's
not exactly heartwarming thing to hear from the lips of
a man who had already severed one of the women's heads.
So this is all to say, you know, even with
(44:58):
the best argument from the pathologists that he hired, Norman
is not looking very good. I don't think things are
going well for him with this trial.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
No, you know, and they're hearing directly from him. You
know that he was partial to this other woman, Yeah,
you know, and we just know in these lovers triangles,
you know, jealousy and rage often went out, you know,
and this is where Elsie was putting demands on Norman
that was going to impact his ability to continue having
(45:29):
a relationship with Elizabeth. I mean, we don't need to
have motive in cases, but right there the jury is
hearing directly from Norman. He has motive.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Yeah, absolutely, So A couple of interesting notes, you know,
before we get to the verdict. One is that judge.
I mean, this was classic in the UK and I
don't know in this time period if the judges did this,
but the judge says to the jury upon giving jury instructions,
(45:59):
he says that Spillsbury's insight is quote the very best
opinion that can be obtained. I mean, how is that? Okay,
I probably agree with him, But these were similar instructions
that the judge in John Reginald Christie's case in nineteen
fifty three gave very biased, sort of like here's your verdict.
(46:19):
I mean, this is who you should be listening to.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
It's definitely biasing the jury. Yeah, you know, the jury
is there to evaluate each of these experts and the
veracity of each of their experts per their observations. For
the judge to come out and do that. Obviously, I'm
agreeing with what I'm hearing of Spillsbury's opinions, but completely
(46:42):
inappropriate instructions to the jury.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
Yeah, absolutely, and grounds for an appeal. I would have
thought the jury hands down a verdict and it's probably
no surprise that it's guilty and he is sentenced to death,
which you know, of course there is I will say
a little bit of a ruckus over whether or not
not the death penalty was appropriate in this case because
some people interpreted some reasonable doubt based on these three
(47:07):
pathologists who took the stand on behalf of Norman, Arthur
Conan Doyle. You know, Sherlock Holmes, author was one of
the people who said this should not be an execution case. This,
you know, we need to look at the evidence. And
he was not saying Norman is not guilty. He was saying,
I don't think there's enough evidence to warrant this being
(47:28):
a capital case. So the public got involved. It did
not help Norman at all, and he was hanged in
April of nineteen twenty five at the age of twenty five.
He told his father in the last letter two days
before he's executed. He writes to his dad and he said, quote,
never mind, Dad, don't worry. I am a martyr to spillsburyism.
(47:53):
The interpretation is that, you know, Spillsbury is a man
who so many people respect. If he says you're guilty,
you're guilty, regardless of if you are guilty or not.
Of course I don't think you and I believe that.
But that was his statement, was that, you know, obviously
he's blaming this pathologist for all of his woes.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
Well, I mean he's sitting there in court and he's
hearing Spillsbury, you know, testify. I got to think Norman
didn't know, you know, what kind of evidence would be
present if Elsie had hung herself. It's a from my perspective,
it's an obvious homicide. I think whether it's a death
eligible case, I think I don't know what the laws
(48:32):
of England are in terms of differentiating a death sentence
from let's say life without the possibility of being paroled. Right,
But you know, most certainly he's responsible, probably killed her
that evening and try to cover it up by dismembering
her body, getting rid of the evidence, sending letters back
to the parents' house, you know, just to stage the scene.
(48:56):
Everything is pointing strong at Norman and his I would say,
naive and ignorant perspective on what these crimes look like.
He came up with a scenario that he didn't realize
that pathologist would be able to differentiate what's going on.
He got caught.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
You know, I was thinking, Paul is all of this
started with her saying, I'm pregnant, and now you're going
to have to step up and be a man and
marry me. And if she really believed she was pregnant,
then you know, rightly so, and especially in this time period.
I wonder what Norman's reaction was when he found out
(49:38):
that she actually wasn't pregnant. I don't know if he
would have killed her. I think he would have said,
bug off, I'm breaking up with you, like many men did.
I'm leaving you and that's it. But I think it
was the pregnancy thing, the being trapped thing, that triggered this.
I could be wrong. He could have murdered many other
people after this. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
It does come down to, you know, kind of evaluate
the violence he inflicted on Elsie, whether or not he
felt trapped. It doesn't matter if Elsie's lying or not
about her pregnancy. You know, he acts out in a
way that kills Elsie, and that just demonstrates a certain
(50:17):
type of criminal behavior that somebody down the road may
be confronted with Norman's rage. They got the right guy,
came with the right verdict. Now, whether or not he
should have been executed, you know, I really can't say
or weigh in on that. It's just I'm not shedding
a tear for Norman to be frank No.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
I mean, the UK doesn't have the death penalty in
a longer. But I do think that this is always
a reminder, and I've said this with listeners all about too.
There are Elsie Cameron's and Sarah Cornell's before them, and
there are them that are going to happen tomorrow because
of the vulnerability of women when they are pregnant and
(51:00):
just the fear that comes up. And so you know,
this is why I think cases like this are really important,
and this is why we're not going to do a
story like this next week. I need a break from
I really felt I needed a break after Sarah Cornell's
case for that book. But I feel like we keep
doing these stories and there's like, I hope people finally
(51:21):
get it that women are really vulnerable when they're pregnant.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
Sure, no, no question about it. So I'm looking forward
to the different type of case you're going to bring
me next week.
Speaker 1 (51:32):
Yes, sir, I'll see you then.
Speaker 2 (51:34):
Sounds good.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
Thanks Kate. This has been an exactly right production for
our sources and show notes go to exactly Rightmedia dot
com slash Buried Bones Sources. Our senior producer is Alexis Emirosi.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 1 (51:55):
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Speaker 2 (51:57):
Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark and Daniel Kramer.
Speaker 1 (52:07):
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Buried Bones Pod.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded
Age story of murder and the race to decode the
criminal mind, is available now, and.
Speaker 1 (52:19):
Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life Solving America's Cold
Cases is also available now.
Speaker 2 (52:25):
Listen to buried Bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the
last twenty five years writing about true crime.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
compelling true crimes.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
new insights to old mysteries.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
This is Buried Bones.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Hey Paul, Hey Kate, how are you.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I'm doing well. I'm ready to get into this case again.
This missing woman who goes to find her fiance on
his chicken farm and then vanishes and her parents are
so upset about it. And then we make some pretty
big discoveries. And I know I left you hanging on
this case the last time, and we know that things
have gone very badly for Elsie.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Well, I would say so, I mean, considering she's dismembered
and scattered around Norman's potato farm and chicken coop areas,
so it's not a good place to be.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
I want to give a little trigger warning. We have
some talk of suicide in this half of the episode,
so I just want everybody to know that we will
be talking about someone taking their own life. So we're
in England nineteen twenty four. There's a young woman you know,
named Elsie Cameron. She's engaged to a guy named Norman
(01:59):
Thorne who who has a chicken farm outside of London.
She lives in London there, as I said, engaged, but
he is creating some distance and after a few years
of dating and then they become engaged, maybe about a
year earlier. She says I'm pregnant. He says I'm in
love with someone else, and she says, I'm coming up
(02:21):
on December sixth. We know she shows up on December
fifth instead, and then her parents don't hear from her,
and it's total devastation I'm assuming from her parents when
the police do a search of his chicken farm and
they see some freshly dug dirt and they dig and
they find several key pieces of evidence, so her jewelry
(02:43):
a suitcase, and then of course they come up with
a human torso, which we were assuming is going to
be Elsie's. So Norman, when approached by the police, says, okay,
let me tell you what happened. First, I'll show you
where the rest of her body parts are fine, And
they find her legs, in her head and essentially enough
(03:04):
information to give them some idea of what happened. So
I think my big question was why would Norman do this?
I know that he's caught with a human torso on
his property. He's not admitting to murder. He is saying
I dismembered her. So then the big question is what
is Norman going to say happen to Elsie? Where he
(03:27):
is so willing to turn over all of this information
to the police and let them search wherever they want
on his chicken farm when he had denied even seeing
her before.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Sure, well, obviously he's caught in a lie, you know.
So now he's the evidence has been found, Elsie has
been found, and he's offering up information, you know. And
of course is he minimizing during you know, this stage
of confessing, there's always that possibility he may admit to
select acts that he think are relatively minor and try
(04:00):
to point the finger at somebody else who's actually the
one responsible for the homicide. Now, I think, did you
say that he admitted to the dismemberment.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
He will admit to the dismemberment.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yes, got it, But he's pointing the finger somewhere else
for the actual homicide.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Sounds like it. So I'll tell you what Helena Normanton,
the barrister, says, because she was really heavily involved in
observing this case with this you know, kind of ilegal
eye on it. So Helena says that Norman had severed
the head halfway up the back of the neck, but
low down by the breastbone in front. Yeah, what is
(04:38):
that exactly? Because then they found the torso, and I
guess I assumed sort of, I don't know, maybe I
don't know the boundaries of what's considered a torso versus
a decapitation, you.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Know, at least the way that Helena is describing that,
And I'm not sure it's indicating the direction that you know,
the cutting occurred, but she's describing that you have a
c that's halfway up the back part of the neck
and then it's angled downward to the front to where
your breastbone. This is your sternum. So for whatever reason,
(05:11):
this decapitation took that path to remove Elsie's head. Now,
typically a torso is usually just the upper body the
rib cage down to the pelvis, and that the extremities
have been removed, so the arms, the legs, and the
head have been removed. That's usually how a torso is defined.
(05:33):
And oftentimes you'll see where a torso is further dissected
into an upper and lower part.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Okay, so at least we have information because we have
these body parts. Like I remember reading how all pieces
of the body would be valuable, but a torso would
be value vulnerable organs, we will know if she was
actually pregnant. Is that right? Is that what we can
assume here with.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
The torso very possibly know with such a large part
of the body. Oftentimes the injuries that cause death are
present within the torso area, like a stabbing to the
heart or a gunshot wound, but not necessarily and with
Elsie's case, yes, it provided that the reproductive organs are
(06:20):
still present, that they would be able to determine if
she had been pregnant.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
What Helena says, which is interesting, is that he had
put her head in a tin, and she believed it was.
And I think the prosecutors eventually will say that he
put her head in a tin to prevent its quick
decomposition as part of evidence, because the way he severed
(06:46):
her head preserved the neck. So the prosecutors believe that
he put this head in the tin so that they
will be able to clearly see her neck. Okay, do
you see where this could be going? What his defense
could be here?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Well, at least with the way I'm interpreting that he's
wanting to preserve the neck as evidence that indicates that
the neck is demonstrating possibly cause of death ligature and
or manual strangulation cut throat stabbing to the neck, which,
considering in my assessment of Norman, he's stupid from a
(07:25):
committing crime standpoint. At this point, we don't know if
he's one who actually killed Elsie, but in essence to
scatter her body on his property, the suitcase is buried
on his property, her jewelry's on the property. You generally
don't want to do that because it just points the
fingers right back at you. And it doesn't sound like
(07:46):
he did really all that great of a job of
getting rid of this evidence in terms of hiding it.
But for him to claim that he's preserving Elsie's head
and neck because the neck is going to provide evidence.
That's why he's decapitating her in the way he did.
I'm surprised that he did that. I'm not sure how
(08:08):
it can be used as a defense just yet. So
I'm very interested to hear more as you go along.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
And you know, I don't think he said that. I
think that Helena, the barrister, assumed that's why he was
doing it. But now you're going to know why. So
the police interrogate Norman. He does admit to dismembering Elsie.
He's adamant he did not murder her, and so he
starts to unravel this story to explain to the police
(08:36):
how all this came about. He says that on December fifth,
she surprised him, you know, as was probably her point.
She shows up at the farm a day early. He
had gotten her letter saying she would be there on
the sixth. She shows up on the fifth. She says,
we're getting married. I'm moving in with you in this
tiny eighty five square foot renal hut, and sort of
(08:58):
that is that I don't think that this was a
romantic discussion. I think this was probably kind of a
threatening in some way discussion like this, you know, this
is the way it is. I don't care about your girlfriend.
We are doing this because this is the situation we're in.
They begin arguing, and Norman said to Elsie, I'm meeting
this woman. I had plans to meet her and her
(09:20):
mother at the train station later today. Norman says that
he promised to help Elizabeth and her mom carry some
packages back to their house. Remember I think that they're
close by, And he said, you're not moving in with me.
I'm going this is not happening. I don't want to
be in a relationship with you anymore. He didn't acknowledge
(09:40):
the baby, it sounds like, at least he says that
he didn't. He said, I am going to go find
a room for you to stay in where you know
you don't have to go back tonight if you want.
But he said, you know you're not going to move
in with me. He says he left the hut he
met with Elizabeth. He said when he came back a
few hours later, Elsie was dead. She had hanged herself
(10:03):
in his hut using his washing line. Okay, that's why
the barrister believes he preserved her head and neck so
you could see the mark and it would back up
his story. He said he found her body. He panicked.
He thought because of their what was turning into a
very acrimonious situation between the two of them, that he
would be pegged rightly for her murder. And so instead
(10:26):
of going to get help, you know, to see if
she was still alive or something, he chose to dismember
her body with a hacksaw. He buried her remains, which
we know, and then he said he burned her clothing
in his stove. And now you can react, and now
we know why he did this.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Well, you know, it is a plausible scenario in terms
of the relationship and the position Norman has taken somewhat
with Elsie's predisposition to depression. I guess you know, at
least with you know, some of the concerns about her
mental health. But this is where it comes down to, Okay,
what does this neck show. Are the injuries to the
(11:04):
neck consistent with the hanging or is there something more
going on? And my concern is is whether or not
they have a reasonably competent pathologist or medical personnel who
can assess that accurately.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
We do, but we don't know if he's on the
right side or not. So this is where we have
to figure out which way we want to go. There
is the finding of the corner's jury, there is the
corner's report, and of course the pregnancy, and then we
have the experts coming in and Bernard Spillsbury, who you've
(11:43):
heard of before because we've talked about him on several cases.
He is the most well known pathologist I believe, in
Great Britain history. So he ends up coming in on
this case. And I'm not going to tell you what
side he comes in on yet, but do we want
to go in order and just sort of see what
everybody's saying steps along the way, or do you want
to jump the neck doesn't come in until Spillsbury comes in.
(12:06):
I will remind you though they said advanced decomposition, even
though it was December, even though he put it in
a ten. Yeah, there's some difficulty in figuring out what
happened in this case. It's not clear cut.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Now, just go in order.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
So Norman makes this admission, and then of course investigators
and the Crown prosecutors say well, we're going to have
to figure out what's what here, because they did know
about her supposed mental condition. There's all sorts of misogyny
happening in the media and with doctors in this time period.
I don't know truly what Elsie's condition was. You know,
(12:45):
this is before she was pregnant, when they were calling
her kind of melancholy and everything else, she could have
truly been, you know, really going through something. I think
that was an observation from her parents. Also, it's just
hard to know because of this time period, how severe,
how competent the doctors were, any of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
You also just think about just her, you know, the
state of the relationship and where it's at. Yeah, I
think the average person is going to be upset, probably depressed.
This man that she loves is in love with another woman.
You know, life is going to get difficult to Elsie.
So just the observations of being melancholy depressed, you know,
(13:26):
I don't think that's indicative of somebody who is suicidal
or somebody who's going to strike out in a rage
or a violent act.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Absolutely, So you know, what we do know is that
she ended up dismembered and dead, and we're just trying
to figure out whether he was the cause of it
or whether she was the cause of it. So one
thing that was interesting from the book that I had
just written the Senners all about was, you know, this
was the story of a woman who was found hanging
just sort of like this, at least Norman claims that's
(13:56):
what happened. And the argument was that she was Sarah
Cornell was incredibly depressed, very upset about, you know, being pregnant,
and what she said was a sexual assault. And there
was a woman who got on the stand one of
the matrons. I don't think I told you this when
I talked to you about the book. There was a
woman who got on the stand in Sarah's case and
the prosecutor said to her, do you think Ephraim Avery
(14:20):
killed Sarah Cornell? And she was very cagy, but what
she said was one way or the other, he's responsible
for her death. So it's either he murdered her or
what he did to her, which she says was a
sexual assault and resulting in a pregnancy, resulted in her
taking her own life, which I thought was one of
the most interesting, you know, lines in the whole book.
(14:42):
One way or the other, this man is absolutely responsible
for her death, and I think that's what we're trying
to figure out. But this body is decomposing, you know
every second.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
With Elsie's case, you could have Norman who actually did
kill her and then is trying to cover up the crime.
Or if the circumstances of the relationship with Norman are such,
you know, then you could say, yeah, indirectly, you know,
Norman could be thought to be responsible for Elsie taking
her life. But you know, from a legal standpoint, you know,
(15:15):
homicide is defined as you know, death at the hands
of another. Fundamentally, you know, just because you get into
a bad relationship doesn't make that one person responsible for
somebody taking their own life. So that's just an interesting thought.
But again, I'm wanting the details about Elsie. I want
to see if we can, you know, kind of really
(15:38):
figure out what happened here.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Well, here's the first bombshell when they do an autopsy.
Elsie was not pregnant, So she could have legitimately thought
she was and didn't know that she wasn't. Maybe she
had an irregular period. I don't know. That's why I'm
saying I'm fairly certain she didn't go to a doctor
who would have confirmed it. I meane, teen thirty two
(16:01):
a doctor confirmed that Sarah Cornell was pregnant, so they
would be able to confirm it. She was certainly not pregnant,
but of course the rumor was that she lied to
pressure Norman into marrying her. So what you know about Elsie?
I have an opinion? What's your opinion about I don't
know if this is victimology, but what do you think?
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Well, I think the first thing that comes to my
mind is in terms of now law enforcement is investigating
this case, and at a certain point, Elsie is indicating
that she's pregnant. From Norman's perspective and maybe even from
the parent's perspective. You know, when did Elsie conceive? Did
she visit Norman three months prior? You know a Norman
(16:46):
say yeah we had sex, you know, and the parents said, yeah,
she was out there three months ago. Then I would expect,
you know, at autopsy, that they would be able to
even at this time frame to determine that, you know,
she was pregnant. But let's say she's only a couple
of weeks long. Right as she's mister period and advanced
state of decomposition, it may be tough, you know, for
(17:09):
pathologists to conclude whether she's pregnant or not. So that's
where I think, you know, the first part of what
I would drill down on with the medical side. But
most certainly you know, this is where you know, at
the very beginning, I could sense that this situation with Elsie,
Norman is feeling trapped and Elsie could be using, you know,
(17:31):
this fake pregnancy as a way to further kind of
capture Norman into maintaining a relationship with her.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
For sure, one of the things investigators do when he
says that she had hanged herself was they start looking
in his hut for evidence of a hanging. So it
sounds like Norman had said he found her hanging from
the beams in the hut. I'm assuming this hut looked
to me like if that was the hut. Low ceilings,
It's seemed like though that might not be the first
(18:03):
choice for someone to use. It seems like it could
be difficult. Would it be unusual to find somebody from
a beam in a ceiling rather than like a doorknob
or something that's a little bit more accessible.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Well, you know, and I think you just you know,
stated that, Yeah, hangings can be accomplished from remarkably low
items that all you have to do. You can literally
be laying down on the floor and just have let's say,
the ligature around the neck tied to a doorknob, as
you mentioned, versus you know, the thing you typically see
(18:38):
on TV shows or in the movies where somebody goes
over a wood beam and is standing on a stool
and then kicks the stool away. More of you know,
like being you know hung, you know, in public executions.
So at least with cases you know that we typically see,
you don't generally see the you know, the hangings where
(19:00):
somebody is hanging from something really high up. Yeah, I
most really haven't had a case like that. Plenty of
textbook examples of that.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Oh okay, well, this is an experiment. I always find
experiments interesting. This I'm sure would not be allowed in
a court of law, and I don't think was in
nineteen twenty four. So the investigators want to know whether
or not there's evidence in the beams, like Norman said,
of maybe grooves that have been kind of cut in
(19:32):
or impressions made from this washing line that she used.
So this is what they did. They did a little experiment.
They filled sacks with weights equivalent to Elsie's body weight,
and then they suspend these sacks from the beams using
this same type of washing line. They make a note
of the grooves. They must have taken photos that were
(19:55):
in the beams, and then they, of course they search
all the beams and they find no similar grooves in
the beams. That does not seem like a great experiment.
Am I wrong here?
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Well, it's well, certainly a step to take if you're
looking for some evidence. You know, if Norman saying she
was literally suspended from this washing line and it was
tied around the beam, what kind of wood is it?
Does it compress? You think about a beam with the
hard corners, you know, the squared off corners, and you
(20:26):
have this weight that is focused in that wood. I
would expect that there would be some evidence, but maybe
it's more of the beam is more of like a log,
it's more circular. Did she just step off of a
chair and there's not a lot of swinging? You know,
(20:47):
maybe you're not going to see a brace of actions
by this washing line, and it comes down to how
is the washing line actually you know, secured to the beam.
I mean, there's a lot of variables here. Yeah, so
you know, the experiment that they did is a step
to evalue weight, but there's probably more steps that need
(21:08):
to be thought of and looked at. But I go,
you know, back to the autopsy, and I know you're you're,
you're holding out on me with with the neck injuries,
because you know, what they see with the neck could
be pretty diagnostic in terms of whether you know, she
was truly hanging with full body weight or she was strangled.
(21:30):
You know. So that's where I'm kind of again, I'm
kind of focusing in on what I think is going
to answer the question.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Well, just to wrap up the question about the beams,
Norman's defense is later going to say this is all
bs because you know, we weren't there to supervise the
experiment number one, And just like what you said, there
are minute details about the wage distribution, the placement of
the washing line bodies are different than sacks full of
(22:00):
all of that stuff. So I think that was not
allowed in or dismissed, So don't worry about that too much.
There was a big question as they're going through their
investigation about her mental health. They said, you know, assuming
that she was genuinely pregnant, which seems possible, would she
(22:20):
actually take her own life and that of her unborn
child's life. To be honest, don't take that seriously at all.
I just think people can be in a desperate situation,
and I would never predict that a lot of the
people that I read about would have reacted the way
they reacted. So I think, you know, in a high
pressure situation where she is feeling like she's having a
(22:43):
mental break, nothing would surprise me. But the investigators are saying,
this is not really the way this woman would have reacted,
and I'm not so sure.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
You know, that's so subjective, yeah, you know, and oftentimes,
you know, where there's these questions deaths, there's what's called
a psychological autopsy where they do dig into the deceased
mental state, whether it be mental health issues, what's going
on in the victim's life at the time, what prior
(23:15):
psychological evaluations have occurred, you know, And these doctors, these
PhD psychiatrists, you know, they have a background of dealing
with a broad group of individuals where they can kind
of say, this person, the deceased is demonstrating certain behaviors
that would be consistent with somebody who is possibly going
(23:37):
to take their life, but you can't say it with
any type of confirmation.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Okay, we have to move on to stomach contents, which
you and I both have said, I mean varies. You
can tell me what you think about this. The corner
says that after they analyzed Elsie's stomach contents, it looks
like she had eaten around two hours before her death.
But I know that the rate of digestion can change
based on the person or the food, all of that stuff.
(24:06):
So do you put much you know, veracity in that
sort of a statement two hours is when she ate you?
Speaker 2 (24:13):
No, I wouldn't in terms of putting it at that
specific of a figure. You know, it's more of has
the stomach emptied or is there still stomach contents that
are recognizable food stuffs, whether it be visibly recognizable or
even microscopically recognizable. And then the pathologists can say, based
(24:34):
on sort of the averages the last meal that the
victim ate is consistent with whatever this. You know, the
witness statements are saying, but in terms of trying to predict,
let's say, her actual time of meal, without any other
corroborating investigative evidence to suggest what time she last ate,
that's really tough, especially just to say it was about
(24:56):
two hours ago.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Well, our barrister Helena Ormanton, who I respect incredibly, I
think is really stretching here when I tell you what
she says in a second. So Norman says they ate
dinner around nine ten together, Elsie stayed for dinner even
though you know they were arguing in everything, and that
put Elsie's death if this is right, and we know
(25:20):
it's probably not somewhere in ten forty to eleven ten,
but that's when Norman was picking up Elizabeth and her mother.
Because it was a train, it was on you know time,
there was a schedule there. So it sounds like he
could have been lying. This is what Helena says. If
Norman killed Elsie Cameron, it must have been by inflicting
(25:42):
upon her multiple injuries just after they ate and leaving
her in a dying state so as to expire in
his absence while he coolly went off to meet the
other girl and behaved in a manner which seems to
have aroused none of her suspicions. That seems pretty specific,
especially when we're relying on something that's not particularly reliable.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Yeah, you know. And then of course, the you know,
the details about multiple injuries to Elsie, you know, are
those present at autopsy? Even though we're dealing with a
decomposed body, there could be still evidence of those injuries.
So it's corroborating. It's corroborating and refuting these statements and
taking a look at what the evidence says.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Okay, well, let's get to what the prosecutor of the
crown prosecutor ends up doing. He is ultimately arrested, of course,
for her murder, and a few months later, in April,
his case goes to trial, and everybody starts, you know,
searching for their experts. From American sherlock Oscar Heinrich was
asked to buy the prosecutor to come down for the
(26:46):
David Lambson case, a man who was accused of murdering
his wife in the bathtub. And Oscar gets down to
their little cottage where this takes place, and the blood
is for him in all the wrong places, and he
tells prosecutor, I don't think this was murder. I think
this was a slip and fall, and now I'm going
to go call the defense team. So I wonder about
(27:08):
that with experts, you know, do you feel like most
experts have that sort of integrity? Oscar did not always
have integrity, But do you feel like that or do
you think that they are truly There are a lot
of them that are truly kind of guns for hire,
and they'll say whatever, you know, the prosecutor or the
defense team, whoever's got the money, they will say whatever
they need to say.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Well, when you when you start talking about experts, you know,
ethics is everything you know, and it's it's experienced, it's expertise,
of course, you know, but it fundamentally does come down
to ethics. And unfortunately, there are individuals out there that
will tailor their opinions based on who's paying them, or
(27:49):
if there's any other type of bias that they may have.
And even sometimes ethical experts may form an opinion that's incorrect,
particularly when it is a subject matter that you don't have,
you know, the black and white, objective type of information
to form your opinion with.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Well, we'll see, we've got Bernard Spillsbury who is the
greatest pathologist in the history of pathologists, at least in
the UK. And he is very very well known. I
believed worked on the John Reginald Christy case, the one
I mentioned before, and he's popped up in several of
our cases. Now, Maren has said to me, this is
going to drive you crazy. She's convinced that there are
(28:29):
autopsy photos out there of Elsie Cameron, but she wasn't
able to find them, and so that of course drove
me crazy. And I searched for him. I couldn't find him.
So I wish we had photos because sometimes in this
time period we get well documented photos. So you know,
you're just going to have to go off of an
incredibly well versed, well known pathologist who is going to
(28:54):
be for this time period. We'll have the most educated
information for us. We'll see.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
OK.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
So this is what he said. He looks at the
throat and the way that Norman says he cut up Elsie,
and he looked at it and he says she did
not have rope markings on her neck. There is a
mark there and it's irrefutable, he says it. Everybody says
it visible to anyone who saw her remains. There's a
(29:21):
mark there, but he thinks it was a crease or
like a wrinkle, anything that you'd find on a neck
of a similarly aged person. So it seems odd. I
know that she's decomposing, but would he really mistake a
crease for a rope you burn or what impression whatever
(29:41):
that would have been in her neck. That seems like
two very different things to me.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Norman's describing what Elsie hung herself with as a washing line,
So I'm I'm thinking that this is a cordage that's
roughly maybe a quarter of an inch in diameter. Is
do we have any information more specific than it's just
a washing line.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
No, just a washing line. And it doesn't talk about
how thick it is or thin it is. I mean
it could vary.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Well, this is where you know Norman's statements in terms
of how he found Elsie, and it sounds like she
is fully suspended from a beam using this washing line.
Her entire body weight is now being focused on this
very thin cordage around her neck. These lines in a
true full body weight hanging, these are very significant and
(30:33):
deep furrows that are left behind in the tissues of
the neck. In addition, the structures inside the neck show damage.
So if Spillsbury is looking for these furrows under this
type of hanging and he's not seeing anything like that,
that's hugely significant from my perspective. He's saying, there's a mark. Now,
(30:58):
what is that mark? Is something, you know, a normal crease,
a normal anatomy of the neck skin, or is it,
you know, maybe an abrasion or something else that could
have happened during a struggle, you know, don't know, you know,
especially without the photos. But the lack of evidence of
this ligature digging into Elsie's neck, I've got concerns.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Yeah, and even if there were, Paul he could have
done it, he could have strangled her.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
So let's say there's ligature strangulation. That often is you've
got a different configuration in terms of how the rope
goes around the neck, and there can be variants. In
a hanging, a full body weight hanging, that rope is
going to be up under the jaw, and if the
person is like leading you kind of forward with the
(31:50):
rope going up from behind, you'll see abrasions and everything
else that show such a steep angle because the entire
body weight is pulling that rope up versus strangulation. It's
more parallel if you will, to the ground. If I'm
going to put somebody like in a standing position, now
it will vary, and you can also have it differ
(32:13):
from side to side. But a true full body weight
hanging is pretty obvious looking. That's where I'm going. Okay,
how Spillsbury is, he is a very experienced pathologist, and
he knows what to look for, and he's not seeing that.
I'm thinking, I've got concerns about Norman telling the truth.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
So let me tell you about the physical evidence that
Spillsbury says to him proves that she did not take
her own life with hanging. And then I'll tell you
what he says he sees probably happened to her. Okay,
so two different things for you to react to. So
here's the first thing. He said. Of course, she's in
a state of decomposition, so this makes it more difficult.
(32:56):
Buddy said that had she hanged herself, there would be
bruises and blood leakage into the tissue around her neck,
or he said, I would have seen signs of asphyxiation.
Do those make sense to you? No?
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Absolutely, Okay, you know the signs of the blood and
the tissues inside the neck as well as asphyxiation aspects.
You know, you're cutting off the blood flow to the brain,
you're increasing blood pressure initially when the heart is beating.
So now you get the blood vessels in the eye
starting to you know, kind of burst, These little capillaries burst,
and its classic patikia, these little red dots as well
(33:36):
as other blood vessels and capillaries in the face. And
then the neck. You know, you've got this tremendous force
in a full body weight hanging around the muscles inside
the neck, and so you'll see bruising or that you
know that noose is digging in the trachea, the larynx
(33:56):
can be damaged. So this is where all of the
this is absent. I was thinking, well, maybe there was
manual strangulation or ligature strangulation. But if he's not even
seeing damage to the neck nor you know, the signs
of asphyxiation, then maybe this is not a strangulation either.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Okay, now this is not me holding out on you,
but I did want to delay Spillsbury's observations because I
think he is the most reliable source here. And I
think it would have been case closed if I had
disclosed this earlier. So Spillsbury says, this is what I
think happened. Her glasses were broken nearby, her necklace was
broken nearby. He thinks that she was severely beaten and
(34:42):
suffered a lethal head injury which resulted in her dying
of shock. He says she had bruises on her ankles,
her elbows, her shins, some hemorrhage inside her eyeballs, and
a particularly large bruise on her head, which he he
says is a crushing blow. And I was wondering if
(35:03):
this memorment could have caused any of.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
This, But you know, well, I would say that Spillsbury
probably can account for what he can see in the
tissues based off of the dismemberment. Some of these bruises
and stuff most certainly could indicate a struggle with what
he is seeing internally is that there's a significant blow
and is this from a weapon? Is this from her
(35:27):
head being thrust up against the wall or down on
the floor. But it sounds like he is attributing her
death possibly to the head injury, and the other injuries
indicate that there was a struggle between Norman and Elsie.
You know, this is homicide.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Yeah, that's what he says. So of course Norman's defense
team disagrees. They hire three well known experts who, as
you can imagine, are going to contradict everything that Spillsbury says.
They say that the marks on are consistent with rope
marks made by hanging, not wrinkles. They were able to
(36:06):
see the body several weeks after Spillsbury saw the body,
and the body had already been in the ground for
several weeks, so you have to think that there. I
don't know why they were so late to the game,
but you have to think that the body had really
decomposed at that point. So I don't know, aside the
fact that they're contradicting, you know, this pathologist who is
(36:28):
well known, I don't know. I guess I would think that,
you know, they weren't given enough information to begin with
because they were so late to the party.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Here. Well, it also could just be battle of the experts. Yeah,
you know, the defense. You know, over here in the
United States, the defense has to put on a you know,
competent trial and find find experts to contradict somebody with
the reputation of Spillsbury, you know, and whether or not
(36:57):
these other medical experts or pathology truly have any expertise,
or if they do, are they altering their opinion right
now at least with what you told me. They said,
I mean, it sure does not add up. You know,
this is again taking into you have to take this
in context with Norman's statement of how he found Elsie hanging.
(37:21):
She's not laying down on the ground from a doorknob.
She is hanging from the beam, full body weight hanging.
That is so informative to what kinds of injuries her
neck is going to have. And Spillsbury knows that, and
it would be very easy in this day and age
to demonstrate that through photos of other cases, and people
(37:46):
would see, oh yeah, that's unmistakable.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Well let me just tell you for fun to you
know what they said. First of all, one interesting piece
of information is, you know you had asked about whether
the skull was fractured. It was not. One thing that
the original coroner noted about Elsie in her body was
that she had particularly delicate bones, so delicate that he
(38:11):
pointed it out in this report, which had been documented
in the autopsy and they were called as thin as
blotting paper. That's then one of the experts for the
defense said that if Elsie had been beaten to death
and suffered a forceful blow to the head, surely her
skull would have been fractured. Does that make sense to you.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
I don't think anybody could could make that statement. Yeah,
the observation of her being in anthropological terms, grascile versus robust.
You could have like a very robust person right with
robust structure, and you can have somebody who's grascile or
more petite in their structure. And yes, there's mechanical advantages
(38:51):
for strength purposes or resistance to forces with somebody who's
more robust. However, you know the skull itself. We don't
know the circumstances of how the hemorrhaging inside her brain occurred,
but the fact that the skull is not crushed in
tells me, well, it's not that big of a force,
(39:13):
and it's probably a very broad surface that the skull
is hitting. It's not in narrow it's not like a
hammer with a very focused force that can punch through
the skull. You can have a significant blow and I'll
use the example of somebody taking somebody's head and thrusting
it really hard onto a floor. It may not even
(39:36):
lacerate the scalp. However, the force is internal to the
skull potentially could cause hemorrhaging in the brain, subarachnoid hemorrhaging,
you know. And then so that's that autopsy where they
will take the calberium off, they take the brain out,
and they can see the hemorrhaging inside and go, yes,
definitely could be cause of death. So Spillsbury, I think
(39:58):
a spot on seeing something to his level of expertise,
to his eyes, that is significant enough to be a
cause of death.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Well, the doctor say he's all wrong, of course, I
mean they're getting this body. Several weeks later, one of
them said the marks on her neck did have blood
that leaked into the surrounding tissue, so that is indicative
of a hanging. That Spillsbury exaggerated the bruising on Elsie's body.
(40:28):
He said that it might have been caused as Elsie's
body fell to the floor after Norman cut the washing
line that she was hanging from. The hemorrhaging in her eyeballs,
he said, could in fact be produced by a hanging,
So I'll pause there before we get to their theory
about when she died and how she died. Does any
(40:49):
of that stuff add.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Up for me to differentiate Spillsbury and what he is
concluding versus these doctors, I'd have to see the photos,
you know, and maybe even take those foot photos to
a pathologist that I trust. If it's outside of my
experience and expertise. You know, this is where now it's
so hard to differentiate that kind of detail. You know,
(41:12):
It's just Spillsbury is a very experienced and competent pathologist.
I don't know the background of these other doctors. Are
they even pathologists?
Speaker 1 (41:22):
They are, they're professional pathologists who have testified, you know,
But again, even if they are being honest here, they're
getting the body so many weeks later she to be exhumed,
you know, her body was not being held in some
secure area.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
And also recognize, you know, right after she's recovered, technically
there should have been an autopsy done. Then you pull
in this noted pathologist who's now doing his own assessment
of the body, and we don't know exactly to what
extent he is altering the body, And then the body
goes into the ground, you know, and what kind of
(41:56):
process did the body undergo? You know, it's dismember They're
not going to embalm this body. How were these body
parts handled before they were dug up? Yeah, so, you know,
I think to your point, you know, you're recognizing, Yes,
the defense experts are having a worse starting point, you know,
(42:17):
in terms of what they might be able to see
so many weeks later.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
You know, they have to explain why there weren't clearer
signs of damage to her neck and bringing lungs and
all of that, you know, everything that Spillsbury's saying should
be there with a hanging that isn't there. So this
is what they say happened the defense. Instead of this
being a simple hanging where she, you know, her neck
(42:42):
breaks or she dies quickly, what they think happened was
she was only partially suffocated. By the time she was
found by Norman. He cut her down, she was not dead,
she was unconscious. He did not know he thought she
was dead, And they think she might have been alive
for several more minutes and then died of shock, which
is the only thing that they agree with Spillsbury on.
(43:04):
I mean, Spillsbury thought he hit her in the back
of the head and she died of shock.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
I mean, it's a possibility, you know, but that's where
you know, how long was he gone? You know, when
did she hang herself relative to when he came in
the door. I just go back to what I feel
is the most objective evidence that contradicts Norman's statement about
what happened, and that has to do with the Spillsbury's
(43:29):
observation of the lack of a rope furrow, a lack
to the damage to the next structures, a lack of
hemorrhaging to the strap muscles, you know, or any of
the other next structures, and these other pathologists are trying
to suggest that some of these other minor injuries to
the neck area are consistent with a full body weight hanging.
(43:50):
I put so much more veracity on what I'm hearing
from Spillsbury than these other doctors. And it has nothing
to do with Spillsbury's reputation. I just know what he
would be looking looking for and he's not seeing it.
And I'm going, Okay, she wasn't hanging the way Norman
says she was hanging. Mm, whether she's alive or not.
When he cuts her down. I mean that becomes trivial
(44:10):
yet O, because I don't think he's cutting her down.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Yeah. So with thank goodness, we're moving finally off of
the medical stuff. Norman takes the stand idiot and he
taught I mean, this guy, he talks about his romances
with both Elsie and Elizabeth, and he's definitely not doing
himself any favors. At one point, when he's asked which
woman he likes more, he says, I do not know.
(44:36):
I was particularly desirous of marrying any at the time
of the two. I suppose I thought more of the
other girl, which is Elizabeth. And then Maren has a
cheeky little note in here. She said, of course, it's
not exactly heartwarming thing to hear from the lips of
a man who had already severed one of the women's heads.
So this is all to say, you know, even with
(44:58):
the best argument from the pathologists that he hired, Norman
is not looking very good. I don't think things are
going well for him with this trial.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
No, you know, and they're hearing directly from him. You
know that he was partial to this other woman, Yeah,
you know, and we just know in these lovers triangles,
you know, jealousy and rage often went out, you know,
and this is where Elsie was putting demands on Norman
that was going to impact his ability to continue having
(45:29):
a relationship with Elizabeth. I mean, we don't need to
have motive in cases, but right there the jury is
hearing directly from Norman. He has motive.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Yeah, absolutely, So A couple of interesting notes, you know,
before we get to the verdict. One is that judge.
I mean, this was classic in the UK and I
don't know in this time period if the judges did this,
but the judge says to the jury upon giving jury instructions,
(45:59):
he says that Spillsbury's insight is quote the very best
opinion that can be obtained. I mean, how is that? Okay,
I probably agree with him, But these were similar instructions
that the judge in John Reginald Christie's case in nineteen
fifty three gave very biased, sort of like here's your verdict.
(46:19):
I mean, this is who you should be listening to.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
It's definitely biasing the jury. Yeah, you know, the jury
is there to evaluate each of these experts and the
veracity of each of their experts per their observations. For
the judge to come out and do that. Obviously, I'm
agreeing with what I'm hearing of Spillsbury's opinions, but completely
(46:42):
inappropriate instructions to the jury.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
Yeah, absolutely, and grounds for an appeal. I would have
thought the jury hands down a verdict and it's probably
no surprise that it's guilty and he is sentenced to death,
which you know, of course there is I will say
a little bit of a ruckus over whether or not
not the death penalty was appropriate in this case because
some people interpreted some reasonable doubt based on these three
(47:07):
pathologists who took the stand on behalf of Norman, Arthur
Conan Doyle. You know, Sherlock Holmes, author was one of
the people who said this should not be an execution case. This,
you know, we need to look at the evidence. And
he was not saying Norman is not guilty. He was saying,
I don't think there's enough evidence to warrant this being
(47:28):
a capital case. So the public got involved. It did
not help Norman at all, and he was hanged in
April of nineteen twenty five at the age of twenty five.
He told his father in the last letter two days
before he's executed. He writes to his dad and he said, quote,
never mind, Dad, don't worry. I am a martyr to spillsburyism.
(47:53):
The interpretation is that, you know, Spillsbury is a man
who so many people respect. If he says you're guilty,
you're guilty, regardless of if you are guilty or not.
Of course I don't think you and I believe that.
But that was his statement, was that, you know, obviously
he's blaming this pathologist for all of his woes.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
Well, I mean he's sitting there in court and he's
hearing Spillsbury, you know, testify. I got to think Norman
didn't know, you know, what kind of evidence would be
present if Elsie had hung herself. It's a from my perspective,
it's an obvious homicide. I think whether it's a death
eligible case, I think I don't know what the laws
(48:32):
of England are in terms of differentiating a death sentence
from let's say life without the possibility of being paroled. Right,
But you know, most certainly he's responsible, probably killed her
that evening and try to cover it up by dismembering
her body, getting rid of the evidence, sending letters back
to the parents' house, you know, just to stage the scene.
(48:56):
Everything is pointing strong at Norman and his I would say,
naive and ignorant perspective on what these crimes look like.
He came up with a scenario that he didn't realize
that pathologist would be able to differentiate what's going on.
He got caught.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
You know, I was thinking, Paul is all of this
started with her saying, I'm pregnant, and now you're going
to have to step up and be a man and
marry me. And if she really believed she was pregnant,
then you know, rightly so, and especially in this time period.
I wonder what Norman's reaction was when he found out
(49:38):
that she actually wasn't pregnant. I don't know if he
would have killed her. I think he would have said,
bug off, I'm breaking up with you, like many men did.
I'm leaving you and that's it. But I think it
was the pregnancy thing, the being trapped thing, that triggered this.
I could be wrong. He could have murdered many other
people after this. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
It does come down to, you know, kind of evaluate
the violence he inflicted on Elsie, whether or not he
felt trapped. It doesn't matter if Elsie's lying or not
about her pregnancy. You know, he acts out in a
way that kills Elsie, and that just demonstrates a certain
(50:17):
type of criminal behavior that somebody down the road may
be confronted with Norman's rage. They got the right guy,
came with the right verdict. Now, whether or not he
should have been executed, you know, I really can't say
or weigh in on that. It's just I'm not shedding
a tear for Norman to be frank No.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
I mean, the UK doesn't have the death penalty in
a longer. But I do think that this is always
a reminder, and I've said this with listeners all about too.
There are Elsie Cameron's and Sarah Cornell's before them, and
there are them that are going to happen tomorrow because
of the vulnerability of women when they are pregnant and
(51:00):
just the fear that comes up. And so you know,
this is why I think cases like this are really important,
and this is why we're not going to do a
story like this next week. I need a break from
I really felt I needed a break after Sarah Cornell's
case for that book. But I feel like we keep
doing these stories and there's like, I hope people finally
(51:21):
get it that women are really vulnerable when they're pregnant.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
Sure, no, no question about it. So I'm looking forward
to the different type of case you're going to bring
me next week.
Speaker 1 (51:32):
Yes, sir, I'll see you then.
Speaker 2 (51:34):
Sounds good.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
Thanks Kate. This has been an exactly right production for
our sources and show notes go to exactly Rightmedia dot
com slash Buried Bones Sources. Our senior producer is Alexis Emirosi.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 1 (51:55):
Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 2 (51:57):
Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark and Daniel Kramer.
Speaker 1 (52:07):
You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Buried Bones Pod.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded
Age story of murder and the race to decode the
criminal mind, is available now, and.
Speaker 1 (52:19):
Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life Solving America's Cold
Cases is also available now.
Speaker 2 (52:25):
Listen to buried Bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
Kate Winkler Dawson
Paul Holes
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