Sir Bernard Spilsbury - a legendary British pathologist
Described by some as the "father of modern forensics", Bernard Spilsbury investigated many famous murder cases in the early twentieth century, including the Crippen case. He became famous as an almost infallible authority in the courtroom.
Bernard Spilsbury was born in 1877 in Leamington Spa. After taking a degree at Oxford University, he then studied the then-new science of forensic pathology at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, London. From 1905, he performed autopsies in cases of sudden death, and began to give expert evidence in this capacity in court cases - coming to public attention in 1910 when he identified the human remains found in Hawley Crippen's house as those of his missing wife.
Spilsbury later gave evidence at the trial of Herbert Rowse Armstrong, the Herefordshire solicitor convicted of poisoning his wife with arsenic.
The case that consolidated Spilsbury's reputation as Britain's foremost forensic pathologist was the "Brides in the Bath" murder trial in 1915. Three newly married women had died mysteriously in their baths; in each case, the death appeared to be an accident. George Joseph Smith was brought to trial for the murder of one of these women, Bessie Munday. Spilsbury testified that since Munday's thigh showed evidence of goose bumps and, since she was, in death, clutching a bar of soap, it was certain that she had died a violent death – in other words, had been murdered.
Spilsbury was involved in many other famous cases, including the Brighton trunk murders and the Alfred Rouse case (the "Blazing Car Murder"). His apparent brilliance and supreme confidence gave his courtroom appearances an air of infallibility with jurors.
In later years, Spilsbury was involved in devising "Operation Mincemeat", a subterfuge during the Second World War which saved thousands of lives of Allied service personnel.
Spilsbury was also responsible, with a team from Scotland Yard, for devising the so-called murder bag, the kit containing plastic gloves, tweezers, evidence bags, etc., for detectives attending the scene of a suspicious death.
Spilsbury's peers became increasingly concerned that his over-confidence, and reluctance to show or share his techniques, was resulting in miscarriages of justice.
Bernard Spilsbury killed himself by gas in his laboratory in 1947. His suicide is thought to have been motivated by his own ill health and the losses of two of his adult children, one in the Blitz in 1940 and one of tuberculosis in 1945.
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