Of Scotland Yardxx-xx-xx xxx Dr Ruxton Axe Killer

I've been asking myself why it is that criminal trials grip the imagination of the meekers law by those among us. What is the psychological urge that holds us to the crime columns of our daily papers?

And sends so many of us packing to the public seats at the law courts. It's quite a question, isn't it? Well, I've got an explanation for you. I'd like to read to you a few lines written by a great British statesman and political writer of the 18th century.

Edmund Burke. This is what he says. The annals of criminal jurisprudence exhibit human nature in a variety of positions at once the most striking, interesting and affecting. The real culprits, as original characters, stand forward on the canvas of humanity as prominent objects for our special study.

That slightly antique phrase applies to the macabre figure of Dr. Buck Ruxton, who slew his English wife, lovely Isabelle, and Mary Rajasun, their son, and dissected their unfortunate remains into 200 all but unidentifiable parts.

Women in the crowded gallery of the courtroom faint and retired while expert witnesses gave evidence from the prisoners' written confession. They were sealed envelope addressed to a Sunday newspaper and in the custody of a friend who had strict instructions that it was only to be opened at the event of his death.

But let me take you back. Back to early September 1935. We shall go to the little English town of Lancaster. It's a pretty place. And at number two, Dalton Square, we find the well-loved Dr. Ruxton at work in his surgery.

Do you think the little chap will be alright now, Dr? He will be alright, Mrs. Davis. It was quite a simple operation, you know. But if he should be a little grateful when the anesthetic was of just giving him one of the established, crushed up in Mortar.