Show THE SALT EAKE TRIBUNE SUNDAY MORNING DECEMBER v refs - v I V B 1635 V © ©rs© i vi Wliy Identification Frequently- Is a Stumbling Block in Murder Investigations with - True Life Examples of How It Is Overcome By Jack Martin DUtlngutahed Crim® Reporter all a none ia more police problems than the tremendous OFperplexing task Identification a of in making murder especially when the victim is not found until decomposition haa destroyed moat of the physical torao 'x I"”' features Naturally the first job in all murder investigations la to establish a mo--- ttve for the— crime the'detecttves always hope and pray that the motive -- will point to the killer— But when they — can’t even establish the victim’s identity let alone tell why he or she was killed it calls for pretty brilliant work indeed if the case is not to go into the great limbo of the un- A " W- - I u V solved No one can estimate with any de- - ” gree of accuracy howznany murders — go unprosecuted in the course of a year simply because the authorities are unable to make identification of a heap of bones dug up In some back yard or vacant lot Barely a day passes when the remains of some unfortunate are not uncovered and more often than not they - are finally buried as John or Mary and in WraCH IS BEAL LIFE AND WHICH MOULAGE f A Sculptor Bebullt the Features of Kitty Schaeftner Vienna Actress So Ha$ Friends Could Identify Her and Her Murder Finally Was Solved in On of Europe’s Most Famous Crimes Above Is an Actual Photo of Miss Schaeftner and a Photo of the Moulage Statue Which Is Which? The Statue Is at Bight 4 7 Does pau- '&0K '— ' pers’ graves ' However -- ‘ spectaeular-sleuthlng in several different sections of the country recently has brought about identification In perplexing mysteries and this week’s Crime Classic Is devoted to telling some of tbs ghastly this expert true life detective work and especially in the torso murder mystery which horrified Madison county Kentucky recently It was about dusk one evening not long ago' when Stanley Isaacs a Madison county farmer homeward bound took a short cut through a field of — sorghum — and — stumbled — over— the— mutilated corpse It was the trunk and legs of a woman The head the left arm and the right hand had been severed and were missing The torso bore what appeared to he three bullet holes in the abdomen and was clothed in a pair pf cheap stockings a pair o and fragments V of a rayon step-in- s print dress lay nearby It was not until nearly 72 hours later than another fhrmer searching around the scene of the gruesome find ran across the head about 400 yards away in another cane field across a highway Decomposition had set in and the facial features were all but “completely obliterated Horrified and” sickened citizens who viewed the re- mains didn’t believe they ever had — — seen the woman before The' job of making the identification and catching the murderer fell upon the broad and capable shoulders of Sheriff John McWilliams and his deputies Leslie Turpin and Andrew Guyn For the first few days they were occupied in running down tips - that came to the sheriff’s --office and — fully occupied too for rumors flew thick and fast across the rural acres — Friends and - relatives women throughout the Hast flooded the office with telephone calls and letters One by one all of the leads were eliminated After a few days experts from the FBI in Washington were called to the scene and they definitely established that the victim had brown hair was probably middle aged and that she probably had worn false teeth which were missing But that was all they could establish At several times during the investigation the officers felt they were on the verge of succeeding in identification but in each Instance the person whom they believed it to be was found alive and well In each of these cases when newspapers had named the woman she herself telephoned the sheriff’s office and like the immortal Mark Twain and more recently Joseph “ Stalin announced that the reports of her death were greatly exaggerated Added mystery was the fact that persons visiting the cane field a few days after the body was discovered turned up a pair of women’s black slippers while the sheriff’s officers and all others who- had reached the field first were positive that the slippers had not been there at the time the body was f6und Did this mean that the murderer was still In the vicinity and taken to visiting the scene of his crime? Anyway they provided a new of-mis- sing -- 1 i - s secrets--behin- d “lead Days during passed into weeks which the body was buried in potter’s field Then five weeks after the crime Sheriff McWilliams' ceaseless checkups on the shoes and every other detail brought tha Information which led him Vv'4-- ' w &’’ 0 Two Legs and Feet Found In the Massachusetts Harbor Finally Mere Identified as Those of Mrs Grace Asquith a Well-to-P- o Widow Above and the Investigation of Her Murder Was Well Under Way Identification Was Established When the Feet as Shown in Montage Impressions Fitted Her Shoes Even to Callouses Jf j to Parkie Denny of West Alexandria Ohio and he announced that —Denny had made a full and complete confession Moreover the prisoner had turned over incriminating evidence and verified facts so that the case was t THIS SCAB UNRAVELED A KANSAS CITY MYSTERY absolutely complete He had killed his t wife Ethel For More Than a Year a Young Man Slain bi the Missouri City Remained Tha Dennys hotff natives of MadiUnidentified Then His Mother Saw This Photograph Recognized the Strange son county had spent a major portion Scar and Identified the Slain Man as Artemns Ogletree Her Long Lost Son f pf their 20 years of marriage arguing 4 ft to ' the husband and one day ' " according " while they were riding through the Kentucky countryside Denny decided to put an end to the strife He picked up a hammer from the floor of the car and pounded his wife on the head until she was dead he confessed Then he dragged the body into the sugar' cane patch and used hi's pocket knife to cut’ off the parts which were found missing He scattered them then returned to his Ohio home But like other slay- ers he had returned to the scene of the crime "I didn’t know the body hid been found or I wouldn’t have come back here” he told the sheriff Incidentally the fact that the officers first believed the body bore bullet holes whsto matter of fact no weapon ACCUSED IN KENTUCKY’S BRUTAL TORSO MURDER had been used goes to show further Deputy Sheriff Andrew Guyn Parkie Denny and Sheriff John McWilliams difficulties' that detectives face in of Madison County Kentucky Photo’d Alter Denny Waa Arrested for Slay solving mysteries of this kind It is ing His Wife and Dismembering Her Body The Torso Which Mystified next to impossible to tell exactly what the Kentucky Officers for Six Weeks Was Discovered in a Sugar Can® Patch causes apparent wounds on decombodies posed The identification in another “torso sensational murder mysteries in Eucation The photograph reproduced on murder” which made newspaper headrope was solved a few years ago when this page did much to convict the a sculptor reconstructed with moulage woman's husband Dr Buck Ruxton lines recently was likewise successfula face from a skull sothat friends of the two murders and he an from ' unusual approached ly angle AN UNPARALLELED CRIME EXHIBIT recently ' of the victim were able to identify her was executed A few weeks ago a pair of human Scotland Yard Sleuths Solved England’s Famous “Devil’s Beef Tub” MurThe woman was slain to be were found in a proved legs floating And Kansas City police recently reburlap ders When They Matched a Photograph of a Skull with the Photograph of potato sack in Boston Harbor The Kitty Schaeftner an actress from Viceived help in the most perplexing Mrs Isobel Ruxton and Finally Executed Her Husband Dr Buck Buxton enna and the skeleafter Massachusetts police were certain they mysterious murder mystery they had ever faced for Slaying Her At the Right Is How the Superimposed Photos Came Out had a murder on their hands but the ' ton was identified as hers the police when Mrs L E Ogletree of Birmingother parts of the body could not he had little trouble in pinning her murham Ala Identified der onto her sweetheart and he paid located of a young man murdered photographs his for crime his with life the were not in a Kansas Obviously legs enough hotel room as those to make identification so the authoriAmerican experts have had simitar of her longCity son Artemus missing ties began searching their records for success with moulage since Capt Ogletree t reports of missing women When they Grant Williams of California first The youth registered Under an as- learned that Mrs Grace Asquith 41 built up the face of Lillian White sumed name had been slain in 1935 a well-to-d- o widow had disappeared from skull her working only Friends He had a peculiar scar on the side of1 from her summer home at East Wey — were able to Identify the girl from his head and photographs of it were the mouth Mass authorities visited tha figure fashioned by Williams and in national barbers’ maga— her murderer finally was brought to published cottage— — zines and other publications in an eAn unfinished meal on a table gave justice ffort to identify him hut without suc— evidence that the woman had left hur- Then in Scotland a miracle of idencess However when the riedly but what was most incriminattification was made in the sensational' came to the attention of photograph Mrs Oglewas fact the that bathtub was mystery of the Women in "The Devil’s tree she ing thp recognized her son and made bloodstained and crimson stains were Beef Tub" near Lancaster More than - the positive Identification scattered throughout the bouse Final200 parts of human bodies were found These cases however are isolated ly the detectives found burlap bags there wrapped up in bundles Scotland cases when detectives have been sucthere identical to the bags which had Yard inspectors working as did the cessful But as noted more earlier contained the legs And moulage imBoston authorities in often than not are unsuccessful Asquith case learned that Mrs Isobel Ruxton and in their efforts tothey pressions of the feet fitted Mrs make such identifies- shoes found in the house even her maid Mary Jane had-beetlons Newspaper readers hear only Rogerson to indentations In the shoes made by of the cases when they are successful missing —callouses which showed up on the m ou- — Expert® took a photograph hfMrs" and rarely about the many cases when tage casts Ruxton and a photograph of the skull the Crimes go as unsolved But there In this case however Identification found In "The Devil’s Beef Tub" is at least one ray of hope police scidid not bring immediate solution of worked them together and entists are experimenting on new AMERICA’S FIRST MOULAGE EXPERIMENT positively the mystery by any means identified the skull as being that of means ’of identification and th® time Capt Grant Williams' California Criminologist Shown with the Moulage Mrs Ruxton even though all hair had is near when thes® perplexing mysMoulage casts by the way have ' a Skull from of Girl Murder Reconstructed He a Victim Friends Image been found of extreme value in makbeen stripped away and every conteries will not plagu® law enforcement Identified the Image as That of bliss Lillian White Her Murder Was Solved ing identification One' jaf the piost ceivable effort tnade to block identifi Officers 43) V cJt J rr J 'V post-morte- As-quit- m te -- CoPTricbL 1938 King Features Syndicate la |