Dead Men Do Tell Tales: The Strange and Fascinating Cases of a Forensic Anthropologist by William R. Maples, Michael Browning Page B
Authors: William R. Maples, Michael Browning
Tags: Medical, Forensic Medicine
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rounds of ammunition.
In short, Burgess was a creepy customer, a man with a violent past whose very sanity was open to question. Not wanting to confront him face to face, his reluctant landlord wrote a letter to Burgess’s probation officer. He complained that not only was Burgess squatting on his property without permission but he was also growing marijuana in the woods.
I have long since ceased to be amazed at the extraordinary quirks of our criminal justice system. The probation officer, a softhearted sort, did nothing more than write Burgess a letter revealing that his landlord had complained about him. In the same letter was a stern warning to Burgess—to destroy his marijuana crop.
This letter was the unfortunate landowner’s death warrant.
Completely unaware that Burgess was furious with him for tattling to his probation officer, the exasperated landowner went out to confront his trespassing tenant and have it out with him once and for all. He took his pet dog with him. Neither he nor the dog was ever seen alive again. When the landowner was reported missing a few days later, deputies went out to the property. There they found the victim’s pickup truck and his dead dog. As they searched the property, an investigator tripped over what appeared to be a stick protruding up at an odd angle from the ground. Closer inspection revealed it was no stick but the severed end of a human thighbone, with the flesh rotted, dried and retracted from it.
(An odd sidelight: a few months later, when the same investigator stepped into another patch of woods to relieve his bladder, he happened to discover another body. He had been searching for it for months, in a completely unrelated case. You would be amazed how many bodies turn up during these errands of nature; the body of the baby son of the famous aviator, Charles Lindbergh, was found by a truck driver in similar circumstances after the child was kidnapped in 1932.)
But to return to the bone protruding from the dirt: together with my archaeologist colleague, Dr. Sigler-Eisenberg, we set about digging up the remains. Both thighbones had been cut through and the legs placed alongside the torso in the grave. There was one rather shocking detail: the victim had been scalped, with the hair and soft tissue cut away from the entire top of the head. The body also showed evidence of shotgun wounds to the buttocks, the abdomen and the neck. He had been killed with three separate blasts.
Burgess had fled, but not far. He was reportedly seen going into the woods with a .357 magnum revolver a mile away from the spot where we were excavating. Immediately all the investigators rushed pell-mell from the scene, eager to catch the prime suspect. As the last of them faded from view, Dr. Sigler-Eisenberg and I looked at each other. We both realized that we were defenseless, alone at the scene of a terrible murder, with the probable murderer roaming in the woods nearby! We waited in some suspense until the officers returned a short time later—only to make themselves scarce again when it came time to hoist the rotting remnants into our vehicle. It is amazing how burly policemen can dwindle and disappear when there is dirty work like this to be done!
Burgess’s capture was a bit anticlimactic. While the search was still under way, he telephoned a neighbor who was a deputy sheriff and arranged to surrender to him personally.
The method of dismemberment in this case was unorthodox. Marks on one femur indicated that a knife was used to cut through the skin and muscle; then the knife was used to hack on the bones. If you have ever tried to use a large pocket knife or hunting knife to hack through a tree limb, you’ll find that at first it appears you are making great progress, but after a while your arm is tired and you are still no more than halfway through. The same thing seems to have happened here. Weary and frustrated, the killer then went for an ax and finished the amputation with a
In short, Burgess was a creepy customer, a man with a violent past whose very sanity was open to question. Not wanting to confront him face to face, his reluctant landlord wrote a letter to Burgess’s probation officer. He complained that not only was Burgess squatting on his property without permission but he was also growing marijuana in the woods.
I have long since ceased to be amazed at the extraordinary quirks of our criminal justice system. The probation officer, a softhearted sort, did nothing more than write Burgess a letter revealing that his landlord had complained about him. In the same letter was a stern warning to Burgess—to destroy his marijuana crop.
This letter was the unfortunate landowner’s death warrant.
Completely unaware that Burgess was furious with him for tattling to his probation officer, the exasperated landowner went out to confront his trespassing tenant and have it out with him once and for all. He took his pet dog with him. Neither he nor the dog was ever seen alive again. When the landowner was reported missing a few days later, deputies went out to the property. There they found the victim’s pickup truck and his dead dog. As they searched the property, an investigator tripped over what appeared to be a stick protruding up at an odd angle from the ground. Closer inspection revealed it was no stick but the severed end of a human thighbone, with the flesh rotted, dried and retracted from it.
(An odd sidelight: a few months later, when the same investigator stepped into another patch of woods to relieve his bladder, he happened to discover another body. He had been searching for it for months, in a completely unrelated case. You would be amazed how many bodies turn up during these errands of nature; the body of the baby son of the famous aviator, Charles Lindbergh, was found by a truck driver in similar circumstances after the child was kidnapped in 1932.)
But to return to the bone protruding from the dirt: together with my archaeologist colleague, Dr. Sigler-Eisenberg, we set about digging up the remains. Both thighbones had been cut through and the legs placed alongside the torso in the grave. There was one rather shocking detail: the victim had been scalped, with the hair and soft tissue cut away from the entire top of the head. The body also showed evidence of shotgun wounds to the buttocks, the abdomen and the neck. He had been killed with three separate blasts.
Burgess had fled, but not far. He was reportedly seen going into the woods with a .357 magnum revolver a mile away from the spot where we were excavating. Immediately all the investigators rushed pell-mell from the scene, eager to catch the prime suspect. As the last of them faded from view, Dr. Sigler-Eisenberg and I looked at each other. We both realized that we were defenseless, alone at the scene of a terrible murder, with the probable murderer roaming in the woods nearby! We waited in some suspense until the officers returned a short time later—only to make themselves scarce again when it came time to hoist the rotting remnants into our vehicle. It is amazing how burly policemen can dwindle and disappear when there is dirty work like this to be done!
Burgess’s capture was a bit anticlimactic. While the search was still under way, he telephoned a neighbor who was a deputy sheriff and arranged to surrender to him personally.
The method of dismemberment in this case was unorthodox. Marks on one femur indicated that a knife was used to cut through the skin and muscle; then the knife was used to hack on the bones. If you have ever tried to use a large pocket knife or hunting knife to hack through a tree limb, you’ll find that at first it appears you are making great progress, but after a while your arm is tired and you are still no more than halfway through. The same thing seems to have happened here. Weary and frustrated, the killer then went for an ax and finished the amputation with a
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