The legendary home office pathologist Keith Simpson was called to the case and he used the maggots to determine the time of death. By referring to the various stages of development of maggots he pinpointed a date.

This tied up exactly with the day that a man who was reported missing had disappeared. Even though this man, a Peter Thomas, came from over a hundred miles away, post mortem tests confirmed an identity match. 

The motive: money

A suspected was identified and a motive, money, established. But though the case against the suspect, named William Brittle, was growing, the time of Peter Thomas’s death was put in doubt when three witnesses came forward to say they had seen Thomas four days after the date that Keith Simpson had put as the time of death.

Professor David Bowen, who acted as an advisor for the defence team, describes how Simpson was adamant in his belief that the maggots were the truest indicator of time of death and in the end this is what the jury at Brittle’s trial believed. Brittle was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The second case in this programme looks at the importance of adipocere, the process that happens when a body is submerged in water for a length of time.

A prosecution thanks to preservation

In 1913 two small bodies were discovered in a disused quarry. The waterlogged bodies were found at post mortem to be those of two little boys, whose ages were put at seven and four years old. Barely recognisable as human, the bodies had been converted to a substance called adipocere. 

Home Office Pathologist Dr Dick Shepherd talks about the extent of the adipocere which meant that the pathologist Sydney Smith, who on this case began a legendary career in forensic science, could put the time of the boys’ death at about eighteen months prior to discovery. 

The adipocere had also preserved their stomach contents and it was established that they had eaten just an hour before their deaths, and that the meal had been of vegetables known to be grown locally.

With this information the identity of the boys was quickly established and their father, a drunk who worked at a local brickyard, was arrested. 

An interview with a local historian depicts the poverty of the time and the sort of man Patrick Higgins was. In the end he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.

• Read about the Murder in the Bank