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International
On a mission for marriage
On the 5 December 1924, 26 year-old Elsie Cameron got on a train bound for the town of Crowborough, Sussex to see her fiancé of two years, Norman Thorne, hoping to organise a date for their wedding.
When her family heard nothing of her for five days, they contacted Thorne, who said she had never arrived. The police were called, and went to visit Thorne, who ran a chicken farm. He appeared distraught at her disappearance and fully cooperated with police.
However, a witness came forward, saying that they had seen Elsie walking towards Thorne’s farm on the day she had arranged to arrive.
The farm reveals its secret
Police investigated Thorne further, and found Elsie’s bag buried on his land. He then changed his story, saying that Elsie had arrived at his farm demanding that he marry her, that he had calmed her down, then left to meet with another woman. His love for her was why he told Elsie he couldn’t marry her.
He then returned home at midnight to find Elsie had hanged herself.
He had panicked, dismembered her body into four pieces and buried them around the farm. However, examination of the body parts by rival pathologists led to one saying she had died from hanging, and one saying she most certainly hadn’t.
The case for saying she hadn’t was backed up by no evidence of rope marks on the beam Thorne had said she had been hanging from. There was simply a thick layer of dust.
Thorne was found guilty and hanged on 22 April 1925, but many disagreed with the verdict, including Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle, who was convinced of Thorne’s innocence.
The weight of words
The second case in this episode is another of divided medical opinion.
On 21 November 1931, Peter Queen walked into a police station in Glasgow and told the duty sergeant, ‘Go to 539 Dumbarton Road, I think you will find my wife dead’. Queen then maintained he had said ‘Don’t think that I have killed her’, but the sergeant believed that he had actually said ‘I think I have killed her’.
Police went to the address and discovered the body of Chrissie Gall lying on the bed with a tight ligature around her neck. Queen was arrested and charged with her murder.
Alcohol abuse
Queen insisted that Chrissie drank a lot and suffered from dark moods, and that she had attempted suicide just a week before her death.
