Erle Gardner: The Case of the Runaway

The Case of the Runaway Corpse

Erle Stanley Gardner

Foreword

Few people have any idea of the duties, the responsibilities and the uncanny detective skill of an expert medical examiner.

Some time ago, in Los Angeles County, a six-year-old girl was murdered by a sex maniac. It was the sort of crime that aroused a surge of indignation, followed by a wave of fear.

The sex killer was still at large. No one knew who he was. The murder had been unbelievably vicious and depraved, and startled parents everywhere realized that no child was safe until the killer could be apprehended.

The battered, mutilated body was brought into the coronerfs office, where Dr. Frederick D. Newbarr went to work.

The police had searched for weapons. They had found an ax and a knife.

Dr. Newbarr examined the body, with its multiple wounds, then said to the police, "Go back and search until you have found an ice pick and a ball-peen hammer. It is my opinion that those weapons were also used."

Then Dr. Newbarr did something no autopsy surgeon likes to do but which occasionally he is required to do under circumstances of stress and emergency. He dissected the tissue around the wounds and by a process of pathological deduction determined the sequence in which the wounds had been administered. Taking the four weapons in order, he determined which weapon had been used first, which second, which third and which fourth.

The police did splendid work in that case, but that work was sparked by the painstaking efforts of Dr. Newbarr. And when the killer was finally apprehended he made a detailed confession. That confession showed that the crime had been committed and that the weapon sequence was exactly as Dr. Newbarr had deduced in his laboratory.

Incidentally, we hear a great deal about crimes the police fail to solve. But how many times do we stop to think back and, as citizens, give thankful credit to cases of this sort where intensive, shrewd investigation runs down a sexual psychopath who is completely unable to control the distorted urges of his perverted emotions? Such a man will live quietly and unostentatiously, well known in his neighborhood as a mild-mannered, inoffensive neighbor, until some time when his surging emotions will take charge of him, independent of his own will, and transform him into a veritable maniac.

Dr. Frederick Newbarr is more than an expert pathologist, coroner's physician and autopsy surgeon. He is a medical detective.

He has done a great deal of work in the field of distinctive pattern wounds, and has, so far as is known, been the first to employ some techniques in the field of criminal investigation which have heretofore been used only in England and in Europe.

Dr. Newbarr spent many long hours working on the baffling mystery of the famous Black Dahlia case.

Since the police have not as yet closed their books on that case, and never will close them until the killer is apprehended, there are certain things which cannot be disclosed at this time.

But there is one interesting incident which indicates the thoroughness with which Dr. Newbarr works, and shows the peculiar problems a medical examiner is apt to encounter.

In the stomach of the Black Dahlia, Dr. Newbarr found certain peculiar threadlike particles which he simply couldn't account for. Apparently they were very small particles of wax which had entered the girl's stomach some time before her death.

This was such an unusual finding that Dr. Newbarr spent hours trying to find some reason that would account for the presence of wax in the girl's stomach.

Finally he solved the problem. The Black Dahlia had very bad teeth, and, according to her associates, when she was going out on a "heavy date" she would rub wax over her teeth so as to conceal some of the unsightly blemishes and cavities.

So this poor girl, thrilled at the prospect of a "heavy date," had carefully waxed her teeth that night in order to make herself more attractive to a man who not only murdered her, but who perpetrated such a series of diabolical and revolting mutilations on the body that even hardened police officers became sickened at the sight.

One needs only to work on the investigation of some cases where an inept autopsy has been performed in order to appreciate the work that is being done by men like Dr. Newbarr, men who are highly specialized in a field which, for want of a better name, I refer to as criminal pathology.

A list of Dr. Newbarrfs activities indicates something of his background:

Clinical professor; head of the Department of Forensic Medicine at University of Southern California; guest lecturer at the College of the Medical Evangelists; Chairman of the Southwest Regional Committee of the Educational Committee of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences; member of the Sub-committee on Education of the Committee on Medicolegal Problems of the American Medical Association; and Chief Autopsy Surgeon of the Coronerfs Department of Los Angeles County.Dr. Newbarr is a patient individual who starts on the trail of a criminal with dogged determination. There is a quiet, deadly persistence about him.

One of the best criteria to determine the efficiency of a medical examiner is reflected in the attitude of the criminal attorneys who specialize in defense work.

These attorneys are among the shrewdest practitioners at the bar. They learn to take a man's measure rapidly and accurately, and if there is any weak point in his investigative reasoning or his characteristic reactions, they can bring out such weaknesses on cross-examination so as to cause a maximum of discomfiture to the unhappy witness.

On the other hand when an expert is well grounded in his field, and absolutely certain of the position he has taken because he has carefully thought out all of the factual ramifications, defense attorneys leave him strictly alone.

Dr. Newbarr is very seldom subjected to any extensive cross-examination these days. For the past few years attorneys have made it a point to ask him one or two routine questions and then quit.

I asked Dr. Newbarr about this and asked him how he accounted for it.

Dr. Newbarr's answer was indicative of the man.

"If any cross-examining attorney can embarrass you on the witness stand it's your own fault," he said. "He's dealing with you in your own field. If you aren't sufficiently familiar with it so that an attorney can embarrass you, it means that you've been careless in your work. A man should never be careless in work involving life or liberties."

Dr. Newbarr could carry that statement just a little further. Dr. Newbarr isn't careless in anything period.

Among the men who are broadening the field of forensic medicine so that it is becoming of ever-increasing significance, Dr. Frederick D. Newbarr is recognized everywhere as an important leader.

And so it gives me great pleasure to dedicate this book to my friend:

DR. FREDERICK D. NEWBARR

Erie Stanley Gardner

Cast of Characters

Perry Mason—The famous lawyer-detective. His mousy looking client was wanted for murder in two counties

Della Street—Mason’s sharp-witted, well-built secretary. She wanted him to take the case to satisfy her own curiosity

Myrna Davenport—She said her passion was gardening, but her husband, Ed, claimed her real love was her poisonous plant sprays

Sara Ansel—Myrna’s aunt. She was fiercely devoted to her niece’s security and her niece’s money—but she stood to gain it all if Myrna was convicted

Mabel Norge—Ed Davenport’s willowy secretary. She had charge of his incriminating envelope—and also had access to his bank account