WOMAN OF IRON NERVE

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 February 1927, Page 4

WOMAN OF IRON NERVE

TO AID CRIME PATHOLOGIST.

A woman who was behind the scenes of most of the famous murder mysteries of recent years, whose task was often so gruesome as to make the stoutest heart and the coolest nerve quail before it, who never sought publicity, yet who helped by her skill to unravel the tangled skeins of many crimes and bring their perpetrators to justice recently passed away. This woman was Mrs Bainbridge, who for years was the laboratory assistant to Sir Bernard Spilsbury, the famous pathologist. Iler name, perhaps, means nothing to the general public; the announcement of her death, in fact, was the first intimation the majority of people had of her existence and the part she lias played in the unravelling of crime. Yet within the intimate circle of expert witnesses for the Crown her fame was second only to that of her chief. They called her the “Iron Woman” —a tribute to her intrepid nerve and courage Whatever dreadful task she was called upon to perform, she never blanched; however ghastly and repulsive was the examination of the human remains —legacies of some callous murder —she faced it without a tremor, with the stimulus of science in the cause of justice ever urging her on.

“She did wonderful work,” Sir Bernard Spilsbury told the “Sunday Chronicle.” “But she never talked about it. Her wish was to remain in the background—unknown.” How Mrs Bainbridge came to take up the task she made her life’s work is a romantic story. She began it as a hobby, helping her husband, the late Professor Bainbridge, who died about five years ago at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. A very delicate man. Professor Bainbridge began to entrust more and more work to his capable wife, with the result that she soon gained a wide and practical experience. It was a trying task that few women would care to have undertaken, but Mrs Bainbridge loved it.

Gradually she came under its spell. When Sir Bernard Spilsbury, also at Bart.’s, needed an assistant, it was a natural transition that she should fill the post. Those whose business it is to attend murder trials will remember her as an unobtrusive, gentle-looking woman, who, the moment the famous pathologist enerted the witness-box, was ready with documents and details relating to the highly scientific evidence he had to give. That was the only part she played in public. Far different was the drama in which she had previously taken part in the secrecy of the laboratory.

It was she who helped in the reconstruction of the body of Emily Beilby Kaye in the Mahon murder case —evidence from which the prosecution were able to infer how she met her death, and which went a long way to hang the murderer.

The gruesomeness of the medical evidence was such as to shake the steeliest nerves. Seldom has murder been committed with such ghoulish brutality and fiendish callousness. But Mrs Bainbridge never shrank from her task. A butcher’s knife and a woman’s blood-stained clothes found in a bag deposited at the left luggage office at Waterloo station gave the first clue to the mystery. Close on this followed the arrest of Mahon and the discovery at a seaside bungalow near Eastbourne of a woman’s body, cut into small pieces, and with the head missing.

The place was like a shambles. One of the sitting-room grates was found to contain portions of incinerated human bones which had been sawn through; in a travelling trunk was discovered four parcels of flesh done up in brown paper. Reconstruction of these gruesome remains was the task which faced Sir Bernard Spilsbury and Mrs Bainbridge. The victim’s spine had been sawn across in four places. Placing the various portions together, Sil' Bernard and his assistant found that they fitted accurately, and almost, formed the whole of the trunk of the dead woman.

It was when they came to examine the bones found in the grate, however, that the greatest difficulty was experienced. There were nearly a thousand fragments of bone, many of them so small that could not be identified as human. Some of the larger fragments fitted together accurately, and were easily identifiable.

Bit by bit the story of the crime was pieced together in the laboratory like the parts of a jig-saw puzzle. When the time came the famous pathologist and his assistant had forged such a chain of evidence that the rope was already round the murderer’s neck.

Sir Bernard Spilsbury had been more in the public eye than any other expert witnesses in the country. No other man has solved more mysteries. Aided by Mrs Bainbridge, he has shown a perfect genius for reconstruct ing a murder. It was he, in his masterly re-build ing of drama of the “Brides fii the Bath” case, who wove such a nec of evidence that Smith’s doom was sealed.

Among the other famous cases he has investigated are those of Dr. Crippen, Major Armstrong, the Hay murderer, the South Kensington flat murder, Norman Thorne, and several sensational suicides, including that of Freda Kempton.

By the death of Mrs Bainbridge, he has lost an assistant whose place it will be hard to fill.