The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Your chance to be on jury at retrial of 19th Century killer.
Dame Sue Black invites Dundonians to take part in restaging of Bury trial to be broadcast on TV
Fifteen members of the Dundee public are being offered the unique opportunity to form a jury for the trial of one of the city’s most notorious murderers.
William Henry Bury was convicted and sentenced to death for the brutal 1889 slaying of his wife, Ellen, in their flat at 112 Princes Street.
The verdict of jurors saw a noose placed around his neck as the 30-yearold – described as a drink-soaked and violent chancer – achieved immortality as the last man to be hanged in Dundee.
Were that not enough to seal his place in history, Bury also has a place in “Ripper” lore, having in his initial confession claimed to be “Jack”.
In death, his bones hang in the office of Dame Sue Black, celebrated forensic anthropologist and director of the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification at Dundee University.
Now, as it celebrates the 130th anniversary of the Cox Chair of Anatomy, established in 1888 as part of a major public campaign to establish a medical school in the city, the professor intends to re-enact part of the trial.
Professor Black and her team have been given permission to reconvene the High Court of 1889 in court 1 of Dundee Sheriff Court on the afternoon of Saturday February 3.
A volunteer panel of jurors will be joined by some of Scotland’s brightest young trainee lawyers, with a Dundee University legal team prosecuting and Aberdeen counterparts defending the accused.
They will do so under the guidance of two of the country’s top legal minds, in Alex Prentice QC and Dorothy Bain QC respectively.
The trial will take place over a number of hours, with Lord Hugh Matthews, a Senator of the College of Justice and a judge of Scotland’s Supreme Courts, presiding.
Top forensic experts will be among the witnesses, a narrator will describe what is happening, actors will assume key roles and the entire trial will be filmed by broadcaster Dan Snow.
The Courier will be on the press benches to report on proceedings, providing live updates as if it were covering a real trial.
Professor Black said: “The William Bury trial and his subsequent execution is a fascinating story in so many respects, from the reaction of the Dundee public, who were very much against the death sentence at the time, to the claims linking him to the Jack the Ripper case, and the circumstances of the death of his wife.
“We have excellent records of the original case, through documents held in the National Records of Scotland and press reports of the time.
“When the jury returned the first time, they found Bury guilty but asked for mercy as they found the medical evidence to be conflicting.
“However, they could only return with one of three verdicts – guilty, not guilty or not proven – and so were returned to the courtroom.
“This time they found him guilty and he was sentenced to death by hanging.
“We will now look at this evidence again in the light of modern thinking and see what the jury decides.”
During the original trial, the Crown alleged that Bury strangled his wife Ellen with a piece of rope, then cut her abdomen open and disembowelled her, possibly while she was still alive.
The court was told he had then crammed her mutilated body into a wooden trunk, breaking bones in her legs in the process. The defence alleged that it was suicide.
While awaiting trial, Bury told police his wife had “self-strangulated”.
He claimed that on the morning of Monday February 4, 1889, he and his wife had been out having a good time – such a good time in fact that he could not remember going to bed.
The following morning, he said he had wakened to find his wife dead on the floor and, fearing he would be apprehended as “Jack the Ripper”, picked-up a large knife and plunged it into her abdomen before attempting to conceal her body in a trunk.
By the time she was found, Ellen Bury had been dead for several days.
mmackay@thecourier.co.uk