Modern jury finds 19th Century murderer ‘not guilty’.

Jury seems to share 19th Century panel’s misgivings

One-hundred-and-thirty years after he was hanged for killing his wife, one of Dundee’s most notorious murderers returned to court to be “acquitted” of the crime.

Six of William Henry Bury’s vertebrae, snapped during his execution, sat on the dock at Dundee Sheriff Court as a modern-day jury found him not guilty of strangling and mutilating his bride, Ellen Elliot.

Jurors listened to evidence once related at Bury’s original trial, which took place in the very same court room, in 1889.

They also heard from two of the UK’s foremost present-day forensic pathologists, Dr John Clark and Professor Richard Shepherd, who had studied the original 19th Century reports.

The experts argued in favour of verdicts of murder and suicide respectively, though each agreed Ellen Elliot’s death could not be explained with certainty.

Where in 1889 that doubt caused jurors to find him guilty but ask for leniency, it led a modern day jury to find him not guilty by a majority of 13-2.

Celebrated forensic anthropologist Professor Sue Black, who organised the retrial, said: “The verdict was incredible.

“When, 130 years ago, the original jury found Bury guilty, they also asked the judge for mercy, which suggested that they had had doubt. “Clearly our jury also had doubt. “If you are going to condemn a man to death, then you need to have certainty and jurors then and now did not have that. As to the question of whether Bury really did kill his wife, the truth is that he probably did.”

The Crown alleged Bury strangled her with a piece of rope and disembowelled her before breaking her legs to cram her into a wooden trunk.

Dr Clark, an internationally respected expert who worked on the inquiry into the Srebrenica massacre, said the ligature mark found around Ellen’s neck ruled out traditional suspension hanging from a height, while the wound, coupled with internal bruising to the neck, led him to believe Ellen had been “killed by someone else”.

He said bruising elsewhere on her body, though not significant, indicated a struggle.

Professor Shepherd, who worked on the Bloody Sunday and Princess Diana inquiries, preferred a verdict of suicide.

He said the wound around Ellen’s neck could have resulted from suicidal strangulation, from a low object such as a doorknob.

The professor also said Ellen’s injuries suggested a lower level of force than might be expected from a drunk and angry husband intent on murder.

He accepted that suicide and then mutilation by another party, particularly a husband, on finding a body, was “extremely rare”.

Pictures: Steven Brown. The retrial took place in the same court room as the trial.

Lord Hugh Matthews who acted as judge.