Читать книгу Fractured Silence - Emma Curtin - Страница 14

Norma’s parents told police that their daughter wasn’t subject to fainting fits, which had been suggested as the reason for a heavy fall. She was also, they said, “very smart in all her movement, and was quick and active on her feet”, discounting any idea of innate clumsiness.

Norma was fully dressed to go to golf when she was found and therefore not likely to have been about to have a bath, as her brother had suggested. There were no stairs in the house and also no apparent marks on the walls or the bathroom, such as blood, that would indicate a fall. Also, on his initial examination on the night of Norma’s death, Constable McDonald had checked the bathroom “but could find nothing out of place there, the floor was quite dry”– dismissing the idea that Norma may have slipped on wet lino.

The iron and golf clubs were also neatly stored away (not lying about haphazardly as they might had they caused the injury). Plus, all the doctors who attended Norma’s bedside were obviously suspicious enough about the nature of her condition to call the police rather than sign a death certificate for accidental death.

More damning was the statement of Dr Jock Williams, who identified the body of his cousin Norma: “When I saw the deceased I expressed my opinion that it was not an accident that had caused her death … I saw the skull cap of the deceased. I realised the full extent of the injuries that caused Miss McLeod’s death”.

The post-mortem examination would prove his suspicions correct.

On 10 September 1929, the day after Norma’s death, having examined her body, Government Pathologist Dr Crawford Mollison reported: “there was a complete linear fracture of the frontal bone which ran downwards in front to the base passing across the right orbital plate of the frontal bone immediately above the right eye, behind, the fracture had passed into the suture between the two parietal bones, opening it up, and at the back of the head it passed out again into the bone on the right side, on the top of the skull were small linear fractures running across the main fracture transversely”.

In layman’s terms, if you were to draw a line from the middle of your right eyebrow up across the top of your skull and down to the ‘bump of knowledge’ at the base of your head, that would represent the extent of Norma’s skull fracture. The small fractures at the top of the skull indicate that this was the point of contact. Norma had been hit on the top of her head and hit hard.

Mollison’s conclusion? “Death was due to injuries to the head which could not have been due to any ordinary fall, and in my opinion were caused by a violent blow from a weapon with a broad flat surface”.

Mollison advised Detectives Lee and Simpson of his findings. Accident had been ruled out. A new theory had to be explored.