Free The Mammoth Book of Bizarre Crimes by Robin Odell Page A

him. They were mindful about the skill shown in dismembering the body.
    Westlake told investigators that he and Laura planned to marry and said he had forsaken his medical career to come and live in California. With their suspicions growing, detectives followed Westlake on a trip he made to visit his son in Pasadena. In the garage roof of his son’s house, officers retrieved a set of surgical instruments wrapped in a newspaper dated 24 March.
    Further enquiries about the doctor’s background established that at least five people close to him had died suddenly, leaving their properties and financial assets to him. There were also rumours that he had been involved in carrying out illegal abortions.
    A coroner determined that Laura Bell had died of a blunt trauma to the head and traces of blood found in Westlake’s bathroom led to his arrest for murder. The evidence against him was circumstantial and he maintained that Laura was still alive.
    Dr Westlake was sent for trial in August 1929 when Laura Bell’s mortal remains were exhibited in full view of the court. The prosecution case was that he had killed the woman, cut up her body in the bath and disposed of it in the river. The doctor continued to state his belief that she was still alive and protested his innocence.
    After many hours deliberation, the jury brought in a guilty verdict but declined to recommend the death penalty. On 8 September, Dr Westlake was sentenced to life imprisonment in San Quentin. He was released on parole after serving fourteen years and he died in January 1950 at the age of eighty.

 
    CHAPTER 3
    Playing God
     
    Sir Arthur Conan Doyle trained as a doctor and practised medicine for eight years before starting his illustrious career as a writer. With this experience and his characteristic insight, he had Sherlock Holmes comment that when a doctor goes wrong he is the “first of criminals” because he has both nerve and knowledge.
    As a profession, doctors command all the skills and means to execute murder to perfection if that is where their mind takes them. By their very nature little is known of such crimes because subtlety and secrecy direct their commission. Yet doctors form an unusually large category in the annals of murder with the names of many well-known and infamous practitioners such as Crippen, Palmer, Pritchard, Ruxton, Webster, Petiot, Bougrat and others.
    It is to be assumed that when doctors fall prey to the human frailties that inspire criminal activity, they do so for the same motives that drive others; gain, lust, elimination and jealousy. Once they have crossed the Hippocratic threshold of not preserving life but of extinguishing it, they have a number of attributes in their favour.
    They are trusted and respected members of the community who enjoy access to people’s homes and private lives in the performance of their duties. Drs John Bodkin Adams and Harold Shipman were examples of medical men who exploited privileged knowledge of their patients’ lives for gain. Doctors, dentists and nurses have legitimate and regular access to drugs and possess the knowledge to guide their choice of unusual lethal agents that are difficult to detect. Dr Paul Vickers used a rare drug to poison his wife and Dr Carlo Nigrisoli employed curare with the same intention. Operating on a different principle, the expectation of disguising murder as fatal illness, Dr Warren Waite and Dr John Hill plied their victims with lethal concoctions of death-dealing bacteria.
    Given the attractive subtleties of poisoning or administering a lethal overdose of a prescription drug, it is surprising that doctors even think of using violent means. Yet Dr Geza de Kaplany opted for the use of acid, ostensibly only to disfigure his wife but, nevertheless, condemning her to a horrific death. Dr Yves Evenou’s choice of a weapon to murder his wife was a knife, although he directed someone else to use it.
    While doctors may sometimes by accused of playing god, it is