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Locals spotted the bodies in a water-filled quarry in Hopetoun, Scotland, on a Sunday afternoon in June 1913. At first, the men who found them thought the dark object in the water was a farmer's scarecrow, but on closer inspection they realized it was two waterlogged, decomposing corpses tied together. The police fished them out, but they knew of no missing children from the area and the facial features were beyond recognition. Even their sex was impossible to tell, and it seemed like an unsolvable case.
Young Sidney Smith, who would become one of the most notable death investigators of the early 20th century and make key contributions to the areas of pathology and ballistics, was assistant to the eminent pathologist, Dr. Harvey Littlejohn. Authorities consulted the two for the case, and despite the Hopetoun doctor's dismissal of an autopsy, the passionate Smith believed they should do everything possible to identify the children. Littlejohn granted him free reign to try his best, although the experienced investigators thought it a waste of time.
Smith accepted the challenge. He learned that the victims were boys and noted that the clothing they wore was not only identical but was also of poor quality. One shirt yielded a faint stamp that Smith traced to a poorhouse in another town. In addition, because the corpses had been in the water so long, their body fat had transformed into a substance called adipocere, which had a preservative effect. Indeed, Smith was able to see exactly what the boys had eaten for their last meal-Scotch broth-as well as determine that they had been in the water at least a year and a half, if not longer. Thus, recent reports of missing boys were irrelevant. Smith said they should be searching records much earlier, and the police discovered that two boys, ages 7 and 4, had gone missing from Fife in November 1911.
It seemed likely to Smith, who went to the secluded quarry, that the boys had walked there with their killer, so they had probably felt safe with him. Smith learned that their father, Patrick Higgins, had once been in prison for failing to support them, and he had faced that charge again just before the boys disappeared. When people...