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shyscyberchamber.com
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THE ATTIC
:
DENTAL IDENTIFICATION :
(Case Study) Another War Victim |
Date
Added
OCT 2002 |
A case that proved
fundamental to the development of forensic dentistry was revealed in 1942 when
Dr Keith Simpson was summoned to the ruins of a war bombed Baptist chapel at
Kennington in south east London. A workman helping to make safe the building had
prised up a stone slab in what had been the cellar and found beneath it a human
body reduced to almost a skeleton. First appearances - that this was yet another
victim of the Luftwaffe's Blitz on London - did not impress Simpson. War victims
did not, in his experience at least, bury themselves under stone slabs. Nor did
they
dismember themselves and jump into a fire covered with
quicklime.
The pathologists estimate of the
time of death one and one and a half years before; a check of the police
records for the area showed that a Mrs Rachel Dobkin, a former wife of a fire
watcher, had been reported missing 15 months previously. Harry Dobkin was
employed to look out for fires by a company of solicitors whose offices had been
located next to the Baptist chapel.
Although the corpse's lower jaw had become detached and was missing, the upper
jaw showed evidence of extensive dental repair. An interview with Mrs Dobkin's
sister, Polly, provided two vital clues - the first was that Rachel had been
suffering from a fibroid tumour (evidence of which was found in the remains),
and secondly that her regular dentist was a Dr Barnett Kopkin of Stoke
Newington. Dr Kopkin, meticulous practitioner that he was, had kept records of
the treatment undertaken with that of the upper jaw of the corpse.
On 26 August 1942, Harry Dobkin was arrested and charged with the murder of his
former wife. Three months later he was tried, convicted and sentenced to
hang. It had been an unlucky day for Harry when Keith Simpson was assigned
to the case; Simpson who went on to become one of the worlds greatest
authorities on
dental identification. |
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