Journalism lecturer’s new true crime book to be made into TV drama

The Jigsaw Murders: The True Story of the Ruxton Killings and the Birth of Modern Forensics is published today

A new true crime book by Jeremy Craddock, journalism lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, has been published and has already been bought for television by the producer of ITV’s Vera.

The Jigsaw Murders: The True Story of the Ruxton Killings and the Birth of Modern Forensics was published by The History Press on May 28.

It is the first full-length, narrative nonfiction account of the 1935 double murders by Lancaster GP Dr Buck Ruxton.

Craddock first heard about the gruesome case as a child and it always haunted him.

Ruxton murdered his wife and children’s nanny in a case that gripped and shocked newspaper readers around the world.

The subsequent police and forensic work to piece together the human jigsaw puzzle revolutionised crime-scene investigations. Many of the pioneering techniques in the fields of reconstructive photography, entomology and fingerprinting are still in use today.

Craddock has taught multimedia journalism at Manchester Metropolitan since 2016 after more than 20 years working as a newspaper journalist across the north west of England.

The experience Jeremy has gleaned from writing the book has been looped back into his teaching of longform journalism to his students.

Craddock said: “I grew up in the Lake District and whenever we visited Lancaster, my dad would point out Ruxton’s house.

“I felt much of what had previously been written about the case was superficial and did not tell the human story behind the gruesome headlines. I felt the two victims, Isabella Ruxton and Mary Rogerson, in particular, had been poorly treated.

“I wanted my book to give these silent witnesses a voice.”

The book has taken Craddock four years to write. His research uncovered long-forgotten letters by the victims Isabella and Mary and an unseen diary belonging to Dr Ruxton, which had lain in archives in Lancaster for almost 90 years.

Craddock said: “The most rewarding part about writing the book was uncovering the fine-grain detail that had never been told before. There was so much material, unseen for decades, gathering dust in archives and attics. No writer had looked very closely before and it was just waiting to be teased out.”

The book caught the eye of television producers while Jeremy was deep into his research and writing. It was optioned by STV Productions’ Elaine Collins, the producer behind ITV’s Vera and the BBC’s Shetland, and is now being developed as a drama.

Collins said: “Jeremy Craddock is a hugely talented writer and journalist, who is not only determined to excavate this brutal story and the consequent scientific breakthroughs that still influence today’s forensics, but to give an unprecedented voice to Ruxton’s female victims. I’m excited to develop this complex and multi-layered crime story for television, to give presence to the victims, and to dramatise the characteristically brilliant scientists at work in 1930s Scotland.”