I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the last twenty five years writing about true crime.
And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most compelling true crimes.
And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring new insights to old mysteries.
Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime cases through a twenty first century lens.
Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
This is buried Bones. Hey Paul, Hey Kate, how are you doing. I'm doing great. I have an incredibly important listener question. Oh I've actually got I've gotten this multiple times and I have always sort of forgotten to ask you. But this is the question. Okay, you're ready, what is your skincare routine? And actually this person asked both both of us start, what's your skincare? Because they think we have great skin. Paul, I really came close to saying filters, that's.
What's Yeah, No, that's that's just it, you know, I you know, it's shocking to me that people think I have great skin, you know, because I've always, you know, since my teen years, I struggled with acne, and I never protected my skin. You know. I never wore sunscreen. I lifeguarded high school through college. When I would be working in the yard in the hot California summers, no sunscreen on, never wore a hat, and so so a
lot of sun damage. But since I've gotten into sort of the media side now, I've been having to pay attention. And of course sunscreen is number one. Sunscreen in the morning, it's a moisturizer that has sunscreen in it, but generally it's sort of the the mantra of acids in the morning and retinoids in the evening. I found with my with my skin, what I need to do is generally wash with salicylic acid containing cleanser. Can be kind of harsh,
but I have very very oily skin. Then if I'll use benzoil peroxide on my trouble spots and then put on the moisturizer with the sunscreen in it, and that's literally my morning routine.
Oh my gosh, that's more than most men. I'm pretty sure that.
Well you know, it's one of those things I wish I had taken care of my skin when I was younger, you know, And so I'm trying to hopefully get a more youth full appearance and try to prevent some of the you know, the aging from the sun damage that happens in the wrinkles. And then you know, midday, like after I work out, I'll probably splash some water on my face and put some more moisturizer with sunscreen on, and then in the evening, I use a gentle cleanser.
It's usually right now, it's this Userine cleanser with the huronic acid in it. And then I have a retinoid. I personally, right now I'm using taseratine. It's one of the strongest retinoids. And then I put a night cream, this Userine PM face cream on top of that, and generally that's, you know, that's what my normal routine is. And if I end up breaking out for whatever reason, and it happens, and I have to address that and
sometimes make changes. But I know, for a guy, I'm doing a lot more because most guys they don't they don't give a damn about that. They splash water in their face and they're good to go.
Yeah. Yeah, but you have a very youthful look. And I know you have to wear makeup when we film, right anytime you're on camera, don't you, because you get a little shiny sometimes, you know.
Sometimes I have put on, you know, And this this comes back from, you know, having worked in the TV world and having the hair and makeup artists having to you know, have to counter all the oil that I do. So I do have like a block powder. I don't have any on right now, you know. So we'll see how how shiny I get as we sit and record today.
Okay, I'll rate you. We'll go halfway through. You never get too shiny, It's okay. I mean I have a much simpler skin routine now. I feel a little badly about mine. Mine is just a gentle cleanser at night. I don't even remember what the brand is. I can't remember. It's something that a dermatologist told me to do a long time ago, and then I just did it. And then I'll use like a alta which you know, I think it's a fifty sport in the morning, and then
I'll use you know, a nighttime cream. I do have some retinol that I put under my eyes, but I do a hydrator first. The hydrating thing is a real big thing for me because you know, my glasses when I if anybody's ever met me, I'm usually wearing glasses. I don't wear contacts very much. You know, my glasses kind of cover up any darkness I might have under
my eyes. And so I know this sounds like a skincare crocial to you guys, but it is a thing, especially when you're on camera, you really have to kind of think about that. And then of course, like just the longevity of your skin, their skin cancer and my family so all of that I have to pass on to the kids.
Yeah, you know, and I think you have to come up with your own regimen. You know, That's what I have found. I've I've experimented with different cleansers. There's one that has you know, the seramides in it and you know, very hydrating, and that just wrecked my face. You know, I'm just so oily to begin with, and it just wasn't cleansing my face enough. That's why I ended up going to the salasilic acid. And so it's a matter of experimenting and seeing you know how your skin and
responds here in Colorado. You know, my house is at sixty five hundred feet. I live on the side of a mountain, but it's high desert. It is very very dry here. So using the strong retinoid, you know, it will really peel badly. So that's where I had to kind of figure out, how can I find a moisturizer to prevent, you know, showing up at the gym and I've got skin just flaking off of me over the place. It looks pretty bad.
That's not good. No, well, I would say, you know, my kids have an unbelievable amount of skincare, not even really makeup, but the industry is pretty amazing. For teens. They each have their own little refrigerator many fridge that keeps all of the stuff cool. Well, yeah, it's tiny. It's not even a traditional mini fridge. I literally use lava soap and Irish spring when I was a kid, as I was in the country, and they're using I mean the stuff that they their allowance almost exclusively goes
to skincare stuff. So boy, things have changed, well.
You know, and a lot of it. As a guy growing up, there wasn't a source of knowledge of how to take care of your skin, you know. So for me, once I became a teenage boy, it was the oxypads and you know, slathering benz oil peroxide creams all over the face and then going into school or going into work and then the shirt would all bleach out. It was just a horrible thing, and I didn't know any better.
And now for me, I've done the research. But even my daughter, my youngest daughter, she is so on top of, you know, her skincare routine and what products do you use when you know? And so it's just the the Internet has just made so much information, made it so much more available, so you can learn and as opposed to having to either go into an office somewhere with a dermatologist, which you still need to do, but in terms of having an expert like that tell you what your regimen should be.
I agree. I'm mean I still have a lot of flexibility. We were supposed to get my father in law some deodorant or anti purs but I can't remember which, and so we got him old spice, some kind of old spice stuff and he rejected it. He said, no, So I wear it. It's fine.
I mean, so, so you smell like a lumberjack? Is that what you're telling me?
I don't smell badly, and for me, that's the only thing that counts.
Really.
Anyway, we've gone down a weird road. But this is uh but yeah, this is a question. Actually we've gotten quite a bit. So we're both very grateful that at least some of you think that we have nice skin. Thankfully.
Well, it's always you know, for me, having the struggles that I've had, for people to actually make that type of comment, it's sort of a confidence booster, you know, it's like, okay, good.
You know, yes, well I could have told you that three years ago. I would have told you that. Okay, well now I know, now I know. Well, let's get into a story that, unlike our skincare routines, is quite a mystery. That was not a good transition, but it's a mystery. This is a miss I love the time period where in nineteen thirties England. Of course love England, and so this will be a case of actually, I'm not even going to finish that sentence. Let's just get
into the case and let's set the scene. This is where we are where in Stadhampton. I'm sure I said that wrong. England. It's a small rural village about nine miles away from Oxford. Most people would recognize Oxford from Oxford University. It's May fifteenth, nineteen thirty six, so this is two forty five in the morning, and several farmers in this rural area see smoke coming from a nearby hayfield.
I have written about bad things happening in hayfields. We have had at least a couple of stories of fires happening now I can't remember one. It's like a whole family is burned and buried in a hay field and the only one child survives, and there's a lot of stuff happening, I guess because it's so isolated, and it's in the middle of the nights, very early in the morning. Farmers and farm hands report they're there at you know, about three in the morning, and they're trying to put
out this blaze. And the fire has spread to several different haystacks in the field, and there's a group of cows that wanders over to one of the smoldering stacks and starts nosing it. Now, this next part is a I shit you not part. The farmers try to show them away, but they're not moving and they keep nosing the Hey, I don't think they want to eat it. The farmers go over and there is a charred body in the haystack. I would not have predicted cows locating
a body. We've never had that happen before. But this is a This is a situation where the cows won't move and I don't know what they're doing. I don't know if they're trying to tell them that there's a body there, but something's unusual and the cows are picking up on it.
Yeah, you know, I've never heard of that kind of behavior by cattle. You know, I would assume the cattle, the cows would stay far away from any of these fires. That just seem like the animal instinct for survival. With a charred body, of course, there's going to be definitely a very strong odor, you know. Is that what's drawing
the cows, you know? Or is there a level of intelligence where the cows are going We need to larn these humans that there's another human that's, you know, being burned up underneath this haystack.
I think one of the things that I'll tell you in a minute, because I'm going to want you to look at a photo. So while i'm talking, maybe go ahead and download your two photo documents. Is I think the rest of this field has been burned pretty significantly, so the cows might be approaching maybe the only hay that's around. But still there are people yelling, there's all sorts of chaos. There's that bad smell. I can't explain it.
I'm not saying get rid of your bloodhounds, law enforcement people across the country, but I'm saying cows in this case, we're helpful. Okay, So before you open it, don't open it just yet. Let me just tell you what is found. It's determined that the body in the haystack has been
confirmed to be this guy, Thomas Pattison Moss. He had a distinctive broken tooth, and I think there were a couple of other things, particularly, I know particularly there's a belt that is leather, it's still intact and it has his name on it, Thomas Pattison Moss. But the tooth, for them, I guess was the thing that confirmed it. I don't know, what does that make sense?
Yeah? You know back, you know, during this timeframe, and we're talking nineteen thirty six out there in England. You know, they're going to rely on these types of physical characteristics. I think the belt with his name on it is significant. Out of course, is this a true identification by today's standards,
it is not. Could somebody stage a different body to you know, especially after it's been burned to have you know, this type of broken tooth and then put a belt from Thomas around that body and then now you've got authorities going, well, it's got to be Thomas, you know, and the reality it's not. It'd be very very easy to fool people in authorities back during this timeframe with that type of staging.
Yeah, well that's all I have to go on right now. So they are assuming that Thomas Pattison Moss is their victim. There are two photos that you can look at, and really it's the two main photos in this case. There's not a lot of photographic evidence here. One is what the haystack field would have likely looked at with the big, huge, roundish haystacks, and the other one, which is the first photo you can look at, is what this field look
like after the fire, after they discovered the body. So I don't think it spoils anything for you to look at both of them now if you want.
Okay, Well, I'm looking at the first one and it's literally it looks just like mounds of dry hay that's still smoldering. And you see three gentlemen, I must say, very well dressed gentleman. You know, I'm assuming these are you know, law enforcement or maybe members from you know, city government or something that are out there. Yeah. One
one gentleman is pointing down to the ground. I'm not seeing anything that stands out where he's pointing, so I'm wondering if that's where he's saying where Thomas's body was was located at.
I think I think that's what they're saying. Yeah, okay.
And then the second wow, okay, So this this photo is a modern day photo showing these haystacks or hay ricks. And I've never I've never heard the term hay ricks, but it's showing a way where you have the these hey, that's been bailed into your typical you know blocks, you know, rectangular blocks that have been stacked up, and then there is loose hay that has been draped over the top, giving it a look of almost like a sort of like a house you know that has a hay roof.
And I'm assuming they do that because I'm just thinking, like you know, during the rain, they're probably wanting to keep the bailed hay dry, and so this hay that is drooped over the top is a way to get the water from rain and stuff to run off and not soak the hay that they're probably going to try
to sell, you know. So of course, if that's how this looked before the fire, going back to the original photograph, there's a significant amount of hay that has been burned, yeah, you know, because none of that type of structure is remaining. You just see these smoldering mounds. You know. So as I evaluate this scene, I'm looking at this from the perspective of, Okay, how much heat was Thomas's body subjected to?
You know, what is the origin of the fire, you know, and of course how long had Thomas been out there? But it's interesting that I could see with this dry hay, you know a lot of this fire is just going straight up these haystacks and does it work its way down you know, so maybe it's been burning for a long time before it, you know, the fire actually gets down to Thomas's body, you know, and that's just something where talking to people who have observed these types of
haystacks burn, how do they burn? You know? And then I would take that to assess the sort of the thermal injuries to Thomas and to start to get a sense as to what is going on here, you know, is did he just happened to get trapped in a fire and he you know, succumbed to the smoke in elation and now his body's being burned. Does he have injuries to suggest that he was killed? And then of course his body's being burned as the offender lit these haystacks, you know, to cover up the crime.
This is why the case I think is so interesting and it is a mystery, especially when we find out a little bit more about Thomas. So let me tell you about him. He is twenty one years old. He's an undergraduate in law at Oxford University's Balliol College. This is not a big part of the story, but Oxford is split up into a bunch of different colleges and you know, they pool resources like libraries and labs, and so Thomas is at one of the best schools in
the world. He is originally from Toronto, so he's Canadian and as part of a wealthy, very prominent family. His father is a well known barrister. We just talked about barristers. They're the attorneys who you know, argue before the courts. So this is a middle class, upper middle class guy who ends up in these haystacks, burned to death. You know when we talk about what happens, he doesn't have ties to where we are. Let me give you the best news I'm going to be able to give you today.
I think with anything that we talk about, Okay, you're gonna probably geek out a lot, which is great because we are getting to get some information from my pathology crush. So it's England. It's the nineteen thirties. It is not you, Paul. It is the nineteen thirties. That's what you're thinking about it now. I'm gonna see if you could figure this out. It's England, it's the nineteen thirties. I love this this pathologist too, is it do you think? Oh?
You know, the name is on the tip of my tongue. But I'm not.
Sp spill Spillsbury.
Bernard spills Oh yeah, Bernard Spillsbury.
He's our guy. I know you've got your book back there, right, I.
Think I've got a book about him.
So I'm not sure you've ever disagreed with Spillsbury. I don't remember you ever saying I don't know, he might be reaching. I feel like you're always sort of like on the same page with this guy from the nineteen thirties.
Yeah, you know, And I can't remember specific issues in which Billsbury has weighed in, but you know this from what I remember about him and the sense of what you have presented to me over the various cases. You know, he's an experienced pathologist. He is a true expert. He's seen it all, and that's where he's able to come in and provide that level of expertise and draw proper conclusions.
And unfortunately, in many parts of you know, the United States, and I'm assuming in some parts of England, you don't have pathologists that have that experience and expertise, and so now they're weighing in on cases without that knowledge base, and sometimes they're wrong about what they're concluding.
Yeah, and part of me, he wonders why was he called in on this. He's certainly not the only pathologist in nineteen thirties England. It's not London. I know it on the outset kind of seems like a violent case, but they're not sure what happened. And I don't know if it was the family's prominence that he was Canadian and he's here in England, that he's at Oxford University. But this seems like not a special request. But I don't know. It just seems a little odd that he
would be the one out there. I'm glad he is, because we have a lot of information.
You know. What's striking me right off the bat about Thomas Moss being found at this location that he has no ties to is that sounds like they're able to
identify him pretty quickly, you know. So there must have been some sort of report, a missing report to indicate, hey, we have this Canadian student from a prominent family that's missing, and now you have this burned body at a location where now authorities are going, well we need to look at that, and oh, sure enough it's a son of this prominent Canadian family.
Yeah, and we do have some information about Thomas and where he was and you know his whereabouts, and I think people were concerned about him. So let me tell you first, there's a kind of an interesting order of things. So Spillsbury, my pathology crush, has decided to do a postmortem right there where the body is in the field, So there will be a lot more information once he's done, you know, with this report. But he has to do
a pretty intensive examination back at his lab. Right now, we're just kind of getting information as he's getting it. So it's in the field where this is happening. He uses a pop up table. Is that something that happens ever, or why would you do that? Yeah, let's start disagreeing with him right now.
No, you know, now, there are times when pathologists do come out into the field, you know, and they want to observe the deceased in the environment prior to the death investigator collecting the body, and that can be very valuable to get the pathologist's opinions, you know, early on during the crime scene investigation. Outside of when I've seen anthropologists, you know, kind of study the skeletal remains out into the field. Typically the body is collected and then taken
back to the coroner's office. Emmy's office or Morgue or you know, back in the day funeral homes where the pathologist in a controlled setting can now do the autopsy and has all the tools available in order to do that. So, you know, Spillsbury must have seen something, you know, that was maybe time sensitive. Where he's going, I need to take a look now to see what's going on. I also wonder if there is no nearby facilities. And since Spillsberry is traveling, he thought, you know what, I can
do this out in the field. You know, I don't see that happening today, you know, but I can see where it's it's feasible. I don't you know, there is a possibility. There's no harm in doing it as long as it's done properly. The proper samples are collected, you know, all the specimen jars are available, et cetera.
So Spillsbury, when he's done with this examination, there will be a coroner's inquest, but it's paused because Spillsbury takes more than a week with Thomas's body to figure out what's going on. So you'll have questions, but I think he's going to have answers for just about everything. So he does his post mortem in the field using a propped up door as a makeshift table. Okay, there you.
Go, ad Hoc. You know he's having to improvise.
He is, okay, this is what he says, and this is pulmonary. He says that Thomas's skull and both of his arms are broken, which I think the farmers could tell when he was found, so he says. Billsbury says, he thinks that the bones cracked from the fire and had not been broken before Thomas had died, So how would he know that.
Well, this again goes to case experience and having dealt with previous burned bodies. Now you know the skull being broken or fractured. That is a very very common thing because as the heat from the fire is burning the victim and burning around the victim's head, of course, the brain matter inside the skull is being subjected to intense heat.
And this is where you can actually have the skull somewhat burst from the thermal ad you know, this tissue expanding and all the heat that's collecting within this closed system. Skulls are very good at resisting pressure from the outside in like somebody pressing on your head. The skulls are not so good at resisting pressure from the inside out.
So if the tissue inside the brain under high heat is now gaseous and the pressures building up, you often see the skull separate at the suture lines or even fracture. And so he must be seeing something like that. And
then the broken bones. That's likely telling me that the extremities, at least the upper extremities for Thomas, have been subjected to prolonged exposure to fire, and so now the soft tissue has been burned away, the bones are in essence turning brittle, and yeah, they lose their integrity, you know.
So of course initially I start thinking, well, is there a chance that this was a bludgeoning and the broken arms are a result of defensive you know, defensive posture in terms of trying to ward off the bludgeting weapon. But I have to rely on spillsbury assessment that this is thermal injuries versus actual violence.
Well, he'll have a lot more information, but he's taken the body. They are continuing to look at the scene. And you know, one thing that struck me about the photo I sent to you is obviously they take this photo of these well dressed men with one either holding a pipe, a smoking pipe, or a pencil. I'm not sure what he's held. He's definitely holding something.
It looks like a pipe. I mean you can see it looks like where his hand is wrapped around it is pretty wide, you know. So, yeah, you're out in the middle with all this dry hay and you're smoking great.
Yeah. And you know my first book, which was Death in the Air, which was set in London, I talk about the Minister of Health who in I think in the late fifties early sixties, has a big press conference and he's declaring that there is a definitive connection between lung cancer and smoking, and he is chain smoking a cigarette's chained of smoking cigarettes to the entire press conference where he's talking about these are going to kill you.
So there's more irony all over. Okay, So you know what I was looking at with that photo is how decimated that is. I wonder how long after two forty five am that was. Because if the haystacks, the hay ricks were as tall as we think they would be, I mean in a field like that, they just look decimated. I mean, this looks huge, a huge fire. So This could have been three days later and it still looks like it's moldering to me. So this was a big deal, this fire.
There's a lot of fuel at this you know, in this fire. Now, hey, it is going to burn quickly. But those bailed hay blocks, you know, they're pretty compact, so it's sort of like a log in many ways, you know. And I have no experience in terms of how fast something like that would burn, but if you have them stacked on top of each other and for them to be completely burned down to the ground, it's
probably a very intense fire. And it was going on for a period of time, Yeah, a significant period of time.
And we don't know who this guy just happened to see it at two forty five. We don't even know when it started. Sure, okay, let me tell you what else they found. So I told you that there's the belt fragment that has Thomas's name on it, and there were some other things that were not completely burned that were found with his body, including a pair of cuff links that were later identified as his and some money
which is three shillings and twopence. And remember this is you know, nineteen thirty so this is about twenty bucks.
Today, okay, and these are coins, yes.
And you know, so you've got not incredible valuables. But he's got a leather belt, he's got you know, some cuff links that seem really nice, and he's got some money on him and none of those things are taken.
Now.
I don't know what else he had on him, but that's a thing. I mean, you know, we're looking if if robbery is a motive for anything, that's one thing.
Absolutely, you know, And this is part of the problem with fires. Fires could be so devastating to the crime scene that there's always missing information because fire has destroyed it. So you know, is there a possibility that, you know, something had been taken from Thomas. Yeah, you know, it's possible, but it's notable that these particular items that do have some value were left behind.
Also, his watch. We've had this happen before two So the leather strap is burned away, but they find the watch and it's the face is still readable. It stopped at two ten am, So this is thirty five minutes before the farmer saw the fire. Is that a pretty good time stamp for something?
I think the only conclusion that can be drawn is that's the time in which the watch being subjected to the fire stopped working. Gives no information as to when Thomas was put out there, nor when the fire was started.
So the farmer whose field Thomas was found in, who I'm sure is upset for many different reasons a body being found in his field and all of it being destroyed. He brings a reporter to the spot in the field where the body was. It's a reporter, not a photographer. We don't have a photo of this, And according to the photographer and the farmer, it's the only spot in the entire hayfield that hasn't been completely burned. And this
becomes important to Spillsbury. There's still hay on the spot where Thomas's body has been found, while all the other hay in the field has been reduced to ash okay. So the farmer thinks that this particular haystack has been wet, and he says that if Thomas had decided to go to sleep on a haystack, there would have been no reason for him to pick a wet one when all the other ones which completely burned down, were you know, dry. So for a while the investigators until we hear back
from Spillsbury. Think, what if this guy, which happens, wanders down the road, you know, early the night before and decides to take a nap in between you know, some haystacks. He's covered and if it's a nice night and it's not raining, why not.
Yeah, And this is something that has to be considered at this point. Is is this a accidental death. I'm not sure what Thomas would have done to cause the fire himself, but he chose a location that I have to rely upon the farmer's expertise, going, Hey, the reason this hey didn't burn is because it was wetter than the other. You know, but Tom was Thomas smoking and he falls asleep. You know, right now, we don't have
any indication that Thomas has is inebriated. He's a toxic you know, he's under the influence of alcohol, and you know, he nods off and then he lights the dryer hay stacks around him just you know, the cigarette just happens to catch something on fire and it goes Yeah. I was also when you were describing it, I was wondering, you know, is this just where you have Thomas's body
laying on top of some hay. And let's say the offender lights Thomas on fire, and the fire spreads to all these other dry haystacks, you know, but Thomas's body, though it's being burned, in essence, is protecting the hay underneath where he's laying. So by the time they actually discover Thomas, the fire hasn't gotten into this protected area.
Yeah, I agree. And it's interesting because the farmer and the reporter are not saying the hay is wet right now. They're just trying to figure out why there would be this hey, you know, with the cows coming over, why this hay would be not burned and everything else around
it would be. And it's also a little bit confusing about how big these haystacks are because you know, they're sort of an indication that the investigators are wondering, right if he would have fallen asleep because he's protected on both sides from the wind between two haystacks. But the farmer says, on a haystack, so it could have been
you know, ten bails and that was it. We don't know yet, Okay, corners in quest starts and this is the day after Thomas's body is discovered, his identity is established. You know, what happens with the belt? They find this belt, the cuff links his clothing. They talked to his family and so they're concluding and the tooth, they're concluding that
this is Thomas. Here's something weird. It comes out that there is a box of matches that was still in Thomas's pocket, and the box and the matches were burned, but they were still recognizable. It's agreed by the investigators at least that if Thomas had set the hay on fire himself, he would have had to do so with a different box of matches, since the group does not believe that he could have gotten this box back in
his pocket. Like the kind of explosion of lighting this hay would have, you know, prevented him from putting the box back in his pocket. I'm not sure what that would be the case.
I'm skeptical about that conclusion. I'm imagining Thomas with this box of matches, he lights a match, you know, puts the box back in the pocket, flicks the match away on that match goes and falls on some dry hay, and then the fire would spread reasoningly rapidly but I don't see it being like this explosive, you know, where Thomas is immediately incapacitated as soon as that fire starts. So you know, this is where you know Thomas at least does have the ability to start the fire himself.
Okay. Authorities are going back and forth almost on a daily basis on you know, is this murder and a cover up or is this Thomas took his own life or something accidentally happened. We don't know. Accidental death is kind of what they're leaning towards, but they're not sure. They talked to Thomas's friends at the Oxford Law School and they say they don't think that Thomas would have taken his own life, which this seems like an odd way to do it, but it has to be on
the table. He was a week away from graduating. They're confused about why he would have walked from Oxford to this tiny rural area when there's nine miles in between them and this is a desolate country road late at night. They don't know how he got there. Let me tell you the timeline. So ten point fifty on Thursday, than the night before, he's seen about nine miles away in Oxford's boardwalk and he seems to be walking back to his hostel or his student housing is what they would
have called it. At one ten in the morning, a postal worker passes by the hayfield. Nothing, nothing's wrong, but you know, he wouldn't have seen Thomas, most likely anyway from the road. Two ten, an hour later, Thomas's watch stops to forty five the farmhand's seen the fire, and then three thirty they finally find his body after forty
five minutes. So one thing I think most people agree on is nobody sees this guy walking nine miles in the dark by himself to get to a haystack, only to fall asleep on some hay in between it and then everything goes up in flames. So it's the transportation that I think bugs everybody the most. What how did he get there?
Well, I think we're getting into sort of the core of the initial investigative thrust. You have Thomas from a wealthy, prominent family who has no ties to location where his body is found. You know, I was wondering, you know, was he you know, like a farm hand, you know, sort of moonlighting, you know, to get some money or something like that. But sounds like he has no connection to this particular location. So you have a timeline where he is now seen at ten fifty pm walking towards
his residence on the Oxford campus. Yes, okay, So now this is where the focus has to start in terms of okay, you have one witness. What does his residence suggest, you know, does it look like he made it back to the residence. Is there anything that looks amiss inside the residence? Was he abducted out of the residence? What other aspects of Thomas's victimology would suggest that maybe there's something else going on in his life that could cause
him to become a victim of homicide. And now you do have the possibility of a body disposal out there in the hayfield, with the hayfields being set on fire, and this might give some insight if that's what happened. The fact that the offender chose the hayfield and lit the hayfield on fire, they purposely took Thomas's body out there, that might suggest that the offender has some familiarity with that particular location and being able to possibly cover up a crime using the fire and the hay.
Well, let me give you some details about Thomas. But first let me tell you the speculation which I hadn't thought of. So there is a lot of speculation that maybe Thomas was hit by a car, accidentally killed, and then the motorist dumped his body in this hay field and set it on fire. Then that still brings Thomas back to walking to someplace he doesn't have a connection to for no good reason. I don't know if I buy into that, but they're they're just reaching for anything at this point.
Well sure, you know, and this is where what does the autopsy show. You know, we have some preliminary information from Spillsbury cutting into Thomas's body on the door out there at the hayfield, you know, but I imagine that there is more extensive autopsy done. You know, in pedestrian injuries for motor vehicles, you know, they can be quite extensive.
And that would probably stand out. If if Thomas is walking and you have a motor vehicle striking him, it's possible you have massive lower leg fractures if he was run over. And nineteen thirty six England, I mean you have cars. I mean these are legitimate vehicles.
Yeah, heavy cars.
They're heavy, Yeah, you know, they're made out of steel, and I would expect under that scenario that there would be some indication of that level of violence from a motor vehicle that Spillsbury would be able to see even with the thermal damage to Thomas's body.
Well, let me tell you about Thomas, because Billsbury's almost done. He's getting there. But he's almost done with this examination. Like I said, it's taken more than a week. I know, but he knows what he's doing. I think we'll see if he's like, you know, batting one thousand.
Well, I could tell you the investigators are standing there going, come on, doc. I know they're like tapping their feet, going, we need to get rolling on this.
Their speculation all over the place, especially if there's a murderer running around. So in the meantime, the police start grabbing all of his friends from Oxford to try to figure out the timeline and what he was like in general. There is a classmate in Oxford who testified to the police for an hour, and you know, I'll go through what that person says. First, there's an ear witness. There was a woman in a village and she said that near the Hayfield she was in earshot and she could
hear a scream. The night that Thomas died. She said she saw a car drive quickly through the village and then toward the hayfield and then away from the hayfield. But this is something that you know, is reported briefly. It's not something in the police notes that we saw, and it was in the newspaper and that was it, and it doesn't actually come up in the actual inquest. So I don't know if this woman was discredited or what.
But this is the this is the closest thing that I've seen to something that really was sort of like WHOA, Okay, that's interesting.
And she doesn't give any details about the scream, like was there a word being screamed or was it Did it sound like a male versus female voice?
No, it just the scream. To me, I think was sort of in pain. But no, she couldn't say anything about that. It was a little bit more because this is such a tiny village. I think it was very noticeable that a car was coming out in and coming out so quickly, and that's really what she noticed also, So take that for what it's worth. Here's another weird thing I don't actually think this is going to make
a difference, but I find it slightly amusing. It's reported that the police are looking for two letters that a street cleaner in Oxford, So where he went to school, found on May eighteenth, which is two days after Thomas was found. The street cleaner found these letters, two of them, and they both had been signed Pat Moss. So Thomas's name was you know, Thomas Pattison Moss, so it could have been Pat Moss. It also might be another Pat Moss.
The street cleaner says he didn't open them and gave the two letters to two people who had been sitting on a nearby bench because they had a car, and he said, can you bring these letters to the police. But the police never got these letters. I don't know why he wouldn't take them himself. But if these letters were at all significant, they're in the wind at this point.
Okay, so we have no details what these leves said.
No, no, and we have I mean, we've been down the letter route on many other stories where you know, it's like, where's this come from? Is this significant? Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not.
Yeah, And do we know would Thomas sign his name Pat Moss. Is this consistent.
I don't think they even looked into that, so I don't know. Okay. May twenty ninth is when we pick up the inquest again. There's one witness. He is a classmate at Oxford. This is the one who I think spoke to the police for more than an hour. The rest of this inquest, which I know is driving people crazy, gets pushed to June because everyone's taking final exams at Oxford and so these witnesses are not available. This guy is.
He says that he last saw Thomas about eight fifteen pm the night before he died, so that would have been Thursday night if he died Friday early morning. This was right after a dinner at the college within Oxford University where he was. The classmate says that Thomas seemed totally normal. He was a good guy, He had a lot of friends, He was handsome, He was not in the habit of walking alone that he never walked alone
in the countryside. He was generally a pretty happy guy. Now, I don't know how he knows that this was not something that Thomas would do. I doubt they had a conversation, but it just wasn't in his habit to go on like a stroll or a walk about by himself. It would have been unusual according to this friend. They don't know anything else except there's one witness who said they saw him at ten point fifty but just kind of
passing by and that was it. Nobody else knows what happened after this with Thomas, So we don't have a lot of information about enemies, girlfriends, anything like that. It just sounds like this is a guy just trying to make it through school at a very challenging school, average life, except he's from a very upper class family and that's it as far as character, witnesses or anything like that.
Yeah, so at this point we don't have an investigative direction to where we can start focusing in on a smaller suspect pool. I mean, basically, this investigation is wide open at this point, and it's still they're doing this corner's inquest and they're trying, probably trying to get present information so they can get the manner of death for the death certificate. You know, that's what the inquest is there for. Was this death at the hands of another,
Was this an accident? Was this natural? So at some point during this inquest. Spillsbury has to come forward and provide his findings, because that's critical. We have the fractured skull and the broken bones, which he's saying appear to be from the fire. You know what else is he finding?
Okay, it's time he's finally done. It's a month later. There's been delays after delays. It's I know, June eighteenth, so this is a month later. He comes back with his analysis. There are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nineteen e There's like fifteen points that he makes. So I thought I had the idea that either we could go point by a point and I'll pause and look at you, or you could put your hand up if
you want to comment on one of these points. But he tries to go through every scenario in his head and see if the evidence matches up to it that he finds. So how do you want to handle this, detective holes.
I think I want to hear the totality of his findings and then I can kind of weigh in after that.
Okay, this is what Spillsbury says. So Thomas's stomach contents showed no sign of any poison, so he spent a lot of time looking for poison a bottle, so they had found a bottle near his body was burned too badly to know what had been in and it looked like maybe it was a prescription bottle, but there was no way to know sure. He says. There was no smell of gasoline petrol on what remained of Thomas's clothes,
so he didn't smell that kind of an accelerant. There were no injuries on Thomas's body other than what occurred during the fire. He says, all of his organs are intact. He thinks this means kind of exactly what you said that Thomas did not get hit by a car, otherwise he would have seen some significant damage. And there were no ligature marks or any other marks of strangulation on Thomas.
Well, and that's I think I'll comment on that is, if I don't know the extent of the fire damage to Thomas in terms of how much of his body was really destroyed by the fire. So for Spillsbury to draw conclusion saying I'm not seeing evidence of strangulation, whether it be ligature or manual strangulation. That tells me that the next structures must have been intact enough for Spillsbury to form that opinion.
Okay, you're going to like this next bit. Well, first, let me tell you Thomas was healthy. There's no disease or anything that would point to something happening. This is what he says. It's like you guys are of the same mind because you say something and I have. That's my next note. This is what he says about the body being burnt. Okay, no, you'll like this. Okay, tell me what you think. This is what he says. This
is a quote. The body was severely burned, but the changes were of an unusual character in that while the destruction of the tissues was limited to parts of the limbs and the top of the head, the heating effects were general and extended very deeply into the head and the trunk. He believes that Thomas was exposed to the effects of high heat much longer than he was exposed to the flames.
So the location of the thermal damage, that's telling me, And it was the arms and sounds like it was the upper part of his head. Well, that indicates the way that Thomas was laying I'm assuming on the ground or on top of some hay. Well, that part of his body is where the fire is raging, and so you got that he's closest to the fire with his head and his arms, but the rest of his body is not. It's further away and it's not on fire. So eventually he's probably got the fire encroaching on his
body or he's starting to burn. When the rescuers come and put out the fire, the cows say hey, look, you know, the cows basically stop Thomas's body from being turned to ashes. You know, that's that's interesting from a what is the point of origin of the fire. So if this was a body disposal, typically the offenders are going to light the body on fire and the surrounding flammables, you know. And Spillsbury saying I'm not detecting the odor of gasoline coming from from his body doesn't mean an
accelerant wasn't used. It's possible an accelerant was used in order to help light some of the hate surrounding Thomas's body, or the high heat has burned away the volatiles that now Spillsbury can't smell. You know, Typically, like gasoline has a wide variety of different volatiles in it, and the lighter ones will burn away very quickly, but you can still have some of the heavier volatiles that might be
present that might contribute to a gasoline like smell. But there's other flammables that are very very lightweight that probably with the high heat, could have evaporated completely. But the lack of the burning on Thomas's body suggests he wasn't lit on fire. The fire started somewhere else and was coming towards him, with the fire being the closest to his head. In his arms, he.
Has even more stuff than I think. This is all really interesting. He says that the skin on Thomas's back was less burned than on other areas of his body. Spillsbury thinks that Thomas was laying on his back and that's why, Yes, so listen to this. There were hay fragments inside Thomas's air passages, they were only partially burned. Thomas's blood was bright red, indicating, of course, you know, exposure to carbon monoxide. We've talked about that before, which
is a byproduct of burning hay. And Spillsbury thinks that Thomas was unconscious by the time he inhaled these pieces of hay, because otherwise he would have woken up, and you know, if he had the ability to wake up and gotten up, if this is an accident, So what do you think about that stuff? You know, in his nasal passages, these pieces.
Of hay, It suggests this is in many ways, it's like pathologists findings and drowning. You know, the innhilation of water into the lungs suggests, you know, the individual was at least breathing at the time the water was inhaled. Here it sounds like Thomas is still breathing and is pulling in these fragments of partially burned hay particles, which suggests that the fire is going and Thomas is still breathing.
Doesn't mean he has awareness. He could be laying there, still alive, still breathing, but he's now succumbed to the smoke inhalation, the bright red blood carbon monoxide. You know, so he is in the process of dying as a result of lack of oxygen to his body while the fire is going on. And that's probably all you can conclude with that, But it also suggests that, well, this isn't a situation to where let's say he was killed in some other location and then the offender drove his
body out to this location and started the fire. Unless, however, Thomas, you know, succumbed to whatever the offender did to him at the first location, I would expect him to be dead by the time his body's at this location. So you know, what is going on here? Is this homicide? Is this accidental? I don't see it as being suicide, but I don't know if you could rule that out, considering Thomas has a source of starting a fire with the matchbook that's in his pocket, you know, And I
don't know right now. I think it's it's still a mystery with what you've told me.
Okay, maybe this will help make it less of a mystery. And no, this is not a gotcha. Yeah, this is just something that was part of the investigation. It's true. So Spillsbury did a lot of research and I just read this too. I did not know that hey can
spontaneously combust. Okay, it happens. Wet hay is actually more likely to spontaneously combust than dry They said that biological activity within the hay, which I guess happens more often because it's if it's wet that it sets off a chemical reaction that generates enough heat to light hay on fire. I've heard about that growing up, and this is what
Spillsbury thinks happened. So he thinks that Thomas laid down to go to sleep on some damp straw between two haystacks so that he's protected from you know, I don't know the wind or people walking up on him, one of which was probably about to combust because it did happen, and that he was affixiated from a lack of oxygen by lying so close to the smoldering fire, and he was likely dead before the haystack fully burst into flames and burned his body. And that's what he thinks happened.
What do you think, Well, I am familiar. You do have various agricultural products, you know, like in silos or something where there is the possibility of this spontaneous combustion, and sometimes it has to do with particulates that are in this enclosed space getting up to a certain level. First time, I'm hearing about wet hay you know, but
that's not apprizing to me. I not arguing against that as a possibility because of the lack of violence to Thomas's body, but the question still remains, why is Thomas out at this location?
Yep? And that's what bothers the coroner's jury because you know, ultimately they agree with Spillsbury. They had all had heard about this before. It's a known phenomenon which I had not heard of before. So Spillsbury says this and everybody buys it, except the jury does not think there is a reasonable explanation for why he would have gone to this place to begin with.
Sure, and you have the ear witness.
Yeah, the scream and the car.
And then you have the car. You know, from my perspective, that puts enough suspicion into what is the manner of death that you know, I think today the ruling should be undetermined. Okay, just because there's enough suspicious activity with witnesses and Thomas's victimology that you go, okay, we don't know how he died in terms of well let me let me let me say it differently. It appears at the fire was the cause of his death, but we
don't know was this accidental because of spontaneous combustion. We don't know is this at the hands of another And Thomas was you know, forced to be out there, or maybe he was knocked unconscious and the amount of thermal damage to his skull is not allowing Spillsbury to see that there may have been, you know, a blow to his head, you know, and then the fire was lit.
And this is I think important from a crime scene standpoint, is in this day and age, this is where I get the state Fire Marshal's office, the arson investigator out or the local fire department's arson investigators out to answer a question, how did this fire start? You know? And they're the ones that have the expertise, not I. They can see, they see the you know, the fire world.
So it's it's it's amazing to watch them work because they cease so much that I can't spot because I don't have that day in, day out experience of looking at the world after it's been burned.
Yeah, but let's just buy into his theory that it is the spontaneous combustion of these hay stacks or one of them that did this, that he was asleep, he was close to the one that combusted, and the fumes got him first, and by the time everything went up in flames, he was already dead. Does everything that he is detailing lack of poison, lack of you know, disease, the hay in the nostrils, all of that stuff makes sense to you if we are going to buy into the combustion theory.
Yes, I cannot eliminate the possibility that this was an accidental as a result of Thomas being in that hayfield that night for whatever reason, and there is spontaneous combustion. Everything Spillsbury is lining up is entirely consistent with that.
Okay, say that again.
It is entirely consistent with that.
So he is still batting one thousand. My boyfriend, a pathologist who died probably eighty years ago or something.
I'm gonna have to knock Spillsbury off of this this pedestal you've put him on.
Well, I mean really, you know, but.
This is so important for you. You have this experience pathologist being able to outline this, you know, and now it's marrying up what his findings are with the investigation. And that's where right now there appears to be a little bit of a conflict that needs to be resolved in order to really know what happened to Thomas.
Well, this is not a formally closed case. I have not closed this case. So I don't know if anybody's working it, but you know, this is not closed. I think we might be the last one one's working. But it's definitely interesting. Sometimes we do these where they murdered. You know, remember the actress that we just talked about a couple of months ago. What happened? Did she die in the car in the garage? You know? And sometimes
murder is not the thing that we conclude. But I think it's all interesting because like how much we talked about the processes that happen in the body, and you know, the different ways that pathologists have to look at these cases to try to systematically eliminate what everybody thinks is happening, which is oftentimes not true.
Sure, but you know, working in law enforcement, whether you're a homicide investigator, you're a CSI pathologist, death investigator, we go out on cases which are we're not sure there's a homicide or not. The proper mindset is always to treat it like a homicide because that's when all the resources are flowing in. You enact all the resources to get everything documented, everything collected, everything that you know, all the experts that would weigh in a homicide case, and
then you go, oh, the haystack just spontaneously combusted. You know, It's kind of reminds me of the couple who died near the lake and turns out the lake is putting off noxious gases. Not a homicide, it's an accidental death. That always needs to be the approach in these cases.
And so that's why I get called out. And there's suicides, but there's something somebody goes, this doesn't look right, and sometimes they're right and it's actually a homicide and it's been staged to look like a suicide, or it's an actual suicide and it's just an unusual one. Sometimes I've had to go out to accidental deaths, you know, typically overdoses, but there's just enough to where somebody's going, this could
be a homicide. So in this particular case, I think with Thomas, from my perspective, is everything Spillsberry is outlining is yes, this suggests that this was accidental. I just think there's too much of a mystery of why Thomas is out in this hayfield and we have the ear witness observing a car going in and rapidly going out. What's up with that? You know, if that's actually even accurate.
And so this is where I think the corner's in quest that the proper finding is this is undetermined and law enforcement needs to proceed as if it's a homicide up until they're able to answer those questions.
Okay, this case is one of the ones that's I mean, that has taught me the most, and of course it's you and Spillsbury, So we will definitely return to a Spillsbury. Where are you, Paul, don't get jealous, God, but I'm determined to bring you an actual murder next week, and not a guy in a haystack where we're trying to figure out exactly what happened. But I love good mystery, So you never know.
Right well, you know, and I think you know part of it. You know, when you do work these types of cases, you learn from them. So when you do have the homicide that has some similar parallels, there's experience that you can draw upon. And the reality is is that you can read all the CSI textbooks, pathology textbooks, everything else, you can never ever replace the experience of
real life cases. So this is a real life case that these Spillsbury, these officers, these investigators, they're all learning for the next case that comes along, where now they can they know how to kind of proceed once they see something that they've seen from Thomas's case.
I can almost guarantee you that when we come back from our one week katus that we will have a murder and it won't be a mystery case. But we'll see I can't guarantee anything, you.
Mean, I've got to wait what two weeks before I hear this next case.
I know, I'm sorry about that, buddy.
All right, well, I look forward to it.
Then, thank you, We'll see you.
Then sounds good.
This has been an exactly right production for.
Our sources and show notes go to exactly writemedia dot com slash Buried Bones sources.
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Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin, and Kate Winkler Dawson.
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