The remains at Lethbridge's Pocket - the case against the Kenniff brothers.

On 30th March 1902 Police Constable George Doyle and Carnarvon Station manager Albert Dahlke were allegedly gunned down at Lethbridge's Pocket in Central Queensland. Approximately 90 kg of ash and burnt human remains with articles belonging to the two men were later found in saddle bags left at the scene on a police horse. Subsequently two local cattle and horse thieves, Patrick and James Kenniff, were convicted in the Queensland Supreme Court of the wilful murder of Constable Doyle. Patrick was executed by hanging on 12th January 1903 and James had his sentence reduced to life imprisonment with hard labor. A number of irregularities were subsequently raised about the trial including the use of a "special" jury and the reliability of evidence from a witness who did not actually see the event. Forensic issues to be explored involve the accuracy of the descriptions of the carbonized material, whether the remains were actually those of Doyle and Dahlke, and whether the victims were dismembered before burning, as was alleged by the prosecution.

The 1790 desecration of John Milton's bones, hair and teeth in a London church.

John Milton (1608-1674), England's epic poet and a champion of civil and religious liberties, has gone down in history as one of the world's greatest philosophers, scholars and authors. Although by age 44 he had become totally blind, he steadfastly continued to write and eventually composed his poetic masterpieces, "Paradise Lost" and "Paradise Regained." In 1674, John Milton died of kidney failure at age 66. He was buried in the "chancel under the clerk's desk" in the parish church of St. Giles-without-Cripplegate (London). Exhumed 116 years after his burial, Milton's corpse received "obscene and scandalous treatment", as portions of his bones, hair and teeth were removed, examined and indiscriminately dispersed to others.

Trophy-taking and dismemberment as warfare strategies in prehistoric central California.

We document evidence for trophy-taking and dismemberment with a new bioarchaeological database featuring 13,453 individuals from prehistoric central California sites. Our study reveals 76 individuals with perimortem removal of body parts consistent with trophy-taking or dismemberment; nine of these individuals display multiple types of trophy-taking and dismemberment for a total of 87 cases. Cases span almost 5,000 years, from the Early Period (3000-500 BC) to the Late Period (AD 900-1700). Collectively, these individuals share traits that distinguish them from the rest of the population: a high frequency of young adult males, an increased frequency of associated trauma, and a tendency towards multiple burials and haphazard burial positions. Eight examples of human bone artifacts were also found that appear related to trophy-taking. These characteristics suggest that trophy-taking and dismemberment were an important part of the warfare practices of central Californian tribes. Temporally, the two practices soared in the Early/Middle Transition Period (500-200 BC), which may have reflected a more complex sociopolitical system that encouraged the use of trophies for status acquisition, as well as the migration of outside groups that resulted in intensified conflict. Overall, trophy-taking and dismemberment appear to have been the product of the social geography of prehistoric central California, where culturally differentiated tribes lived in close proximity to their enemies.