Cremation in the bush.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)

SIR: May I respond to Dr John Auty's speculations concerning the 1926 Forrest River murder allegations (Letters, January-February 2004)? Unfortunately, his contribution is a pseudo-forensic one.

Obviously, I defer to him in matters veterinary, but his serious empirical and forensic error lies in confusing two distinct propositions. The first concerns the possibility of burning a human corpse in the bush. The second has to do with the possibility of cremating a corpse in such circumstances using local timber, so reducing it that a qualified pathologist could not identify the remaining bones and teeth as of human origin.

No one contests the first proposition. However, on the basis of advice from forensic scientists and others with experience of cremated human remains, including in criminal contexts, I have argued that the latter is simply not possible.

What Dr Auty has contributed to this debate is a fantasy. That is, the police party was supposedly able to commit the perfect crime. Their alleged commission of mass murder was ultimately undetectable and unprovable. With respect, I cannot treat the proposition seriously.

If the police party had killed and burnt as many Aborigines as suggested at the time, skull, teeth and other bones would have been readily identifiable, as well as being abundantly available.

The pathologist consulted during the 1927 Royal Commission into the claims was Dr W.S. McGillivray, the Chief Medical Officer of the West Australian Department of Health. He submitted three reports, declaring almost all of the material gathered at three alleged murder sites as not of human origin.

Dr McGillivray was a highly qualified medical man. He graduated from the University of Aberdeen in 1903 with a Bachelor of Medicine and a Bachelor of Surgery. He also received a Licensiate in Medicine from the University of Dublin. He was a member of the Indian Medical Service, seeing active service during the First World War in East Africa, had a Diploma in Public Health and was a member of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons.