Review: 18 Tiny Deaths, by Bruce Goldfarb

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18 Tiny Deaths is the remarkable story of how one woman changed the
face of murder investigation forever.

Born in 1878, Frances Glessner Lee’s world was set to be confined to the domestic sphere. She was never expected to have a career, let alone one steeped in death and depravity. Yet she was to become known as ‘the mother of forensic science’. This is her story.

Frances Glessner Lee’s mission was simple: she wanted to train detectives to ‘convict the guilty, clear the innocent and find the truth in a nutshell’. This was a time of widespread corruption, amateur sleuthing and bungled cases. With the help of her friend, the pioneering medical examiner George Magrath, Frances set out to revolutionise police investigation. Her relentless pursuit of justice led her to create ‘The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death’, a series of dollhouse-sized crime scene dioramas depicting actual cases in exquisitely minute detail that Lee used to teach homicide investigators.

They were first used in homicide seminars at Harvard Medical School in the 1930s, and then became part of the longest running and still the highest regarded police training seminar in America. Celebrated the world over by scientists, artists and miniaturists, these macabre scenes helped to establish her legendary reputation as ‘the mother of modern forensics’, influencing people the world over, including Scotland Yard. Frances wanted justice for all. She became instrumental in elevating murder investigation to a scientific discipline.

My Review

Thanks to Anne for organising the blog tour and the publisher for sending me a copy of the book.

Bruce Goldfarb has cared for the Nutshell Studies for the last 6 or so years as part of his job at the Baltimore Office of Medical Examiners. He had written about Frances Glessner Lee for the AMA in 1992. Looking for an accurate biography of Captain Lee, he found nothing. Most dismissed her as a bored, wealthy woman with nothing better to do than spend her money on morbid dolls’ houses.

In ’18 Tiny Deaths’, he puts the world right as he explores the lengths Lee went to to establish the medical examiner system in the US, to found and support a Department of Legal Medicine at Harvard and to support friends and colleagues to do the same, as well as educate police officers, in the face of opposition from people who dismissed her as a badgering old woman, or tried to take advantage of her generosity by claiming her achievements for their own. This book is a fascinating exploration of the life and times of Frances Glessner Lee, her background and interests, how she came to be involved with Harvard and the production of the Nutshell Studies. It is well-written, for a non-technical audience, and while his affection for Lee is obvious, the writer does make efforts to prevent his personal biases from affecting his assessment of others.

Well worth a read, not just for the biography of a fascinating woman but for the details of the times and the changes in policing and forensic sciences in the last century.

Bruce Goldfarb is the executive assistant to the Chief Medical Examiner for the State of Maryland, US, where the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death are housed. He gives conducted tours of the facility and is also a trained forensic investigator. He began his career as a paramedic before working as a journalist, reporting on medicine, science and health.

He collaborated with Susan Marks – the
documentary filmmaker who produced the 2012 film about Frances Glessner Lee and the Nutshells titled Of Dolls and Murder.