Michael Eddowes
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Michael Eddowes (born 1903) was a British lawyer, author and investigator.
Eddowes came from a family of barristers and built a large law practice specializing in divorce.
Notable cases
Eddowes' first famous case involved Timothy Evans, who was hanged in 1950 for the murder of his wife and daughter. Eddowes wrote a book on this case called The Man On Your Conscience in which he argued that the real culprit was serial killer John Reginald Halliday Christie. It was because of Eddowes' efforts and those of other such as Ludovic Kennedy and Sidney Silverman that the case was reinvestigated and Evans was issued a posthumous pardon. The outcry over this case helped to lead to the abolition of the death penalty in Great Britain.
Eddowes also wrote a book called The Oswald File in which he argued that Lee Harvey Oswald was not the real killer of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. He argued that the real assassin was a Soviet impostor whose first name was Alec. Eddowes pointed to a number of differences between the real Oswald and the autopsy of the alleged assassin to argue his point. He pointed out that the real Oswald was five feet eleven inches in height and there were 11 recordings of this. The Dallas pathologists said the assassin they autopsied was five feet nine. The corpse also had a large scar on the wrist, Eddowes claimed the real Oswald had no such scar. Eddowes pointed out that as a child Oswald had a mastoid operation that left him with a depression in the flesh behind one of his ears as well as a dime sized hole in his skull. The corpse of the man Jack Ruby killed had no such depression or hole in the skull. Eddowes sought action in Texas courts and the body was exhumed in 1981. The body was in an advanced state of decomposition, but it was said to have been Oswald's. Eddowes died shortly afterwards.
Eddowes' son later wrote a book in which he disputed his father's claims that Timothy Evans was innocent.