Revealing the circumstances of murders.. A Belgian forensic doctor documents his experience with corpses in a collection of short stories health

Forensic physician Philippe Bucso became a book-selling star in Belgian bookstores thanks to a book in which he drew from his experience in dissecting a large number of corpses, a collection of short stories characterized, despite their cruelty, by a sense of biting humor, a mixture that appeals to readers and provides a glimpse into a profession that many people know nothing about. .

Buxo, 59 years old, examined hundreds of bodies during his 33-year career in the city of Liege in eastern Belgium, and through autopsies he revealed the circumstances of murders that might not have been possible to clarify their circumstances had it not been for his careful observations.
Based on this long experience, Buxo included in his book a series of short stories whose size does not exceed “15 pages maximum,” and some of them are very harsh.

In his interview with Agence France-Presse, Buxo said that “participating in the beginning of the investigation is an exciting thing,” when a lifeless body is brought to him, and he puts on his gloves and wears his white robe to examine it at the request of the judiciary.

He explained that this task is tantamount to “allowing the body to speak for the last time.”

The forensic doctor’s conclusions may reveal circumstances of death that may be surprising, such as the two cases of a sixty-year-old woman whose son’s dog killed her while she was feeding him, which is something she rarely does, and a farmer who was surprised by a bull in the stable, as multiple fractures in the limbs and torso showed that the animal weighed more than a ton. Trample it.”

In 2021, after the huge success of a video clip broadcast on RTBF in which Boxo narrated “3 unusual investigations”, he became convinced that he had to write the stories that until then he had only told his students at the Faculty of Medicine.

The three books he published in this regard were very well received in bookstores, with about 740,000 copies sold, including about 200,000 copies in 6 weeks of his latest book, “La mort en Face,” published at the end of August. dad.

“This is unprecedented for non-fiction books,” noted a spokesman for Keen, a small publishing house that was struggling before Boxo rescued it.

In 2024, the success extended to France. During the first week of October, “La More en Fès” ranked third in terms of sales volume in its category in the “GfK/Livres Hebdo” classification. Research is currently underway into the possibility of issuing a copy of it in English.

I respect the body

Buxo’s book contributed to pushing many people who are not usually fans of reading or who do not read it very much to read books.

His book signing in Belligny, near the city of Liège, attracted a large audience that filled the hall in which he gave a lecture.

Political science student Mary Lou Collar, who was in the audience, said, “Listening to him speak is wonderful, because he is passionate about what he does.” She indicated that she discovered it on TikTok and YouTube before.

Boxo said, “I respect the body in front of me. I do not know the dead person… What makes me laugh is death and the way of death.” “It’s quite sarcastic, it’s my way of being. Those who don’t like it don’t have to read what I write,” he added.

In all of Bucso’s stories, which sometimes date back decades, the author changed the names of the people so as not to violate medical confidentiality, he said.

The stories often relate to murders of women, and sometimes to parricide, as in a case told to an audience by Bucso in Plinyi, about a young woman who showered her bedridden father with all the bullets in her gun magazine to ensure he was killed.

However, the autopsy showed that “the man was already dead due to a cerebral hemorrhage” before he was shot, and therefore his daughter was not convicted, according to Boxo.

The forensic doctor explained that “the penal code requires certainty.”

In his speech, Buxo did not forget to call for support for forensic medicine in order to achieve better justice.

“There were 42 forensic doctors in Belgium in 2020, and today there are only 24. It is time to do something,” he said.