Why the Pyjama Girl was not Linda Agostini
When Albury dentist Francis Herbert Jackson was asked by the police to look at the teeth of the deceased Pyjama Girl on the 3rd and 7th of September 1934, he detailed:
Missing teeth right jaw: first molar missing. Upper left jaw: no teeth missing. Lower right jaw: first molar and wisdom tooth missing; first molar extracted between the ages of 6 and 12 years. Lower left jaw: second bicuspid, first molar, second molar and wisdom tooth missing. General description of mouth: Beyond lower right bicuspid twisted distally. High and broad palate. Second upper left bicuspid elongated. Articulation of anterior teeth good with fairly big overlap of upper incisors. No blemishes on enamel. No signs of pyorrhea. Short upper lip. Rugae not abnormal but well-formed. No abnormal lingual prominences. Very little collection of tartar. Cusp formation normal. Lower left molars on left side have been extracted a number of years ago.
Fillings in teeth right jaw: second molar has a gold inlay in occlusal involving the mesial pit but not extending to the distal pit or buccal fissure; gold probably 22 carats; third molar has a small amalgam pit filling not involving fissures. Upper left jaw: first molar has an amalgam filling involving all the occlusal pits and fissures; second molar has an amalgam filling involving the distal pit but not extending past the central pit; third molar has an amalgam filling in occlusal surface larger than filling in opposite wisdom tooth. Lower right jaw: gold inlay involving all occlusal fissures in second molar. Lower left jaw: no fillings at all
This is from a police gazette notice: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/225107650?searchTerm=%22distal%20pit%22%2C%20albury
the important point to note is:
“Missing teeth right jaw: first molar missing.
Just in case you thought there was an error in this source it is matched by:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/17103774?searchTerm=%22distal%20pit%22%2C%20albury
The dental chart of the Pyjama girl created by Jackson and put in police gazette notices needs to be flipped from the image shown in the gazette to understand it. The important issue is that X marks missing teeth. We can count one X on the upper teeth on the right and six X’s on the lower teeth, four on the left and two on the right. In total seven missing teeth.
This image has been rotated and modified from: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/239679070?searchTerm=%22distal%20pit%22%2C%20albury
In 1944 at the inquest, dentist William Joseph O’Brien was asked to confirm that the teeth of the Pyjama Girl belonged to Linda Agostini because she was his patient in the early 1930s. But first O’Brien said that he didn’t use dental charts and wrote down the work he performed in a ledger.
The inquest can be found at: https://prov.vic.gov.au/archive/E26A42F1-F1B5-11E9-AE98-33247F5C0745?image=1
Then O’Brien went on to explain that in his ledger, he wrote (dated: 12/11/1930) the third molar in the lower right jaw had been extracted (the wisdom tooth) and this matches with the 1934 dental chart.
But then he also described in the inquest the first upper right molar had a gold inlay. But Jackson’s 1934 dental chart shows that this was extracted.
O’Brien had carried out this work himself on Linda Agostini:
The model of the teeth used in the inquest had a gold inlay in the first upper right molar which matched with the work of O’Brien. He recognised it as ‘like’ his own work. But it is in contradiction to Jackson’s 1934 dental chart where the tooth was extracted.
Further, the model or dental cast of the teeth being used in the Inquest shows that there was a gold inlay in the first upper right molar, in agreement with O’Brien’s ledger description for Linda Agostini but in direct contradiction with the chart used in the police gazette since 1934, created by Jackson where it clearly shows the tooth was extracted.
Dentist O’Brien looking at the dental chart with the ‘X’ representing the extracted 1st upper right molar shown in the police gazette said “As to what the “X” means, I do not know anything about that.”
During the 1944 inquest, Jackson said when he compared the dental cast presented to him with the body:
“I have compared the teeth of the body with the cast — it is not a model of any of the teeth in the body”
This implies the dental cast used in the 1944 inquest was of a different person to the body in 1944 and the one Jackson examined in 1934 but matched with the patient of O’Brien who was Linda Agostini. Effectively it was a dental cast of Linda Agostini but not the body of the Pyjama Girl according to Jackson.
O’Brien also said he contacted the police in 1934 based only on the fillings in the dental chart in the police gazette. But as the police description in the gazette did not mention porcelain fillings or a gold inlay in the first upper right molar it seems unlikely he would view them as a match or that the police headquarters would ignore his contact.
It is unlikely Jackson would confuse an extracted tooth with a tooth with a filling as he was asked by the police to extract teeth with fillings and then place those back in the model so dentists could recognise their work. It also leads to the question of how and why was a different model of the teeth created that matched the teeth of Linda Agostini but not the body.
Yet based on this contradictory dental evidence Tingate the coroner for the inquest concluded the body was Linda Agostini.
To quote Lezli-An Barret’s 2017 PHD thesis, The Pyjama Girl and Submerged women, liminal voices: A feminist investigation of feature film screenwriting as creative practice:
Other research:
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Postscript: I used pdf.ai to convert Part 2 of the Inquest document to a readable form. Then I used Unriddle.ai to analyse the text it said:
UNRIDDLE:
Yes, there was a disagreement between the dentist named O’Brien and Francis Herbert Jackson. O’Brien insisted that he filled the first upper right molar of the deceased, despite other dentists, including Jackson, stating that there was no such tooth in the corpse. O’Brien maintained his stance even when presented with the official chart and the corpse itself, leading to a conflict of opinions [1, 2].
DAVID MORGAN
Are there any other issues with the teeth of the corpse and evidence and the model of the teeth presented at the inquest
UNRIDDLE
Yes, there were other issues concerning the dental evidence. O’Brien disagreed with the condition of the upper left lateral incisor on the model, suggesting it was not eroded but broken, possibly during the casting process [57]. Furthermore, Magnus noted a discrepancy in the model, pointing out a drill hole on the mesial aspect of the upper second bi-cuspid that he had made himself, which was not present when the model was originally handed to him [!].
