Towards the end of the 1800s, many outlaws emerged in the
American West. One of these criminals was named Big Nose George
Parrott. In 1878, Parrott and his gang murdered two law
enforcement officers in the US state of Wyoming. In 1880, after
getting drunk and boasting of the killings, the men were
apprehended and Big Nose George was sentenced to hang on April
2, 1881, following a trial, but he attempted to escape while
being held at a Rawlins, Wyoming jail. When news of the
attempted escape reached the people of Rawlins, a 200-strong
lynch mob snatched George from the prison at gunpoint and strung
him up from a telegraph pole. Doctors Thomas Maghee and John
Eugene Osborne took possession of Parrott’s body after his
death, in order to study the outlaw’s brain for signs of
criminality. During these procedures, the top of Parrott’s skull
was crudely sawn off and the cap was presented to a 15-year-old
girl named Lilian Heath. Heath would go on to become the first
female doctor in Wyoming, and is noted to have use