The Marvels Of Criminology Are Becoming Everyday Matters

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 207, 2 September 1939, Page 9 (Supplement)

The Marvels Of Criminology Are Becoming Everyday Matters

Scientists started it ; America's F. 8.1., Scotland Yards C.1.D., and the Paris Surete Generale have put it into practical use; J. Edgar Hoover told the world about it. Scientific criminology has come to stay! In countless crimes in every city of importance it has proved its worth. Now Sydney has been brought up to date. Equipment and methods equal to anything in the world are used by the new Criminal Investigation Branch, thanks to the alertness and energy of the Police Commissioner, Mr. McKay. Recently from Vienna came news of a new preparation, Copiol, which completely revised procedure in obtaining footprints. Promptly the Commissioner, introduced it to the C.1.8. It now is possible to take an accurate impression of even the lightest mark, in a few minutes, simply by pouring the stuff into the depressions on the ground, or glass, or carpet. One of the most amazing developments is that it is possible to trace a housebreaker merely by comparing his jemmy, />r screwdriver, with the markings left behind on the window, or door. This is of the utmost importance to juries in deciding the guilt or otherwise of the man in the dock. This principle evolved from forensic examination of bullets, which, once fired, always bear individual impressions from the rifling of the weapon used. In one case recently, the detectives found on microscopically-photographed woodwork, 20 marks of similarity, when compared under a microscope with a chisel. They claim to have positively identified the tool. In the same way teeth marks arc identified. Cases which might previously have battled the best of Australia's detectives are solved—some of them comparatively easily —by use of the modern aids to crime detection which have put the brilliant guesswork of Sherlock Holmes completely into a romantic but unreliable oblivion. To illustrate the work of Sydney's C.1.8., the following hypothetical "case" was evolved recently. Shot through the heart, the beautiful blonde lay dead on the divan, one hand clutching a solitaire diamond ring; in the other two short strands of dark hair. Her dressing-gown cord was on the floor. "Nothing must be interfered with until the doctor and the Science Squad arrives," said the great detective. Georgine had been dead not more than five hours, said the doctor. The C.1.8.'s scientific detective carefully preserved the two strands of hair. From the floor he retrieved a man's clean, though slightly ruffled, handkerchief; and two feet away mw the fault impression of a man's sbo*.

Among other things the scientific detective saw' were marks on the door 1 jamb; he closed the door and saw that ] scratches on its outer edge corresponded i perfectly. The cocktail shaker on the ; sideboard was liberally marked with i fingerprints. '"Looks easy,'' said the great detective. * "She has her engagement ring in her ' hand, see ? Well, it was a lover's quarrel. ; Find the boy-friend and you'll find the ' murderer." -• : "You find the boy-friend, and I'll find ! the evidence," said the scientific detec- 1 tive. ' At the morgue, where the doctors made , the autopsy, more clues were found. The fatal shot had been fired at a range of three feet, they said. , From the point of view of the deli- < cately-shaped, lightly-painted fingernails ] they had preserved a spot of dried blood; < and from the unfortunate girl's heart 1 they extracted a bullet which had been 1 fired from a .32 calibre pistol. ] "That spot of blood came there when she scratched someone—just a trifle, but 5 a scratch, nevertheless," said the doctor ( in charge. , ° t To the interviewing room came the great detective with Leslie. Yes, Leslie had just a slight mark. Xo, he said, he ® and Georgine had never quarrelled. Yes, he had been with her last night, but he had left her after they had drunk a cock- a tail each. She was gloriously happy, and looking forward to their wedding and a , honeymoon in America. Leslie was trembling violently. With , shock, he said. He was heartbroken. It , was terrible . . . his darling Georgine ( dead! "Not shock—it's fear-—that's why you're shaking like a leaf!" cried the great detective; and Leslie covered his ashen face with quaking hands. That faint mark on his lower lip— nicked himself shaving last night, he said —again and again, as they question.-.d him. They took his fingerprints; and, of course, they were his, and Georgine's, too, on the cocktail shaker. But it was not Leslie's hair in Georgine'e hand, the analyst said. There was still a slight smear of lipstick on his left hand, where Georgine playfully had kissed it that night. If Leslie had fired the fatal shot, said the scientific detective, powder stains would still be on hie right hand, because it was obvious that he had not washed since leaving Georgine. So they encased the hand in paraffin wax, expecting gunpowder spots to reveal themselves in incriminating blue stains on the wax. There was nothing to see. It seemed that Leslie had not killed his fiancee, after all, and the great detective allowed him to go his grief-stricken way when the scientific detective produced the foot impressions taken from the carpet in Georgine's lounge, and the impression of the marks on the door and door jamb. First they secured a sample of Leslie's blood.

Leslie's foot was much smaller than the foot which fitted the shoe that had left that tell-tale print on the carpet. Someone else must have been there, after all, said the great detective, who thereupon took up a fresh trail. The fingerprint experts microscopically found a fingerprint on the white handkerchief. lodine vapour blown through a tube brought it into bold relief, and it was photographed. The case against Leslie again was weakened. It wasn't his fingerprint. There was no record of it in the official files. The doctors reported that Leslie's blood was in Group B, while the spot on Georgine's fingernail was in Group C. Science liad saved Leslie. Weeks went by, and still the murder was not solved. The world forgot the glamorous Georgine, and even the newspapers had dropped the case, but not the great detective. He was still not sure or the motive, and was as far away as ever from the murderer; but doggedly he and his assistants worked on. It was a dark, damp night when a suburban householder heard a faint noise downstairs. As he crept down, a shot was fired, and the resident rolled down the stairs with a bullet in his shoulder. Leaping through a window he had left open, the burglar escaped. Next morning the detectives found his footprint, and the scientific expert was called to make a cast of it. , Then—sensation! That shoe wu the same shoe that had left it* mark on Georgine's thick, blue carpet! The great detective and a big squad of others rushed there. One by one, the footprints were traced to the gate, where they turned to the left. The gunman must have gone to the station, the police said. One detective ran there, to see how long it would take him to cover the distance in haste. The ticket-porter remembered a panting man hurrying on to the platform at 11.40 p.m. —-10 minutes after the shooting. It had taken the detective just 10 minutes to reach the station. Could the porter give a description? Yes. He particularly noticed that the man wore a blue suit with faint green stripes. Tailoring experts told them that that wag not a fashion, now; so every policeman was told to look for a tall, clean-shaven man wearing a dark suit with green stripes. Within a week he was found. Science proved that the gun in his pocket had fired the fatal shot that had killed Georgine, when, after she had disturbed him in her flat, he had tried to take the ring from her finger; science disclosed that his blood matched the spot on her Sagefnail; the hair came from his was smeared with his favourite drMJjBS it was his fingerprint onchief: the shoes he still wore fitt«*l perfect iv every point appearing. , plaster cast; and that—imortalK# The great detect*** wmauiing task was to put t»w f«l* jury-