FOOTPRINTS AND TEETH MARKS

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25955, 8 November 1949, Page 4

FOOTPRINTS AND TEETH MARKS

EVIDENCE AGAINST ARRESTED MAN BIT APPLE AND CHEESE IN DENTIST’S HOME (New Zealand Press Assoctutionj AUCKLAND, November 7. When an Auckland dentist, Valentine John Anderson-Brown, returned to his house recently he found it had been broken into. On a floor were a piece of cheese and an apple, both partly eaten. The dentist, at the request of the police, made plaster casts of the teeth marks and gave the opinion that the man who made the bites was in tne early twenties and had a pointed chin. The second tooth from the right on the upper jaw was tilted inwards. Later the police brought him another piece of cheese and another apple with teeth marks in them. He made casts again and concluded that the bites were made by the same person in each case. The police then arrested Jonn Burns, aged 24. a coach-builder and an assisted immigrant, who at first denied breaking into the dentist s house. Confronted with the evidence of the teeth casts he confessed. Burns also at first denied breaking into another house but confessed when his shoe was found to match an impression on a bed sheet. . Burns pleaded guilty in the Magistrate’s Court to-day to two charges of breaking and entering and one ol breaking, entering, and theft. He was committed to the Supreme Court for sentence.