GRIM EXHIBITS

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 45, 17 November 1936, Page 6

GRIM EXHIBITS

How Crimes Are Solved Relics <if crimes, including two skulls, were used by Sir Bernard Spilsbury, the Home Office pathologist, to illustrate a lecture he gave at University Medical School, London, recently. The occasion was the reception held to mark the opening < f the 1936-37 of the school. Sir Bernard explained how various crimes were solved by his experiments. One of the .skulls, a murdered woman's, was lifted together after she was battered to death. It was found to bear imprints which matched the shape of a poker found in her room. - A series of exhibits, consisting of small squares of white cloth over leather into which bullets were tired from various ranges, showed the amount of scorching and powder tattooing to be expected on the clotliing and skin of anyone killed in that way. Up to 3in. range there was considerable burning of the cloth round the bullethole, and at a range of Ift. practically none, hut the tattoo marks of tile powder were clear up to sft. range. Sir Bernard also produced the mummified remains of a new-born baby found wrapped in a newspaper bearing the date May 20, 1870, under the floorboards of an old house. Another exhibit was the shrivelled mummified head of a South American warrior. It was the custom of some tribes there, Sir Bernard said, to extract the bones from the head of a slaughtered enemy through the severed neck, and to dry the relic slowly until it shrank to little more than the size of a man’s fist. An exhibit which contrasted with the others was a bowler hat. It had helped Sir Bernard to solve the mystery of the death of a boy of 16. found 1 shot through the head. At first the police regarded lite case as one of suicide, but Sir Bernard found bloodstains on the underside of the rim of the iiat corresponding to the entry and exit holes of the bullet. This showed that the hat must have been on when the bullet struck the boy, and Sir Bernard thought it unlikely that he would! have commit-

ted suicide with his hat on. There were no singe marks on the skin round (lie entry hole of the bullet, showing that the weapon must have been fired from a short distance, and it is usual for suicides to press the muzzle against the temple. There was a half-smoked cigarette clutched in the left hand. "I could not think that tile boy would coolly light a cigarette before blowing his brains out." said Sir Bernard, "so I came to the conclusion that it was in all probability a case of •accidental death.’ ”