FINGER-PRINTS AND CRIME.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 9, 10 July 1909, Page 10

FINGER-PRINTS AND CRIME.

AN INTERESTING CASE. Finger-prints have played an important part in elucidating the mystery of a crime committed at Neuilly-Plaisance, near Paris (writes the correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph). For once the system of Bertillon has given prompt and brilliant results, and the finger-prints left on a champagne bottle and on a wineglass have led to the immediate identification of two alleged murderers. On a recent Sunday night a widow Mme. Agnes Mois, was murdered in her own house. She was seventy years of age, and curiously enough, had a constant fear of being attacked by burglars. Her husband died two years ago, and sine* then she was so afraid of robbers that she never lelt her house after dsrk. On the Sunday she went out for the first time with some little nieces to a local fair, and returned alone about ten o'clock at night. She asked one of her neighbours to accompany her through her garden into the house to make sure that no burglars had entered it during her absence. Two young women accompanied her, and after looking through the rooms on the ground floor, where they sa.w nothing, they retired, and left the old la&y. At that very time [ two burglars were in the kitchen. They waited until Mme. Mois was alone, and then when she came to the kitchen to look for an egg, as she did every night, they pounced upon her, strangled her, and stabbed her to death. Ihey discovered only £3 in her possession. However, they made up for their disappointment by ransacking her larder, where they found several bottles of champagne, which they emptied. When the crime was discovered next morning M. Bertillon was at once seat for, ana took photographs of the fingerprints on the bottles and glasses. The prints were perfectly distinct, but, of course, the question was to find the men who had left them. An. old couple living close by had a ne'er-do-well son, who was just wanted by the police fox a sum of £8 which he had stolen from one of his cousins. This young man, -who only occasionally worked as a plumber, andlhed most of the time nobody knew how, was arrested. Ho occupied a room in a low-class inn with a chum of his, and when the police came to arrest him, his room companion gave a sigh of reI lief on hearing that the plumber was | arrested only for robbery. It occurred to M. Bertillon later on to compare the marks which he had photographed from the champagne bottle with the fingers of the plumber, and was struck at once by their close resemblance. He immediately informed the police, the plumber's finger-prints on glass were photographed for comparison, and they we/c found identical with those found on the champagne bottle. At the same time his room companion was arrested, and his finger-prints were also photographed by M. Bertillon. They corresponded exactly to those found on the glasses in the murdered woman's house. When the two prisoners were told they were suspected of the murder of Madame Mfois they turned pale, but denied the charge. The police have, however, obtained further evidence against them, and among other things the two men are known to have spent the night of Sunday at Neuilly Plaisance, and can give, no satisfactory explanation of their presence in that district. Finally, a burglar's dark lantern of clumsy make had been left, by the murderers in the house where the crime was committed, and the police have, it is believed, foynd proof that the lantern is the work of; the plumber, who had roughly soldered th"c pieces together. But if it had not been for the finger-prints, it is probable that the police would not so soon have come on the track of the alleged criminals.