TELL-TALE MARKS

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 147, 23 June 1928, Page 20

TELL-TALE MARKS

iBEVEAIiJJDIN CHIME INQUIEIEB. It lyas explained recently in London in a case of murder by shooting how cartridges, after being fired from a . reveLvprj n^y- -bo separately, identified from- marks put on tho. revolver by the . maker; The facts cuino out in tho pI'O: gecutJon of Frederick Guy Browne and William Henry Kennedy, who, each arnied vwitji a revolver, shot Constable Gutteridge, when he was trying to ki: r§st them lor driving a.way with a d'betor's wotprrcar, <(The fired cartridge. case found in. Dr. Lovell's car," said Mr. H. E. Jloome, for the prosecution, "bears upon the face of .the stamp 'B;L. TV.' and the Government-broad arrow, .which means that it was made in the Eoyal Laboratory at Woqlwieii, and,, is Mark IV. ammunition." Mark IV. was rare, not having been made since the Var. Most of the unfired ammunition found in the possession of Browne ■• is Mark IV. The1 second point was ttjat; the1 bullets found, oiio'slightly enjbedded in the ground and tho * other resting on the,ground in a pool of blood-in which Police-constablo ,• Gutteridge's head- was lying), were, both Mark' vl, bullets. Mark I. was extremely: rai'o] rarer even than Mark IV. In tho pos: session of Browne was,, found a Web--ley revolver loaded with, six cartridges. Two were Mark I. One,was loaded witli black-powder and one with, cordite.. ',: ''There is a third poinjf—tlio most important oi all,": continued Mr, Eoome. "When a, JVebley revolver is ihed the force of the ,?xplosjpu causes tlio cart-* ridge caso to recoil at a prcssuro equivalent to SJ^tons to,the square'inch.' The result of this tremendous impact is to stamp on the metal of tho cartridge cane, every ill© mark and identification appearing on the breech shield' of the' revolver, jnst KB wax pressed to a seal will exhibit evejry line and indentation

of the seal. In the' "VVebley revolver the file marks are made by hand and differ in every one of-these revolvers. When the cartridge case is compared with the lDreeeh shield of the revolver found -in Browne's car the file marks of both corrpspond with exactness to a finger print." William Henry Fox, chief engineer of tho armoury station of the Small Anna "Factory, Enfioid Lock, said that he had examined 1374 revolvers. Not one of them bore marks which would lead him to think that tho cartridge caso had been fired from it. The.case was fired from the revolver produced.