DOES NOT EXIST

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 8, 9 July 1931, Page 22

DOES NOT EXIST

THE PERFECT CRIME

MISTAKES OF LAWBREAKERS

IMPORTANT TKIFLES

There is no sueli thing as a perfect crime. Every criminal leaves incriminating clues behind him. Occasionally the clues, are not detected, or thoy are insufficient to convince a jury of the guilt of the criminal. Thanks to the improvements in the methods of detection and the notorious carelessness of even tho most skilful criminals, however, it is seldom that the police have not a very shrewd suspicion at least of the identity of the perpetrator of a crime. In his book, "All tho Sinners," Mr. Herbert Arthur discusses tho trifles which havo led to the undoing of criminals. Mr. Arthur, who for many years was a high official of prisons in England, has a personal knowledge of the most notorious criminals of two decades. The greatest detectives, he says, will admit readily that' their cleverest ally is often the guilty criminal himself. In a long experience ho has observed repoatedly that tho coolness and cleverness of the most astute murderers reach their peak at the actual commission offt-tho crime. Thereafter the descent is rapid, for invariably a nervous l reaction sets in. Under the influence of this reaction the once cool, cunning; and resourceful villian is capable of. extraordinarily foolish acts. Then;he-becomes the easy.prey of the forces ; ''of 'justice", arrayed • against him. High authorities believe that the reasons for- this vast change in the mental equipment of the murderer is that after the crime a hundred and one circumstanced arise which were totally unforeseen, despite the belief of the murderer that he had provided for all contingencies. He.becomes obsessed by a vaguo terror of his victim, whoso accusing finger is over before him. He sees in every human being a possible agent of Nemesis. Ho • is customarily drawn by some impelling force to revisit the scene of his crime. While the murderer is in this distraught frame of mind he is no match for the cool, calm, trained brains of Scotland Yard. His evasion of justice is usually brief. PIECE OF CLINKEK. A piece of clinker hanged Louise Massett. She murdered her child, and left tho body in a room in a railway station in the north of London. Tho head of tho child had been battered in with a piece of clinker, such as is often used to make borders around garden plots. Louise Massett left the pieco of clinker beside the body. In a brief timo it was proved that thero wero similar pieces of. clinker in the garden of her employer. One piece of clinker was missing. The piece of clinker with which tho child had been murdered fitted'exactly into the vacant space in tho border in the garden. • Some years ago a man named M'Rae murdered a .woman in England. He maltreated the corpse so cunningly that it was impossible to identify the body as that of a certain missing woman. He tied the body in a sack, threw it awayj and was confident that he could snap his fingers at justice. He met'the fate he deservod, because he had overlooked the fact that the sack bore his name and addross.

Dr. Crippcn, who poisoned „h is unwanted wifo and buried her dismembered body in a cellar, declared, that tho human remains must havo been placed there before ho took tho tenancy of the house. The prosecution proved that the corpse had been buried in a pyjama coat which had been bought for- Dr. Crippen only a yepr -before., Ho, was hanged by a fragment of ;pyjania coat. CLEVER WORK. A child's toy bull's-eyo lamp, which cost, a penny, hanged -the murderers Fowler and Milsom. • Tho lamp wasl found beside tho body of tho murdered man. An astute, detective placed the lamp on the counter of a .tobacco' shop in tho district... It was claimed by a small boy who was followed by the detective. The. boy innocently led the detective to the murderers, one of whom was his'father. ft ft' • 'At least two murderers. have been brought to justice by the trifling evidence- contained in a laundry mark. Both victims were buried as persons unknown, but with great energy, and infinite patience the police traced their murderers, : one through the - mark "HH" on a sheet in which his victim was wrapped, and tho other through the mark "599" upon a petticoat. The case in which the figures "599" lod to tho scaffold was highly sensational. It was notable for tho manner in which -the crime .was committed, ; the almost complete absence of clues, and the long immunity enjoyed by the murderer. A parlourmaid in Bayswator, London, becamo. engaged in 1900 to Herbert John Bennett, who was -apparently a very genteel and industrious young man engaged at the Woolwich' Arsenal. A terrible discovery was mado at Yarmouth. The body of a young, attractive woman was discovered on the beach. Sho had been strangled with a bootlace. Months passed while the police followed . the Blender clue offered by ithe number "599," but eventually they established that the murderer was Bennett and that the victim .was his wife. Ho was so cool and callous that ho had not been concerned when his sweetheart had discussed the crime in his presence. Indeed, ho had voluntoered tho opinion that the "police were a very poor lot and that they would never apprehend the murderer. ' CLOAKROOM TICKET. So insignificant a trifle as a ■ cloakroom tietot brought John Robinson to the scaffold. In 1927 a newsboy entered the cloakroom of tho Charing Cross Station, London, and gave a ticket to the attendant. He said that it had just blown out of a taxicab in which a man was seated. He had tried to attract the attention of the driver, but he had failed. Tho incident enabled the attendant to recall the appearance of the man who a.few minutes before had deposited a large black trunk. Some days later the trunk was found to contain the severed -portions of a woman's body. It was found that Robinson had beon one of the acquaintances of the woman. Because: bo answered tho description given by the .attendant at - the cloakroom the detectives began. an investigation .-which", led to his conviction. Samuel Dougal buried his victim in her boots, forgetting' that because of hor tiny feet she had to havo boots nyido specially for her. The woman was readily identified and tho , murderer was truced without difficulty. . THE SAME METHOD. George Joseph Smith, the murderer Of tho "brides in the bath," one of the vilest assassins who cvor lived, was perhaps tho most noted. criminal to meet a desorved end through' carelessness. .It was'tho practice* of, this monster to marry impressionable women, persuade them.to make wills in his favour, and then to drown them in-a bath. Dp to a stage he displayed marked cunning, but he was so stupid that he never varied his 'method. He was clever enough to commit his crimes at places far distant from one another, but he I reckoned without the Press. Tho father of one of his unhappy victims noticed the similarity in the reports of the inquests into the doaths of two of the women. The verdict at eneli inquest 'was merely "found drowned," but the similarity of tho evidence given, especially by'tho murderer, aroused his suspicions. He sent tho cuttings from the

newspapers to Scotland Yard. Of Smith Uio Judge who sentenced him to death remarked, "I think that any exhortation to repentance would bo wasted on you." He who showed so little mercy to his victims was loud in his piteous pleas for mercy to his gaolers and his executioners. liis last days were' spent in abject terror.