TINY CLUES

Evening Star, Issue 20510, 14 June 1930, Page 6

TINY CLUES

MURDERERS' ERRORS OLD CASES RECALLED Cue of the most sensational murder trials of modern times hud its climax in the execution of Sidney Harry Fox on a charge of murdering his invalid mother in her bedroom in a Margate hotel so long ago as October last. At first the death was generally accepted as being due to natural causes, following an outbreak of fire in the old lady’s bedroom, but several suspicions circumstances came to light, the body was exhumed. and such a net of circumstantial evidence was drawn round Fox as left no reasonable doubt of his guilt, says a writer in an English paper. A port-mortem examination revealed that the dead woman had not been suffocated by smoke, but gently strangled before the outbreak of fire. The outbreak itself, instead of being accidentally caused by his mother's newspaper coming in contact with a gas lire, as Fox suggested, was shown to have actually been started under a chair, and there 11610 other suspicious circumstances. From day to day Fox, who posed as a devoted son, had insured his mother’s life against death from accident, and on the day in question had particularly asked that the insurance should continue till midnight instead of terminating, as usual, at noon. The fire occurred, and his mother was found dead just before midnight, and Fox stood to gain £3,000. IMPORTANT TRIFLES. Nothing in the whole history of criminology stands out with such clearcut, dramatic distinctness as the tragic importance of trifles—the tiny, insignificant clues which murderers have so often overlooked or forgotten, but which sufficed to send them to the scaffold. Bv a strange and curious coincidence trifling clues—one in each case—have played a remarkable part in forging the chain of evidence which has culminated in verdicts of “ guilty ” in the Fox and Podmorc murder dramas. It becomes oven more extraordinary when it is recalled that the “trifles” referred to were of t' 1 same nature in each instance —a fatal scrap of paper! Burns oii'a chair suggested that the fire had started under tho chair, which did not agree with Fox’s statement that it had spread from the gas fire. Scotland. Yard authorities were informed of this discovery, and they immediately began their inquiries. Evidence in support of this theory was found in a peculiar way. Someone recalled having seen a scrap of charred newspaper in room 66 —just after the fire was discovered. An army of men, acting on the instructions of the police, overhauled a Margate rubbish dump for this, and beneath a ton of debris was found the charred newspaper which was to prove such a damaging piece of evidence against the accused man. Whatever the murderer may have thought of this incriminating piece of partly-burnt newspaper—whether he forgot about it altogether or merely ignored it as of no consequence—the criminal authorities did not for a moment minimise its importance in the reconstruction of the terrible crime for which ho lias been justly condemned.

A. lllidgc. " Kosli ” was welcomed and thanked by the president, Mr G. A. Illidge. THE PODMORE CASE. A scrap of screwed-up paper—so dirt-stained and trodden that scarcely a word on it could bo seen—connected William Henry Podmorc with the murder of Vivian Messitcr in a Southampton garage, and eventually proved the most damning evidence in the case for which he was executed on April 22 last. The police picked up this fatal bit of paper in the garage—■ it had been rolled up in a ball —and an analyst, by a special process, was able to clean it and to decipher the writing, and to prove that it was a portion of a receipt signed by “ W. F. Thomas,” a name assumed by .Podmore. The murderer, who had been carefully covering bis tracks, omitted to see this vital scran of evidence, and but for it he would probably never have been arrested. A “ trifle ” had become the accusing finger of fate—and the culprit’s doom was sealed! The most remarkable fact about many murders is that they “ will, out,” as a rule, by some strange omission on' the part of the murderer or some chance that should bo a million to one, hut isn’t. It is the clever murderers who get found out. the cunning ones who lay their plans with extreme care and ability, but who by some curious phase of forgetfulness unwittingly provide the authorities with a clue to their guilt, and which they find it almost useless to confute.

A classic example of the forgetfulness of a scientist turned murderer is furnished in the case of the groat Professor Webster, of Boston. Webster was a man of remarkable ability and of high character, but very nervous and hasty. One day he had a violent quarrel with his life-long friend, Dr Parkman; blows were struck, and in the struggle Dr Parkrnan was accidentally killed.

Had Webster confessed, he would probably have got off with a light sentence for manslaughter, but lie chose to keep silence, and employed all the sinister resources of his science in disposing of the remains of his friend. He out the body up in his laboratory, and burnt and destroyed all the parts, even the bones. He felt safe in the secure belief that ho had not left so much as a hair of the head of his victim to betray him. But he forgot one thing, made one little mistake. Among the ashes and clinker of the furnace was found part of a set of false teeth which a dentist recognised as having belonged to the missing man. The teeth were made of a composition which resisted fire. It was a very small thing for a scientist to forget; hut those teeth hanged Webster, and before he was executed he confessed. . A WHITECHAPEL CASE.

The case of Thomas WamwrigJit, who was' hanged in London in December, 1875, might well be termed the classic instance of a two-fold blunder bv an all but completely successful murderer. It was a “ murder for respectability," Waimvright, a married man, slaying his mistress. Harriet Lane, and burying her on his own premises in Whitechapel road. But, by a slip of the mind, he burned the body in chloride of lime instead of quicklime. So the grisley evidence was preserved instead of being destroyed. After a year of actual “ respectability,” circumstances forced him to remove the body. Instead of sending a boy for a cab and keeping an eye himself 0:1 his packages, ho very carelessly reversed these duties. The boy was inquisitive—and that was the end of Waimvright. William Palmer, the Rngoley poisoner, was a clever man, but not quite so clever as ho thought; for, after ho had done to death his friend Cook, his own wife, and his brother by strychnine, he might well have eccaped punishment- had ho not doue (like Waimvright) two highly foolish things, for no trace of the poison was found in the bodies of his victims. At his trial, however, it was proved that ho had bought strychnine from a Ruge!ey chemist in •the presence of a friend, Mr Newton, and, in a treatise on poisons found in his surgery he had made this note on a page dealing with strychnine—“ Kills by tetanic action the muscles.” MODERN SCIENCE THE MASTER. Criminal records contain data of so many cases where the grave has given up its secret—where modern science has beaten the secret poisoner—that to bo really successful the poisoner must discover sonic new drug, some strange, unfamiliar poison such as is known to exist among the witch-doctors of Central Africa, Papua, and the South Sea —so at least it has been suggested. Seddon doubtless imagined ho was safe with his fly-paper solution; but neither ho nor the cute and cunning Dr Crippcn, with the more elusive and rare hyocme which he administered to his wife, reckoned on the scientific methods of the modern medical experts. Hyocino leaves little or no trace behind, so that it would appear that even excess of artfulness may lead to detection. It does; and all tnrough the history of criminal poisonings the comforting fact emerges that the poisoner by as much as ho selects a rare, unexpected, or elaborate method, lays himself open to detection.

A poisoner whose perfect mastery of toxicology enables him to carry on a successful career of crime is a favourite character in sensational fiction, but ho can seldom “ make good ” at the present time. An exact example of this position is furnished by tbo well-known Lamason case, /where a medical man selected a practically unknown poison—aconitine —believing that in this way he must bafl'e the ends of justice, as no evidence could be called associating the symptoms of his victim with tho absorption of a substance which had never been made tho subject of previous experiment. THE FATAL NOTES.

It was a rarity of the medium employed that led to his conviction lor he was a marked man in the places where ho obtained it, while its deadly nature could bo demonstrated in many ways. In another way, too, Dr Lamason contributed to bis own undoing. Alter bis arrest, when Ids ■ clothes were searched, the police found in one of his pockets a piece of paper, on which were some notes in Lamason’s handwriting. The; were notes 011 the effects and symptoms of vegetable irritant poisons. Among them was aconitine. Lamason had forgotten that fatal notel No, it is not true always that murder “ will out.” There are dark and tragic mysteries still unsolved which prouably never will bo solved. But these hidden deeds are not, as a general thing, tho crimes of the educated and the clever; they aro usually the unpremeditated homicides of sudden anger or the motiveless acts of a madman, such as was Jack tho Ripper.

Hut tho able criminal, tho man who tiiinhs it all out—who plans every step of his slow and stealthy walk—who chooses his time and place with a deep cunning—who imagines he thinks of everything and slips away from the body of his victim secure in the belief that ho cannot be traced, that is tho man who overlooks the trifle that brings justice quickly at liis heels. A fool may _ blunder into concealment of liis aimless misdeeds, but a cunning murderer cannot hide ills tracks. Tho forgotten little thing points like a signpost after him; and it is fortunate for the security of mankind ill at this is so.