TEETH CASTS AS EVIDENCE

Grey River Argus, 9 November 1949, Page 7

TEETH CASTS AS EVIDENCE

AUCKLAND, November 7. When an Auckland dentist, Valentine John Anderson-Brown, returned to his house recently he found it had been broken into. On a floor were a piece of cheese and a 114 apple, both partly eaten. The dentist, at the request of the police, made plaster casts of the teeth marks and gave the opinion that the man who made the bites was in the early twenties and had a pointed chin. The second tooth from the right on the upper jaw was tilted inwards. Later the police brought him another piece of cheese and another apple with teeth marks in them. He made casts again and concluded that the bites were made by the same person in each case. The police then arrested John Burns, aged 24, a coach-builder, and an assisted immigrant, who at first denied breaking into the? dentist’s house. Confronted with the evidence of the teeth casts he confessed. Burns also at first denied breaking into another house but confessed when hig shoe was found to match an impression on a bed sheet. Burns pleaded guilty in thq Magistrate’s Court to-day to two charges of breaking and entering and one of breaking, entering and theft. He- was committed to the Supreme Court for sentence.