Scotland Yard Triumphs In Bringing Murderer To Book

Wanganui Chronicle, 30 October 1948, Page 2

Scotland Yard Triumphs In Bringing Murderer To Book

LONDON, Oct. 25.—A story that might have come straight from a crime novel lies behind the sentence of death passed on Peter Griffiths, 22, of Blackburn, who was found guilty of murdering a three-year-old girl. He was arrested 90 days after the child’s body was found. The only clues were thumb and forefinger prints on a bottle that he handled when he crept into a ward of sleeping children in the Queen’s Park Hospital, Blackburn, took the child out and battered her to death.

When the initial inquiries by the Lancashire police came to a dead end, Scotland Yard instituted one of the biggest finger-print checks ever undertaken. The prints of every criminal in the files at Scotland Yard and police headquarters all over the country, totalling one and a quarter million, were compared with those on the bottle, without result. It was then decided to take the finger-prints of every male over the age of 14 in Blackburn, where the total population is 120,000. The police worked in pairs, house by house, and street by street, in an ever-widening circle. Photographs of the impressions of prints on the bottle were sent to police forces throughout the world. Inquiries were made about former mental patients in more than 100 institutions, all without result. SUCCESS AT LAST

When the new ration books were issued in July it was decided to check on them, too, and it was found that 800 males had not been finger-printed in Blackburn. The routine checking was followed again, and on August 13, 90 days after the murder, fingerprints agreeing with those on the bottle were reported. It was check No. 46,253, taken at a house in Birl Street, Blackburn, and the finger-prints belonged to Petei’ Griffiths. The police had' been to the house once before and had taken the prints of a relative. Their second visit followed after Griffiths received his new ration book.

He was arrested next day while going to work, and it was stated at the trial that but for the finger-print check he might have escaped.