Beating the Devil's Game: A History of Forensic Science and Criminal (15 page)

The following year in 1897, Adolph Luetgert, a sausage maker in Chicago, Illinois, was arrested when his second wife, Louisa, disappeared. It turned out that Luetgert was a notorious seducer, as well as an abuser, and had allegedly told one mistress he wished his wife were dead. Since he had ordered a large quantity of caustic potash two months before Louisa vanished in order to “make soap,” and since she was last seen in his company on May 1 outside the sausage factory, he was a viable suspect. Reportedly, on May 2, the night watchman had noticed a sticky substance on the floor, mixed with bone fragments, and a few days later Luetgert began giving out the story that his wife had simply walked away.

The police learned about the substance on the floor, searched the factory, and discovered a vat full of suspicious brown sludge. They drained it and found bone fragments and two rings, one of which bore the initials,
L. L.
Luetgart was bound over for trial. His defense attorneys presented witnesses who had seen Louisa in other places, but the prosecutors engaged the services of George Dorsey, an anthropologist at the Field Columbian Museum. He identified some of the bone fragments as human, including a thigh bone from a female. His presence at the October trial marked the first time a forensic anthropologist had testified in court. In addition, a physician and a professor testified that the sludge from the vat was identifiable as dissolved human flesh.

The jury hung, but the second trial in February 1898 resulted in a conviction and Luetgert received a life sentence. Although there was no body, evidence and circumstances supported the possibility that he had boiled his wife in the vat of caustic potash. However, rumors flew that he’d actually ground her up into sausage.

Then in 1898 in the area of ballistics, chemist Paul Jeserich got involved in a murder case in Germany when the police asked him to determine if a bullet removed from the victim had been fired from the suspect’s gun. Rather than make an examination through observation, as Lacassagne had done, he opted for a different kind of analysis. He fired a bullet from the gun in question, and then took photographs of the test bullet and the one removed from the victim, which amplified their qualities. Looking at both, he identified specific markings that appeared to link both projectiles to the gun. The suspect was convicted and sent to prison. But it would be fifteen years before Victor Balthazard would note that each gun placed a distinctive mark on the bullets it fired.

Then fingerprints emerged again. This time, in the effort to win widespread acceptance in the law enforcement community, the technique got the right attention. Just before the turn of the nineteenth century, Francis Galton ensured that Edward Henry could present a paper at the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. But contrary to his expectation, Henry bypassed mention of Galton’s system and instead discussed his own ideas, apparently devised from a man named Azizul Haque, who had worked for him in India. Henry and Haque used ridge counting to sort patterns into finer classifications for more precise identification than Galton’s three-pattern typology allowed. Afterward, officials in Britain convened a committee to consider whether British law enforcement should adopt this new method. However, Galton attacked Henry in a professional journal, indicating errors with Henry’s system and challenging him to prove himself with a large collection of tested prints.

Henry obliged, offering a trunk full of fingerprint lifts that revealed, one after another, that individual fingerprints were unique and that his classification system worked. He published a book,
Classification and the Use of Finger Prints
, saying that his ideas were already in widespread use in India. The British committee decided to give Henry’s method a cautious try, so he received the post of assistant commissioner of Scotland Yard. In 1901, he established its Fingerprint Branch, as well as taking over the Criminal Investigation Division (CID).

That year,
bertillonage
, still keeping its ground, identified just over five hundred suspects as repeat offenders, while the next year fingerprinting proved to be more than three times as successful. Since it was an easier and more practical method, and appeared to be reliable, Scotland Yard took steps to make it the method of choice. Still, Henry had a job ahead of him convincing the police force out on the crime beat that this was a useful system. He needed a big case. In the meantime, handwriting analysis was in fashion again, at least in another sensational trial in New York.

A rivalry had developed in the Knickerbocker Athletic Club between Harry Cornish and Roland Molineaux, a chemist. Just before Christmas in 1898, Cornish received in the mail an anonymous gift of apparent bromoseltzer, placed inside a silver container shaped like a candlestick. Thinking it a holiday joke, he offered it to his aunt, Katherine Adams, for a headache remedy, but when she mixed and drank it, she convulsed in agony and died. The autopsy confirmed that she had ingested cyanide.

Molineaux, thirty-one, was a chemist and the superintendent of Morris Herrmann & Company. The plant had a laboratory containing chemicals from which poison, including cyanide of mercury, could be produced. Indeed, Molineaux had been a suspect in 1897 when his rival for the affection of a woman had also died from a mailed poison. He was arrested and tried. The prosecutor included statements from eighteen expert witnesses on handwriting analysis, including two eminent analysts, John F. Tyrrell and Albert S. Osborn, while the defense attorney used only one authority on questioned documents, David Carvaho. The prosecution’s case seemed stronger, as the experts stated that Molineaux’s handwriting matched that found on the package containing the anonymous gift, and they even recognized his efforts to disguise it. They based their conclusions in part on the recurrence of the same misspelled words. Molineaux claimed to be entirely innocent, but the judge allowed testimony about the 1897 case, so the jury found him guilty.

Molineaux appealed the decision. When the appellate court found that information about a murder for which he’d never been arrested or convicted should not have been included in his original proceedings, he received a new trial. This time, fewer samples of his handwriting were used and his own attorney hired experts who stated that one could not distinguish the aspects of handwriting that the original prosecution’s experts had described. This jury wasted no time in finding Molineaux not guilty.

Professionals all over Britain and America were now debating the issue of experts in the courtroom, which had become an increasingly lucrative arena. People could now sell their expertise and many “experts” claimed to have scientific backbone in their techniques when they didn’t. Professionals contradicted one another on supposedly “certain” results, and accusations flew about each other’s lack of moral fiber or poor handling of evidence. It was easy to point to cases throughout the century in which people had been harmed by so-called scientific research or interpretation, and it seemed that the courts now encouraged more of the same. However, juries did not trust it as yet, especially since they had no means for deciding which expert was right, and even authentic experts had sometimes failed to deliver what they’d promised.

Even so, scientists continued to improve their techniques and to hope for courtrooms to tighten up the standards. They suggested alternate tribunals for selecting courtroom experts and reexamined their epistemological and ethical assumptions, knowing that they could not continue to present excuses for widely differing opinions on the same evidence. Courtroom stipulations about expertise were certainly in the offing, albeit several decades away. For now, the scientific community had to police itself, but as long as there was money to be made, there would be charlatans with their junk science, as well as good science presented poorly in the adversarial arena. More cases were coming that would place these problems into a glaring spotlight.

The nineteenth century ended with a great many forensic technologies and inventions coming into their own. Fingerprinting would soon win its place as one of the most important discoveries for law enforcement, and the new century would usher in the age of identification. So much more was in store, including more prominent scientists and investigators who would gain their own renown for what they contributed to the balance of justice.

SEVEN

IN THE RED

The early 1900s ushered in many discoveries in forensic science, from a wide variety of fields. While even Sherlock Holmes pondered the analysis of blood, echoing a significant concern for law enforcement, the best test thus far was the microscopic examination of stains that could distinguish blood from substances such as juice or dye, as long as they were sufficiently fresh to show the blood’s corpuscular structure. One doctor in France claimed that heat would make blood give off a certain odor, but his “test” never showed up in a court of law. While the spectroscope from as far back as 1859 could assist in detecting hemoglobin, animal blood could not be distinguished as yet from human.

In 1900, Austrian immunologist Karl Landsteiner, a professor at the Institute of Pathology and Anatomy in Vienna, named and standardized the different blood groups, based on the structure of red blood cells. He found that they carried antigens, which produce antibodies to fight infection, and different people showed different conditions. In a centrifuge, Landsteiner placed blood from colleagues who had graciously volunteered, separating the red blood cells from the watery serum in which they were carried. Then he added red blood cells from other subjects and identified two distinct reactions—clumping and repelling. He labeled them type A, if the antigen A was present with the anti-B antibody and no antigen B. Those with the antigen B but no antigen A became type B. A third reaction in which both antigens were absent was labeled C (later relabeled as O). Two years later, yet another type of serum showed up with both antigens present, so it was labeled type AB. So now the police could at least
exclude
suspects whose blood type did not match blood at a crime scene.

Around the same time, another important serological discovery occurred. German biologist Paul Uhlenhuth, from the Institute of Hygiene in Griefswald, was studying ways to develop a serum to fight hoof-and-mouth disease. He learned from experiments that if he injected protein from a chicken egg into a rabbit, and then mixed serum from the rabbit with egg white, the egg proteins separated from the liquid to form a cloudy substance: an antibody. He called this substance precipitin. As he proceeded, he found that the blood of each animal had its own distinct protein, and then after injecting human cells into the rabbit, he realized that the test was also applicable to humans. That was big news for law enforcement because crime suspects often claimed that blood on their clothing was from animals, and to that point, their stories could not be disputed with proof. With the precipitin test, those days appeared to be over. To be certain about this result, a coroner asked Uhlenhuth to test some dried bloodstains from both animals and humans, and the results proved the test to be reliable.

Just four months after Uhlenhuth announced his discovery, a particularly brutal crime brought the test into the forensic spotlight. In the German village of Göhren, near the island of Rügen, two young boys, Peter and Hermann Stubbe, failed to come home after playing out in the woods. Villagers assisted in the search, even into the night. As the sun rose, several body parts that appeared to be from children were discovered in the bushes. Then the searchers came across the bodies, with their limbs and organs removed and strewn about. Gruesomely, Hermann’s heart was gone, and both boys had been bludgeoned with a stone.

The police learned that people had seen the boys talking with a fruit seller named Ludwig Tessnow from Baabe, so they went to question him. Although he denied any involvement in their murders, a search of his home turned up laundered clothing that bore suspicious stains. Tessnow claimed that they were from wood dye, which he used for carpentry. There was nothing more the police could do since they had no evidence, but then a local magistrate, Johann-Klaus Schmidt, recalled a similar crime not far away—and involving the same suspect.

Three years earlier in Osnabruck, Germany, two young girls had been found in the woods, butchered and disemboweled. The man seen loitering near the woods, his clothing stained, was Tessnow. At that time as well he had claimed that the stains were from wood dye. The circumstances now looked much more suspicious, especially after the prosecutor, Ernst Hubschmann, heard that a farmer had identified Tessnow as the man he had seen near his field just before finding seven of his sheep slaughtered and ripped apart. Still, no one had actually seen the suspect perform such brutal crimes on human or animal, and the prosecutor needed more than circumstantial associations. Hubschmann came across Uhlenhuth’s paper “A Method for the Investigation of Different Types of Blood,” so he asked Uhlenhuth to examine Tessnow’s clothing. Uhlenhuth agreed, applying his method to more than one hundred spots. While he did find the presence of wood dye, he also detected traces of both sheep and human blood. With this evidence and the surrounding circumstances, Tessnow was tried, convicted, and executed.

Then in 1902, a murderer in France who said that blood on his clothing came from skinning a rabbit was also convicted via the bloodstain test, when the blood proved to be human. Thanks to a scientist, law enforcement had gained an impressive new tool.

MAKING MATCHES

The first time an expert proved in court that a specific gun was used for a murder was in America in 1902. Oliver Wendell Holmes, a judge, liked to keep up with scientific innovations and he came across a book about firearms identification. When a case came up that provided an opportunity to use a scientific demonstration in court, he called a gunsmith to test-fire the alleged murder weapon into a wad of cotton wool. With a magnifying lens, he showed the jury that the marks on the bullet from the victim matched the one fired from the suspect’s gun.

During that era,
bertillonage
still dominated human identification, but detectives working with fingerprint evidence continued to seek acceptance for their methods, which they believed were much more manageable, scientific, and accurate than taking body measurements. In England, Edward Henry, who had three good investigators working with him in the Fingerprint Branch, finally found the case he needed. It was June, time for the Derby in Epsom, which drew plenty of spectators, along with thieves and pickpockets. Assistant Commissioner Melville Macnaghten from Scotland Yard’s CID suggested that Henry take fingerprints of thieves at the Derby. There would be no end of opportunities to prove the method and it would certainly get publicity.

That day, the police arrested more than fifty pickpockets, taking impressions of their fingerprints. Two officers worked through the night to identify repeat offenders and they were able to show that more than half of these men had been arrested before. Thus, they received a harsher sentence than they had expected. One man actually said, “Bless the fingerprints. I knew they’d do me in.”

The next case, two months later, involved a home invasion, in which a set of fingerprints was lifted from where the offender had touched wet paint. From a list of burglars who were required to give their prints, the investigator was able to match one from the paint to Harry Jackson. Edward Henry was determined to take Jackson to court using this single fingerprint as evidence. A prosecutor of stature, Richard Muir, accepted the case for the sole purpose of bringing attention to this technique. During the proceedings he told the jury that fingerprint evidence had never before been used in a jury trial in an English court. He had investigator Charles Collins explain the methodology in detail, which the jury found fascinating. Collins offered a photographic enlargement of both the print from the paint and the inked impression from Jackson, describing a fingerprint as a calling card. Although Jackson claimed he had nothing to do with the crime, the jury convicted him and gave him seven years in prison. A few newspapers picked up the story, but there was immediate backlash from professionals, including Henry Faulds, who claimed that a method that relied on a single print had not been proven. There was another setback when a clerical error at the Fingerprint Branch forced the detectives to admit they had made a mistaken identification. Thus, while it got attention, this new approach failed to have an immediate positive influence on public acceptance.

But in the United States, an incident at Leavenworth Penitentiary in Kansas in 1903 convinced law enforcement of the technique’s superiority. A convict named Will West came in for processing. An agent located his card on file, but West protested that he had never been there before, so they could not possibly have his card. The guards took his body and head measurements, which were close enough to those on the card to believe that West was lying, but again he was adamant. Looking into the matter, the guards found another William West in the prison, who bore a strong resemblance to the new man coming in. This unique coincidence proved to be a blow to anthropometry, but a real gain for fingerprinting, since that, at least, distinguished the two men.

Another case in Britain also helped to give science a boost, but only after it destroyed a man’s life. Back in 1895, a woman had identified Adolf Beck, owner of a copper mine, as the thief who had stolen her watch. Soon ten other swindled women nailed him as well, so Beck was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison. After he got out, he was again identified as the person who had committed a theft and nearly returned to prison a second time, but then John Smith was arrested and he confessed to all of the cons. His physical similarity to Beck was astounding, highlighting a key problem with eyewitness memory: It could easily be mistaken, especially where resemblances were uncanny. While Beck was pardoned, he had lost his business and his sense of trust. Inspector Melville Macnaghten had witnessed this case and it fueled his enthusiasm for utilizing fingerprints. Had such evidence been available in 1895, he knew, Beck would have been spared his ordeal.

British investigators were soon to find a much more sensational, albeit still tenuous, case to demonstrate their methods. It was early in the morning in Deptford, England, on March 27, 1905, when a young man entered Chapman’s Oil and Colour Shop on High Street and found owner Thomas Farrow bludgeoned to death under an overturned chair. The police arrived and found Farrow’s wife upstairs, also assaulted and in need of immediate medical attention.

An empty cashbox revealed robbery as the motive. Chief Inspector Frederick Fox and Assistant Commissioner Melville Macnaghten deduced from that that Farrow had been duped into opening the door. The robbers had then gone up to the bedroom, bludgeoned Mrs. Farrow, found what they were after in the cashbox, and fled. Yet they’d left behind their masks.

Macnaghten hoped for a good fingerprint analysis so he instructed his officers to process the place carefully. With a handkerchief, he picked up the cashbox, saw what he believed was a print, and carefully made an impression for the lab. It was indeed a print and appeared to be from a thumb. Yet no prints on record from housebreakers provided a match. Witnesses had seen brothers Alfred and Albert Sratton in the area, so the inspectors took their prints. After hours of waiting, a match was made with the elder brother. This evidence was prepared for court, along with witness identifications, and agencies around the world awaited the results.

Richard Muir took the case, although he realized that with lives at stake, the jury might resist convicting on this new type of evidence. Much hung in the balance for the fingerprinting technique. If the print was barred from court, that would be a considerable setback. If admitted and the evidence actually contributed to a conviction, it would become a legal precedent, with international reverberations.

But then Henry Faulds once again became a vocal detractor. Stung by the lack of recognition he’d received, he insisted on the necessity of having all ten prints for an identification. Nevertheless, Scotland Yard proceeded with the case.

At first, the trial faltered. The defense attorney vigorously disputed each prosecution witness, yet on the other hand the brothers had masks in their possession similar to those found at the crime scene and they had tried to persuade someone to give them an alibi. As well, they were richer directly after the murder and they had changed their appearance.

Finally, the fingerprint experts gave their testimony. When Charles Collins showed the jury enlarged photographs illustrating how the thumbprint from the scene matched the elder Stratton on eleven points of comparison, he spoke with confidence. He told them that he’d worked for more than four years with files that numbered over ninety thousand prints. Although defense expert Dr. John Garson pointed out dissimilarities between the prints, Collins rebounded with an explanation: He said these differences were the result of different types of pressure. He proved his point by taking prints from members of the jury, with different degrees of pressure, to show them differences in their own prints. It was an excellent visual demonstration, since they could see for themselves that prints they knew to be their own could have slightly different appearances. Further undermining the defense expert, the prosecution produced a letter he’d written to the effect that he would offer testimony to the highest bidder, so he was dismissed.

It took the jury two hours, but ultimately they accepted the fingerprint interpretation, convicting both men and sentencing them to hang, which went straight into the newspapers around the country, and was soon picked up internationally. That case opened the door for other police departments to trust the fingerprinting techniques.

That year, the New York State prison system began the first systematic use of fingerprints in the country for criminal identification, and by 1910, an appeals court would declare that fingerprint technology had a scientific basis.

PATTERN ANALYSIS

At this time, there were developments in other areas as well, some positive and some negative. In 1904 Oskar and Rudolph Adler developed a presumptive test for blood based on benzidine, a new chemical developed by Merck. But then around 1905, the science of wound pattern analysis came into doubt as expert debated expert in another sensational case. Jeanne Weber, a Frenchwoman, was accused of killing several children of acquaintances and relatives, but the government’s pathologist, Dr. Leon Thoinot, repeatedly insisted that the deaths were accidental.