Synopsis

With more than 100 true crime case studies, this book is packed with case histories taken from around the world, including O.J. Simpson, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, “The Mad Bomber” George Metesky, Tommie Lee Andres, “The Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez, Jack Unterweger, Lee Harvey Oswald, “The Boston Strangler” Albert DeSalvo, Jeffrey MacDonald, the Lockerbie bombing, “The Unabomber” Theodore Kaczynski, and many more

Also includes many “firsts,” such as the first murder conviction without a body and the first successful use of DNA analysis to secure a conviction.

Illustrated throughout with 200 color and black-and-white photographs, many of them offering rare and fascinating glimpses into police files.

Introduction

Without some element of forensic science, few modem crimes would be solved. If the perpetrator is not observed in the commission of the deed, or if a suspect does not confess, some form of evidence must be obtained, and its validity established in such a way as to secure conviction. In court, expert witnesses will be required to present this evidence, and explain its significance to the jury. Any possibility that the evidence is insecure will be seized on by the defence, and may result in a verdict of Not Guilty. Only the rigour of intensive scientific investigation can ensure that this does not occur.

The word “forensic” means no more than “connected with the courtroom.” In the early days of forensic science, almost all those who gave expert evidence were qualified medical practitioners, and well into the 20^th century the subject was alternatively referred to as ”medical jurisprudence.” There was good reason for this: much of the evidence still presented in cases of unnatural death derives in the first instance from the autopsy carried out by a pathologist, or medical examiner. The expertise of specialist toxicologists, serologists and ballistics examiners, among others, may later be called upon, but it is the pathologist at autopsy who determines the probable cause of death, and provides the samples of tissue and body fluids, whole organs—and even, in most shooting cases, the significant bullet.

In fact, many of the earlier forensic pathologists made important contributions to the development of other branches of the science. They did not confine themselves to post mortem dissection, but also examined trace evidence—both on the body and at the scene of the crime—made deductions from what they discovered, and frequently provided the only evidence necessary to present a cast-iron case in court. It is relatively recently that the great advances in the physical, chemical and biological sciences have resulted in the establishment of specialist forensic laboratories devoted to the investigation of crime, and the consequent proliferation of experts in specific disciplines.

The earliest known treatise on forensic medicine is the 13^th century Chinese book Hsi Yuan Lu (The Washing Away of Wrongs). Above all else, this work stressed the importance of examining the scene of crime, stating: “The difference of a hair is of the difference of a thousand li”—a li being a Chinese mile. This adage reflects the importance placed upon trace evidence by the French criminologist Edmond Locard early in the 20^th century, an importance recognized by all scene-of-crime examiners today.

In Europe, forensic science developed very slowly. In 1533, the Caroline Code published by the German emperor Charles V was the first to lay down that expert medical testimony must be obtained in cases of suspected murder, wounding, poisoning, hanging, drowning, infanticide and abortion. For some time thereafter, physicians were inhibited by the widely-held objection to dissection of corpses, but this was gradually overcome. The 16^th century French surgeon Ambroise Pare (d.1590) was the first to trace bullets in gunshot victims. In 18^th century Italy, Giovanni Morgagni is credited with the establishment of modern morbid anatomy.

For the present-day reader, the investigations of Sherlock Holmes, detailed in the fiction of Scottish physician Arthur Conan Doyle, are likely to be the first indication of the modern techniques of forensic science, but Doyle was drawing on a knowledge of many established cases. During the 19^th century experimental science had made remarkable advances, and police in many countries were quick to exploit its many discoveries. Criminologist Hans Gross first published his Criminal Investigation in 1893. In Lausanne, Switzerland, R.A. Reiss established the Institute of Police Science early in the 1900s, and developed forensic photography. Locard set up his Institute of Criminalistics in Lyon in 1910, and Robert Heindl opened a laboratory, soon to become the German national police laboratory, in Dresden in 1915. The establishment of similar laboratories in Austria, Sweden, Finland and Holland soon followed.

In the English-speaking countries, development was somewhat slower. The Los Angeles forensic science laboratory dates from 1923, but the FBI laboratory was not established until 1932. In Britain, much early forensic investigation was the province of university departments of medicine, and London’s Metropolitan Police Laboratory, under the auspices of the Home Office, was not opened until 1935.

Today, nearly every developed country supports national or regional crime laboratories. The major exception, strangely enough, is the United States. The FBI laboratory is directly concerned only with crimes against Federal law, and cannot apply its formidable expertise except on request from a local police authority. State crime laboratories are well established, and the Medical Examiner system is rapidly spreading, but in many counties the determination of cause of death still remains the duty of the local coroner—an elected office, which may well be occupied by the community’s funeral director, without any medical knowledge.

A final word should be said about the use of computers in the solving of crime. They are a formidable tool in the collation of information and the identification of prior offenders. The FBI has its “Big Floyd,” but the prize for names must go to Britain’s Home Office. In 1987, they announced the setting up of a major system to take over from the Police National Computer. In an obvious tribute to Conan Doyle they named it the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System—to be known to everyone as HOLMES.

Table of Contents

Introductions - p. 6; Gathering the Evidence - p. 8; Suicide or Murder - p. 22; Mark of Death - p. 32; With Poison Deadly - p. 46; Skull and Bones - p. 70; Breath of Life - p.92; Worm in the Flesh - p104; Finger of Suspicion - 0. 110; Written in Blood - p. 136; DNA Fingerprinting - p. 146; Hanging by a Hair - p. 160; The Speeding Bullet - p. 172; Fire and Destruction - p. 186; Fragments of Evidence - p. 206; Speaking Likeness - p. 218; The Guilty Party - p. 218; The Forensic Hardware - p. 226; Bibliography - p. 252; Index - p. 253.