Silent Witnesses: The Often Gruesome but Always Fascinating History of Forensic Science

298 Pages·2014·2.8 MB·English

by  Nigel McCrery

s i l e n t
w i t n e s s e s
the
Often GruesOme
but
AlwA ys fAscinA tinG HistOry
of
fOrensic science
N i g e l M c C r e r y
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Random House Books
This edition published in 2014 by Chicago Review Press Incorporated
All rights reserved
Chicago Review Press Incorporated
814 North Franklin Street
Chicago, Illinois 60610
ISBN 978-1-61373-002-7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McCrery, Nigel, 1953–
Silent witnesses : the often gruesome but always fascinating history of forensic science / Nigel Mc-
Crery.
pages cm
“First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Random House Books.”
Includes index.
Summary: “Crime novelist and former police officer Nigel McCrery provides an account of all the
major areas of forensic science from around the world over the past two centuries. The book weaves
dramatic narrative and scientific principles together in a way that allows readers to figure out crimes
along with the experts. Readers are introduced to such fascinating figures as Dr. Edmond Locard,
the “French Sherlock Holmes;” Edward Heinrich, “Wizard of Berkeley,” who is credited with hav-
ing solved more than 2,000 crimes; and Alphonse Bertillon, the French scientist whose guiding
principle, “no two individuals share the same characteristics,” became the core of criminal identifica-
tion. Landmark crime investigations examined in depth include a notorious murder involving blood
evidence and defended by F. Lee Bailey, the seminal 1936 murder that demonstrated the usefulness
of the microscope in examining trace evidence, the 1849 murder of a wealthy Boston businessman
that demonstrated how difficult it is to successfully dispose of a corpse, and many others”— Provided
by publisher.
Summary: “Through examinations of specific cases throughout history, crime novelist and former
police officer Nigel McCrery explores the gruesome but fascinating history and progress of forensic
science around the world”— Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-1-61373-002-7 (paperback)
1. Forensic sciences—History. 2. Forensic sciences—Case studies. 3. Criminal investigation—Case
studies. I. Title.
HV8073.M3323 2014
363.2509—dc23
2014006713
Typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro by Palimpsest Book Production Limited
Falkirk, Stirlingshire
Cover design: Natalya Balnova
Cover photo: © STOCK4B GmbH / Alamy
Printed in the United States of America
5 4 3 2 1
Dedicated to Professor Helen Whitwell, my friend and the
inspiration for the series Silent Witness. The real Sam Ryan.

Contents
Author’s Note vii
Introduction ix
1 Identity 1
2 Ballistics 39
3 Blood 70
4 Trace Evidence 104
5 The Body 140
6 Poisons 178
7 DNA 223
Index 251

Author’s Note
My interest in forensic science was first piqued after
joining the Nottinghamshire, England, police force
in 1978, at the age of twenty-five. Watching the
scientists and quite often the pathologists do their work always
fascinated me. I was greatly impressed that they could glean so
much information from such a small amount of evidence.
Observing a well-conducted postmortem made me feel much
the same. The information that could be recovered from a dead
body, even one in an advanced state of decay, could quite easily
lead to the identification and arrest of a murderer. This fascina-
tion has only grown over the years and has, until now, found
expression mainly in works of fiction, including several Silent
Witness crime novels and a BBC forensics drama by the same
name.
In the course of my work I have found the following books
to be invaluable to my understanding and appreciation of foren-
sics, and to these books and authors I owe acknowledgment
and gratitude: The Encyclopedia of Modern Murder by Arthur
Baker, Fingerprints by Douglas G. Brown and Alan Brock, The
Age of Sex Crime by Jane Elizabeth Caputi, The Casebook of
Forensic Detection by Colin Evans, Memories of Murder by Tony
vii
silent witnesses
Fletcher, Murder Whereabouts and The Murderers’ Who’s Who by
J. H. H. Gaute and Robin Odell, The Other Mr. Churchill by
Macdonald Hastings, Before Scotland Yard by Peter Haworth,
Francis Camps: Famous Case Histories of the Most Celebrated
Pathologist of Our Time by Robert Jackson, The Airman and the
Carpenter by Ludovic Kennedy, The Scientific Investigation of
Crime by Stuart Kind, The Principles and Practice of Blood
Grouping by C. V. Mosby, Serial Killers by Joel Norris, Crime
and Criminals by Harold Scott, Crime Scientist by John
Thompson, The Encyclopedia of American Crime by Carl Sifakis,
Forty Years of Murder by Keith Simpson, Clues to Murder: Forensic
Murder Investigation of Professor J. M. Cameron by Tom Tullet,
Expert Witness: My Thirty Years in Forensic Science by H. J. Walls,
The Blooding by Joseph Wambaugh, and Written in Blood by
Colin Wilson and Damon Wilson.
viii
Introduction
Murder has a magic all of its own.
William Roughhead, Scottish
criminologist (1870–1952)
T he morning of November 21, 1983, dawned cold. The
wind was bitter, the sky dark and bleak. On her
mother’s advice, fifteen-year-old Lynda Mann dressed
warmly before leaving for school. She wore denim jeans over a
pair of tights, a thick sweater, white socks, and black tennis
shoes. Before leaving the house, she also pulled on her new
jacket and stuffed a warm scarf into her pocket.
Lynda lived in Narborough, England, a village about six miles
from the Leicester city center. It was what Lynda’s mother,
Kathleen, described as “a real English village.” Kathleen, divorced,
had been a city dweller for most of her life but had settled there
with Lynda and her other daughter, Susan, after falling in love
with the place. In 1980 she married Eddie Eastwood, a former
soldier, and they became a happy family of four.
Lynda herself was an attractive, dark-haired girl with pale
ix