Читать книгу Murder Maps - Drew Gray - Страница 45

44

PART ONE — EUROPE.

In March 1905, when Melville Macnaghten (1853–1921), head of the London Criminal Investigation Department, found a smudge on a cash box, he seized the opportunity to put a new forensic technology to the test. The box was found at Chapman’s Oil and Colour Shop in Deptford, southeast London, where the body of the shop’s owner, Thomas Farrow (1834–1905), lay dead.

The 71-year-old had been beaten to death and his wife, Ann (1840–1905), had been similarly attacked and later died in hospital. The newly established Fingerprint Bureau quickly determined that the smudge was a thumbprint, probably from a right hand. Prints were taken from the shop employees, which allowed them to be eliminated as suspects.

Witnesses reported seeing two men leave the shop in the early hours on the morning of the attack, and more than one witness positively identified one of them as Alfred Stratton (1882–1905). Alfred and his brother Albert (1884–1905) were arrested and their prints taken – Alfred’s right thumb exactly matched the one Macnaghten had found. The pair stood trial on 5 May, where the defence case rested on rubbishing fingerprinting as a forensic tool. This failed and the brothers were hanged eighteen days later, the first killers to be condemned in Britain by their fingerprints. •

Opposite. crude masks made by the robbers alfred

and albert stratton from a pair of stockings.

Below. chapman’s oil and colour shop in deptford, where the shopkeeper thomas

farrow was beaten to death by robbers.—————Bottom. the cash box, on which macnaghten

discovered alfred stratton’s fingerprint.

Below. alfred stratton’s fingerprint (right), a perfect

match for that found on the cash box (left).

chapman’s oil and colour shop, high street, deptford.

 March 0.

englandlondon.

ALFRED STRATTON

& ALBERT STRATTON.× Tomas Farrow. × Ann Farrow.

weapon.knife.

typology. property crime.

policing. fingerprinting.

alfred stratton.

Above. map showing where thomas and ann

farrow were murdered by the stratton brothers.

albert stratton.