HOW TO CRACK A CRIME
My interest in crime and forensic science began with my mother. Not that she was a serial killer who popped off her first two husbands – but she was a keen fan of Sherlock Holmes and introduced me to Conan Doyle’s stories at a young age. Later, I became a fan of the BBC drama series The Expert, which centred on a pathologist working for the Home Office. It seems likely, then, that the joint influence of my mother and actor Marius Goring as Dr John Hardy, had something to do with my decision to join the Nottinghamshire Constabulary in 1978.
During my time there I ended up working on a number of murder cases, exposing me to the realities that underpin the crime fictions I had so enjoyed. It was also during this period that I became aware of the existence of a remarkable woman.
Helen Whitwell was, at the time, the regional forensic pathologist. She had one of the most powerful intellects I have ever encountered. A unique individual, she made a deep impression on me, one that would later have a profound influence on my career. In 1987 I retired from the police force and went up to Trinity College, Cambridge to read Modern History. Then, in 1990, I joined the BBC graduate-entry scheme as the oldest person they had ever selected (I was pushing 40 by then).
Eventually, I moved into drama. I went on to create a police show called Backup. Shortly afterwards, Helen Whitwell’s influence on my imagination found expression when I created Silent Witness and the character of forensic pathologist Sam Ryan (played by Amanda Burton). The show has now been running for 17 years. All The King’s Men followed and, more recently, New Tricks.
So, in one way or another, forensic science and criminal investigation have been an almost constant presence in my life. At the end of the day, Silent Witnesses: A History Of Forensic Science, is the book I was always destined to write. In essence, the history of forensic science is a history of identification – of the culprit and, often equally important, the identification of the victim.
In the early days before scientific methods were in place for this purpose, the ways to establish who was the guilty party could be bizarre. They included making the suspect pick up hot stones and observing whether their hands blistered (if they did, as they surely would, they were considered guilty); also making the suspect touch the body of the victim to see if blood oozed from it as a sign of the victim’s desire for vengeance.
An extraordinary example of this latter method was in the case of Catherine Hayes. Just before dawn on 2 March 1726, a watchman made the gruesome discovery of a severed head lying on the foreshore of the Thames at Westminster. It hadn’t been there long as its features were still recognisable. It was first washed and its hair combed, then it was impaled on a pole in a churchyard in the hopes that someone might recognise who it was, or else that the head might start bleeding if the murderer came near.
Thousands came to view the remains, but with no result. Eventually, the head was taken down and placed inside the church in a jar of gin in order to preserve it. Finally, a young man thought he recognised the head as that of a man called John Hayes who resided on Tyburn Road (now Oxford Street) along with his wife Catherine and a number of lodgers.
When asked about her husband, Catherine came up with the improbable tale of him fleeing to Portugal after killing a man in a quarrel. Since this seemed dubious, the magistrate issued a warrant for her arrest, and she was then discovered in bed with Thomas Billings, one of her lodgers.
She was taken to the severed head. Upon seeing it, realising that she was under suspicion, Catherine grabbed the jar and hugged it passionately, wailing, ‘Oh, it is my dear husband’s head!’. She then kissed the jar while weeping hysterically. Perhaps she felt her actions were not drawing sympathy from the onlooking officials, for she lifted the decomposing head from the jar and, to the horror of all, kissed John Hayes full on the mouth.
But this did not save her. It transpired that Catherine had been having an affair with Thomas Billings and with her other lodger, Thomas Wood. The three had wanted John Hayes out of the picture, so had murdered him in cold blood. Billings was hanged, Wood died of fever in prison, and Catherine Hayes was burnt at the stake for treason against her husband; it was said that her screams could be heard all over London.
A grisly story indeed, and one which, above all, emphasises how basic the methods of identification were for many centuries. In fact, it wasn’t until the end of the 19th century that a systematic approach began to be applied to identification.
We largely owe this to the work of Alphonse Bertillon, a Frenchman who worked as a clerk for the prefecture of police in Paris. Realising that most methods used by the police to identify criminals and, in particular re-offenders, were largely useless, he began to work on the problem.
He started to record people’s height, the length of their arms and legs, and the size of their feet. Bertillon was sure that using his system he could identify anyone, alive or dead, whom he had previously measured. There was opposition to his idea but, in 1882, Bertillon was given three months to trial his methods.
A criminal who had given his name as Dupont was brought in. Bertillon took his measurements and found a match in his files – not for a man called Dupont, but for one called Martin, who had been arrested a couple of months earlier for theft. Faced with this evidence, ‘Dupont’ broke and confessed that he really was Martin – he had given a false name in the hope of getting a lighter sentence as a first-time offender. It was a triumph for Bertillon’s system, which was then adopted across Europe.
Bertillon revolutionised criminal detection. However, his method was to be superseded by an even more reliable way of identification: fingerprinting. It was Francis Galton, the cousin of Charles Darwin, who created a workable method of classifying fingerprints. He built on the work of two other fingerprinting pioneers, Henry Faulds and William Herschel, to create a system focused on the triangular shapes formed where ridges on the fingertips come together – the deltas. Galton published his findings in 1891 and his system was taken up by the British authorities.
Fingerprinting remains an essential part of criminal investigations today – if they are found at a crime scene they are not only a method of identification, but they also confirm the presence of that person – something that Bertillon’s measurements could not do.
But the greatest breakthrough of all didn’t come until later: on 10 September 1984, Dr Alex Jeffreys of the University of Leicester observed during an experiment that the DNA from members of the same family showed many similarities but also significant differences. He quickly realised what this meant: that we all have a DNA ‘fingerprint’. Anyone can be identified by their own unique genetic code.
Remarkably, the first place this advance was to be tested in a criminal investigation was in Leicestershire itself. In 1983 and 1986 respectively, two young girls called Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth were murdered. The deaths traumatised their small communities. Following Lynda’s death, in spite of an all-out investigation, the police had been unable to bring her killer to justice. Then, when Dawn was killed three years later, they knew that failure was not an option. They soon had a strong suspect in custody, a young man who, after hours of questioning, broke and admitted to the murders.
However, in order to make certain that they had their man, they asked Dr Jeffreys to employ his new DNA fingerprinting technique to compare their suspect’s genetic make-up with samples of the killer’s DNA taken from the bodies of the two girls.
To the frustration of the police, it was not a match in either case; the man had only confessed because he was under extreme pressure. Desperate to come up with results, the police resorted to the radical step of taking blood from every male who lived locally. But this failed to produce a result, until they discovered that a man called Colin Pitchfork had persuaded a co-worker to give blood in his place. Pitchfork was arrested on 19 September 1987. He was DNA -tested and found to be the man guilty of both appalling crimes.
Today the tiniest spots of blood or stray hairs left at a scene can be used as DNA evidence. Genetic fingerprinting has come into its own. There are many other incredible forensic techniques that now exist, from microscopic examination of clothing fibres to the careful analysis of bullets and the weapon that fired them.
Not only do these techniques mean it is harder than ever for a criminal to escape justice – they also ensure that none of us will have to kiss a severed head to prove our innocence.
Silent Witnesses: A History Of Forensic Science by Nigel McCrery is published by Random House Books, priced £18.99.
During my time there I ended up working on a number of murder cases, exposing me to the realities that underpin the crime fictions I had so enjoyed. It was also during this period that I became aware of the existence of a remarkable woman.
Helen Whitwell was, at the time, the regional forensic pathologist. She had one of the most powerful intellects I have ever encountered. A unique individual, she made a deep impression on me, one that would later have a profound influence on my career. In 1987 I retired from the police force and went up to Trinity College, Cambridge to read Modern History. Then, in 1990, I joined the BBC graduate-entry scheme as the oldest person they had ever selected (I was pushing 40 by then).
Eventually, I moved into drama. I went on to create a police show called Backup. Shortly afterwards, Helen Whitwell’s influence on my imagination found expression when I created Silent Witness and the character of forensic pathologist Sam Ryan (played by Amanda Burton). The show has now been running for 17 years. All The King’s Men followed and, more recently, New Tricks.
So, in one way or another, forensic science and criminal investigation have been an almost constant presence in my life. At the end of the day, Silent Witnesses: A History Of Forensic Science, is the book I was always destined to write. In essence, the history of forensic science is a history of identification – of the culprit and, often equally important, the identification of the victim.
In the early days before scientific methods were in place for this purpose, the ways to establish who was the guilty party could be bizarre. They included making the suspect pick up hot stones and observing whether their hands blistered (if they did, as they surely would, they were considered guilty); also making the suspect touch the body of the victim to see if blood oozed from it as a sign of the victim’s desire for vengeance.
An extraordinary example of this latter method was in the case of Catherine Hayes. Just before dawn on 2 March 1726, a watchman made the gruesome discovery of a severed head lying on the foreshore of the Thames at Westminster. It hadn’t been there long as its features were still recognisable. It was first washed and its hair combed, then it was impaled on a pole in a churchyard in the hopes that someone might recognise who it was, or else that the head might start bleeding if the murderer came near.
Thousands came to view the remains, but with no result. Eventually, the head was taken down and placed inside the church in a jar of gin in order to preserve it. Finally, a young man thought he recognised the head as that of a man called John Hayes who resided on Tyburn Road (now Oxford Street) along with his wife Catherine and a number of lodgers.
When asked about her husband, Catherine came up with the improbable tale of him fleeing to Portugal after killing a man in a quarrel. Since this seemed dubious, the magistrate issued a warrant for her arrest, and she was then discovered in bed with Thomas Billings, one of her lodgers.
She was taken to the severed head. Upon seeing it, realising that she was under suspicion, Catherine grabbed the jar and hugged it passionately, wailing, ‘Oh, it is my dear husband’s head!’. She then kissed the jar while weeping hysterically. Perhaps she felt her actions were not drawing sympathy from the onlooking officials, for she lifted the decomposing head from the jar and, to the horror of all, kissed John Hayes full on the mouth.
But this did not save her. It transpired that Catherine had been having an affair with Thomas Billings and with her other lodger, Thomas Wood. The three had wanted John Hayes out of the picture, so had murdered him in cold blood. Billings was hanged, Wood died of fever in prison, and Catherine Hayes was burnt at the stake for treason against her husband; it was said that her screams could be heard all over London.
A grisly story indeed, and one which, above all, emphasises how basic the methods of identification were for many centuries. In fact, it wasn’t until the end of the 19th century that a systematic approach began to be applied to identification.
We largely owe this to the work of Alphonse Bertillon, a Frenchman who worked as a clerk for the prefecture of police in Paris. Realising that most methods used by the police to identify criminals and, in particular re-offenders, were largely useless, he began to work on the problem.
He started to record people’s height, the length of their arms and legs, and the size of their feet. Bertillon was sure that using his system he could identify anyone, alive or dead, whom he had previously measured. There was opposition to his idea but, in 1882, Bertillon was given three months to trial his methods.
A criminal who had given his name as Dupont was brought in. Bertillon took his measurements and found a match in his files – not for a man called Dupont, but for one called Martin, who had been arrested a couple of months earlier for theft. Faced with this evidence, ‘Dupont’ broke and confessed that he really was Martin – he had given a false name in the hope of getting a lighter sentence as a first-time offender. It was a triumph for Bertillon’s system, which was then adopted across Europe.
Bertillon revolutionised criminal detection. However, his method was to be superseded by an even more reliable way of identification: fingerprinting. It was Francis Galton, the cousin of Charles Darwin, who created a workable method of classifying fingerprints. He built on the work of two other fingerprinting pioneers, Henry Faulds and William Herschel, to create a system focused on the triangular shapes formed where ridges on the fingertips come together – the deltas. Galton published his findings in 1891 and his system was taken up by the British authorities.
Fingerprinting remains an essential part of criminal investigations today – if they are found at a crime scene they are not only a method of identification, but they also confirm the presence of that person – something that Bertillon’s measurements could not do.
But the greatest breakthrough of all didn’t come until later: on 10 September 1984, Dr Alex Jeffreys of the University of Leicester observed during an experiment that the DNA from members of the same family showed many similarities but also significant differences. He quickly realised what this meant: that we all have a DNA ‘fingerprint’. Anyone can be identified by their own unique genetic code.
Remarkably, the first place this advance was to be tested in a criminal investigation was in Leicestershire itself. In 1983 and 1986 respectively, two young girls called Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth were murdered. The deaths traumatised their small communities. Following Lynda’s death, in spite of an all-out investigation, the police had been unable to bring her killer to justice. Then, when Dawn was killed three years later, they knew that failure was not an option. They soon had a strong suspect in custody, a young man who, after hours of questioning, broke and admitted to the murders.
However, in order to make certain that they had their man, they asked Dr Jeffreys to employ his new DNA fingerprinting technique to compare their suspect’s genetic make-up with samples of the killer’s DNA taken from the bodies of the two girls.
To the frustration of the police, it was not a match in either case; the man had only confessed because he was under extreme pressure. Desperate to come up with results, the police resorted to the radical step of taking blood from every male who lived locally. But this failed to produce a result, until they discovered that a man called Colin Pitchfork had persuaded a co-worker to give blood in his place. Pitchfork was arrested on 19 September 1987. He was DNA -tested and found to be the man guilty of both appalling crimes.
Today the tiniest spots of blood or stray hairs left at a scene can be used as DNA evidence. Genetic fingerprinting has come into its own. There are many other incredible forensic techniques that now exist, from microscopic examination of clothing fibres to the careful analysis of bullets and the weapon that fired them.
Not only do these techniques mean it is harder than ever for a criminal to escape justice – they also ensure that none of us will have to kiss a severed head to prove our innocence.
Silent Witnesses: A History Of Forensic Science by Nigel McCrery is published by Random House Books, priced £18.99.