Silent Witnesses Page 10

  Two days later, Bruneri’s relatives were called in to see if they could identify him. His wife, Rosa Negro, was first. She recognized him at once, as did their fourteen-year-old son, Giuseppino, who ran up to him calling out, “Papa, Papa!” Canella replied, “Go little one and find your family as I have found mine.” When asked, “Why deny that your son recognizes you?” he replied with a wink, “It’s not for the son to recognize the father, but for the father to recognize the son.” His sisters Maria and Matilda and his brother, Felice, also recognized him and confirmed his identity.

  But even in the face of this overwhelming evidence, the man refused to admit that he was Bruneri or to show the smallest sign of recognition toward his family. Even when one of his mistresses also recognized him, he stubbornly stuck to the story that he was Professor Canella. He even went so far as to fake a fainting fit in order to get out of the situation.

  Fingerprints were ordered to be taken from the man, so they could be to compared with Bruneri’s criminal record. They were sent to the central police archive in Rome. While initially no match could be found, a second, more intensive search proved successful, and the Scientific Investigation School of Rome wired back a telegram confirming that Bruneri and the man claiming to be Professor Canella were one and the same person. On the basis of this information, Canella/ Bruneri was jailed in the Collegno Mental Hospital while awaiting trial.

  At this stage Professor Lattes became involved. He pointed out that the truth could quite easily be established regardless of the fingerprint evidence simply by comparing “Canella’s” blood with that of his parents and children. Blood groups are hereditary; if, say, both parents turned out to be group A, and “Canella” was group B, then he certainly could not be their son. Equally, if he were group O and the children were group A or B, then it was impossible for him to be their father. “I need merely one tiny drop of the blood of each individual concerned, and I can almost certainly establish beyond all doubt whether ‘Canella’ is really the thief Bruneri,” Lattes asserted.

  However, Lattes was not to be given the chance to test his theory—both “Canella” and the family refused to give blood. The case dragged on, leaving opinion in Italy still divided about the man’s true identity. He died on December 12, 1941, still claiming to be Professor Canella. Although blood analysis was not, in the end, used to establish the truth in this case, the large amount of publicity that it received still helped to raise public awareness of serology and to enhance Lattes’s own reputation.

  German serologist Fritz Schiff (1889–1940), working in Berlin, made the next significant advance. Although he was well aware of Lattes’s methods—having had his book, The Individuality of Blood, translated into German—he had some serious reservations about them. Lattes’s theories depended on Landsteiner’s discoveries. As we have seen earlier in the chapter, these relate to the way different blood types cause each other to agglutinate, or “clump.” Landsteiner identified antibodies in the serum of blood and antigens in the red blood cells. The agglutinogens (antigens) in red blood cells can be of two types: antigen A and antigen B. The corresponding agglutinins (antibodies) in the serum are called antibody a and antibody B. These are distributed in the various blood groups in the following way:

  Group A: Antigen A in the cells, antibody B in the serum.

  Group B: Antigen B in the cells, antibody a in the serum.

  Group O: No antigens in the cells, antibodies a and B in the serum.

  Group AB: Antigens A and B in the cells, no antibody a or B in the serum.

  So the antigens in cells of group A show clumping when mixed with the antibody in the serum of group B, because the group B serum contains its corresponding antibody. The antibody therefore attaches itself to the antigen, creating the clumping effect.

  Group A antigens also clump in O serum, since it contains antibody a. But group O blood cells can be mixed with all three other serums without clumping, as group O cells contain no antigens of either type. Group AB can receive blood groups A, B, or O, as it contains no antibodies in its serum and cannot therefore attach to any antigen. However, if group AB were to be given to either blood type A or B, clumping would occur, as the antibodies in both serums A and B would attach themselves to their corresponding antigen found in the AB cells. Given all this, it was theoretically easy for a serologist to determine the blood group of an unknown sample by a simple process of elimination.

  Unfortunately, in group O blood, the B antibody loses its strength much more quickly than the a antibody. When this happens, the test might easily mistake group O blood for group B. Equally, the B antibody could degrade and vanish from a group A sample, making it appear to be type AB. The realization that this complication could occur cast severe doubt on the reliability of Lattes’s system of blood testing.

  However, Schiff saw a potential solution. Although the antibodies in serum degrade, the antigens present in red blood cells retain their strength. Schiff theorized that if the cells from an old bloodstain were added to a fresh serum, they ought to produce some effect, even if they had lost their ability to agglutinate properly. They ought, in fact, to attract and absorb some of the serum’s antibodies. Therefore, if a method of measuring exactly how much antibody was absorbed by the blood cells could be found, then the group of the old bloodstain could still be determined. It was a matter of measuring the effectiveness of the serum before and after the cells had been added to it. Having had this idea, Schiff worked hard at the problem but was unable to solve it himself. It was a young forensic scientist named Franz Josef Holzer who did that.

  Holzer used dimpled microscope slides containing eight “wells” in his investigations. He filled the wells with drops of group O serum (chosen because the serum contains both a and B antibodies and so would react with both group A and group B cells), diluted to varying degrees with salt solution—each well contained a solution twice as dilute as the previous one. He then dropped exactly the same quantity of fresh blood cells into each well and observed how much each serum mix agglutinated them. Having recorded his findings, he then repeated the test, this time using an unknown bloodstain, and then rechecked each serum to see how far it had lost strength. Once again, it was then a simple matter of elimination.

  A few years later, in 1934, the United Kingdom saw its first murder case involving forensic serology. Although the analysis of blood was not absolutely essential to the case, it nevertheless played an important role, and the bizarre and horrible nature of the crime makes the story worth repeating. The pathologist involved was the noted Sir Sydney Smith (1883–1969), a New Zealander who had come to Britain to study medicine at Edinburgh. While there he became fascinated with the life and work of Dr. Joseph Bell (1837–1911), who had lectured at Edinburgh University. He had been a pioneer in forensic science, and it was his incredible powers of observation and deduction that had inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the creation of Sherlock Holmes. Through the application of Bell’s methods for interpreting a crime scene, Smith had subsequently managed to unravel the complicated case of the death of a young officer in Egypt and to show that it was indeed suicide and not murder as had been suspected by some. By 1934 Smith was Regius Professor of Forensic Medicine at Edinburgh University. It was during this year that he achieved public recognition for his work in connection with the murder of eight-year-old Helen Priestly.

  Helen lived with her father and mother, John and Agnes, on the second floor of a drab and overcrowded tenement block, 61 Urquhart Street in Aberdeen, Scotland. The flat comprised only two rooms, making for squalid and cramped living conditions. Helen was, by all accounts, a rather difficult child and prone to misbehaving.

  On Saturday, April 21, 1934, Helen’s mother sent her out to buy some bread from the local co-op, just a few hundred yards away. She arrived there safely and bought the bread, the baker noting the time of the sale as 1:30 PM. However, after leaving the shop, Helen simply vanished. When it was realized that she was missing, a search was quickly organized.
The streets and back alleys were scoured by local residents and the police. No trace of Helen was found anywhere.

  It was then that a nine-year-old friend of Helen’s, a boy called Dick Sutton, came forward with information that completely changed the shape of the investigation. Dick claimed that he had witnessed Helen being dragged down the street by a scruffy-looking man in a dark coat, who had then forced her into a streetcar. The police quickly circulated a description of the man and widened their search to the outer suburbs of Aberdeen. They also appealed for information on local radio and in local cinemas.

  At 2 AM John Priestly and his friend and neighbor Alexander Parker returned home, both exhausted after searching long and hard for Helen. At 5 AM, after just a few hours’ sleep, Alexander decided that he would continue with the search but that he would leave John Priestly to sleep a little longer. As he made his way downstairs, he noticed a large blue burlap sack stuffed under the stairs. Given the situation, he was a little suspicious and decided to investigate. When he opened the bag he made a horrible discovery: curled up inside was the body of Helen Priestly. It was later discovered that she had been strangled. Her underwear was missing and there were bruises and other injuries on her thighs and genitals, indicating that she might have been raped.

  Parker was questioned by the police. He was certain that the bag had not been there when he had returned home with Helen’s father at 2 AM. This led the police to believe that the murderer must have gone to Helen’s home between 2 AM and 5 AM and left the body there to be discovered. However, it was soon realized that there was something wrong with this theory—during the night of the search it had rained heavily, yet the bag was still dry. So how did it get there? And how was it that, even with numerous people out on the streets for the search, nobody had been seen carrying the bag to the house?

  The police reinterviewed young Dick Sutton in the hope of getting a better description of the man he had seen. He eventually admitted that he had made up the entire story and had in fact seen nothing. Not only had his lies wasted hours of police time, they had also made them widen their search geographically when they should have been concentrating their inquiries much closer to home.

  Given the mysterious appearance of the bag and the discovery that there was no “scruffy man,” the police were forced to reconsider the possibilities. Maybe, they began to think, the killer hadn’t returned to Helen’s block. Maybe they had never left it. They began to interview the local residents. Had the Priestlys been arguing? Had John or Agnes ever mistreated Helen? Was there someone within the building that might have wanted to hurt Helen for whatever reason? Following this line of inquiry, police discovered that there was an ongoing dispute between the Donald family, who occupied the apartment on the ground floor, and the Priestlys, who lived immediately above them. Alexander Donald was a hardworking barber and his wife, Jeannie, stayed at home running the household and looking after their young daughter, who was also called Jeannie.

  Jeannie Donald senior had been seen arguing with Helen Priestly on a number of occasions, castigating her for her bad behavior. Helen had certainly been known to provoke the Donalds; she apparently bullied their daughter, kicked at their front door, rattled the banister outside their apartment, and had even shouted abuse at Jeannie Donald. To get back to her apartment, Helen would have had to pass the Donald family’s door. Curiously, the Donalds were also the only residents of 61 Urquhart Street who had not participated in the search for Helen.

  The police began to take a keen interest in the Donald family. At the same time, they concentrated their attentions on the burlap bag in which the body had been discovered. There were several significant details for them to go on: it had been stamped with a Canadian export mark, it had once contained flour, and it held traces of washed cinders, an unusual cleaning method that was rather old-fashioned even then. It also had saucepan marks on it, presumably from being used as a makeshift tablecloth.

  There weren’t many places in the city that imported flour from Canada, but strangely enough one of the only ones was a bakery close to Urquhart Road. The police spoke with the owner, who confirmed that he had received a shipment of flour in exactly the same kind of sacks; he also confirmed that a customer had asked if she could have some of them and that he had given her several. The description he gave of the woman sounded remarkably like Jeannie Donald.

  The evidence was now beginning to add up; one of the residents of 61 Urquhart Road reported having heard a child scream at about 1:30 PM on the day of Helen’s disappearance, a report confirmed by a slater who had been working in the alleyway behind the block.

  The police decided to search the Donalds’ lodgings. They discovered nine more bags identical to the one Helen’s body had been found in, each one with similar saucepan stains. The most significant evidence, however, was the small bloodstains found on linoleum, newspaper, washing cloths, and a scrubbing brush in the apartment. It was now that Sir Sydney Smith and the forensic techniques at his disposal became important to the case. When Smith tested the blood, it was found to be group O, the same type as Helen Priestly. This alone would have been damning evidence, but additionally Sir Sydney had discovered that Helen suffered from an unusual condition that enlarged her thalamus and caused her to produce a rare bacterium. Microbiological tests found this bacterium all over the Donalds’ household: on the floor, on counter tops, and on cleaning rags. Finally Sir Sydney examined the fibers of the bag and found that they contained cotton, wool, silk, cat hair, rabbit hair, and some human hair that showed indications of having been badly permed.

  The Donalds were arrested and interviewed. However, Alexander Donald was able to prove beyond doubt that he had been miles away at the time of Helen’s murder and therefore could not possibly have been involved. He was subsequently released and the police turned their attentions to Jeannie Donald instead. Samples of her hair were taken and analyzed by Professor John Glaister of Glasgow University. He was able to say with absolute certainty that Jeannie Donald’s hair matched that found in the blue burlap sack. The evidence seemed incontrovertible: she had murdered little Helen Priestly.

  It was obvious what the defense’s main line of argument would be in a trial: that as a woman, Jeannie Donald was not capable of committing rape. To counter this, the prosecution had Sir Sydney carry out a further examination of Helen’s body. One of the facts that had worried him during his initial examination was the complete lack of semen in or near the body. When he analyzed the bruises and abrasions more closely, he came to the conclusion that they had not been caused by a rape but rather by the shaft of a hammer or a broom handle, the chilling implication being that the injuries were carried out in a deliberate effort to create the appearance of a sexual assault.

  This final discovery, in conjunction with the weight of the other forensic evidence (including the blood analysis), meant that there was no chance that Jeannie Donald would be acquitted. She was sentenced to death, though this was later commuted to life imprisonment. She was released in 1944 and died in 1976 at the age of eighty-one, having never admitted why she had committed such a horrible crime.

  But, despite continued successes, it was often still difficult to convince a confused and not necessarily well-versed public (and crucially, therefore, juries) of the worth of forensic evidence. Such evidence might add weight to a case, but without a confession, it was rarely enough to secure a conviction. This is not to say that it was not useful, of course; it was not unusual for forensic evidence to push a criminal into admitting their guilt. We might consider for example, the case of Yoshiki Hirai, a young Japanese girl who was found raped and murdered in Japan in 1928. The police soon had two suspects in custody, one of whom was a beggar with mental health problems, who soon confessed to assaulting and murdering Yoshiki. Without blood analysis, it is likely that his story would have been accepted and he would have been convicted of the crime. However, testing showed that Yoshiki’s killer was blood group A, while the beggar was blood group O. The other suspe
ct, a man named Iba Hoshi, was blood group A, however, and when confronted with this evidence, he confessed to the crime. Had he not, the chances of getting a conviction would have evaporated, since there are thousands of men with blood group A—in reality all the test did was exculpate the beggar, not implicate Hoshi, but it gave the police enough leverage to extract a confession. This lack of absolute precision would continue to limit the usefulness of serology in forensic detection until the development of genetic fingerprinting much later. Blood analysis was often still an important piece of the puzzle, but in truth by the 1950s, more cases were being solved through the evidence of fingerprints and fiber analysis than through serology.

  However, it was determined that evidence could be gathered not only by analyzing the source and composition of the blood left behind, but also by observing its position and pattern; how it splashed, dripped, splattered, dropped, and sprayed. To a trained eye, this can demonstrate how a murder or attack might have unfolded and can reveal details such as whether the victim tried to fight back or run away (see Plate 7). The first study of bloodstain patterns was by Eduard Piotrowski at the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Poland in the 1890s. Subsequently, in 1895, he published a scientific paper on the subject called “Concerning the Origin, Shape, Direction and Distribution of the Bloodstains Following Head Wounds Caused by Blows.”

  One of the most celebrated cases in the annals of forensic science, which put exactly this kind of analysis to the test, is that of Dr. Samuel Holmes Sheppard. It became one of the most infamous and controversial murder investigations in American criminal history.

  Sheppard was born in Cleveland in 1923, the youngest of three brothers. He attended Cleveland Heights High School where he was an excellent student, holding the position of class president for three years. When he left school he decided to pursue a career in osteopathic medicine and enrolled at Hanover College in Indiana, before moving to the Los Angeles School of Physicians and Surgeons where he finished his education. In February 1945 he married his fiancée, Marilyn Reese, and together the two moved to a house in Bay Village, Ohio, so that Sheppard could join his father’s medical practice.