saying a wordâa serious setback to the investigation.
The police then had to resort to the usual practice of interviewing potential witnesses. Fortunately there was no shortage of them. Several had seen two men running from the scene of the murder at about 7:30 AM. One of them was described as being dressed in a dark brown suit and cap, the other in a dark blue serge suit and bowler hat. Two of these witnesses, a professional boxer named Henry John Littlefield and a local girl named Ellen Stanton, positively identified the man in the dark brown suit as one Alfred Stratton.
Although he did not have a criminal record, Alfred Stratton was familiar to the police as a âvagabondâ and was known to have contacts in the criminal underworld. His brother Albert was also known to them, and the description of the man in the bowler hat matched him. The identification of Alfred was apparently confirmed when his girlfriend, Annie Cromarty, told the police that he had disposed of his dark brown coat and changed his shoes the day after the murder; she also recalled him asking for a pair of old stockings. A tip from Cromarty also led police to recover £4 that was buried near a local waterworks. Based on Cromartyâs information, warrants for the arrest of both the brothers were issued. They were taken into custody on April 2 and, while being held, had their fingerprints taken. When Detective Inspector Collins received the two sets, he compared them to the print on the cash box. He concluded that the print matched Alfred Strattonâs right thumbprint. The brothers were charged with murder and the trial was set forMay 5 at the Old Bailey, the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales.
MacNaghten, Collins, and Richard Muir, the prosecutor for the Crown, knew that they would face an uphill battle. Since the fingerprint was the only tangible evidence that they had, the case would stand or fall on whether it convinced the jury, and the defense would try their best to undermine it. Even fingerprinting pioneer Henry Faulds was a vocal detractor, because he had the mistaken notion that a single fingerprint match was unreliable. The defense therefore retained him as a witness. Also set to testify for the defense was Dr. John George Garson, who advocated anthropometry (the English term for
bertillonage)
over fingerprinting as a means of identification. Both men were professional rivals of Edward Henry, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police who had established the Fingerprint Bureau and who was responsible for the acceptance of fingerprinting into the British legal system. Henry himself was also in attendance.
The prosecution called more than forty witnesses to the stand, since Muir and his team wanted to place the two defendants at the scene of the crime. Despite Muirâs inherent distrust of eyewitness testimony, he was counting on the consistency of these witnesses to reinforce the evidence of the fingerprint. Although some of them, such as Henry Alfred Jennings, a local milkman, were not able to make a definite identification of the defendants (but were consistent in describing their general appearance), others, such as Henry Littlefield and Ellen Stanton, were positive in their identification of Alfred Stratton. The Home Office pathologist who did the postmortem on the Farrows told the court that the injuries on the couple wereconsistent with being inflicted by weapons similar to the tools that the brothers had in their possession.
Kate Wade, Albert Strattonâs girlfriend, testified that Albert was not with her on the night of the murder and that he usually stayed with her. Annie Cromarty testified that Alfred had come home on the morning of March 27 with a large amount of money, without explaining where he had obtained it. She added that he threw out the clothes that he had been wearing that day when he saw the newspaper accounts of the murder and that he asked her to tell the police, or anyone else who
The police then had to resort to the usual practice of interviewing potential witnesses. Fortunately there was no shortage of them. Several had seen two men running from the scene of the murder at about 7:30 AM. One of them was described as being dressed in a dark brown suit and cap, the other in a dark blue serge suit and bowler hat. Two of these witnesses, a professional boxer named Henry John Littlefield and a local girl named Ellen Stanton, positively identified the man in the dark brown suit as one Alfred Stratton.
Although he did not have a criminal record, Alfred Stratton was familiar to the police as a âvagabondâ and was known to have contacts in the criminal underworld. His brother Albert was also known to them, and the description of the man in the bowler hat matched him. The identification of Alfred was apparently confirmed when his girlfriend, Annie Cromarty, told the police that he had disposed of his dark brown coat and changed his shoes the day after the murder; she also recalled him asking for a pair of old stockings. A tip from Cromarty also led police to recover £4 that was buried near a local waterworks. Based on Cromartyâs information, warrants for the arrest of both the brothers were issued. They were taken into custody on April 2 and, while being held, had their fingerprints taken. When Detective Inspector Collins received the two sets, he compared them to the print on the cash box. He concluded that the print matched Alfred Strattonâs right thumbprint. The brothers were charged with murder and the trial was set forMay 5 at the Old Bailey, the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales.
MacNaghten, Collins, and Richard Muir, the prosecutor for the Crown, knew that they would face an uphill battle. Since the fingerprint was the only tangible evidence that they had, the case would stand or fall on whether it convinced the jury, and the defense would try their best to undermine it. Even fingerprinting pioneer Henry Faulds was a vocal detractor, because he had the mistaken notion that a single fingerprint match was unreliable. The defense therefore retained him as a witness. Also set to testify for the defense was Dr. John George Garson, who advocated anthropometry (the English term for
bertillonage)
over fingerprinting as a means of identification. Both men were professional rivals of Edward Henry, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police who had established the Fingerprint Bureau and who was responsible for the acceptance of fingerprinting into the British legal system. Henry himself was also in attendance.
The prosecution called more than forty witnesses to the stand, since Muir and his team wanted to place the two defendants at the scene of the crime. Despite Muirâs inherent distrust of eyewitness testimony, he was counting on the consistency of these witnesses to reinforce the evidence of the fingerprint. Although some of them, such as Henry Alfred Jennings, a local milkman, were not able to make a definite identification of the defendants (but were consistent in describing their general appearance), others, such as Henry Littlefield and Ellen Stanton, were positive in their identification of Alfred Stratton. The Home Office pathologist who did the postmortem on the Farrows told the court that the injuries on the couple wereconsistent with being inflicted by weapons similar to the tools that the brothers had in their possession.
Kate Wade, Albert Strattonâs girlfriend, testified that Albert was not with her on the night of the murder and that he usually stayed with her. Annie Cromarty testified that Alfred had come home on the morning of March 27 with a large amount of money, without explaining where he had obtained it. She added that he threw out the clothes that he had been wearing that day when he saw the newspaper accounts of the murder and that he asked her to tell the police, or anyone else who
Similar Books
