Triumph For Scotland Yard

Chronicle (Levin), 21 October 1948, Page 9

Triumph For Scotland Yard

Received Wednesday, 7 p.m. LONJDON, Oct. 19. A story that migiit have conie straiglit' i'j'om a crime novel lies behind Ihe sentence oi death passed 011 Peter (Irilfilhs, 22, oi' Blackburn, who was found guilty oi aiurdering a three-year-old girl. j 11 e was arrested 90 days alter | the child's body was i'ound. The j only elues were thumb and l'ore- 1 flnger prints on a bottle that he handled when he erept into a' ward oi sleeping children in the! Queen's Park JLospital. Blackburn, took tlie ehild out and bat- > tered her to death. When the initial inquiries by ' the Lancashire poliee eame to a| dead eiuL Scotland Yard institut- ' ed oue oi the biggest finger-print ; cheeks ever undertaken. The j jjrints oi everv criniinal in thei files at Scotland Yard and poliee > headquarters all over the countrv. totalling oue and a quarter iiiil- j licrti. were coinpared witli those on , the bottle. without result. It was then deeided to take the, hnger-prints oi every inale over ! the age oi 14 in Blackburn, where j the total poplation is 120.000.) The poliee worked in pairs, house

% by house, and street by street, in an ever-widening circle. Photo--graphs oi the impressions oi prints on the bottle were sent to poliee i'orces throughout the world. Inquiries were niade about former mental patients in more! than 100 institutions, all without! result. ! When the liew ration books i were issued in July it was deeided to eheek on them, too, and it was ; found that 800 males had not been ■ fingcr-prmted in Blackburn. The! routine checking was followed! again, and on August 13, 90 days! alter the murder, tinger-prints i agreting with those on the bottle j wei e reported. j 11 was eheck No. 46,253, taken at a house in Birl Street, Blackburn, and the tinger-prints belonged to Peter (Iriffiths. The poliee had been to the liouse once ' bel'ore and had taken the prints! of a relative. Their second visit j followed al'ter (Iriffiths received! j his new ration hook. He was arrested ncxt day while going to work, and it was stated at the trial that but for the fingerprinf cheek he might have escaped.