DETECTION OF CRIME

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 189, 7 May 1940, Page 9

DETECTION OF CRIME

How Dominion Laboratory Aids Police SCIENCE IN MOTOR CASES Practical results of the work of science in the detection of crime are shown in the 72nd annual report of the Dominion Laboratory, just released by the Dominion Analyst, Mt. W. Donovan, M.Sc., F.I.C. Of 361. analyses made for the police in the year reviewed, only 11 were from Wellington. Auckland contribut ed 147, Christchurch 158, and Dunedin 45. In the Wellington exhibits, poison was found in one case only where there was sufficient arsenic to cause death. Samples of alcoholic liquor were analysed in connexion with suspected sly-grog selling. At Auckland, two motor collision cases were investigated. In one the car was identified from the pattern of the running board on the clothing of the victim, and, in the other, the contact of two cars was proved by the transfer of lacquer. In the case of an Auckland burglary from a safe, clay from the trousers and shoes of an accused was shown to be identical with clay from the place where the safe had been blown open. Work on etching fluids for the restoration of filed-off numbers was continued and solutions recommended had been tried out at Shanghai in similar cases and with good results. In Christchurch specimens of blood were examined for the presence of alcohol, these being concerned with motor accident inquiries. A parsnip wine submitted contained 23 per cent, of alcohol, and a cider 20 per cent. Similar large percentages of alcohol were found in samples of home-made wine, sold illicitly, which were examined at Dunedin.