Tell-Tale Finger Prints

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 324, 9 April 1928, Page 8

Tell-Tale Finger Prints

DETECTING CARELESS CRIMINALS

Methods of the Police

THE use by the New Zealand police of finger-print evidence in the detection of criminals is more extensive than is suspected by the casual observer of those who become enmeshed in the net of the law. The first finger-print case in New Zealand was handled in Auckland.

TN an unpretentious room at the ■*- central police station at Auckland the newly-constituted criminal records department embraces a wide field of activity in the pursuit, detection, apprehension and trial of criminals, whose capture is, in the great majority of cases, but a question of time. Detective-Sergeant Issell. a finger-print expert, is the officer chosen to control the branch, and in his care are placed the records and photographs, as well as the finger-prints, of “wanted” men.

The formation of this department at Auckland is the outcome of the tremendous progress toward complete efficiency which has been made during the past few years in exploitation of the finger-print method. Though the system is almost as old as crime itself, it is not much more than a score of years since it was first used effectively in Auckland, and incidentally in New Zealand. About the year 1903 a Greek restaurant keeper was arrested on suspicion for a small “job” of burglary and theft, and from the print of his fingers, taken at the police station, a series of big robberies from the Bishop’s house and other places, was sheeted home to him.

Sometimes the police occupy many years in weaving the skein of evidence around their men, many of whom are encouraged by a short spell of liberty to greater and more daring exploits; and the finger-print often supplies that link which has been awaited so long. The records of the law are compiled with merciless precision, and immediately the chaih is complete the long arm descends heavily upon the shoulder of the fugitive criminal. RARELY QUESTIONED The infallibility of the finger-print system has been questioned but on rare occasions. One of the most noteworthy instances occurred less than a year ago, when a cable from Rome recorded the release of an Italian professor

named Canella, who was apprehended as a notorious criminal, and who encountered the greatest difficulty in persuading the police of his innocence of crime. His finger-print, so it was said, was identical with that of the wanted criminal, and upon this the authorities banked their case. The most convincing proof of character and movements had to be produced by the professor and his wife before the law was convinced by irrefutable fact.

At the time this mistake was classed as the greatest blow that had been delivered to the finger-print method of detection.

The Commissioner of Police in New Zealand. Mr. W. B. Mcllveney, possesses entirely different views, however, and retains his belief in the efficacy of the method. His assertion is that so many of the so-called failures have been found to be fakes that reports of this character might be safely discredited.

His implicit faith in finger-prints as detectors of crime in this country is founded on the very tangible ground that during 1926 40 criminals were arrested in Wellington directly as the result of finger-print detection, and 37 of them pleaded guilty to the specific charges. A REVIVED SMUDGE

Elaborate and wonderful—and yet so simple in its effect —is the system which is employed by the criminal investigator in reviving finger-marks on polished surfaces after criminals have completed their night’s work, and have endeavoured to remove traces of their activities. One man leaves a mark on a glass panel, and promptly rubs in an effort to erase the impression. But when the detective arrives, the application of a little chalk and mercury to suspicious smudges produces an astounding result in reviving the minute markings of the human finger.

There is an occasional case in the annals of New Zealand police history wherein the impression of a man’s foot has been the means of tracing the author of a crime. A quantity of goods disappeared from one of the houseboats on the Wanganui River in the early days of the service from Aramoho to Pipiriki, and the only clue left for the police was the muddy imprint of a man’s bare foot. Maoris living in the vicinity were suspected, but, when apprehended, they stoutly denied complicity in the theft. Each was sent from the cross-examination room at the station to wash his feet, then each returned and placed a blackened sole on a sheet of paper laid on the floor for the purpose ANTI-CLIMAX

The evidence was too conclusive for evasion of guilt, but- the confession provided an amusing anti-climax to an interesting case. The detective handling the affair held up the muddy imprint for the native to observe its similarity to the specimen taken at the station.

“You see,” he said, “they are the same. It is your foot.’* The Maori looked searchingly at the prints, then at the detective. “By corry,” he* burst out enthusiastically, clapping his hands, and patting the detective on the back. “You the clever feller ... I the chap, alright.” He did two years in a Southern prison.