Science and the Criminal

by C. Ainsworth Mitchell

Fortunately Howard was able to prove conclusively that he was somewhere else at the time of the murder.

Some time later, another ex-soldier named Mark Wilde was arrested upon the same charge, and once more evidence of identification was given by the same witnesses as in the previous trial, though they were now less positive in their assertions.

The two men, Howard and Wilde, bore a singular resemblance to each other, and evidence was given that at the time of the murder Wilde was dressed in dark clothes, dark cap and muffler, which was the description of the clothes of Mr. Storrs’ assailant given by witnesses at the first trial.

Stains upon the prisoner’s clothing were identified as human blood by the serum test. The revolver which Mrs. Storrs had snatched from the murderer was also identified as having belonged to Wilde, for it was recognised by two ex-soldiers who had, they alleged, frequently seen it in his hands, by its broken spring and marks upon its barrel.

For the defence, however, witnesses were called to prove that the revolver taken from the murderer was not identical with that of Wilde, and that the blood upon his clothes was the result of a fight he had had upon the night of the crime.

No motive could be alleged, and the jury distrusting the evidence of identification, found the prisoner “Not guilty.”

The murder was thus unique in the fact that two innocent men were in succession identified as the assailant and acquitted.

With regard to the amount of light needed for the recognition of a person, curious scientific evidence has been given in trials, and several cases are on record where witnesses have claimed to identify a person by a momentary flash. A notable instance of this kind was seen at the trial of Joseph Brook for burglary at the York Assizes in 1813.

The prisoner, it was alleged, had broken into the house of a farmer named Strickland at Kirk Heaton.

Anne Armitage, a niece of the farmer, deposed that he had struck upon the stone floor with something she took for a sword to intimidate her, that it produced a flash, and gave a light by which she could see his face. She swore that she had seen enough by the momentary flash to recognise him again. She had also heard his voice, and knew it again when she heard it later, and thought she could undertake to say that it was the voice of the accused man.