Crime Science: Methods of Forensic Detection - Review

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), May, 1999 by Gerald F. Kreyche

Crime Science: Methods of Forensic Detection by Joe Nickell and John F. Fischer / University Press of Kentucky, 1999, pp. 300, $25.00

As kids, many of us responded to magazine ads to obtain a Dick Tracy Detective Kit. When we grew up, we read Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes mysteries and marveled at the famed sleuth's ability to uncover clues and deduce the perpetrator of a crime. Today, we still enjoy Columbo in TV reruns. All of these detectives are in the realm of fiction. This book, though, deals with the real thing.

Essentially, it is about the theory and practice of forensics, including case studies. The writing is tightly organized, perhaps even a bit pedantic, but delivers the goods for the educated layperson. Once getting into the book, readers will be hard-pressed to put it down.

Nickell and Fischer make a point of providing the background of each aspect of forensics they discuss. For example, ballistics as a clue began in England when paper wadding from a muzzle loader was found in the wound in a victim and was traced to some paper the murderer still carried in his pocket.

In another instance, the use of fingerprints for identification is traced back to ancient China, where they were used for legal documents. As most people are aware, no two fingerprints are the same, even in identical twins. The book shows pictures of the differences in fingerprints by variations in arches, loops, and whorls. When John Dillinger had surgery to alter his prints, there still was enough of the originals left to identify him. Modern lasers can "lift" such prints even when they are not visible to the eye.

During early use of forensics, there was some tension between crime lab personnel and the police who investigated the crime. Soon, though, cooperation came as forensics proved its worth in solving crimes such as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. The sophistication of crime science has become so great that one wonders how anyone engaging in criminal activity today could expect to get away with it.

The authors are generous in providing numerous examples and photographs. The case studies are particularly fascinating. The Sacco and Vanzetti case of the 1920s was thought by many of the public here and abroad to be a railroading of two poor Italian immigrants. Police accused the anarchists of viciously killing two payroll guards in an attempted robbery. They were convicted, partially due to the pistol found on the person of one. Striations on some of the bullets (which are as unique as fingerprints) taken from the bodies proved that they came from that weapon. Both men spent seven years of appeals in jail, but finally were executed. During the appeals, when one of the defending attorneys saw the bullet evidence, he resigned from the case.

In the death of Marilyn Monroe, which some still claim was a murder rather than a suicide, forensics presents compelling evidence of the latter. The badly bungled O.J. Simpson case is reviewed and, in spite of some of the evidence being tainted, the authors consider his acquittal a travesty. In the Atlanta child murders case, 30 young African-Americans were killed over a two-year period beginning in July, 1979. Blacks called it the work of a racist, but fibers found on the bodies or in the hair of most victims were traced to Wayne Williams, a black man.

This book should rank high with people who want to know what the law is doing about crime detection. They will be amazed and gratified.

GERALD F. KREYCHE American Thought Editor, USA Today, and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, DePaul University, Chicago, Ill.