I was a presenting author at Tucson Festival of Books a couple of weeks ago. The topics of the two panels I was on involved heinous crimes from history and how investigators solved crimes before modern CSI techniques. In a way, the two topics go hand in hand. We would not know about the heinous crimes if investigators hadn’t solved them.
Before I provide examples, let me be clear that I am not a criminologist and the only crimes I’ve researched are those that occurred in the era of my novels. This means I am in no way an expert, but I’ve made a few observations. I also have a warning; this post is a little more gruesome than my usual.
First of all, even though police didn’t have the sophisticated methods of investigation that they have now, they had more than the perpetrators gave them credit for. Mary Pearcey, who murdered her lover’s wife and child, didn’t even expect the police to search her house. Here’s what happened from the investigator’s point of view. A police officer found the body of a brutally murdered woman in a rubbish heap. Not far away they also found a bloodstained baby carriage. The next day, they found the 18-month-old child.
After questioning the neighbors, the police learned that Mary Pearcey had been seen pushing the carriage down the street after dark. In addition, some knew about the affair between Mary and her married lover. That was enough for the police to search her house, where they found lots of blood spatter on the walls and articles of clothing, a blood-stained poker and carving knife. Her explanation? She was killing mice. They didn’t buy it. Mary was arrested, tried, and found guilty.
Mary Ansell murdered her sister, Caroline, with phosphorous paste baked into a cake. Caroline was an inmate at Leavesden asylum. One day Caroline received a cake which she shared with her friends. All of them became ill, but because Caroline ate more of the cake, she was the worst off. Though she was sent to the infirmary, it was too late and she died. An autopsy revealed the phosphorus poisoning which was traced back to the cake. The label on the package tied it to Mary Ansell.
Mary denied everything but two pieces of the puzzle tripped her up. Her handwriting matched the writing on the package, and she was found to have taken out an insurance policy on her sister. She was arrested and convicted.
Not such a kinder, gentler time, was it? Chances are we don’t know about half of the crimes that took place. The investigators did their best with the tools they had, but often they had to count on the criminal to make a mistake. Or, count on an amateur sleuth to help.
