Farrow who lived in the small flat above it with his wife, Ann, aged sixty-five. Jones tried knocking but received no response. Becoming even more concerned, he peered through a window and saw that several chairs had been overturned.
Now seriously worried, he ran to a local store where he found employee Louis Kidman; Jones asked him to come back with him to force an entry. Once inside, they discovered Mr. Farrowlying on his back in the downstairs parlor. He was dead. They then discovered Mrs. Farrow in bed in the upstairs flat, still alive but badly injured. Both showed signs of a serious and sustained beating. The police and a doctor were summoned, and Mrs. Farrow was rushed to the hospital.
An empty cash box was found on the floor, which would usually have contained the weekly earnings. Jones explained that Mr. Farrow would normally deposit these in the bank on a Monday morning. Trying to be helpful and clear the scene, Sergeant Albert Atkinson pushed the cash box aside with his bare hands. When they became aware of this, Chief Inspector Frederick Fox and Assistant Commissioner Melville Mac-Naghten (head of the Criminal Investigation Department) decided to take over the case and preserve any remaining evidence.
The motive, then, had been robbery. The police were able to deduce several other details. From where they had been found and from the evidence of the scene, it was clear that Mr. and Mrs. Farrow had been attacked separately. Both were still in their nightwear, and there was no sign of a forced entry, so it was likely that Mr. Farrow had opened the door to his attackers before being beaten unconscious. The assailants must then have gone upstairs to the flat and attacked Mrs. Farrow, before finding the cash box and stealing the cash. From the blood trails at the scene, it looked as if Mr. Farrow had then somehow managed to get up again, only to be beaten once more, this time to death. The discovery of two black stocking masks pointed to the likely involvement of two perpetrators, who had coolly washed their hands in the sink after killing the shopkeeper.
MacNaghten looked closely at the empty cash box and saw what appeared to be a fingerprint on the inside tray. As a member of the Belper Committee established to assess methods of identification, which had recommended the use of fingerprints five years previously, he wondered whether this might be a good opportunity to test the new technique. He used a handkerchief to carefully pick the cash box up, before having it wrapped in paper and taken to the fledgling Fingerprinting Bureau at Scotland Yard.
The bureau was headed by Detective Inspector Charles Stockley Collins, who was by then regarded as the foremost English fingerprint expert of his time. Despite the earlier successes of the method, especially in identifying previously convicted criminals who tried to pass themselves off under pseudonyms, the technique was still considered unwieldy. The police knew that they were risking public ridicule if it failed now, due to the intense scrutiny that a murder case would generate. Furthermore, even if they succeeded in identifying the owner of the fingerprint and charging him, they would still need to convince a jury to convict on the basis of this unfamiliar form of evidence.
Collins examined the print thoroughly and determined that it was made through perspiration and appeared to have been left by the thumb, probably from the right hand. He compared it with those of the Farrows and of Detective Sergeant Atkinson and was satisfied that it did not belong to either of them. Although the Bureau had some 80â90,000 sets of prints on file, there was unfortunately no match among them. This left the police with the daunting prospect of having to find a suspect to compare the print with. Initially they hoped that Mrs. Farrowwould be able to give a description of her assailants when she regained consciousness. However, tragically, she died in the hospital on March 31 without
Now seriously worried, he ran to a local store where he found employee Louis Kidman; Jones asked him to come back with him to force an entry. Once inside, they discovered Mr. Farrowlying on his back in the downstairs parlor. He was dead. They then discovered Mrs. Farrow in bed in the upstairs flat, still alive but badly injured. Both showed signs of a serious and sustained beating. The police and a doctor were summoned, and Mrs. Farrow was rushed to the hospital.
An empty cash box was found on the floor, which would usually have contained the weekly earnings. Jones explained that Mr. Farrow would normally deposit these in the bank on a Monday morning. Trying to be helpful and clear the scene, Sergeant Albert Atkinson pushed the cash box aside with his bare hands. When they became aware of this, Chief Inspector Frederick Fox and Assistant Commissioner Melville Mac-Naghten (head of the Criminal Investigation Department) decided to take over the case and preserve any remaining evidence.
The motive, then, had been robbery. The police were able to deduce several other details. From where they had been found and from the evidence of the scene, it was clear that Mr. and Mrs. Farrow had been attacked separately. Both were still in their nightwear, and there was no sign of a forced entry, so it was likely that Mr. Farrow had opened the door to his attackers before being beaten unconscious. The assailants must then have gone upstairs to the flat and attacked Mrs. Farrow, before finding the cash box and stealing the cash. From the blood trails at the scene, it looked as if Mr. Farrow had then somehow managed to get up again, only to be beaten once more, this time to death. The discovery of two black stocking masks pointed to the likely involvement of two perpetrators, who had coolly washed their hands in the sink after killing the shopkeeper.
MacNaghten looked closely at the empty cash box and saw what appeared to be a fingerprint on the inside tray. As a member of the Belper Committee established to assess methods of identification, which had recommended the use of fingerprints five years previously, he wondered whether this might be a good opportunity to test the new technique. He used a handkerchief to carefully pick the cash box up, before having it wrapped in paper and taken to the fledgling Fingerprinting Bureau at Scotland Yard.
The bureau was headed by Detective Inspector Charles Stockley Collins, who was by then regarded as the foremost English fingerprint expert of his time. Despite the earlier successes of the method, especially in identifying previously convicted criminals who tried to pass themselves off under pseudonyms, the technique was still considered unwieldy. The police knew that they were risking public ridicule if it failed now, due to the intense scrutiny that a murder case would generate. Furthermore, even if they succeeded in identifying the owner of the fingerprint and charging him, they would still need to convince a jury to convict on the basis of this unfamiliar form of evidence.
Collins examined the print thoroughly and determined that it was made through perspiration and appeared to have been left by the thumb, probably from the right hand. He compared it with those of the Farrows and of Detective Sergeant Atkinson and was satisfied that it did not belong to either of them. Although the Bureau had some 80â90,000 sets of prints on file, there was unfortunately no match among them. This left the police with the daunting prospect of having to find a suspect to compare the print with. Initially they hoped that Mrs. Farrowwould be able to give a description of her assailants when she regained consciousness. However, tragically, she died in the hospital on March 31 without
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