Written in Blood: A History of Forensic Detection by Colin Wilson

Author:Colin Wilson [Wilson, Colin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781626818682
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2015-05-16T23:00:00+00:00

8

The case that made all Europe aware of the importance of ballistic evidence began on the evening of 26 September 1927, when two petty crooks named Frederick Browne and William Kennedy set out to steal a car. Browne was a powerfully built man with a heavy moustache and a reputation for violence; Kennedy, an altogether weaker character, was a Scot of Irish parentage, who had met Browne in prison and was dominated by him. That night they went by train to Billericay in Essex, hoping to steal a Riley that Browne had noted earlier; but a barking dog scared them off. Since it was now too late to return by train, they decided to find another car to steal; Browne forced open the garage doors of a Dr Edward Lovell and let the car—a Morris Cowley—run down the slope to the road before starting it. But in a back lane a few miles on, they were waved to a halt by a policeman with a lantern. When Browne ignored him and drove on, he blew his whistle, where-upon Browne stopped. Police Constable George William Gutteridge approached the car, shone his torch on Browne, and asked where he was going. As Gutteridge was writing in his notebook, Brown drew a gun and shot him. Gutteridge fell down, and Browne got out of the car and stood over him. The policeman’s eyes were open. ‘What are you looking at me like that for?’ asked Browne, and shot him through both eyes. Then they drove off. Browne was so nervous that at one point he drove the car off the road and damaged its bumper on a tree. A few hours later, they abandoned it in Brixton and returned home—to Browne’s garage in Northcote Road, Battersea—by tram.

Dr Lovell reported his car stolen the next morning, at about the time it was discovered in Brixton. The body of PC Gutteridge had already been found soon after dawn, huddled beside the road.

In the stolen car the police photographer found a cartridge case, which the head of the CID, Major-General Sir Wyndham Childs, recognized as a Mark IV, manufactured at the beginning of the war at Woolwich Arsenal. And the base showed a tiny raised blister that had been imprinted by a fault on the breech shield of the gun that fired it.

Chief Inspector James Berrett, in charge of the case, studied a list of thieves and hold-up men inclined to violence, and came upon the name of Frederick Guy Browne, 46, who had often attacked prison officers when he was in Parkhurst. But there was no evidence to connect Browne with the murder, and the car yielded no other clues. So Browne, concluding that he had got away with murder, resumed his career of car theft and hold-ups. In Sheffield the following January, driving a stolen Vauxhall, he forced a van driver into the wall, and the man took his number. A policeman later saw the Vauxhall, stopped it, and asked the driver for his name and address.

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