foreign substances, attached or adhering to the body; marks of violence visible upon the dress; mutilation, dismemberment, and destruction of the body, or portions of it; outward appearances indicative of poison; detection of poison in the body in rape and robbery, marks of violence, stains of blood upon the person or clothing: in arson, the appearances of a fire kindled by design: in burglary and robbery, marks of violence upon windows, doors, walls, and the like. 3. The instruments of the offense. As, in murder, the weapon or instrument of death, the gun, pistol, knife, dagger, razor, hatchet, axe, club, or stone; the poison and its vehicle; the cord or handkerchief for strangulation; the explosive machine: in rape and robbery, the stupefying liquor or drug in arson, the combustibles, matches, lights, and inflammable substances in burglary, the keys, picks, crows, saws, chisels, and other burglars' tools: in forgery and counterfeiting, the dies, presses, coining tools, chemical agents, and the like. 4. The appearances of such instruments: such as signs of a firearm having been recently discharged; stains of blood upon a knife, sword, or hatchet; curvature of a sword blade; indentations or fractures of a club; fragments of an exploded machine; combustible substances strewed about and saturated with an inflammable liquid. 5. The place of the offense, or scene of the crime: as the building, yard, street, road, field, thicket or wood, vehicle or ship, where the victim of the murderous or violent assault is found, or to which he or she is decoyed or forcibly carried; the chamber where the poison is administered, or into which the explosive machine is conveyed; the apartment where the coin is counterfeited; and the like. 6. The place of the offense, considered as the instrument or means of its commission: as the pond, pit, well, or stream where the body is drowned; the rock or precipice over which it has been pushed or thrown; and the like. 7. The appearances of the place or scene of the crime, or of neighboring bodies or places. As, in murder, the bloody floor, bed, chair, path, or road; spots or stains of blood on the walls, doors, etc., of a house; or on well curbs, gates, stiles, or fences; or on trees, grass, snow, or the ground itself; especially when concealed or attempted to be concealed from view; marks of instruments of violence, as indentations, discolorations, or perforations made by a ball from a firearm, or the stroke of a heavy implement; marks made by the explosion of a machine; marks of struggles, or resistance to violence; marks of footsteps at the place, or leading to or from it; marks or impressions of certain parts of the offender's body, as of the knee, or hand, bloody finger marks, etc.; marks made by dragging a body into a place of concealment; lights burning on premises at unusual hours; lights suddenly extinguished. In arson, traces of smoke or flame. In burglary, marks of burglars' instruments, and the like. 8. Sounds heard at the scene of crime, or in its vicinity: such as cries of distress; reports of firearms; sounds of an explosion, of bodies falling, of footsteps, of a scuffle, and of voices; alarms given by animals; the sound of wheels, or sleigh bells, or of the trampling of a horse; noises made by bursting in a door; sounds heard from locked-up premises, such as the clashing of steel, the shivering of glass, the moving of articles about, the tearing of cloths, the rubbing of a floor, the running of water, the sawing of boards, hammering, and the like; total silence immediately following unusual or alarming sounds. 9. Smells of smoke or burning substances; the odor of poisonous substances; the odor of inflammable liquids prepared for arson and the like. 10. Impressions on the sense of touch: as the heat of a wall, indicating an unusual fire; the heat or coldness of ashes in a stove; and the like. 11. Impressions on the sense of taste: as of a poison to which the tongue is applied; of a garment saturated with salt water; and the like. 12. Detached bodies found at the scene of crime, or in its vicinity: as articles of dress, or portions of them; patches for the charge of a rifle; a ball extracted from the woodwork of a house, or found at the foot of a tree; the ramrod of a pistol; grains of wheat scattered about; and the like. 13. Symptoms of poison: as contortions of the body, spasms, vomiting, swelling, discoloration, complaint of burning and pricking sensations. 14. Peculiarities about the person of the accused: such as wounds, scratches, bruises; stains of blood upon the person or clothing; rents, incisions, and other injuries to clothing; disorder or wetness of the dress; stains of earth, or other substances; natural marks, such as the want of an eye, finger, or front tooth; the being left handed, or carrying the head on one side; peculiarities of size, shape, gait, and voice; appearances as of something concealed under the dress; and the like. 15. Peculiarities about objects in the possession of the accused: as the sweating and smoking of a horse in his stable, horsehair and lint adhering to a newly discharged rifle. 16. Materials of the subject-matter of the offense, or capable of being converted into instruments of the offense, including the means of their production. As, in murder, lead for casting bullets, bullet molds, leaves from which a poison could be distilled, utensils for distilling; in arson, materials for making inflammable substances; in forgery and counterfeiting, metal for coining, bank-note paper, bank-note plates engraved, or in process of being engraved, metallic or paper money in process of being fabricated; and the like. 17. Receptacles inclosing or having inclosed the subject, the instrument, or the fruits of the offense. As, in murder, the clothes of the person killed; the box or chest in which the body or its remains are concealed; the box for holding an explosive machine; the drawer, case, or trunk, in which pistols are found, or have been kept; vials or papers containing or having contained poison; in arson, the box or case for holding combustibles or secreting a candle; barrels containing inflammable liquids; in larceny or robbery, the closet, drawer, trunk, package, or case, containing or having contained the articles stolen; the floor or wall beneath or behind which they have been concealed; and the like. 158. HANS GROSS. 1907. Criminal Investigation. (transl. J. and J. C. Adam. p. 127.) . . . The investigator, however inexperienced, will commit no grave mistake if he always remembers the old and precious maxim of the jurist, Quis, quid, ubi, quibus auxiliis, cur, quomodo, quando? "What was the crime, who did it, when was it done, and where, If these words be always kept prominently before one in one's office, they will be impressed on the memory and imagination, and prevent many a grave mistake. . . . The extent of the description in the first place naturally depends on the nature of the crime. In all cases (we are not dealing with accidents) the following must be described: 1. The place itself; 2. The direction from which the guilty person came; 3. That in which he went away; 4. The spots whence the witnesses have seen, or could have seen, anything; 5. All points where traces of the crime are to be found or where they might have been expected to be found, but where in fact there are none. The notification of even purely negative facts should not be neglected, for on the one hand they may lead to positive inferences and on the other reassure the reader and show him that they were not forgotten altogether. Suppose, e.g., traces of blood are mentioned as having been found in the room of a murdered man; it is not sufficient merely to enumerate these, but what has not been found must also be stated, as e.g. that there was no bloody water in the wash-hand basin nor any imprints of blood-stained fingers — or hands; or if the report concerns a search for compromising papers which has been without result, it must be expressly stated that no ashes of burnt paper were to be found in the fireplace. The special circumstances attaching to each particular crime must of course be set out, e.g. in cases of arson the objects more especially exposed to danger or anything that may have assisted or impeded the wind-in riots, places from which weapons have been taken (such as a fence, pile of wood, thatched roof of a hut, etc.). After the general sketch, the actual place of occurrence must be described in detail, as e.g. in cases of murder the room containing the body of the victim, in cases of burglary the place where the house was broken into, or in arson the place where the fire first started. . . In doing this the Investigating Officer must proceed step by step examining minutely at the same time its description as written down. A piece of cloth, for instance, lying on the ground will be primarily described according to the impression it produced when first observed, as e.g. "Quite near the corpse, an inch from the left hand, a red cloth rolled up in a ball, apparently of cotton and about the size of a pocket handkerchief, one corner sticking out, lying on the ground in the direction of the head of the body. On picking up this piece of cloth it is found not to be cotton, but half silk. It is a three-cornered scarf with hemmed borders and each side 17 inches (43 cm.) in length. It is, unmarked, and has a hole in the middle about the size of a pie-piece probably due to use. Under the scarf is no trace of blood or anything remarkable. It is not identified by any one present (naming those present, A, B, C, etc.); it probably therefore did not belong to the murdered person." He then passes on to all the important details that may serve to throw light on the case, footprints, marks caused by firearms or tools, impressions of all kinds, in short everything which may have been produced by the guilty person, and everything which may have been articles left behind by him. . . Only too often Every one has It is impossible to notice everything which may subsequently turn out to be of importance, even though folio volumes be written; for there are always certain details which will be passed over owing to the difficulty of foreseeing their value. In one case it turned out to be of great significance to know whether the sun shone into a certain part of the room at a certain hour of the day, and for this purpose the locality had to be specially revisited, though very far distant from the place where the court was sitting. In another case everything depended upon whether any sand was strewn about on the floor of the room, a point that no one had thought it worth while to observe. . . . The old axiom of the Civil Law "De minimis non curat lex" does not hold good for the Investigating Officer. he must seek the strongest proof in the smallest details. seen, every one has read in thousands of criminal tragedies, cases where some trifle has become the pivot upon which the whole case turned; and yet the capital fault in inspecting localities very often consists in the neglect of small details, the importance of which would have been apparent if a proper and sustained attention had been brought to bear upon them. The following cases are cited from the author's own experience. On one occasion everything rested on whether or not at the hour of the crime the latch of the door was oiled or made a noise; on another, whether a halfburnt cigar was in an ash tray or beside it; again, whether there was a spider's web near a nail in the wall; on another, whether there was still some kerosene in a lamp (i.e. whether it had been extinguished or had burnt itself out). In a murder case the assailant would certainly have gone undiscovered if the Investigating Officer had not thought of examining the top of a wooden partition about eight feet in height and not reaching to the ceiling. He saw that the top of the partition was covered with a thick coating of dust save in one place where the dust had been displaced, and naturally concluded that a man must have quite recently climbed over the partition at the spot. He made a search and discovered the accused among people living in the room separated from the scene of the crime by the partition in question. 159. CHRISTOPHER RUPPRECHT'S CASE. FEUERBACH. Remarkable German Criminal Trials. 1846. p. 112.) In the year 1817 there lived in the town of M- a goldsmith of the name of Christopher Rupprecht. He was between the ages of sixty and sixty-five, and in easy circumstances. He had been twelve years a widower, and had but one child living, a daughter, married to a furrier named Bieringer, a brother and two sisters. Rupprecht could neither read nor write and therefore kept no account either of his (ANSELM VON transl. Gordon. trade or of the money he lent out at interest, but trusted entirely to his memory and to the assistance he occasionally received from others. in arranging and drawing up his bills. He was a man of vulgar mind and coarse habits, fond of associating with people of the very lowest class, and of frequenting alehouses, where his chief delight was in slang and abuse, and where he suffered himself to be made the butt of the roughest jokes and the most vulgar witticisms. His ruling passion was avarice and his favorite business the lending money at usurious interest. . . For about a year he had been in the daily habit of frequenting a small beer shop, commonly called the Hell. . . . The party assembled there consisted of eleven respectable burghers, who sat talking and drinking together till about half past ten, when Rupprecht called for another glass of beer, and the host left the upper parlor where his guests were assembled, and went down into the tap to fetch it. As he was going upstairs with the beer, and had almost reached the top, he heard the bell over the street door, and on asking what was wanted, he was answered in a strange voice by the inquiry whether Mr. Rupprecht was there. Without looking round, the host answered that he was, and the stranger requested him to desire Rupprecht to step down to him for a moment. The host delivered the message to his guest, who instantly rose and left the room. Scarcely a minute had elapsed, when the other guests were alarmed by hearing loud groans like those of a person in a fit of apoplexy. They all hastened downstairs, and found Rupprecht lying just within the door, covered with blood which was pouring out of a large wound on his head. About a foot and a half from his body lay his cap, cut evidently by a sharp instrument. . . . The physician and surgeon attached to the Criminal Court was sent for, and found a wound four inches long, which had penetrated the skull. The Hell Tavern stands in the end of a narrow dark alley, from which there is no outlet. The side on which is the door forms an angle with the opposite house, so deep that no light falls into it by night. Two stone steps lead up to the house door, of which only one wing opens, and is provided with a bell. Outside the door, on the left of these steps, is a stone bench. The hall within is small, narrow, and a little more than six feet high; the wound could not therefore have been inflicted upon Rupprecht in the hall, as space and height were required to give force to the blow. It would moreover have been madness to attempt the deed in a passage which was lighted by an oil lamp, which, though dim, would have enabled the victim or a passer-by to recognize the murderer. In the hall, too, Rupprecht coming down the stairs would have met his enemy face to face, and must have seen him prepare for the attack, from which he might easily have escaped by running to the rooms above. Supposing the wound - which slanted downward, and had evidently been inflicted from behind to have been given during Rupprecht's flight up the stairs, those who ran down on hearing his screams would have found the wounded man on the staircase, or at any rate close to the foot of it. But he was found just within the house door after being wounded in endeavoring to escape up the stairs. Again, the wound was on the left side of the head, and the dark corner we have before mentioned is on the left hand of any one leaving the tavern. The probability therefore is that Rupprecht received the wound on the very doorstep. In this case he had but to totter one step back to fall on the spot where he was found. It would have been scarcely possible for one in Rupprecht's condition to retain sufficient strength to crawl up the steps from the street into the hall. On the other hand, it would have been impossible for the murderer, standing in the street, to have struck Rupprecht from behind, while he stood on the doorsteps. This difficulty is, however, completely removed by the stone bench on the left of the door, which we have already mentioned. Thus all circumstances combine to make us conclude that the occur |