by Paul Millen
It was my intention to quickly freeze it and get it to the laboratory, but when I returned to the Edmonton Police Station to do just that, I received an update from the detective chief inspector.
A suspect had been arrested. A young man had been making a nuisance of himself the night before within the very emergency department of the hospital where Gemma had been nursing her sick daughter. He had demanded to be admitted, but there was nothing physically wrong with him and, although a nuisance, he went away after police were called. His description was very similar to the somewhat thin description Gemma had given of the man who raped her. Events quickly developed.
Having recovered what I thought was going to be important evidence, I called the Forensic Science Laboratory. DNA at that time was only being used in the most serious cases, mainly murder, but I managed to persuade the lab to quickly look at the material I had recovered and a sample of blood (if we could get one) from the suspect. Under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act we only had forty-eight hours from the time of arrest to charge or release any suspect.
The suspect was examined in the early afternoon, his clothes seized and a number of samples taken from him, most importantly a blood sample for grouping and profiling. A police motorcyclist took the material which I had recovered from the scene, swabs from the victim and blood samples from the suspect to the lab. It was expected there and they quickly undertook the task of examining it.
I returned to the scene and completed an examination of the toilet block, the floor and walls of the cubicle and then a search of the outside bushes and flowerbeds. The latter in case the offender had been hiding there before the offence. I even took a sample of the flowering pyracantha bush as I thought it would make an interesting contact trace item should the offender have brushed against it.
The extensive examination of the toilet block went on past the late afternoon and into the evening. It revealed some finger marks, but it was a public area and although this particular area was a female domain, I wasn’t too hopeful of identification. I developed a couple of partial shoe marks on the tiled floor of the block. It appeared that the floor had dried before the offender dragged the victim inside. Wet marks may have been more easily left and although I looked for marks in dust, I found none.
Officers searched the suspect’s address and a full statement was being obtained from the victim. It had been a traumatic day for her and she still had a sick child in hospital. The female police officers were trying to help her through this trauma, whilst giving her the best opportunity to identify who had attacked her.
It had been a long day for the investigators, but any thought of that was put aside, with a professional eye on what we had to do and feelings of compassion for Gemma.
I returned to Edmonton the following morning, evaluating any updates in the context of my examination and planning a more detailed follow-up laboratory submission.
The laboratory indicated that the DNA analysis would take longer than the forty-eight hours we had to charge or release the suspect. They did say that they would undertake a simple blood grouping of the scene material and the blood samples from the suspect and the victim. This would be useful in linking the suspect to the scene if he was the offender.
The second laboratory submission would include the clothing taken from the victim, which would be examined for semen, fibres and hair and also clothing from the suspect for fibres and hair. Blood and urine samples would be examined for alcohol to help complete a picture of the events of the offence and of those involved or suspected.
An identification parade was arranged by the officers where Gemma would be invited to try and identify the man who had attacked her from a line of similar-looking men, drawn at random from the local population. It was held in the afternoon of that second day and Gemma identified a man by saying, ‘I think it’s number four.’ It was our detained suspect but it wasn’t the strongest of identifications.
I called the lab a couple of times to see if there was any progress, but there was none. They knew we were under pressure.
By late afternoon a review of the case considered the description of the offender, the actions of the suspect and the fact that he broadly fitted that description and the fact that Gemma had picked him out of the line-up, albeit with reluctance. The detectives decided that they had enough evidence to charge him with the offence of rape and remand him into custody.
A short while before the suspect was going to be charged, I called the lab to see if they had any information. They promised an update within the hour. It was apparent in the voice of the scientist they had something but they were checking their findings.
I was in the charge room of the police station at six pm. The suspect’s hands were still black with the remains of fingerprint ink. His fingerprints had been taken, as is normal, just before he was to be charged with the offence of rape. In the air was the smell of petroleum spirit, which had been used to wash the main bulk of the printer’s ink off the suspect’s hands. The phone rang on the charge room desk. It was for me. It was the scientist. ‘It is not him,’ said the voice on the other end of the phone.
I was silent and listened further.
‘I have two pieces of bad news for you,’ she said. ‘OK,’ I said. She went on. The first was that whilst the lab was undertaking the longer DNA examination, they had completed the blood screening. They could completely eliminate the suspect as the donor of the semen by blood grouping. The crime scene samples contained a mixture of two blood groups. One matched the victim, the other did not and could not match our suspect. Whoever the offender was, it wasn’t the man currently in custody. There was further bad news to follow. They had identified semen mixed with vaginal material in the sample from the toilet bowl and also the vaginal swabs taken from the victim. When they examined the sample taken from the bowl they confirmed it was seminal fluid but contained no sperm heads. It is the sperm head which contains the material which could be identified at that time by DNA. In the absence of sperm heads DNA identification was not possible. This was confirmed in the examination of the vaginal swabs.
So there was double bad news for the investigators. The offender wasn’t our suspect and we wouldn’t be able to tell who it was from the DNA.
I indicated to the custody sergeant to wait for a moment before continuing with the charge. I pulled the detective chief inspector to one side and gave him the very bad news. ‘What do you mean?’ he said with incredulity. He didn’t believe me; he didn’t want to believe me. It had been a long couple of days and a lot of hard work had gone into where we were.
We both went up to the CID office to discuss the matter further. The double bad news was difficult to handle and I was more than the messenger, I had orchestrated the urgent laboratory examination. Without this evidence the suspect could have been charged and, for all I know, convicted, on the remaining evidence.
But the fact was simple, on the simple test of blood grouping alone, the suspect could be eliminated as the donor of the semen which I had recovered from the bowl of the fourth cubicle of the ladies’ toilet in the park the day before. A review of that very statement confirmed that the semen in the bowl originated from the offender and as such the suspect could be safely eliminated from the enquiry.
Still not convinced and clutching to any hope that the suspect in the charge room was the right man, the detective chief inspector took me to see the head of the CID on the Division, whose office was two floors above. I had known Detective Chief Superintendent Bill Peters for a number of years. A tall elegant man, it was he who had to show some wisdom in the matter. The facts were explained to him. I was firm; I carefully quoted the words of the scientist as carefully as I had written them down.
The implication that the much publicised and new DNA evidence was unlikely to be useful in this case through impotency drew some questioned looks. ‘He is firing blanks,’ I explained. All the guys immediately understood.
The evidence was clear and Bill Peters’ decision was quic
k and to the point. The suspect was to be released immediately and his property returned to him. He was innocent and he had been eliminated.
It was a disappointment. Painful though that was to the investigation team, it was the truth and justice had been done.
The bags containing the suspect’s clothing were opened and the items returned to him. He left a free and innocent man.
The collection and identification of forensic evidence is a building process, each positive comparison or identification strengthening the case, depending on the strength of the evidence type. It is all based on context and, most importantly, probability. Occasionally a piece of simple evidence with a relatively small statistical probability to imply guilt can more powerfully eliminate a suspect from an enquiry. It is one of forensic science’s most powerful tools, the ability to exclude, to eliminate.
I wondered what would have happened to the suspect if he had matched the blood group of the offender. He would have been charged that night, that was plain, only to be eliminated, I would hope, by another grouping system which the laboratory routinely used in parallel with the ABO grouping system.
We now had to pick ourselves up and start again. At the end of a second long day I joined the DCI and his team for a drink at the local pub. I didn’t feel as if I was the most popular guy in the bar. The detectives were all disappointed, but not that the suspect had gone free. He was clearly innocent and the officers perhaps reluctantly had to accept that.
The next few days were difficult and revealed no further suspects. It appeared to be a complete-stranger rape. No finger marks were identified and the information that could be put on to databases – shoe marks, blood groups – was done.
We explored the potential reasons for the impotency of the offender in the hope that this might focus our search. The offender, whoever he was, was impotent through natural causes or perhaps through use of certain drugs. A body builder, who used anabolic steroids perhaps, was one suggestion. That line of enquiry didn’t lead anywhere useful.
The trail went cold and with no suspect the other original scene material and the clothing of the victim was placed in storage in their sealed exhibit bags.
About two years, later one of the detectives from the investigation had to go and arrest a local man for an unrelated indecent assault offence. Whilst at the man’s home the officer noticed an article of clothing which he recalled was similar to one briefly seen and mentioned in Gemma’s statement. It had the logo which Gemma had described.
The detective seized the sweater and contacted a colleague and submitted it and Gemma’s outer clothing, which was still in the original sealed bags, to the laboratory. This time the lab found fibres on the outer surface of Gemma’s clothing which matched the sweater.
The pace of the first few days of the investigation, with its highs and very low lows had given way to a long period of waiting. The discipline and professionalism paid off in time. A young woman had been raped, a young man cleared of the offence by a simple blood test, when some evidence may have convicted him. Then, after a long passage of time, a sound piece of observation by an alert detective meant that the right offender was found and his involvement proven.
Any excitement about bringing the offender to justice had long gone. It was good to know that we and Gemma knew that he had been caught. My lasting thought was for the effect that the crime had taken on that young woman’s life. To us it was a job. Yes, we had compassion and commitment to the victim, but it was still a job. I hope Gemma came to terms with her ordeal and lived a normal and full life.
15. Coffee on the Carpet
‘Have you got a blood bottle?’
I had only called into the SOCO office at Edmonton Police Station that Monday lunchtime for a brief visit. As I was sitting at the desk, a detective poked his head through the door and asked.
‘What is it for?’ I replied.
‘I have just spoken to the lab about a man who claimed he had been drugged by his former wife who then abducted their daughter,’ he said.
I think we can do better that just a blood bottle, I thought.
Poisoning cases are pretty rare and I didn’t want to miss the chance of investigating one, particularly where there were great evidential opportunities.
The victim, a man in his thirties, reported that his ex-wife had arrived with a friend unexpectedly on Saturday morning at the family home. The family were Italian but had been living in north London and had a young daughter.
The relationship was pleasant, even though the father had retained custody of the child once her mother returned to Italy. So when his ex-wife turned up she was welcomed into the house.
They chatted politely and she had offered to make some coffee. On taking a sip it was so strong and hot that it burned his lips and he dropped the cup on to the carpet. It made a stain but it was quickly cleaned up using a carpet-cleaning solution.
Another cup quickly turned up, this time he managed to drink it and that was about the last thing he remembered. He awoke late on Sunday night. He was very sick but he managed to call an ambulance. He was taken to the local hospital where he had remained overnight. Police officers were made aware of his allegation in the early hours of Monday morning, but thought there was little physically they could do. They were junior in service, inexperienced and were not aware of what to do. They hadn’t asked for advice either. The officer who had approached me for the bottle had picked up the case on the Monday morning. He spoke to someone at the lab who suggested that he should get a blood sample.
I was pretty upset with our collective response so far. There was plenty we could do but we now had to act fast.
A quick call to the hospital ensured that they would collect any and every drop of urine that the victim could or would pass. Also a check to trace, recover and preserve any urine or blood samples which the hospital themselves had taken for their use. It would also be very useful to us.
I quickly went to the hospital with the detective, who was much happier now that someone seemed to know what they were doing. We managed to get a large urine sample and track down the samples the hospital had indeed taken.
Urine is a very important sample in poisoning cases which have occurred over the preceding few days. The bladder is the waste bucket of the body and many substances or their by-products stay there until the bladder is emptied. Blood is also very important but drugs and other substances can quickly metabolise and pass through into the urine.
With the detective we confirmed the victim’s story. He was still feeling the effects of whatever he had received, but there were no lasting effects and the hospital wanted to release him. So, taking that opportunity, the detective and I took him back to his house, the scene of the crime.
The house was a large detached house set back off a quiet tree-lined avenue. It was very leafy, giving an air of quiet sub-urban tranquillity.
The house was very tidy and that became a problem, because it was apparent that the victim’s house cleaner had visited the house that very morning, ignorant of her employer’s illness, and had cleaned the house.
The man showed me around the house. I was particularly interested in the staining on the carpet. If the second cup contained some poison, the first one probably had too and that had been spilled. The clean-up operation had been good. The light-coloured carpet bore only a wet patch. There was little sign of the strong coffee which the victim said he had dropped.
A quick search of the kitchen revealed that all the cups had been washed up and put away. There were no wrappers in the kitchen bin, which contained a new bag. A search of the bin outside the house revealed that even that had been emptied that very morning by the local refuse collectors. I wasn’t having much luck.
But I had one more trick up my sleeve.
Returning to the lounge I announced to the victim and the detective that I wanted to lift the carpet and see what was underneath the stained area.
The lounge was very well furnished and the carpet fitted wall to
wall. It took quite a while to move the furniture to an area so that the carpet could be raised.
Slowly rolling back the carpet revealed a rubber underlay. The detective had been concerned about the disturbance I was causing but his expression changed as, directly below the wet patch, a round and distinct dark-brown shape appeared in the foam underlay.
With permission I quickly cut out a large square around the whole stain and placed it in a large glass jar. If there was any poison, it would still be in the stain.
The detective was impressed.
The hospital had already undertaken some tests of the blood sample they had taken. The Poisons Unit identified a common tranquilliser, valium, in a high enough dose to ensure a deep sleep for our victim, which indeed he had received.
Submitting the urine and foam underlay samples to the Forensic Science Laboratory, it was a few weeks before their results were available.
Their results were all the more interesting. Using the carpet sample they had managed to extract the poison from the foam. It was indeed a tranquilliser and very similar to valium but not identical. Indeed they had not seen it before. Having researched further, they manage to conclude that, although it was from the same group of drugs as valium, it was a variation only available in Italy.
Warrants were issued with Interpol for the arrest of the victims ex-wife and her friend.
A few months later the detective in the case went to Italy and asked me to accompany him. He wanted to arrest the woman and also search for the source of the drug which was only available on prescription in Italy. By that time I had moved on and was working at the laboratory. A request for me to go with the detective was turned down. The head of SO3 Branch would not allow me to go, so it fell to a colleague to make the trip.