First criminal case using earthen materials as evidence. First criminal case using earthen materials as evidence

1. First criminal case using earthen materials
as evidence

3. In October, 1904, a forensic scientist in Frankfurt, Germany named
Georg Popp was asked to examine the evidence in a murder case where a
seamstress named Eva Disch had been strangled in a bean field with her
own scarf. A filthy handkerchief had been left at the scene and the nasal
mucus on the handkerchief contained bits of coal, particles of snuff, and,
most interesting, grains of minerals, particularly the mineral horneblende.
A suspect by the name of Karl Laubach was known to work in a coal-
burning gasworks and part-time in a local gravel pit. Popp found coal and
mineral grains, particularly the mineral horneblende, under the suspect’s
fingernails. It was also determined that the suspect used snuff.

6. Examination of soil removed from Laubach’s trousers revealed a lower layer in
contact with the cloth whose minerals compared with those found in a sample
collected from the place where the body of Eva Disch had been found! Encrusted
on top of this lower layer a second soil type was found.
Examination of the minerals in the upper layer revealed a mineralogy and size of
particle, particularly a crushed mica grain, that Popp determined were comparable
with soil samples collected from the path that led from the murder scene to the
suspects home.
From these data is was concluded that the suspect picked up the lower soil layer at
the scene of the crime and that this lower, thus earlier material, was covered by
splashes of mica-rich mud form the path on his return home. When confronted
with the soil evidence, Karl Laubach admitted the crime and the Frankfurt
newspapers of the day carried headlines such as “The Microscope as Detective.”

7. It is impossible to determine from the distance of almost a century
how a forensic geologist or a jury today would evaluate the geologic
evidence amassed by Popp. One fact is evident, mineral study had
been used in an actual case, fulfilling the prophesy of Arthur Conan
Doyle who had hypothesized the use of geology in criminalistics when
he penned the Sherlock Homes mysteries between 1887 and 1893.

8. Layers of dirt leave a clear trail – the Filbert case (1908)
The case that established the value of geologic information occurred in
the spring of 1908. Margarethe Filbert was murdered near
Rockenhausen in Bavaria. The district attorney in Kaiserslautern, a man
by the name of Sohn, was seeking information on the source of some
hairs found in the victim’s hands. He was familiar with Hans Gross’s
text Handbook for Examining Magistrates (1893) and had filed, for
future reference, clippings from the Frankfurt newspaper of 1904
describing Georg Popp’s work in the Disch case. District Attorney Sohn
located Popp in Frankfort and asked him to study the hair and other
material.

9. Georg Popp began and intensive study of the available material. He studied the hair
and concluded that it came from the victim. Not easily discouraged, he extended his
studies to other objects, noting with special interest encrusted soil on the dress shoes
of the principal suspect, a local factory worker and farmer named Andreas
Schlicher.
Schlicher was a person of “low reputation who had previously been suspected of
poaching.” Following the murder, many of his neighbors had suggested him as a
likely suspect. It had been established that Schlicher’s wife had cleaned his dress
shoes the night before the murder and that he had worn them only on that day.
However, he stoutly denied having anything to do with the crime or having walked
on that day in the field where the crime was committed. His trousers had been found
in a nearby abandoned castle along with a rifle and ammunition used in poaching. It
was established that the ammunition was his. However, he claimed that they had
been left at the castle prior to the day of the murder.

10. Popp collected soil samples from the surrounding area. He studied these,
assisted by a geologist by the name of Fischer, and observed that the area
immediately surrounding the suspect’s home was littered with green goose
droppings. The fields of the suspect contained a distinctive soil containing
fragments of porphyry, milky quartz, and mica. Root fibers, weathered
straw, and leaves were also common.
Most interesting was the observation that the scene of the crime had a soil
containing decomposed red sandstone, angular quartz, ferruginous clay,
and little vegetation. At the castle where the trousers and gun were found,
the soil contained coal, abundant brick dust, and broken pieces of cement
from the crumbling walls.

11. Upon examining the dress shoes of the suspect, Popp was impressed with the
thickly caked soil on the sole of the shoes in front of the heel. He reasoned that
the soil must have accumulated as the suspect walked on the one day he had worn
the shoes. That one day was the day of the murder. In addition, he reasoned that
the layers of soil that accumulated on the shoes represented a sequential deposit,
with the earliest material deposited directly on the leather.
Careful removal of the individual layers revealed the following sequence: First a
layer of goose droppings directly on the leather followed by grains of red
sandstone. A mixture of coal, brick dust, and cement fragments rested on top of
the sandstone. In all three layers, Popp was able to compare the material on the
shoe with the soil from near the suspect’s home, the scene of the crime, and the
castle.

12. Although Schlicher had claimed he had
walked in his own fields, no fragments of
porphyry with milky quartz were found on
the shoes. The comparison of the soil on
the shoes with the scene of the crime and
the scene where the trousers were
discarded indicated that the suspect had
lied and had been at these places on the
day of the crime.

13. Georg Popp made many contributions to
forensic science. However, the Margarethe
Filbert case established him in the field of
forensic geology and set the stage for later
studies of soil comparison. In this early
case, he had established a time sequence
of soil accumulation representing the
places where a person had walked.
Hans Gross had been right. The dirt on the
shoes had told more than had been
obtained from intensive interrogation.

14. Traces of red face powder beneath a suspect’s fingernails (1912)
In 1912 Emile Gourbin was a bank clerk in Lyons, France. He came under suspicion
of murdering, by strangulation, his girl friend, Marie Latelle. Gourbin was arrested but
produced what appeared to be an air-tight alibi. Locard went to Gourbin’s cell and
removed scrapings from under his fingernails.
These scrapings contained tissue that might have come from Marie’s neck, but this
was not provable. Locard noticed that the tissue was coated with a pink dust, which he
identified as rice starch. On the particles he found bismuth, magnesium stearate, zinc
oxide, and a reddish iron oxide pigment, Venetian red. Examination of the face powder
used by Marie revealed that a powder prepared for her by a Lyons druggist was similar
in composition. In these days of mass-produced face powder, this evidence would
have far less significance. However, in 1912, because of the special preparation, it led
to the confession of Gourbin.