1960-08-22 — Page 6

Page

UNSUSPECTED M U-R-- DER...Today a top reporter adds his expert testimony on the theme of Dr

John

Havard's book, "The Detec tion of Secret Homicide" (Macmillan, 351.), and takes up the revelations made by Chapman Pincher on Saturs day.

I

THE CHINA MAIL, MONDAY AUGUST 22, 1960.

EVERY YEAR RO

BELIEVE that many perfect murders are

committed every year in this country.

And my conception of a perfect murder is with the body safely tucked away in 6ft. of earth, or cremated, and only the murderer aware that death was not entirely due to the "natural clause" specified on the death certificate.

Detectives of long experi-

ence share my conviction

that

to

in many instacices contrary the general belief, murder does not out.

When he retired from Scot- land Yard almost 40 years ago the late Sir Basit Thompson expressed This opinion: "The proverb 'Murder will out employed whenever one out of many thousands of undiscovered murderers is caught by chance

coincklence.

IN

"The poisoner who is brought to justice is almost invariably proved to have killed other vie- tims without exciting suspicion until he has grown careless,"

MANY

PERFECT

MURDERS

by PERCY HOSKINS

A marked characteristic of ex-Forciza Office employee, who possible that cerisin polsons had

of become decomposed, all poisoners is their extreme claimed to be a descendant

rendering

vanity. They all operate on the English kings and who lavishly their detection impossible. basis that they cannot be found entertained princes and states- out is only by cruel fate men. that they are exposed or so they imagine.

CHANCE

ļ

aware

And, in the train on the way back to London, the late Sir Benard Spilsbury, the patholo gist, made this cryptic observa- tion: "It is, perhaps, a good thing that so few people are of the existence of Eastern vege- table poisons which are soluble and consequently untraceable."

When the coroner's inquest was called it was found that

After he had been involved in a notorious scandal of traffick- ing in royal honours, a series of strange rumours reached Scot- Such a person was Nutse land Yard concerning. Mr Waddingham. Over-confidence Gregory. To test their sub- 2 superintendent was was her undoing. She had suc- stance,

the detailed to inquire into the case cessfully got away with murder by morphine poisoning of a 59-year-old actress. Edith she Marion Rosse, whose deathbed of one rich old lady and

delying a subpoena issued five persons without was filling up the cremation will left Gregory £18,000.

payors for a second.

For a modern classic example, take the case of John George Haigh and his acid bath pro- cess of elimination. He had re- moved

trace before he became careless, and had the fifth victim really w which possessed the wealth he laid claim we might bave heard of the activities the macabre ex-chairboy.

VANITY

She held certificates to the The Yard sought an answer of to these questions: Why was effect that her victim died natural causes and everything Mrs Rosse's will in Gregory's looked as if it was going to be handwriting? Df

plain sailing.

Now.

never

the

Financially, he would have And, set himself up for life. let us face it, it is only by the merest miscalculation on part of the culprit that we have heard recently and for the first time of murder by insulin (Bar- lów), murder by Seconal (Arm- strong), and the inadvertent poisoning of two girl typists-- both of whom died by a love potion of cantharidin "Spanish fly" (Ford).

от

if Nurse Waddingham

had been content with putting

her ordinary address at the top

for

his attendance, Maundy Gregory had left the comtry.

He never returned, and died a Gestapo victim in Paris dur- ing the war.

One could go EXHUMATION

Why was she buried in

of the papers, nothing would shallow grave in a Thames have happened. But to make it riverbank churchyard near Mar

In a continual look more imposing she added low which was

the words: "The Nursing Home. Sale of flood? Had she, in. By chance, the Cremation fact, died En unnatural death officer was also the Medical and was her place of burial Officer for the district. In his selected because the rise tind latter capacity he was also the fall of the river would wash registering authority for all away all traces of poison? nursing homes.

In other words, had murder been done?

ما

was lifted

THE GRAVE

There was only one way

questions. The Realising this "home" was answer these

he passed the Home Office granted En ex- unregistered, If three new methods of life- papers over to the coroner, who humation order and the coffin, destruction are detected by re-ordered an analysis. Surely the Sill full of water, mote chance in such a short perfect crime-but for three from its riverside resting place.

may words.

I remember standing by that space of time, how many

One man whom Scotland Yard shallow grave 63 D: Roche there be in practice undetected during an era of medical laxity firmly believes to this day did Lynch, the analyst, explained as described by Chapman Pin- "get away with murder." was that in view of the constant cher,

the late John Maundy Gregory, Immersion in water it was quite

on

reciting

similar examples..

Yes, Scotland Yard has very ofim cause to be thankful that the gods of chance frown murder.

TOMORROW:

DI

asked

I

the auther

to kill me...

THE

Painful memories

PLANETS

"Why Mary! Why are you crying?"

THE MOON

"I'm sorry, I just can't help it it does remind me of our roads in Hongkong !"

THE KIND OF MAN WHO

SAVES MILLION OF LIVES

IF Aldo Castellani likes you very much he names a microbe after you, as he did for Princess Maria Gabriella of Italy and for an African of cannibal stock called Giuma, who was his favourite servant.

It is a high compliment. Castellani is one of the world's truly great men. His knowledge of microbes has saved the lives of millions who have never heard his name.

to

ez-King This old Italian doctor is the royal physician man who conquered sleeping Umberto, still doing research and sickness, and developed quimme day treating the poor fisher- prophylaxis against malaria, and folk of Estoril. by MERRICK

inoculation against typhoid and biography. "paratyphoid.

What memories he has, WINN Castellani is over 50 now; He

memories of three wars and a gHttering array

famous of patients. There was Mussolini, for tratance, not yet grown fat or flen into the shadow of Hitler, sweeping everything off the desk so that he could lie down on it for an immediate medical check-

the famous. TAB And be has written his auto-

-f'London Express Service). lives in Portugal, where he is

THE ROME OLYMPICS

19 6C

OF THE

WONDER BOY

WHEN Robert Bruce Mathias was born at

Tulare, California, on November 17, 1930, his mother cried because she wanted a daughter.

Seventeen years later, Mrs Mathias cried again —and said: “I am the proudest mother in the world."

In those years she had seen to every childhood disease that her son develop from a puny, came along. anacmic child into the greatest But Bob's father was 1 all-round athlete of all time-physician, surgeon. an expert on a gawky, 17-year-old schoolboy physical training and a former who went to London in 1948 all-state footballer. He encour and won the two-day Olymple aged his family in. sport with decathlon (four track, six field remarkable results.

events), the most searching tes! His eldest son, Charles Eugene, of athletics skill and endurance became an outstanding high yet devised by man.

school footballer: his third son, James Patti became a slar athlete: daughter Patricia was an excellent swimmer.

Fame

Over threequarters Af the

town's total population (14,000)

d

Before he was weakened by succession of illnesses, five-

great

lined the streets of Tulure when year-old Bob showed be returned home. Factory hooters sounded off. Somebody air for baseball and was po

cepted in the

games of

6035

Lied down the card of the are twice his age. Six years later station whistle. Motorists kept their hands on their motor horns. he began daily athletics training

The schoolboy was presented to build up his strength.

with the keys to the town by

the mayor. Governor Earl

Warren made a speech, of wel-

come.

Overnight

According

to his mother "It'

A parade formed behind seemed that a track meet was

a big benner: "Bob Mathias for going

President,"

Later official

ол in

backyard

*** morning, afternoon and night.” At 12 Bob Mathias "Could signs wwere erected at both ends of the town high jump 6 ft. 6 in. At 15, he proclaiming: "Tulare, Home of was a school basketball star. Bob Mathias, Olymple and U.S. At 17, after years of special Decathlon Champion."

dieting and exercises he was a Tulare is known unofficially junior superman, 6 f. 2 in. tall

and weighing 190 lb. today as "Mathiasville."

Bob Mathias was the youngest male athlete ever to win an Olympic track and field cham- pionship and in 1992 he became the only man to win the Olympic decathlon twice.

Weakened

American sportswriters rated him an even greater all-round athlete than the immortal Jim

Therpe.

He excelled at tool

By JOHN COTTRELL

符

OLYMPICS

Later he passed the biggest tape-worm that any of his doctors had ever seen.

4

KINDLY

Rudolph.Valentino was chother patient. When Castellani's maid" first opened the door to him she falled dead away and Valentino had to carry her into the con- until the bar was raped to 10 M. |sulting-room, He aimed to conserve his. strength and when he finally handed he cleared 11 ft. 5% in

Later Bob made a mighty throw in the discus but no one He is a humorous, obser- knew the distance achieved bevant. kindly man;

loyal cause the marker had been ac- Italian but a passionate Anglo- cidentally knocked over: Rein-phile, Justice, he says, is one coated officials rearched the of the great British virtues; and Boggy field for nearly two hours he recalls a colony where tribal and when it was discovered the miscreants

entitled to distance was measured out as choose between a British jury 5044 P. 4 in. -- longest throw and a jury of their compatriots.

of the day.

No one had ever chosen a tribal Fury.

Collapsed

were

+

Not everybody would call a

It was 9.15 p.m. when the lecture on the aetiology of yellow fever "thrilling: but it thrilled javelin came round. With the

foul mark lit by an official's Castellani.

fashlight, Bob achieved 185 ft. As a medical student he was

1 I...

nicknamed Martellino, Little

At 10.30 p.m. in semi-dark-Hammer. because he spent so the much time practising diagnosis nesa, Bob finally faced grueling 1,500 metres. Fighting to test the density of the organs by tapping his patient bodies foot tramp and somach ache,

beneath.

he plodded round the rain- dranched track in 6 min, 11 sec. He went out to Africa when to finish second-good enough | Entebbe was mly a village of to clinch the title.

grass-roofed huts and the Masai Then he collapsed. He had tribe still expressed their entity been on the track and field for with spears and their friendship nearly 12 houFE

by spitting on you. It was there that he succeeded in isolating the little parasite which causes sleeping sickness, ..

Afterwards the now Olymple champion told his mother: "I wouldn't do it again for a mlikom dollars."

And Mrs Mathias, who had not missed a moment of the two-day event, told re- porters "I don't want my baby ever, to do it again. It's too bard

MEMORIES

In Ceylon he checked a mys- terious

the plague among » But Baby Bob, with 7109 Governor's one and cured the points (165 points over the next future Prime Minister, the child nationally famous, a certainty man) went home to achieve Bandaranaike, of diphtheria. In for the 1948 Olympics.

more fame in the decathlon, and the Abyssinian campaign. he as a basketball player, footbeller most entirely, porvented the

and television star.

diseases which had previously In 1952 he won the U.S. de-been more deadly than bullets

to European soldiers there,

Few people, however. image ed that he could triumph at the fret attempt.. At 17, he would becoming before 80,000 catblon the for the fourth time, achieved, spectators, against week and a test never before feld stars from 18 tations, and and four weeks later in Helsinki in the mow nerve-wracking of the retaled his Olympic Utle

with 1,887 points.

metas never seriously con eldered retiring after his first Olymple, ordeal. For in his bed- room hunjes a sto that sums up hij mortigag, philosophy:

"A winner never quite and a quitter never wine **

Ving Jackson, the school and had never competed in a evente. ball, basketball, sprinting track coach, was so impressed by long jump. 40

400 or 1,500 metres. middle-distance running hur the boy's all-round prowess that

At the end of the first day in ging, long jumping, high jump he wrote to the American athle... It took paly one season to the huge Empire Stadium ing pole vaulting shot-putting tics authorities for full details of overcome this handicap. In 1948, Wembley, to was place), Uskry and throwing the javelin and performances required by a first- Mathias Won the Pacific Coast though he had not won s discus.

class decathlon man, The Games decathlon and two weeld vent outright,

Yet, so a child, Mathias was answers told him that in some inter, in the national decathlon Next day the decathlon, so weak that he had to take respects, hà; had a potential and Olymple" try-quz he our firund, in sppeling, frequent nace every day to con champion in his caro,

pointed the three-lines national egist, drigals and serve his wirength. He lived on

The Asserican spedal data to counteract the There was only one big ang champion Trying "300"

Now, nose-binada)

Mathias had never

Overnight,

TOMORROW:

THE PIONEER

But he did not dwell on these achievements during our intor view. He was full of laughter and entertaining stories.

He remembered the Sultan who was so fond of bloudes that he suffered a sort of St. Vitus dance whenever he saw oney, and the Prince of Wales dropping a tube of live plague cultures on the 100g of Castellani's aboratory; and the Tuturo

turionily andry because -'a. 99-

year-old Grand Master of Cere- monies had placed him after the ex-King of Afghanistan at a wedding in Rome.

ADVANCE

By ANTHONY

LEJEUNE

But willingly though some of us would relinquish many of the changes of the past 50 yOUTS, there is one fleld of advance for which we must all be un mixedly thankful.

The progress of medicine, of healing, has been wonderful,

In many ways the world into which Castellani

born was belter and a saner one we have

was

world than the

now.

,

It has saved us from more suffering than we Can ever. know.

And we owe it to just a few

It was a world without pass- ports, a world of much greater international courtesy, a world where civilisation seemed to be men, of whom Aldo Catellani advancing instead of breaking

-(London Express Service),

the

Is one,