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The Stratton Brothers

3 March

Court sketch of Alfred and Albert Stratton.
Chapman's Oil and Colour Shop, where the murders took place.
The money box, where the fingerprint was found.
The masks recovered from the crime scene, fashioned out of black stockings.

The Stratton brothers murdered Thomas and Ann Farrow in 1905, and were some of the first people to be convicted with the help of fingerprint evidence. Joe talks about his lack of loops and arches, and Sandra came to this country to steal your punchlines.

Joe got his information from:

Sandra got her information from:

Audio transcript

Midweek Murders contains graphic and explicit content, listener discretion is advised.

[Music]

Okay. It's Wednesday, which means that it's time to talk about crime. You're listening to Midweek Murders, and I'm your host Sandra.

G'day mates! I'm your best Australian buddy, Joey! [Laughter]

That's Joe, and he's English.

I'm totally English, definitely not from the gold coast in Australia.

Okay, so this week we're going to talk about the murders of Ann and Thomas Farrow. And I got my information from wikipedia, about forensics, article in Mental Floss by Jennifer M. Wood, article in London News online by news reporter... No, I'm just kidding. It was just by "news reporter". That poor employee's name didn't come up, but I think it was an excerpt from like a book or something. Never mind. What's your sources, Joe? [Laughter]

My sources is history.com, the wikipedia.org page on the Stratton brothers, forensic science simplified, and Crime Scene to Court: The Essentials of Forensic Science. Edited by Peter White ISBN: 978-1-84755-882-4.

Are you gonna be Australian this whole episode?

I'm a special guest.

Special guest - manic Joe! This is gonna be so confusing for the listeners. Also, you did your whole sources section in Australian, we're gonna be fucked. Everyone who doesn't listen to the podcast...

Anyone who doesn't listen to the podcast won't have an issue, because they're not listening to the podcast.

That's fucking true. Technically correct.

The best kind of correct.

So on the 27th of March 1905, a Monday. Yes, I googled "what was the 27th of March 1905?", turns out it's a Monday. You're welcome. Sixteen-year-old William Jones arrived at his place of work at the Chapman's oil and color shop in south east London at 8.30 am. He tried opening the door but found that it was locked, which was very unusual as the shop opened at eight o'clock. The shop manager was a 71 year old man named Thomas Farrow, who lived with his 65 year old wife Ann in a flat above the shop. William knocked on the door thinking Thomas or Ann would hear this, but nobody answered. He looked into the windows and saw that some chairs were knocked over. Suspicious.

I'll say!

I'll say. Confused and alarmed, William went to another one of Chapman's stores and fetched Louis Kidman who accompanied him back to the store, and together they forced themselves in through the back door. When they got inside...

Cheeky.

when they got inside they discovered

thomas lifeless body clad

in his pajamas in the parlor lying in a

pool of blood

william and lewis called the police and

after arriving at the sin

they found anne unconscious and badly

beaten

in the couple's bed in the upstairs flat

the police noticed that there was no

sign of forced entry

which must have meant that thomas opened

the door

probably thinking that it was early

customers

the shop was a mess and the box where

the store's money was kept in

was empty that's a robbery

william informed the police that thomas

would take the shop's weekly profit to

the bank on mondays

which is why i googled if it was a

monday

and it was which meant that the people

who murdered him had gotten away with a

whole week's worth of earnings it was

estimated to have been 13 pounds which

maybe doesn't sound like much

but today i googled this as well

that would be 1592

pounds oh i googled that i was like 13

pounds

how much would that be but also if a

flat

in my area in the 90s would go for

80 to 90 000 pounds

and today is like 500 to 800 pounds

i was like oh my god that's inflation

from the

90s 500 to 800 pounds

that is good deflation oh

what you forgot to say thousand

oh thousand yeah if your flats in london

are going for 500 to 800 pounds

sign me up i will be a millionaire

no you'd be a hundred there

oh [ __ ] i forgot the zeros again

oh no sergeant albert atkinson

made sure the doctor was called to take

anne farrow to the hospital

and pushed the money box to the side

with his bare hands

to clear the way of the door and this

was in most of the articles i read

but also it sounds like it actually

wasn't that relevant because i couldn't

find why that was relevant as in why he

did it

or why it's documented why it's

documented

because i thought that meant that his

fingerprints were

on the box but that didn't come up

so i think the reason is documented is

that this

case relies entirely upon

the fingerprints on the cash box and the

investigating officer

picked it up and moved it aside with

bare hands yeah straight from the start

of the crime scene

you've got the possibility of your key

piece of evidence

being destroyed

because albert ain't got a [ __ ] clue

what he's doing

so the case was then handed over to

chief

inspector frederick fox and assistant

commissioner of the metropolitan police

melville mcnaughton

melville mcdougall mcnaughty

melville mcnaughton we'll go with that

they surprised that thomas had been

attacked immediately

after opening the door but had still

been able to go

after the robbers at which point he had

been beaten over the head

they knew that there had been at least

two assailants

as they had found two black stockings

with holes caught into them

fashioned as makeshift masks

i didn't think people did this in real

life

cause they do don't be

so naive

gullible that's me yeah

so the robbers had then gone up the

stairs

to the flat attacked anne and

found the money box based on the

two separate pools of blood it seemed

like thomas

had regained consciousness and

confronted them

when they came back down at which point

they murdered him

after this the thieves washed their

hands

in a nearby basin that's the only

evidence i could understand

well no that's not true i'm not

at it i have a good

reading ability i've got the reading age

of a five-year-old

i know what i'm doing

now i'm gonna ask you about the

fingerprint that they found because they

found a fingerprint

inside of the money box oh good lord i

wasn't prepared for this

oh human involvement

so they did find

what was described as a greasy smudge

on the cash box that appeared

to the investigating officers like a

fingerprint so they seized

said cashbox and sent it to scotland

yard

he sent me to scotland they didn't send

it to scotland scotland yards in london

don't get confused about scotland in

scotland yard it's not

scotland why is it called the scotland

yard

what knows why it's called scotland yard

is in london near scotland

i think that's clarified for all of

those

immigrants they're not gonna get what

you're saying without subtitles

neither is the joby who thinks you're

safe african

you're what

immigrants say what

that's me

i'm the butt of the joke yes i am

um so the print that was identified

and examined in scotland yard was

determined

to be left by the method of perspiration

and sweaty boys i thought the grease was

like from something else

it was thumb grease oh i use that too

that's not lube oh oh just for

all of you sexually inclined well that

spoke my next [ __ ] joke

what was your next joke i used that to

wank

with

well i did spoil that yeah [ __ ]

immigrants ruining my jokes

come over here take our punch lines

yeah so the print was left by

perspiration

and they identified it as coming from

a right thumb now not

all fingers are thumbs but all

thumbs are fingers get your head around

that

i would assume that your left and right

fingerprint i'm looking at them right

now

little thumbs up and thumbelina

if you're curious about their names

and i would assume that you couldn't

tell the difference

i imagine it was probably down to angles

maybe there were other hand

markings that weren't necessarily

recoverable

as fingerprints but you could still

determine

grip or maybe my thumbs is just a freak

every day of the week well i wouldn't

put it past

thumb thumb and thumbelina but

it's probably more an orientation thing

rather than anything else and if you're

wondering about my orientation

it is circular

that's it that's all that was about the

fingerprint on

the box oh okay cool so the hope was

that ann would help the police

identify the perpetrators but sadly she

never regained consciousness and died

because of her

injuries four days after the attack

the police started interviewing the

locals doing some

good old-fashioned police weren't there

hoping that someone had seen

something and luckily there were no

shortage

of eyewitnesses because at seven in the

morning

people were usually up and also people

knew

people in that day and age surprised

there weren't any dog walkers

well people were out and about it was

1905

the sky's the limit so plenty

of people had noticed two men leaving

the shop

at approximately 7 30 in the morning

one who was dressed in a dark brown suit

and cap

and the other was dressed in a dark blue

suit and a bowler hat

that's suspicious right there but it's

not in the 1905's

there's only one 1905 yeah that's true

so two of the eyewitnesses recognized

one of the men

professional boxer henry john

littlefield

and local girl ellen stanton

told police that the man in the dark

brown suit

was definitely alfred stratton

and how they knew i don't know they

probably knew people

in the general area that's kind of how

the old days

was yeah know your neighbors accuse him

of murder

true so alfred and his brother albert

did not have any criminal convictions

but were known to the police for hanging

around in

seedy circles they were also known to

extort

sex workers for their earnings and

albert had gotten one of the sex workers

he was stealing from

and regularly beating hannah cromartie

don't know how that last name is

pronounced but

cremity chromati in the

quote family way unquote

that's her of putting it yeah

her okay yeah so the police brought in

hannah for questioning and hannah told

them

that albert had indeed been wearing a

dark blue suit in the morning of the

27th

and she also told them that he had given

the suit away the same day

she was like [ __ ] this guy that was a

monday right

uh-huh i google that [ __ ] it was about

it

she said that albert had asked her for

some black stockings

suspicious if you remember the masks

yeah

which she had given him and that albert

had returned on the 27th

a monday with an

unexplainably large amount of money

she was like [ __ ] this dude which

makes sense because he was a dick she

gave them

all the information they wanted and more

so the stratton brothers were

apprehended on the same high street

ass the shop was located on and when

they charged

alfred he calmly stated is that all

like the cocky buffoon that he was

because he all you was

the fingerprint found on the inside of

the money box was an exact

match for alfred's thumb print

did you have any more on this when we're

already on it

how do they do the printing how oh

they do the printing how you want the

fingerprinty

background well we could do that if you

wanted to well i mean that's what you

just sang about

so yeah they lifted

the print from the cash box and found

that it didn't match either thomas or

and

farrow they also ran it past the

database that they had at the time

which compared to modern day

was incredibly small

oh but but there's a butt there's about

you guys

there's about and it's a big one which

was approximately

80 to 90 000 prints

which if you think about it is a very

good collection

given that this is the first case tried

for murder and only a couple of years

before

the first case was passed for petty

theft

so they've accumulated a good old amount

of fingerprints in a short amount of

time

well done scotland yeah and there was no

match

no match to thomas and anne no match to

their

current data base

but thanks to witness testimony they

managed to

arrest alfred and albert or if you're

not french

albert they took their prince

and ding a linga ling there was

a positive match

now we get into fingerprints

oh very excited oh love a bit of

fingerprint

fingerprints are completely

unique to every single

individual that science knows of

there has not been a recorded case

ever since the early 1900s

of fingerprints being identical between

two

individuals and that includes identical

twins

so if you think you're an identical twin

or you are because probably quite easy

to tell

and want to go on a crime spree

wear gloves fingerprints are

mainly identified by a series

of ridges which are rays

and furrows which are recessed so if you

look

at the pads of your fingers you can see

that there are raised

ridges you can call them by their names

thumb thumb and thumbelina

yeah but also your fingers and your toes

yeah yeah so the ridges are the high

points and the furrows

are the bits in between all the ridges

now when

you are identifying a fingerprint

there are three main points

that forensic scientists will look for

and that's the

shape of your ridges on your fingerprint

so it can be in the shape of a loop

which is where

the ridge will curve back on itself

and there are two different types of

ridges you can either have a radial

ridge

where it points towards your radial bone

or towards the thumb

and an ulna ridge where it points

towards your

ulna bone or the little finger

so if you look at your fingerprints if

you've got any loops

they will point one way or the other

left or right towards your thumb

or towards your little finger are you

seeing that are you seeing it

can you see your loops yeah so

loops account for approximately 60

of fingerprint patterns so they're the

most common

to find on fingerprints the next thing

they look for

are worlds so like a whirlpool

but with an o rather than an i they're

circular or spiral patterns

and this is where nomenclature differs

so

the us or the united states of america

yeah they will define them as being

plain

which is concentric circles a central

pocket loop which is a loop

as previously described with a circular

whirl

at the end a double loop which looks a

bit like an

s shape or an accidental

loop the only description i could find

for that was an irregular

shape in the uk they're called small

elliptical

twin composite or lateral pocket

and accidental loop so worlds make up

about 35

of fingerprint patterns and then you

have

arches which are like a

wave pattern and they're broken down

into two

sub-categories so you've got plane and

you've got tented

and the difference between the two there

is that tented

arches are a much stronger peak

so it's a sharper point and they look

more like a tent

rather than a wave so it's a bit more

like an a shape

rather than a nice undulating inverted

u and they make up about five percent

so when you combine all three of those

patterns

and i'll give you an example my thumbs

are

only worlds so i haven't got

loops and i haven't got arches in my

thumbs at all

they're just pretty much concentric

circles

and apparently i'm not sure how true

this is

so i remember reading somewhere that

apparently if you're deprived of

oxygen during birth you're more likely

to have

circular whirl shaped fingerprints

but then also read somewhere else

that the fingerprints are formed

early in the womb so you know two

conflicting evidences

but i was deprived of oxygen during

birth

so could be that could be hocus pocus

hoga's bogus but fun little fact for you

you're gonna get framed they can try but

they wouldn't be able to frame me

because they don't have my fingerprints

to be able to imprint anywhere

that's true so when the brothers were in

custody

albert started getting nervous as

evidence against them was

mounting yes the jailer what he reckoned

his

chances was but the jailer didn't want

to guess

albert made sure alfred wasn't listening

and then told the jailer that

i reckon he will get strung up and i

shall get about 10 years

like the complete [ __ ] that he was

because that sentence which could be

construed

as an admission of guilt was repeated at

the trial when it started on

the 5th of may 1905.

mcnaughton collins and the crown

prosecutor knew that they

faced a difficult trial as the

fingerprint was the only real

evidence that they had which i'm

guessing was because they couldn't find

the murder weapon

and stuff and the clothing they couldn't

find the clothes

but they did a postmortem of anne and

found

that her fatal wounds were consistent

with tools that the stratton brothers

had in their possession

but obviously they'd cleaned them and

got rid of any external evidence

so it wasn't a direct link so much as a

circumstantial link

okay so colin's teacher dr john garson

who was into human measuring and

through poematry which i don't

get the point of a quick investigation

like you said it's measurements of the

human body but

it seems to be more useful

in anthropology forensic anthropology

specifically

when they're looking at things like mass

graves

so when i was researching this they said

that

anthropometry was a direct

relative of forensic fingerprinting

i can't see the link between the two

they seem like two distinct disciplines

to me

yeah he was more into that as a means

of identification rather than

fingerprinting

and was set to testify but it came out

that he had been in contact with both

prosecution

and defense to say that he would testify

for whichever side paid him more

because of this he was found to not

measure up

to the standard of what an expert

witness should be

and was discredited so the prosecution

called over 40 witnesses to the stand

but the jury was distrustful of this new

futuristic

fingerprinting technique detective

inspector collins was called to the

stand as an expert witness

instead of his teacher which is probably

good because

carson was not a fan

of the fingerprinting technique and also

collins is the one that did it

did what the fingerprint analysis was he

i think so i didn't know so

he was called to the stand as an expert

witness and

explained to the court that in all of

the 800

000 plus individual digit impressions

that the scotland yard had on file

he had never come across even one

individual's fingerprints

to be the same as another's

after a while this convinced the

skeptical jurors

and they sentenced the stratton brothers

to death

by hanging so that's the case

isn't it crazy that we do have very

individual fingerprints isn't that like

a very

strange coincidence no it's just science

man

says bish yeah what are you gonna do

next week

are you going somewhere going somewhere

no i booked the week off actually

because i have got

that little to do but i am going to be

busy on

wednesday what are you going to do on

wednesday

i've got a virtual ticket to watch a

recording of

qi oh what

really your birthday present

should be arriving to you next week cool

cool nothing has happened since my 30th

birthday

since then more or less i've been

in lockdown that's a year i've sailed

through it

obviously with my mental health intact

do you want to read back through some of

our conversation history

ah yes oh yes

okay thank you so much for listening to

midweek murders

we'll see you next week. Goodbye, bye-bye.

Bye!

[Music]

Topics
  • Thomas Farrow
  • Ann Farrow
  • Stratton Brothers case
  • The Mask Murders
  • The Farrow Murders
  • earliest convictions using forensic science
  • first murder convictions based on fingerprint evidence
  • fingerprint evidence
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