A Brief History
On October 22, 1910, a murderer named Hawley Crippen became the first person captured via the help of radio to be convicted of a crime. A sort of quack doctor, Crippen worked in homeopathic medicine in the US but was not allowed to practice medicine in England when he moved to London.
Digging Deeper
Authorities in Canada were alerted via radio that the fugitive was on board an ocean liner and Crippen was arrested on arrival in Canada, the first known instance of an arrest facilitated by radio.
Other notable crime fighting firsts include:
The first use of fingerprints to gain a conviction may have been used against murderer Thomas Jennings in 1910 in Chicago or Argentine murderess Francisca Rojas in 1892.
In 1986, the first use of DNA to solve a crime occurred in England when murderer Colin Pitchfork was convicted of murder on DNA evidence.
Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: Have you ever been fingerprinted?
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Rooney, Anne. Impact of Science and Technology: Crime Fighting. Franklin Watts Ltd, 2009.
Snedden, Robert. Crime-Fighting Devices. Raintree, 2011.
The featured image in this article, Dr. Crippen & Ethel Leneve on trial, is from the George Grantham Bain collection at the Library of Congress. According to the library, there are no known copyright restrictions on the use of this work.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
