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In 1948, the lifeless body of June Anne Devaney, a 3-year-old pneumonia patient, was discovered on the premises of Queen’s Park Hospital in Blackburn, England. Her brutal murder spurred law enforcement into taking extraordinary measures to track down the perpetrator.
The killer had left behind several clues, including footprints in the children’s ward, traces of blood, fibers, and fingerprints on a water bottle. However, the prints did not match any records in the local police database. Despite collecting fingerprints from approximately 2000 individuals connected to the hospital, investigators were unable to identify a suspect.
Determined to solve the case, Detective Inspector John Capstick escalated the investigation by ordering the fingerprinting of every male over the age of 16 (or 14, according to some reports) who had been in Blackburn at the time of June’s murder. He also ensured that the prints from the crime scene were distributed to all police fingerprint bureaus across the UK. As reported by the BBC and Cheryl Eddy of io9's True Crime, this marked the “first-ever mass fingerprint test.” Capstick assured Blackburn’s mayor that all collected prints would be destroyed once the case was resolved.
After more than two months and the collection of over 40,000 sets of fingerprints, the murderer remained at large. However, population records indicated that 200 individuals had not yet submitted their prints. Once these remaining fingerprints were gathered, a match was finally identified.
Peter Griffiths, a 22-year-old former military serviceman, was apprehended after his fingerprints matched those found on the water bottle. He confessed to the crime upon being confronted with the evidence. His trial concluded swiftly, with the judge taking just 25 minutes to declare him guilty and sentence him to death.
This marked the first instance, though not the last, of British police employing such forensic tactics. In 1954, the Metropolitan Police collected palm prints from 10,000 men following the murder of a woman on a golf course. While the killer was eventually caught, the practice of mass fingerprinting became increasingly contentious over time.
In 1976, public outcry erupted when police sought to fingerprint 15,000 individuals, including youths over 12, after an elderly woman was murdered in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. Despite assurances that parental consent would be obtained and prints destroyed, the National Council for Civil Liberties raised concerns. They warned that such measures edged society closer to accepting widespread police surveillance, posing a significant threat to civil liberties.
Mass fingerprinting efforts have persisted in England into modern times. In 2002, over 1,258 sets of prints were collected from residents of Norfolk Island following its first murder in 150 years. Similarly, the technique has been employed in the United States, though it has drawn criticism from organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union.
The Fourth Amendment restricts the use of fingerprinting, making it unlikely that Americans today would comply as readily as the men of Blackburn did over 70 years ago. In England, the practice continues to spark debate, with citizens resisting biometric passport initiatives and the fingerprinting of schoolchildren. Despite these controversies, the investigation into June Anne Devaney's murder remains a pivotal and intriguing milestone in the evolution of forensic science.
