Free Beating the Devil's Game: A History of Forensic Science and Criminal by Katherine Ramsland

defense. But the judge allowed the prosecutor to have his experts use the Marsh Test. Again, the country waited in anticipation of the results, and again, the results turned up negative in the body. People who sided with Marie rejoiced over her triumph, but there was still the issue of large amounts of arsenic evident in the food.
    The prosecutor then requested that Paillet’s friend, the renowned Orfila, perform the tests on the contents of Lafarge’s stomach. Orfila arrived and insisted that the local chemists witness what he did. He used the Marsh Test, and to Paillet’s shock, he proved that it was not the method that had been at fault in this case, but the practitioners. They had bungled it. Orfila tested many of the organs from Lafarge’s body and detected the presence of small quantities of arsenic. He also proved that it had not originated in the soil surrounding the coffin, since arsenic was not present in the flesh. Based on his results, Marie was declared guilty and sentenced to death. Her sentence was later commuted to life and she spent ten years in prison. She never confessed.
    Since Orfila had been Paillet’s friend, this case offered a demonstration that benefitted toxicology. Orfila had performed the test in a detached manner, uninterested in the outcome aside from accuracy. He might have chosen sides, but he did not. He also showed the reliability of the test and the importance of careful, systematic work.
    More devices would soon acquire application in criminal investigation, as the century moved toward its midpoint and the Industrial Revolution continued to transform life in every major European and American city.

THREE
    ORDER OF THE COURTS
    Judges and Juries
    NEW TECHNOLOGIES
    In 1840, Samuel Morse obtained a patent for the telegraph, and four years later he sent a message from Baltimore to Washington, D.C. Other countries adopted this exciting means of instant communication and it wasn’t long before an underwater transatlantic cable linked Europe with America. In England, an investigator quickly employed this invention to apprehend a murder suspect.
    John Tawell was seen leaving his home on New Year’s Day, 1845, and arriving at the home of his mistress, Sarah Hadler, in Saltill, England. As evening set in, a neighbor who’d seen Hadler looking quite pleased during the day heard her let out a piercing scream. This neighbor then saw Tawell run off so he went to check on Sarah, who lay on the floor of her cottage, writhing in agony. She died before the doctor arrived.
    Tawell, married twice, had already served a prison term for forgery, and had taken up with Hadler during his first wife’s illness. When she died, he’d begun seeing Hadler more regularly. Yet he’d married another woman and kept Hadler, with whom he had two children, a secret. He was the obvious and only suspect in Hadler’s apparent murder, so to catch him before he got away, the local constable in Hadler’s village telegraphed a message to the town where Tawell was expected to arrive, and there he was spotted and caught. Hadler’s death was proven as a poisoning by prussic acid, which Tawell had purchased. However, in court, the toxicologists made a mess of things by contradicting each other on how much prussic acid apple pips contained, since apples had been present in Hadler’s home. The jury ignored the medical evidence and convicted Tawell based on circumstances. He later confessed.
    In 1843, the Belgium
Sûreté Publique
took the first known mug shots of criminals, making this group of law enforcement officers the ancestors of judicial photography. The Swiss used the technique during the next decade for identifying suspected recidivists. Throughout the 1850s, police departments across Europe and the United States also compiled archives of prisoner images.
    The early psychiatrists, who were communicating with others in their field via medical journals and papers, sought ways to identify criminals and treat them apart