1948 child murder in Blackburn, England
The murder of June Anne Devaney is a British child murder which occurred on 15 May 1948 when a girl aged 3 years 11 months was abducted from her cot while an inpatient at Queen's Park Hospital in Blackburn, Lancashire. The child was removed to the grounds of the hospital, where she was raped, before suffering extensive blunt force trauma to her skull when her head was repeatedly swung into a sandstone wall. The assault caused extensive internal injuries and multiple skull fractures, causing the child to develop a fatal state of shock. Her murderer, 22-year-old Peter Griffiths, was arrested three months after the crime and was subsequently tried and convicted of June Anne's murder. He was hanged on 19 November 1948.
To solve the crime, police obtained the fingerprints of every male aged 16 and above who had been in the vicinity of Blackburn on the night of 14–15 May and compared them to those left at the crime scene by the perpetrator.
The investigation into the murder of June Anne Devaney was a milestone in the history of forensic science, being the first time a mass fingerprinting exercise had been employed to solve a murder in the United Kingdom.
Hospital admission.
June Anne Devaney had been admitted to the Queen's Park Hospital in Blackburn, Lancashire on 5 May 1948, to recover from a mild bout of pneumonia. She was placed in Ward CH3 of the premises, being under the supervision of nurse Gwendolyn Humphreys at night. By 14 May, Devaney's condition had improved, and she was due to be discharged from Queen's Park Hospital the following morning.
Shortly after midnight on 15 May, nurse Humphreys was in the ward's kitchen preparing the children's breakfast when she heard the cry of a small boy emanating from Ward CH3. She checked the ward, soothed the child — six-year-old Michael Tattersall — and returned him to his cot, noting as she did so the child in the adjacent cot — June Anne Devaney — was sound asleep. Humphreys then returned to her breakfast duties before checking on the children in her care in Ward CH4, then CH3.
Abduction and murder.
At 1:20 a.m., Humphreys felt a draught and noticed an open porch door at the end of Ward CH3. She closed the door, then saw that June Anne's cot was empty, and that a trail of adult footprints — made by stockinged feet — were upon the highly waxed floor. Ominously, the drop side of Devaney's cot was still in place, meaning the child had to have been lifted from her cot.
Nurse Humphreys made a quick search of the ward, desperately attempting to find June Anne, before alerting other staff to the fact a child was missing. After 30 minutes of fruitless searching, staff contacted the local police, who arrived at 1:55 a.m. and immediately began a search of the hospital and its grounds.
Discovery.
At 3:17 a.m., police found June Anne's body. She lay face down in the grass directly alongside an tall sandstone boundary wall some from the ward. Her nightdress was torn and raised to waist level, exposing her buttocks and immediately apparent were extensive bloodstains upon her clothing, numerous skull fractures, bludgeoning about her face, and blood exuding from her nostrils.
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I am not ashamed to say I saw it through a mist of tears. Years of detective service had hardened me to many terrible things, but this tiny pathetic body, in its nightdress soaked in blood and mud, was something no man could see unmoved, and it haunts me to this day ... I swore, standing there in the rain, that I would bring her murderer to justice.
 Detective Chief Inspector John Capstick
The discovery of the child's body and the injuries she had suffered immediately sparked a major murder investigation. As such, the area where June Anne's body was discovered was promptly cordoned off, the hospital became a crime scene, and the entire ward was secured and searched. At 4:20 a.m., the chief constable of Blackburn Police contacted Scotland Yard, seeking the assistance of an experienced investigator, who—alongside a sergeant—caught the 6:20 a.m. train from Euston to Blackburn.
Post mortem.
A subsequent post mortem revealed that June Anne had died of shock due to both extensive internal injuries and multiple skull fractures. The internal injuries were consistent with the child having been raped, and the multiple, extensive fractures and blunt trauma to her skull had been inflicted from the child being repeatedly swung into the boundary wall while her rapist and murderer had held her by her legs, ankles, or feet. Numerous teeth marks were also notable on her left buttock, two ante-mortem bruises—the pressure of which indicated had been made by the application of a human thumb and forefinger—were located upon each of her upper, inner thighs and neck, and puncture wounds from human fingernails were found upon one ankle. Every injury upon June Anne's body had been inflicted before death.
Considering the area where the body was discovered, plus soon being contacted by a taxi driver who informed police that he had picked up a man with a local accent close to the hospital on the night of the crime, Blackburn Police came to believe early in the investigation that the crime would very likely have been committed by a local person, or an individual with extensive local geographical knowledge.
Investigation.
Beside Devaney's cot, a glass 1946 Winchester bottle, partially filled with sterile water, was found alongside further footprints—measuring ten-and-a-half inches—which were clearly visible on the highly polished hospital floor; furthermore, the pattern of these stockinged feet impressions evident throughout the ward revealed that June Anne's abductor and murderer had evidently removed his shoes after entering the premises before prowling throughout the ward to view each cot and bed before selecting June Anne's cot as the one from which he chose to abduct his victim. The bottle itself had inexplicably been removed from its customary place (a trolley at the end of the ward) and placed beside the child's cot. This bottle itself was examined for fingerprints, being found to contain several sets.
After all hospital staff had their fingerprints compared against those upon the bottle, a team of detectives from the Lancashire Constabulary traced all individuals who could have had a legitimate reason to have been in Ward CH3 within five years prior to the murder for the purposes of both alibi tracing, and fingerprint comparison. The individuals traced included ambulance drivers, nurses' boyfriends, electricians, and tradesmen. All were eliminated as suspects. Following the completion of this exhaustive task, one unidentified set of fingerprints remained. This set of fingerprints was declared by the head of the Lancashire Fingerprint Bureau to have belonged to the child's murderer. The ridges of this sole remaining set of fingerprints were well-defined and unbroken, suggesting they may belong to a young man with little or no experience of hard labour.
After first establishing that no match for this set of fingerprints could be found within the police fingerprint bureau—meaning the perpetrator had not previously been convicted of any crime—attention turned to every male at or over the age of 16 within the local community. In a joint effort between local police forces and senior detectives from Scotland Yard, the Detective Chief Inspector in charge of the investigation, DCI John Capstick, then proposed that every male at or over the age of 16 who lived or was in the vicinity of Blackburn (then a town of 123,000 inhabitants) between 14 and 15 May be fingerprinted. The public were asked to cooperate with police throughout this undertaking, with the promise that all records obtained would not be compared for usage in other cases, and that these records would be destroyed at the completion of this task.
The mass operation began on 23 May, and a special card was developed so that the identifiable sections of the perpetrator's left hand found upon the bottle (the left forefinger, middle finger, ring finger and a section of the left palm) could be recorded swiftly. The card also recorded the individual's name, address, and National Identity Registration Number. Also on the card was a section pertaining to the individual's stated movements between 11 p.m. on 14 May and 2 a.m. on 15 May.
The task-force to carry out this endeavour was led by Inspector William Barton and comprised a team of 20 officers who, armed with details from the Electoral Register, set about the districts collecting fingerprints and comparing them against those upon the Winchester bottle. Over the course of two months, over 40,000 sets of prints were taken from more than 35,000 homes without a match being found.
Further fingerprint records.
By late July, investigators had checked the fingerprints of each individual upon the Electoral Register. Each individual had been eliminated. As World War II had ended just three years previously and ex-servicemen who had left the vicinity, or had recently been discharged from military service, would not have their names upon the Electoral Register, police then concentrated on these individuals. By way of checking the National Registration Number upon the most recently issued ration books against individuals registered at the local Food Office, investigators identified over two hundred men whose fingerprints had not yet been obtained.
Identification.
One of the Blackburn addresses to be checked was that of Peter Griffiths, a 22-year-old ex-serviceman who lived at 31 Birley Street, and who worked as a packer on the night shift at a local flour mill. His fingerprints were obtained for comparison on 11 August. When asked to provide his fingerprints, Griffiths—whose niece had been in Queen's Park Hospital at the time June Anne had been abducted—supplied them without hesitation. Shortly after 3 p.m. the following day, a comparison for the fingerprints upon the Winchester bottle was made with the fingerprints obtained from Peter Griffiths. Upon discovering the comparison, the fingerprint expert who discovered this match, Colin Campbell, rose to his feet, shouting, "I've got him! It's here!"
By the time this comparison had been made, officers had taken 46,253 sets of fingerprints, and had less than 200 sets of prints left to check before the completion of their task. Investigators chose to withhold this development from the public until they had arrested Griffiths. A decision was made to discreetly arrest him when he next left his home.
Arrest.
Peter Griffiths was arrested by DCI Capstick as he left his Blackburn home to attend work on the evening of 12 August. He was taken to Blackburn Police Headquarters, where he was formally cautioned as to his right to silence. During the ride to police headquarters, and throughout his first interview, Griffiths attempted to deny any involvement, although when confronted with the fact his fingerprints had been a perfect match for those discovered upon the Winchester bottle, he turned towards DCI Capstick and stated: "Well, if they are my fingerprints on the bottle, I'll tell you all about it."
Confession.
In the statement he subsequently gave to detectives, Griffiths claimed that on the night of 14 May, he had chosen to go for a night's "drinking alone" in Blackburn, and that as a result of his heavy drinking, by closing time, he had become severely intoxicated. He had then decided to walk around in an attempt to "sober up" before returning home. Griffiths then claimed to have spoken with a man in a parked car, whom he had asked to light his (Griffiths') cigarette. According to Griffiths, this man, noting his state of intoxication, had said to him: "Get in, open the window and I'll give you a spin." This man had soon parked his car in close proximity to Queen's Park Hospital, and it had been at this stage at which Griffiths had chosen to break into the premises to commit his crime.
Griffiths claimed he "remembered being outside" the children's ward, where he found a door unlocked. He had left his shoes outside the ward, and entered the premises, hearing a nurse "humming to herself and banging things, as if she were washing up or something". He had then picked up the Winchester bottle to use as a weapon in the event any member of staff had attempted to challenge him, before he had chosen June Anne as his victim. According to Griffiths, he had "hushed her" as he lifted her from the cot, before discreetly leaving the premises through a window to a small room at the end