Crimes of Paris_ A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection - Dorothy Hoobler [73]
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Despite the success, many in the police department resented the new system, just as they had earlier bridled at Vidocq’s methods. Whenever possible, they tried to discomfit Bertillon by making him come to the morgue and identify mangled bodies, a task he hated. Though such trips made him almost sick, he did finally gain the respect of his critics. One day a detective who faced the problem of identifying a decaying body with a very large head mentioned it to Bertillon. The circumstances — the corpse had been fished from the Marne — created some suspicion that the dead man had a criminal background, so Bertillon came to measure him. Although the body’s condition made it impossible to take all eleven critical measurements, there were enough to make an identification: Bertillon’s files showed that the man had been accused of assault a year before. That brought the police to question those involved and to discover that the victim had been murdered in revenge for the earlier incident. After that, identification of unknown corpses became a regular duty for Bertillon and his assistants.
The press, as always, was fascinated by crime stories, and the ensuing publicity helped Bertillon’s program. In November 1887, L’Illustration sent a reporter to Bertillon’s lab. The journalist wrote of men on pedestals, leaning over calibrated iron tables and seated on bolted-down chairs as they used calipers, meter sticks, and cameras. The technology of precise measurements, the reporter made clear, was supplementing and replacing the system of relying solely on policemen’s memories.
Gradually, Bertillon’s superiors realized how valuable his work was. On February 1, 1888, six years after his first success, he was made chief of the newly established Service of Judicial Identity. He set up shop on the top floor of the Palais de Justice. Perhaps it was to Bertillon’s liking that the office had to be reached via a long and steep staircase, discouraging casual visitors and those who didn’t have something important to report. By this time, his system had become well enough known that other police forces in Europe and America were beginning to adopt it. As it became widespread, some complained that taking the eleven measurements was too difficult for an ordinary underpaid police clerk and that not everyone was able to produce measurements as precise as those Bertillon himself made. The founder of the system brushed aside such objections, saying that “anyone who was not an imbecile could learn to measure in five minutes and never forget the process.” 13 In Paris alone, by the end of the first decade of its use, Bertillon’s measurement system led to the capture and identification of thirty-five hundred criminals. 14
Bertillon was continually searching for new ways to employ scientific methods in crime solving. At one point, he added to his reputation by making duplicate copies of identity photographs and cutting them into pieces. He divided the pieces into groups according to facial parts — noses, ears, eyes, and so forth — and compiled charts to show illustrations of the various types of each. By doing so, he was trying to find a way to assist policemen in making more precise descriptions of the suspects they brought into custody. Bertillon proved in a series of experiments that detectives who had failed to identify a suspect based on a regular photograph could often identify their target if just one feature was isolated. It was the skill of the detective “to analyze each of these traits separately and, consequently, to compare each isolated trait with the corresponding trait of another face.” 15 Bertillon put special emphasis on the ears of criminals for making an identification, for he believed ears were