The Savannah morning news., 1902-05-13
MURDER NOT A FINE ART.
Inspector shea Says the Practice
Has sadly DeHenernted.
From the Chicago Tribune.

Has sadly DeIenerated.
From the Chicago Tribune.
Looking backward over more than
third of a century of active work in
Chicago, 1t is the opinion of Inspector
John d. Shea. that murder has not
developed in artfulness of method and
execution. From the point of view of
the detective, the inspector feels that
most murderers are "botches' at the
job, and that as many botches are
made of it to-day as ever before in
history.
In fact" says the inspector, "if we
are to read history with any degree of
credence I'm quite sure that murder is
, becoming lost art. 1t has been
long time since we had Lucretia Bor-
gia. No scientific murderer whom we
have read about in recent times has
approached her methods. Most fire.
! Quently the modern, premeditated muir
| der, either in the plans for the deed or
| the plans for hiding the victim, goes
! just wrong enough to point the way for
| the police. AS for the execution of
| plans, too, men and women are beaten
| to death, choked and killed by all the
/ barbarous methods that could existed
! in a stone age.
considering a possible development
of methods in murders, it must be rec
ognized that some form of violence is
more than ever necessary to a murder.
To- day the analytical chemist can dis
cover almost any poison in the body
that can cause death. Blows, shots,
knife thrusts and strangulation are
necessary methods now All these are
old. and nearly all of them leave some
suspicious mark upon the murderer
If only he can be traced in time. With
these weapons and methods still neces-
sarY. there is not a wide range posi-
BILE to the murderer in the execution
Of his crime while long experience of
the detective in such cases has given
to the officer an insight into neighbour
hoods, characters, wounds and the
general settings of a possible crime as
TO make detection of a criminal almost
certain.
lone might take up individual muir
der cases, and murders in duplicate
and tripncate, almost without end.
but theories would have to be resort
ed to in proving anything by them. Oc-
casionally someone commits murder in
an unusually startling and striking
manner, but when it is sifted down
it is likely that most of the startling
effect is given to the crime by reason
of the crimes environment and by the
circumstances that made the crime pos
sible Right there is something that
stands in the way of the evolution of
crime methods. The situation, condi- |
lions and opportunity for a crime must
all be in proper relation before an ar |
tistic' crime IS possible. In the pre-
meditated murder these things are too |
much to count on; no one could say
how many thousands of murders have |
been premeditated and preparations /
made for their execution, and which, |
because of some one of these conditions /
failing, have been given up for all /
time. 1t might not be too much to
guess that more murders of this kind |
have been planned than have been ex-
ecuted and if the art of numbering /
had progressed as have the arts and |
sciences these contemplated murders |
would have been made easily possible |
"a condition that would have been in /
tolerable.
Murder is degenerating, in so far as
ever it was an art. and the art of de-
tecting crimes and criminals is devel- |
oping with every year. This may be |
the reason that so many of the MUIR
ders of to-day are committed in the
heat of passion, the murderer making
small attempt to cover his crime"