Detroit evening times., 1944-12-10

- from the morgue is still stiff
statue" Neither rgor mortis nor
embalming could have accounted for
this circumstance since morgueS do
not embalm bodies they receive.
Many murderer in fact and fic-
ton will be chagrined to learn that
quicklime does not destroy body On
the contrary this strong caustic
forms a combination with fatty tissue
- which is resistant to insect life and TO
the usual putrefactive changes which
!
S& destroy tissue. Instead of dSsolving
E&ANl a body. quicklirne tends to preserve 1t.
~ Police officers usually assume that
a man who has been shot through the
M heart must have died instantly. DR..
Snyder says He recalls the case
OF policeman who was shot through
the heart by a gangster with a .38
special The victim wasn't even
Asss@Al knocked off his feet. He took out his
VXX58 own revolver fired all six shots, put II
back i'm its holster, walked across
wide street, climbed into his car and died.
Story book sleuths nearly always success
full. which is as il should be- but how far would
Philo Vance or an Ellery Queen Arsehe
Lupin get with a riddle like the murder OF Joseph
Elwell, the internationally famous bridge expert
and bon vivant, who was shot TO death in his
Manhattan apartment in 1920? Or with the case
OF Dot King. the Broadway butterfly who was
fatally chloroforned in her boudoir in 1923?
Another poser was the mysterious drowning
OF Starr Faithful back in 1881. Her body was
washed ashore at Long Beach, l.. l., and despite
months of Investigation, no one ever was able
satisfactorily 10 clear up the circumstances
a
have sifted the clues far more thoroughly than
any eagle-eye from the pages of fiction, but there
has been no author TO provide in the last chapter
a ready solution 10 the mystifying Staying
THESE and some Of the other famous unSolved
murders OF history may have been perfect crimes
dcfyng the efforts of any criminologiSt But every
year DR.. Snyder says, countless murders 90 un
solved and a greater number may not even be
suspected because official investigators bungle
their Jobs. One of every five deaths in the United
States is under circumstances that require inquiry
Detectives go wrong surprisingly often on the
mistake a knife wound for a bullet woCnd, or
wrongly assume that body found in water is, OF
sheer necessity. true of drowning
Because the old adage that drowning man
will grasp at a is actually true, the presence
OF mud grass other objects in the Clenched hand
usually indicates drowning. Frequently. with
nothing to grab, a drowning man will clench his
hands tightly that the fingernails leave marks
in the palms The fact that little or no water Is
found in the lungs can be ignored, since most
deaths in the water result from asphyXiaton
4 One of the StrangeSt marine homcides occurred
r. Sydney, Australia A fisherman returned 10
| It and announced that his partner had fallen
! overheard and drowned. a few days later a large
shark caught some distance off shore In its
stomach found portions OF human body.
Careful examination showed they had been cut
off with knife and swallowed whole by the shark.
Obviously the man had been murdered, diSmem
8 bered and tossed overheard. The partner was ar