Calvin Goddard ( ballistics ) Colonel Calvin Hooker Goddard ( 1891 – 1955 ) was a forensic scientist , army officer , academic , researcher and a pioneer in forensic ballistics . He was born in Baltimore , Maryland . After graduating from the Boys ' Latin School of Maryland in 1907 , Goddard graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1911 from the Johns Hopkins University and then earned a medical degree and graduated in 1915 . Career . He joined the United States Army and became a Colonel . He was also a professor of police science at Northwestern University and the Military Editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica . He was also the editor of the American Journal of Police Science , America ’ s first scientific police journal . Colonel Goddard commanded the US Army Crime Laboratory in Japan for a number of years after World War II . Calvin Goddard brought professionalism , the use of the scientific method , and reliability to Forensic Firearm Identification , at a time when charlatanism was rampant in this field . His testimony in 1923 in the Frye case and others , paved the way for judicial acceptance of Firearms Identification . According to Goddard ' s grandson , he may have been the only army officer who served in four branches : Ordnance Corps , Military Police Corps , Medical Corps and became a Military Historian . Forensic Ballistics . In 1925 Goddard wrote an article for the Army Ordnance titled " Forensic Ballistics " in which he described the use of the comparison microscope regarding firearms investigations . He is generally credited with the conception of the term " forensic ballistics " , though he later admitted it to be an inadequate name for the science . In April 1925 , Major Goddard established the Bureau of Forensic Ballistics in New York City with C . E . Waite , Philip O . Gravelle and John H . Fisher . The Bureau was formed to provide firearms identification services throughout America . Goddard researched , authored and spoke extensively on the subject of forensic ballistics and firearms identification , becoming the internationally renowned pioneer in forensic ballistics . The Bureau of Forensic Ballistics , United States ’ first independent criminological laboratory , which Goddard headed , and where ballistics , fingerprinting , blood analysis and trace evidence were brought under one roof . When the Lab began publishing the American Journal of Police Science , which was edited by Colonel Goddard , Hoover strongly encouraged his Special Agents in Charge to subscribe to it and he supplied articles on fingerprint issues and Bureau responsibilities to the journal . The following year the Bureau contributed three articles for the journal ’ s series entitled “ Organized Protection Against Organized Crime . ” Hoover also sent a number of representatives to a symposium that Goddard sponsored on scientific crime detection . He was also an advisor to FBI when they set up a similar Forensic Laboratory . Comparison Microscope . Philip O . Gravelle , developed the comparison microscope for the identification of fired bullets and cartridge cases with the support and guidance of Major Calvin H . Goddard . It was a giant leap in the science of firearms identification in forensic science . The firearm from which a bullet or cartridge case has been fired is identified by the comparison of the unique striae left on the bullet or cartridge case from the worn , machined metal of the barrel , breach block , extractor , or firing pin in the gun . It was Gravelle who mistrusted his memory . " As long as he could inspect only one bullet at a time with his microscope , and had to keep the picture of it in his memory until he placed the comparison bullet under the microscope , scientific precision could not be attained . He invented the comparison microscope and Goddard made it work . " Sir Sydney Smith also appreciated the idea , emphasizing the importance of stereo - microscope in forensic science and firearms identification . He took the comparison microscope to Scotland and introduced it to the European scientists for firearms identification and other forensic uses . Sacco and Vanzetti Case . Nicola Sacco and Bartolommeo Vanzetti were two Italian - born American anarchists , who were arrested for the murder of security guard Alessandro Berardelli and the robbery of US $ 15 , 766 . 51 from the factory ' s payroll in South Braintree , Massachusetts during the afternoon of April 15 , 1920 . During the trial a worldwide outcry arose , with the firm belief based on railroaded justice and racial prejudice . On April 8 , 1927 , their appeals exhausted , Sacco and Vanzetti were finally sentenced to death in the electric chair . A worldwide outcry arose and Governor Alvin T . Fuller finally agreed to postpone the executions and set up a committee to reconsider the case . By this time , firearms examination had improved considerably , and it was now known that an automatic pistol could be traced by several different methods if both bullet and casing were recovered from the scene . Automatic pistols could now be traced by unique markings of the rifling on the bullet , by firing pin indentations on the fired primer , or by unique ejector and extractor marks on the casing . The committee appointed to review the case used the services of Major Calvin Goddard in 1927 . Major Goddard used Philip Gravelle ' s newly invented comparison microscope and helixometer , a hollow , lighted magnifier probe used to inspect gun barrels , to make an examination of Sacco ’ s . 32 Colt , the bullet that allegedly killed Berardelli , and the spent casings allegedly recovered from the scene of the crime . ( Defenders of Sacco and Vanzetti claim that the bullet and cartridge case linked to Sacco ' s pistol were substituted for genuine evidence by the Massachusetts police . ) In the presence of one of the defense experts , he fired several test bullets from Sacco ' s gun into a wad of cotton and prepared them for a comparative examination . He then put the ejected shell casings on the comparison microscope next to casings recovered at the South Braintree murder scene . Then he analyzed them carefully . The third bullet , designated " Bullet III " matched the rifling marks found on the barrel of Sacco ' s . 32 Colt , while firing pin marks on a . 32 spent casing recovered from the murder scene matched a test shell casing known to have been fired from Sacco ' s Colt . Even the defense expert agreed that the two cartridges had been fired from the same gun . The second original defense expert also concurred . The committee upheld the convictions . Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were found guilty and executed via electrocution in Massachusetts on August 23 , 1927 . Later Investigations . One piece of evidence supporting the possibility of Sacco ' s guilt arose in 1941 when anarchist leader Carlo Tresca , a member of the Sacco and Vanzetti Defense Committee , told Max Eastman , " Sacco was guilty but Vanzetti was innocent . " Eastman published an article recounting his conversation with Tresca in National Review in 1961 . Later , others would confirm being told the same information by Tresca , but Tresca ' s daughter insisted she never told him . Others pointed to an ongoing feud between Tresca and the Galleanisti , claiming the famous anarchist was just trying to get even . In October 1961 , ballistics tests were run with improved technology using Sacco ' s Colt automatic . The results confirmed that the bullet that killed Berardelli in 1920 came from the same . 32 Colt Auto taken from the pistol in Sacco ' s possession . Subsequent investigations in 1983 also supported Goddard ' s findings , however , supporters of innocence have disputed both tests , nothing that ballistics experts conducting the first test had claimed Sacco ' s guilt even before the tests , and that by the 1980s , the old bullets and guns were far too rusty to prove anything . There was also no evidence Sacco had fired the gun . The relevance of this evidence was challenged in 1987 when Charlie Whipple , a former Globe editorial page editor , stated that while working as a reporter back in 1937 , he had a conversation with Boston Police Sergeant Edward J . Seibolt . According to Whipple , Seibolt told him that he was part of a " father - and - son ballistics team " who had worked on the Sacco and Vanzetti case , and that " we switched the murder weapon in that case . " When Whipple asked why , Seibolt replied " we suspected the other side of switching weapons , so we just switched them back . " When Whipple asked if he could print Seibolt ' s statement , Seibolt replied " If you do , I ' ll call you a liar . " Whipple ' s story remained unsubstantiated , as Seibolt died in 1961 and never corroborated the story . Moreover , police records indicate that Seibolt was only a Patrolman at the time of the Sacco and Vanzetti trial , and did not earn a promotion to Sergeant and a position as a ballistics expert with the Boston Police Department until October 1935 . A full transcript of the hearings , on microfilm at Harvard Law School , shows that Judge Webster Thayer made no determination as to who had switched the barrels , but merely ordered the rusty barrel restored to Sacco ' s pistol . Sacco ' s . 32 Colt pistol is also claimed to have passed in and out of police custody , and to have been dismantled several times , both in 1924 prior to the gun barrel switch , and again between 1927 and 1961 . The main problem with these charges is that the match to Sacco ' s gun was based not only the . 32 Colt pistol , but also to the same - caliber bullet that killed Berardelli , as well as to spent casings found at the scene . In addition to tampering with the pistol , the gun switcher / dismantler would also have had to access police evidence lockers and exchange the bullet from Berardelli ' s body and all spent casings retrieved by police , or else locate the actual murder weapon , then switch barrel , firing pin , ejector , and extractor , all before Goddard ' s examination in 1927 when the first match was made to Sacco ' s gun . However , skeptics of Sacco ' s guilt have repeatedly pointed to a single anomaly — that several witnesses to the crime insisted the gunman , alleged to be Sacco , fired four bullets into Berardelli . " He shot at Berardelli probably four or five times , " one witness said . " He stood guard over him . ” If this was true , many ask , how could only one of the fatal bullets be linked to Sacco ' s gun ? In 1927 , the defense raised the suggestion that the fatal bullet had been planted , calling attention to the awkward scratches on the base of the bullet that differed from those on other bullets . The Lowell Commission dismissed this claim as desperate but in 1985 , historians William Kaiser and David Young made a compelling case for a switch in their book " Post - Mortem : New Evidence in the Case of Sacco and Vanzetti . " St . Valentine ' s Day Massacre . On the morning of Thursday , February 14 , 1929 , St . Valentine ' s Day , seven men were killed by mobsters dressed as Chicago police officers in a garage on the North side of Chicago ; six of them were gang members and a doctor who happened to be at the scene . The hit was initiated by Al " Scarface " Capone , gangster who led a crime syndicate dedicated to the illegal traffic of alcoholic beverages during the time of their prohibition in the 1920s and 1930s . Al Capone cleverly made an alibi by going to Miami when his assassins hit the rival gang led by George " Bugs " Moran . Colonel Goddard was the key forensic expert in solving the 1929 St . Valentine ' s Day Massacre in which seven gangsters were killed by rival . It was also led to the establishment of The Bureau of Forensic Ballistics , United States ’ first independent criminological laboratory , at Northwestern University .