1920: Dennis Gunn, hanged by a fingerprint
June 22nd, 2009 Headsman
On this date in 1920, Dennis Gunn’s fingerprints made history by hanging their owner for murder.
Use of the fingerprint in forensic science had been developing over the decades preceding, and already begun to earn its bones with criminal convictions.
Dennis Gunn’s conviction marked a watershed in the mainstreaming of the youthful science, especially in New Zealand and the British Empire/Commonwealth: the first execution that hung — so to speak — on a print.
The 25-year-old was tied to the murder of Ponsonby postmaster Augustus Braithwaite because a smudge left on a stolen cashbox matched the prints Gunn had contributed to the nascent New Zealand fingerprint library when he had been convicted of evading military service two years before.
Armed with this connection, a police search of Gunn’s environs turned up the apparent tools of the crime — a revolver (with yet another matching print), a thieves’ kit, and more pilfered proceeds of the postal strongroom.
Gunn attempted to indict the reliability of the fingerprint evidence at trial, and according to the London Times (Apr. 20, 1920) he had the support in this endeavor of “public demonstrations of sympathy, men and women rushing to shake hands with Gunn.”
But it didn’t fly with the jury.*
Gunn’s condemnation, read the official report,
disposes of all attempts to question the conclusiveness of this class of evidence, and proves the truth of the remark of the Chief Justice of Australia, that a man who leaves a clear fingerprint on an object leaves there an unforgettable signature.
Law enforcement organs around the world rapidly accepted the principle.
Too rapidly? Some think so; and, in the train of a new century’s bulletproof identification technology, DNA, wrongful convictions founded on purported fingerprint matches have drawn some renewed scrutiny (pdf) to the technique that put Dennis Gunn on the Mount Eden Prison gallows this date in 1920.
* Playing for time after conviction, Gunn copped to the robbery and tried to pin the murder on a supposed confederate. No dice.
On this day..
- 1918: Captain Alexey Schastny - 2020
- 1568: Weyn Ockers, slipper slinger - 2019
- 1894: William Whaley, "the horror of the situation" - 2018
- 1936: Edward Cornelius, vicarage murderer - 2017
- 1940: Three saboteurs and a spy, "Fusilles et oublies" - 2016
- 1906: Richard Ivens, hypnotized? - 2015
- 1310: Badoer Badoer, Venetian rebel - 2014
- 1934: William Cody Kelley, the first in Colorado's gas chamber - 2013
- 1627: Francois de Montmorency and his second, for dueling - 2012
- 1535: Cardinal John Fisher - 2011
- 1669: Roux de Marsilly, employer of the Man in the Iron Mask? - 2010
- 1711: Ifranj Ahmad, Janissary - 2008
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Execution,Hanged,History,Milestones,Murder,New Zealand,Notable Sleuthing,Pelf
Tags: 1920, 1920s, auckland, augustus braithwaite, dennis gunn, fingerprinting, forensics, mount eden prison, ponsonby
nice pic of my grandfather”s 1st cousin
That’s outstanding family lore. Do you know any more about that intriguing last sentence, Leonie?
I am a great niece of Dennis Gunn and it was well known among the family that Dennis did not fire the pistol. What we have been told of the person who did fire the shot is that he could not live with himself after Dennis was hung and he met his maker in an appropriate way.
Granted Denis took part in the robbery but it was as he said according to family history “not him who fired the shot” Yes he handled the gun which the fingerprints conclude but he did not fire it.
Great post. Thanks- I can’t imagine the time and energy you give to this wonderful blog.
Regards,
Baskar