Cornfield Sherlock Holmes

Patricia Bradley Mystery Question 26 Comments

We had a little mystery in my neck of the woods this morning as I write this blog. There’s this big yellow ball in the sky. Not sure what it is…someone said it could be the sun, but I’m not sure–it’s been so long since I’ve seen it, I can’t remember what it looks like. 😉

During this rainy season, I’ve finished the 2nd draft of the fourth book in the cold case series…looks like I’ll be in good shape for getting it in on time!

Now for last week’s Mystery Question.
You need to know that a blood secreter is someone who secretes their specific blood group information in other bodily fluids, such as saliva.
The date is 1939 in Bournemouth, England, and the body of a sixty-four-year-old widower is found in his apartment. On the floor is a hair curler, and cigarette butts are strewn across the sofa and carpet. A brown paper bag was found on the floor as well. The widower’s safe had been emptied as had the widower’s pockets. There is an abundance of fingerprints in the apartment but all were accounted for except one thumbprint lifted from a beer glass. The man’s grandchildren indicated (with embarrassment) that the curler could belong to a prostitute as their grandfather was known to visit them. Since he didn’t smoke, no one had an explanation for the cigarette butts. The police had the butts analyzed and discovered the smoker was a blood secreter and belonged to the AB blood group (found in only 3% of the population).
During the investigation, the name of one of the widower’s cronies’ came up–a seventy-year-old man who was a regular guest in the widower’s apartment and who had recently come into money. He refused to provide his fingerprints or a saliva test and ordered the police out of his house.
BUT the suspect often visited a certain pub and the detective had asked the owner to call him when the suspect came in, and he did. The detective dropped by the pub and bought the suspect a couple of beers and while they talked, the suspect smoked several cigarettes that the detective scooped up before he left.
One of the following statements is false. Which one is it?
  1. Based on the cigarette butts from the suspect at the pub, he was a secretor and belong to the rarest blood type–AB.
  2. The detective confronted the suspect who angrily denied the accusation and demanded the detective search his house where the detective found several brown bags similar to the one found in the victim’s apartment.
  3. The jury refused to convict on a saliva test and the man went free.
  4. The jury, for the first time in history, convicted a man based on a saliva test, heralding a new era in crime detection.

And the answer is…#4! And the kicker is…after he was acquitted, the man celebrated his victory with a news reporter who had championed his innocence. In the middle of the night, the reporter was awakened by the man who was released who sobbed in drunken remorse, “I’ve got to tell somebody. You see the jury was wrong…it was me.”

The reporter was appalled but kept the confession to himself, figuring it would do no good to tell it–the man couldn’t be tried again. It was only after the man died in 1951 did he reveal how he and the jury had been duped. Congrats, Edward and Mindy for guessing correctly!

Now for this week’s Mystery Question: It’s 1920 in Camden, New Jersey. Each week a sixty-year-old runner for the Broadway Trust Bank in Camden carried a deposit across the Delaware River to another bank in Philadelphia. On October 5, he left the bank as usual with forty thousand dollars in cash and thirty thousand dollars in securities. He and the money disappeared. Fear was the ex-con had absconded with the money. His employers steadfastly refused to believe that and sure enough, eleven days later two duck hunters found the man’s body in a shallow grave near a stream.
The cash was gone, but the securities were with the body. A pair of spectacles were found near the grave as well and were traced to a neighbor of the victim’s. The body was found on dry ground, but his overcoat and clothing were damp. The ME fixed the death time as not more than twenty-four hours earlier. But Ellis Parker, nicknamed the Cornfield Sherlock Holmes, wasn’t satisfied.
One of the following statements about the case is false. Can you guess which one?
  1. The glasses were traced to a neighbor of the victim, and he and a friend had been drinking wildly and spending a lot of money. But both men denied involvement in the crime and claimed to have alibis for the time the ME estimated the murder occurred.
  2. Several tanning factories were located upstream from where the body was found, and the victim’s clothing had traces of tannic acid, which acts as a preservative–a body submerged in the water for a week would show little signs of decomposition.
  3. Both suspects had perfect alibis for the timeframe the ME estimated the crime had occurred–one had been in a convention in Detroit, the other had been downstate staying with friends for several days
  4. The man had bolted with the money, only to be killed later by accomplices in a fight over distribution of the money. One of the accomplices had a walk-in freezer and they kept his body “on ice” for a week, then buried it in the shallow grave.

Okay, Super Sleuths, which is the incorrect answer? Leave your answer in the comments and I’ll enter you in a drawing for an advanced copy of Justice Betrayed.

[tweet_box design=”default” float=”none”]Did a clever con man dupe the jury and a reporter who championed his innocence? Leave your answer and be entered in a drawing for a copy of Justice Buried by Patricia Bradley #bookgiveaway[/tweet_box]

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  4. Edward Arrington

    Good morning, Pat. I have not read the mystery question for today yet, but I jumped over here to confirm that I had gotten the correct answer for last week. I was surprised to see that I am the only one listed because I was sure someone else had also chosen four as the false statement. So I went back to last week’s comments. MH also chose four. I will be back later today to respond to the current question.

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      Patricia Bradley

      Hi Anne…I think they were called ice houses back then…I can remember riding in the back of a pickup truck to get a block of ice for chipping up to use in making ice cream when I was a kid. You know, the kind you hand-cranked! Thanks for stopping by.

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  10. Trixi

    I’ll just throw caution to the wind and guess #2. I haven’t been very good at these lately, so tossing a coin may just work in my favor today…lol! 🙂

    Thanks for the fun game and giveaway chance, Patricia!

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