Case Study #2: Colin Pitchfork

Date: 1983

Location: Narborough, England

Significance: This case can claim a double triumph – the first suspect eliminated by genetic fingerprinting and the first murderer caught by it.

One of Britain’s longest and most exhaustive manhunts began on an icy winter’s day in late 1983. It was twenty past seven on the morning of November 22, 1983 when a hospital porter making his way to work in the village of Narborough, near Leicester, took his usual shortcut along the lonely footpath known as The Black Pad. A few yards along the lane, he saw, sprawled on some grass and white with frost, the body of fifteen year-old Lynda Mann. Nude from the waist down, she had been strangled and raped the previous evening while on her way to visit a friend. Semen traces showed that the killer was a Group A secretor with a strong phosphoglucomutase (POGM) 1 + enzyme, and identifying marker. Taken together, these two factors occur in only 10 percent of the adult male population, a scarcity that heartened detectives. Although this could not positively identify the killer, it would certainly reduce their list of possible suspects.

Initial inquiries centered on Carlton Hayes Hospital, a nearby mental institution. When that failed to bear fruit, the search radiated out to include the adjacent villages of Enderby and Littlethorpe. Despite their conviction that the killer was a local man, investigators canvassing the three- village area were stymied at every turn. Only later would the awful realization sink in that they had actually questioned the killer during this sweep.

The computer had flagged the man for two reasons: 1) He had previous convictions for indecent exposure; 2) he had been referred for therapy as an outpatient at Carlton Hayes Hospital. Although unable to provide an alibi – he claimed to have been babysitting his son – the fact that at the time of the murder he had lived a few miles outside what police regarded as the probably catchment area outweighed all other considerations, and he was eliminated from the inquiry. (He did not move to Littlethorpe until a month after the killing of Lynda Mann.) Also, the likelihood of a parent taking time off from babysitting duties to commit such a horrendous murder was thought too grotesque to countenance.

Second Murder

Dawn Ashworth was also aged fifteen. A schoolgirl from Enderly, she disappeared in broad daylight on the afternoon of July 31, 1986. Two days later, her violated body was found less than a mile away from the spot where Lynda Mann net her death….Semen tests confirmed that the detectives were hunting for a dual killer. It wasd in the aftermath of this murder that investigators got their first real lead. A kitchen porter at Carlton Hayes Hospital, a slow-witted youth of seventeen, seemed to know an awful lot about the killing of Dawn Ashworth. Even though a blood test showed he was not PGM 1 + secretor, his confession had the ring of authenticity to it, especially to those officers who had spent almost three years tracking Lynda Mann’s killer, and despite the lad’s troubling insistence that he knew nothing about the first murder.

Just about the only person who believed that the boy knew nothing about either killing was the suspect’s own father. He wondered if the magazine article he had recently read about a thirty-six-year-old scientist at nearby Leicester University who had perfected a system of identification based on DNA called genetic fingerprinting would clarify matters.

In the autumn of 1984, Dr. Alec Jeffreys, a Research Fellow at Leicester University’s Lister Institute, stumbled on the discovery that would play such a pivotal role in this and subsequently countless cases. Although the existence of DNA had been known for decades, it was this unassuming scientist who perfected the means whereby identifiable genetic marks could be developed on an X-ray film as a kind of bar code and then compared with other specimens. Although accounts vary of how Jeffreys actually became involved in the murder investigation, he was eventually asked to extract DNA from the killer’s semen and compare it to the kitchen porter’s blood sample. His results stunned those leading the investigation. Not only had the porter not killed Lynda Mann, he hadn’t killed Dawn Ashworth, either! His entire confession had been a fabrication! Just about the only good news that Jeffreys had to offer the jaded officers was confirmation that one man had killed both girls. One November 21, 1986, legal and forensic history was made when the teenaged kitchen porter became the first accused of murderer to be cleared as a result of DNA fingerprinting.

For those charged with finding the double killer, the verdict had wider ramifications – if DNA typing was so accurate, then why not conduct a mass testing of the local population? …

Early in 1987, the decision was made to draw blood from every local male between the ages of sixteen and thirty-four for DNA testing. By the end of January, one thousand men had been tested, but only a quarter cleared. This was due to the laboratories being overwhelmed by samples. (In its original form, DNA typing wa laborious, time-consuming procedure, often taking weeks. The process has now been reduced to a matter of days.) It was the same the following month: hundreds more tests, but no clues. Of course, the police did not expect the killer to volunteer blood, but they were hoping to flush him out. Those who refused to cooperate with the official request soon found themselves under the most intense scrutiny. It was a war of nerves that paid off in the strangest way.

Conspiracy

On August 1, 1987, a quartet of drinkers in a Leicester pub, all bakery workers, were discussing the notorious sexual liaisons of a fellow employee named Colin Pitchfork, when one of the four, Ian Kelly, dropped a conversational thunderbolt – Colin, he said, had bullied him into taking the blood test on his behalf. A deathly hush fell over the table. It was broken at last by the other man present, who chimed in that Pitchfork had approached him, also, offering two hundred pounds (three hundred dollars) if he would act as a stand-in, but he had declined. Pitchfork had told both men that he was scared to take the test because his record – he had convictions for indecent exposure – meant the police would give him a hard time. Kelly, a timid malleable person, finally caved in under Pitchfork’s relentless pressure and, using a faked passport, had gone along and given blood in Pitchfork’s name.

A woman sitting at the table listened to these revelations with an anxiety born of suspicion. Like everyone else who worked at the bakery, she knew Pitchfork as an overbearing lecher, forever harassing the female employees. But did that make him a murderer? And then there was Kelly and possibly the other man to consider. If she went to the authorities, what would happen to them? For six weeks she wrestled with her conscience, then contacted the police. First, detectives arrested Kelly; later that day, September 19, 1987, they called at the Littlethorpe home of twenty-seven-year-old Collin Pitchfork. He took his arrest philosophically and made no attempt to deny either killing.

For those who had staked their reputations on the efficacy of DNA testing, this would be the acid test. A sample of Pitchfork’s blood was rushed to Jeffrey’s lab. After painstaking examination, the genetic bar code was found to be identical to that of the DNA sample from the killer-rapist. Colin Pitchfork was the 4,583^rd male to be tested, and the last. The principle had been vindicated.

On January 22, 1988, Pitchfork pleaded guilty to both murders and was jailed for life. The judge, recognizing Ian Kelly’s role in the affair as that of gullible pawn, gave the hapless bakery worker an eighteen-month suspended sentence.

Conclusion

This verdict reverberated around the world. By the end of 1988, American laboratories had been consulted in over one thousand criminal cases. As DNA techniques become ever more sophisticated, investigators are now able to harvest samples on a cotton bud. Called the buccal swab, this saliva-based test is less intrusive and is only one-fifth the cost of the traditional blood test.

Assignment

Write a three-paragraph summary of this case. Be sure to include –

· What were the major developments in the case?

· Who were the major people involved? What were their roles

· Why was this case so important to criminal science?