The Lincolnshire Axe Murders

In 1991 Superintendent Clifton stared down at the body of Fred Maltby as he stood in the sitting room in Brant Road on the outskirts of Lincoln.  Why had someone decided to murder the semi-retired small holder and in such a brutal manner?
It did not take Clifton long to work out that the weapon used for the attack had been an axe. Confirmation lay on a cushion on the sofa opposite; the shape of the head of an axe, its silhouette in blood. The Forensic Science Service attended.  They examined the blood splatters on the wall behind the chair.
In January 1993 a second murder shocked the city.  The horrified citizens of Lincoln learned that the wounds on the victim’s head bore the same modus operandi as Fred Maltby’s killer. Lincolnshire is not a heavily populated county; its borders encircle extensive farmland.  It is a quiet community and two murders in four months was so unusual as to be unheard of.  Even if the attacker had not left his trademark on both victims, it would be most unlikely to have been the work of two separate perpetrators.
As Clifton hurried to the scene of this crime, he could visualise the type of injuries he would be looking at on bookmaker Joe Rylatt’s skull.  And he was right.
The manner in which the axe was eventually found would read as incredible in a work of fiction. The axe head had been coated in a grey paint and this was to prove vital evidence.
Techniques applied to test the paint was Inductively Coupled Plasma with Atomic Emission Spectroscopy, ICP-AES.

Detectives arrest Dennis Smalley.
As the case is got ready for court there is one link missing - something to connect the suspect to Fred Maltby’s murder.
After David Lewin’s first case, a murder trial that hinged on bite mark evidence, the transparent overlays of the teeth had been hand-drawn. What was needed was a scientific, objective, method, repeatable by anyone anywhere in the world. He had asked his next lecture audience, ‘Would you like to go down for thirty years on the thickness of a dentist’s pen?’  David explained, ‘I would make an overlay of the axe head and place it over a one to one of the blood stain - but not hand drawn, one you can see through - to reveal and not conceal the evidence.’  But this was easier said than done.
Three photographers pack up at eleven o’clock that night.  Every step they took would be questioned and taken to pieces in the witness box.
The judge described this case as a classic trail of detection. It was an essential stepping stone to the present digital imaging method David pioneered - see Forensic Odontology.

This is the only case in Bite to Byte described in detail from start to finish, including the trial.

Bite to Byte: Crime scene to mortuary to trial on www.persephonelewin.com

The hand axe found by teenage boys out rowing on the lake in Boultham Park, Lincolnshire, pictured before the paint was scraped off. (Linconshire Police)

The cushion with blood stains of the axe head at A and B. (Linconshire Police)

Blood stains at B enlarged where the axe head has moved after being put down. (Linconshire Police)

Lincoln Crown Court in the grounds of the castle. (Dr Roger Summers)