◆ SpookStack

“ee ~8- ) ‘of an individual, can estimate pretty accurately the fingerprint patterns of the other hand of that same individual. Our experts did this and the Bureau was able to inform the Fittsoburgh authorities that the unknown and unidentified bomber was William Chowick, | an escaped criminal lunatic. Several notorious criminals in the United States have made unsuc- cessful attempts to alter their fingerprint patterns, We don't have a single ease in our more than seven million sets of fingerprint patterns in which Sete Batra ¥ AAs there has been the successful alteration of a single fingerprint pattern. An interesting identification in which fingerprints proved of no aid arose in connection with our investigation cf the Dillinger gang. Jchn Hamilton, sometimes calied the "brains" of the Dillinger gang, died as the result of wounds received either in a gun battle with our men or with local officers, in the State of Minnesota. He was secretly buried by. members of the Dillinger gang. We dug him up thirteen months later from a gravel pig in the State of I)linois, where he had been buried by his pang members. They had poured lye all over his body and face in an effort to prevent identifi- cation. Both of his hands were off at the w:ists. He wovld have been easily identified by that method, as two of his fingers‘were missing in life. He was known as "Three-Finger John." We identified him by half a dozen differ- ent methods, the most important clue being his teeth. We exchange fingerprints with 75 foreign countries, and 6 United rritories and posseesions including most of the countries represented eM PVP Ceres Vo, Scat idts iy POPPE oenyec ’ at this meeting. This international exchange has proved very practical. In 1910 a life prisoner escaped from Leavenworth Penitentiary by commandecring a railroad engine and driving it to freedom through the penitentiary gates. One of our jobs is to catch escaped federal prisoners. We never close a case on an -escapet-federzk prisoner-until we catch a man or until we can prove definitely that he is dead, preferably by his fingerprints. Twenty-five -years went by. In the Fall of 1955, a man was arrested in Alberta Province, Canada, for shooting game out of Season. Canada is one of the 75 countries which exchanges fingerprints with us. The Canadian officials sent his finger- prints to us at Washington and there, a quarter of a century later, we found our escaped federal prisoner through his fingerprints. os ce oO i¢)] ct ic We don't pick up fugitives every day who have been sought fer - twenty-five years, but we do identify, through their fingerprints, more than 500 wanted fugitives every month, that is in excess of 6,000 wanted fugitives a year, for local law enforcement agencies throughovt the United States and foreign countries. There ts a man today serving time in the Wisconsin State Peniten- tiary in my country. We sent his fingerprints to several foreign countries and, aS a result, there are several foreign countries represented here Loday that seek him for similar crimes. It will be quite interesting to note which country will extradite him when he completes his sentence in the United States. . As you can easily surmise, it is quite a job to search an incoming ‘fingerprint card through our more than seven million fingerprint cards on file. When all ten of the fingorprints on the incoming card fall within the all loop