Murderers Rarely Conceal Crimes As Suicides Dr. Magrath Says--Tells Details Of Fatal Slugs In Sacco-Vanzetti Case

While accidental deaths are often similar in appearance to suicides, very few murders can be made to appear cases of self-destruction. Placing a revolver in the hand of a dead man so as to have it remain there is any manner calculated to seem natural to a trained observed is next to impossible, Dr. George Burgess Magrath '94, medical examiner of Suffolk County and recently appointed professor of Legal Medicine, declared in an interview Thursday.

Sitting at the very desk where he measured the fatal Sacco-Vanzetti bullets, with instruments accurate up to one ten-thousandth of an inch, Dr. Magrath affirmed the statement that no innocent person in his opinion, has ever been executed in Massachusetts for a crime he did not commit. The notorious "Bullet Number 3", responsible for the death of Parmenter, in the Sacco-Vanzetti case, was found to be grooved from a pit in the gun barrel, probably caused by rust. Such a pit was found in the gun of Sacco, and test slugs fired from it by investigators, here abrasions which a long series of tests showed to coincide with those of the murderer's bullet.

As the blocks of all automatic pistols, such as the Colt employed by Sacco, are filed by hand, each gun leaves a characteristic cartridge impression which can be identified "as accurately as a finger-print." Sharp-eyed police picked up a cartridge near the scene of the crime that bore the "fingerprint" of Sacco's gun block. Sacco not only was found with the weapon on his person but admitted owning it for a long time, stating that he had taken it from home just "to keep the children from playing with it." This evidence, not properly stressed at the trial, undoubtedly exerted a strong influence on the juror's verdict. Their first request at the opening of their deliberations was to call for the exhibits and hand lenses in order to see for themselves.

(Further side-lights on criminal cases observed by Dr. Magrath, will appear in an early issue.)