A confusing title, I admit, but a young man by the name of Edwin Bush can lay claim to at least two events of historic significance, I won't pretend they are good, though, as you will soon discover...
On the 2nd of March, 1961, antique dealer Louis Meier found the lifeless body of Elsie May Batten on the floor of his London shop. 89-year-old Elsie, wife of the President of the Royal Society of British Sculptors, was one of Mr Meier's assistants. She had been stabbed to death with an antique ivory-handled dagger.
The initial police interview with Mr Meier soon produced a suspect; a young man who had visited the shop the previous day, and was interested in purchasing a sword and/or a number of daggers. Mr Meier was able to give a detailed description of the man, and the police were able to produce a facial likeness of the suspect from what was to become known as the "Identikit",
This likeness was distributed all over London, and within a few days, the police had taken in for questioning an individual who resembled the Identikit. That individual was Edwin Bush, 21. In an identification parade, Mr Meier was unable to make a positive identification, but Paul Roberts, son of a local gun dealer, immediately picked out Bush. What happened was that, after the murder, Bush had gone to the gun dealer in an effort to sell the sword he had obtained from the antiques shop.
Bush soon confessed to the murder, and on the 13th of May, 1961, was convicted of the murder of Elsie May Batten.
So, Edwin Bush became the first ever criminal to be apprehended as a result of an Identikit picture, and 54 years ago today, on 6th July, 1961, he became the last ever criminal to be hanged at London's Pentonville Prison.
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