American Sherlock: Remembering a Pioneer in Scientific Crime Investigation

by Evan E. Filby

Overview

Luke S. May played a significant role in the development of scientific methods of crime investigation. Although basically self-taught in scientific matters, May spent over a half century practicing scientific crime detection and built a solid reputation among police agencies and attorneys in the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada as a serious and effective scientific investigator. This reputation as "America's Sherlock Holmes" also led to his being consulted on the establishment of the first full service public American crime laboratory at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, and on a laboratory for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police at Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.

When May began, few people, anywhere, used scientific tools to investigate crime. Except for a couple of minimal installations in Europe, there were no crime labs. So to solve his cases – criminal and civil – May improved or invented techniques in every area of forensic science in the era before public crime laboratories. Along the way, he exchanged ideas with many other well-known crime fighting pioneers.

American Sherlock: Remembering a Pioneer in Scientific Crime Investigation is the biography of this innovative criminologist, giving a case-based account of his life and honoring him as one of the pioneers of scientific crime detection.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538129197
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	07/31/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	312
File size:	9 MB

About the Author

Evan E. Filby, Ph.D., is currently a freelance writer, with an interest in the history of science, particularly the impact of technical innovation on society. Filby has served as a research scientist, project leader and section manager at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Idaho Falls, Idaho; a part of the system owned by the Federal government and overseen by the U. S. Department of Energy. He has had years of experience teaching and presenting science to non-technical audiences having been an Affiliate Faculty at University of Idaho, Idaho Falls branch. In that position he served as faculty advisor and also designed and taught the course “Technology and Human Values,” a class that explored the impact (positive and negative) of technology on our society. He has published several articles on innovative science and engineering accomplishments in technical journals, as well as over two hundred short biographies on his popular history blog, the South Fork Companion.

Table of Contents

Introduction and Acknowledgments vii

1 Scientific Detection 1

2 A Criminologist Is Born 17

3 The Early Casebook of Luke May 29

4 Moving to Greener Fields 43

5 Centralia Deaths Spark Career Surge 57

6 Education, Innovation, and More National Renown 71

7 Fame Grows, at Some Cost 89

8 Notoriety Follows a Lull 103

9 Work and Play 117

10 Tool Marks Are the Key 131

11 Chicago Calls 141

12 Spreading the Word 155

13 Chief of Detectives and Criminologist 169

14 Riding the Crest 183

15 War Clouds Gather 197

16 Naval Intelligence Duty 213

17 The Game Has Changed 229

18 Playing Out the String 243

Retrospection 255

Appendix: Cases Overview 261

Notes 267

Bibliography 291

Index 295

Editorial Reviews

08/19/2019

In 1910, a family friend asked 17-year-old Luke S. May, the subject of this admiring biography from first-time author Filby, to help find who fatally shot a 14-year-old boy in Salt Lake City. Thanks to May’s keen observation skills, the killer was caught and punished, and so began a lifetime of detective work for May. By the time he was 18, he had his own private detective agency, and in his heyday, in the 1920s and ’30s, May was known as the American Sherlock Holmes, a pioneer of fingerprint analysis and profiling who designed equipment such as a fingerprint camera, a sound recorder, and a microscope he used for handwriting and hair analysis. As a private criminologist, he was sought after by law enforcement agencies across the nation. In 1933, he was appointed chief of detectives of the Seattle Police Department, which he subsequently reorganized and modernized. During World WWII, May was on active duty with the Navy, though much of his work was classified. After the war, his business wound down as police departments and law enforcement agencies had their own labs and forensic specialists on staff. He died in 1965, but his legacy as an early criminologist lives on. Filby writes with enthusiasm and verve. This is an important addition to the history of forensic science. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

Many readers have thrilled to the tales of Sherlock Holmes and his powers of deduction, but deduction only goes so far. Filby details the life of Luke May, the “American Sherlock” who pioneered the field of forensics. A true scientist, May created case files focused almost solely on evidence, leaving out the context of the crimes. Acting like a detective himself, Filby here uses news accounts to fill in the details of May’s work, piecing together the cases in which the scientist refined methods in criminal investigation, such as using a special camera and film to capture fingerprints that had previously been missed; perfecting a sound recorder; analyzing bullet-trajectory and blood-spatter; and suspect profiling. May’s reputation was cemented in the 1910s, when handgun analysis helped solve a controversial case involving the Wobblies and WWI vets in Washington state. Over more than four decades, May, a man who liked “snappy hats,” logged several thousand cases, until close to his death in 1965. With exhaustive notes and bibliography, this could augment criminal justice curricula or allow true-crime buffs to geek out.

Booklist

Well researched and engagingly written, American Sherlock rediscovers Luke S. May, a largely forgotten pioneer in early twentieth-century scientific crime fighting. In recounting May’s colorful career and most remarkable cases, Evan E. Filby traces the development of forensic science in the United States and offers a fast-paced narrative that will be particularly interesting to true-crime aficionados.

Jeffrey S. Adler

With Evan E. Filby’s American Sherlock we have, for the first time, a detailed assessment of the life and career of Luke S. May. May was a highly influential figure in the development of forensic science and scientific detection in North America in the first half of the twentieth century yet he is surprisingly hardly remembered. Filby’s book accurately reinstates him in his rightful place in the history of scientific detection. Clearly and accessibly written, with a wealth of detail on May’s life and work, American Sherlock appeals to a wide audience including fans of true crime writing and those with an interest in the development of scientific detection.

Alison Adam

Many readers have thrilled to the tales of Sherlock Holmes and his powers of deduction, but deduction only goes so far. Filby details the life of Luke May, the “American Sherlock” who pioneered the field of forensics. A true scientist, May created case files focused almost solely on evidence, leaving out the context of the crimes. Acting like a detective himself, Filby here uses news accounts to fill in the details of May’s work, piecing together the cases in which the scientist refined methods in criminal investigation, such as using a special camera and film to capture fingerprints that had previously been missed; perfecting a sound recorder; analyzing bullet-trajectory and blood-spatter; and suspect profiling. May’s reputation was cemented in the 1910s, when handgun analysis helped solve a controversial case involving the Wobblies and WWI vets in Washington state. Over more than four decades, May, a man who liked “snappy hats,” logged several thousand cases, until close to his death in 1965. With exhaustive notes and bibliography, this could augment criminal justice curricula or allow true-crime buffs to geek out.

Booklist