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Editor’s note: The Light occasionally shares exemplary work from other media outlets. While The Light’s content is free of charge, some of the outside works we choose to highlight may only be available with a paid subscription or a guest sign-in.
On an afternoon in July 1940, several day laborers were walking through the woods in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, searching for blueberries on their lunch break. About 12 feet off the trail, under the branches of a pine, one of them stumbled across what looked like a brown burlap sack. As he edged closer, he realized with horror it wasn’t a sack at all. It was a dead body.
Police officers arrived at the grim scene. The victim appeared to be a young woman, but her corpse was significantly decomposed. Not far away was a secluded dirt road known as a Lovers’ Lane for parking couples wanting privacy. A rifle shooting range was also nearby — a half-dozen .22-caliber cartridges were found near the woman’s body. A heavy rope encircled her neck and was tied to her wrists. She wore a brown plaid dress and one of her silk stockings bound her ankles.
It was the most brutal murder the local police had seen in years. Detectives of the era received little training in crime scene investigation, and they were in over their heads. It was time to call in, perhaps begrudgingly, the forensic scientists from Harvard Medical School — the “college boys,” as the officers sometimes put it.