Reading 1

Unit 6- Reading 1

Page 82

Solving a Crime with Science: A True Story

It was 7:30 in the evening. Millionaire Eduard Arellano and his wife Susan were late. They had tickets for a play at a nearby theater, so they were rushing to leave the house. They set the security alarm, locked the front door of their 16 room mansion, and sped away in their BMW.

A tall man watched them drive off. He removed a key from a red cloth bag that he carried and used it to unlock the front door. Once inside, he turned off the security alarm. The tall man knew that Eduard and Susan would be gone for hours. He would have plenty of time to do his job. He went directly to an upstairs bedroom.

He pushed open a wall panel and used a code to open a hidden safe. Inside the safe were trays of sparkling rings, necklaces, and earrings. As soon as Eduard and Susan arrived at the theater, they realized that they had is forgotten the tickets. Susan insisted that they return home to get them. When they arrived home, she was surprised to find the front door unlocked and the alarm system turned off. “Someone has been in here,” Susan concluded. “I’m calling the police.” She was told that a police detective would be at the site in a, few minutes.

When the tall man heard voices downstairs, he knew he had to leave at once. He quickly stuffed the jewelry into the red bag. Then he opened a window and climbed down to a flat roof. From there he jumped to the grass and ran off.

Minutes later, the police detective and a team of crime scene investigators (CSI) arrived. The detective searched the house. Only one room showed signs of a crime. In an upstairs bedroom he found an open window and an empty safe, but no thief. He consulted Eduard and Susan, but only the jewelry seemed to be missing.

The detective was puzzled. At other sites, a thief opened nearly every drawer in the house searching for valuables. To the contrary, this thief seemed to know exactly where to find valuables. He also knew how to unlock the front door and open the safe. It seemed logical that the thief knew the house. The detective asked Eduard and Susan many questions. He asked about their servant. He wanted to know the specific time they had returned home. Could Eduard and Susan be lying? What motive would they have for faking a theft? Could the servant be guilty?

Meanwhile, the CSIs were upstairs checking the bedroom for fingerprints and searching for evidence—signs that might help solve the crime. They found a button by the open window, and they detected a tiny red thread near the safe. They put these pieces of evidence into envelopes and taped them shut. Then they searched the garden.

The next day, the detective drove to the home of the servant. There in a trash bin the detective found a grass-stained shirt with a button missing. In a closet he found a red cloth bag—but no jewelry. The servant was arrested and taken to the police station, where he was fingerprinted.

Subsequent tests done at a police laboratory established that the grass stains on the shirt matched the type of grass at the mansion. The button came from the same shirt. Lab tests further established that the red thread matched the cloth of the red bag. And the servant’s fingerprints matched fingerprints from the crime site. In each instance, the evidence pointed to the servants guilt.

Authorities accused the servant of theft, and he confessed to the crime. He described where he had hidden the jewelry. He said that he was motivated to steal because he needed money. He added, however, that Mr. Arellano had told him how to do it. Mr. Arellano said they could both make money. The servant could sell the jewelry and Eduard could be paid for his losses by his insurance company.

At a court trial, the servant was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison. Technically, Eduard was guilty, too, and he was sentenced to prison for his role in the crime. Good detective work and modern science helped solve a crime.