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The Blooding |
Customer Rating: 
Sales Rank: 240646
Available from Amazon |
$7.50 |
Fifteen-year-old Lynda Mann's savagely raped and strangled body is found along a shady footpath near the English village of Narborough.  Though a massive 150-man dragnet is launched, the case remains unsolved.  Three years later the killer strikes again, raping and strangling teenager Dawn Ashforth only a stone's throw from where Lynda was so brutally murdered.  But it will take four years, a scientific breakthrough, the largest manhunt in British crime annals, and the blooding of more than four thousand men before the real killer is found.
This 1989 true crime book tells of two murders in English Midlands villages that were solved by DNA testing of the local male population. It was the first in the world. This book lacks an index, a table of contents, and pictures. Wambaugh recreated events from reliable witnesses or independent corroboration. Two 15 year old girls were raped and strangled three years apart. Could an innocent suspect confess to murder? Can DNA testing be defeated? [This shows an England that is not in the tourist press. The writing shows Wambaugh's skill, it reads like a fast-paced novel.] Details of the crimes are accurately described.
Chapter 1 describes the three small villages. Leicestershire is the site of Bosworth Field, Richard III the last Plantagenet. The half-nude body of a 15 year old was discovered one morning (Chapter 4). People were scared and alarmed by the murder (Chapter 6). The body was found near a mental hospital. People were terrified, they had no protection. The police followed every lead, anonymous or not. After months of investigation it was shut down. Chapter 9 tells of the discovery pf DNA analysis at nearby Leicester University. [What is a "donkey jacket" (p.75)?] Further investigation continued into DNA (Chapter 10). Everyone's DNA is different except for identical twins. The murder of a child creates additional problems for the family. A suspect was arrested for the second murder (Chapter 14). The suspect confessed after being questioned by the police (Chapter 15). The family of the victim also had problems (Chapter 16). In order to prove the suspect murdered the first girl they used DNA analysis (Chapter 17). The result: one man raped and murdered both girls, but it wasn't the suspect in custody! The television program "Crimewatch UK" showed a recreation of the murder and asked for clues (Chapter 18). The police continued to check all reports.
The police tried a new tactic; they would test the blood of all male residents who were in an age group (Chapter 19). There were no identity cards in England then. Chapter 22 tells how one blood test was done. [If anyone tells you a hard-luck to gain your sympathy you should assume it's a confidence trick.] Chapter 23 describes the scientific precision of the testing. At one unguarded moment a man told of taking a blooding test for another. Someone repeated this to the police, who compared signatures and got a break. "He looks the way our man ought to look!" (Chapter 26). The confession showed neither remorse or emotion. Real life confessions are rarely tidy. One girl survived because she fought back (p.267). There was an ironic ending fro the chief investigator (Chapter 28). The psychosexual sociopath "looked almost human" (p.275). Chapter 30 tells how the media covered this.
Joseph Wambaugh shows his bias in the term "gun-crazy country like the U.S." (P.243). The small villages in the US have high gun ownership with no such murders as in this book. It can't be a coincidence. Or is it the higher rate of church membership? Journalist Per Wahloo wrote novels that used Swedish society as the background. They documented their lives and housing. Wambaugh tells little about these villages, or what people do for a living. How do they compare to others?
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