First geological evidence used in forensic investigation

In October 1904, in Frankfurt, Germany, a forensic scientist named Georg Popp was asked to examine the evidence in a murder case in which a seamstress named Eva Disch had been strangled with her own scarf. Left at the scene was a filthy handkerchief that contained bits of coal, particles of snuff and gains of minerals such as Horneblende. A suspect named Karl Laubach worked in a coal-burning gasworks and was employed part-time in a local gravel pit. Popp found coal and mineral grains, particularly the mineral horneblende, under the suspect’s fingernails. Popp also found that the suspect used snuff and that his trousers revealed traces of earth from the place where the body of Eva Disch had been found. When confronted with the evidence, Laubach admitted his crime. The Frankfurt newspapers carried headlines such as “The Microscope as Detective”.