First Fingering Of A Killer

Ponsonby Post Office

It was claimed to be a world first for a capital crime (certainly a first in the British Dominion and thus here in NZ): Dennis Gunn's 1920 murder conviction, based almost entirely on the relatively new science of fingerprinting.
On Sat.13th March 1920 Augustus Edward Braithwaite, postmaster at Ponsonby, Auckland, was shot dead in his own house. His keys were taken and the Post Office strongroom ransacked. Fingerprints found on three cash boxes were sent to the Criminal Registration Branch (CRB) at Police HQ in Wellington for analysis.
A former prison warder called Hughes reported he'd seen Dennis Gunn loitering around the Post Office. Hughes recognised Gunn from an encounter two years earlier, when the latter had been imprisoned for two weeks (after shirking enrolment for military service) and his fingerprints had been taken.
The names of Gunn and another suspect were sent by telegram to the CRB. By Tues.16th the fingerprints on the cash boxes had been matched with Gunn’s fingerprint form. He was arrested the next day and charged with murder and burglary. Property stolen during the robbery, including Braithwaite's keys and a recently fired pistol, were found in a gully near the house where Gunn lived with his mother. Grooves on the weapon matched marks on the two bullets found in Braithwaite’s body. A fingerprint on the gun also matched Gunn’s.
Gunn’s lawyer argued the fingerprint evidence was inconclusive. The jury was not convinced. After a five-day trial, widely covered in the papers of the time, Gunn was convicted and sentenced to death, today in history, 28th.May 1920.
In an attempt to avoid the noose, Gunn then admitted his part in the robbery, but claimed Braithwaite had been killed by Gunn's brother-in-law: "If only my brother-in-law will speak up, I will be saved". This was to no avail - Gunn met his fate on the Mount Eden Prison gallows on 22nd.June. Hangman Tom Long was paid £25 for his work.
Gunn's relatives made their feelings known after burying Dennis at Waikumete Cemetery. His now-broken tombstone reads: "In Loving Memory of Dennis Gunn – Sadly Wronged."

[Far more detail can be found in Epitaph II (2001), pp. 138-148 - the book of the tv series by Paul Gittins. Click here to view the actual tv episode...]