“Kisses and tears, the tokens of innocence”

 In trying to solve the Road Hill House murder of 1860, local police applied the latest advances in psychology, namely:

Some thought Gough [the nursemaid] didn’t weep enough in the days after her charge’s death. She became the local police’s chief suspect. ‘The female suspects in the case were constantly scrutinised for kisses and tears, the tokens of innocence,’ Summerscale writes.

Reminds one of a certain 2007 murder case in Perugia, Italy. Same state-of-the-art psychology! (An old-boy network of corrupt cops, more likely – oh so typical, be it Russia, Italy, the US South or wherever.)

2 Comments

  1. This resembles Camus’ “L’étranger”, where the prosecution case against Meursault relies heavily on whether he cried over his mother’s death.

    • Yes, it helped the prosecution get the death penalty. The prosecutor argued Meursault had become a criminal before he actually murdered anyone. But there is no mention of Meurseault’s lack of tears helping with the investigation.

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