Friday, August 9, 2019

The Will West/William West Case: Did two nearly identical inmates changed the way people are identified?

Photo comparing mug shots and fingerprint of Will West and William West


In 1903 when Will West, convicted of a crime, was delivered to Leavenworth Penitentiary to serve his sentence, the records clerk M.W. McClaughry informed him he was already in Leavenworth, serving time for murder. It turned out that a person of practically identical name, appearance and Bertillon measurements was already in the prison system. 

The Bertillon system for identification, developed by French anthropologist Alphonse Bertillon in the 1880s, involved taking precise physical measurements of a person’s head and body, which were included on a card along with photos and a description of identifying personal features.


A chronology of the West’s case shows that the records clerk learned of the fingerprint identification system from Sgt. John K. Ferrier of Scotland Yard in 1904 at the St. Louis World’s Fair. In September of that year, Major R.W. McClaughry, warden at the penitentiary, requested permission to install the fingerprint system at Leavenworth. In November that permission was granted. Will and William West's unique fingerprints were finally captured and compared in 1905.

The Will/William West case has been credited with ushering in the use of fingerprints for identifying inmates by law enforcement. In truth, the case was not well known until after the fingerprint identification was already established in the U.S. (It was adopted by the U.S. Military in 1905, and quickly thereafter adopted by police agencies.) 

The case was not reported in print until 1918 in an article Personal Identification by Harris Wilder and Bert Wentworth. However, the West case is an interesting story, and does help to illustrate the reason why fingerprinting replaced the Bertillon system. 

Today, fingerprinting remains critical for identification in the criminal justice system, useful for identifying records and maintaining criminal history.



Will and William West conundrum: How two unrelated but identical inmates showed need for fingerprinting

by Martin Chalakoski, Sept. 29, 2017, for thevintagenews.com


A Fingerprint Fable: The Will and William West Case

by Robert D. Olsen, Sr., Kansas Bureau of Investigation

(This story appeared in the November 1987, Vol. 37, No. 11 issue of Identification News, which was the next to the last issue prior to changing publication format and becoming the Journal of Forensic Identification)


History of Fingerprints

2018, Crime Scene Forensics, LLC, Concord, NC; www.crimescene-forensics.com


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