argia.eus
INPRIMATU
Why are gloves used in the scene of a murder?
Nagore Irazustabarrena Uranga @irazustabarrena 2014ko ekainaren 11
Patrick Mahonek Emily Kaye hil zuen bungalowa.
Patrick Mahonek Emily Kaye hil zuen bungalowa.

Born 15 April 1924. Patrick Mahon killed his lover Emily Kaye. Kaye was a 37-year-old mechanographer who has been arrested by the police. Even though Mahon was married, he was an exalted Mujeriego and was already known for the robberies and scams. Mahon promised Kaye that they would escape to South Africa together and preparing their flight served as a pretext for asking the naive mechanographer for the quarters of the reservation. Mahon had no intention of fulfilling his word and when he served his lover as much as he could, he proposed to spend a romantic weekend in a bungalow in Sussex County.

The next Monday, Emily didn't go back to work. Patrick, on the other hand, came home with his wife. But a few days later, Mahon's wife found in her husband's jacket pocket the receipt of the Waterloo station slogan. He approached the station, believing that in the slogan he would find evidence of her husband’s infidelity, but Patrick Mahon kept in the station some suit of woman full of blood and a big knife.

The members of Scotland Yard arrested Mahon on 2 May and brought the interrogations to the Sussex bungalow. Emily Kaye's lifeless body was found carelessly in 37 pieces, according to the same source. Some of them were hidden in a box, some in crackers, and some of them tried to burn in the fireplace. The head of the victim, of Moroccan nationality, was never found.

Patrick Mahon argued in vain that this was an accident. The police had been able to demonstrate, through the testimony of the saleswoman, that a few days earlier she had bought a knife and a thick saw with the intention of killing the lover. The judge said it was the "most cruel and disgusting murder I have seen in my life," and sentenced the murderer to the death penalty. It was executed on 2 September of the same year.

Police officers who had to collect the remains of Emily Kaye's corpse declared it to be the most abominable crime in their career. Consequently, those responsible for Scotland Yard received a petition asking them to use gloves from then on to process the scene of the killings. Although this was not the initial objective, thanks to this request, rubber gloves would become essential in order not to contaminate evidence and tests.

The terrible murder had another effect. 30 years later the well-known Rear window movie was released. The director himself, Alfred Hitchcock, acknowledged that the murder of Emily Kaye inspired him to shoot the masterpiece.