The FBI Laboratory
This month marks the 88th year since the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Laboratory started processing cases. And to commemorate this occasion, I used this weekend’s bike ride to go back to Quantico, Virginia, and ride to the current FBI Laboratory (MAP), which is on the grounds of The FBI Academy, located on Marine Corp Base Quantico.
Established by the original FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover, the Criminology Laboratory, as it was known then, was first housed in a single room of the Old Southern Railway Building at 13th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue in Downtown D.C. It would eventually move to the third floor of FBI Headquarters, before relocating to its current location back in 2003.
The Lab’s first year of work included 963 examinations, including those that led to the capture of Bruno Richard Hauptmann for the kidnapping of the infant son of the aviator Charles Lindbergh, which became known as the “crime of the century”. (As opposed to the “trial of the center”, as the O.J. Simpson murder case would eventually be known.)
Charles Lindbergh, Jr. was kidnapped from the Lindbergh family home in Hopewell, New Jersey in March of 1932, with the kidnapper leaving behind a handwritten ransom note. The Laboratory was equipped with only an ultraviolet light machine, microscope, moulage kit, wiretapping kit, and general office supplies. And it had only one full-time employee, Special Agent Charles Appel. Using the limited resources available to him, Appel analyzed the handwriting of the 13 ransom notes received by the Lindberghs with samples from 300 suspects. While the process took many months, Appel was eventually able to identify Hauptmann as the perpetrator. Sadly, it was discovered that the kidnapper killed the infant. And although Hauptmann proclaimed his innocence to the end, he was convicted of first-degree murder and executed in 1936 in the electric chair at the New Jersey State Prison.
Today the FBI Laboratory is one of the largest and most comprehensive crime labs in the world. Operating with more than 500 employees out of a state-of-the-art facility in Quantico, the laboratory’s scientific experts and Special Agents travel the world on assignment, using science and technology to protect the nation and support law enforcement, intelligence, military, and forensic science partners. Whether it’s examining DNA or fingerprints left at a crime scene or linking exploded bomb fragments to terrorists, the men and women of the FBI Laboratory are dedicated to using the rigors of science to solve cases and prevent acts of crime and terror.
NOTE: I was not able to take any additional photos because unauthorized photography or video recording within the FBI Laboratory is a security violation and, therefore, strictly prohibited. The above video is unclassified public material.
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