murder.booklocker.com

Okay, I confess. I finally went searching for “murder by banana” — which is one of the ways one of my pinochle players does in someone at the senior center.

I found this article out of Massachusetts that says “In the age of DNA testing and high-tech investigations, it’s not often a murder case hinges on something as simple — and strange — as a banana.” The jury used some gloves (that the defendant had allegedly worn) to bruise a banana. They wanted to see if the “dot” pattern left by the gloves was similar to the dot pattern of blood on the guy’s coat.

“We can make a lot of jokes about bananas but the reality is that the jury was performing their own junk science,” attorney James Sultan said after a hearing Friday in Norfolk Superior Court. “It affected the outcome of the trial.”

If you’re curious, you can read it for yourself.

And no, this isn’t the first time that I’ve mentioned the banana murder. It’s in the press release, “Murder by Fruit Has No Ap-peel?”, for my book.

The following is a quote from PARK RIDGE (the detective and the senior center director are talking) which demonstrates the funny versus grim dilemma:

“And what? Somebody killed her with a banana?” she laughed.

He laughed with her. “I know it sounds ridiculous when you say the word ‘banana,’ but if she had been smothered with a pillow, we wouldn’t be laughing.”