Part of any great crime story is the detective, who against all odds, manages to find the villain and restore justice. We all love fictional detectives like Sherlock Holmes and Columbo, but there are plenty of amazing real life detectives who’ve saved lives, seen deadly criminals receive justice and generally made their cities safer places to be.

 

America’s first female detective

Kate Warne is reportedly the first female detective in the USA. Hired by the Pinkerton’s in 1856, she soon rose to become the supervisor of the Pinkerton’s Female Detective Bureau.

Warne worked on numerous cases, and was considered unbeatable when it came to disguises

 

The firearms expert

Calvin Goddard really rose to fame with the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, an event where seven men were lined up in front of a garage wall in Chicago and killed with machine guns. He was already known for his expertise in ballistics and firearms, and determined that the men had been killed by the infamous Al Capone and his gangsters.

A detection laboratory and school were set up and Goddard accepted a position as its director. He then brought in experts to teach at Northwestern University, the USA’s first independent forensic science crime laboratory. From its opening in 1931, the school taught classes on blood analysis, fingerprinting and firearms.

 

The initial Director of the FBI

John Edgar Hoover (1895-1972) was appointed to help found the FBI in 1935. Many of his practices are still used and many people have credited him for building the FBI into what it was today.

Along with Calvin Goddard, he worked hard to establish a fingerprint database, vital for solving thousands of crimes across the USA.

 

The first full-time detective

Eugène François Vidocq (1775-1857) is one of the first, if not the first, detective to become famous from his profession. Vidocq opened the world’s first private detective agency, and his life was full of the drama, disguises and romance we expect from detective drama today.

The police at the time didn’t trust or like Vidocq, but they often needed his assistance. In 1832 he was made the chief of the detective department, but soon dismissed. Despite this, he was constantly hired by private clients to solve their mysteries.

 

By looking through the history books at the great detectives of the past, you can get plenty of inspiration on how to build your character for your murder mystery dinner. To book your murder mystery dinner, call us on 011 896 5810 or contact us today.

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