What a pleasure to receive this book! It was like Kate Dawson wrote AMERICAN SHERLOCK just for me! Not only has Oscar Heinrich deserved more attention all of these years but the Lamson mystery at Stanford University in 1933 has been particularly lost under stacks and stacks of other true crime cases. This one has drawn my attention for 50 years ever since I read David Lamson's autobiographical WE WHO ARE ABOUT TO DIE and meeting a forgotten author, Kenneth Stewart, who wrote of the case in NEWS IS WHAT WE MAKE IT. The case is unique for two reasons. The debate is limited to how Allene Lamson died. Did she slip in the bathtub or was she assaulted and murdered by her husband, David? This is a debate which began the day this tragedy occurred and continues to this day. But it is the multiple trials which were so unique because the same debate continued in the courts for three years until there was no point in having any more trials. At first on reading Kate Dawson's book, I was inclined to accept for the first time in studying this case for fifty years that Mr. Lamson may well have been innocent of the murder of his wife Allene. I had to wonder if I should challenge the findings of the great Oscar Heinrich. But on reviewing a letter written by Lowell Turrentine to August Vollmer on Feb. 13, 1934 disputing Heinrich's conclusions, I am compelled to return to my original belief Mr. Lamson was guilty. Mr. Turrentine was a distinguished law professor at Stanford with extensive medical knowledge who had access to both the murder scene and the autopsy reports. He was no lightweight having been a government prosecutor during the Teapot Dome scandals of the 20's. Despite a large age difference, I actually was acquainted with Mr. Turrentine as well as Mr. & Mrs. Kenneth Stewart who I met in 1970 who continued to believe Mr. Lamson was guilty despite still being friends with Mr. Lamson and who had even been acquainted with the late Mrs. Lamson. I also learned from my mother that Lamson's neighbor, Miss Vincent learned Lamson's sister, Margaret Lamson had called Lamson's boss after Allene's death and told him : "Dave just killed Alley!" Vincent said Lamson was a "bad actor." Reports were all over the campus that the Lamsons were having problems and they even went to Ray Lyman Wilbur, Stanford's President to try to resolve their marital conflicts. There are other odd sidelights to this case. I have looked at dozens of yearbook photos of Allene including one you will see in AMERICAN SHERLOCK and she is almost always looking away from the camera. It was also reported to me by a man who resided in the Lamson house as a student after the Lamsons vacated that the bells in the Santa Clara County courthouse in San Jose started ringing by themselves after David Lamson was finally and permanently released form custody in 1936. This of course may just be the stuff of legends. I am pleased Kate Dawson devoted two whole chapters on the Lamson case in AMERICAN SHERLOCK. She was evidently taken with this case as much as I have been although I was first drawn to it having lived right around the block from the Lamson house when I grew up on the Stanford campus. Oscar Heinrich solved a thousand or more cases in his very full and successful life and you will find seven other intriguing mysteries he tackled in this wonderfully detailed book focused in California and Oregon. Highly recommended!
American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI
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Last update: 02-25-2025
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