The Blooding, written in 1989 by Joseph Wambaugh, relates the story of a two English girls brutally raped and strangled three years apart in the 1980’s. The novel follows the investigation of the Narborough murder and how the discovery of a new forensic technique was vital to solving the case and finding the killer. This discovery of genetic fingerprinting by Alec Jeffreys during the time of this investigation revolutionized the world of forensic science.
The novel begins by setting the scene in Narborough, England, a small village southwest of the city of Leicester. Within the first paragraph, Wambaugh foreshadows to what is to come with the line “enticing young families from urban housing estates with promises of safety and serenity – but it’s a village nonetheless.” Enderby, a small village north of Narborough, is also mentioned and described as having a larger pub to church ratio than that of Narborough.
Eddie and Kath Eastwoods, newly married, moved with Kath’s two daughters Susan and Lynda to a road near the psychiatric hospital in Enderby. The author talks about Kath’s younger daughter Lynda Mann and her ambitious, happy-go-lucky nature. One night, twelve year old Lynda …show more content…
This work led to the discovery of even more highly variable stuttered regions, termed minisatellites, in which the number of stutters leads to variation. The discovery of both types of variation in DNA led Jeffreys to the accidental discovery of DNA fingerprinting. With this new technique came the ability to distinguish every individual based on variations in the DNA sequence. His work with DNA fingerprinting was used in the investigation of the two murders in Narborough to identify the baker as the culprit. This technique is still used in criminal investigation and Jeffreys continues to explore this topic in his work