Nine notebooks forgotten in a dusty box have uncovered the identity of Detective X, the crime-fighting forensic genius of the 1930s.
NISTWilmer Souder , or “ Detective X , ” April 1935 .
The individuality of Detective X — the cloak-and-dagger law-breaking - fighter who aid law clear dozens of cases over the row of X with the assistance of pioneering skill — has finally been revealed .
His name is Wilmer Souder , and he was a 1930s physicist who process at the National Bureau of Standards , the precursor of the National Institute of Standards and Technology ( NIST ) .
NISTWilmer Souder, or “Detective X,” April 1935.
He specialized in measuring things very , very accurately , according toNational Geographic , a science that get along in handy when it came to cave in expert testimony in the burgeoning field of investigative forensics .
Out of a fear of reprisal and misgiving about jeopardize his family , Souder insisted on keeping his prison term moonlight with police agencies around the area a secret while working his day job .
That does not mean that he was n’t prolific and brilliant in resolve crimes . For example , Souder once determined who kidnapped the infant son of flyer Charles Lindbergh in 1932 by analyzing the script on the ransom money note , National Geographic reports . At the time , this kind of analysis was a radical idea , one nobody could have even imagined .
The Lindbergh case is actually how Souder ’s double life as Detective X amount to Light Within . Souder is renowned within NIST for base the dental material research program , but his biography contains an off - the - cuff remark about aiding the search for the Lindbergh baby .
This factoid made Kristen Frederick - Frost , the NIST archive curator , very curious .
“ Why in the world would someone like him be involved in the Lindbergh casing ? ” Frederick - Frost told National Geographic . “ That did n’t make sensation … you do n’t do anything , and then all of a sudden you ’re involved in one of the swelled cases of the 100 ? ”
Frederick - Frost eventually reveal nine notebook that belong to Souder in a forgotten box in the agency ’s archives .
Just as their late proprietor often did , these notebook computer blew the Detective X case widely open with ease .
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