This chemistry professor helped police around the world solve arsons and homicides
Mary Louisa Willard, a chemistry professor at Pennsylvania State University starting in the late 1920s, was a colorful character. Her hometown of State College, Pa., knew her for stopping traffic in her pink Cadillac to chat with friends and for throwing birthday bashes for her beloved cocker spaniels. Police around the world knew her for her side hustle: using chemistry to help solve crimes..
And at this moment, one of the police officers clears his throat. And says, “Dr. Willard, we need your help.”This is Lost Women of Science. I’m Carol Sutton Lewis. And today, we bring you the story of Mary Louisa Willard. We’ll learn about her astonishing career—how her brilliance in the lab made her a valuable resource to police investigators, how she testified as an expert witness in major criminal trials, and of course, we’ll find out how this chemist cracked the case of the dead chickens.
But Mary came from an academic family. So as I mentioned before, she grew up on Penn State's campus back when the surrounding area was mostly open fields. And her father was a math professor at the university. His name was Joseph Moody Willard. There’s actually a building named after him on campus today.
But when World War I ended, Bruce says a couple of important things had happened. First of all, the war had produced some major technical advances. There is a lot of research in nerve glasses so there are military applications. So they're looking at the chemistry and the effects on the body. And these things grow out of that.All this led up to 1918, when the first ever forensic toxicology laboratory opened in the United States. In New York City.
It all started when 28 of a local farmer’s chickens suddenly dropped dead. The farmer was quick to blame his neighbor, a widow who apparently he’d overheard saying she’d kill the birds if they trespassed in her garden. But the woman insisted she was innocent. At the height of her career, Mary Willard was serving as an expert witness in court about once a month. She helped out with investigations with every single county in Pennsylvania, and eventually branched out to other states in the US and even worked internationally.And on her departmental paperwork. She really framed her criminology work as a hobby. She'd write it down next to, like, collecting vintage roadmaps is like a fun fact.
It's whatever was freaking cheap that week. And so every gasoline station and even, if they come with new kerosene the week after, it's gonna look different.
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