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Hero image for Epitaph - An Unforgeable Signature

Part one of three from Episode 13, Series Two.

Part two of three from Episode 13, Series Two.

Part three of three from Episode 13, Series Two.

The credits from Episode 13, Series Two.

Epitaph - An Unforgeable Signature

Television (Full Length) – 1999

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In the 13th episode of Epitaph's second season, Paul Gittins goes digging in Waikumete Cemetery. The epitaph for 25-year old convicted murderer Dennis Gunn, hanged in 1920 for shooting the Ponsonby Postmaster, includes an intriguing inscription: "sadly wronged". Gittins unearths the story of a post office robbery, and the first conviction in New Zealand based on fingerprint identification. The judge called the print an "unforgeable signature". Before he died, Gunn claimed innocence: "if only my brother-in-law will speak up I will be saved".

In what was claimed to be a world first for a capital crime, Gunn’s conviction was based almost entirely on fingerprint evidence.
– Website NZ History, on the Dennis Gunn case