Piers Secunda
Alderney Execution Wall Rendering, 2023
A Firing Squad Execution Wall On Alderney After seeing what appeared to be an intensely bullet damaged wall inside Fort Platte Saline on the north shore of Alderney in 2019,...
A Firing Squad Execution Wall On Alderney
After seeing what appeared to be an intensely bullet damaged wall inside Fort Platte Saline on the north shore of Alderney in 2019, Piers decided to seek consent to make a mould of the wall. Permission was given by the Board of Directors of Blanchards, the construction materials company which leases the fort from the States of Alderney.
Part of the way through the moulding process Piers was given a bullet by Haydn Bateman, a Blanchards employee, who had removed it with his pen knife from the wall several months earlier. An “Inductively Coupled Plasma Spectroscopy” test was carried out by SureScreen Scientifics (a forensic metallurgical laboratory in the UK), which compared the bullet lead to WWII era German and British ammunition. The results showed a clear match with a German Mauser rifle ammunition from time of the German occupation.
For further understanding of the bullet damage scatter pattern on the wall, two of the most respected forensic scientists in the United States, Nicholas Petraco and Peter Diaczuk came to Alderney in late June 2022. Their remit was to “Ascertain, within a reasonable degree of scientific certainty, the mechanisms and actions by which the subject wall was damaged” With over 550 legal and court room expert forensic testimonies between them, with specialisations in gunshot analysis and crime scene recreation, Nicholas and Peter set about their task.
Eight months later they stated their findings with an impressive degree of certainty:
In the opinion of the undersigned, the questioned interior concrete wall designated SW1 contains a Firing Squad Execution Pattern discussed and revealed during this study. Thus, SW1 possess the necessary physical evidence to be designated a Firing Squad Execution Site.
After seeing what appeared to be an intensely bullet damaged wall inside Fort Platte Saline on the north shore of Alderney in 2019, Piers decided to seek consent to make a mould of the wall. Permission was given by the Board of Directors of Blanchards, the construction materials company which leases the fort from the States of Alderney.
Part of the way through the moulding process Piers was given a bullet by Haydn Bateman, a Blanchards employee, who had removed it with his pen knife from the wall several months earlier. An “Inductively Coupled Plasma Spectroscopy” test was carried out by SureScreen Scientifics (a forensic metallurgical laboratory in the UK), which compared the bullet lead to WWII era German and British ammunition. The results showed a clear match with a German Mauser rifle ammunition from time of the German occupation.
For further understanding of the bullet damage scatter pattern on the wall, two of the most respected forensic scientists in the United States, Nicholas Petraco and Peter Diaczuk came to Alderney in late June 2022. Their remit was to “Ascertain, within a reasonable degree of scientific certainty, the mechanisms and actions by which the subject wall was damaged” With over 550 legal and court room expert forensic testimonies between them, with specialisations in gunshot analysis and crime scene recreation, Nicholas and Peter set about their task.
Eight months later they stated their findings with an impressive degree of certainty:
In the opinion of the undersigned, the questioned interior concrete wall designated SW1 contains a Firing Squad Execution Pattern discussed and revealed during this study. Thus, SW1 possess the necessary physical evidence to be designated a Firing Squad Execution Site.
