Identify the various fingerprint patterns

1

Learning Objectives

Explain the principles of fingerprinting

Explain the theory behind fingerprinting

3

4

Summarize the history of fingerprinting

2

1

Describe the methods used

to visualize fingerprints

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2

1000 BC, China

Used as signatures?

Fingerprints

Chinese seal with

engraved name

3

Fingerprints

Late 19

th

century

William Herschel

Allowed illiterate people to sign

documents with their thumbprints

4

1880

Henry Faulds

Fingerprints vary from person to person

Fingerprints

Use of fingerprints to identify criminals?

Idea rejected by Scotland Yard

5

Fingerprints

“Pudd’nhead Wilson”

Mark Twain, 1884

6

Fingerprints

“Every human being carries with him from his cradle to

his grave certain physical marks which do not change

their character and by which he can always be

identified. And that without shade of doubt or question.

These marks are his signature, his physiological

autograph so to speak, and this autograph cannot be

counterfeited, nor can he disguise it or hide it in any way,

nor can it become illegible by the wear and mutation of

time.”

– Pudd’nhead Wilson, Mark Twain

7

Fingerprints

1892

Francis Galton

Sir Francis Galton

Classified different

marks in fingerprints

8

Fingerprints

Juan Vucetich, 1897

Juan Vucetich

Classification

of fingerprints

9

Fingerprints

Edward Henry, 1897

Sir Edward Richard Henry

Proponent of

fingerprints

10

Fingerprinting

Used a few years later in the U.S.A.

First used in the U.K. in 1901

First used by Juan Vucetich

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Argentina, 1892

Neighbour Velasquez blamed

Francesca Rojas’ children murdered

Interrogated by the police

Insisted on his innocence

12

Argentina, 1892

Suspicion turned to Rojas

No evidence

Bloody fingerprint found at crime scene

Juan Vucetich called in to help

Matched Rojas

Convicted

13

Wanted to set up a National fingerprint database

Juan Vucetich

Fingerprint everyone in Argentina

Idea met with public opposition

Attempt failed

14

Deptford, London, 1905

First capital case in the U.K. using fingerprinting

Eyewitnesses

Walter & Ann Farrow found beaten to death

Killed by Alfred & Albert Stratton?

15

Eyewitness account

Henry Alfred Jennings

“I am a milk carrier. Looking at the

prisoners now, I am unable to say one way

or the other whether those are the men I

saw in High Street, Deptford.”

Reasonable doubt

16

Other evidence

Edward Henry

Checked crime scene for fingerprints

Commissioner of Police, London 1905

17

Other evidence

Empty cash-box under the couple’s bed

Should have £9

Motive for murder

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Other evidence

1 thumbprint found

No match to either of the deceased

Match to Alfred Stratton

Empty cash-box under the couple’s bed

No match to police officers

Owner?

19

Trial

First capital case involving fingerprinting

Show fingerprint belonged to Alfred Stratton

Prosecution had to

Demonstrate that technique is reliable

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Trial

Reliability of fingerprinting?

Prosecution demonstrated reliability

by fingerprinting a member of the jury

Stratton brothers

Guilty

21

Locard & Fingerprints

Lyon, 1920s

Mysterious burglaries

Valuable objects and objects of

no particular value were stolen

22

Locard & Fingerprints

Fingerprints are not unique to humans

Burglaries done by a monkey

Where do you find a monkey in France?

Organ grinder

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Organ grinder with monkey

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Locard & Fingerprints

Rounded up organ grinders and their monkeys

Fingerprinted the monkeys

One matched those found

at one of the crime scenes