  Mystery
This week: Edited by: Tehanu  
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| “It is almost impossible to imagine that prior to the twentieth century, there was no reliable way to distinguish between the guilty and the innocent. All that changed in Britain in 1905, when the bloody bodies of an elderly couple were discovered in their shop. A solitary fingerprint was the only piece of evidence. Thus begins this fascinating breakthrough that solved one of England’s most brutal murders and forever changed the criminal justice system.” – Colin Beaven, Fingerprints: The Origin of Crime Detection And The Murder Case That Launched Forensic Science |
| ASIN: B083RZ2C5F |
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** Image ID #1151845 Unavailable **
- True story -
It was a dark and stormy afternoon in mid-February. I drove through swirling gray snow to a nearly deserted local police station. Once there I showed my drivers’ license and asked to be fingerprinted for a particular agency.
I was led to a back room. My fingers were rolled in ink and then pressed onto a paper chart.
The sergeant, who was quiet throughout the procedure, shook his head as he finished rolling four fingers of my left hand. “The FBI might reject these,” he said. “You don’t have much in the way of prints.”
I stared at him in disbelief and then looked down at my blackened fingertips. I could see some ridges, but maybe work had worn down the middle of my pads. I really hoped the sergeant was wrong. He seemed to be in a bad mood.
Six months later…
I eagerly tore open a letter pertaining to my fingerprinting outing. Unfortunately the two slips of paper held discouraging news. The sentence that stood out was, “The fingerprint cards were rejected by the FBI because the fingerprint images were unreadable…”
I called the agency to which I was applying my services and found out that I needed to have my prints re-done.
“I can see some ridges,” the woman on the other end said after locating a scanned copy of my fingertips. “I’m pretty sure you have prints. You aren’t a hairdresser, right? You don’t work with any harsh chemicals? No, then - give it another try.”
I tried a new police station this time and a forensic expert took my prints. Not only was he a lot quicker and more proficient (I could clearly see the imprints this time), but he also explained the process of fingerprinting and what to look for when identifying prints.
“You don’t need to press down hard – in fact, using less ink and pressing lightly is better…see those whorls? If the ridges come from the right side of the finger, then I know it’s a print from your right hand. I’ve been doing this for years. You definitely have prints.”
I sighed with relief. And I no longer contemplated a life in crime…yeah, so I had thought about robbing a bank or becoming a renegade spy. Sounded cool for a moment. Of course, with no prints, I’d also imagined offering my stealthy services to the FBI, the CIA, the SS…
But now I could concentrate once again on being an upstanding citizen, locating a good job in my field, and – hey – working on that WDC mystery newsletter!
My experience with fingerprinting made me ask some questions. Why was one policeman able to take my prints accurately and the other was not? Is it difficult to fingerprint and compare fingerprints? If prints are smudged, are they still identifiable when found at a crime scene? And how did fingerprinting become the main way for the government to identify people?
Taking a Look at the History…
My interest in fingerprinting, or dactylography, led me to the library. I was surprised to find few books published in the last five years pertaining to the subject, but was intrigued when I located Colin Beaven’s book on the origins of fingerprinting.
Fingerprints: The Origin of Crime Detection And The Murder Case That Launched Forensic Science is an engrossing and easy read that thoroughly covers the early days of collaring criminals using fingerprinting and other, less reliable means like the Bertillon method (an anthropometric system of measurements). I highly recommend the book to anyone who has even a fleeting interest in fingerprinting.
Here are some basic points I learned:
- In 1880, Henry Faulds became the first person to publicly suggest fingerprints as a method of criminal identification.
- Six years later he began trying to convince Scotland Yard to adopt fingerprints.
- It was in 1902 that the first man was proven guilty in a British courtroom based on evidence of fingerprints at the scene of a burglary.
- Policemen originally laughed at the idea of using fingerprints. It took a long time for fingerprinting to be accepted as a reliable “science.” (According to some articles I read on-line, some people still object to considering fingerprinting a science.) Before fingerprinting was accepted as the norm, procedures from “trials by ordeal” to eyewitness accounts were used to incriminate suspects.
- An eloquent definition of “fingerprints”: “Fingerprints can be impressed in anything from paint to blood…most found at crime scenes [are] left in sweat. On the gripping surfaces of the hands and feet, 3,000 sweat glands per square inch crowd together more densely than anywhere else on the body. Keeping the skin lubricated so it does not crack, the glands also make each finger like a self-inking rubber stamp, leaving calling cards on every surface it touches.”
- At this point in time, no two fingerprints have been found to be exactly the same. Fingerprints are unique to each person. Even identical twins, who share identical DNA, will have similar, but slightly different fingerprints.
- Fingerprinting is a cheaper way of finding a criminal than DNA testing…the use of DNA is typically limited to violent crimes.
- It was decided in the nineteenth century that social conditions were partly to blame for crime rates. For example, an otherwise upstanding citizen going through a difficult time financially may break the law to feed himself and his family. Governments were concerned with weeding first-time offenders from hardened criminals. Thus, a way to positively identify criminals was actively looked for…fingerprinting finally fulfilling the need.
-Unless permanently scarred, finger ridges, whether sliced, rubbed, or burned away with acid, always grow back to their original pattern. Fingerprints stay the same as a person ages.
- The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) uses a database called IAFIS (Integrated Automatic Fingerprint Identification System) that can house up to sixty-five million sets of fingerprints.
Next month I will write a second newsletter on the art of fingerprinting. I intend to cover how to fingerprint, how to compare fingerprints, some popular cases involving fingerprints, and prompt ideas when writing mysteries that involve fingerprints left at the scene of the crime. |
Recent mysterious static items...shadowy WDC authors...please read and review the following:
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* If you have any questions regarding fingerprints, please send me an e-mail and I will attempt to answer your questions in my next newsletter. *
Reader Participation
I will award one hundred GPs to each person who responds to this newsletter and leaves me one or more writing prompts that pertain to fingerprinting. Your prompt may be featured in my next newsletter.
An example of a prompt:
One bloody fingerprint is the only evidence found at the scene of a crime. Show how the suspect is found guilty based on this one print.
Submitted Feedback Regarding Last Month's Newsletter
Chewie Kittie :
Great NL! I love that you highlighted the tendency current authors are having toward using villans with mental illnesses. That's all well and good, but, people, do your research!
Thanks! I am glad you agree. 
billwilcox:
Ah, mental illnes: the definition of looking at the world with different eyes. Great newsletter, keep it up!
Err...whose eyes do you have? Give them back! j/k  Thanks for the praise - it means a lot coming from you. |
| ASIN: 0910355479 |
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Amazon's Price: $ 13.99
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Mystery: September 13, 2006 Issue [#1264]
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