cases of aged latent prints at crime scenes

[Texas Pat]

A retired friend has been retained by a defense attorney in a case involving latent prints in the bathroom at the scene of a crime that were linked to the defendant. No other evidence connects the defendant to the crime, only the latents developed in the bathroom. The defendant worked on a remodeling crew that had completed a job at the house a few weeks before the crime occurred and had washed up in the bathroom while working on the house.

I know I have read a number of case studies on this site and in the published literature regarding latents left by workmen in the performance of their duties, but in which the latents were subsequently developed and used to charge the workmen with crimes they had nothing to do with. Can anybody direct me to some of those cases or the articles about them?

Thanks!

[Boyd Baumgartner]

Simon Bunter has a paper with references online which can be found here


Edit: I also found this one from a post on Onin

Archbishop Valerian Trifa, who was the head of the Romanian Orthodox church in the U.S., was officially deported in 1984 after being charged by the Justice Department with inciting riots that left as many as 4,000 Jewish people dead during World War II, according to the Washington Post.

What makes Trifa’s case unique is the way the FBI connected the once-revered religious leader to the killings. According to the second edition of Fingerprint Detection with Lasers, the FBI became suspicious of Trifa’s connections with Nazi Germany after a postcard from 1942 was given to the bureau. Allegedly written by Trifia to German Gestapo chief Henrich Himmler, the FBI used lasers to positively identify Trifa’s left thumb print, which at that point was more than 40 years old. Trifa was subsequently outed as a leading member of the anti-Semitic organization infamously known as the Romanian Iron Guard, according to the New York Times. He died of a heart attack at 72 just a few years after leaving the country.

[Texas Pat]

Much thanks to Boyd and Ernie, who directed me to the "Legacy" tab on the CLPEX home page with a drop down to his Excel spreadsheet index of fingerprint articles -- an invaluable resource to anybody doing research on any facet of fingerprints!

Cheers,
Pat

[josher89]

Not specifically answering Pat's question, but I had to opportunity to work on a case involving a suicide note that was 37 years old. We were able to develop identifiable latents on the note that came back to the deceased.

Our technique? Ninhydrin (in acetone) and a steam iron.

Ironically, both the note and the deceased's prints had remained in the investigatory case file and were kept in good environmental conditions. Had they been stored in property and evidence, they would have been destroyed a long time ago!

I wrote it up in the FDIAI quarterly publication a few years ago. Not quite as good as the FBI (both in terms of the case type and length) but still cool that it was possible.

[Ernie Hamm]

Pat mentioned the reference file that was posted to the Legacy page. One important note on the Reference file and that was the "Index: Read Me" file that was attached to message when I would pass on the file to interested individuals. The file provided important information on using the file for research to keep someone "thumbing" through a couple of thousand entries looking for something of interest. The comment column had brief info on the contents of the file, but also had a list of acronyms use to indicate the nature of the article:

I have included the contents of the file with explanations with this message. A note when using Excel search command, this command is case specific in the options and if not selected in options and you use "age" instead of "AGE" the search will show all comments when there is "age" in any word, such as image, page, etc.

The references are dated to be sure as I stopped indexing in 2009, but sometimes interesting information can come from the past.

The "Read Me" sheet is as follows:

THIS FILE CONTAINS OVER 2,800 CITATIONS DEALING WITH VARIOUS ASPECTS OF LATENT PRINT, FOOTWEAR AND TIRE TRACK, AND MISCELLANEOUS FORENSIC EXAMINATIONS. MOST OF THE MATERIAL CITED COMES FROM THE FOLLOWING PUBLICATIONS AND IS PRIMARILY LATENT PRINT ORIENTED:

IDENTIFICATION NEWS 1971 to 1987 (When it changed to Journal of Forensic Identification)

JOURNAL OF FORENSIC IDENTIFICATION 1988 to 2009

IDENTIFICATION NEWSLETTER 1980 to 1983 (When it changed to Identification Canada)

IDENTIFICATION CANADA 1984 to 2009

FINGERPRINT WHORLD 1978 to 2009 (No longer published)

MANY OTHER ARTICLES CITED ARE FROM OTHER PROFESSIONAL PUBLICATIONS OR SOURCES THAT HAVE BEEN SELECTED AT RANDOM.

THE ARTICLE SOURCE WILL BE DISPLAYED IN A RECORD OF FOUR LINES:

1) TITLE
2) AUTHOR
3) PUBLICATION
4) COMMENT LINE WITH MAJOR KEY WORD.

THE COMMENT SECTION MAY INCLUDE A BRIEF EXPLANATION OF THE ARTICLE'S CONTENTS OR SPECIAL APPLICATIONS.

IF IT IS KNOWN THAT AN ARTICLE HAS BEEN PUBLISHED IN ANOTHER JOURNAL, THERE WILL BE A FOOTNOTE NUMERAL FOLLOWING THE YEAR OF PUBLICATION ON LINE 3. THIS FOOTNOTE CAN BE EDITED THROUGH THE WORDPERFECT FOOTNOTE COMMANDS.

FOR COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS, CONTACT: ErnieHamm@yahoo.com

ACRONYMS THAT CAN BE USED FOR SEARCH WORDS


AFIS-Automated Fingerprint Identification System
AGE – Articles on age of latent prints
ALS - Alternate Light Source
ART - Forensic Art
ASIS - Automated Shoeprint Identification System
BIO - Biological aspects of friction skin
BLOOD - Techniques for blood prints
CAST - Casting methods
CHIS - Case histories
CLASS - Classification of prints
COM - Comparison of latents
COURT - Court materials/presentation techniques
CV - Crystal violet
CYAN - Cyanoacrylate
DNA - Self-explanatory
EAR - Ear prints
FA - Firearms
FORG - Forgery of latent prints
FW - Footwear
GEN - General information
HF - Human foot examinations
HIS - Historical articles
HUM - Techniques for prints on skin
INK - Inked prints
IOD - Iodine fuming
LAS - Laser applications
LEGAL - Legal aspects
LIFT -Lifting methods
MISC - Misc types of examinations and articles
NIN - Ninhydrin
PHOTO - Photography
PMI - Post-mortem techniques
QD - Questioned Documents
R6G - Rhodamine 6G chemical
SAFE - Safety
SN - Silver Nitrate
STAT - Statistics
STECH - Special and other chemical methods
TNG - Training/Education
TT - Tire track
VOICE - Voice identification

[anwilson]

Boyd posted the article from Simon Bunter I was thinking of. But as a slight tangent I think this secondary DNA transfer case is also a valuable case study resource for attorneys: https://www.news-medical.net/life-scien ... nsics.aspx I'm sure there are a lot of articles that reference this case in California, I've heard of it in several different areas (news articles, podcasts, etc.)

Since we can't "age" fingerprints in most situations and DNA technology has advanced to be an extremely sensitive technique, I'd tell any attorney that the evidence is pretty circumstantial and that 1 piece shouldn't be used to convict someone when there's nothing else linking a person to the crime.