New Fingerprinting Technique Featured on AMW

Last night, on America’s Most Wanted, a finger printing technique was featured that showed how prints can be lifted from metal, even after the surface has been wiped clean.

The technique involves enhancing fingerprints than have corroded metal surfaces. Uses of this method include enhancing – after firing– a fingerprint that has been deposited on a small caliber bullet’s metal cartridge case before it is fired.

Here is more on the story as reported by the University of Leicester – Stay Brutal!
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A researcher from the University of Leicester and Northamptonshire Police, whose work with the University’s Department of Chemistry has led to a major breakthrough in forensic crime detection, is to be featured on the US TV show America’s Most Wanted

Dr John Bond is Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Leicester Forensic Research Centre and Scientific Support Manager at Northamptonshire Police. Now a film crew from the US TV show America’s Most Wanted –the US version of Crimewatch – is coming to film him on Sunday 8 November.

This follows an investigation by Dr Bond into a murder case on America’s Most Wanted list in which Detective Tony Roten from the Crimes Against Persons Section, North Richland Hills Police, brought bullet casings from the Marianne Wilkinson murder case.

The study by Dr Bond and colleagues on the America’s Most Wanted case found fingerprints on a shell casing. The show will now publicize this technique further and intend to place a fingerprint of the show’s celebrity presenter, John Walsh on a brass disk, then wash off the residue and bring the disk over to the UK so the forensic researchers can enhance the print in front of the cameras. John Walsh will be travelling over personally to see the technique in operation.

Dr Bond and University colleagues developed a forensic technique – described by Time Magazine as one of the top 50 inventions of 2008 – that can provide vital breakthroughs in murder investigations.

Dr Bond has developed a method that enables scientists to ‘visualize fingerprints’ even after the print itself has been removed. He and colleagues conducted a study into the way fingerprints can corrode metal surfaces. The technique can enhance – after firing– a fingerprint that has been deposited on a small caliber metal cartridge case before it is fired.

Dr Bond said: “We are very pleased that this new technique to enhance fingerprints on shell casings, by means of visualizing fingerprint sweat corrosion of the metal, has been able to assist a number of police forces. The interest being shown by AMW and its presenter , Mr John Walsh, is a reflection of how this technology will affect the recovery of forensic evidence from shell casings in the future. We are very pleased to be a part of AMW’s feature on this technique and hope that the increased publicity may assist in detecting the North Richland Hills, Texas murder that we have recovered fingerprint evidence for and which has featured on AMW”

The Marianne Wilkinson case revolves around the killing of the 68-year-old woman as she answered the door at 7.30pm on December 9, 2007. Police are investigating whether it was a case of mistaken identity- and whether another woman in a nearby house was the intended target. More details of the case are on the America’s Most Wanted Website.