New technique to enhance fingerprints on shell casings to be featured on America Most Wanted

(12/11/2009)

Dr John Bond, Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Leicester Forensic Research Centre and Scientific Support Manager at Northamptonshire Police, is to be featured on the US TV show America's Most Wanted. A film crew from the US TV show America's Most Wanted - the US version of Crimewatch - came 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 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.

The study by Dr Bond and colleagues on the America's Most Wanted case found fingerprints on a shell casing. The show will now publicise 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 'visualise 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 calibre 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."

Related topics:  Fingerprint biometrics 

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