The History of Forensic Investigation

700s- Chinese artists use fingerprints as a signature on artwork

(1000)- Quintilian, an Roman attorney, proved bloody palm prints were being used to frame his client.

1248- A Chinese book, Hsi Duan Yu (the washing away of wrongs), describes how to distinguish drowning from strangulation, i.e., the first recorded application of medical knowledge to the solving of a crime.

1609- The first treatise on systematic document examination was published by François Demelle of France

1686- Marcello Malpighi, a professor of anatomy at the University of Bologna, noted fingerprint characteristics. However, he made no mention of their value as a tool for individual identification.

1784- In Lancaster, England, John Toms was convicted of murder  This was one of the first documented uses of physical matching.

1858- Sir William Hershel records handprints and, later, fingerprints on contracts made in India. This was fueled not by science, but superstition.

1880- Dr. Henry Faulds develops a system of classification for “skin furrows,” as he called them.

1887- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle publishes his first Sherlock Holmes narrative, sparking an interest in forensic science for crime solving.

1892- Juan Vucetich makes the first criminal identification with fingerprints.

1894 Alfred Dreyfus of France was convicted of treason based on a mistaken handwriting identification.

1896- Edward Richard Henry develops

1901- Edward Richard Henry’s research serves as the foundation on which Scotland Yard’s fingerprinting branch is established.

1902-03- U.S. employs systematic means of fingerprinting for the first time.

1904- Oskar and Rudolf Adler use the chemical benzidine to develop a distinctive blood test.

1905 – U.S. Military adopts the use of fingerprints – soon thereafter, police agencies began to

adopt the use of fingerprints

1908- The first official fingerprint card is developed        

1918- Edmond Locard establishes that a “12-point” match between two fingerprints suffices as an identification.

1920- Charles E. Waite catalogs manufacturing data about weapons for the first time.

1921- John Larson and Leonard Keeler create the portable polygraph.

1924- ID Division of the FBI is formed.

1980- First computer data base of fingerprints was developed, which came to be known as the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, (AFIS).There are nearly 70 million cards, or nearly 700 million individual fingerprints currently entered in AFIS.

1984- Alec Jeffreys develops the first system for DNA profiling.

1987- DNA brings its first criminal conviction: Tommy Lee Andrews is convicted of sexual assaults in Orlando, Florida.

1991- Walsh Automation Inc., in Montreal, launched development of an automated imaging system called the Integrated Ballistics Identification System (IBIS), for comparison of the marks left on fired bullets, cartridge cases, and shell casings. This system is also modified for the U.S. market in collaboration with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF).

1996- AFIS is computerized.