What I'm reading: Free Fire, by C.J. Box; The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot (book club)
Continuing with workshop recaps from the Pikes Peak Writers Conference.
There were two workshops on forensics, both given by retired forensics expert, Tom Adair. (And, he's going to be my guest on May 8th). Both were "hands on" which made a great change from sitting and taking notes. The first was about fingerprinting. (And although the workshop was hands on, he did begin with some facts.)
Fingerprints are unique and permanent (with very few exceptions, such as burns. They're established in the second trimester, pre-birth. In addition to fingerprints, all dermal ridge prints are unique to the individual (feet, toes, palms, etc.)
Contrary to what we might believe from television, prints are NOT everywhere. And, not finding someone's prints on an object doesn't mean the person didn't touch it. Finger marks are more common, but they're not usable for identification. Probably fewer than 10% of fingerprints found at a crime scene are identifiable to someone. It's not likely you'll get prints from bullet casings.
