Science & Justice
Volume 47, Issue 3 , Pages 136-140, November 2007

Fingerprint recovery from human skin surfaces☆

  • Matej Trapecar

      Affiliations

    • Forensic Laboratory and Research Centre, Police, Ministry of the Interior, Stefanova 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
    • Corresponding Author InformationCorresponding author. Tel.: +386 1 47 24 462; fax: +386 1 47 34 789.
    • ,
  • Joze Balazic

      Affiliations

    • Institute of Forensic Medicine, Medical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Korytkova 2, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
    • Tel.: +386 1 543 72 00; fax: +386 1 52 44 974.

Received 31 March 2006; received in revised form 30 August 2006; accepted 18 January 2007. published online 25 June 2007.

Abstract 

A study was conducted to investigate whether certain dactyloscopic powders and reagents can recover latent fingerprints on human skin surfaces. Four fingerprint powders, Magnetic Jet Black, Magnetic Silver, Silver Special, Swedish Black, and two other methods, cyanoacrylate fuming (CA) and Ruthenium tetroxide (RTX), were used. Having examined skin surfaces with a forensic light source, we observed that the fingerprint impressions remained visible up to 15 min after intentionally placing them on the skin surface of living subjects and dead bodies. Finger marks were recovered and positive results were achieved with Magnetic Black and Swedish Black powder on living subjects. On dead bodies finger marks treated with cyanoacrylate were visible but those treated with RTX, Swedish Black and Magnetic Jet Black powder were useful for potential comparison. On dead bodies best results were obtained with RTX method.

Keywords: Human skin, Latent fingerprints, Recovery, Swedish Black powder, Biological traces

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☆ This article was previously published in Kriminalistik (a German language journal).

PII: S1355-0306(07)00022-6

doi:10.1016/j.scijus.2007.01.002

Science & Justice
Volume 47, Issue 3 , Pages 136-140, November 2007

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