Fingerprint is now a part of life. It takes care of various access controls, digital transaction, identification and many other jobs.
Use of fingerprints in forensics has a more than a century long history. Fingerprint was first used for crime detection in a murder case in 1892 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Juan Vucentich, a police analyst was running a Center for Dactyloscopy (fingerprint analysis) in Buenos Aires. Croatian-born Vucetich was a pioneer in the use of fingerprinting for forensic analysis and personal identification.
In June 1892, one Ms. Francisca Rojas was found wounded along with her two children at their home in Nocochea, Argentina. By the time they were discovered, the two children had died. Rojas told the police that they had been attacked by a neighbour, Pedro Ramón Velázquez who was her former suitor. He took revenge attempting to kill her and her children. The police arrested and interrogated Velázquez. He pleaded innocence and averred that he was with friends elsewhere when the crime took place.
The police resorted to inhuman ways of torture to extract confession. They locked up Velázquez in a cell with the children’s bodies. A police officer dressed up as ghost frightened him. Still, Velázquez maintained his innocence and stuck to the alibi he told earlier.
Being at blind alley, the local police sought assistance from higher ups and Inspector Eduardo Álvarez was dispatched to conduct further investigation.
Though several days had passed, Alvarez spotted a blood stain at the door of the bedroom. He removed the piece of wood with the fingerprint, obtained the fingerprints of Velázquez and Francesca Rojas using ink on paper and sent those three items to the police headquarters for examination.
At that time, Vucetich was working on developing a police system for fingerprint identification and had established the world’s first fingerprint police bureau just one year before. Vucetich did not find a match between Velázquez’s fingerprints and the one on the door, but he did find a match with that of Rojas.
When presented with this finding, Rojas immediately confessed to the crime, and admitted that her wounds were self-inflicted. Rojas had another suitor who had wanted to marry her but did not want the children. Hence, she killed them. Rojas was sentenced for life in prison.
Thus, Argentina became the first country to rely on fingerprint for identification and eventually established a national Office of Identification with both criminal and non-criminal fingerprints.
Though the use of fingerprints for crime detection started only by the close of nineteenth century, it was primarily employed for identification purposes quite long ago. Around 220 BC, China used fingerprints to authenticate government documents. Important documents were made on bamboo slips or pages, rolled and bound with string and sealed with clay. The author’s fingerprint was also impressed on the clay seal. With the invention of paper in the 2nd century, signing documents with fingerprints became a common practice in China which later spread to India.
European academics began to seriously study fingerprints from the late 16th century onwards. In 1686, Marcello Malpighi, a professor of anatomy at the University of Bologna, identified ridges, spirals, and loops in fingerprints. Then, in 1788, Johann Christoph Andreas Mayer, a German anatomist, became the first European to conclude that fingerprints were unique to everyone.
London’s Scotland Yard adopted fingerprint technology in 1901. India, the U.S., and Canada followed suit. In 1904, Vucetich published Dactiloscopia Comparada (Comparative Dactyloscopy), which gained international recognition. Shortly after, Vucetich went on a world tour to speak about his work and the importance of fingerprint classification.
In 1916, the Argentine government passed a law to have the entire population fingerprinted. Although a section of the population rebelled against the move, Argentina became the first country to create a record of fingerprints for both criminal and non-criminal population.
In India, fingerprint was used in crime detection even before it became popular. It was in 1898. The culprit who killed the manager of a tea garden was successfully detected using fingerprint.
The idea of using fingerprints to apprehend criminals eventually made its way into fiction as well. In Mark Twain’s novel Pudd’nhead Wilson, published in 1893, a courtroom drama unfolds where a murder mystery is resolved through fingerprint identification. Similarly, in the 1903 short story The Norwood Builder by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the renowned sleuth Sherlock Holmes solves a murder and exposes the culprit using a bloody fingerprint.
The development and utilization of fingerprinting as a tool for criminal investigation have revolutionized law enforcement practices worldwide. From its early beginnings as a method of identification to its pivotal role in solving crimes depicted in literature, fingerprinting continues to be a cornerstone of forensic science.
Beyond crime detection, the fingerprint has entered many walks of life making it indispensable for humans. Biometric authentication, smart phone unlocking, laptop login, online transaction, identity verification in various other areas etc., are seamlessly carried out through fingerprint.
Significant advancements have been made in fingerprint technology in the twenty first century.
