Abstract
BackgroundCriminal offenders have a fundamental goal not to leave any traces at the crime scene. Some may suppose that items recovered underwater will have no forensic value, therefore, they try to destroy the traces by throwing items in water. These traces are subjected to the destructive environmental effects. This can represent a challenge for forensic experts investigating fingerprints.MethodsThe present study was conducted to determine the optimal method for latent fingerprints development on dry non-porous surfaces submerged in aquatic environments at different time interval. The quality of the developed fingerprints depending on the used method was assessed. In addition, two factors were analyzed in this study; the effects of the nature of aquatic environment and the length of submerged time. Therefore, latent fingerprints were deposited on metallic, plastic and glass objects and submerged in fresh and sea water for 1, 2, and 10 days. After recovery, the items were processed by black powder, small particle reagent and cyanoacrylate fuming and the prints were examined. Each print was evaluated according to fingerprint quality assessment scale.ResultsCyanoacrylate developed latent prints found to have the highest mean visibility score after submersion in fresh and sea water for 1, 2 and 10 days. Mean visibility score of prints developed showed significant decline after 10 days of submersion. Prints submerged in fresh water showed significantly higher mean visibility score than those submerged in sea water using various methods of development and in all time intervals.ConclusionThe study demonstrated that it is possible to recover latent prints submerged in water on different studied dry non porous surfaces with the best visualization method using cyanoacrylate either in fresh or sea water. The duration of submersion affects the quality of fingerprints developed; the longer the duration, the worse the quality is. In addition, this study has revealed that the exposure to high salinity i.e. sea water has more damaging influence on the quality of detected fingerprints.It is concluded that any piece of evidence recovered from underwater should be tested for prints, no matter the amount of time spent beneath the surface.
Highlights
Criminal offenders have a fundamental goal not to leave any traces at the crime scene
Several studies demonstrated various factors that may influence the quality of developed latent prints in water including; individual variation of latent fingerprint composition, the nature of surface, time elapsed since deposition, environmental factors; such as air circulation, dust, humidity, light exposure, precipitation, temperature, ultraviolet rays and the enhancement techniques
Small particle reagent (SPR) The quality of the developed fingerprints on glass surfaces after 1 day revealed that half of them were of poor visibility
Summary
Criminal offenders have a fundamental goal not to leave any traces at the crime scene. Some may suppose that items recovered underwater will have no forensic value, they try to destroy the traces by throwing items in water. These traces are subjected to the destructive environmental effects. Latent prints on these substrates are more susceptible to damage as the fingerprint residue existing on the outermost surface is more subjected to environmental factors (Yamashita and French 2011; Almog et al 2004). Several studies demonstrated various factors that may influence the quality of developed latent prints in water including; individual variation of latent fingerprint composition, the nature of surface, time elapsed since deposition, environmental factors; such as air circulation, dust, humidity, light exposure, precipitation, temperature, ultraviolet rays and the enhancement techniques. The composition of fingerprints changes over time that may affect the efficiency of development techniques (Girod et al 2012; Archer et al 2005; Croxton et al 2010)
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