Reproduction of Foot and Tire Tracks by Plaster of Paris Casting

Abstract

Occasionally, tire tracks or foot prints are found at various crime scenes. The preservation of this evidence can most generally be easily solved by the use of plaster of paris properly applied to the impressions left at the crime scene. Plaster of paris will reproduce in good detail, a foot print or tire track, imprinted in mouldable materials such as snow, moist clay, dry or moist garden soil, mud, and mud covered by water, etc. Plaster of paris is a very suitable medium with which to attack this problem of reproducing foot prints or tire tracks because it is easy to use, costs very little money, and takes only a little practice to learn the various techniques necessary to make a good cast. The cast can be made and taken out of the mouldable material (depending upon what it is) in a short time-thirty minutes to two hours. A little training, patience, and effort on the part of a field investigator will pay big dividends. The various pieces of equipment (listed below) used in making plaster casts, as well as the various procedures (suggested later on throughout the article) have been used many times by the writer. The subject material in this article represents the subject areas of plaster of paris casting as it is taught to the police officers attending the training sessions of the Southern Police Institute.