Examples of Finger and Palm Identifications by use of PrintQuest® AFIS-APIS

These two examples are not typical in that the crimes originally occurred before the AFIS system was installed and were later identified as a result of searching old, unidentified crime scene latents. Now that the AFIS system is firmly established, Crime Scene Latents are typically searched the same day or day after the crime occurred and the results conveyed to the Police Investigators the same day. All names and addresses have been omitted in order to preserve confidentiality. The images are screen prints of the comparisons on the PrintQuest® AFIS system, due to size constraints the image quality is much lower in this document than shown on the actual printouts.


Case One: Palm

On 31st January 2003 an employee of a Motor Vehicle Service Centre discovered that during the previous night the outer fence to their yard had been scaled and a number of vehicles in the yard had been opened and tampered with. One Vehicle in particular, a Ford Transit Van, had been opened and a large battery had been removed.

Later that day a Crime Scene Investigator from the Bermuda Police attended the premises and examined the vehicle. Powder was dusted onto certain areas around the battery compartment and latent palm marks became visible. Green powder was used and two areas of latent palm mark were found on the battery compartment. Each of these were lifted onto vinyl sheets using low-adhesive tape.

On 19th February 2003 these latent palm marks were received by the Fingerprint Department. The latent palm marks were assessed by Fingerprint Officers and one of the two was found to be insufficient for identification purposes. The other latent palm mark was of poor quality with lots of background interference from the surface it had been lifted from but was identifiable. At this time there was no facility for searching latent palm marks and as there was no known suspect for this crime the latent palm mark was filed.

In July 2003 Bermuda Police Fingerprint Unit took possession of its first AFIS system, PrintQuest® by Spex Forensics. This system was a stand-alone system for searching both fingers and palms. All Bermuda's tenprint card collection of 8,700 people was input on the AFIS system and all unidentified latent finger and palm marks were input onto the system for search.

On 8th August 2003 the latent palm mark from the case above were searched on the AFIS system. This Latent palm mark was input as both left or right hands. After the auto-encoding by the system, the Fingerprint Expert edited the image slightly so that there were no bogus or doubtful minutiae. 42 minutiae points were marked. A search was launched against all palm prints held for known criminals and a list of the top 20 most likely candidates was requested by the operator. After a search time of less than five minutes the AFIS system completed its comparison and presented a list of candidates in order of their computer generated score. At the top of this list was a left palm print held on record for a known criminal. 30 of the minutiae points were matched to this left palm print by the AFIS system giving the suspect a machine generated score of 4665 (out of a maximum score of 10000). The Fingerprint Expert quickly confirmed that this was an identification and the Police Criminal Investigation Department for that area was informed on that day - the same day as the search.

On the 18th September 2003 the identified person was arrested and denied his involvement in this crime. He was finger and palm printed in order to confirm his identity and these finger and palm prints were sent to the Fingerprint Unit. At this point the Fingerprint Expert prepared a statement of identification for court.

On 17th November 2003 this person was brought to Hamilton Magistrates Court in Bermuda for trial. He pleaded not-guilty to the offence of Breaking and Entering. The Fingerprint Expert presented his evidence of identification to the court and this was the only evidence presented. Based on the testimony of the Fingerprint Expert the suspect was found guilty by the court and due to his previous criminal record was sentenced to serve time in jail.


Case TWO: Finger

On 24th April 2003 an employee of a Boat Yard discovered that one of the boats they had in dry dock for mechanical repairs had been tampered with. The rear propeller and engine had been removed from its position and was lying nearby. Other mechanical parts from the boat were missing and the inside of the boat had been searched.

Later that day a Crime Scene Investigator from the Bermuda Police attended the boat yard and examined the boat. Powder was dusted onto certain areas of the boat and latent fingermarks became apparent. Both black powder and white powder were used depending on the surface powdered. Seven areas of latent fingermarks were found on the propeller housing and engine cover. Each of these were lifted onto vinyl sheets using low-adhesive tape.

On 7th May 2003 these latent fingermark lifts were received by the Fingerprint Department and an initial manual search was commenced. Unfortunately no identification was made.

In July 2003 Bermuda Police Fingerprint Unit took possession of its AFIS system, PrintQuest® by Spex Forensics.

On 29th July 2003 the latent fingermarks from the case above were searched and an identification was made. This Latent finger mark was input as both a left-sloping loop or a whorl pattern and as all ten fingers. 28 minutiae points were marked. A search was launched on the AFIS system against the 8,700 tenprint forms on the database and in less than a minute the result of the search was received. The top candidate presented by the AFIS system was identification. The AFIS system matched 22 of the minutiae points to the left forefinger of a known criminal held on record. A machine generated score of 8598 (out of a maximum score of 10000) was given to this candidate.

After confirmation of the identification was made using the original latent print lifts and tenprint card the Police Criminal Investigation Department for that area was informed on that day.

On 29th October 2003 this person was arrested and denied committing this offence. At court early in 2004 a Fingerprint expert gave evidence that this person's fingerprints had been found on the propeller and engine housing of the boat. When faced with this testimony the suspect changed his plea to Guilty and was sentenced to serve time in jail.

Bermuda Police Service. Peter Downes, Supervisor. October 2004.

Note from SPEX on latest statistics:
Total confirmed hits: 375 confirmed hits within 11 months!
- Hits on latent fingerprints since installation: 254 hits.
- Hits on latent palmprints since installation: 121 hits. (Including 6 phalanx hits which are the first cold hits on phalanx areas by an APIS)
Out of these 375 hits, 332 were in position ONE in the candidate list, i.e. 88.5% of confirmed hits!
Database size: 9500 people


(18.10.2004)

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