XVIII ALL INDIA CONFERENCE OF

DIRECTORS OF FINGER PRINT BUREAUX

AT
HARYANA POLICE ACADEMY (HPA)
30th and 31st March, 2017

LANDMARK CASES IN THE HISTORY

OF FINGER PRINT SCIENCE

CENTRAL FINGER PRINT BUREAU

NATIONAL CRIME RECORDS BUREAU
MINISTRY OF HOME AFFAIRS
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Case TOPIC/CASE COUNTRY & PAGE NO.

No. YEAR

I Francisca Rojas Argentina, 1892 1

II Kanglali Charan India, 1898 3

III Henry Jackson England, 1902 5

IV Alfred and Albert England, 1905 7

Stratton
V Boudet & Simonin Case France, 1912 9

VI George Kelly USA, 1933 11

VII John Herbert Dillinger USA, 1934 13

VIII Robert J. Phillips aka USA, 1941 15

Roscoe Pitts

IX Shirley Mckie Fingerprint UK, 1997 17

Scandal

X Madrid Train Bombings Spain, 2004 19

 CASE No. I

FRANCISCA ROJAS, ARGENTINA, 1892

First conviction in the modern history through fingerprints

BACKGROUND OF THE CASE: On June 19, 1892, 27-year-old Rojas

murdered her two children in Necochea, Buenos Aires Province, in Argentina,
her six-year-old son, Ponciano Carballo Rojas, and his four-year-old sister
Teresa Carballo Rojas were found brutally murdered in their home. Francisca
tried to simulate an attack by incising her own throat and then blaming the
murders on her neighbor one Pedro Ramón Velázquez.

Francisca Rojas is believed to be the first criminal established to have been

guilty through fingerprint evidence in the world. In 1892, Croatian-born,
Argentine police official Juan Vucetich helped convict Francisca Rojas for the
murder of two of her own children by identifying Rojas’ bloody fingerprints at
the crime scene.

Rare picture of Right Thumb Impression of Francisca Rojas

Francisca Rojas found of on door jamb

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INVESTIGATION OF THE CASE: The report of the murder did not reach
La Plata (the provincial capital) until July 8, 1892. Police Inspector Alvarez, of
the Central Police, was sent to Necochea to assist local police with the
investigation. When he arrived, he found police had no leads. Rojas denied
having anything to do with the children's deaths. Velázquez also implicitly
denied killing the children.

Alvarez quickly determined that Velázquez had an alibi, having been out with
several friends at the time of the murders. Alvarez also learned that Rojas' other
boyfriend had been overheard - saying he would marry her "except for those
two brats".

When Alvarez returned to La Plata with the fingerprint evidence, Vucetich's

faith in fingerprints was proven. The case laid the groundwork in proving the
superiority of fingerprints for personal identification purposes as compared to
anthropometry. As a result of the Rojas murders, Argentina became the first
country in the world to abolish anthropometry and file its criminal records based
solely on fingerprint classification. His resulting classification system is still
used in many South American countries today.
Juan Vucetich, in charge of criminal
identification at the regional headquarters,
had been intrigued by the new theories of
fingerprint identification and sent an
investigator to see if the methods could help
crack the case. Until then, the only other
method of identification was the
Bertillonage, named after its inventor,
Alphonse Bertillon, who worked for the Paris
police. This method involved the recording of
body measurements in more than 11 different
places. In an age when photography was
very expensive, Bertillonage gave police
their best chance of definitively identifying a
person.

After the Rojas case, Vucetich improved his fingerprint system, which he called
"comparative dactyloscopy." Adopted by the province of Buenos Aires in 1903,
it spread rapidly throughout the Spanish-speaking world.

***

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 CASE No. II

KANGALI CHARAN, INDIA, 1898

Outside Argentina the first use of fingerprints in a murder case was in

Bengal, India in May, 1898 when a thief called Kangali Charan was charged
with murdering his former employee.
BACKGROUND OF THE CASE: The manager of a tea garden situated in the
district of Julpaiguri (Bengal)on the Bhutan frontier was found lying on his bed
with his throat cut, his dispatch box and safe having been broken and several
hundred rupees carried away. There was suspicion also against the relatives of a
woman with whom the murdered man had a liaison, also against a wandering
gang of Kabulis of criminal propensities who had lately encamped in the
neighbourhood. A representation was also made that the deceased had an enemy
in an ex-servant whom he had caused to be imprisoned for theft. Inquiry,
however, satisfied the police that there was no evidence to incriminate the
coolies or the relatives of the woman or the Kabulis, and it was ascertained that
the ex-servant had been released from jail some weeks before, and no one could
say that he had since been seen in the district. The cook’s statement that the
marks on his clothes were stains from a pigeon’s blood which he killed for his
master’s dinner was supported by the Chemical Analyst’s report.

Fortunately amongst the papers in the despatch box was found a calendar in
book form, printed in the Bengali character, with an outside cover of light-blue
paper on which were noticed two faint brown smudges. Under a magnifying
glass one smudge was decipherable as a portion of the impression of one of the
digits of some person’s right hand.

In the Central Office of the Bengal Police, the finger impressions of all persons
convicted of certain offences are classified and registered, and the impression
on the calendar when compared there was found to correspond exactly with the
right thumb impression of Kangali Charan, the ex-servant above referred to. He,
in consequence, was arrested in Birbhum, a district some hundreds of miles
away, and brought to Calcutta, where his right thumb impression was again
taken, and the police in the meantime set about collecting corroborative
evidence.

The Chemical Examiner to Government certified that the brown marks on the
calendar were mammalian blood, the inference being that the actual murderer or

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some associate had knocked his bloodstained thumb against the calendar when
rummaging amongst the papers in the despatch box for the key of the safe. The
accused was committed to stand his trial before a judge and assessors, charged
with murder and theft, and finally was convicted of having stolen the missing
property of the deceased, the assessors holding that it would be unsafe to
convict him of murder as no one had seen the deed committed, but recording
their opinion that the charge of theft had been conclusively established against
him. This conviction was upheld by the judges of the Supreme Court, to which
the case was taken on appeal.

LOWER PUNISHMENT THEN EXPECTED: Sir Edward Richard Henry

assisted in the detection of this crime, a man was found with his throat cut in a
tea garden near where Henry was working. An ex-servant of the deceased was
suspected but the police had no evidence against him. Henry examined a book
with two bloodstained marks on it and these were identified as the fingerprints
of the suspect whose prints were on record. The man was eventually convicted
of the offence. Although fingerprints linked Kangali Charan inextricably
(inseparably) with the theft and murder of his employer, but the Indian court,
evidently wary of power of new technology (i.e. fingerprint evidence), only saw
it fit to find him guilty only of theft.

THE BELPER COMMITTEE: In December 1900, the Belper Committee in

England, chaired by Lord Belper, recommended that all criminal identification
records be classified by the fingerprint system (Lambourne, 1984, p 64). With
this recommendation, the Henry Classification System and the individualization
of criminals by means of fingerprints became standard practice in England and
would eventually be adopted in most English-speaking countries. During this
transition, other events taking place would also demonstrate the advantage of
recording friction ridge skin.

***

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 CASE NO. III

HENRY JACKSON, ENGLAND, 1902

The case of Harry Jackson is renowned as being the first criminal trial in the
United Kingdom in which an individual was convicted based on fingerprint
evidence.
BACKGROUND OF THE CASE: On June 27, 1902, a burglary occurred in a
house in Denmark Hill, London, and some billiards balls were stolen. The
investigating officer noticed a number of fingerprints on a freshly painted
windowsill, apparently where the burglar made his entry. He immediately called
the Metropolitan Police Fingerprint Bureau and Detective-Sergeant Charles
Stockley Collins went to the scene. He examined the marks and decided that the
left thumb made the clearest impression. After satisfying himself that the marks
had not left by any member of the household, Collins took a photograph of it.

The first fingerprint evidence involving a scene of crime mark in England was
heard at the Central Criminal Court on 13th September, 1902. Henry Jackson
pleaded not guilty to a charge of burglary of a house of one Mr. Charles Driscoll
Tustin at Denmark Hill, South London and stealing billiard balls on 27th June
1902. Detective Sergeant Collins examined the scene and an imprint of
Jackson’s left thumb (LTI) was found in dirt on a newly painted window-sill
(shelf). (He photographed the latent and with the assistance of colleagues
searched the latent through the relatively small offender print collection and it
was identified).

By consultation between Henry, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Stedman

and Collins, a famous barrister of the time, Richard Muir, conducted the
prosecution case, Collins explaining the system and producing photographic
enlargements and tracings of both latent and known print. Jackson was
convicted and was sentenced to 7 years penal servitude.

HARRY JACKSON’S LTI AT THE SCENE OF CRIME

The fingerprints belonged to 41-year-old Harry Jackson. Jackson, who worked
as a labourer, had previously served time in prison for burglary. Jackson was
arrested and, at that time, was handling stolen goods from a different burglary.

Since the crime of burglary required a jury trial in the Old Bailey, Edward
Henry, the Assistant Commissioner (Crime) of the Metropolitan Police

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Service and head of the Criminal Investigation Department, was determined to
make this case succeed. As the man who devised. The Henry System of
Fingerprint Classification and the founder of the Fingerprint Bureau, he knew
that only the soundest sort of Crown prosecutor would be able to convince
conservative English judges and a sceptical jury to overcome their prejudices.
For this purposes, he decided on Richard Muir, a prosecutor with a reputation
for thoroughness and exacting nature.
Henry sent Collins to Muir to brief him on fingerprinting technique for four
days. Muir afterwards became so convinced of its value that he said later on that
he would have taken a far shakier case if it could have helped Henry win public
recognition for his work.
When Harry Jackson went on trial at the Old Bailey, Muir did what he was
asked to do: he convinced the jury of the absolute reliability of fingerprints. As
a result, Harry Jackson was found guilty and sentenced to seven years in prison
on September 13, 1902.
While it clearly set a precedent on the admissibility of fingerprints as evidence,
some people were unhappy about the turn of events. As one letter to The
Times (signed by "A Disgusted Magistrate") stated: "Scotland Yard, once
known as the world’s finest police organisation, will be the laughing stock
of Europe it if insists on trying to trace criminals by odd ridges on their skins."
Jackson's status as the first person to be arrested on the basis of fingerprint
evidence was the subject of episode 4 of "Connections 2", a documentary series
by James Burke.

***

SOME OF THE LANDMARK CASES IN THE HISTORY OF FINGER PRINT SCIENCE Page 6
 CASE NO.IV

ALFRED AND ALBERT STRATTON, ENGLAND, 1905

Fingerprinting evidence was first used in England, a case of murder in 1905

at the Central Criminal Court. Alfred and Albert Stratton pleaded not guilty to
the murder of Mr. and Mrs. Farrow at their shop in Deptford.
BACKGROUND OF THE CASE: On the morning of 27th March 1905 in
Deptford, 16-year-old William Jones visited the paint shop of Thomas Farrow,
71, and his wife Ann, 65, but found the shop closed. The couple lived in a flat
above the shop, and it was very unusual for the store to still be closed at this
hour. Jones knocked on the door numerous times and, when he received no
response, peered through the window. He was alarmed by the sight of numerous
chairs knocked over so went for help. He approached a local resident, Louis
Kidman, and the two forced their way into the shop around the back of the
building. Once inside, they discovered the beaten dead body of Mr Farrow in a
pool of blood and the unconscious body of his wife.

Mrs Farrow was rushed to hospital and the police were called. Unfortunately
she died a few days later. There were no signs of forced entry, however an
empty cash box was found on the floor of the dishevelled flat, suggesting a
burglary had occurred. Further examination of the scene turned up two black
masks made from stockings. Police speculated that the attackers had knocked on
the door in the middle of the night or early in the morning and, when Mr Farrow
opened the door, attacked him and barged inside, proceeding to attack his wife
in the bedroom.
The cash box was examined and a greasy fingerprint found on the inside, at
which point the box was carefully collected and transported to Scotland Yard’s
Fingerprinting Bureau. Detective Inspector Charles Collins, who was heading
the Bureau at the time, examined the print and established it was most likely
from the thumb of an individual. The print was compared with those of the two
victims, the officers at the crime scene, and the 80,000+ sets of prints kept on
file by the Bureau, but no match was found.
With the fingerprint evidence trail cold, police began interviewing possible
witnesses to the crime. Fortunately numerous individuals claimed seeing two
men leaving the Farrows’ shop early the morning of the murder, and one
witness was able to identify one of the men as Alfred Stratton. Alfred and his

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brother Albert did not have criminal records, but they were well-known by
police for their involvement in criminal circles. The witness descriptions
matched the two brothers, and Alfred’s girlfriend informed police that he had
given away a set of clothes worn that day, clothing that was described by
witnesses as being worn by a man leaving the crime scene. Furthermore, he had
asked her for a pair of stockings. Albert’s girlfriend was also interviewed and
confessed that Albert had returned home that morning with unexplained money.
During examination of the scene an impression was found on a cash box.
Inspector Collins gave evidence in this case and explained the identification
system with the aid of a blackboard and photographic enlargements of the
impression from the cash box and the right thumb of Alfred Stratton.

Right Thumb Impression of Alfred

Stratton

The prosecution was again conducted by Richard Muir, and the jury found the
Strattons guilty. They were later hanged.
***

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 CASE NO. V

BOUDET & SIMONIN CASE, FRANCE, 1912

First case solved using Locard’s Poroscopy

BACKGROUND OF THE CASE: On June 19, 1912 the apartment of M.

Chardonnet, at No. 6 Rue Centrale, was broken into and several pieces of
jewellery together with 400 francs in money were stolen. There was no witness
and no clue to the thieves; but a rosewood box in which the jewellery had been
kept was literally covered with blurred finger marks. These were developed
with carbonate of lead and photographed. On comparing these with the
collections at headquarters an assistant named Chambon discovered that certain
impressions belonged to a man by the name of Boudet who had been sentenced
several times before for theft. On looking up the records, it was found that
Boudet habitually operated with a pal named Simonin. The two were put under
arrest and impressions of their hands, other than the fingerprints, were
taken. There were obtained from the prints which covered the box, a fair
impression of the middle phalange of the left middle finger of Boudet and one
of a small area of the left palm of Simonin. From the ridges alone, in the usual
way, there were established 78 points of identity for the first (Boudet) and 94
for the second (Simonin). Yet, as the accused would not confess, the case was
brought before the assizes.

Pores can be seen as white dots on black ridges.

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Here the jury was shown enlarged photographs of the regions in question, taken
both from the impressions on the box and from the men themselves, developed
in the same way. In addition to the ridge details, emphasis was laid upon the
correspondence of the pores of which, in the area from Boudet's finger, there
were 901 separate pores. All of these, allowing for the difference in the amount
of pressure, were shown to correspond exactly. In the area from the palm of
Simonin there were more than 2000 such correspondences.

Born in 1877, Dr Edmond Locard was

a French criminalist renowned for
being a pioneer in forensic science and
criminology, often informally referred
to as the “Sherlock Holmes of France”.
Whilst studying medicine he developed
an interest in the application of science
to legal matters, writing his thesis on
Legal Medicine under the Great King
(La medicine legale sous le Grand
Roy). He went on to publish over 40
pieces of work, the most famous being
his seven-volume series Traite de
criminalistique (Treaty of
Criminalistics).

Dr Edmond Locard is considered as also

considered as Father of Poroscsopy

The use of poroscopy as a positive method of identification is rare, if not non-

existent today. The general feeling of identification specialists and others
working in the field is that Poroscopy has little practical value due to the
minuteness of its detail and the failure of pore structure to be reproduced
consistently in crime scene and inked fingerprint impressions. The acceptance
of this train of thought without challenge has, no doubt, allowed a valuable
method of identification to slowly slip into oblivion.

***

SOME OF THE LANDMARK CASES IN THE HISTORY OF FINGER PRINT SCIENCE Page 10
 CASE NO. VI

GEORGE KELLY, USA, 1933

Smart victim

BACKGROUND OF THE CASE: George “Machine Gun” Kelly was a

notorious criminal during the Prohibition era, taking part in bootlegging,
kidnapping and armed robbery. On July 22, 1933, he and another man
kidnapped wealthy Oklahoma City oilman Charles Urschel. After a series
of ransom notes and communications, a $200,000 ransom was paid — the
largest amount ever paid in a kidnapping to date.

The kidnappers set up an elaborate system for the handling of their

captive and the delivery of the ransom. But they didn’t count on
Urschel’s sharp mind and the authorities keeping track the ransom
money’s serial numbers. The ransom was delivered on July 30 in Kansas
City and Urschel was released the next day. He was unharmed and,
although blindfolded some of the time, he was able to provide a number
of clues to authorities. From Urschel’s descriptions of what he heard and
saw while being held hostage, the authorities were able to figure out that
he must have been near Paradise, Texas. Earlier there also had been a tip
that the Kellys were involved.

SOME OF THE LANDMARK CASES IN THE HISTORY OF FINGER PRINT SCIENCE Page 11
SMART VICTIM-URSCHEL

The oilman had shrewdly paid close attention to every detail during his ordeal
and was able to relate it all to police. Although he was blindfolded, he could tell
day from night and was able to estimate the time of day that he heard airplanes
fly above. He also noted the date and time of a thunderstorm and the types of
animals he heard in what he presumed to be a farmhouse. Using his memories,
the FBI pinpointed the likely location in which Urschel was held to a farm
owned by Kelly’s father-in-law. What truly linked Kelly and his gang to the
kidnapping, though, was Urschel’s fingerprints, which he made sure to place on
as many items in the house as possible. Kelly was sentenced to life in prison,
where he died in 1954.

GEORGE KELLY: The once-notorious Machine Gun Kelly was mocked in

the news as "Pop Gun Kelly." He was sent to Alcatraz Prison in California,
home to many hardened criminals, including Al Capone. In the 1950s, Kelly
moved to Leavenworth, Kansas, where he died of heart failure on July 18, 1954.

Today, Kelly is remembered, along with the likes of "Pretty Boy" Floyd, "Baby
Face" Nelson, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, as one of the criminals that
made up the Midwest crime wave of the early 1930s.

***

SOME OF THE LANDMARK CASES IN THE HISTORY OF FINGER PRINT SCIENCE Page 12
 CASE NO. VII

JOHN HERBERT DILLINGER, USA, 1934

Finger tips burnt with acid to eliminate fingerprints

JOHN HERBERT DILLINGER (June 22, 1903 – July 22, 1934) was an
American gangster in the Depression-era United States. He operated with a
group of men known by some as the Dillinger Gang or Terror Gang, which was
accused of robbing 24 banks and four police stations, among other activities.
Dillinger escaped from jail twice. He was also charged with, but never
convicted of, the murder of an East Chicago, Indiana, police officer who shot
Dillinger in his bullet-proof vest during a shootout, prompting him to return
fire; it was, ironically (given his infamy), Dillinger's only homicide charge.
In the heyday of the Depression-era outlaw (1933–1934), Dillinger was the
most notorious of all, standing out even among more violent criminals such
as Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Bonnie and Clyde, as evidenced by
the fact that decades later, the first major book about 1930s gangsters was
titled The Dillinger Days. He courted publicity and the media of his time ran
exaggerated accounts of his bravado and colorful personality, styling him as
a Robin Hood figure, causing the government to demand federal action. In
response, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover developed a more
sophisticated Bureau as a weapon against organized crime, using Dillinger and
his gang as his campaign platform.
After evading police in four states for almost a year, Dillinger was wounded and
returned to his father's home to recover. He returned to Chicago in July 1934
and met his end at the hands of police and federal agents who were informed of
his whereabouts by Ana Cumpanas (the owner of the brothel where Dillinger
had sought refuge at the time). On July 22, 1934, the police and the Division of
Investigation closed in on the Biograph Theater. Federal agents, led by Melvin
Purvis and Samuel P. Cowley, moved to arrest Dillinger as he exited the theatre.
He drew a Colt Model 1908 Vest Pocket and attempted to flee, but was shot
four times and killed.

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John Dillinger (1903-1934) used acid to burn his fingerprints in an attempt to
permanently change them by removing the ridge patterns. He failed, and the
fingerprints that reappeared were identical to the ones he had tried to change.

***

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 CASE NO. VIII

ROBERT J. PHILLIPS AKA ROSCOE PITTS, USA, 1941

Fingertips sutured to his chest

History’s most famous case is Robert J. Phillips aka Roscoe Pitts who in 1941
had his fingertips sutured to his chest for weeks in an effort to smooth out his
prints. A long time-criminal doing bank robberies and burglaries, Phillips made
his New Jersey physician perform this painful operation. Phillips, however, was
identified on the basis of the unaltered peripheral skin areas surrounding his
fingertips and the pattern on the second joint of his fingers.

John Dillinger (1903–1934) used acid to burn his fingerprints in an attempt to

permanently change them by removing the ridge patterns. He failed, and the
fingerprints that reappeared were identical to the ones he had tried to change. In
a more dramatic attempt to permanently alter his fingerprints, another American
criminal named Roscoe Pitts had a plastic surgeon remove the skin from the
first joints of his fingers and replace it with skin grafts from his chest.
Investigators were able to identify him from his fingerprints and his palm print.

HOW WAS THE OPERATION PERFORMED?

Using a knife, the doctor peeled the skin from Philipps’ right fingers then taped
his hand to skin that had been pulled away from his chest. Three weeks later,
when the chest skin had grown onto his fingers, the hand was separated from his

SOME OF THE LANDMARK CASES IN THE HISTORY OF FINGER PRINT SCIENCE Page 15
chest. The technique worked; on the tips of Philipps’ fingers were patches of
smooth, pink skin. The doctor repeated the process on his patient’s left hand.
Philipps endured six weeks of boredom and pain but when it was over he was
delighted with the results.

The FBI fingerprint people compared the fingerprint cards of Roscoe Pitts and
Robert Philipps and found enough detail it Pitt’s obliterated prints to match
them to Philipps’ impressions. The match-up confirmed Dr. Brandenburg’s
identification of Roscoe Pitts as Robert Philipps. Once identified, the police in
Austin sent Philipps back to North Carolina where he was tried and convicted
of the warehouse burglary.

***

SOME OF THE LANDMARK CASES IN THE HISTORY OF FINGER PRINT SCIENCE Page 16
 CASE NO. IX

SHIRLEY MCKIE FINGERPRINT SCANDAL, UK, 1997

False implication due to erroneous comparison and identification

Shirley McKie (born August 1962) is a former Scottish police detective who
was accused by fingerprint analysis staff of the Scottish Criminal Record Office
(SCRO) of leaving her thumb print on the bathroom door frame of a murder
crime-scene in Kilmarnock on 14 January 1997.
Shirley McKie denied she had ever been in the house of murder victim Marion
Ross, but Detective Constable McKie was initially suspended, then sacked, then
arrested by Strathclyde Police in 1998, and tried and acquitted in 1999. In
February 2006, the former detective received a £750,000 out-of-court
settlement.
A scandal subsequently developed because of allegations of misconduct on the
part of the SCRO and the police. With continuing public concern over what
became known as the Shirley McKie fingerprint scandal, Scottish Justice
Secretary Kenny MacAskill announced in March 2008, that a public inquiry
into the case would begin in September of that year.
The Fingerprint Inquiry report was published on 14 December 2011.

Shirley McKie (born August 1962)

BRIEF CASE HISTORY

On 6 January 1997, the body of Marion Ross was found in her home in
Kilmarnock. She had been stabbed multiple times during what is presumed to
have been an act of housebreaking. David Asbury, a handyman who had once
worked on the Ross house, developed as a suspect. A fingerprint found on a tin
box in Asbury's home was reported to be that of Marion Ross by examiners at

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the Scottish Criminal Records Office. The SCRO also reported they had
identified a fingerprint found on the gift tag on an unopened Christmas present
inside the Ross home as that of David Asbury. While checking other,
unidentified fingerprints from the victim's home, examiners reported one of
those prints to have been identified as Constable McKie's. During Asbury's
murder trial in which he was found guilty, McKie testified she had not been
inside the home and could not have left her fingerprint.
Because Marion Ross was known to hoard possessions, making it possible for
Asbury to have left a print on the gift tag years earlier while he was working at
the home, the print on the tin box in Asbury's home became the key piece of
evidence in the case against him. McKie's testimony at Asbury's trial that she
could not have left a print inside the Ross home implied, if true, that the SCRO
examiners were capable of error in a fingerprint comparison. David Asbury was
subsequently freed from a life sentence due to questions raised about the
identification of the print on the tin box. Other features of the case include
allegations that police tried to link DC McKie to the actual murder and that they
conducted a whispering campaign to discredit her, inventing a non-existent
affair with a married male detective, and claiming that her denial of ever having
been at the murder scene was made in an attempt to cover up a sexual liaison
with the detective there

***

SOME OF THE LANDMARK CASES IN THE HISTORY OF FINGER PRINT SCIENCE Page 18
 CASE NO. X

MADRID TRAIN BOMBINGS, SPAIN, 2004

Case of Erroneous Identification, blot on the image of finger print fraternity

BACKGROUND OF THE CASE: In the morning of 11 March 2004, ten

synchronised bombs went off on regional commuter trains killing 192 people
and injuring more than 1,500. The 2004 Madrid train bombings (also known
in Spain as 11-M) were nearly simultaneous, coordinated bombings against the
Cercanias commuter train system of Madrid, Spain. The explosions ripped
through train carriages during the morning rush hour in what was the deadliest
terrorist attack in Europe since the Second World War.
The Madrid blasts were Europe’s 9/11. As the aftermath was broadcast in real
time, viewers watched the horror of a premeditated act of mass murder with a
sense of grief and shock. The Spanish and European reactions to the attack,
however, were very different to the military response triggered by the collapse
of the twin towers.

FALSE IMPLICATION OF A LAWYER: Mayfield, a lawyer, as a material

witness in an investigation of terrorist attacks on commuter trains in Madrid,
Spain. The FBI Laboratory maintained that Mayfield’s fingerprint was found
on a bag of detonators in Madrid that was connected to the attacks. Two weeks
after Mayfield was arrested, the Spanish National Police advised the FBI that it
had identified another individual named Ouhnane Daoud as the source of the
fingerprint. After the FBI examined Daoud’s fingerprints, it realized that it had
made a mistake and released Mayfield from custody.

Brandon Mayfield was falsely

accused of involvement in the
Madrid train bombing on the
basis of the mistaken analysis
of fingerprint evidence.

Brandon Mayfield: Mayfield, who had not travelled out of the United States
for 10 years, claimed the fingerprint was not a good match. Mayfield was held

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in custody for two weeks, until the Spanish authorities told the FBI that the
mark was, in fact, that of an Algerian citizen.

Closed-circuit television
captured this image just
seconds after three bombs
exploded at Madrid's Atocha
train station on 11 March
2004. The attacks killed 191
people and injured 2000
others.

ERRONEOUS IDENTIFICATION: In light of the fallibility of human nature,

and the serious consequences of making a mistake, it is important that
fingerprint examiners be held to a high standard of performance. Results need to
be checked and double-checked to prevent false convictions and to maintain the
integrity of the science.

SOME OF THE LANDMARK CASES IN THE HISTORY OF FINGER PRINT SCIENCE Page 20
Following the misidentification of Mayfield, the Office of the Inspector
General (OIG) investigated the causes of the misidentification and issued
its written conclusions.

The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) identified the following six primary
causes of error:

1. Although Mayfield and Daoud did not have identical fingerprints, they did,
nevertheless, have very similar-looking prints;

2. After the FBI found as many as 10 points of unusual similarity between

Mayfield’s fingerprint and the fingerprint located on the bag of detonators, "the
FBI examiners began to ‘find‘ additional features in [the fingerprint on the bag]
that were not really there, but rather were suggested to the examiners by
features in the Mayfield prints. As a result of this process, murky or ambiguous
details in [the fingerprint on the bag] were erroneously identified as points of
similarity with Mayfield’s prints."

3. The FBI fingerprint examiners "apparently misinterpreted distortions in [the

fingerprint on the bag] as real features corresponding to [extremely tiny details]
seen in Mayfield’s known fingerprints." Thus, whereas error #1 had to do with
comparatively large fingerprint details, error #3 had to do with extremely tiny
details.

4. FBI fingerprint examiners are taught to adhere to the "one discrepancy rule"
according to which "a single difference in appearance between [an unknown]
print and a known fingerprint must preclude an identification unless the
examiner has a valid explanation for the difference." In Mayfield’s case, the
examiners failed to adhere to this rule when they accepted an "extraordinary set
of coincidences" and "cumulatively required too many rationalizations to
support an identification with the requisite certainty."

5. As noted in error #2 above, the FBI found as many as 10 points of unusual

similarity between Mayfield’s fingerprint and the fingerprint located on the bag
of detonators. "However, the limited clarity of [the fingerprint on the bag]
prevented the examiners from making an accurate determination of the type of
many of these points (that is, whether they were ending ridges or bifurcations”.

6. Although the Spanish National Police advised the FBI on April 13, 2004 that
the fingerprint on the bag of detonators did not match Mayfield’s prints, the FBI
nevertheless arrested Mayfield more than three weeks later on May 6, 2004. In
SOME OF THE LANDMARK CASES IN THE HISTORY OF FINGER PRINT SCIENCE Page 21
what is certainly an understatement, the OIG concluded that "the FBI
Laboratory’s overconfidence in the skill and superiority of its examiners
prevented it from taking the [April 13 report] as seriously as it should have.”

WHAT FBI SHOULD HAVE DONE

According to the OIG, what the FBI should have done was

1. Determine precisely why the Spanish National Police examiners believed that
Mayfield’s fingerprints did not match the print on the bag before arresting him;
and

2. Have a new FBI examiner examine the fingerprint on the bag in order to
verify whether or not it was Mayfield’s.

3. In reviewing the OIG’s report, the two things that stand out to me the most
are:

The fact that the six errors discussed in this article were committed by not just
one person but by four people including: a fingerprint examiner with the FBI
Latent Print Unit, a second FBI Latent Print Unit examiner, a Unit Chief in the
FBI Latent Print Unit, and an independent expert appointed by the judge to
review the FBI’s fingerprint identification.

The fact that the FBI arrested Mayfield, searched his home and office, and took
items from those two locations three weeks after being told by the Spanish
National Police that Mayfield’s fingerprints did not match the print on the bag
of detonators.
***

DISCLAIMER

Printed only for circulation in the Finger Print Directors Conference. Not to
be used as reference material, or shared for any other purpose whatsoever.

Compiled and edited By: mr. S. p. Singh, dy. Supdt.

(Fp), CFpB/nCrB, new delhi-110 066

SOME OF THE LANDMARK CASES IN THE HISTORY OF FINGER PRINT SCIENCE Page 22
 Central
entral Finger Print Bureau
National Crime Records Bureau
Ministry of Home Affairs
East Block-7,
7, R.K. Puram, New Delhi – 110066
E
E-mail: [email protected]
Website:http://ncrb.gov.in
Fax:011 26197984

SOME OF THE LANDMARK CASES IN THE HISTORY OF FINGER PRINT SCIENCE Page 23