The History of
Forensic Science
“The times have been, That, when the brains were out, the man would die, And there an end; but now they rise again…”
--William Shakespeare, Macbeth

BC
• Evidence of fingerprints exists in early paintings and rock carvings of pre-historic humans.

1000
• Quintilian, an attorney in the Roman courts, showed that bloody palm prints were meant to frame a blind man of his mother’s murder.

1248
• A Chinese book, His Duan Yu (the washing away of wrongs), contains a description of how to distinguish drowning
(characterized by water in the lungs) from strangulation. This is the first recorded application of medical knowledge to the solution of crime.

1533
• An important judicial development
• Holy Roman Emperor Charles V published his Constitutio Criminalis Carolina (the
Carolina Code )
• The Carolina Code specified that expert medical advice be obtained in cases of unnatural death

1813
• Mathieu Orfila, a Spaniard who became professor of medicinal/forensic chemistry at University of Paris, is considered the father of modern toxicology.
• He is credited as the first to attempt the use of a microscope in the assessment of blood and semen stains.
• Famous for his work on arsenic poisoning.

Case Study ¹
• Marie Lafarge, 22 years old and only recently married, poisoned her husband in
1839. She was found guilty and eventually sentenced to prison with hard labor.

1823
• The first paper on the nature of fingerprints was published.
• It suggested a classification system based on 9 major types. However, there was still failure to recognize their individual potential.

1836
• James Marsh, a Scottish chemist, was the first to use toxicology (arsenic detection) in a jury trial.

1863
• A German scientist discovered the ability of hemoglobin to oxidize hydrogen peroxide making it foam.
• This resulted in first presumptive test for blood.

1864
• First advocated use of photography for documentation of evidence and crime scenes was established.

1883
• Alphonse Bertillion, a French criminologist, established the use of physical measurements to identify recidivist criminals (Bertillonage).
• Adopted by the French and other police forces until replaced with fingerprinting.

Portrait Parle’
• “Portrait in words”
• Known as “mug shots”
• Another innovation of Bertillon

1889
• First attempts to try to individualize bullets to a gun barrel were performed in France.

1891
• Hans Gross published Criminal
Investigation , the first comprehensive description of uses of physical evidence in solving crime.
• Gross is also credited with coining the word, criminalistics .

1892
• Sir Francis Galton published Fingerprints , the first comprehensive book on the nature of fingerprints and their use in solving crime.
• Galton identifies the characteristics by which fingerprints can be identified
( minutia ), basically still in use today, and often referred to as GALTON ´s Details .

1896
• Sir Edward Richard Henry developed the print classification system that would come to be used in Europe and North America.
• He published Classification and Uses of
Finger Prints.

1900
• Karl Landsteiner, an Austrian physiologist, identified the four basic types of human blood.
• He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1930 for this discovery.
• In 1940 he identified the Rhesus (RH)
Factor.

1901
• German biologist, Paul Uhlenhuth, designed a test to distinguish human blood from that of animals and identify the animal species.

1905
• American President Theodore Roosevelt established the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI)

1910
• Dr. Edmond Locard, a professor of forensic medicine at the University of
Lyons, France, established the first police crime laboratory.
• Locard’s Principle: “Every contact leaves a trace.” Meaning every criminal leaves something of himself at a crime scene and carries something away.

1916
• Albert Schneider of Berkeley, California, first used a vacuum apparatus to collect trace evidence.

1921
• John Larson and Leonard Keeler designed the portable polygraph.
• In 1923, in Frye vs. United States , polygraph test results were ruled inadmissible.

1925
• Saburo Sirai , a Japanese scientist, is credited with the first recognition of secretion of group-specific antigens into body fluids other than blood.
• Secretor (80%) vs. non-secretor (20%)

1932
• The FBI crime lab was created under J.
Edgar Hoover.

1937
• The first paper about the usefulness of secretor status for forensic applications was published.
• Dr. Walter Specht, a German scientist, developed luminol as a presumptive test for blood.

1940s
• Methods of comparing teeth from a corpse to dental records are developed by Keith
Simpson.

1950
• Max Frei-Sulzer, founder of the first Swiss criminalistics lab, developed the tape lift method of collecting trace evidence.

1950
• The American Academy of Forensic
Science (AAFS) was formed in Chicago.
• The group began publication of the
Journal of Forensic Science.

1954
• R.F. Borkenstein, captain of the Indiana
State Police, invented the Breathalyzer for field sobriety testing.

1972
• Dr. William Bass started the Body Farm with one body and a small plot of ground in the fall of 1972.
• The Body Farm was started to study how bodies decompose.
• It is located in Knoxville near the University of
Tennessee Medical Center.

1977
•
, a trace evidence examiner in
, notices his own fingerprints developing on microscope slides while mounting hairs from a taxi driver murder case. He relates the information to co-worker
, a latent print examiner. Soba would later that year be the first to develop latent prints intentionally by
“Superglue®” fuming.

Portable Fuming Chamber

1977
• The FBI introduced the beginnings of its
Automated Fingerprint Identification
System (AFIS) with the first computerized scans of fingerprints.

1983
• Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) was first conceived by Kary Mullis while working for Cetus Corporation.
• He was awarded a $10,000 bonus from
Cetus.
• In 1989 Cetus sold the patent to PCR to
Roche Molecular Systems for
$300,000,000
• Mullis was awarded the Nobel Prize in
Chemistry in 1993.

1984
• Alec Jeffreys developed the first DNA profiling test.
• It involved the detection of a multilocus
RFLP pattern.
• Restriction Fragment Length
Polymorphism (RFLP)

1986
• In the first use of DNA to solve a crime, Jeffreys used DNA profiling to identify Colin Pitchfork as the murderer of two young girls in
England. Significantly, in the course of the investigation, DNA was first used to exonerate an innocent suspect.

1987
• DNA profiling was introduced for the first time in a US criminal court.
• Based on RFLP analysis performed by
Lifecodes, Tommy Lee Andrews was convicted of a series of sexual assaults in
Orlando, FL.

1987
• New York vs. Castro was the first case in which admissibility of DNA was seriously challenged.
• It set in motion a string of events that culminated in a call for certification, accreditation, standardization, and quality control guidelines for both DNA labs and the general forensic community.

1990
• The FBI Laboratory's Combined DNA
Index System (CODIS) blends forensic science and computer technology into an effective tool for solving violent crimes.
CODIS enables federal, state, and local crime labs to exchange and compare DNA profiles electronically, thereby linking crimes to each other and to convicted offenders.

Case Study ²
• In September of 1977, 6 year-old Lisa
Marie Bonham and her family were vacationing in Reno, NV. While playing at a small amusement park,
Lisa left her brother decided to go get an extra dollar from her parents in order to go on more rides. She was never seen again. Clothes that she was wearing were later discovered in
Toiybe National Forest, Nevada.

In 1977 the technology to complete DNA testing was not readily available. However, in a continuing effort to solve this case, the blood recovered from the found clothing was analyzed and tested. A DNA profile was obtained and entered into the Nevada State DNA database at the Washoe County Sheriff's Office Crime
Laboratory. This database search resulted in a match to 57 year-old Stephen Robert Smith who had been on parole since his release from prison in 1976 for a previous conviction for sexually molesting two young girls. The Reno
Police Department arrested Smith for the 23 year old unsolved homicide, and on October 4,
2000, Smith plead guilty.

1991
• Walsh Automation Inc., in Montreal, launched development of an automated imaging system called Integrated
Identification System , or IBIS , for comparison of the marks left on fired bullets, cartridge and shell casings.
• This system was developed for the US market in collaboration with the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF).

1992
• The National Research Council Committee on Forensic DNA published DNA
Technology in Forensic Science in response to concerns about the practice of forensic DNA analysis and interpretation of results.

1992
• The FBI contracted with Mnemonic
Systems to develop Drugfire , an automated imaging system to compare marks left on cartridge and shell casings.
• The ability to compare fired bullets was added later.

1994
• The DNA Identification Act of 1994 (Public
Law 103 322) formalized the FBI's authority to establish a national DNA index for law enforcement purposes.

1996
• In response to continued concerns about the statistical interpretation of forensic
DNA evidence, a second National Council
Committee on Forensic DNA was convened and published The Evaluation of
Forensic DNA Evidence.

1996
• The FBI introduced computerized searches of the AFIS fingerprint database.
• Live scan and card scan devices allowed interdepartmental submissions.
• Mitochondrial DNA typing was admitted for the first time in a US court.

Case Study ³
When Paul Ware was awakened from a drunken sleep, the body of a four-year-old girl, brutalized and lifeless, lay by his side.
Ware, 27, who rented a room in the girl's home in Tennessee, pleaded innocence, blaming the child's rape and murder on the male babysitter. The little girl's blood was not found on Ware, nor was his semen found on her body. However, during the autopsy, a small red hair was discovered lodged in the child's throat.
Ware, a redhead, professed no knowledge of the crime.

A new technique known as mitochondrial DNA typing confirmed that the hair in the girl's throat belonged to Ware. The
State of Tennessee vs. Paul Ware in 1996 became the first case in the United States to introduce mitochondrial DNA evidence at trial. Ware was subsequently convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

1999
• The FBI upgraded its computerized fingerprint database and implemented the
Integrated Automated Fingerprint
Identification System (IAFIS), allowing paperless submission, storage, and search capabilities directly to the national database maintained at the FBI.

IAFIS allows examiners to compare latent print evidence to a repository of known prints

1999
• A Memorandum of Understanding is signed between the FBI and ATF, allowing the use of the National Integrated Ballistics
Network (NIBIN), to facilitate exchange of firearms data between Drugfire and IBIS.