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Jan 1, 700
Chinese use fingerprints
Chinese discovered a way to use fingerprints to identify documents and clay sculptures. Even though this was an important discovery, they did not have a formal system to go with it. -
Jan 1, 1000
Roman Murder Case
In the year 1000, the roman court was dealing with a murder case. They found that bloody palm prints were used to frame a man in his own brothers murder. -
Jan 1, 1149
Investigating Questionable Death
King Richard of England introduced the idea of the coroner to investigate questionable death. The coroner, in England, is an official responsible for protecting the private property of the Crown. -
Jan 1, 1200
Blood Residue
A murder in China is solved when flies were attracted to invisible blood residue on a sword of a man in the community -
John Toms
John Toms was a man found guilty of murder due to one of the first cases where physical evidence was found and used in trial. He had a torn edge of newspaper in a pistol matching a remaining piece in his pocket. -
Photography
By the 1870s crime scene photography had developed. The idea spread to multiple countries by this time. Back then, professional photographers would be told to take posed portraits of the criminals. This led to the mug shot known today -
Leaving Traces
Edmond Locard was a French criminalist. He is thought of as a pioneer for forensics. Locard came up with an exchange principle that spoke of the transfer of evidence between objects. His theory is that “every contact leaves a trace”. This means when two objects come into contact with one another, they will take something from the other object or leave something behind.
