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Francisca Rojas
First person to be found guilty based on fingerprint evidence. She beat her two children to death and blamed the murder on a man named Velasquez. Juan Vucetich found a bloody fingerprint in her home, compared the fingerprint with Rojas', and found it to be hers. -
The Stratton Brothers
Thomas Farrow, who worked in a shop in Deptford, London and his wife were murdered. Albert and Alfred Stratton's fingerprints were found on the cash box in the shop. This case is significant in that it is the first murder case that used fingerprint evidence in Britain. -
Thomas Jennings
First person in the United States to be convicted of the murder of Clarence Hiller based on his fingerprints. The Illinois Supreme Court confirmed that fingerprints were a valid source of identification. -
Vicenzo Perugia
Man convicted of stealing Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa from the Louvre Museum in Paris. His fingerprint was found on the glass protecting the painting, and two years later, Vicenzo Perugia was arrested. -
John Dillinger
Burned off his fingertips with acid but failed to remove all of it. The FBI were able to track him down and shoot him. Significance: revealed that fingerprints do grow back and are present in several layers of the skin. -
Richard Ramirez
Known as the Night Stalker, he committed several murders in Southern California. His last crime occurred in Mission Viejo where he shot a man and raped the man's wife. Still alive, the wife got a hold of Ramirez car, and left it abandoned. The LA Police Department were able to recover a partial fingerprint from Ramirez' car and scan it through the AFIS system, successfully identifying him in minutes. Ramirez was caught and sentenced to death in 1989. -
Richard Allen Davis
Man convicted of murder and sentenced to death.
In 1993, Polly Klaas (age 12) was kidnapped from her home in Petaluma, California. Richard Allen Davis appeared at her window with a knife and abducted her. The FBI found Davis' palm print on a bunk bed using special light and fluorescent powder. Investigators also found a car in a ditch with torn children's clothing, and were able to match the palm print found on the bed to Richard Davis. -
Sherri Miller and Pam Jackson
Sherri Miller and Pam Jackson, both 17, disappeared while driving on rural roads to a party at a gravel pit in a 1960 Studebaker Lark. In September of 2013, a fisherman near the state’s Brule Creek noticed a car submerged upside down in the water. NPR reports that the vehicle was removed from the creek the following day, and skeletal remains, thought to be of the two girls, were found inside. -
Jason David Cook
When a man passed a note through a Walgreens drive-thru saying that he’d rigged the store with a bomb and needed all the morphine and Ritalin the Grand Traverse store had, an alert pharmacy clerk and quick action by detectives soon led to all the evidence needed to identify a suspect and connect him to the crime. -
Krystal Beslanowitch
Beslanowitch was 17 years old when she died from a crushing blow to the skull. A prostitute, her body was found in 1995 along the Provo River. In fact, a tool called a forensic vacuum allowed for the DNA extraction. The DNA matched to a Joseph Michael Simpson, who had been a resort bus driver in the area at the time. Simpson, now 46, was arrested in Florida in September of this year.