forensic science timeline

By nate210

  • reported cases

    First pathology reports published.

  • first physical evidence used in criminal case

    First recorded instance of physical matching of evidence leading to a murder conviction

  • investigating poison and advancing

    German chemist Valentin Ross developed a method of detecting arsenic in a victim's stomach, thus advancing the investigation of poison deaths.

  • clothes found to match murder scene

    Clothing and shoes of a farm laborer were examined and found to match evidence of a nearby murder scene, where a young woman was found drowned in a shallow pool.

  • chemical process for murder trial

    James Marsh, an English chemist, uses chemical processes to determine arsenic as the cause of death in a murder trial.

  • first photograph in crime case

    San Francisco uses photography for criminal identification, the first city in the US to do so.

  • fingerprint uniqueness

    Henry Faulds and William James Herschel publish a paper describing the uniqueness of fingerprints. Francis Galton, a scientist, adapted their findings for the court.

  • coroners act

    Coroner's act established that coroners' were to determine the causes of sudden, violent, and unnatural deaths.

  • first fingerprints used in crime scene

    Juan Vucetich, an Argentinean police officer, is the first to use fingerprints as evidence in a murder investigation.

  • blood markers

    Human blood grouping, ABO, discovered by Karl Landsteiner and adapted for use on bloodstains by Dieter Max Richter.

  • prison implemented fingerprint

    NY state prison system implemented fingerprint identification.

  • first school for forensic science

    First school of forensic science founded by Rodolphe Archibald Reiss, in Switzerland.

  • first case to use hair

    First legal case ever involving hair also took place following this study.

  • guns and their uniqueness

    individual gun barrels leave identifying grooves on each bullet fired through it. He developed several methods of matching bullets to guns via photography.

  • first crime lab

    First police crime lab established in Los Angeles.

  • FBI crime lab

    FBI establishes its own crime laboratory, now one of the foremost crime labs in the world.

  • sound spectrograph used in investigations

    A sound spectrograph discovered to be able to record voices. Voiceprints began to be used in investigations and as court evidence from recordings of phones, answering machines, or tape recorders.

  • FBI made system of wanted people, vehicles, and more

    FBI established the National Crime Information Center, a computerized national filing system on wanted people, stolen vehicles, weapons, etc.

  • technology development

    Technology developed at Aerospace Corporation in the US to detect gunshot residue, which can link a suspect to a crime scene, and can show how close that suspect was to the gun.

  • FBI gets first fingerprint reader

    First fingerprint reader installed at the FBI

  • DNA helps catch a criminal

    Tommy Lee Andrews convicted of a series of sexual assaults, using DNA profiling.

  • from two weeks to two hours

    FBI establishes the integrated automated fingerprint identification system, cutting down fingerprint inquiry response from two weeks to two hours.

  • technology speeds up

    Technology speeds up DNA profiling time, from 6-8 weeks to between 1-2 days.

  • footprints become known

    Britain's Forensic Science Service develops online footwear coding and detection system. This helps police to identify footwear marks quickly.

  • fingerprints even after cleaning

    A way for scientists to visualize fingerprints even after the print has been removed is developed

  • sketches to mugshot

    Michigan state university develops software that automatically matches hand-drawn facial sketches to mug shots stored in databases.