Weird Ways To Send a Suspect To Prison

As I posted in a past entry, I've "dusted" a lot of items for fingerprints. But I recall sending someone to prison based solely on one special fingerprint I found at the scene of a burglary.

I was asked to go to a home that had been burglarized in Chula Vista, California. Several items had been taken from the home, so I could have started to dust for prints in the areas where the objects were taken. But I typically start by dusting the point of entry.

In this case the point of entry was through a bathroom window. This window was quite high up, perhaps five feet off the ground. For the burglar to gain access, he had to step up on something outside and then crawl through the window and then lower himself to the ground inside the home. Since it was a rather narrow window, he would have had to enter head first because you could not really "step through" the window. The only thing close to the window to help him get down was the toilet. "Hmmm, I wonder..."

I decided to dust the toilet seat for prints. To get down from that high window, I figured the burglar had to grab the toilet seat to lower himself down. Sure enough, I got a good print from the seat and submitted the print for the latent print examiners to compare against known prints in the NCIC database. We got a "hit."

That print sent the burglar to prison. I can just imagine other prisoners asking him how he got caught. What do you think he might say? "Uh, I left my prints on the toilet seat..." How embarassing!

If you thought that was strange, try this one!

I asked the supervisor of the crime lab at the Chula Vista PD what was the most unusual print he'd ever gotten, so he told me. He was at the scene of a bank robbery and was dusting for prints. While dusting for prints at the point of entry, which was the glass entry door to the bank, he noticed a smudge on the door at face level which looked awfully familiar. So he asked the tellers if anything unusual happened when the robber entered or left the bank. "Well, he bumped his head into the door when he left," said one of the tellers.

So, the supervisor decided to dust the smudge for later comparison. The smudge turned out to be in the exact shape of human lips. That's right... the guy "kissed" the door on the way out! In his haste to leave, he didn't realize the door was closed and bumped right into the door with his face and left a lip print.

After a suspect was found and brought into the PD for questioning, a comparison lip print was taken of him. Upon comparison to the lip print found at the scene, the lab supervisor (also a certified latent print examiner) determined that the characteristics of the lips' lines and "cracks" matched the suspect.

At the trial, the supervisor testified to his findings and the jury convicted the man of robbery. That was the first known case to ever have lip prints introduced as evidence at a trial and get a conviction.

Now if you thought telling the rest of the prison inmates that you were caught with a fingerprint you left on a toilet seat would be embarassing, how bad do you think it would be to say you got caught by a print you left of your lips?