Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

The forensic exploitation of fingermark chemistry: A review

Bleay, Stephen M.; Bailey, Melanie J.; Croxton, Ruth S.; Francese, Simona

Authors

Stephen M. Bleay

Melanie J. Bailey

Ruth S. Croxton

Simona Francese



Abstract

The substances deposited from the fingertip onto a surface during contact between them represent a highly complex range of chemicals that can be exploited in a variety of ways in a forensic investigation. An overview is given of the multitude of chemicals that have been detected in fingermarks, including those occurring in endogenous sweat, metabolites of ingested substances, and exogenous substances picked up on the fingertip. Changes in chemistry that may occur between deposition of the fingermark and its subsequent forensic analysis are discussed, with particular reference to the ways in which these changes have been considered as a means of dating fingermarks. The ways in which fingermark enhancement reagents utilise the different chemicals present to reveal ridge is reviewed, together with how different classes of chemical can be sequentially targeted to optimise the number of fingermarks recovered. A field of increasing interest is the use of advanced analytical techniques incorporating mass spectrometry and imaging capability to simultaneously obtain additional contextual information about the donor of the mark whilst visualising the fingermark ridge pattern. Examples are given of how such information can be applied in forensic investigations. It is concluded that an extensive ‘tool kit’ of fingermark enhancement processes is already available to utilise the different chemicals present, and the advances that can be made in this field using conventional approaches are limited. There is, instead, significant potential to utilise analytical techniques to forensically exploit the chemical information within fingermarks but there are also significant barriers to their implementation in this way.

Citation

Bleay, S. M., Bailey, M. J., Croxton, R. S., & Francese, S. (in press). The forensic exploitation of fingermark chemistry: A review. WIREs Forensic Science, Article e1403. https://doi.org/10.1002/wfs2.1403

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Oct 1, 2020
Online Publication Date Oct 28, 2020
Deposit Date Dec 1, 2020
Publicly Available Date Oct 29, 2021
Journal WIREs Forensic Science
Electronic ISSN 2573-9468
Publisher John Wiley and Sons
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Article Number e1403
DOI https://doi.org/10.1002/wfs2.1403
Public URL https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/3667308

Files






You might also like



Downloadable Citations