In 1892, Francisca Rojas was found with intense neck injuries while her two sons were found with their throats cut open and dead. Francisca Rojas fanatically accused her neighbor who, under extreme interrogation, would not confess of committing murder and injuring Rojas’s neck. Inspector Alvarez, the head of the case, went to the crime scene and found a bloody fingerprint next to where the boys laid. After comparing the fingerprint to those of the neighbor, mother, sons, and other suspects, Alvarez deduced that it matched the mother’s right thumbprint. She then confessed to the murdering of her sons. The discovery of the print saved an innocent neighbor from harsh punishment. Fingerprints help solve crimes and save people's lives everyday. For that reason, it is important for people to understand fingerprints significance.
A fingerprint, in the context of forensics, is an imprint left from the friction ridges of any part of a human hand. Friction ridges are raised portions of the …show more content…
These methods are used in more complex situations involving more delicate surfaces. Most latent fingerprinting capture does take place in the laboratory and not at the crime scene itself. Certain developing agents reveal different properties of the fingerprint. Some fingerprint reagents are specific, for example ninhydrin or diazafluorenone react with certain amino acids. Ethyl cyanoacrylate polymerisation works by water-based catalysis and polymer growth. Fat layers as thin as one molecule can be detected with vacuum metal deposition using gold and zinc. More mundane methods, such as the application of fine powders, work by adhesion to sebaceous deposits. All of these methods are used on the insides of gloves discarded by perpetrators, walls, floors, clothing, fabric, wood, and most other materials to reveal latent