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1247
13th Century China
This is the earliest known case of a crime being solved using insect evidence. The book, "The Washing Away of Wrongs" by Sung Ts'u wrote about a murder case near a rice field. The victim had been slashed repeatedly, and investigators suspected the weapon used was a sickle, a common tool used in the rice harvest. They laid out all the sickles and flies swarmed to the one that been used because of the blood and tissue evidence, -
Mathieu Orfila
Orfila worked to make chemical analysis a routine part of forensic medicine, and made studies of asphyxiation, the decomposition of bodies, and exhumation. He helped to develop tests for the presence of blood in a forensic context and is credited as one of the first people to use a microscope to assess blood and semen stains. -
William Herschel
Herschel continued to experiment with hand-prints, soon realizing that only fingers needed to be used. He collected prints from friends and family, and came to the conclusion that a person's fingerprints do not change over time. -
Alphonse Bertillon
He believed that people could be identified through physical characteristics, and that people with certain characteristics were more likely to be criminals. Bertillon developed techniques and instruments to measure individual features that would not change. He also developed ways to reliably record other physical data about the body, including identifying marks such as tattoos. He collected vast quantities of data and used the new technology of photography. -
Henry Faulds
Faulds became involved in archaeological digs in Japan and noticed shards of ancient pottery had the fingerprints of those who had made them. He began to study modern fingerprints and wrote to Charles Darwin with his ideas. In 1880, Faulds published a paper in 'Nature' magazine on fingerprints, observing that they could be used to catch criminals and suggesting how this could be done. -
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
At med school, Doyle met his mentor, Professor Dr. Joseph Bell, whose keen powers of observation would later inspire Doyle to create his famed fictional detective character, Sherlock Holmes. The prolific author also composed four of his most popular Sherlock Holmes books during the 1890s and early 1900s: The Sign of Four (1890), The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892), The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894) and The Hound of Baskervilles, published in 1901. -
Francis Galton
Galton was a eugenicist who collected measurements on people around the world to determine how traits were inherited from one generation to the next. He began collecting fingerprints and eventually gathered some 8,000 different samples to analyze. In 1892, he published his highly influential book, Finger Prints in which he described his classification system that include three main fingerprint patterns - loops, whorls and arches. -
Hans Gross
The publication of Austrian criminologist Hans Gross’s book Criminal Investigation helped to establish the science of forensics, especially in terms of a cross-transfer of evidence, such as dirt, fingerprints, carpet fibers, or hair, from the criminal to the victim. -
Karl Landsteiner
Karl Landsteiner, noted that the RBCs of some individuals were agglutinated by the serum from other individuals. He made a note of the patterns of agglutination and showed that blood could be divided into groups. This marked the discovery of the first blood group system, ABO, and earned Landsteiner a Nobel Prize. -
Edmond Locard
In 1910 the Lyon Police Department granted Locard the opportunity to create the first crime investigation laboratory where he could analyze evidence from crime scenes. Locard wrote many publications, the most famous being his seven-volume series Treaty of Criminalistic. He also said when an individual commits a crime they leave a trace of themselves at the scene while simultaneously taking something from the scene when they leave. Modern forensic science classifies this as trace evidence. -
Albert S. Osborn
Albert Osborn was the first American to utilize the scientific method in the examination of questioned documents . His wrote Questioned Documents, and The Problem of Proof. It included handwriting analysis and signature comparisons to include: handwriting; typewriting; hand printing; electronic and other printing methods; alterations; erasures; obliteration's, and more.
It was his contention that no two individuals could produce exactly the same handwriting characteristics. -
Leone Lattes
Leon Lattes developed a method of blood testing that determines the type and characteristics of a dried bloodstain. Lattes made the A-B-O system of blood typing useful in forensics. Until this time, investigators relied on fingerprints to identify suspects. Differences in blood type were not useful in forensic analysis until this method was discovered by Lattes in 1915. -
August Vollmer
Using Locard's principles, Vollmer established one of the first modern crime laboratories in the United States. Vollmer modernized the Los Angeles Police Department and law enforcement by introducing the use of: a crime investigation laboratory; a fingerprint and handwriting classification system; a workable system for filing information about the way a crime was committed; and the creation of a police school where scientists would teach courses in the study of criminal behavior or criminology. -
Calvin Goddard
With the aid of others, he created one of the most comprehensive ballistics databases of its time, and adapted the comparison microscope for use in bullet comparison. Goddard also helped established the first independent forensic crime laboratory in the United States.
