Bioterrorism: Processing Contaminated Evidence, the Effects of Formaldehyde Gas on the Recovery of Latent Fingermarks*

Abstract

In the present age of heightened emphasis on counter terrorism, law enforcement and forensic science are constantly evolving and adapting to the motivations and capabilities of terrorist groups and individuals. The use of biological agents on a population, such as anthrax spores, presents unique challenges to the forensic investigator, and the processing of contaminated evidence. In this research, a number of porous and non-porous items were contaminated with viable [corrected] spores and marked with latent fingermarks. The test samples were then subjected to a standard formulation of formaldehyde gas. Latent fingermarks were then recovered post decontamination using a range of methods. Standard fumigation, while effective at destroying viable spores, contributed to the degradation of amino acids leading to loss of ridge detail. A new protocol for formaldehyde gas decontamination was developed which allows for the destruction of viable spores and the successful recovery of latent marks, all within a rapid response time of less than 1 h.

Composition of fingermark residue: A qualitative and quantitative review

“…The influence factors are particularly important to explain the complexity of fingermark composition. More information is given in the following sub-sections, based on research that mentions the extent of influence of different factors on the initial and aged fingermark composition [8,10,[14][15][16][17]25,29,32,34,[36][37]46,[49][50][51][52]64,96,[100][101][102][103][104][105][106][107][108][109][110][111][112].…”

Initial Results on the Composition of Fingerprints and its Evolution as a Function of Time by GC/MS Analysis

“…Generally, studies on the composition changes of fingerprints were carried out to improve and adapt detection techniques (13,24,26,27) but not to actually help assess the age of prints. The influence of environmental factors on the composition ⁄ degradation of fingerprints was studied for exposure to high temperature (28), exposure to light (21), immersion into water, humidity, exposure to radiation (29,30), and biological decontaminant (31).…”

Bioterrorism: The effects of biological decontamination on the recovery of electronic evidence

“…1). Dose values of greater than 5000 Gy were not included based on results from previous experiments indicating relevant spore survival curves [13].…”