Footprints
Footprints be used to match suspects to shoe/ bare foot prints found at the scene of a crime. The soles of our feet have prints the same as our hands.
Trainers and shoes all have unique markings, wear and tear on their soles. Shoe prints can also tell investigators a lot about the suspect, it can tell them: size, weight, gait (length of stride) and how the person may have been walking. Foot prints were used in criminal investigations around the same time as fingerprinting. The Fingerprint branch at New Scotland Yard (Metropolitan Police, London) was set up in July 1901 and the first criminal conviction using fingerprints as evidence was in 1902 (in a burglary case). The branch also dealt with footprints and shoe prints. Police in 1888 may have looked for shoe prints but the streets were so dirty, wet and mirky that it would have been very difficult to find anything. |