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Good new fashioned detective work

Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2018 7:35 am
by BackInTex
This story is very interesting in that it was one of the first (in not the first) times that a criminal was identified from a photo of his finger, showing his prints.


Investigators catch child porn suspect using image showing only his hand
In July 2015, investigators with the Texas attorney general's office reached out to the crime lab to see if the analysts could identify a suspect using only a photograph of the suspect's fingers, something they'd never been able to do.

"We've been asked to do that before. When people take pictures with their cellphones, sometimes their finger gets in the way. We've looked at those, and it's just not of sufficient quality to even move forward with," latent prints section supervisor Meghan Blackburn said. "What's different about this case is the high quality of the actual photographed image."

The image sent to Blackburn was from an active child pornography investigation.

The suspect had captured a very clear image of his fingers that showed stunning details of his fingerprints.
The prints belonged to Robert Bossick Jr., of Georgia.

Hall shared the good news with the investigators at the Texas AG's office, who, in turn, alerted investigators at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

From the time the image was given to Blackburn and Hall, it took roughly 24 hours to identify and take Bossick into custody.

"He ended up giving a total confession and gave away a bunch of names of other individuals who were involved in it as well, and it's traveled throughout the U.S. with arrests being made," Hall said.

Bossick was eventually convicted in a federal court on two counts of child pornography and sentenced to 50 years.

Re: Good new fashioned detective work

Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2018 8:39 pm
by Estonut
Big deal! They've been doing that on TV shows for years! :)

On a recent episode of "Designated Survivor," FBI Agent Wells got a (usable) partial fingerprint from a wine glass in the background of a picture. :wink: