Fingerprinting
Detectives arrived on the scene after complaints of screaming heard by a neighbour down the street. Besides the blood-painted walls and drenched sheets, there lay a lump of human parts on the bed. What they found was the body of a prostitute that had been bound and beheaded with her liver placed between her lacerated legs. Recognized to be human only by the eyes that were missing from her skull, she had fallen victim to a psychotic eradicator. Jack the Ripper, known as one of the most historically significant serial killers of all time, left his victims’ bodies most unidentifiable, but not the latent fingerprints he left behind that later convicted him. Forensic science used in criminal justice has recently been revolutionized with new DNA technology, but fingerprinting is still the most valid and effective form of identification used in law enforcement today. Going back in the time of ancient Babylon, fingerprints and ridge patterns were used on clay tablets for business transactions and governmental procedures. By the 14th century, the fact that no two prints were alike was becoming more noticeable, thus the history of the fingerprint began.
