Case Study.
In 1978 a man by the name of Carroll Bonnet (61 yo) was stabbed to death in his apartment. When the victim didn't show up for work for a few days his body was found, as was evidence including fingerprints which were collected and photographed as well as other pieces of evidence. The case was investigated but they couldn't make any connections to a single person. The case went cold.
However towards the end of 2008 the Omaha police department received some information prompting a detective to process the fingerprints through the IAFIS (which didn't exist when the crime first occurred). It came up with a few possible options and with further manual inspection the detective came up with a match - his name was Jerry Watson. The case became open again and it was from the fingerprints primarily that Jerry Watson was captured and now faces life in prison. Although there were other pieces of evidence that assisted without the IAFIS Jerry Watson would still most likely have got away with the crime, like he had done for 30 years.
He was sentenced on October 17th 2011 and ironically he was already in prison about to be released. He was convicted 33 years after the crime was actually committed, this further shows how much fingerprinting technology has developed.
However towards the end of 2008 the Omaha police department received some information prompting a detective to process the fingerprints through the IAFIS (which didn't exist when the crime first occurred). It came up with a few possible options and with further manual inspection the detective came up with a match - his name was Jerry Watson. The case became open again and it was from the fingerprints primarily that Jerry Watson was captured and now faces life in prison. Although there were other pieces of evidence that assisted without the IAFIS Jerry Watson would still most likely have got away with the crime, like he had done for 30 years.
He was sentenced on October 17th 2011 and ironically he was already in prison about to be released. He was convicted 33 years after the crime was actually committed, this further shows how much fingerprinting technology has developed.