Chubby crims more likely to leave dabs

'You're nicked, fatty'

By Kelly Fiveash • Get more from this author

Posted in Policing, 5th September 2008 12:06 GMT

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Obese criminals are more likely to leave their fingerprints at crime scenes because of the amount of salty food they eat.

A police boffin has developed a new way of examining the corrosion on bullet casings and knife blades that is caused by minuscule amounts of salt in hand sweat, according to the Daily Telegraph.

Dr John Bond said that because processed grub typically contains much larger quantities of salt, anyone overfond of bad burgers will leave more forensic evidence.

"The more salt in your body the more corrosion there will be on the shell casing,” he said. “We can visualise fingerprints even after they have been removed because of the corrosion to the surface."

Bond is the scientific support manager with Northamptonshire Police, he also works with the University of Leicester. He said his unique method, which can detect fingerprints even after they have been wiped off a bullet casing or blade, has received a fair amount of interest – particularly from US police.

The technique focuses on hair-width-sized bits of metal corrosion caused by sweat, and has helped uncover a partial fingerprint on a cartridge case used in a 14-year-old American murder.

It could also help solve a US police inquiry into a double murder in Georgia in 1999 and is expected to be used for thousands of cold crime case reviews, said Bond. ®

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