When John Norman worked in England during the mid-1980s, he was called
out to an enormous crash at Manchester Airport. For three days, he and other
fingerprint experts tore through debris to eventually identify 55 passengers
who had been burned beyond recognition before the plane even left the ground.
"That was one of the hardest jobs to cope with," says Norman, now a senior
forensic analyst. "The plane never actually took off. Turned out there was
a crack in the engine that led into the fuel lines. Everything was incinerated."
The three days were intense, but looking back, Norman knows they did a
good job. Every one of those bodies was identified.
Norman grew up in Northern Ireland where he heard a sergeant from the Royal
Ulster Constabulary talking about recruitment. When his family moved to England
in the 1970s, he applied for Scotland Yard.
Norman's work isn't limited to fingerprint analysis. He examines bodies
for hairs, fibers, semen and blood -- any piece of physical evidence that
could tie the killer to the crime.
Norman works with one of the best pieces of equipment in the industry,
a laser laboratory used specifically to examine homicide scenes. "It's the
only one in North America -- if not in the world. It uses a high-intensity
light source so that you can see prints you wouldn't be able to see with the
naked eye."
But even with all the high-tech, a basic fingerprint remains a valuable
piece of evidence. "If we get a fingerprint and we identify it, and then we
get a conviction later in court, that's a very satisfying job.
"You have to know your subject inside and out," Norman says. "The days
of going to court and being the only one who knows what you're talking about
are gone. The technology is changing; what we got by with 20 years ago, we
couldn't do today."
Coping with the court process is definitely a tough one for all fingerprint
analysts. Donna Jewett, who heads up the central identification unit at the
San Jose Police Department, says the entire forensic field has come under
increasing fire in recent years.
Jewett is a certified latent fingerprint analyst. She sat on the international
certification board for three years and is currently chair of the International
Association of Identification fingerprint analysis committee.
"We're scrutinized much more than we used to be," she says, pointing to
the O.J. Simpson trial and attacks on the lab that dealt with evidence for
the Oklahoma City bombing. "You never know what you might be asked. You have
to show you're educated and trained, but you also have to keep up with the
changes in the profession.
"You have to be prepared to go to court and answer the questions, come
across well and get your point across. And you can understand why: the most
damning testimony they can have on a case is on the fingerprint. And the lawyers
will try to discredit you and the work that you've done."
But when that call comes, the adrenaline rush you get in the quest to find
that perfect match is unbelievable. "You can go two to three weeks working
on mundane cases, and then all of a sudden you get a call in the middle of
the night and you're off," says Norman. "It's all interesting."