LEICESTER, England, Nov. 28 (UPI) -- The same technology developed for roadside fingerprints can also be used to identify the dead, according to British and German researchers.
Researchers at the University of Leicester and the University of Hamburg say the purpose of developing the technique is to enable rapid identification of the deceased -- especially with mass fatalities.
Guy Rutty of the University of Leicester, Karen Stringer of the Leicestershire Constabulary Fingerprint Bureau and Dr. E.E. Turk of the University of Hamburg made use of a handheld, mobile wireless unit used in conjunction with a Personal Digital Assistant device for the capture of fingerprints from the dead.
"No matter where one works in the world, the primary purpose of a medico-legal autopsy is the investigation of who the person was, where, when and by what means they came by their death," said Rutty.
"In mass fatality investigations there is a shift of emphasis of the investigative process towards gathering information for the identification of the deceased. Fingerprinting is usually undertaken by scene of crime or fingerprint officers at the mortuary, and although the recovery of fingerprints is possible at the scene of death, as with mortuary recovery, to date, handheld real-time on-site analysis is not available to investigators."
