Innovative Digital System Tracks Physical Evidence to Help Solve Crimes

There’s a murder, and the only physical evidence is a faint bloody fingerprint on a bedsheet.

The print is nearly impossible to lift. And when the sheet is introduced in court there is dispute over both its origin and the chain of custody--the record of where the evidence has been since it was picked up by law enforcement.

A new digital imaging system called More Hits helps keep the record straight.

Under standard procedure, tape would be used to lift the print from the sheet. If the print is still wet or smudged, the transfer may be illegible and no help in trying to identify a suspect.

With More Hits, a photograph would be taken of the print on the sheet with a digital camera that uses a computer chip instead of film. Back at the lab, a technician would store the image in a computer, then enlarge it and use other enhancement techniques--all increasing the odds of a positive ID.

The bloody sheet still gets its day in court, but More Hits increases the likelihood that the fingerprint will be identified.

The system also can be used to enhance tool marks--the unique marks left by a bolt-cutter used to cut a padlock at a crime scene, for example.

More Hits, a forensic image processing and tracking system, can also be used to improve crime-data management and print court-ready charts.

Designed by Erik Berg, a forensics expert with the Tacoma Police Department since 1991, and marketed by PC Pros in Tacoma, More Hits also tracks the chain of custody, logging every entry into each evidence file--by whom and at precisely what time.

More Hits has been tested in court and accepted by both fingerprint experts and document examiners. Police departments in four states--Washington, Utah, California and Florida--use the system.

There are several other image-enhancement programs in use today, but no others with tracking features, PC Pros says.

More Hits is a little pricey--between $38,000 and $42,000 for most departments--but PC Pros anticipates the price dropping in time as with other high-tech equipment.

Berg, 36, still with the Police Department and now PC Pros’ vice president of research and development, has a degree in graphic design from Evergreen State College. Before he joined the police force, he spent seven years with the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department.

“All my different life experiences came together and presented a solution to all the problems I’ve been dealing with over the years,” he said of More Hits.

He started work on More Hits 2 1/2 years ago with $250,000 from PC Pros. The company expects to break even this summer and produce gross revenues of $1 million by the end of the year.

The system has been tested by the Tacoma police force and so far it has been used to help solve five cases--including a homicide, a rape and a burglary.

The department “let me do some experimenting which turned out to be very successful, and I took those ideas and commercialized it,” Berg said.

A computer match of a fingerprint from a crime scene with that of a suspect is called a “hit.” Enhanced prints increase the odds of a hit on local and national computerized fingerprint records--hence the name More Hits.

Another More Hits computer disk allows sharing between agencies, so once the Tacoma department has a hit, the ID is relayed to other police agencies. If a particular print is also on file in Salt Lake City, the Tacoma development would become part of that record.

Berg said he studied the problems law enforcement faced for more than two years as he developed the system, analyzing 10,000 crime scenes and consulting hundreds of forensic experts.

He tried to address two key and recurrent problems: recovering fingerprints from bad surfaces that leave them smudgy or wet, and identifying prints or tool marks too faint to pin down with standard equipment.

Barely visible prints, prints from uncooperative surfaces such as the adhesive side of electrical tape or a bed sheet--all can be captured digitally and enhanced via computer.

“We love it,” said Brian Orr, crime-scene fingerprint examiner for the Seattle Police Department. “It’s really changed the way we do things.”

The database records the particulars of each image--where it was found; who enhanced it and when; whether chemicals, dye stain or powder was used to process the print; and who verified and validated the match.

More Hits retains both the original and enhanced versions of an image, recording them on compact disks for archival storage.

The system also contains a filter to remove repetitive patterns--the background printing on a check, the dot pattern of newsprint, weave pattern from fabric--that could interfere with the identification of a fingerprint or tool mark.

A previous concern with digital imaging centered on proving that no unauthorized person tampered with an image between when it was captured and when it was presented in court.

More Hits uses the latest encryption technology to guard the integrity of digital images and ensure they are acceptable as evidence. It also records log-on codes for everyone who opens a computerized evidence file.

“The main advantage I see is the tracking portion of the program which lets us know whether or not the evidence has been tampered with,” said Orr, who has been using More Hits since November.

More Hits also tracks victim and suspect information and specifies what standards were used to limit the scope of each search--race, sex, pattern type, etc.

Additional information about More Hits can be found on the World Wide Web at https://www.coldwater.com.