King County Regional AFIS made its first hit in April 1988 on an Auburn rape case. The suspect was convicted in Superior Court in August of that year. Since then, regional staff using AFIS have solved thousands of other crimes.

A Brutal Crime is Solved

The King County Sheriff’s Office had no solid leads on the attempted murder of a young Seattle woman who was abducted in front of her home, raped, repeatedly stabbed, and left for dead in Kent. Fingerprints found in the victim’s car were searched in AFIS, and two suspects were identified. Both were subsequently arrested, tried, found guilty, and sentenced to long prison terms.

New Technology Traps a Killer

Kirkland police, investigating the murder of a twenty-seven-year-old woman, found a bed sheet with a faint, bloody palm print. The sheet was brought to AFIS at 10:00 a.m. The examiners treated the fabric with a special substance that reacts to proteins in blood and came up with several prints. At 2:00 p.m., the examiners used a Tacoma Police Department computer to screen out the weave of the fabric and get a legible print. The print was matched to the inked prints of a Kirkland man. The Kirkland Police Department was notified, and that same night the suspect was arrested. (King County AFIS has since purchased a similar image-enhancement computer).

Two Wanted Men Captured

Two inmates were booked into the King County Jail by Seattle police on misdemeanor charges. Prints were taken and run on AFIS. One inmate was wanted on a double homicide in Florida, and the other was wanted for five felony warrants in several states.

Murder Victim Identified

In south King County, a homicide victim’s body was found on a Thursday. No leads could be found until the victim was identified. The next day the Medical Examiner’s Office sent the victim’s fingerprints to AFIS. AFIS had a hit within 15 minutes, and in only a few hours, detectives had viable suspects, two of whom were booked that very weekend.

Severely Beaten Victim

In Ballard, an unconscious victim of a felony assault was rushed to Harborview Medical Center. She had no ID, and the hospital was unable to notify her family or search for medical records. The victim was fingerprinted in her hospital bed, and a subsequent search helped identify her.

Identity Theft

A King County man had his ID stolen, and later the thief used his name when he was arrested and booked into jail in California. Months later the innocent victim was pulled over for a routine traffic stop and arrested because a warrant had been issued under his name for the thief’s crime. AFIS did a check of the victim’s fingerprints with the booking record in California and determined they were not the same person. The victim was immediately released.

What Do You Believe?

A King County deputy stopped a vehicle for a burned-out headlight and asked for the driver’s identification. The driver presented a valid Washington driver’s license and a Mexican Identification card with different information. The registration of the car showed yet another name and address. After fingerprinting, the AFIS Program was able to identify the driver as having a suspended license, a felony warrant from Wenatchee for possession of cocaine, and that he was a wanted fugitive from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (a deported felon).

You Can't Hide

A woman was booked into a suburban jail and resisted being fingerprinted. The suspect refused to cooperate with the officers; so only one clear fingerprint was obtained. With just the one finger, AFIS technicians were able to search across the western United States for a match. They searched the Washington State Patrol, California, Idaho, Nevada, and Oregon. The unknown person was positively identified despite numerous aliases and found to be wanted for second-degree murder in Las Vegas.

Our Reputation Precedes Us

A driver was stopped for a traffic violation and didn’t have proper identification. He tried lying, but the officer didn’t believe him and began to transport him to the precinct for AFIS identification. When the driver found out the police would be doing an electronic fingerprint search on him, he knew he would soon be caught. He immediately confessed to his real name and to having outstanding warrants.

Murder-for-Hire Plot Solved

This case started with a callout for a carjacking/homicide. Two Latent Print Examiners went on the callout and processed the vehicle including the gun box that was later determined to be the box of the murder weapon.

Two Latent Examiners processed the trunk. They worked together to lift prints with one examiner actually getting into the trunk. They were able to recover the only print identified to the suspect from the support bar in the trunk.

The examiner on the case identified the prints of the mother and son on the gun box and the prints of the son and the alleged shooter on the inside of the trunk.

The mother pleaded guilty after the gun was found and a witness had come forward. The son was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years. In the son’s trial the actual vehicle was brought into the courtroom and the examiner who processed the car crawled into the trunk to show just how far in the trunk the alleged shooter’s print was developed. The alleged shooter pleaded guilty as charged to murder in the first degree with a firearm and was sentenced to 25 years.

AFIS Catches Man Wanted for Murder

A twenty-two-year-old man was arrested by Tukwila Police. Unable to verify the man’s identity, a Tukwila officer fingerprinted the suspect using Livescan and the man’s prints were immediately sent to the AFIS Section’s Tenprint Unit.

When the Tenprint Examiner didn’t get a local hit, she electronically searched fingerprints in the Western Identification Network, which includes fingerprints taken in eight western states. She did not have any luck.

Next, the fingerprints were faxed to the FBI in Washington D.C. A short time later the FBI was able to identify the man, who was wanted for numerous crimes in Detroit. The examiner subsequently received excited phone calls from a Detroit FBI agent and a Detroit Police Department detective. The suspect in custody had disappeared over a year ago and was wanted for two counts of murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, home invasion, a felony firearms violation, and assault to commit murder.