I had never processed a Kellogg’s Corn Flakes box before and a lot was riding on this case.
A highway patrol officer was working radar on Interstate 19 south of Tucson when a brand-new Cadillac Coupe de Ville sped past him headed toward Mexico. The driver, the lone occupant, shot the patrol officer a furtive glance as he blew by.
With the speeding violation locked in on radar, the officer gave chase and the Cadillac soon pulled over, recognizing that he couldn’t outrun the Highway Patrol unit. The driver, described as a dirty, unkempt young man, was totally out of place driving that car. While issuing a speeding citation, the officer asked for permission to look through the vehicle, which the nervous young man granted.
The front and back seat areas were clean and free of even the slightest debris. The officer asked the driver to open the trunk, which he willingly did. The carpeted trunk appeared empty, but there was a funny lump under the carpet of the trunk. The officer peeled up the carpet and discovered a large, “family sized” Kellogg’s Corn Flakes box hidden beneath it.
In response to the officer’s query, the driver denied any knowledge of the corn flakes box. The officer, wearing gloves, picked it up and opened the top to find it stuffed with neatly organized bundles of cash. Each bundle had a rubber band around it and a small torn slip of paper with $2,000 written on it, held in place by the rubber band. There were 44 such bundles for a total of $88,000 cash.
The officer arrested the driver and seized the vehicle pending investigation. He turned the cereal box in for fingerprinting, along with the cash. I advised him that the cash itself would be unlikely to yield any identifiable fingerprints, but the little torn slips of paper would be excellent. The officer modified his request to indicate fingerprinting the box and the slips of paper.
I wasn’t sure of the best technique to use, so I made a quick trip to the supermarket and bought a similar box of Kellogg’s Corn flakes to practice on. Based on the available techniques at the time (the early 1990s), I cut the box into 8 equal sized pieces, deposited normal sweat fingerprints on each, and tested every method we had available. It turned out the most productive technique was hot breath & magnetic powder followed by lifting.
I developed a lot of beautiful fingerprints, most of which I identified to the driver. Interestingly, one of the bundles of money was $200 short and the driver had exactly $200 cash in his pocket when he was arrested. Was he supposed to have been transporting the car and cash to Mexico, but had he skimmed a little of the cash?
DPS seized the car and cash, while releasing the driver on only the charge of speeding. The seizure was never contested. I don’t know what happened to the driver, but I’m sure that whoever had hired him to drive the car to Mexico was very unhappy with him.
The moral of the story for fingerprint examiners is this: If you are unsure of the best method of processing a surface in a case, experiment first. Don’t just blindly go by the book.