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Fingerprint Frauds: Exploring the Dark Side of Forensics

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Pat Wertheim Fingerprint Frauds

Fingerprint Frauds: Exploring the Dark Side of Forensics

Coming Soon! Fingerprint Frauds: Exploring the Dark Side of Forensics. Fingerprints don't lie. People do. Renowned fingerprint expert Pat Wertheim takes you inside the cases where forensic evidence was faked, and the investigations that exposed it. 

The most dangerous forger in a criminal case is sometimes the one collecting the evidence.

Pat Wertheim spent his career exposing forgeries, fabrications, and fraudulent law enforcement agents.

He called himself "just some cowboy from Texas", a geophysicist who switched gears and started out as a patrol cop in a small Texas town. He moved into crime scene investigation in the Southwest, and quickly niched into latent fingerprints. He became the world's leading expert on forged and fabricated fingerprints. Over decades, he was called in when the evidence itself was the crime. He exposed the wrongful identification of Scottish detective Shirley McKie, the evidence fabricated against Fred van der Vyver in South Africa, the tangled 1943 murder of Sir Harry Oakes in the Bahamas, and forged fingerprints on a canvas attributed to Jackson Pollock.

Before his death in 2024, Pat and his co-author, Kathy Saviers, had nearly completed a manuscript documenting the insider’s view of some of the most controversial fingerprint cases in the last century. Now Kathy and Pat's daughter, Katrina Wertheim, are bringing it to publication.

For forensic professionals and attorneys, Fingerprint Frauds is a rare reference on how latent print evidence can be forged or fabricated. For true crime readers, it's an insider's account of corruption exposed, bad cops brought to justice, and wrongly accused people set free.

About the Author, Pat Wertheim

Pat Wertheim

Pat Wertheim (1948–2025) spent six decades shaping how fingerprints are used in law enforcement. He trained thousands of latent print examiners for agencies around the world, worked on high-profile cases involving erroneous identifications, fabricated prints, and forgery, and wrote groundbreaking articles on detecting forged evidence and the lengths corrupt investigators would go to create it.

Pat served two decades on the Scientific Working Group on Friction Ridge Analysis, Study and Technology (SWGFAST), helping set best practices for the field. He held certifications as a senior crime scene analyst, ten print examiner, and latent print examiner, testified in numerous Daubert hearings, and was a distinguished life member of the International Association for Identification and the Southwestern Association of Forensic Scientists.

He was driven by one goal: keeping innocent people from being convicted on bad evidence. His greatest satisfaction came from mentoring the next generation of examiners to carry that work forward.

About the Co-Author, Kathy Saviers

Kathy Saviers

More about Kathy coming soon...

Other Antecdotes: 

Not every case made headlines. Here are a few of the stranger moments from Pat's years in law enforcement, starring bumbling boozers, clumsy crooks, crooked cops, dodgy detectives, pompous prosecutors, sleepy sheriffs, nosy neighbors, gossiping grannies, rookie recruits, cranky captains, wily witnesses, and shady shopkeepers.

Pat-Wertheim-Author-Fingerprints

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