The Case of the Chocolate Fingerprints

by Jim Britt

A biophysics student named Lucas made a report of his truck being stolen. He told me what a big loss his truck was, that he kept it immaculate. He knew everything about the truck; he bought it specifically - a three-quarter ton pick-up truck - for doing his work at the University. I told him the possibility of getting the truck back was remote. He said he had a lot of his academic work in the truck and losing it would really set him back in his research.

A couple of days later the Lackawanna police found the truck and called him. There was a broken window and the bed of the truck was caved in. Part of his research was still there. He inspected the truck and calculated the amount or weight that had been in the back of the truck by the amount the springs had been depressed - 7,000 lbs.

He called me the next day and said, "We'll be able to make an arrest in this case." He told me that the people who stole the truck were quite a bit shorter than he was and had stopped for chocolate covered peanuts. The seat was moved up and there were distinct fingerprints - chocolate fingerprints - on the driver's side mirror. He talked to the officers from Lackawanna and the guys who towed the truck and none of them had touched the mirror. He said, "I always keep the mirror spotless. It wasn't my fingerprint, so it must have been from the person who stole the truck."

About that time I went to a MAG (Mutual Assistance Group) meeting and saw in the notes of the meeting that the West Seneca P.D. had a burglary where acetylene tanks were stolen. I told the West Seneca detective what we had and he said that 7,000 lbs. was approximately the weight of the tanks that had been stolen.

Lucas told me that in addition to the calculation he'd made and the evidence we'd found, including a chain fall used to lift the acetylene cylinders, he'd checked the fluid levels in the truck. He also took some soil samples from under the car for analysis.

I told all this to the West Seneca detective and everything matched up - the soil under the truck had a lot of white powder in it. The detective said that when they drove through the mud to get to the warehouse the thieves would had to have driven through mud that had gypsum board dust in it.

We had the right truck for the crime.