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What Makes Ear Prints: Helpful Or Harmful?

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No two ear prints have ever been found the same, nor do ears change during a person’s lifetime. Ear prints can be lifted like fingerprints and classified like fingerprints. Ear prints can even be used to identify suspects of a crime scene. The uniqueness and stability of ears make ear prints recordable, classifiable, and identifiable.
Initially, ear prints are nearly as common as fingerprints and can be lifted with the same method. For example, Encyclopedia.Com reads that in a criminal case, “It is not uncommon for a perpetrator to put an ear to a door or window prior to entering a crime scene in an effort to determine whether the area is occupied, or for an ear print to be left against a wall or other hard surface during a struggle or when a body is being positioned or moved”. Ear prints leave behind …show more content…

For example, in 1910, a prisoner’s ear was linked with an ear print at a crime scene due to an obvious peculiarity of the ear, and the prisoner was convicted of the crime. In order to identify a suspect with an ear print, three to five prints of both ears must be taken. Dr. Cor van der Lugt explains that in recording a print directly, “The first time the pressure applied has to be gentle, the second print has to be done with normal pressure and the third print is taken by applying much more pressure,” in case a gentle, medium, or heavy pressure print is not individually successful in capturing the entire ear print. In Conclusion, ear prints may be lifted, recognized by shape, size, and peculiarities of the ear, and identified with previously documented individuals. A criminal often presses his ear against a wall, window, or door during the crime. Because ear prints are common occurrences at a crime scene, and because ears are individual, unchanging anatomical structures (much like fingerprints) they are accurate ways of identifying suspects. Ear prints may be recorded like fingerprints and matched with a

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