Posted on Friday, June 10, 2005 - 06:08 am:

Any surface that is about as smooth as the miniature corrugated cardboard type ridges on your fingers can potentially bear identifiable latent fingerprints... and the flexibility of the finger skin can often also conform to relatively rough surfaces such as imitation leather dashboards. Fingerprints from crime scenes have been identified on papers, cigarettes, fruit, crumpled aluminum cans, plastic garbage bags, bed sheets, dead bodies (prints on bodies are usually contaminated prints involving body fluids, lipstick or some other substance transferred via the suspect's fingers), and thousands of other surfaces. Fingerprints on paper, cardboard and unfinished wood can last for up to forty years (per actual casework histories) unless exposed to water (and contaminate transfer prints can even then sometimes persist). Fingerprints on non-porous surfaces such as plastic, metal and glass can last for years if not exposed to water and if left undisturbed.