With the Perfect murder thread by SyrupWaffle, I noticed a few people where trying to take care of things that modern criminologists would be on the look out for rather than their counterparts in the 1920s and 1930s - the time line established for MR.

So, being the helpful bugger that I am (Read Condescending) I thought I'd post a few pointers on Forensics and Crime Scene Investigation :D

1813 - Mathiew Orfila, a Spaniard who became professor of medicinal/forensic chemistry at University of Paris, published Traite des Poisons Tires des Regnes Mineral, Vegetal et Animal, ou Toxicologie General l. Orfila is considered the father of modern toxicology. He also made significant contributions to the development of tests for the presence of blood in a forensic context and is credited as the first to attempt the use of a microscope in the assessment of blood and semen stains.

1835 - Henry Goddard, one of Scotland Yard's original Bow Street Runners, first used bullet comparison to catch a murderer. His comparison was based on a visible flaw in the bullet which was traced back to a mold.

1839 - H. Bayard published the first reliable procedures for the microscopic detection of sperm. He also noted the different microscopic characteristics of various different substrate fabrics.

1863 - The German scientist Schönbein first discovered the ability of hemoglobin to oxidize hydrogen peroxide making it foam. This resulted in first presumptive test for blood.

1880 - Henry Faulds, a Scottish physician working in Tokyo, published a paper in the journal Nature suggesting that fingerprints at the scene of a crime could identify the offender. In one of the first recorded uses of fingerprints to solve a crime, Faulds used fingerprints to eliminate an innocent suspect and indicate a perpetrator in a Tokyo burglary.

1896 - Sir Edward Richard Henry developed the print classification system that would come to be used in Europe and North America. He published Classification and Uses of Finger Prints.

1900 - Karl Landsteiner first discovered human blood groups and was awarded the Nobel prize for his work in 1930. Max Richter adapted the technique to type stains. This is one of the first instances of performing validation experiments specifically to adapt a method for forensic science. Landsteiner's continued work on the detection of blood, its species, and its type formed the basis of practically all subsequent work.

1903 - The New York State Prison system began the first systematic use of fingerprints in United States for criminal identification.

1910 - Victor Balthazard, professor of forensic medicine at the Sorbonne, with Marcelle Lambert, published the first comprehensive hair study, Le poil de l'homme et des animaux. In one of the first cases involving hairs, Rosella Rousseau was convinced to confess to murder of Germaine Bichon. Balthazard also used photographic enlargements of bullets and cartridge cases to determining weapon type and was among the first to attempt to individualize a bullet to a weapon.

1920s - Georg Popp pioneered the use of botanical identification in forensic work.

1924 - August Vollmer, as chief of police in Los Angeles, California, implemented the first U.S. police crime laboratory.

1927 - Landsteiner and Levine first detected the M, N, and P blood factors leading to development of the MNSs and P typing systems.

1929 - K. I. Yosida, a Japanese scientist, conducted the first comprehensive investigation establishing the existence of serological isoantibodies in body fluids other than blood.

1929 - Calvin Goddard's work on the St. Valentine's day massacre led to the founding of the Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory on the campus of Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.

1930 - American Journal of Police Science was founded and published by staff of Goddard's Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory in Chicago. In 1932, it was absorbed by Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, becoming the Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology and police science.

1931 - Franz Josef Holzer, an Austrian scientist, working at the Institute for Forensic Medicine of the University of Innsbruck, developed the absorbtion-inhibition ABO typing technique that became the basis of that commonly used in forensic laboratories. It was based on the prior work of Siracusa and Lattes.

1932 - The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) crime laboratory was created.

Things we don't have to worry about... yet.

1941 - Murray Hill of Bell Labs initiated the study voiceprint identification. The technique was refined by L.G. Kersta.

1945 - Frank Lundquist, working at the Legal Medicine Unit at the University of Copenhagen, developed the acid phosphatase test for semen.

1953 - Kirk published Crime Investigation, one of the first comprehensive criminalistics and crime investigation texts that encompassed theory in addition to practice.

1958 - A. S. Weiner and colleagues introduced the use of H-lectin to determine positively O blood type.

1960 - Lucas, in Canada, described the application of gas chromatography (GC) to the identification of petroleum products in the forensic laboratory and discussed potential limitations in the brand identity of gasoline.

1967 - Culliford, of the British Metropolitan Police Laboratory, initiated the development of gel-based methods to test for isoenzymes in dried bloodstains. He was also instrumental in the development and dissemination of methods for testing proteins and isoenzymes in both blood and other body fluids and secretions.

1971 - Culliford published The Examination and Typing of Bloodstains in the Crime Laboratory, generally accepted as responsible for disseminating reliable protocols for the typing of polymorphic protein and enzyme markers to the United States and worldwide.

1974 - The detection of gunshot residue (GSR) using scanning electron microscopy with electron dispersive X-rays (SEM-EDX) technology was developed by J. E. Wessel, P. F. Jones, Q. Y. Kwan, R. S. Nesbitt and E. J. Rattin at Aerospace Corporation.

1976 - Zoro and Hadley in the United Kingdom first evaluated GC-MS for forensic purposes. [Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) is a method that combines the features of gas-liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry to identify different substances within a test sample. Applications of GC-MS include drug detection, fire investigation, environmental analysis, explosives investigation, and identification of unknown samples. GC/MS can also be used in airport security to detect substances in luggage or on human beings. Additionally, it can identify trace elements in materials that were previously thought to have disintegrated beyond identification.]

1977 - Fuseo Matsumur, a trace evidence examiner at the Saga Prefectural Crime Laboratory of the National Police Agency of Japan, notices his own fingerprints developing on microscope slides while mounting hairs from a taxi driver murder case. He relates the information to co-worker Masato Soba, a latent print examiner. Soba would later that year be the first to develop latent prints intentionally by "Superglue(r)" fuming.

1984 - (Sir) Alec Jeffreys developed the first DNA profiling test. It involved detection of a multilocus RFLP pattern. He published his findings in Nature in 1985.

1986 - In the first use of DNA to solve a crime, Jeffreys used DNA profiling to identify Colin Pitchfork as the murderer of two young girls in the English Midlands. Significantly, in the course of the investigation, DNA was first used to exonerate an innocent suspect.

1987 - DNA profiling was introduced for the first time in a U.S. criminal court. Based on RFLP analysis performed by Lifecodes, Tommy Lee Andrews was convicted of a series of sexual assaults in Orlando, Florida.

1991 - Walsh Automation Inc., in Montreal, launched development of an automated imaging system called the Integrated Ballistics Identification System, or IBIS, for comparison of the marks left on fired bullets, cartridge cases, and shell casings. This system was subsequently developed for the U.S. market in collaboration with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF).

1998 - An FBI DNA database, NIDIS, enabling interstate cooperation in linking crimes, was put into practice.

1999 - The FBI upgraded its computerized fingerprint database and implemented the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS), allowing paperless submission, storage, and search capabilities directly to the national database maintained at the FBI.

The concept of forensic entomology dates back to at least the 14th century. However, only in the last 30 years has forensic entomology been systematically explored as a feasible source for evidence in criminal investigations. Through their own experiments and interest in arthropods and death, Song Ci, Francesco Redi, Bergeret d'Arbois, Jean Pierre Mégnin and the German doctor Hermann Reinhard have helped to lay the foundations for today's modern forensic entomology. - Used to identify how long a person has been dead.

Forensic podiatry is an application of the study of foot, footprint or footwear and their traces to analyze scene of crime and to establish personal identity in forensic examinations. - Although again dating back to the 1400's its only use was when there where identifying marks in the foot print, only in the last 10 years has a database of shoe types and tread wear been established to help identify the make of shoes worn at a crime scene.

The Locard exchange principle, also known as Locard's theory, was postulated by 20th century forensic scientist Edmond Locard.

Wherever he steps, whatever he touches, whatever he leaves, even unconsciously, will serve as a silent witness against him. Not only his fingerprints or his footprints, but his hair, the fibers from his clothes, the glass he breaks, the tool mark he leaves, the paint he scratches, the blood or semen he deposits or collects. All of these and more, bear mute witness against him. This is evidence that does not forget. It is not confused by the excitement of the moment. It is not absent because human witnesses are. It is factual evidence. Physical evidence cannot be wrong, it cannot perjure itself, it cannot be wholly absent. Only human failure to find it, study and understand it, can diminish its value.

However, it is only in the last 30 years that technology has existed to allow for direct comparison of this kind of trace evidence.