I see this in various shows and movies, and it always leaves me wondering if it’s actually gonna do them any good in not getting tracked down.
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In the modern world, the most important trace you leave is DNA – especially hair.
But to answer your question – it depends a lot on the surface, the technology used to recover those fingerprints and how “hastily” actually they were wiped. Sometimes you need just a small fraction of a fingerprint to identify a person.
Thus said, fingerprints have largely been replaced by DNA.
Yes fingerprints are a layer of oil on a surface wiping them smudges the print, but doesn’t remove the oil https://youtu.be/FB3Tt2ZLyUQ
It depends on the surface and what people use, but for what you see in movies where they pull out a cloth and wipe the surface once, probably not.
Fingerprints are the pattern of the skin on your fingers, and that pattern is left behind in the form of oil when you touch them. A quick wipe will smear the fingerprints it contacts, but a quick wipe is by definition quick. It’s not thorough, it doesn’t clean every last part of the door handle or gun, and you’d be surprised how much you actually touch on even the most mundane objects. A more thorough cleaning will do a better job, but that requires time and ideally chemicals, and if you have enough forethought to be carrying around detergent to wipe off prints, you probably have enough forethought to just wear gloves instead.
On porous surfaces like paper or a leather steering wheel, a quick wipe is even less useful because some of the oil will penetrate into the surface and a wipe won’t be able to clean it.
Yes-ish. Your fingerprint is just a very thin pattern of oil on a surface. Getting the oil off completely isn’t particularly easy but you don’t need to do that, you just need to smear it around enough that it can’t be easily matched to a known fingerprint.
How well that works depends both on how thorough the person doing the smearing is, what surface they’re wiping, and how much effort the forensic team wants to put into trying to lift a print back off it.
If they are even smeared they are unusable. Best bet is surgical gloves or use a bleach solution as part of your cleanup. Even better is both. If you’re worried about fibers and DNA then wear one of those zip up disposable suits with the surgical gloves, shoe coverings on as you enter (wear a size larger shoe but wear extra socks as it can be noticed by weight distribution if you’re wearing larger shoes, this should resolve it though. Wear a face mask, k95 gives more room around nose and mouth. Wear a hair covering (type you’d see in surgical use) and a clear visor. Don’t be tempted to touch your face as DNA will be transferred to any surface you touch. Essentially wear barrier nursing PPE and act accordingly. Try to keep cool so sweat doesn’t drip. Wear only light underwear below the suit. Remove foot coverings leaving as not to track anything out of the house. Find a safe place nearby to remove all of this. Stand in a ‘rubble sack’ while removing it so any debris falls into it and isn’t left on the ground. Dress yourself standing in a separate sack so as not to get transfer from the area to your ‘clean’ clothing. Take the PPE in sack to a safe remote place and burn it. Ensure when purchasing that everything is flammable of course. Make your way home and put every item, outer clothes, underwear and shoes, in the washing machine. Ensure you put bleach in with the load in case of inadvertent transfer then wash hot. After drying donate clothes at a recycling point away from where you live. Ensure you don’t drive there and try to avoid the cameras. Most supermarkets are good for this as you can enter the car park directly to it without using the official entrance. Back at home do an empty wash with bleach and clean everywhere you have walked and touched thorough with bleach. Don’t Hoover as this will simply collect everything in an easy to find place. Bleach destroys rather than removes. Ideally you’d have access to another property not associated with you and unknown to anyone. Remember, nothing is secret if ONE person knows.
Anyway, that’s how I’d organize a surprise party for someone who was super suspicious and was a CSI..
A bigger impediment to being caught is that police are not nearly as competent as media makes them out to be. Most violent crimes are solved by a cooperative eyewitness and/or getting a confession from the suspect.
Actual cop here, not a forensic specialist but I have done some forensics work including in stolen cars etc.
You can wipe out or smudge prints quite easily, but for commonly handled surfaces such as a steering wheel there’s hardly any point. Anything that gets handled a lot in normal use is already completely covered in smudged out prints, meaning there’s oily sweat rubbed in everywhere. Trying to dust for prints on such grease covered surfaces is usually an exercise in futility, the powder adheres everywhere so you don’t get any legible prints. It may be possible to use the CA glue fume method, but gluing the whole inside of a car can be unpopular with the owner so you don’t do that unless the case is serious enough.
I’ve had more success with dusting other surfaces that the suspect has touched but the car owner rarely handles. Objects in the glove compartment, the rear view mirror, sometimes the outside of a side window if they leant on it to look in before breaking in.
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Me, with no intention whatsoever to commit any crimes, reading the comments on this thread:
*-Takes notes, just in case*
Basically, yeah. Fingerprints are usually very fragile, theyre generally just faint impressions left by oil and dust on your hand. Pretty easy to smear and make completely unusable. Unless you had a lot of dust on your hand and touched something pretty sticky, but if that’s not the case, a quick wipe down with moderate pressure will render almost every fingerprint that it touches unusable.
These days the real kicker is DNA. Much harder to clean up all the hairs etc you may leave around a scene.
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