By Ben Ando

BBC News crime reporter

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. Advertisement A British inventor's new fingerprinting technique has given fresh impetus to half a dozen unsolved cases and could help police identify the killer of a man shot dead 10 years ago in the US. For detectives in the American city of Bristol, Connecticut, the 1998 murder case of Louis "Pete" LaFontaine remains the only unsolved killing on their books. The local police team are determined to find the killer and that has prompted local detective Garrie Dorman to travel 3,500 miles to see if a little bit of British inventiveness can help. He arrived carrying a polythene evidence bag containing shell cases from the scene of a shooting that has left US police baffled for nearly a decade. In February 1998 electrical repairman Louis "Pete" LaFontaine was shot dead as he slept at his home in an affluent part of Bristol. 'Top 50 inventions' There was no sign of forced entry and as far as the police could tell the 53-year-old, who was divorced with a son, was popular and well liked. After many hours of work, and numerous dead-end leads, the case had gone cold. The search for a breakthrough has brought Detective Dorman across the Atlantic to visit Wooton Hall, the headquarters of Northamptonshire Police. REVEALING A HIDDEN PRINT When a bullet casing is fired or wiped, any surface residue like a fingerprint is removed. But John Bond can find it. First an electrical charge is applied. This charge is greater on clean brass than on surfaces corroded by sweat. Finely charged particles are poured over the casing. They tend to stick where the potential is lowest. Fingerprint starts to reveal itself. Heating the casing brings the print up more fully. BACK {current} of {total} NEXT He said: "My hope was always to find a new forensic technique that would enable us to identify Mr LaFontaine's killer. But I had no idea it would ever bring me to England." Det Dorman came to meet Dr John Bond, the scientific support manager for Northamptonshire Police and a fellow of the University of Leicester. He has developed a technique that can reveal "hidden" fingerprints on metal - especially shell casings - by detecting the minute traces of corrosion on the surface caused by salt in the sweat on human fingers. Such corrosion cannot be wiped off, is impervious to the heat generated when the weapon is fired, and does not deteriorate over time. It has been described by Time magazine as one of the top 50 inventions of 2008. 'Wire and gaffer tape' Dr Bond said: "Normal fingerprinting requires a residue of sweat to be left on the metal, but my technique doesn't need that, and it can work when conventional techniques fail. "I'm confident that if there's any corrosion on Det Dorman's shell cases, then we can find it within days." The process is deceptively simple. The shell case is held in contact with an electrical terminal that charges it with 2,500 Volts. One American policeman walked in and said 'I can't believe I've come all this way for a cardboard box and a popsicle stick'

Dr John Bond Then similarly charged ceramic beads are poured on to it. The beads are coated with very fine black powder which is transferred on to the casing, but only where it has suffered corrosion. "The black powder just reveals where the corrosion pattern is, then we heat the sample to bake the powder in place and photograph it for standard fingerprint comparison," Dr Bond added. "We often get prints from the forefinger or thumb, where the person loading the weapon has pushed bullets into the magazine." Dr Bond is an almost stereotypical British inventor. His device was assembled at home and the parts are homemade and joined together by twisted wire and gaffer tape. "One American policeman walked in and said 'I can't believe I've come all this way for a cardboard box and a popsicle stick'," he said. But his technique works, and has already given fresh impetus to half a dozen cold case investigations, nearly all in the US. "The Americans seem quicker to embrace new technology than we are," he said. Det Dorman hopes to crack his police department's only unsolved murder Dr Bond is reluctant to talk about cases in the UK he is working on. The technique is so new that many people are still awaiting trial. But he confirmed he has been asked to examine a shell case left at the scene of the murder of village post office worker Craig Hodson-Walker in Worcestershire recently. In the laboratory, Det Dorman is optimistic. He said: "If we get a fingerprint there are certainly a few possible suspects in the frame for Mr LaFontaine's killing that we'd like to compare it with to include or exclude or we'll just have to go to our regular database of prints." Apart from bringing a killer to justice, there is a professional pride at stake for a detective wanting a satisfactory outcome to the only unsolved murder on his police department's books. "We have a fairly good rate at solving murders in the past and this is one that really kind of sticks with everyone," said Det Dorman. "It'd be real nice to see this one come to a positive close."



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