Why and when is footwear & tire track examination used?
Footwear and/or tire track evidence can be found at many crime scenes including breaking and entering, assault, hit and run, armed robbery, rape and homicide. For instance, shoeprints may be found on the tile in the entryway of a residential break-in, or tire tracks found along a dirt road near a murder victim. At some point in time, the perpetrator arrived at the scene, committed the crime, and then left the scene on foot or in a vehicle.
This type of evidence can provide valuable information to investigators including:
- Where the crime occurred
- The number of parties or vehicles present
- The direction a person may have traveled before, during or after the crime
- Whether a person was on foot
- Other crime scenes connected to a perpetrator
One of the most famous cases involving shoeprints was the 1995 O.J. Simpson murder trial. The bloody shoeprints found on the walkway in front of Nicole Brown Simpson’s condominium received worldwide media attention. Upon forensic examination, they were identified as imprints from the sole of a size-12 Bruno Magli shoe.
Information from the manufacturer indicated that only 299 pairs of this size-12 shoe were sold in the U.S. Two of these pairs were sold at a Bloomingdale’s store in New York where Simpson was known to have shopped. However, Simpson denied ever owning a pair of these shoes. It wasn’t until the 1996 wrongful death civil trial that pictures surfaced of Simpson at a Buffalo Bills football game, wearing a pair of black Bruno Magli shoes of the same style that left the bloody shoeprints. This was key evidence in the civil trial that led to the judgment against Simpson.