We are in person at the 2024 Animal Forensic Conference in Gainesville, Florida! Dr. G will be interviewing several of the speakers to give our audience a bit of the knowledge gained through the presentations. We will be releasing each interview individually to allow our listeners to find topics of interest.

Shoe prints and tire tracks can help place individuals at crime scenes. To learn more about this we interviewed Katherine Beck from the Alachua County Sheriff's Office.

We would also like to invite our listeners involved in animal cruelty investigations to visit and join the International Society for Animal Forensic Sciences https://isafs.org/

Mentioned in this episode:

Keep it Humane Podcast Network

The Animal Welfare Junction is part of the Keep It Humane Podcast Network. Visit keepithumane.com/podcastnetwork to find us and our amazing animal welfare podcast partners.

Our next guest is Katherine Beck from the Alachua, did

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I pronounce that correctly?

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Alachua, uh, County Sheriff's Office.

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Thank you for being here at the junction.

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Yeah.

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So can you tell us what your

background is and how it, it

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involves the field of forensics?

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Katherine Beck: Um, yeah, I was a

CSI for about nine years and then

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I have been a supervisor for, um,

about five years now at the Sheriff's

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Office for the Crime Scene Unit.

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DrG: Excellent.

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And what was your topic today?

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Katherine Beck: Shoe

prints and tire tracks.

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DrG: Excellent.

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I did, uh, the Forensic Science, uh,

Master's at University of Florida.

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So, I got to learn some

of like, what it's used for.

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So, I mean, overall, what can shoe

prints and tire tracks tell us?

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Katherine Beck: Um, it can tell us a lot.

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I mean, we can actually, if there's enough

detail, you can identify a suspect, um,

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and trace the shoe or the tire back to,

you know, the individual, um, person.

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But it can also tell you how many

people were there, where they

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went, um, that kind of stuff.

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DrG: So normally, from, I mean, from

cases that we work on, we're trying to

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say that somebody was at a scene, but

are shoe prints and tire marks about just

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exclusion, inclusion, or is it about both?

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Katherine Beck: Um, it's both because,

I mean, if you have, um, you know,

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eyewitness testimony or, uh, surveillance

video or something, um, and you have

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a particular person that's, you know,

they're wearing a certain type of shoe

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and, you know, you have a suspect that has

a different kind of shoe and it doesn't

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match then you can exclude them basically.

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DrG: So how, how does it work as

far as collecting the, the samples?

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Katherine Beck: Um, first you want

to document it with photographs.

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Um, there's a lot of that goes into that.

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You're going to use a tripod and set

up the camera, um, and use oblique

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lighting, um, and you know, make sure

that you document the entirety of

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the, the shoe print or tire track.

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Um, but then you can also cast

it using dental stone, um, and.

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That basically takes a 3D impression

of, of the shoe print or tire track.

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DrG: And, and what do you

have to compare it to?

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Like, are there standards, or is

there a database, or what do you use?

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Katherine Beck: Um, there is

a database, but we also like

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to collect, uh, standards.

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If you have, uh, a known suspect, um,

at some point in your investigation,

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to collect the standard from

either the shoe or the tire.

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Um, again, either photographs

or, you know, you can, um,

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ink them or, um, there's other

ways to go about that as well.

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DrG: I think that we think about shoe

prints and tire tracks as far as like

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the indentations that they leave on the

ground and in places and objects, but

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can you retrieve tire, tire marks and

footprints from like individuals, like

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victims, animal victims or human victims?

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Katherine Beck: Yes,

um, in theory you can.

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Uh, I think it would probably be

more difficult on animals just

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because of the fur and everything.

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But, um, you definitely can if there's

enough, you know, pressure and there's

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an indentation or, um, you know, even

bruising or something, um, if it was

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done, you know, perimortem, perimortem.

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Um, then you can definitely, you

know, obtain tracts or shoe prints

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DrG: from them.

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So do you think there is or there

would be use in being able to lift,

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like, animal prints, uh, going forward?

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Katherine Beck: Um, I think

it's an interesting concept.

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Um, I think it would be useful as

far as telling, like, maybe where the

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animal went or where they had been.

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Um, I, I don't think that it would,

I don't know, I should say, that if

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there's um, identifying features as far

as, you know, uniqueness there, um, like

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fingerprints to humans that I don't know

that there is for animals, but it would at

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least, you could, I'm sure, tell what type

of animal and species, that kind of thing,

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and obviously, yeah, where they've been.

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DrG: Excellent.

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Well, thank you so much for giving us

your time, and thank you for being here.

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Katherine Beck: Thank you.