An illustrated manual on how criminalistics and forensic expertise work — based on the cases of famous serial and mass murderers. How to catch a maniac or a serial killer? Any investigation in such cases is a complex combination of different criminalistic sciences, such as toxicology, fingerprinting, forensic ballistics, forensic expertise, profiling, or DNA analysis. To track down the killer, detectives have learned to interpret vital evidence written in the language of fingerprints, tiny skin flakes, dental impressions, bone fragments, blood stains, paint, traces of chemicals, or bullet trajectories. In this book, researcher, author of articles and books on criminalistics and forensic expertise Brian Innes has compiled the most interesting cases that demonstrate the diversity and complexity of methods for capturing especially dangerous criminals, as well as discussing the history of the origin and development of various branches of criminalistics. Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Richard Ramirez the Night Stalker, Lee Harvey Oswald, Albert DeSalvo the Boston Strangler, Ted Kaczynski the Unabomber, and many other serial killers are analyzed in this book from the perspective of the tactics used to capture them. The text is illustrated with more than 200 unique photographs from investigation cases, many of which are shown for the first time.
