Thursday, July 31, 2003

 Forensic French Smelling

According to this story by Kim Wilsher in the UK Telegraph, the French police are "bottling" smells at the scenes of crimes to identify suspects by the odor they have left behind.

After conducting a two-year-long programme of tests on a method of detection known as "odourology," they have concluded that smell can be as effective as using fingerprints or DNA samples to link a criminal with a crime.


Amazingly, the technique seems to have significant merit and other law agencies are starting to adopt it. Probably not so amazing is that the French came up with the idea. Since they have an international reputation for scoring high on the Poor Hygiene Scale, their country is a target-rich environment for smells. In fact, I've heard of instances where they've been able to locate a criminal by his smell without using a tracker dog.

Read the whole article for considerable detail.

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