A new computer system designed to cross-match fingerprints led to the arrest of a Fort Hall man in a murder case a quarter of a century old.
The arrest of John Hevewah Jr., 44, Fort Hall, was made possible by the Idaho Department of Law Enforcement's recently operational Automated Fingerprint Identification System, said Mack W. Richardson Jr., Department director.Fingerprints were lifted from the vehicle driven to a local store by 16-year-old murder victim Susan Hansen in 1964 after it was found abandoned. However, using the standards and procedures current at that time, technicians were unable to match the prints with any suspects, Richardson said Monday.
Authorities found Hansen's body less than a month later, and the prints were retained pending further investigation.
New developments in the case brought the fingerprints out again in 1987. And in October 1989, the Idaho Department of Law Enforcement came on-line with the new AFIS computer system.
Even though the prints were lifted from the crime scene 25 years ago, and only a photo of the prints remained available, the AFIS system matched the latent prints with those of Hevewah within minutes. After further investigation, local police arrested Hevewah last month.
Richardson noted that the AFIS system makes use of a high-speed computer that digitizes, scores and compares criminal fingerprint data and images. Fingerprints entered into the system are searched against millions of prints on file and identified from resulting candidate lists.
The Idaho AFIS computer is part of a network that will eventually include 11 Western states, with a database of more than 16 million fingerprints, Richardson said.