Cold Case is Coldest
Ever for Crime Lab
By Kelli Wynn
DAYTON — The fingerprint
identification used to help Montgomery County sheriff's detectives make
an arrest in the 36-year-old Perry Smith homicide investigation marked a
milestone for the Miami Valley Regional Crime Lab.
"That's the oldest case we have ever had in this facility," said Ken
Betz, director of the crime lab.
On Saturday, sheriff's Detectives Rick Ward and Brad Daugherty arrested
Robert J. Sosnoskie, 62, at his Tiffany Twp., Wis., home after
questioning him in the death of Smith. The 76-year-old Harrison Twp. man
was found dead in June 1971 inside his ransacked home at 200 Sinclair
Ave., a street that used to exist somewhere in the area where Riverside
Drive, between Flory Avenue and East Nottingham Road, is now.
Ward and Daugherty were able to locate Sosnoskie after they entered
fingerprints in Smith's homicide into the national Automated
Fingerprinting Identification System last November, said sheriff's Maj.
Greg Laravie.
"At the same time the FBI was updating their software system along with
the state of Ohio," Betz said. "The federal system was unavailable to us
for routine cases for almost six weeks."
The crime lab had other cases that were active. "Our position was that
it would be put in the system as time became available, instead we were
working current active high priority cases," Betz said.
The detectives received a response from the crime lab about the
identification in March, Laravie said.
Sosnoskie's fingerprints were in AFIS after he was arrested for a
felony, Betz said. Betz didn't know where the arrest took place.
The national AFIS system is about 15 years old and the crime lab changed
its fingerprint system to match the state's system in 2000, Betz said.
This allows the crime lab to go through the state when they need
assistance from the federal AFIS.
Betz wasn't sure how many fingerprints are actually in the crime lab's
system, but he said he believes the numbers are in the hundreds of
thousands along with approximately 85,000 palm prints.
Copyright © 2007, Dayton Daily News, OH
|