Portal:Argentina/Selected article/Month 12, 2009

Juan Vucetich (July 20, 1858 – January 25, 1925) was a Croatian-born Argentine anthropologist and police official who pioneered the use of fingerprinting.

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Juan Vucetich

In 1891 Vucetich began the first filing of fingerprints based on ideas of Francis Galton which he expanded significantly. He became the director of the Center for Dactyloscopy in Buenos Aires. At the time, he included the Bertillon system alongside the fingerprint files.

In 1892 Vucetich made the first positive identification of a criminal in a case where Francisca Rojas had killed her two sons and then cut her throat, trying to put the blame on the outside attacker. A bloody print identified her as the killer.