Uncovering RECOVER

Dorit Hadzayev , forensics, Israel police., Jerusalem, Israel (dorit.4@gmail.com)

Disulfur dinitride (S₂N₂) has emerged as a promising reagent for latent fingerprint development on a range of metallic substrates. Despite its potential, the Recover Latent Fingerprint Technology (LFT) that utilizes this compound has not been comprehensively evaluated. This study was undertaken to delineate the method’s scope and limitations and to establish optimal operational conditions for the RECOVER LFT system.

We established precise development times and pretreatment protocols for bullets and cartridge cases of various calibers. In parallel, comparative experiments were conducted to assess the efficiency of the Recover LFT method relative to conventional techniques—specifically cyanoacrylate fuming and vacuum metal deposition on stainless steel knives. The results demonstrate that Recover LFT exhibits exceptional sensitivity when developing fingerprints on stainless steel knife blades. Notably, it is less susceptible to tampering and produces superior contrast even after deliberate interference. These findings indicate that Recover LFT may serve as a robust alternative for latent fingerprint development in challenging forensic contexts where reliable evidence detection is critical.

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Short Biography of Presenting Author

Dorit hadzayev is an export in the Latent Fingerprint Development laboratory of the Israeli Police.

She earned her B.S.c in biology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2015.

Currently she a M.Sc student in the department of clinical epidemiology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Enlisted to the mobile crime scene laboratory officer in 2018, in 2022 moved to the latent fingerprint development lab.