Our next guest is Katherine Beck from the Alachua, did I pronounce that correctly? Alachua, uh, County Sheriff's Office. Thank you for being here at the junction. Yeah. So can you tell us what your background is and how it, it involves the field of forensics?

Um, yeah, I was a CSI for about nine years and then I have been a supervisor for, um, about five years now at the Sheriff's Office for the Crime Scene Unit.

Excellent. And what was your topic today?

Shoe prints and tire tracks.

Excellent. I did, uh, the Forensic Science, uh, Master's at University of Florida. So, I got to learn some of like, what it's used for. So, I mean, overall, what can shoe prints and tire tracks tell us?

Um, it can tell us a lot. I mean, we can actually, if there's enough detail, you can identify a suspect, um, and trace the shoe or the tire back to, you know, the individual, um, person. But it can also tell you how many people were there, where they went, um, that kind of stuff.

So normally, from, I mean, from cases that we work on, we're trying to say that somebody was at a scene, but are shoe prints and tire marks about just exclusion, inclusion, or is it about both?

Um, it's both because, I mean, if you have, um, you know, eyewitness testimony or, uh, surveillance video or something, um, and you have a particular person that's, you know, they're wearing a certain type of shoe and, you know, you have a suspect that has a different kind of shoe and it doesn't match then you can exclude them basically.

So how, how does it work as far as collecting the, the samples?

Um, first you want to document it with photographs. Um, there's a lot of that goes into that. You're going to use a tripod and set up the camera, um, and use oblique lighting, um, and you know, make sure that you document the entirety of the, the shoe print or tire track. Um, but then you can also cast it using dental stone, um, and. That basically takes a 3D impression of, of the shoe print or tire track.

And, and what do you have to compare it to? Like, are there standards, or is there a database, or what do you use?

Um, there is a database, but we also like to collect, uh, standards. If you have, uh, a known suspect, um, at some point in your investigation, to collect the standard from either the shoe or the tire. Um, again, either photographs or, you know, you can, um, ink them or, um, there's other ways to go about that as well.

I think that we think about shoe prints and tire tracks as far as like the indentations that they leave on the ground and in places and objects, but can you retrieve tire, tire marks and footprints from like individuals, like victims, animal victims or human victims?

Yes, um, in theory you can. Uh, I think it would probably be more difficult on animals just because of the fur and everything. But, um, you definitely can if there's enough, you know, pressure and there's an indentation or, um, you know, even bruising or something, um, if it was done, you know, perimortem, perimortem. Um, then you can definitely, you know, obtain tracts or shoe prints

from them. So do you think there is or there would be use in being able to lift, like, animal prints, uh, going forward?

Um, I think it's an interesting concept. Um, I think it would be useful as far as telling, like, maybe where the animal went or where they had been. Um, I, I don't think that it would, I don't know, I should say, that if there's um, identifying features as far as, you know, uniqueness there, um, like fingerprints to humans that I don't know that there is for animals, but it would at least, you could, I'm sure, tell what type of animal and species, that kind of thing, and obviously, yeah, where they've been.

Excellent. Well, thank you so much for giving us your time, and thank you for being here.

Thank you.