by Xochitl Campos
Daily Lobo
Crimes that have gone unsolved for years at UNM are now being put to rest with better technology and a new law, a UNM Police spokesman said.
Lt. Pat Davis said UNM Police used to submit fingerprints to the state crime lab to no avail.
"We got very few hits back on those, and part of the reason was because the old system used to require almost a full fingerprint to get an ID," he said. "Now, they have better and faster computers, and they can take the print and match it to somebody's history."
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A law passed in 2006 requires the fingerprints and DNA of all criminal offenders to be processed into AFIS, an automatic fingerprint identification system, UNMPD Officer Eric Miller said.
Seven criminals have been matched to crimes connected to the UNM campus in the last two months.
With the old system, it was rare that fingerprints would lead to an arrest, Davis said.
But new evidence is put in the system and matched to evidence collected years ago, Miller said.
The department used to need a suspect before it could try to create a match with fingerprints or DNA, Miller said.
"Before this law, the only way we'd have it is if (the offender) walked in and said he wanted to plead guilty to breaking into a car," he said.
With the former system, a suspect's fingerprints were pulled manually from a file and matched with a microscope, Miller said.
"We never had a system where we could just run it through," he said.
Davis said fingerprints found at the scene of a January 2004 auto burglary committed in a parking structure were used to solve the crime three years later.
Davis said the fingerprints were linked to Linh Nguyen, who was charged with murder in September.
"(His prints) match a print from the UNM case, and we were able to add it on as additional charges to what is murder he did in 2007," he said.
Davis said that on top of the murder charges, Nguyen will have to pay for the stolen stereo.
The new system is good for officers' morale because evidence that is collected gets used, UNMPD Detective Nina Fox said.
"It's really exciting and encouraging, because for years we would collect all of this evidence and never hear anything back," she said. "It's really good news for us."
Davis said the new system is updated regularly, and more crimes are being solved.
"As the system is catching up to old records, it is sending us new stuff," he said.
Davis said the new system is important to the department because it handles a lot of property crimes.
"Victims want to see something happen when somebody victimizes them," he said. "In each one of these cases that is being investigated, the victims are getting restitution."
