Footwear Marks
We examine a large number of footwear marks each year. There are several ways in which these may be made at crime scenes, for example, footwear marks can be in deposited mud, oil or blood or made in dust, soil or snow, in positive or in negative. In violent assaults footwear marks may also leave visible marks on the skin. Comparison is made with control marks made by footwear taken from the suspect. Tiny features such as manufacturing defects can provide a high degree of discrimination in these cases. Random damage features on an outsole, if recorded in sufficient detail can be considered a unique link to a particular shoe, however, care must be taken to not overstate significance where marks are poor or where frequency of shoe type in a specific population is uncertain.
