Edmond Locard was a forensic scientist born November 13, 1877, in France. Locard studied medicine focusing on science and medicine in the legal system. In 1910 Locard was given the opportunity to create a crime investigation lab where he would analyze evidence from crime scenes. During World War I, Locard worked with the French Secret Service as a medical examiner. He was responsible for determining when, where, and how soldiers died. Locard also wrote multiple books, his most famous is Traité de criminalistique (Treaty of Criminalistics). From this book, we gained Locard’s Exchange Principle.
Locard’s Exchange Principle states that “It is impossible for a criminal to act, especially considering the intensity of a crime, without leaving traces of this presence” this means that a person cannot enter an area without altering it in some way; the person will leave traces of themselves in the area and they will take traces with them.
Locard also developed the 12-point fingerprint identification method. This method states that if two sets of fingerprints had 12 matching points, then it could be concluded that they belonged to the same individual. Locard continued his research until his death in May 1966.
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