More from Jimmy Chilcutt (Paul's account of his presentation at WCS 2003):
"Dermal ridge evidence in footprint casts
For me, Jimmy Chilcutt’s talk was the most fascinating – many of you already know that I work as a Forensic Examiner and Expert Witness, so for me, it was interesting to see another expert witnesses "Evidence".
"My basic job” Chilcutt began, “is to take one fingerprint from a crime scene and match it to one from all the millions on file."
Chilcutt said that he noticed during an investigation, that cocaine packages are generally wrapped in numerous layers. By carefully unwrapping these packages, Chilcutt was able to isolate prints, on each of the layers, which ultimately led to convictions. The Federal organizations picked up on this very quickly and now Chilcutt works with the FBI, DEA, ATF, and all sorts of "alphabet" organizations.
Chilcutt is a man with a curious mind, and whilst his future research into human fingerprints was going to be unpopular, it is important to us. Chilcutt wondered whether human fingerprints contained any sexual or ethnic characteristics that could be used as an aid in identifying individuals. He was somewhat successful, and states that he can say with an 85% certainty whether a fingerprint is male or female, black or white, but ran into some difficulties as a result of interbreeding of races (it is easy to see how his work could be deemed as being politically incorrect).
As part of this study, he began taking prints from primates (because they don't interbreed.) After being turned down by several zoos, He started with the Yerkes Primate Center, telling inquiring minds he was "investigating the theft of a truckload of bananas!", and found that humans and primates share the same characteristics - arches, loops, and whorls. They are simply present in different configurations.
Chilcutt said that he lived alone at the time, and because he didn’t have a wife to nag him, was sat eating his dinner in front of the TV one night with a beer, half-watching the Discovery Channel, when he hears Dr. Jeff Meldrum utter those two words which brought Chilcutt into the bigfoot field – “Dermal Ridges”. Chilcutt called Meldrum the next day, and eventually spent three days examining casts from Meldrum’s vast collection.
Chilcutt came away from those three days convinced "...there is an undiscovered North American ape!"
The first cast had dermal ridges, but had been double-tapped, by using human fingerprints to make the toe prints look better. He put that cast aside.
The Walla Walla, WA casts (13-inches long) exhibited "clear ridges with characteristics", with ridges going down the side of the cast.
He went on to explain that human ridges go across the foot and then fade away, and primate ridges run across the foot at an angle.
To Chilcutt's surprise, he found the ridges on the Walla Walla cast ran down the cast on the bottom of the foot, but also on the side of the cast. The ridges on the cast were also "twice the thickness of human dermal ridges."
A Walla Walla cast from 1987 displays the "same texture of ridges as some Northern California casts.”, cast some twenty years and hundreds of miles apart.
In addition, he has found dermal ridges on a cast from Georgia... faint ridges, again running down the side of the foot, and explains that the Skookum Cast shows dermal ridges running down the sides of an Achilles Tendon.
Chilcutt said dermal ridges are not present on every cast... but on casts made before 1999, he is convinced that no one could have known the significance of ridges. But casts made after that date could be made knowing all the information Chilcutt has brought to the field of bigfoot research.
The following day I caught up with Chilcutt in a corridor, and asked whether his involvement in the bigfoot field had harmed his reputation as an Expert Witness in any way.
“Absolutely not” he said in his soft-spoken Texan accent “If a defense attorney were to ask me about it in open court they know they would be given the same presentation I gave yesterday, which would only reenforce my particular expertise”.
Chilcutt and I agreed that one of the most frustrating aspects of bigfoot research was the poor handling of evidence, and that it needs a good shake up, so that field researchers treat footprints, film, photos etc. as real forensic evidence, and are collected and handled in a forensically sound manner.
I firmly believe that Jimmy Chilcutt is the best thing that has happened to bigfoot research in years."
http://www.bigfootproject.org/articles/bf_symp_2003_report.html
I think Paul may have misunderstood Chicutt on where the SC dermal ridges are located. I'll have to watch my DVDs again. The recorded sound is rather poor; it must have been nearly that bad in person.
Glad you like it...
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