Originally published at: Pinnacle Man, found dead in cave 47 years ago, finally identified as Nicholas Paul Grubb - Boing Boing
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Maybe he believed squirrels are his friends?
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Why was his fingerprint in a database that could be matched by the FBI?
Related: When did the US start finger printing school children en masse to feed into crime databases under the guise of protecting children from kidnapping? I knew they were doing it in the 80s and 90s, but were they also doing it in the 50s and 60s?!
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In 1984ish, one of the adults in my Boy Sprout troop decided that we should all get fingerprinting merit badge, and as part of that brought in an FBI guy with a fingerprinting kit and a bunch of cards. Once fillled out and stamped with our little fingers, said person stated they would be added to their database “in case of kidnappings or other incidents.” I tore up my card right then and there, and the adults in the room in charge of the scouts told him, against his vocal protests, that no, their kids were not going to be added to any databases. Since one of the adults so arguing was a Navy SEAL chief petty officer, who threatened to call his command over the issue, all the cards were then burnt.
I got the merit badge, it was one of the easiest I got on my way to Eagle, and as an adult, I have suspicions about why it existed at all and basically consisted of knowing what fingerprints were and how they were used and filling out a fingerprint card properly. Most merit badges require considerable more effort.
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Babies born in the US have hand- and footprints taken shortly after they’re born.
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Well, that’s a bit worrying in its own right. The military should not have that sort of influence over a civilian agency, not even as an implied threat over a legitimate issue.
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This was, as I stated, 1984ish, before the cold war ended. Things were different back then. A serving military non-commissioned officer who may or may not have engaged in the sort of actions SEALS are known for, having his kid’s fingerprints in an unsecured and readily accessible database with their parents names and occupations and addresses clearly listed might just have been a security concern. I don’t really know for sure, because the troop’s kids were sent outside to play a really riotous game of “British Bulldog” about then. I was there for the shouting, though, and we all watched the card burning, 'cause kids and fire and all that.
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Not handprints that I’ve seen! Just had a baby.
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Yeah, IIRC it turns out that to get a baby to flatten their hand is actually a challenge. But their feetsies print up nicely!
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Our whole grade school class was fingerprinted under this guise. I remember it well.
Is it admissible evidence, though? Who consented? Can they prove the consent?
Not that it matters… they will use the illegal database to ID you and then find some plausible other way to nail you with admissible evidence.
Not that I plan on doing anything to bring my attention to the FBI anyway ehem cough
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… as long as the evidence at the crime scene is collected the right way, probably
Otherwise you could just keep doing more murders and they could never lawfully identify you, since your original file was forever tainted
hello smulder… where is agent kully?
Good!
A copy of my hand- and footprints are in my (ancient, mouldering) baby book.
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This unfortunate man is believed to have died of a drug overdose, so there are greater-than-average odds he was once fingerprinted for some kind of minor criminal offense even if it was just simple possession. I don’t know exactly how or when those local records become something that can be accessed by the FBI but it certainly does happen.
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They’ve ruled out Triangle Man?
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My siblings and I were fingerprinted in the late 1950s—I was pretty young, but I can remember it. My oldest sibling is the same age as Mr. Grubb (Pinnacle Man) would be today, and I think would have been around 8 or 9 years old at the time we were fingerprinted.
Apparently there was a widespread concern about child kidnapping at that time. Apparently these scares come around again and again, for various reasons that change with the times.
An article on the Ohio State University website gives some history of various scares:
By the 1950s, however, Americans began to change how they perceived the motives for child abduction. Ransom as a motive for kidnapping receded as sexual abuse and rape became more public and familiar themes in society.
The threat of abduction became even more powerful. It was now a crime to be feared by the vast majority of parents, not just those who were likely to be targeted because of their wealth. Once sexual violation or other sadistic practices, which likely led to the victims’ deaths, were seen as motives for child disappearance, all parents became vulnerable because all children could be victims of such crimes.
I can’t speak for other people’s experience, but in our case we were told that we were being fingerprinted in case we were ever kidnapped. Our father took us to the local police station, where it was done.
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In Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson (published in 1894, but taking place prior to the civil war) one of the characters has a hobby of collecting fingerprints from the townsfolk, including infants, which turn out to be an important part of the plot.
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