DEAD men do talk - and in this case, it was a dead girl who did.
She was Huang Na, the eight-year-old whose disappearance sparked a national manhunt. Her body was found wrapped in nine layers of plastic bags in a sealed box at Telok Blangah Hill Park on Oct 31, 2004.
A tiny drop of blood found at the Pasir Panjang warehouse where she was last seen convinced forensic detectives she was either dead or injured.
DNA tests found half of the profile matching the mother's DNA; the other half could not be matched to her father then as he was overseas.
Said Deputy Superintendent Lim Seng Kim, who heads the police's forensic management branch: "When we were asked to look into the case by the investigating officer, we had no information at all.
"For normal crime scenes you have a body and you know where the crime took place. Here we only knew where the guy worked and we were just trying our luck and taking a chance."
The trail eventually led to vegetable packer Took Leng How, who led police to Huang Na's body at Telok Blangah Hill Park. Took was later found guilty of murder and sent to the gallows last year.
When the Huang Na case broke, DSP Lim was into his seventh year in Singapore's version of CSI.
And yes, he enjoys watching the US television drama series on crime scene investigation. He also never fails to catch documentaries on forensic investigation like New Detectives on cable television, all to inspire him.
He tries to watch them at night while telling his three sons, aged 17, 19 and 21, about the art and science of forensic evidence gathering.
His wife worries about his choice of topic, but he says: "You may not do it (crime) but you must be prepared yourself so people don't do it to you."
DSP Lim, 57, spent 10 years as an investigator in a police division and 13 years in the police dog unit before moving into forensics in 1997.
The science graduate from the then Nanyang University applied for the job because he wanted to apply science and technology to solve crimes.
In 2000, he attended a three-month course in Britain and subsequently attended several other seminars and courses in the United States and Britain. He even attended courses conducted by the renowned Dr Henry Lee, who was invited by Taiwan to investigate an alleged assassination attempt on their president.
Today, the police forensics branch, located in Police Cantonment Complex in New Bridge Road, has reached such a level of expertise that it conducts training for crime scene investigators from the region.
When DSP Lim first took over the unit, forensic investigators were not able to detect prints in dust, or difficult-to-capture surfaces such as oily, bloody and sticky surfaces.
Today, however, the police have access to a variety of equipment that allows investigators to see evidence not visible to the naked eye.
Investigators have also developed a more systematic evidence gathering plan. DSP Lim's painstaking efforts to build the branch earned him a National Day Commendation Medal this year.
He said: "The ultimate case for forensics is when even without a confession, we can still find him guilty with evidence."
By the way, did you know that when a person slashes his wrist, blood will spurt out of the cut? That was how police deduced that a 57-year-old woman who appeared to have committed suicide in August 2003 was actually murdered. Blood flowed down her wrist instead of spurting, indicating that she was slashed after she died.
The family maid was convicted of the murder in Sept 2004.
"All these cases, we actually find very small things and don't have the big picture. But the beautiful thing is together with what the investigators find then you'll be able to piece together the big story. It is like a puzzle."
Case 1: Fingerprint captured on putty helps nab vandal
HIGH-INTENSITY light and advanced photographic techniques captured a loan shark vandal's fingerprint from putty used to vandalise a car.
In November 2005, while investigating a case, police noticed a car nearby which had blue sticky putty-like substance on its licence plate.
Suspicious, they contacted the owner and found out that he had previously had problems with a loan shark and that the car had been vandalised. Putty had been used to block the car's key hole in a previous incident.
The police's forensic management branch was called in and crime scene examiners spotted a fingerprint formed on the putty. But the uneven surface of the substance made it difficult to capture the print and they had to use advanced techniques to do so.
The prints were later matched to the culprit, who was charged in court for loan shark activities.
The culprit was sentenced to five years in jail and six strokes of the cane.
WHO ARE YOU?: Fuming the getaway car with super glue vapour brought up fingerprints left on its window. These prints led to the arrest of a robber.
Case 2: Super glue vapour brought armed robber to a sticky end
THREE shots rang out at a Choa Chu Kang coffee shop in May 2000 when a robber fired his gun after stealing his victim's valuables.
The thief then fled in the victim's car.
After recovering the vehicle, Forensic Management Branch examiners then fumed the entire car with super glue vapour. The purpose was to enhance fingerprints on non-porous surfaces, to see if the culprit had left his mark.
He did.
Several prints were found on the car's window, and that helped the police nab the culprit.
For armed robbery, the robber was jailed for life and given six strokes of the cane.
