Prints of a Man | Brown Bag Lecture with Arthur Bohanan

Arthur Bohanan will discuss his new book, Prints of a Man, detailing his career of 55 years in the criminal justice field. A curious mind and a high school interest in fingerprints took him from Sevier County to the top of his profession as a forensics specialist, inventor, and crime solver. He is perhaps best known for his invention of a method to take fingerprints from a dead body and for his work to identify bodies from the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. His pioneering work included the discovery of the chemical composition of children’s fingerprints and their change at puberty from a water base to an oil base, a key factor when working with the AMBER Alert system and missing children, with other awards and honors too numerous to list. In the Brown Bag Lecture on Wednesday, July 12, Bohanan will also discuss his latest fascinating research to discover the rate of decay, cemeteries washed out by floods and hurricanes, and to locate and gender the long dead, in which he reports a 99% accuracy on blind testing.

The program is sponsored by the Gentry Griffey Funeral Chapel & Crematory and is free and open to the public. The lecture will begin at noon at the East Tennessee History Center, 601 S. Gay Street, Knoxville. Guests are invited to bring a “Brown Bag” lunch and enjoy the lecture. Soft drinks will be available. For more information on the lecture, exhibitions, or museum hours, call 865-215-8824.