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Fingerprint powder is a fine powder used by crime scene investigators, and others in law enforcement, to dust for fingerprints. The powder works by allowing the particles of the powder to adhere to residue left by the ridges of skin on the fingers, palms, or feet that make up a finger/palm/footprint. Once a fingerprint has been detected, it is compared to those on file to determine a match, as fingerprints are normally unique to an individual. Fingerprint powder has proven to be quite useful to Phoenix Wright, Apollo Justice, and Miles Edgeworth.

Bruce Goodman's murder[]

Main article: Rise from the Ashes

In order to subtly aid Phoenix Wright's investigation into Bruce Goodman's murder, Lana Skye gave Miles Edgeworth a fingerprinting set to give to Wright and Ema Skye. Wright and Ema soon found a use for this gift when they found fingerprints in the police department's evidence room. The prints turned out to have been from Jake Marshall, and helped to solve the mysterious "murder" that supposedly occurred in the room. Wright later used the powder on an old piece of cloth that had a handprint on it, only for the mystery prints to belong to Ema. This turned out to be an attempt by Damon Gant to frame Ema for the SL-9 Incident, but Wright tricked Gant into admitting to have cut out the cloth himself, implicating him as the true culprit.

Di-Jun Huang's murder[]

Main article: The Grand Turnabout
This article contains information from the unofficial English translation patch for Gyakuten Kenji 2.
AAI2Coverenglish

Owing to the lack of an official translation of the Japan-only Gyakuten Kenji 2, the information and names in this article come from the unofficial English translation patch known as Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth: Prosecutor's Path. More information on this can be found here.

If you have personal experience with the item of media in question, you can help the Ace Attorney Wiki by improving on this article. Please heed the manual of style when adding information.

During Edgeworth's confrontation with Simon Keyes, Edgeworth tried to tie Keyes to the kidnapping of John Marsh. He remembered that he had touched a truck near the location of the kidnapping, and had Ema Skye dust an identical-looking truck owned by Keyes. His own prints were indeed found, identifying the two trucks as one and the same.

Pal Meraktis's murder[]

Main article: Turnabout Corner
Printsafe

The results of using the powder on the safe in the Meraktis Clinic.

Nine years later, Apollo Justice encountered an unfriendly Ema Skye, who was now a homicide detective investigating the murder of Pal Meraktis at People Park. Detective Skye, although initially very unhelpful due to her bitterness at failing to become a forensic scientist, soon became much more eager to help Justice when he presented a fingerprint set that Wright had given him. Justice used it to detect fingerprints from a knife that his client, Wocky Kitaki, had touched, and to work out the passcode for a safe in the Meraktis Clinic office by seeing which keys had previously been pressed. It would also be used to find toe prints on two pairs of footwear in evidence, both of which matched.

Manov Mistree's murder[]

Main article: The Magical Turnabout

Two years later, Justice met Detective Skye again, who had since become much happier and more helpful owing to the fact that she had finally become a forensics scientist. Skye was investigating the murder of Manov Mistree, better known by his stage name of "Mr. Reus", and allowed Justice and his partner Athena Cykes to dust for fingerprints on a prop coffin used in the magic show in which Mistree had been killed. Three sets of fingerprints were soon found: an oddly-placed set belonging to Mistree himself, a normal set belonging to Bonny de Famme, and a third set belonging to a then-unknown person. During subsequent trial, it was determined that the reason for the odd placement of the Mistree prints was that the sides of the prop coffin had been switched. It was also revealed that the third set of prints belonged to Bonny's twin sister, Betty.

The yellow suitcase[]

Main article: Turnabout Revolution

Several weeks later, Detective Skye encountered Justice, Trucy Wright, and Dhurke Sahdmadhi during her investigation into the death of Dr. Archie Buff in his private study in Kurain Village. During a search of the crime scene, a yellow travel suitcase was found, which it was determined had been left by a person who had visited the doctor on the night of his death. After Justice analyzed the fingerprints found on the suitcase, its owner was identified as Datz Are'bal.

The notebook[]

Main article: Turnabout Time Traveler

Four months later, when Sorin Sprocket was testifying about his memories during his fiancée's trial, he submitted his notebook as evidence. Refusing to accept the notebook's entries as the absolute truth, Wright, who was the acting defense attorney, noticed a hurriedly-ripped page at the very end with writing on it. He then used fingerprint powder on the next page to reveal the full message, "I struck and killed Dumas." It would later be revealed that the real killer had written said note in order to distort the facts of the case.

See also[]

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