Francisca Rojas

Francisca Rojas
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Francisca Rojas is believed to be the first criminal found guilty through fingerprint evidence in the Americas.

On June 29, 1892, 27-year-old Rojas murdered her two children in Necochea, Buenos Aires Province, in Argentina. Her six-year-old son, Ponciano Carballo Rojas, and his four-year-old sister Teresa were found brutally murdered in their home. Francisca tried to simulate an attack by cutting her own throat and then blaming the murders on her neighbor Pedro Ramón Velázquez. He did not confess to the murder, and so the investigation needed to find incriminating evidence. Instead, they found a bloody fingerprint on the door post of the house. Since the mother denied touching the children's bodies, the fingerprint could have only come from the killer. With Juan Vucetich's help, the fingerprints were found to belong,not to Pedro, but to Francisca. Rojas was confronted with the evidence and confessed to murdering her children and blaming Pedro for the crime, intending him to die for it. Her reasons included Pedro's interference with a romance with another suitor and feeling that she would be more attractive to that suitor if she did not have children. Rojas was the first in the Americas to be convicted based on fingerprint evidence.