# Footwear Impression Evidence: Evaluation of Design and Physical Size of the Design

> A size 9 boot and a size 9 trainer leave very different prints. In this slide presentation, two forensic footwear examiners explain how they decide whether a shoe could have made a crime scene impression, from the pattern of the sole to how the moulds were made, and why some prints hold too little detail to say either way.

Summary by Kersey Lawrence, Original Wisdom. Updated 9 November 2026. Page: https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/2010-snyder-bodziak-footwear-impression-evidence-evaluation/

## Citation and access

- **Authors:** Christine Snyder and William J. Bodziak
- **Year published:** 2010
- **Journal or source:** Slide presentation (no publisher or event named)
- **Full citation:** Snyder, C. and Bodziak, W. J. 2010. Footwear impression evidence: evaluation of design and physical size of the design. Slide presentation, 84 slides. Seminole County Sheriff’s Office, Florida, and Bodziak Forensics, Palm Coast, Florida.
- **Access status:** Publisher link only
- **Where to find it:** https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=Footwear+Impression+Evidence%3A+Evaluation+of+Design+and+Physical+Size+of+the+Design+Snyder

## Tags

- **Tracking:** Track measurements; Tracking; Tracks; Tracks and signs identification
- **Data type:** Protocol or guidelines
- **Observer qualification:** Not needed
- **Discipline:** Forensics; Human tracking
- **Year published:** 2010

## Detailed keywords

- **Species:** Humans (footwear impressions left by people at crime scenes). No animals.
- **Location and habitat:** Not a field study. The authors work in Florida, United States (Seminole County Sheriff’s Office; Bodziak Forensics, Palm Coast), and the shoe sales figure given is for the United States. Case examples include impressions in blood, on skin (a blunt force pattern injury) and on surfaces lifted with Mikrosil; no case locations are given.
- **Topics:** forensic footwear examination; class characteristics versus individual characteristics; outsole design and physical size; manufacturer’s shoe size versus physical outsole dimensions; design elements; specific versus general sole design; the design-size relationship; “corresponds” and “similar” as terms; partial and fragmented impressions; shoe perimeter; order of examination (design and size before wear and individual characteristics); conclusion categories (Elimination, May Not Have Made, Could Have Made, Insufficient detail); mould making (hand-milled, CAD-CAM, electrical discharge machine, cast); texture (stippling, chemical acid etch); compression, injection and open pour moulding; die-cut soles; superimposing known impressions over crime scene impressions; the Brannock Device for foot size; Amido Black enhancement of blood impressions; case examples (shoe box case, Brahma boot).
- **Statistics or models:** None
- **Data type:** Protocol or guidelines: a training slide presentation with terminology, procedures and case photographs. No new data. The slides carry no date; 2010 is taken from the PDF file’s creation date (20 August 2010). Slide 56 (case example chart) and slide 57 (case results) are photographs with little text. Several slides refer to movies and handouts that are not included.

## Synopsis

### 1. What they did

Two forensic footwear examiners set out how to compare a shoe with a crime scene impression on the first two features an examiner checks: the design of the sole and the physical size of that design. Christine Snyder is a crime scene analyst and footwear and tire track examiner with the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office in Florida. William J. Bodziak is a retired Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) special agent.

The presentation:

- Defines the terms examiners use, such as design element, sole design, “corresponds”, “similar”, partial impression and shoe perimeter.

- Explains why the size printed in a shoe is not its physical size, and how sole designs change across a size range.

- Sets out the examination procedure and the four possible conclusions on design and size.

- Describes how shoe soles are made, because manufacturing is the source of design and size.

- Works through case examples with photographs of crime scene and known impressions.

### 2. What they found

Shoe size versus physical size

- There is no strict link between the manufacturer’s size and the length and width of the sole. For example, size 9 work boots are physically larger than size 9 athletic shoes.

- As sizes increase, a sole needs more design elements, larger ones, or both. In a K-Swiss design, the brick pattern stays the same size and meets the sole’s border differently in each size. In a Bruno Magli design, only 10 hand-milled moulds cover sizes 6.5 to 13 and each is easy to tell apart. In a Skechers design, the whole design is enlarged in proportion across the sizes.

- Portions of shoes of different sizes may look very similar or the same.

Key terms

- Corresponds: the design and physical size in a crime scene impression are sufficiently like the same part of the known shoe to conclude that the shoe could have made it. This is best shown by laying a see-through known impression over the crime scene impression.

- Similar: a general, layman’s term for designs that look alike. It is a different standard from “specific design”.

- Partial impressions are the majority at crime scenes and can still be examined meaningfully. Fragmented impressions are so small that their size limits what can be said.

Procedure and conclusions

- Design and physical size should be compared first, before wear and individual characteristics. Many designs of the same and different brands look alike, and one or more suspects may own more than one pair of the same design.

- There are easily over 10,000 sole designs, many sizing systems, and about 2.4 billion pairs of shoes sold in the United States each year.

- Four conclusions on design and size alone: Elimination (a confirmable difference); May Not Have Made (differences, but too little detail for a firm elimination); Could Have Made (design and size clearly correspond, with no differences); and Insufficient detail for a reliable conclusion.

- Inconclusive results come from poor detail, degradation, contamination or distortion, and from poor recovery: bad photography, no casting or lifting, no enhancement, or wrong use of a scale.

How soles are made

- Moulds are made by hand milling (older, costlier, and every mould differs a little), computer-aided design and manufacture (CAD-CAM: moulds of the same size and design are indistinguishable except for texture, and pairs are mirror images), electrical discharge machining (EDM), or casting from a model.

- Texture is added later by stippling (striking a patterned steel die with a hammer) or by chemical acid etching.

- Soles are made by compression, injection or open pour moulding. A small share are cut from sheet stock with a steel die, like a cookie cutter: left and right soles are then not mirror images, and soles of different sizes can share identical portions.

Case examples

- In one case, one impression was identified to a shoe, while the other impressions could not have been made by those shoes because their design and size differed.

- In the shoe box case, no shoes were recovered, only a shoe box. Bloody impressions next to the body were identified as an Adidas Ilie Nastasse II, and samples from the manufacturer confirmed size 8.5, the same as on the box. At the time these shoes were sold only in Europe, and the suspect had recently moved to the United States from Europe.

- A blunt force pattern injury showed a herringbone design, but the fragmented impressions, curved skin, scale position and the commonness of the design limited the examination.

### 3. What they concluded

- Design and physical size are class characteristics: they link a shoe to a group, not to one individual shoe.

- A conclusion that a shoe does or does not correspond in design and size must meet a high standard, leaving no reservation or lack of certainty.

- With fragmented or limited impressions, especially of common designs, conclusions on design and size are severely restricted. The authors call “Cannot Eliminate” a prejudicial conclusion in these cases.

- Understanding how soles and moulds are manufactured is important for interpreting design and size.

### 4. How tracking was or was not used

The whole presentation is about reading human footprints: comparing footwear impressions left at crime scenes (in blood, on skin, on lifted surfaces) with known impressions made from a suspect’s shoes. It covers identifying the sole design, measuring and superimposing impressions to compare size, and judging when an impression holds too little detail. No trailing is described.

### 6. Other technologies, skills or innovations

- Superimposing a partly transparent known impression over the crime scene impression.

- Mikrosil lifts of impressions, and Amido Black to enhance impressions in blood.

- The Brannock Device, used in shoe stores, measures foot length heel to toe and heel to ball to estimate shoe size; the authors call its width measurement insignificant.

### 8. Implications for tracking (Original Wisdom's observations)

_These are Original Wisdom's observations, not the authors'._

- The examiners’ order of work, class features first (pattern and size), individual features second (wear and damage), is the same order trackers use when they move from “what species made this” to “which individual made this”.

- Their four conclusion categories, including “insufficient detail”, are a useful model for trackers on how to record uncertainty instead of forcing an identification from a partial or fragmented print.

## Cite this summary

Lawrence, K. 2026. Summary of: Footwear Impression Evidence: Evaluation of Design and Physical Size of the Design (Snyder and Bodziak, 2010). Original Wisdom, Tracking Literature. https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/2010-snyder-bodziak-footwear-impression-evidence-evaluation/