Tire Track Case

Tire tracks, tire prints, and other vehicular data can be found at my crime scenes, but many times is overlooked or destroyed by crime scene investigators, police, weather, and strangers. Collecting, preserving and analyzing tire impressions and tire tracks can reveal the brand of tire, width of tire, unique wear and peculiarities to determine whether that vehicle was present at the crime scene. In 2007, the case of Brown v. the State (Coffee County, GA) Curtis Andrew Brown was arrested and convicted for assaulting an elderly, married couple based on their testimony and identification of Brown. In addition, tire tracks collected at the victims home were analyzed and compared to Brown’s Chevrolet Blazer and deputies were able to testify the

the State, the Court upheld the admission of testimony by a State Police officer regarding tire marks left in the dirt at the crime scene matched Brown’s car, resulting in Curtis Andrew Brown being convicted by a Coffee County jury on two counts of aggravated assault, but appealed the case stating there was not enough evidence to convict him. The victims were an elderly, married couple who owned a bicycle shop out of their home in Coffee County. In February 2006, Curtis Brown, with a friend, drove to the victim’s home to talk to them about selling a bicycle. While Brown sat in his older, green Chevrolet Blazer, his friend was able to sell his bicycle to the elderly man for cash. The friend mentioned to Brown that the elderly man’s wallet was thick. Several days later, Brown drove up alone to the victims home in his green Chevrolet Blazer. He proceeded to knock on the victims kitchen door inquiring about purchasing a bicycle. The couple let Brown in to the kitchen and asked if he would wait until the husband could get dressed. Once the husband was in his room, Brown grabbed a kitchen knife and held it up to the wife’s neck and screamed out to the husband “Give me your money or I’ll cut her throat.” Brown proceeded to go down the hall to the bedroom where the husband was, still holding the knife or some type of sharp object. The husband had a .308 rifle and a .22 rifle in his bedroom and proceeded to

Referencing the case of Harper, 171 Ga. App. at 64, 318 S.E.2d 502, it stated that evidence cannot sustain a conviction “unless there is some peculiarity in the tracks to identify them as belonging to the accused.” The peculiarity requirement of Harper would only apply if the tire track impression was the sole evidence. Which this is not the case and, therefore, Harper did not apply here. In Brown V. The State, the Court upheld the testimony of the deputies as admissible circumstantial evidence to show similarities because other evidence that was submitted that was able to link Brown to the crime