DNA and Crime Deoxyribonucleic Acid - the fingerprint of life also know as DNA was first mapped out in the early 1950’s by British biophysicist, Francis Harry Compton Crick and American biochemist James Dewey Watson. They determined the three-dimensional structure of DNA, the substance that passes on the genetic characteristics from one generation to the next. DNA is found in the chromosomes in the nucleus of a cell. "Every family line has it’s own unique pattern of restriction-enzyme DNA fragments. This variation in patterns of DNA fragments found in human genetic lineages is called ‘restriction-fragment length polymorphism’(RFLP)." (Louis