Babies of the Glebe 2025 Serving the Glebe community since 1973
February 6, 2026
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ISSN 0702-7796 Vol. 54 No. 1 Issue no. 581 FREE
pg.18-19
What’s Inside
Glebe resident is new Order of Canada recipient
Della Wilkinson honoured for work on fingerprints By Jennifer Humphries
What do former Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Abella, sprinter Andre De Grasse and Glebe resident Della Wilkinson have in common? On New Year’s Day, they were among 80 Canadians newly appointed to the Order of Canada by Governor General Mary Simon. Wilkinson is widely known in our community as chair of the Glebe Community Association’s Environment Committee and for organizing events on how to shrink your home’s energy consumption and how to plant native pollinators and canopy trees in your garden. But her appointment to the Order of Canada is for markedly different achievements of revolutionizing fingerprint detection and positioning Canada as a global leader in forensic identification. “Canada is an amazing country to bestow such an honour on an immigrant who arrived on its shores 35 years ago and spent a career figuring out how science could give a voice to the victims of crime,” Wilkinson told me. Immigrating to Canada in 1990 with a PhD in chemistry from Cambridge University, Wilkinson began her career at the National Research Council (NRC), soon moving to the RCMP. Her early work related to fingerprints on skin, which are difficult to detect because of the similarity of the chemical components of fingerprints to those present on the skin’s surface. The research involved collaboration with a Civic Hospital pathologist and night-time visits to the morgue, leading to new methods that made fingerprinton-skin recovery possible. The murders of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy at that time lent particular urgency to her work.
Investigating Contaminated Crime Scenes
Wilkinson spent much of her career engaged with Crime Scene Investigators (CSIs), some of whom were on CBRNE Response Teams (CBRNE stands for chemical, biological, nuclear, radiological and explosive). These teams were responsible for recovering evidence from contaminated crime scenes. It occurred to her that expecting techniques used in everyday investigations to work in the presence of chemical, biological or explosive materials was
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Glebe resident Della Wilkinson was named a member of the Order of Canada for her groundbreaking forensic work on fingerprint detection.
SEEDY SATURDAY................................................................. MARCH 7
unrealistic. The US Department of Defense agreed and in 1998 funded her research on the impact of chemical agents on physical evidence such as fingerprints, footwear and DNA. Wilkinson identified ways to overcome many of these difficulties and thereby help CSIs in a range of settings. For example, after anthrax attacks on the heels of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Wilkinson received further funding from the US to develop protocols for anthrax-contaminated evidence. And because criminals often use arson to destroy evidence, Wilkinson partnered with the NRC Fire Lab in Carleton Place to develop ways to recover evidence from fire-damaged buildings. Canada’s first court challenge to fingerprint evidence came in 2017. The case was a residential break-and-enter in Surrey, B.C., and the defence attorney called upon world-renowned fingerprint critic and author Dr. Simon Cole. Wilkinson advised the Crown on its strategy to address this unprecedented
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challenge and counter Dr. Cole’s criticisms of fingerprint evidence that was developed in an American legal context. She was declared an expert witness in fingerprints by the presiding judge of the B.C. Supreme Court and testified on scientific research that supported fingerprint evidence as practised in Canada. The court ruled that the fingerprint evidence was valid.
Giving a Voice to Victims
Fundamental to Wilkinson’s approach was her focus on victims. “The victims of crime, not the perpetrators, are the people for whom you are working,” she told her students in Trent University’s Master of Forensic Science Program. Her career goal, ultimately, was to help achieve justice for the people who suffer at the hands of criminals. Wilkinson made Canada a world leader in fingerprint recovery, but she Article continued on page 2
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