In December 2007, a lab technician sat at a table covered in dozens of evidence bags. The technician wasn’t sure where to start, because the bags didn’t contain the kind of evidence the lab normally tested. They were full of tinsel – which is a shiny, ribbon-like strip of material that’s used to decorate during the holidays. The samples had been collected from various homes in Burlington, North Carolina, and now, they had to be tested against a different, specific piece of tinsel. This specific piece of tinsel was thin and silver. And it was very important, because it had been found at a crime scene. 

When the technician looked at the evidence bags, they realized they could immediately eliminate some of the samples because there were obvious differences between them and crime scene tinsel – like the color or thickness. But beyond that, the technician didn’t know how to determine if two pieces of tinsel that looked the same were actually identical. They’d never analyzed tinsel before – and they didn’t even know if it was possible to confirm a match. But the technician took a breath and started sorting through the bags anyway. Because they knew if they could figure this out… they could help solve a murder.

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