With snow fever taking over the region, I thought I'd post a story from earlier this year in which footprints in the snow were used to solve a homicide. The charge has since been dropped after prosecutors determined that wasn't enough ("Evidence just melts away sometimes," the suspect's attorney quipped), but two separate drug cases remain pending against the suspect. Even though the murder charges are off the books for now, this was an interesting tale of a patrol officer thinking quickly and making a surprise discovery.

Here's the first few paragraphs:

"Sgt. Steve Olson only had to follow the footprints.

With snow falling and few people out Tuesday night, whoever shot 23-year-old Jasmine Harris in the doorway of her family's West Baltimore home had left a clear trail.

It twisted from the home, through an alley behind several houses, and up onto a porch on Gwynns Falls Parkway. It led to an area where a vehicle appeared to have pulled up, and then, right back to the crime scene in the 3000 block of Windsor Ave.

There, standing on the corner, at the end of the footprints, was Kenneth R. Warren Jr."

(There are two pages of text within the link; the link to the second page is at the very bottom and you might miss it)