The Boston Globe - Jennifer Hannaford

Hannaford – all 4 feet 9¼ inches of her (“And don’t leave that quarter out,” she says, “I earned it.”) – was suddenly an outsider among insiders, a civilian with a BlackBerry amid officers with badges. Even Captain Detective Thomas Dowd, who oversees the forensic division and who supported her, admitted some people were skeptical. A slip of a woman? From the hotbed of criminal activity that is Vermont? Telling Boston police how to run their fingerprint unit? “She had to, in a way, prove herself,” says Dowd.