Thirty-four

Friday, June 18: as the trial’s second week ended, Eagan approached the heart of his case.  Before the day was done, Felton Thomas and Edward Williams would add two huge pieces to the Christmas Eve mosaic that the state had been building since the first day of testimony.

First Eagan had another forensic witness.  Ruby Lee Ross, the fingerprint expert whom the FBI Lab assigned to the case, testified to finding Zeigler's palm print on a grocery bag that the OCSO's investigators had found in the storage room cabinet, containing bullets and cartridge hulls and the two empty revolver boxes.

Hadley cross-examined her.  The bag she examined was one of a double bag found together inside the cabinet, and she admitted that she didn't know whether the bag with the palm print was the outer or inner bag.  She said the fingerprints on that paper might persist for a long as ten months, and that she had no way of knowing when that print was put there.

Hadley asked about the .357 magnum that was found beside Perry Edwards near the back of the showroom.  She said that she had photographed a partial "visible latent" fingerprint she found on the weapon.

Q: (HADLEY): What did you do with the photographs?

A: (ROSS): After they were of no value they were torn up and thrown away.

Q: I understand you to say of no value for identification?

A: That's correct.

Q: Do your notes reflect how many points of comparison were in those?

A: Any latent that turns out to be of no value we make no notes as to it.

Q: Were you saying that was of no value in a comparison with the palm prints or hand prints of the defendant Tommy Zeigler:

 A: It means that in order for me to think that a latent would be of value that I would have to have at least seven points of identity, of which these impressions that appeared on the weapon did not contain seven points of identity.

Q: That is to make a positive ID?

A: That is correct.

Q: But, Miss Ross, don't you sometimes have elimination, or can have elimination by fewer points?

A: No, sir, not for me.

Q: Not for you?