Where this was said
Fingerprint Cards Found in the Trash: The Cover-Up Begins
At 36:38 · chapter starts 35:30
The story of the fingerprints is the heart of Ashley's cover-up argument. Detective Lancaster arrives at the fingerprint lab at 4:30 AM with a smart new idea for using the prints — and Officer Elliott has to tell him they're gone. The chain of custody leads to Sergeant Miller, who told technician Patterson to leave the prints alone before going for coffee. When Elliott returns for his next shift, the print cards are in a trash can between desks. Some are ruined; the crucial prints from the left door window — which Lancaster personally watched being lifted and calls the most important of the bunch — are never found. No photos, no negatives. Miller continues working the case. Nobody questions him. By 1988, when investigators try to revisit the case, nearly all physical evidence — photos, blood samples, and more — has disappeared, leaving only a couple of smeared surviving fingerprint cards.
Just two days after Alberta's murder, Detective Lancaster discovered that key fingerprint cards from her rental car had been thrown in a trash bin in the Louisville PD fingerprint lab. The most critical prints — from the left door window — were never recovered. Sergeant Miller, the last person with them, was never questioned.
Just two days after Alberta's murder, critical fingerprint cards lifted from her rental car were found discarded in a trash bin in the Louisville PD fingerprint lab, with the most important prints — from the left door window — never recovered.
More than 40 years after the murder, the FBI matched a surviving fingerprint from Alberta's rental car to Arthur Porter III, a Louisville teenager in 1965 whose father owned the funeral home that handled Alberta's body. He failed a polygraph at the highest deception level — but was never charged.
In 2008, using the FBI's automated fingerprint database, investigators matched a print from Alberta's rental car to Arthur Porter III — a Louisville teenager in 1965 who by then was living in California.
