But the quality of the partial fingerprint had been challenging for examiners. They’d been unable to find another similar to it on record because there just was so little there to work with. Consequently, every opportunity was taken to compare every new processed latent connected to the case with the partial.

But Daxon, a court-certified expert who’d testified in multiple homicide cases, had taken things a step further. While waiting for the Florida latents, she worked on the partial. Using the latest technology, she took it through a new round of cleaning, removing residual dirt and digital noise from the image.

It gave her an enhanced, much stronger latent. In fact, she’d determined that the partial was a right thumb, which on a standard ten-card is referred to as number one. She had already coded its characteristics and cued up the sample on her oversize monitor.

Now she began cuing up the Florida prints on her second large monitor, which stood beside the first. She set out reviewing the new batch of candidates, looking for right thumbs, one of the most common prints recovered at crime scenes.

After careful examination, she had isolated three different right thumbprints. These were among the prints collected from the knife that had overlapped. Miami-Dade’s hard work at separating them had paid off.

They did a stellar job—the quality is super, Daxon thought, as she displayed the first one and set out to make a visual point-by-point comparison with the partial. She zeroed in on the critical minutiae points, like the trail of ridges near the tip. In some jurisdictions, the courts required ten to fifteen clear point matches. From the get-go, she had two that soon climbed to three when she hit on a series of dissimilarities. All it took was one divergent point to instantly eliminate a print.

Okay, let’s move on to number two.

With the second print, Daxon studied the loops, whorls and arches, analyzing and comparing them against the partial. She soon had three point matches, and when it climbed to eight, she grew hopeful until she found significant divergent points, eliminating number two.

Daxon rubbed the back of her stiff neck, surprised at how much time had passed. Darkness had fallen over the surrounding green woods by the time she’d come to the last candidate.

Right off, six minutiae points matched, and her breathing stopped as she enlarged the sample to the point where she could count the number of ridges.

Three more matching points.

She leaned closer to the monitor, narrowing her eyes as she concentrated on cluster details, spots, hooks, bifurcations and tented arches in the Florida print and the partial from Kentucky.

Again, the minutiae points matched, point by point.