I agree, which brings a whole new can of worms to the table, the Alabama police had the fingerprint, maybe they didn't have the database access to cross reference the print. but the print was in some database that lead to identifying the suspects.
having forensic evidence and/or fingerprints is no good unless you've already got at least a speculative suspect to compare them to
my point about Ricci's prints is, his prints are in the Utah crime database, over and over. if one of Ricci's prints was found at the crime scene, he would be be linked forensically.
sorry to be talking about the snipers here, but I wanted to say that I think Malvo's fingerprint was on file....I think they were taken up in Bellingham when they brought him in on illegal immigrant status then let him go.....but, it sounds like we have no national computer data base readily available for all police to see or, the Alabama cops didn't think to use it...