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There are 3 stories this week, and many new pictures!

Cops Have Fingerprints of Laci's Murderer!

by Don Gentile and Michael Hanrahan

synopsis

Blockbuster new Evidence found on Duct Tape used to Wrap Laci!

Police have uncovered startling new evidence in the murder case- the fingerprints of the killer!

The NE has learned that the prints were lifted from duct tape attached to a black tarp that washed up on the San Francisco Bay shoreline where Laci's body was found.

Authorities in Modesto, Calif., are keeping the fingerprint discovery top secret but one source has heard that cops believe the prints belong to Scott Peterson.

Tests were being done to determine if there are eight so-called "minutiae points" to the prints found on the tape, the minimum number under California Department of Justice standards, to declare them a match to a specific person.

But a source close to the case called the fingerprint discovery "the ultimate smoking gun".

The 42 inch wide by 20-foot-long tarp washed up near Point Isabel in the city of Richmond on April15.

It was found about 50 yards south of the spot where Laci's badly decomposed body had come ashore the day before- and about a mile south of the spot where dog walkers came upon the body of Laci's unborn son Connor on April 13.

The recovery sites are 3 miles north of the Berkeley Marina, where Scott says he was fishing in his boat last Dec. 24th.

A LE source said, that the tarp was initially taken to the crime lab at Contra Costa Sheriff's department, a forensic testing facility considered one of the best in the world. "You need a lab like Contra Costa's lab to lift the prints," said a close source.

"The duct tape has to be carefully removed because it tends to stretch and the prints can be distorted. You essentially have to remove the tarp from the duct tape and not the other way around." "It can take weeks to perform such a procedure."

Duct tape can hold fingerprints even if it has been submerged in water for a long period, say experts.

"You can still lift prints from the sticky side of it," crime scene expert Hal Sherman, a former New York City detective, told the NE.

"Examiners use certain stains such as Gentian violet or iodine to bring out the prints. There's also something called Sticky-Side Powder that investigators use to lift prints from various kinds of tape."

Internationally known scientist Dr. Kobilinsky noted, "If Scott handled that tape, he may have left a pattern that you could definitely find after four months in the water."

The strips of duct tape from the tarp were also being compared to tape that was attached to Laci's remains and duct tape police found during searches of the Peterson home in Modesto and the nearby warehouse, Scott used for his job.

The fingerprint and duct tape revelations will be only the latest to rock Scott Peterson's defense.

The blood reported in the brown van turned out to be B-B-Q sauce, and the cult theory of beheading also turned out to be false.

Laci's obstetrician, Dr. James Y.K. Yip has revealed that he did see Laci on Dec.23rd, but she did not have a sonogram that day.

Geragos showed that other evidence obtained by police is causing him worry when he said he was going to move in court to suppress mitochondrial DNA testing done by LE.

To Kobilinsky, that means one thing: hair found jammed into needlenose pliers that were discovered in Scott's boat has definitely been identified as Laci's hair, as reported first in the NE. Mitochondrial DNA is DNA inherited only from a person's mother and is found outside the nucleus of a cell.

Testing for such DNA is done when evidence samples from within the nucleus of the cell- which contain DNA from both parents- are not present.

"Mitochondrial testing is very accurate, says Kobilinsky, explaining that it's difficult to obtain nuclear DNA from a hair. "Geragos could argue that Laci's hair got onto Scott's clothing and when he got the boat, it somehow wound up in the pliers, But is that something a jury would believe.?

The source close to the case said Geragos is realizing "the evidence is looking more bleak..that it is not a good case for Scott."

Credit to Rickamorti at Purgatory
more to follow....

9/23 National Enquirer
Bloodhound sends investigators off in the right direction!

One of the key witnesses in the Laci Peterson case is a dog- a 4 year old bloodhound named Merlin.

Merlin and his handler, Cindee Valentin, helped search for Laci last Dec. 26, two days after she was missing. And the dog gave the cops the first hint she may have been the victim of foul play.

"Following Laci's scent, Merlin stopped in his tracks at the end of the Petersons' driveway, rather than continue to LaLoma Park one block away, where her husband Scott claimed she'd gone to walk the family dog."

"The bloodhound instead set off in the opposite direction toward Yosemite Blvd." said a source close to the case.

"It told cops, Laci left in a car and not on foot."

Merlin continued to follow Laci's scent for several miles before losing the scent. "The dog stopped at a dumpster on Yosemite, where it is possible some physical evidence may have been dumped," said a detective assigned to the case.

Peterson's defense attorneys want to know how good a dog Merlin is. They have filed papers with the court seeking complete backgrounds on Valentin and the bloodhound, though their credentials seem impeccable.

Valentin is a volunteer trainer and dog handler in the Costa County Sheriff's Reserve Division. Merlin is her personal dog, and has worked with her on numerous cases.

"Cindee Valentin is a highly trained individual in search and rescue and in evidence handling," Contra Costa Sheriff's spokesman, Jimmie Lee, told the NE.

In addition to training dogs for Contra Costa Sheriffi's office and the California Rescue Dog Assoc., Valentin teaches seminars in the training of guide dogs, rescue and cadaver searching dogs.