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From: Pat Valentino
Date: 6/7/04
Time: 12:59:40 AM
Remote Name: 68.108.175.33
Right on again Jasper!
Which is more important indeed! This matter of the "bloody fingerprint" just boils my blood. I would like to reprint an excerpt from a letter I wrote to a person who appears quite regularly on an on-line radio show, which mainly concerns itself with the JFK assassination. When some rather snide remarks were made about the Simpson case, I really wanted to set the record straight.
From the letter:
...The other Fuhrman matter is one that he writes about on page 17 in the paperback edition of his book "Murder In Brentwood": The discovery of a "a bloody fingerprint on the brass deadbolt knob" of the back gate. Fuhrman says "This print was identifiable, comparable, and high in quality. I wrote these observations down in my notes." Oh really??
Detective Fuhrman (and his partner Brad Roberts) find a bloody fingerprint and all Fuhrman does is write it down in his notes and then continues down the pathway? Wait a minute here!
...I think you would have reacted and behaved the same way I would have if one of us had found a bloody print at the murder scene. Wouldn't you have ordered the first uniformed officer you saw to guard that print!? I would have said "You there, Officer! There is a bloody fingerprint on this knob. I want you to guard this print until the crimelab people have a chance to lift it. Don't let anyone touch it! And don't you touch it either! We may be able to identify our murderer!!"
But Detective Fuhrman doesn't do that. He just writes in his notebook and continues on his merry way!? (Fuhrman will later say that he gave his notebook to Detective Phillips and "told him about the print." Phillips says that Fuhrman told him nothing of the sort!) Fuhrman also said he had no reason to believe that "they wouldn't read my notes." Is that what Lead Detectives do, they sit around crime scenes reading?! They stop what they are doing and sit down to read?!
And the investigating detectives don't say anything to the Detective in charge, they just hand him some notes and walk away?!! That is the most preposterous thing I have ever heard!... [End of excerpt]
If there ever was a print (and I think there might have been), that print has to be Fuhrman's. After all, it is actually Brad Roberts who finds the print (and is a witness to the fact that there was a print). So maybe Fuhrman says "Ok, I'll handle it." Then he writes the entry about the print in his notebook, and after Roberts goes off to do something else, Fuhrman wipes away the print. He's in the clear because he has his notebook, and can claim that the crimelab missed the print and washed it away because Vanatter didn't read his notes. In other words, the Officer In Charge messed up! Fuhrman gets away with destroying evidence and no one is the wiser.
By the way Jasper, I am still looking forward to what you were going to write about Greta and Fuhrman.
Best,
Pat
PS:
Jasper, I would like to send you privately the entire letter that I wrote as I would like your reaction as to how I addressed the many issues that came up on one of the internet radio shows. You may have some constructive criticism. I'll warn you now that it's a bit long though. Would you have the time to go over it?
PV