The Fingerprints Of Surratt And Anderson

The fingerprints of Surratt and Anderson were both tied to crimes involved in this case. The defendants at trial were being convicted on two counts of second-degree murder. The state had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants had killed Cook and Kirby. Cook and Kirby were discovered in a container with a lid that was taped shut and painted over, this was known because of where the fingerprints were impressed. Although their bodies were found, no murder weapon was ever discovered by the autopsies performed showed Cook and Kirby were both killed with fatal gunshots. The overall problem the prosecution had when making the connection was linking the fingerprints to a parish of the crime. The conclusion was that "The finding of

In the box that contained Cook, he had eleven different fingerprints on the lid. The fingerprints on the tape could not be determined by the forensic expert, Lancon because although he knew who the fingerprints belonged to, he had no idea when the fingerprint was placed. The state only had three fingerprints that connect to Surratt and two prints on the tape that connected to Anderson. On top of that, they ran into a problem where Anderson testified she helped Cook and Kirby move into her trailer, so her fingerprints would show up on the tape because she helped seal everything that was being loaded into her trailer as Cook and Kirby were going to be staying

The defendants stated several days where Surratt was offshore working and only came home a few days in December "Detective Demourelle further testified that Surratt stated that he was home from work for two days at Thanksgiving and at Christmas and was offshore the rest of the time". When in actual the record was shown "November 11, 12, and 13, December 2 through 15, December 24 and 25, December 31, 2002, and January 1, 2003" were the days Surratt was off of work. Dr. Welke, however, stated that the victims could have been killed at the end of November along the beginning of December and even the middle of December there was no telling the exact time of death but he estimated they were killed on December 22nd,