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NORFOLK ISLAND - Two fingerprints on the black plastic sheet found with Janelle Patton's body belonged to the Nelson chef now on trial for her murder, a Norfolk Island jury has heard.
Australian Federal Police fingerprint expert Wayne Morrell today told the trial of New Zealander Glenn McNeill,
that he matched prints from McNeill's left middle and ring fingers to latent fingerprints developed on the plastic sheeting.
No two people had the same fingerprints, Mr Morrell told the Norfolk Island Supreme Court, and every individual fingerprint was unique.
McNeill, a chef, and father of two from Nelson, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Ms Patton on Easter Sunday 2002.
Prosecutors allege he stabbed the 29-year-old Sydney woman before dumping her body on the Pacific island.
A sheet of black plastic was largely covering her body when tourists discovered it in a picnic spot.
The trial heard that the plastic sheet was later treated by an AFP fingerprint technician to enhance fingerprints that were latent, or not readily visible.
Mr Morrell said he compared areas of fingerprint detail from the plastic with inked fingerprint impressions taken from McNeill following his arrest.
"I identified these areas as being the same as the left middle and left ring fingers of the set of inked fingerprints in the name of Mr McNeill," Mr Morrell told the court.
Photographs of McNeill's prints, alongside photographs of fingerprints from the plastic, were shown to the jury as Mr Morrell highlighted corresponding features.
Mr Morrell said that in one area of the sheeting, "when Mr McNeill's left ring finger made contact with the surface, the plastic was in a creased condition".
Three fingerprints on the black plastic had yet to be identified, Mr Morrell said, but he could not confidently say they were not Ms Patton's.
The jury heard that 1,256 people had volunteered their fingerprints to police during mass fingerprinting on the island in August and September 2002.
Among them was local carpenter Steve Cochrane, whose palm print was identified on the black plastic.
Giving evidence today, Mr Cochrane said that in the weeks before Easter 2002 he had been working on two island building sites.
One was in a street called Little Cutters Corn which, the jury has heard, was where McNeill lived at the time of Ms Patton's death.
"I was working in Little Cutters Corn at a place called Debbie Adams' house, which is adjacent to the man who is being blamed for the murder," Mr Cochrane told the court.
He said he had taken black plastic, which was used to cover building material or as an underlay for concrete slabs, to Little Cutters Corn for later use.
Asked how he transported the plastic, Mr Cochrane said: "Manually, with my hands".
The trial continues tomorrow.
- AAP
