In his opening statement on behalf of the prosecution, Humphreys outlined the discovery of Oatley's body, the injuries inflicted to her body, the weapons her murderer had used to perform the mutilations, and the fingerprints recovered at the crime scene. Referring to the prosecution's intention to link Cummins to this murder by the fingerprints investigators had recovered, Humphreys stated: "You will hear from one of the greatest experts in the country upon fingerprints. He will tell you that there have been some half-million fingerprints taken in this time and there have never been two alike. The prosecution would ask you to say, each one of you, that you are satisfied, on the evidence which will be called before you, and nothing else, that this man is the man who murdered Mrs. Oatley on the tenth of February."