TAMPA - Edward Covington, charged with the grisly Mother's Day murder of Lisa Freiberg and her two children, will have to provide investigators with footprints, a Hillsborough County Circuit Court judge ruled Tuesday.
While investigating the slayings, crime-scene technicians found a bloody footprint near Freiberg's body on the floor in the master bedroom of her trailer.
The state attorney's office asked that Covington - Freiberg's live-in boyfriend who has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder - provide his footprint to see whether there is a match.
On Tuesday morning, Hillsborough County Circuit Court Judge Walter Heinrich upheld the motion by Assistant State Attorney Jay Pruner that Covington, 35, be compelled to provide his footprint.
At the crime scene, latent print analyst Rick Navarro examined the bloody footprint and determined that it exhibits sufficient ridge detail for comparison purposes, according to Pruner's motion. "Inked impressions and photographs of the defendant's feet are needed either to eliminate or identify him as the source of the bloody footprint," the motion says.
The mutilated bodies of Freiberg, 26, and her children, Heather Savannah, 2, and Zachary, 7, were found in the trailer. Deputies found Covington hiding in a closet.
On May 14, Covington told deputies he killed all three victims, according to court records.
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