Police Search for Videos of Florida Students’ Killings

Human flesh, a black hood and video- and audiotapes of the slayings of five college students are among the items investigators are seeking in their search for a killer, it was reported today.

Investigators scouring Edward Lewis Humphrey’s car and apartment in Gainesville and his family’s home in Indialantic last week were also looking for women’s undergarments, a knife with a blade 4 inches or longer and pictures of the victims, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

The newspaper said it had obtained a copy of the search warrant.

The searches have put the focus on Humphrey, an 18-year-old University of Florida freshman, but police insist that he is one of eight suspects in last month’s stabbing deaths at off-campus apartments.

Among the items listed in the search warrant, the newspaper said, were “writings, drawings, photographs, audiotapes or visual tapes depicting the offenses,” as well as human flesh, blood, hair and other fibers.

The report also said officers had obtained saliva samples, 50 head hairs, 50 pubic hairs and two vials of blood from Humphrey, and photographs of all “apparent recent injuries” to his body.

Lt. Sadie Darnell, a Gainesville police spokeswoman, refused to say this morning what police were looking for.

“Some of (the media reports) are correct, and some of them aren’t correct,” Darnell said. But the news reports, she said, “have damaged the process of the investigation” into the slayings.