London - A mild-mannered Colombian nun was sentenced to 14 years in prison for murder after FBI forensics agents detected a trail of blood beneath the freshly painted floorboards in her Bogota convent, linking Sister Leticia Lopez to the body of her victim.
Colombian detectives, hardened by decades of witnessing drug violence and deathsquad chainsaw massacres, were horrified when they discovered a grisly corpse on a roadside outside the capital two years ago. The legless body had been shot repeatedly in the head and badly burnt, and they described the crime as "horrendous". It took five months to identify the victim as Sister Luz Amparo Granada, who had worked with sex workers and heroin addicts.
Police grew convinced that the nun was slain inside the cloister by an acquaintance, and not by one of her underworld parishioners, but could not gather sufficient evidence to convict Sister Leticia, their main suspect.
She was released from custody last April after 17 months. Yet the murder mystery gripped local prosecutors, who refused to close the case. They had found microscopic blood droplets and bone chips between the floorboards of the murdered nun's bedroom, even though it had been scoured with bleach and repainted.
A request for technical assistance from American forensics experts achieved results. The FBI specialists were able to detect blood spatters on the wall beneath the new paint as well as a trail where the body of Granada had been dragged through the convent's corridors to the back door.
The conservative Lopez had frowned on the victim's friendships with sex workers and drug users who did not repent, but the motive for the killing is unclear. She vowed to appeal against the court's verdict.