IAPE Evidence Blog

St. Joseph News-Press, http://www.stjoenews-press.com

St. Joseph, MO

A second-degree mur­der trial in Buchanan County is stalled after police mis­tak­enly destroyed most of the phys­i­cal evi­dence in the case. 

Dal­las Cox was sched­uled to go on trial Tues­day on a second-degree mur­der in the beat­ing death of 26-year-old Stephen Akin last October.

Instead, attor­neys argued over a motion to dis­miss the case after hear­ing about the destroyed evidence.

The St. Joseph News-Press reports that the man­ager of the police department’s evi­dence room tes­ti­fied that an offi­cer mis­tak­enly destroyed the evi­dence after being told to purge old cases from the system.

The prob­lem arose because the Cox case was orig­i­nally filed as an assault because Akin did not die for days after he was beaten. And another man had pleaded guilty in the case, lead­ing the offi­cer to believe it had been resolved.

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org

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Elm­wood Place, OH

ELMWOOD PLACE, Ohio — The Elm­wood Place Police Depart­ment was baf­fled by a break-in this week.

Accord­ing to police chief William Peskin his city has typ­i­cal crime like every­where else, but it was the chief of police who was vic­tim­ized in this case.

The break-in hap­pened in broad day­light around 4 p.m. Mon­day at 300 Maple Street.

The video shows the sus­pect kick­ing open the chief’s door and steal­ing money from the evi­dence room inside. Police say he took $1,000, and came back to shut the door and wipe off his fin­ger­prints from the knob.

“This is one we wanted to solve with the utmost urgency!” Peskin exclaimed.

Accord­ing to police, the alleged thief is John Prentis.

Police say Pren­tis got into the police depart­ment build­ing through an open door. Pren­tis is then on sur­veil­lance video break­ing into an inte­rior office and steal­ing items.

Chief Peskin explains, “Actu­ally that was a human error on our part. We did leave one back door unse­cured. The one place that I would never go to steal from is the police department.”

Peskin admits his own office was vio­lated. He says the sus­pect is an infor­mant the depart­ment has used to help stop crime.

“He knew the ins and outs of the build­ing,” accord­ing to the chief.

Police say Pren­tis was aware of a video cam­era that pointed towards the chief’s office, but say he did not believe it recorded video.

Peskin thoughts about the event were blunt, “Every­thing together just points to how dumb he was. America’s dumb­est crim­i­nals… He would make the num­ber one on the top ten countdown.”

John Pren­tis is expected to be arraigned Thurs­day morn­ing for break­ing and enter­ing among other charges.

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org

www.nbc26.com

Wausau, WI

WAUSAU, Wis. (AP) — A 32-year-old New Lon­don man sen­tenced to four years in prison for run­ning over a pedes­trian while dri­ving drunk is get­ting a new trial.

The 3rd Dis­trict Court of Appeals ruled Tues­day the jury that con­victed Michael Nol­len­berg had an incom­plete pic­ture of the case because of impor­tant miss­ing evi­dence. The panel says the inter­ests of jus­tice require Nollenberg’s homi­cide by intox­i­cated use of a vehi­cle con­vic­tion be overturned.

Nol­len­berg was sen­tenced to prison for the Sept. 24, 2005, crash that killed 22-year-old James Weber on a rural Out­agamie County road.

The appeals court says the jury never heard evi­dence that the low beam lights on Nollenberg’s pickup truck com­plied with state law in illu­mi­nat­ing the road 104 feet ahead. The jury only heard evi­dence that the low beams were mis­aligned and did not com­ply with fed­eral car man­u­fac­ture standards.

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org