IAPE Evidence Blog

www.oregonlive.com
BYLINE: Steve Beaven, The Ore­gon­ian
Link to Article

Polk County, OR

The for­mer dis­trict attor­ney in Polk County said he doesn’t know what hap­pened to miss­ing evi­dence that led to the release of a con­victed killer in a triple-murder case, accord­ing to a report released Mon­day by the Ore­gon Depart­ment of Justice.

The report said that for­mer Dis­trict Attor­ney John Fisher admit­ted that he “prob­a­bly” signed a doc­u­ment four years ago that acknowl­edged the receipt of some of the pros­e­cu­tion evi­dence in the case against Philip Scott Can­non. The report said the doc­u­ment included Fisher’s sig­na­ture, dated June 9, 2005.

Fisher told an inves­ti­ga­tor he intended for the evi­dence to be trans­ferred to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, as is the cus­tom in homi­cide cases. But he doesn’t know what hap­pened to the prosecution’s trial exhibits.

The report con­cludes that the evi­dence has likely been destroyed.

“Polk County just com­pletely screwed up,” Jen­nifer Mur­dock, the sis­ter of one of the vic­tims, said Mon­day. “The fam­i­lies don’t deserve this.”

Can­non, 43, was con­victed of three mur­ders 10 years ago but was released from the Polk County Jail on Dec. 18 because inves­ti­ga­tors could not find evi­dence used to con­vict him.

Nei­ther the attor­ney general’s report nor Polk County offi­cials have said how much or what evi­dence is missing.

Can­non had been granted the right to a new trial in August. But pros­e­cu­tors dis­missed mur­der charges against him ear­lier this month, say­ing that “dis­missal is in the best inter­est of jus­tice for the rea­son that nec­es­sary evi­dence is unavailable.”

The attor­ney general’s report, dated Dec. 18, said that a recent search of the county’s evi­dence stor­age facil­ity and the dis­trict attorney’s office didn’t turn up any of the pros­e­cu­tion trial exhibits used in the case against Can­non, who has main­tained his innocence.

Fisher could not be reached for com­ment Mon­day. His suc­ces­sor, Dis­trict Attor­ney Stan But­ter­field, did not return a phone call.

Pros­e­cu­tors in Cannon’s case relied in part on evi­dence from “com­par­a­tive bul­let lead analy­sis,” a tech­nique aban­doned by the FBI in 2005 because of its unre­li­a­bil­ity. After Cannon’s attor­ney chal­lenged the use of the analy­sis, the state agreed in August that Can­non should receive a new trial.

Can­non had been serv­ing a life sen­tence for the mur­ders of Jason Roger Kinser, his girl­friend, Suzan Renee Osborne, and their friend, Celesta Joy Graves in Novem­ber 1998.

The three were found shot in the back of the head at a mobile home in a rural area west of Salem. 

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