IAPE Evidence Blog

The Daily Hearld, heraldnet.com
BYLINE: Diana Hefley, Her­ald Writer
Link to Article

Sno­homish County, WA

Enve­lope an inves­ti­ga­tor han­dled miss­ing evi­dence seized in probes

EVERETT — A mas­ter inves­ti­ga­tor with the Sno­homish County Med­ical Examiner’s Office resigned last week amid alle­ga­tions that he stole drugs that were seized as part of death investigations.

Sheriff’s detec­tives recently for­warded the case to the Sno­homish County Prosecutor’s Office for pos­si­ble crim­i­nal charges, includ­ing drug pos­ses­sion and offi­cial misconduct.

The man, 35, has not been arrested.

The alle­ga­tions sur­faced in March after the man requested a six-week leave of absence. He declined to tell his super­vi­sor why he needed the time off. The med­ical examiner’s office later received paper­work from a doc­tor in Cal­i­for­nia indi­cat­ing that the man was being treated for a substance-abuse prob­lem, accord­ing to police records.

A short time later employ­ees in the office con­ducted an inven­tory of con­trolled drugs that had been seized dur­ing dif­fer­ent cases. They dis­cov­ered that an evi­dence enve­lope that the man was sup­posed to deliver to the sheriff’s office for destruc­tion had been opened and resealed, accord­ing to a police affidavit.

Evi­dence logs showed that 21 drugs in var­i­ous quan­ti­ties were miss­ing from the enve­lope, accord­ing to police.

Detec­tives also dis­cov­ered that evi­dence forms had been forged and addi­tional drugs had been removed from evi­dence envelopes slated for destruc­tion, accord­ing to the records.

Sheriff’s detec­tives called the man at the end of March. He agreed to meet with them when he returned from Cal­i­for­nia. He was placed on admin­is­tra­tive leave April 4.

The man and his attor­ney later met with detec­tives. He declined to pro­vide a state­ment to police.

He resigned April 15. He’d been with the office since 2005 and made about $71,000 a year.

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Diana Hefley: 425 – 339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com.

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