IAPE Evidence Blog

Post Pub­lish­ing Com­pany, Inc., salisburypost.com

SALISBURY — The Sal­is­bury Police Depart­ment has placed its evi­dence and prop­erty cus­to­dian on paid admin­is­tra­tive leave as author­i­ties inves­ti­gate “cash account­ing irreg­u­lar­i­ties” in the evi­dence con­trol room, Police Chief Rory Collins said today.

Jef­frey Emer­son is a civil­ian employee of the depart­ment, Collins said in a press release. He has been employed with the depart­ment since 1997 and has served in var­i­ous civil­ian roles prior to his appoint­ment as evi­dence cus­to­dian in 2006.

Collins said after “the dis­cov­ery of a poten­tial prob­lem” in the evi­dence con­trol room, he and Rowan County Dis­trict Attor­ney Brandy Cook asked the State Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion to per­form a review. That review will include an inves­ti­ga­tion of irreg­u­lar­i­ties and an audit of the department’s evi­dence and prop­erty con­trol room, the press release said.

“While this sit­u­a­tion has the poten­tial to cre­ate a neg­a­tive reflec­tion upon the depart­ment, it is impor­tant for us to be trans­par­ent about this mat­ter and to let our com­mu­nity know that we are tak­ing this very seri­ously,” Collins said in the press release. “One of the key ele­ments in the suc­cess of the Sal­is­bury Police Depart­ment and our abil­ity to gain and main­tain the trust of our com­mu­nity is that we con­sis­tently oper­ate at an excep­tion­ally high level of integrity, regard­less of the circumstances.”

Collins went on to note that although Emer­son has been placed on admin­is­tra­tive leave pend­ing the out­come of the probe, that “should not be con­strued as wrong-doing or as an indi­ca­tion of crim­i­nal activ­ity on his part. Admin­is­tra­tive leave is sim­ply a tool that is used to facil­i­tate a full and thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion into this matter.”

- — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — -
Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence

Thom­son Reuters, reuters.com
BYLINE: David Schwartz
Link to Article

Mari­copa County, AZ

(Reuters) — Police arrested a sus­pect as Arizona’s noto­ri­ous “Rock Bur­glar” on Fri­day after a 17-year crime spree that net­ted more than $10 mil­lion in cash and other loot from afflu­ent home­own­ers, author­i­ties said.

Robert James Neese, who author­i­ties allege smashed his way into homes by toss­ing a melon-sized rock through a win­dow, was arrested with­out inci­dent at a Phoenix restau­rant, Mari­copa County Sher­iff Joe Arpaio said.

The 58-year-old, whose alleged vic­tims include for­mer vice pres­i­dent Dan Quayle and ex-pro base­ball play­ers Mark Grace and Steve Fin­ley, is believed to be respon­si­ble for about 400 bur­glar­ies of lux­ury homes in the Phoenix area, Arpaio said.

Neese was con­nected to the bur­glar­ies through his DNA and other phys­i­cal evi­dence taken from the crime scenes, he said.

“In the end, it was cut­ting edge police tech­nol­ogy used by my Foun­tain Hills detec­tives that led us to this crim­i­nal,” Arpaio said in a statement.

After smash­ing his way into homes, the Rock Bur­glar would grab items like jew­elry, cash and hand­guns and be gone in min­utes. Mas­ter bath­room win­dows were tar­geted because they were often with­out alarms or sensors.

Inves­ti­ga­tors said the bur­glar would watch for signs that a home­owner was gone, such as news­pa­pers accu­mu­lat­ing in the dri­ve­way, and then make his move. But there was no con­sis­tent pat­tern for when or where he would rob residences.

Police had been tight-lipped about what clues they had col­lected since the bur­glar first struck three times in the wealthy enclave of Par­adise Val­ley in 1993.

They recov­ered two hand­guns taken dur­ing the bur­glar­ies, but could not tie them to an indi­vid­ual. In 1995, a home­owner caught the Rock Bur­glar in the act, but the man was able to escape after a brief struggle.

A $15,000 reward had been posted and author­i­ties spent tens of thou­sands of dol­lars on spe­cial oper­a­tions to nab him.

Three months ago, detec­tives iden­ti­fied three local homes as pos­si­ble tar­gets and put them under surveillance.

Neese was arrested on May 15 when he attempted to break into one of the homes but was released after author­i­ties obtained a DNA sample.

(Edit­ing by Tim Gaynor and Peter Bohan)

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