IAPE Evidence Blog

The Asheville Citizen-Times (North Car­olina)
BYLINE: Clarke Morrison

Asheville, NC

A team of for­mer offi­cers led by a retired crime scene ana­lyst is expected to begin the painstak­ing process this week of inspect­ing, cat­a­loging and pho­tograph­ing some 13,000 pieces of evi­dence in the Police Department’s dis­cred­ited prop­erty room.

Blue­Line Sys­tems will work with the State Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion to help deter­mine what evi­dence is miss­ing, if court cases have been com­pro­mised and whether crimes were com­mit­ted in the han­dling of drugs, guns and money. 

“It’s going to be quite an exhaus­tive process,” said Mike Wright, direc­tor of the com­pany he formed after leav­ing the Bun­combe County Sheriff’s Office in 2006.

“We’re going to try to come out with a very accu­rate result,” he said.

Dis­trict Attor­ney Ron Moore on April 5 ordered the evi­dence room sealed and an inde­pen­dent audit to be con­ducted after learn­ing about seri­ous prob­lems uncov­ered by a par­tial audit.

Moore requested an SBI inves­ti­ga­tion after an assis­tant dis­trict attor­ney and defense lawyer went to the evi­dence room in prepa­ra­tion for a case against a drug sus­pect and dis­cov­ered that 397 pills of the pre­scrip­tion painkiller oxy­codone were miss­ing from con­tain­ers inside an evi­dence envelope.

The dis­cov­ery prompted Moore to drop drug traf­fick­ing charges against the suspect.

The par­tial audit found that of 1,097 items audited, 27 guns, 54 con­tain­ers of drugs and 34 pack­ets of money and valu­ables couldn’t be located.

City Coun­cil approved spend­ing up to $175,000 on the new audit. Blue­Line sys­tems will be paid an hourly rate for the work.

Wright calls the project a “foren­sic inven­tory.” Two teams of four peo­ple each will wear gloves and face masks to pre­vent con­t­a­m­i­na­tion as they han­dle the items.

Blue­Line worked with the county’s infor­ma­tion tech­nol­ogy depart­ment to develop a spe­cial data­base for the inventory.

Wright said a bar code sys­tem will be used to iden­tify and track the items in the future. Court orders for dis­po­si­tion of evi­dence and lab reports also will be coded, scanned and cross-referenced in the database.

“As we encounter items, we will attempt to match up any paper­work with the prop­erty,” Wright said. “We’re going to exam­ine each pack­age to make sure the seals are intact and that it has the proper documentation.”

Equip­ment used in the project includes three lap­top com­put­ers, scan­ners, print­ers and dig­i­tal cam­eras to pho­to­graph each item. Wright said the equip­ment and soft­ware will remain with the city to serve as the department’s new evi­dence track­ing system.

As the inven­tory pro­ceeds, the SBI will be noti­fied of any irreg­u­lar­i­ties or tam­per­ing with evi­dence pack­ages that are uncov­ered. Items that don’t match infor­ma­tion in the department’s exist­ing data­base also will be reported.

The com­pany plans to develop an infor­ma­tion sheet on each piece of evi­dence that will be avail­able for tes­ti­mony in court cases, Wright said. He expects Blue­Line work­ers to be sub­poe­naed to tes­tify in cases for years to come.

The inven­tory will take at least three months, but the time frame is far from cer­tain, he said.

“The amount of time involved depends on how long it takes to locate each item,” Wright said. “We will pro­ceed as effi­ciently as pos­si­ble, but we’re not going to sac­ri­fice accu­racy for the sake of speed.”

Wright said he expects that some of the items that turned up miss­ing in the par­tial audit were just mis­placed and will be located with the more thor­ough inventory.

“We’re going into it with an open mind,” he said. “We’re going to do a care­ful job. The entire right to a fair trial depends on the evi­dence being han­dled properly.”

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