IAPE Evidence Blog

The Okla­homan, NewsOK.com, newsok.com
BYLINE: RANDY ELLIS rellis@opubco.com
Link to Article

Wood­ward, OK

Michael Albert Mor­ton, Chris­tine England-Morton — Pho­tos provided

WOODWARD — A for­mer police detec­tive was accused Thurs­day of repeat­edly steal­ing metham­phet­a­mine from a police evi­dence room to sup­port his then-wife’s drug habit.

For­mer detec­tive Michael Albert Mor­ton, 55, was charged with 13 drug-related felony counts.

Mor­ton told a dis­trict attorney’s inves­ti­ga­tor that he stole metham­phet­a­mine from the evi­dence room for Chris­tine England-Morton because he didn’t want her “look­ing for it on the street, where it is dan­ger­ous,” accord­ing to a state­ment by an Okla­homa State Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion agent.

The thefts occurred from May 1, 2009, through March 27, 2010, pros­e­cu­tors allege. The cou­ple divorced in June 2010.

Mor­ton faces up to life in prison because he and his then-wife were within 2000 feet of Wood­ward High School on some of the occa­sions he allegedly gave her stolen drugs. He also faces up to $120,000 in fines.

Pleaded not guilty

Mor­ton pleaded not guilty Thurs­day in Wood­ward County Dis­trict Court and was released on a per­sonal recog­ni­zance bond.

Mor­ton took his then-wife along with him on sev­eral of the thefts and told her he wanted to make sure the metham­phet­a­mine came from evi­dence that was sched­uled for destruc­tion, the OSBI agent stated. Mor­ton report­edly showed her the loca­tion of those drugs and resealed the envelopes after remov­ing the methamphetamine.

The scheme unrav­eled toward the end of their mar­riage when England-Morton, 45, went to the evi­dence room on her own dur­ing the early morn­ing hours of March 27, 2010. She kicked open the door, ripped open evi­dence envelopes and stole the amphet­a­mine inside, accord­ing to the OSBI affidavit.

When she was con­fronted by Wood­ward police offi­cers, she told them she was look­ing for her husband.

A cou­ple weeks later, she gave police a state­ment that she had kicked open the door of the evi­dence room while look­ing for alco­hol to steal. She is cur­rently serv­ing a three-year sen­tence for injur­ing a pub­lic build­ing and a four-year sen­tence for pos­ses­sion of a firearm while under the super­vi­sion of the Okla­homa Depart­ment of Corrections.

Role admit­ted

Mor­ton admit­ted his role in the metham­phet­a­mine thefts while tes­ti­fy­ing dur­ing an unre­lated 2010 fed­eral court hear­ing involv­ing a child pornog­ra­pher. Mor­ton also admit­ting help­ing his then-wife con­coct the story that she was look­ing for alco­hol rather than drugs.

OSBI agent Mor­gan Wilkin­son said an inven­tory of the evi­dence room revealed there appeared to have been tam­per­ing with about 67 items of evi­dence con­tain­ing metham­phet­a­mine and/or other ille­gal drugs.

“It appeared that the major­ity of the cases where drugs were taken, the drugs had been slated for destruc­tion,” he wrote.

Mor­ton resigned July 12, 2010.

“OSBI’s inves­ti­ga­tion included a com­plete inven­tory of the evi­dence room, with rec­om­men­da­tions to cor­rect poten­tial secu­rity prob­lems and address pro­to­cols,” Har­vey Ruther­ford, Wood­ward police chief, stated Thurs­day in a pre­pared state­ment. “On the basis of those pro­pos­als, pol­icy and pro­ce­dure revi­sions have been imple­mented, and the evi­dence room has been com­pletely upgraded to include state-of-the-art secu­rity systems.”

Chris­tine England-Morton
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Michael Albert Mor­ton
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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

The Mis­sis­sippi Press, blog.gulflive.com
BYLINE: April M. Havens, The Mis­sis­sippi Press
Link to Article

Moss Point, MS

Keith Davis, Moss Point police chief

MOSS POINT, Mis­sis­sippi — City aldermen’s first meet­ing of 2012 was con­tentious and chaotic at times, but the board ulti­mately took mul­ti­ple actions, sev­eral affect­ing the police department.

Alder­men agreed to hire Tar­sha Johnson-Watts as a part-time evi­dence tech­ni­cian after Chief Keith Davis told them the department’s evi­dence room “is in shambles.”

The room con­tains evi­dence that should have been prop­erly destroyed long ago, he said, “and the prob­lem has compounded.”

The board also agreed to hire George Chaix on a con­trac­tual basis for assess­ing, purg­ing, clean­ing and orga­niz­ing the room based on Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion of Prop­erty and Evi­dence stan­dards. Chaix will be paid a flat rate of $1,000.

The hir­ing deci­sions came only after heated debates over pre­vi­ously fired employ­ees and whether the chief should be able to hire part-time work­ers who are not enti­tled to pro­tec­tion under the Civil Ser­vice Commission.

Alder­man Tommy High­tower was in favor of both hirings.

“The more per­son­nel we put over there, the quicker this (prob­lem) goes away,” he said of the evi­dence room.

Alder­men also later agreed to allow Davis to apply for a $6,400 equip­ment grant, but after Alder­man Sher­wood Brad­ford learned the grant had a 25 per­fect match, he crit­i­cized the chief for “con­stantly” chang­ing his budget.

Bick­er­ing among alder­men had some audi­ence mem­bers shak­ing their heads and oth­ers laughing.

At one point, Mayor Ane­ice Lid­dell refused to carry a motion by Brad­ford, and Alder­woman Shirley Cham­bers quickly told her she was “break­ing the law.”

Also at Tuesday’s meet­ing, aldermen:

* Agreed to let Thomp­son Engi­neer­ing apply for a Mis­sis­sippi Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion grant that could con­nect the city’s side­walks and bring a 3.5-mile loop to down­town. It would also include an obser­va­tion deck for bird­ing enthu­si­asts.
* Accepted the res­ig­na­tion of police dis­patcher Hope Mer­rill.
* Hired Stephen Fur­ney to replace Mer­rill as dis­patcher.
* Voted to require demo­li­tion of a home at 4430 Elder St. The owner must clean the prop­erty by Feb. 1.
* Set a min­i­mum pay­ment on old city court fines at $25.
* Agreed to use tide­lands funds on river­front projects, such as pub­lic restrooms and bulk­head repairs. 

After the meet­ing, Lid­dell con­firmed the police depart­ment will be get­ting a new station.

City lead­ers learned last month that the Mis­sis­sippi Devel­op­ment Author­ity will allow them to con­sol­i­date mul­ti­ple fund­ing sources to build a new police depart­ment out­side the flood zone.

The city will use $1.5 mil­lion in sur­plus funds from a Hur­ri­cane Kat­rina sup­ple­men­tal grant, $389,000 from the Fed­eral Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency and other Hur­ri­cane Katrina-related insur­ance funds to build a new com­plex out­side the flood zone at the old Bel­lview Shop­ping Center.

The need for a new sta­tion is high, Davis said.

“The cit­i­zens of Moss Point deserve a pub­lic safety facil­ity they can be proud of … and so do the employ­ees,” he said. “The build­ing we’re in now was a refur­bished build­ing from a refur­bished build­ing, and it just doesn’t work for law enforcement.” 

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

The Repos­i­tory, CantonRep.com, cantonrep.com
BYLINE: Lori Mon­sewicz CantonRep.com staff writer
Link to Article

Can­ton, OH

CANTON — Sev­eral pounds of cocaine from a 2007 crim­i­nal case are miss­ing from the Can­ton Police Department’s Prop­erty Room, prompt­ing an inter­nal investigation.

Chief Dean McKimm said Wednes­day he asked the FBI to assist and that some police depart­ment employ­ees may be given a poly­graph test.

John Dysart, super­vi­sory senior res­i­dent agent in charge of the Can­ton FBI office, con­firmed McKimm’s request.

“He asked if we could help with a few things so they could sort it out,” Dysart said. “He asked if we could lend a hand.”

The miss­ing cocaine is already spoiled.

McKimm said offi­cers hop­ing to use some of it months ago for K-9 train­ing found it “ran­cid” and not useable.

Then again, McKimm said, the cocaine just may have been dis­carded with the trash.

“I don’t have any evi­dence that any­thing ille­gal was done,” he said. “One pos­si­bil­ity is that it just got straight thrown away with some other trash gen­er­ated by the destruc­tion process.”

Offi­cers dis­cov­ered about a week ago that the box con­tain­ing pos­si­bly four or five kilos — about 9 to 11 pounds  — was miss­ing. McKimm could not imme­di­ately recall the case linked to the cocaine.

The offi­cers had been prepar­ing for a “prop­erty destruc­tion” dur­ing which police receiv­ing a court release are per­mit­ted to destroy old evi­dence no longer needed in crim­i­nal cases. How it’s destroyed depends on the type of evi­dence, McKimm said.

“Cocaine and drugs are usu­ally burned, guns are melted, paper is shred­ded and then dis­carded,” he said.

Usu­ally, the effort involves the use of an incin­er­a­tor at a local factory.

The evi­dence in the prop­erty room is inven­to­ried and moved to a loca­tion where it can be pre­pared for destruc­tion, the chief said.

Typ­i­cally, some items are con­sol­i­dated into boxes while the boxes they had been in become trash and are discarded.

“What I believe is the prop­erty was mis­han­dled and pos­si­bly thrown away with some of the trash that was dis­carded dur­ing the prepa­ra­tion for the destruc­tion,” McKimm said.

“But we have to cover all the bases, and we’re cer­tainly going to inves­ti­gate so that we can elim­i­nate any pos­si­bil­ity of any crim­i­nal activ­ity by any officer.”

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