IAPE Evidence Blog

Lewis­ton Morn­ing Tri­bune (Idaho), Tri­bune Pub­lish­ing Co.
BYLINE: JOELYN HANSEN

Bon­neville County, ID

KKK robe, guns, drugs, bur­glary tools are just a few of the things

IDAHO FALLS — The Bon­neville County Sheriff’s Office has no clear answer as to why there’s a Ku Klux Klan robe in the evi­dence and prop­erty room, offi­cers just know it’s there.

A res­i­dent found the robe, which dates from around the 1970s, on the side of a county road years ago, along with a KKK book and a T-shirt imprinted with the hate group’s sym­bol, Sgt. James Fos­ter said.

Fos­ter said its owner never came for­ward to claim it. He ulti­mately plans to make it part of the department’s edu­ca­tion pro­grams. “My inten­tions are to use it in a train­ing class on hate crimes,” he said.

Although a KKK robe may stand out as unex­pected in the evi­dence and prop­erty room, Fos­ter said, it’s cer­tainly not alone in doing so.

Fos­ter said the sheriff’s office has been in pos­ses­sion of a vari­ety of unusual objects — whether gath­ered through nor­mal crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions or found items turned in by citizens.

There’s the expected array of bur­glary tools, lock picks, car parts, guns, drugs, drug para­pher­na­lia, and DNA and blood sam­ples — pre­served in large refrig­er­a­tors — linked to crim­i­nal investigations.

At one time, the sheriff’s office had a human skull that was drudged up from the Pal­isades Reservoir.

Fos­ter said the skull was tested for DNA iden­ti­fi­ca­tion but didn’t match any of the county’s open miss­ing per­sons or drown­ing vic­tim cases. The skull is now in the pos­ses­sion of the Fed­eral Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion in hopes agents will be able to make an identification.

The Idaho Falls Police Depart­ment has also col­lected its share of items. It has stored any­thing from silly string to car bumpers taken from hit-and-run acci­dents to people’s underwear.

Right now, there are about 8,000 pieces of evi­dence, includ­ing a wheel detec­tives took from the car Frank Crazythun­der was rid­ing in when he fired shots at Sgt. Steve Poul­ter in March.

Not too long ago, Capt. Mark McBride said the Idaho Falls Police had tem­po­rary cus­tody of two urns filled with human ashes until offi­cers could find the next of kin.

It took some savvy inves­tiga­tive work to accom­plish the reunion, but it was finally done.

Idaho State Police Tech­ni­cian Katie Den­nent said the Idaho Falls Police will occa­sion­ally receive unusual items, like stat­ues, found along the highways.

McBride said the Idaho Falls Police Depart­ment even­tu­ally throws out aban­doned prop­erty or evi­dence no longer needed. With lim­ited space, McBride said unnec­es­sary items can’t be stored forever.

“For a long time, law enforce­ment wasn’t real good about purg­ing the evi­dence, they just kept fill­ing it up,” he said.

State law requires that found prop­erty be held for at least 60 days. At the end of the time period, McBride said any­thing of value is put into an auc­tion. The city used to hold auc­tions but now uses the ser­vices of propertyroom.com.

Fos­ter said the law does allow for items val­ued less than $25 to be dis­posed of sooner.

In the com­ing days, Fos­ter said the depart­ment is get­ting ready to clear out a stash of guns. Fos­ter said peo­ple who know they have guns there should come and claim them. Even con­victed felons, pro­hib­ited from legally pos­sess­ing guns, can trans­fer own­er­ship of seized guns to a friend or fam­ily member.

McBride said evi­dence is treated dif­fer­ently. Drugs and drug para­pher­na­lia are never returned. In a pend­ing or open case, evi­dence is kept until a con­vic­tion. Offi­cers keep evi­dence in closed cases until the defendant’s appeals process is complete.

“It could be as lit­tle as 42 days after a con­vic­tion or once a life sen­tence is served,” he said.

For exam­ple, the Idaho Falls police still have evi­dence from the Paul Ezra Rhoades kid­nap­ping case from 1987.

Rhoades was sen­tenced to be exe­cuted but remains on death row at the Idaho Max­i­mum Secu­rity Prison.

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

The La Crosse Tri­bune, lacrossetribune.com
BYLINE: ANNE JUNGEN ajungen@lacrossetribune.com
Link to Article

La Crosse, WI

Shelves filled with evi­dence in the evi­dence room at the La Crosse Police Dept. Erik Daily

Highly secure police prop­erty rooms hold evidence

Proof of guilt can be found here, tucked inside manila envelopes stacked floor to ceil­ing. Cash hijacked from a bank. A DNA-laden rock used to smash a win­dow dur­ing a bur­glary. Drugs seized from an apart­ment after an over­dose. The La Crosse Police Department’s prop­erty area is the offi­cial repos­i­tory of evi­dence –method­i­cally orga­nized and pre­served — gleaned from crime scenes, vic­tims and suspects. 

The 1,000-square-foot area on the first floor is mon­i­tored by two secu­rity cam­eras and sealed to all but three peo­ple: a sergeant, a lieu­tenant and a prop­erty clerk. Even the chief is pro­hib­ited from enter­ing with­out supervision.

There’s no rea­son for oth­ers to be in here, police Sgt. Randy Rank said.

“You want to keep who has access to a min­i­mum,” he said.

Within the prop­erty area, three rooms house more than 20,000 pieces of evi­dence, most sealed inside large envelopes filed in boxes and plas­tic tubs on six mov­able shelv­ing units. This year alone has pro­duced about 3,100 items from 1,200 cases.

Offi­cers and inves­ti­ga­tors are respon­si­ble for col­lect­ing, pack­ag­ing and label­ing evi­dence before it’s turned over to prop­erty clerk Kris­tine Gasch, who elec­tron­i­cally logs and labels the item by case number.

The cache includes DNA sam­ples, drugs, soda cans, cloth­ing, knives, metal bats, sur­veil­lance videos and car parts. An arson case yielded a charred piece of roof.

“You name it, we got it,” Rank said.

Three freez­ers hold dried and pre­served bio­log­i­cal evi­dence. Advances in foren­sic tech­nol­ogy have increased the vol­ume of DNA sam­ples in the past sev­eral years, Rank said, and the depart­ment becomes respon­si­ble after pro­cess­ing at the state Crime Lab­o­ra­tory in Madison.

Con­fis­cated drugs are stored in two old jail cells, in a small room with a fan to con­trol odor and mold growth. Guns are kept in locked cab­i­nets; cash also is stored separately.

Vehi­cles and other larger items are stored under the same secu­rity mea­sures in a pole barn on city-owned prop­erty. The site also holds evi­dence from cold or older cases, includ­ing the 1954 inves­ti­ga­tion into Eve­lyn Hartley’s disappearance.

Police annu­ally col­lect 5,000 to 6,000 pieces of evi­dence. Prop­erly main­tain­ing and orga­niz­ing each piece is cru­cial to build­ing a crim­i­nal case, La Crosse County Dis­trict Attor­ney Tim Gru­enke said.

“It’s even more impor­tant they main­tain the evi­dence in a way that allows it to be ana­lyzed if nec­es­sary for fin­ger­prints, DNA, or other sci­en­tific test­ing, for trial and some­times even after a con­vic­tion to sup­port an appeal,” Gru­enke said.

Audits are done annu­ally on a small, ran­dom selec­tion of guns, drug items, cash and other items, and the rooms can be inspected unan­nounced by the chief. No audit has raised a prob­lem, accord­ing to police and Gruenke.

The depart­ment must reg­u­larly purge evi­dence to make room for new items. Evi­dence from unsolved homi­cide cases, how­ever, must be saved indefinitely.

Mis­de­meanor case evi­dence can be purged 18 months after con­vic­tion. Felony case evi­dence can be dis­posed of 18 months after con­vic­tion as well with per­mis­sion from the prosecutor.

The depart­ment also noti­fies defen­dants that prop­erty will be destroyed if they do not object.

DNA evi­dence is thrown out, while drugs are burned in an incin­er­a­tor. Guns are destroyed at the state Crime Lab, offi­cials said.

“We don’t want them end­ing up back on the street,” Rank said.

The evi­dence room at the La Crosse Police Dept.

Photo Credit: Erik Daily

Grow­ing evidence

La Crosse police col­lect thou­sands of pieces of evi­dence each year in mis­de­meanor and felony cases.

Year: Items collected

2006: 6,215

2007: 5,897

2008: 5,441

2009: 6,147

WHAT IS EVIDENCE?

Any tan­gi­ble item police can gather from a crime scene or a vic­tim can be con­sid­ered case evi­dence. Those items can include any­thing from DNA and vehi­cles to dig­i­tal records from secu­rity cam­eras and squad cars.

Source: La Crosse Police Department

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

The Sequoyah County Times, sequoyahcountytimes.com
BYLINE: Court­ney Coble

Link to Article

Sal­li­saw, OK

On Wednes­day police piled up bags of debris and chem­i­cals that were destroyed by a Tues­day night fire at the Sal­li­saw Police Depart­ment. Capt. Beau Gab­bert makes his way back to bring out more bags to be placed in black bar­rels, hauled off and destroyed.

On Wednes­day police and spe­cial­ists shifted through debris left behind by a Tues­day night fire that started in a room inside the evi­dence room at the Sal­li­saw Police Department.

Police Chief Shaola Edwards said they are tak­ing the nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions to insure the clean up goes smooth and quickly. Edwards said he was con­cerned with the pos­si­bil­ity of con­t­a­m­i­nated water runoff and haz­ardous debris. He said Envi­ron­men­tal Reme­di­a­tion Spe­cial­ists were called Tues­day night to assist in the clean up. There were some haz­ardous mate­ri­als like chem­i­cals from metham­phet­a­mine labs that had to be dis­posed of cor­rectly. Sev­eral bar­rels were brought in to dis­pose of the mate­ri­als and the debris safely.

City Man­ager Bill Baker said the evi­dence that was dam­aged went years and years back. He said the fire destroyed no high pro­file or mur­der cases because those cases are held in a dif­fer­ent room.

“Staff was bag­ging up large bags of old evi­dence most of Wednes­day and Thurs­day. We did lose stuff but it was noth­ing cur­rent,” Baker said.

Edwards said the evi­dence that was destroyed had already been to the state crime lab and been processed.

“The main things that were dam­aged were already in the process of being destroyed. There was not any high pro­file or mur­der cases harmed,” Edwards said.

U.S Fire Mar­shall Tony Rust was called to inves­ti­gate the fire. He deter­mined on Wednes­day after­noon that it was an elec­tri­cal fire.

“That is the bad thing about these older build­ings. They house some really old wiring,” Baker said.

Baker said the city’s build­ing devel­op­ment inspec­tor and an elec­tri­cian are com­ing to inspect the build­ing and the wiring. He said more then likely the wiring through­out the whole build­ing will have to be replaced.

Right now, the employ­ees who worked in the nearly 70-year-old build­ing are cur­rently work­ing in the newer police depart­ment build­ing that faces Chick­a­saw Avenue

The fire started about 9 p.m. Tues­day. Fire Chief Anthony Arm­strong said when he arrived he found small flames and heavy smoke com­ing from a restricted room inside the admin­is­tra­tive build­ing on 111 N. Elm St. He said about 16 Sal­li­saw fire­fight­ers were on scene within sec­onds of the call and they put out the flames quickly.

“The build­ing didn’t have a lot of struc­ture dam­age, but did have a large amount of smoke dam­age through­out the admin­is­tra­tion offices,” Edwards said.

Edwards said he is hop­ing to get things cleaned up and back to nor­mal soon.

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