IAPE Evidence Blog

www.coloradoconnection.com
BYLINE: Brit­tney Hop­per
Link to Arti­cle
One Photo
One Video

El Paso County, CO

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO — In this spe­cial report, FOX21 News learns that hav­ing hard evi­dence is crit­i­cal to get­ting a con­vic­tion in court. That’s why the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office takes extreme mea­sures when han­dling evidence.

“Some­one sent a guy a grenade in the mail and when he opened it, it blew up and it killed him and it dam­aged the car pretty well,” said Dan Ist­van, evi­dence cus­to­dian for the El Paso County Sheriff’s office.

A red car has been sit­ting in the sheriff’s office’s dirt lot since 1994 — still no mur­der sus­pect but the evi­dence will stay.

“Most of the evi­dence, espe­cially if it’s a mur­der, will be kept for­ever unless it’s released by the Dis­trict Attorney’s Office,” said Istvan.

A dif­fer­ent red car was used for a kid­nap­ping where police say the vic­tim was put inside the trunk and put up a good fight but didn’t win.

“Car­bon monox­ide got to her. And killed her,” said Istvan.

A new trend police say they are see­ing more and more of are arson cars. The sus­pect will light the car on fire to try and burn any evi­dence. Police tell FOX21News this does make it more dif­fi­cult, but ulti­mately inves­ti­ga­tors say they will get to the bot­tom of it.

In order to pre­serve the integrity of evi­dence of a crime scene, human con­tact should be avoided. Just a few cells from skin can com­pro­mise the results. It’s very impor­tant to keep care­ful track of the chain of cus­tody of each sam­ple, accord­ing to Ist­van. The chain of cus­tody is a list of date and times and loca­tions of peo­ple who have han­dled the crime scene evidence.

“Deputies put evi­dence into the deputy’s lock­ers. Every morn­ing we empty the lock­ers out and check them and make sure they are pack­aged right and put on a shelf and marked and that’s where it will stay,” said Istvan.

The old­est box is from a homi­cide from 1972. Inside the boxes evi­dence ranges from papers to a rub­ber band, but bloody cloth­ing is han­dled dif­fer­ently. A bloody shirt will go into a dry­ing room then stored in a freezer so it won’t smell.

Some may ask, why keep so many items for so long?

If just one piece of evi­dence takes a crim­i­nal off the streets, police say it’s worth it.

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

www.naplesnews.com
Link to Arti­cle
BYLINE: RYAN MILLS

Naples, FL

NAPLES — Tiny bars of soap, stiff tow­els, Gideon Bibles — there are just some things that guests expect when check­ing into any hotel.

But some lucky guest may have found an unex­pected gift inside a Naples hotel room last spring — a pack­age of cocaine — thanks to the Naples police depart­ment, no less.

Two vet­eran Naples police offi­cers lost a packet of cocaine dur­ing a train­ing exer­cise last spring, accord­ing to a recently released inter­nal affairs inves­ti­ga­tion. The cocaine was believed to have been left in a local Best West­ern hotel room.

How­ever, even though the alle­ga­tions were sus­tained, nei­ther offi­cer was rep­ri­manded in the case.

“It was looked at as strictly an hon­est mis­take by two hard­work­ing police offi­cers,” Naples police spokesman Michael Her­man said.

On May 13, offi­cers Chuck Anken­bauer, a 13-year-veteran, and Linda Lines, a 16-year-veteran, checked out a nar­cotics kit from the department’s prop­erty and evi­dence room so they could con­duct K9 train­ing at Naples High School, accord­ing to the inves­ti­ga­tion. When they began hid­ing the two 2-gram pack­ets of cocaine that were sup­posed to be in the case, they real­ized that one of the pack­ets was missing.

Train­ing records indi­cate that the cocaine was prob­a­bly lost in April in either a Best West­ern hotel room, in the depart­ment park­ing lot, or in the rental car lot at the Naples Munic­i­pal Airport.

Both offi­cers sus­pect the cocaine was left inside the hotel room on April 29, because their rou­tine was dis­rupted that day when Lines, who usu­ally han­dles the nar­cotics, was called out to a scene, reports said. Anken­bauer ended up hid­ing the cocaine instead.

When Lines returned to resume the train­ing, both offi­cers’ dogs were “lively” — leaping on the bed, bit­ing pil­lows, knock­ing down pic­tures on the wall — and had to be secured to avoid dam­ag­ing the room, reports said. They decided to con­clude the train­ing ses­sion early.

Lines told an inves­ti­ga­tor that she did not remem­ber who col­lected the drugs that day, as she was more con­cerned with straight­en­ing up the room. She said that, at the time, there were no inventory-control mech­a­nisms in place to ensure that no drugs were miss­ing when sign­ing in or sign­ing out a nar­cotics kit.

That has since changed, Her­man said.

Now offi­cers have to doc­u­ment their train­ing items on a per-instance basis, Her­man said. Unit super­vi­sors will review those logs monthly, and a full inven­tory of the kit is done quarterly.

“These are highly respon­si­ble vet­eran offi­cers who as human beings made a sim­ple mis­take,” Her­man said. “They imme­di­ately noti­fied their super­vi­sors to the situation.”

- — -

Con­nect with Ryan Mills at www.naplesnews.com/staff/ryan_mills

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

WXVT-TV Delta News, www.WXVT.com
Link to Article

New Orleans, LA

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Lawyers for a for­mer New Orleans police­woman con­demned for mur­der and the cousin con­demned for help­ing her want their trial judge called as a wit­ness in new appeals.

Attor­neys for Rogers LaCaze want Judge Frank Marullo to tes­tify about alle­ga­tions he once signed a hand­gun from the court’s evi­dence room out to Antoinette Frank, later con­victed of killing her part­ner and two oth­ers at a restaurant.

Judge Lau­rie White heard argu­ments Fri­day, but did not imme­di­ately rule. She set two more hear­ings Oct. 15. One is on LaCaze’s motion to remove Marullo from the case. The other is for a sep­a­rate motion by Frank, also ask­ing for a new judge.

Pros­e­cu­tors accused the defenses of judge-shopping in an attempt to can­cel the con­vic­tions and death sen­tences handed down in 1995.

Infor­ma­tion from: The Times-Picayune, http://www.nola.com

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