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