IAPE Evidence Blog

The Sun News, Myr­tle Beach Online.com, thesunnews.com
BYLINE: Brad Dick­er­son — bdickerson@thesunnews.com
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Horry County, SC

Offi­cials with the South Car­olina State Law Enforce­ment Divi­sion have begun a pre­lim­i­nary inquiry stem­ming from a request from the Horry County Coun­cil to do an audit of the county police department’s evi­dence room, said Mar­garet Knox, a spokes­woman with SLED.

Greg Hem­bree, 15th Cir­cuit Solic­i­tor, said SLED rep­re­sen­ta­tives met with him and asked if his office expe­ri­enced any prob­lems because of pos­si­ble miss­ing or mis­han­dled evidence. 

Hem­bree said the only issue that’s come up was a defense attor­ney recently asked an evi­dence room tech­ni­cian, on cross exam­i­na­tion, if the depart­ment was being inves­ti­gated right now.

“That’s a prob­lem gen­er­ated by this whole … polit­i­cal what­ever,” he said.

Hem­bree added his con­ver­sa­tion with the SLED rep­re­sen­ta­tive took around 20 min­utes. There was no time frame given as to when the inquiry would be com­plete and any next steps would be taken.

Horry County Admin­is­tra­tor John Weaver said SLED offi­cials also met with mem­bers of the county’s human resources depart­ment, although he didn’t par­tic­i­pate in it.

He’s heard noth­ing back from SLED, he said.

Attempts to con­tact SLED rep­re­sen­ta­tives for fur­ther com­ment were unsuccessful.

“Everybody’s wait­ing for SLED to issue its report,” Weaver said.

In Octo­ber, Coun­cil Chair­man Tom Rice for­warded a let­ter to SLED after the major­ity of the County Coun­cil voted for an audit to clear any ques­tions raised in an anony­mous let­ter con­cern­ing pro­ce­dures and evi­dence han­dling at the Horry County Police Department.

Mem­bers of the Horry County Leg­isla­tive Del­e­ga­tion also have asked SLED offi­cials to look into alle­ga­tions made in the August letter. 

Con­tact BRAD DICKERSON at 626‑0301.

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

WLTX-TV, wltx.com
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Sumter, SC

Sumter, SC (WLTX) — A for­mer Sumter police offi­cer is accused of tak­ing over $1,200 in money that wasn’t his while on the job.

Alex David Williams, 58, is charged with breach of trust with fraud­u­lent intent.

An affi­davit filed by State Law Enforce­ment Divi­sion Agents claims that back on May 30, Williams responded to a call that a large amount of money had been found at Cromer Car Wash on Broad Street.

The affi­davit goes on to say that a man at that loca­tion told Williams that he had found $1,235. Offi­cers say Williams took the money and left the scene.

Offi­cers say Williams never filed an inci­dent report or turned the money to the evi­dence locker.

The affi­davit said Williams told inves­ti­ga­tors that after he left the car wash, he was flagged down by an unknown man who asked about the money. Williams claimed he gave the money to the man but didn’t get his information.

SLED agents, how­ever, believe that Williams took the money and used it for himself.

Williams was booked on Octo­ber 28 at the Sumter-Lee Regional Deten­tion Center. 

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

BYLINE: By Brad Dick­er­son — bdickerson@thesunnews.com
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Horry County, SC

In light of an anony­mous let­ter accus­ing Horry County police offi­cers of, among other things, steal­ing drugs and money from the department’s evi­dence room, some County Coun­cil mem­bers want S.C. Law Enforce­ment to con­duct an audit.

But what are the thoughts of those who rely on that evi­dence and its com­plex chain of cus­tody when try­ing cases and defend­ing clients in a court of law?

It was a ques­tion posed to pros­e­cu­tors and defense attor­neys on Wednes­day, the day after Horry County Admin­is­tra­tor John Weaver rec­om­mended pub­licly to County Coun­cil that his inves­ti­ga­tion into the alle­ga­tions con­tained in the let­ter be ended with final­ity. His find­ings were that eight of the nine accu­sa­tions were unsubstantiated.

The sole remain­ing ques­tion was regard­ing the miss­ing evi­dence, which Weaver said he didn’t inves­ti­gate because it was beyond the exper­tise of the human resources inves­ti­ga­tion. Coun­cil mem­bers will again dis­cuss a pos­si­ble SLED audit and evi­dence room pro­ce­dures at the Oct. 11 Com­mit­tee of the Whole meeting.

Greg Hem­bree, Fif­teenth Cir­cuit Solic­i­tor, said based on the anony­mous source of the let­ter, it has no value in his view whatsoever.

“I think it is a bad prece­dent to engage pub­lic resources, at great expense … based on these unsub­stan­ti­ated, unsigned, hurt­ful, agenda-driven alle­ga­tions,” he said. Hem­bree added that, the let­ter notwith­stand­ing, an inter­nal audit every now and then should be con­ducted by police depart­ment officials.

The unnamed let­ter writer stated that the hope was an inves­ti­ga­tion into the alle­ga­tions — pri­mar­ily directed at Deputy Chief David Beaty and Lt. Michael Can­non — would have been con­ducted in March after Dave Jol­liff, a for­mer Horry County police offi­cer, with­drew his name from con­sid­er­a­tion for Mur­rells Inlet mag­is­trate judge.

Myr­tle Beach defense attor­ney Stu­art Axel­rod, how­ever, has a dif­fer­ent take on the alle­ga­tion of miss­ing evi­dence. He said drugs and money in the evi­dence room are sup­posed to be kept under strict lock and key.

Axel­rod said it would be a sad day if the alle­ga­tion of miss­ing drugs was true and they’d gone from the evi­dence room back on to the streets.

“I think that’s a mat­ter for SLED or the FBI or some other orga­ni­za­tion to come in and do an audit of the drugs and money,” he said.”

Axel­rod doesn’t think the depart­ment han­dling its own audit would be the best way to go.

“You don’t send a fox into the hen­house,” he said.

Inves­ti­gat­ing alle­ga­tions of miss­ing evidence

It was Coun­cil­man Harold Wor­ley who called for an evi­dence audit by SLED after Weaver told coun­cil he hadn’t inves­ti­gated the alle­ga­tion of miss­ing drugs and money.

Wor­ley said that of all the alle­ga­tions con­tained in the let­ter, miss­ing evi­dence was the most seri­ous to him.

Hem­bree agreed that it wouldn’t be appro­pri­ate for Weaver or some­one on his behalf to under­take the respon­si­bil­ity of check­ing to see if any evi­dence had gone missing.

If Weaver or some­one on his behalf does search for miss­ing evi­dence, they become involved in the evi­den­tiary chain of cus­tody and would have to be put on the wit­ness stand to tes­tify if the case came to trial.

“That could cre­ate a huge prob­lem for us if they did that,” Hem­bree said.

Hem­bree said no cases past or present have been impacted by the anony­mous letter.

One of the alle­ga­tions was a video­tape show­ing Can­non act­ing as a “peep­ing Tom” was turned over to the Con­way Police Depart­ment, but has since gone missing.

In his report Tues­day to coun­cil mem­bers, Weaver said offi­cials with the CPD reported it con­ducted no inves­ti­ga­tion nor had any evi­dence con­cern­ing that allegation.

The evi­den­tiary chain of custody

So, what does hap­pen to evi­dence from the time it’s taken from the scene of a crime until the time it’s needed for trial?

Axel­rod used the exam­ple of a per­son being pulled over for allegedly dri­ving under the influence.

If “Joe Smith” is arrested and offi­cers find cocaine in his pocket, he’ll get a blue ticket for the DUI and trans­ferred to J. Reuben Long Deten­tion Facil­ity. As “Smith” is being booked, the arrest­ing offi­cer will get a mag­is­trate to sign a war­rant charg­ing the sus­pect with traf­fick­ing cocaine, and the drugs will be put into the HCPD’s evi­dence drop box, Axel­rod explained.

“It should be some­thing like a mail­box,” he said.

“Mr. Smith” is served the war­rant, and the offi­cer will sub­mit a form say­ing he dropped how­ever many ounces of cocaine into the evi­dence box, Axel­rod said. The evi­dence tech­ni­cian will col­lect the drugs, record the date, time and amount and put the mate­ri­als in a sealed enve­lope and store it in the evi­dence room.

Axel­rod said if he were “Smith’s” attor­ney, he’d wait to see if the mate­r­ial tested pos­i­tive for cocaine. Once it goes to the lab, the lab tech­ni­cian becomes another per­son in the evi­den­tiary chain of custody.

If the cocaine were to go from the police department’s evi­dence tech­ni­cian, sud­denly dis­ap­pear for a month and then come back, Axel­rod said the ques­tion now becomes whether or not that cocaine has been tam­pered with.

Drug and blood sam­ples are what Axel­rod calls fun­gi­ble evi­dence, which can be changed or lost. Cocaine, for exam­ple, needs to be kept in a dry sur­round­ing, while blood or other flu­ids must be refrigerated.

“It’s kept a lit­tle dif­fer­ently than you would keep a sneaker,” Axel­rod said.

An evi­dence audit in the future?

Kathryn Richard­son, SLED spokes­woman, wouldn’t com­ment Wednes­day as to whether or not Horry County offi­cials had con­tacted them about con­duct­ing an audit of the HCPD’s evi­dence room.

The Horry County Leg­isla­tive Del­e­ga­tion asked SLED offi­cials to look into the alle­ga­tions made in the anony­mous letter.

Rep. Nel­son Hard­wick sent a let­ter dated Aug. 30 to SLED Direc­tor Mark Keel ask­ing for an inves­ti­ga­tion into the let­ter, which was sent to mem­bers of the county leg­isla­tive del­e­ga­tion as well as Horry County Council.

Richard­son said the let­ter is still under review by SLED.

As for now, Horry County Coun­cil will wait and get a report at the Oct. 11 COW meet­ing about HCPD pro­ce­dures when it comes to han­dling evidence.

Hem­bree said if SLED was brought in, they could pos­si­bly avoid becom­ing part of the chain of com­mand if they exam­ine evi­dence to see if any’s miss­ing while in the pres­ence of a mem­ber of the HCPD evi­dence team.

“It’s like the evi­dence is still in cus­tody of the evi­dence per­son,” he said.

The COW meet­ing will be at 9 a.m. on Oct. 11 at the Horry County Gov­ern­ment & Jus­tice Center.

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