The Killer Book of Cold Cases (26 page)

The labs I have mentioned represent the tip of the iceberg, investigators say. Lack of money and training are the usual factors involved when incompetence rears its ugly head. Many forensic laboratories are poorly funded and staffed with “experts” who are poorly trained.

Another big problem is the limited evidence showing the accuracy and reliability of most forensic methods, especially those that rely on expert interpretation. A study by the National Academy of Sciences suggested that forensic professionals be certified and laboratories accredited, that uniform standards be followed in analyzing evidence, and that laboratories be independent of police and prosecutors who might bias judgments. In the long run, as detailed in the
New York Times
, research is needed to determine the accuracy of forensic methods.

As of 2009, only a few states (New York, Oklahoma, and Texas) required forensics laboratories to meet specific standards for quality or practitioners to be certified according to a set of standards. According to the Justice Project in 2009, 96 percent of positions in forensic-science laboratories are held by people with a bachelor’s degree or less.

In forensic science, the ability to prove that a chain of custody has not been broken is a vital test of authenticity of both the crime scene and the evidence. The chain of custody shows when, how, and by whom the evidence was found, secured, collected, transported, preserved, and tested. It can be the only thing that ties defendants to the evidence that brought them to trial.

Evidence ceases to be acceptable in the eyes of the law when it is contaminated by preventable technical or moral failings, such as a break in the chain of custody.

The O.J. trial had many lab mistakes in the chain of custody that undermined the credibility of the prosecution. For example, LAPD criminalist Collin Yamauchi confirmed that at one time during testing, he inadvertently transferred blood from the Simpson vial onto his plastic gloves. The defense tried to infer that this blood might, in fact, have then been transferred onto the leather glove found at Simpson’s home (as part of a police conspiracy).

In addition to mistakes related to the lab, a potpourri of other mistakes are made at the crime scene and during the investigation by law-enforcement personnel such as uniformed officers, detectives, prosecutors, medical examiners, and just ordinary people.

Probably the most dramatic or stupefying mistake the author has ever heard of was at the scene of the Sharon Tate murders by the Manson family. Investigators were excited when they found a bloody fingerprint on the doorbell, but when they ran it for prints, they were less enthusiastic. It turned out to be the thumbprint of a police officer who, to gain access to the house, had pressed the doorbell, which happened to have blood on it!

And consider the O.J. Simpson case. According to Armanda Cooley, the jury forewoman, jurors believed that criminalists Dennis Fung and Andrea Mazzola were in a rush and mishandled things and then tried to cover up with explanations that never added up. In other words, their techniques just started getting sloppy. Who knows how many people are in jail right now due to these investigators’ negligence?

The following is a roundup of other investigative mistakes.

1. Not protecting the evidence.

Most errors in a homicide investigation occur at the crime scene, so it is important that the uniformed cops get on the scene and protect the evidence, if any, so it can’t be altered, destroyed, or lost. This may be physical evidence or the spoken word. For example, say that someone blurts out something like: “Louie, I knew he would kill Jenny. That’s what he said.” That statement should be written down and preserved by an officer at the scene. Later something like that could become important evidence.

The officers should also secure the scene so that people who are not authorized to enter can’t. One investigator found that the brass would often show up and trample over a crime scene. The only way he could stop them was by threatening to subpoena anyone coming into the scene unauthorized so they would have to go to court and explain why.

2. Not notifying homicide investigators as soon as possible.

Homicide investigators are really the only ones who should be processing the scene, so they should be called to the scene as soon as it is identified. Other cops are not trained to do this type of investigation.

3. Not treating a death scene as a homicide.

All suspicious deaths need to be treated as homicides to minimize the possibility of someone staging a scene so it appears to be a suicide. It’s all a question of perception, and if investigators think homicidally, they will be able to determine much more quickly if the death was a homicide.

For example, we know of a crime scene that was staged to look like a man put a rifle in his mouth and pulled the trigger. But because of the rifle’s recoil, it would have been impossible for the man to have shot the rifle and for the gun itself to have ended up where it was.

On the other hand, a man was discovered with numerous stab wounds in his chest, leading to the assumption that he had been stabbed to death. In fact, people who commit suicide may be able to stab themselves in the chest numerous times—including the heart—before dying.

The author remembers one suicide, at first thought to be a homicide, where a man hit himself
four times
in the forehead with a short ax. Today investigators have to be particularly careful in determining what happened at a crime scene because TV shows like
CSI
give details on how to commit murder and get away with it.

4. Having a preconceived notion of what happened.

Most law-enforcement agencies send out a team of cops based on what is said to be at the scene. For example, a cop found a man hanging from a ceiling beam and called it in as a suicide. A police team was dispatched, but it didn’t include anyone who was familiar with homicide. The death was determined to be a suicide, but a homicide investigator was in the area. He went to the scene, and when he observed the wear patterns on the top of the rope, he realized that it was a murder. The deceased had had the rope looped over his neck. Then the rope had been thrown over the beam and pulled up until the victim strangled to death.

Many uniformed officers will wrongly assume suicide rather than homicide and then blithely go through the motions of the investigation because they don’t view suicide as a serious thing.

Top investigator Vernon Geberth has been to 8,000 death scenes. He says: “In the many suicides that I have reviewed as a consultant, it was apparent to me that the investigation did not take each point to its ultimate conclusion. Instead, certain things that should have been done were not done, sufficient photographs were not taken, and certain tests were not conducted. Even though in some instances the deaths were suicides, the fact of the matter was that the incomplete and insufficient preliminary investigation raised legitimate concerns.”

5. Not controlling the scene.

The book
City of the Dead
contains a scene in which a prostitute had been murdered and the perp had jammed a half-full whiskey bottle into her anus. One of the detectives grabbed the bottle with a rubber-gloved hand and offered it to his partner, saying: “Want a slug?”

Some people might find this scene hilarious, but what’s happening is the opposite of what should be happening at a crime scene. The detective in charge should maintain a dedicated, take-charge attitude and be serious about the work at hand. If he’s not, then the atmosphere of the crime scene could get away from him. Chain of custody can be damaged, something that might show up later in court when the detective in charge takes the stand. Investigators should always follow an established procedure.

6. Not having a protocol in place to ensure that everything that should be collected has been collected.

Investigators should keep a list of items to check off as they collect them, such as hair, fiber, paper, and shell casings.

7. Not taking enough photos.

Who knows, in a murder investigation, or any crime investigation for that matter—what will or will not become important in the scene later on. Taking an abundant number of photographs of anything and everything is vital. For example, in the case described in Chapter 11, “The Enemy Within,” the crimescene photographer took a picture of the inside of the empty bureau drawer. Later a checkbook was found in that drawer, placed there by the murderer. Fortunately, the photographer had taken all the photos he could. “When in doubt, click away,” says one detective.

8. Doing a poor canvass.

A canvass is police speak for talking to people in the neighborhood where the crime occurred. That may take place at a roadblock at the same time of the day as when the crime occurred to catch anyone who might have been passing by then and noticed something. Or it may be quick conversations with people on the street or a door-to-door canvass.

As one NYPD investigator put it, “One of the most important things in an investigation is GOYAKOD: get off your ass and knock on doors.” A street looks quiet and empty, but you never know who is looking out a window and will spot a car in the area or a passerby, or be able to verify the time someone said they left the house—or entered it. People who live on a street are used to it being a certain way, and when there is a slight deviation, they notice.”

9. Not talking to enough people.

Victimology is the process of interviewing everybody who knew the victim, and it is a vital part of an investigation. But sometimes cops are simply lazy and unwilling to talk to the hundreds of people—friends, neighbors, business associates—that must be interviewed in the average homicide investigation. Indeed, a detective who talks to enough people will know the victim better than the person knows himself. From this, the detective can ascertain what the victim was involved in—and with whom—and start looking for a motive for murder. Without doing that, the detective simply will not know enough about the victim and the case will almost surely go cold.

10. Not sharing information.

The lifeblood of any crime investigation is disseminating information to all of the members of the team. One NYPD detective explained why the squad has meetings every week on a case: “Ten brains are better than one.” Very true, and a number of people are involved in a major investigation, including the medical examiner, detectives, crime-scene technicians, the district attorney, and ambulance personnel. The supervising detective has to make sure everyone gets all the information needed to do their jobs better. “Too often,” Vernon Geberth says, “egos and turf battles occur, which derail or compromise the investigation.”

However, the detective in charge also has to contain information and contend with bigwigs who show up at the scene. Where the case is major, everyone may be there, including the DA’s mother. That means all kinds of superior officers, the mayor, and others—with some of them talking to reporters to further their own ends and thereby compromising the investigation. That is a disaster waiting to happen, and all the detective in charge can do is hope that they all don’t show up or threaten them with a subpoena, like Geberth did.

Vernon Geberth has seen all kinds of incompetence, but perhaps the example that follows is the last word. Says Geberth: “Undoubtedly the worst case of investigative incompetence I ever experienced involved a detective (or defective) from Glenwood, a suburb of Chicago. He was one half of a two-person detective squad where he outranked the other cop so this moron called himself, naturally, ‘the Chief of Detectives.’

“I was hired as a consultant by
CBS News
for an investigative report after a whistleblower had alerted the local station to the work of the incomparable Chief of Detectives, whose name is Brian Meyers. I got embroiled not only in evaluating his investigations, but with the entire police department, and my word plus CBS’s report ultimately got Meyers and the police chief fired.