Included in a stack of slide shows and other handouts from a two-day class held in 2013 by the International Association for Property and Evidence was a survey with 21 questions about department practices on evidence and property. Whoever filled out the survey – it doesn't say – wrote down "X" marks indicating "no" next to 11 of the practice...

With today's technology, police were able to match the DNA to a family member, September 11, 2020 ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WHEC) — Rochester Police have made an arrest in a 35-year-old cold case murder investigation in Rochester. Police arrested Timothy Williams, 56, on Sept. 9 in the case of 14-year-old Wendy Jerome. The Rochester native, who was living i...

The lack of evidence could put the prosecution of the high-profile criminal case in jeopardy. August 14, 2020 An attorney for a former Massachusetts State Police lieutenant charged with overtime pay fraud says the law enforcement agency has lost tens of thousands of e-mails related to the high-profile criminal case, pointing to records that suggest...

"Finally, justice has been served," Burgess said during a news conference outside the courthouse Tuesday night. "It wasn't about the money. It was about wanting the truth to come out." November 23, 2017 Baltimore City Solicitor Andre Davis said Wednesday he would appeal a $15 million federal jury award to Sabein Burgess — the Baltimore man who alle...

When a police officer uses the authority bestowed by the badge to facilitate criminal activity of any kind, that officer is undermining law enforcement everywhere August 8, 2020 On April, 27, 2020 officers from the Anne Arundel County Police Department responded to an unattended death in the 1600 block of Wall Drive in Pasadena. On July 31, 2020, t...

They have charged a Denton Police officer in connection to a reported mishandling of evidence at a crime scene. August 10,2020 DENTON, Md. – The Caroline County Sheriff's Office says they have charged a Denton Police officer in connection to a reported mishandling of evidence at a crime scene. We're told the Sheriff's Office was contacted by the De...

  At the time, then-officer Daniel Steere was temporarily serving as the department evidence custodian. August 8, 2020 BENNINGTON, Vt. (AP) - A former Manchester police officer has pleaded not guilty to charges accusing him of stealing over $2,000 seized during a police investigation. Vermont State Police say the Manchester police chief contac...

We have made 127 arrests related to fireworks interdiction coming into New York City July 23, 2020 The city's crackdown on illegal fireworks started off with a bang — netting two shipping containers worth of pyrotechnics and nabbing 127 people for allegedly smuggling the firecrackers into the five boroughs from out of state in the last month. "We h...

The police department said there were 54 fireworks complaints in the first half of last year. In the same period this year, there have been more than 11,000. June 30, 2020 As mysterious displays of fireworks continue to be set off across the country – in Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Los Angeles – residents in New York City say the nightly cacopho...

  It is a case of internal theft as the funds would have been kept in a secured area at their headquarters. May 2 ,2020 LANCASTER COUNTY — Officials say that an internal audit of the Lancaster County Drug Task Force revealed that $150,000 has gone missing. Task Force officials say the discrepancy was discovered on April 20, 2020 and belie...

With crime down temporarily, there was time for spring cleaning May 17, 2020 SHARON — With people confined to indoors because of the COVID-19 pandemic, members of the Sharon Police Department had a little time on their hands. And the department has devoted that extra time to a spring cleanup of its evidence holding area. Sharon police Capt. Travis ...

A Manchester, Vermont police officer faces charges of allegedly stealing money from an evidence room. May 14, 2020 Vermont State Police say officer Daniel Steere stole $2,000 from the Manchester Police Department's evidence room in 2018. The was cash seized during a police investigation in 2017. Steere was the evidence custodian during the time tha...

100% Inventory of Property Room under supervision of independent forensic auditor in partnership with Maryland State Police May 8, 2020 SALISBURY, Md. – City officials gave an update on Thursday regarding four separate investigations involving members of the city's police department. "We also want to reassure the public that their law enforcement o...

Chief of the District Attorney's Forensic Science and Cold Case unit, worked closely with the NYPD to utilize enhanced DNA technology. March 12, 2020 STATEN ISLAND — The mother of a Flatbush murder victim who was just 19 when she was strangled in 1980 sobbed tears of relief Thursday when PIX11 showed her photographic evidence that the long-time per...

Trial was delayed due to federal prosecutors' failure to immediately notify the defense about missing body camera evidence. April 13, 2020 Delayed justice may have cost Deon Crowell his life. The 51-year-old was transported from the DC Jail to a hospital on April 7 after he tested positive for COVID-19. Less than a week later, he died of complicati...

The Justice Department's internal watchdog found flaws in the ways that the FBI keeps track of its firearms, ammunition, nonlethal weaponry, and explosives, including those seized as evidence March 24, 2020 The FBI has "strong physical controls over its weapons, munitions, and explosives," DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz found. But a report ...

As of August 2019, over 1,500 kits were still in the possession of State Police Enter Article DATE HERE ALBANY — Hundreds of rape kits are sitting untested in New York State Police crime laboratories as standards are being skirted, a situation that's left law enforcement officials also questioning whether the labs can keep up with new pre-tria...

DNA profiles from the victim's body, stockings, slip, and dress were retained and tested Enter Article DATE HERE FREEHOLD– A 1991 Asbury Park murder has been solved after new DNA evidence testing provided a crucial break in the case, announced Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher J. Gramiccioni. On the morning of March 27, 1991, the Asbury P...

Committed suicide while serving time in Louisiana on an unrelated charge in 2008 February 15, 2020 North Myrtle Beach police have solved a 24-year-old murder using DNA evidence, naming a man tapped as a possible suspect in the 1999 death of Hae Min Lee by the podcast "Serial," according to WPDE. Ronald Lee Moore, who had also been named in a series...

Enter Headline here February 15, 2020 SALISBURY, Md. – The Salisbury Police Department and the Wicomico County State's Attorney released details on Friday about an investigation into a police department employee, accused of stealing items from the department's evidence facility. The Salisbury Police Department (SPD) recently began an audit of its p...

  Police Department paid for a bio-hazard remediation team from Trauma Services LLC, based in Mansfield, to decontaminate the vehicle, due to the substance's extreme potency. January 28, 2020 ORANGE — A police cruiser was contaminated with fentanyl following an arrest in Orange. A person arrested Monday tried to conceal fentanyl, which ended u...

According to the Office of the Attorney General, there are over 6,000 untested sexual assault evidence kits in Maryland. January 20, 2020 A law requiring law enforcement agencies to submit qualified rape kits for testing within 30 days of receipt will become effective in January 2020, but it does not address the thousands of untested kits currently...

"It's a happy moment for me. It's been a long hard fight," January 3, 2020 PHILADELPHIA (AP) – The city of Philadelphia has agreed to pay $4.15 million to a man who spent 24 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit, one of the largest such payouts in city history. City officials agreed last week to settle a civil rights lawsuit filed by Shaurn...

More than 100,000 rape kits remain untested. January 1, 2020 President Donald Trump has signed into law legislation that provides funding to help states eliminate backlogs in rape kit testing. The measure, signed Monday, will help deal with the more than 100,000 rape kits across the country that remain untested. Advocates say that, without proper f...

​Got Something - Your may not want! December 29, 2019 Police in Massachusetts are searching for the owner of several lizards that were found abandoned in cages on a street. The Stoughton Police Department posted photos of the reptiles on its Facebook page and asked for the owners to claim them. "Have you ever walked down the street carrying your li...

At the Old Town Police Department, is something of a Cinderella story December 18, 2019 In some ways, the scene at the Old Town Police Department, is something of a Cinderella story. They've gone from probably their lowest point ever, to as high a point as a police department can go. And it seems from here, the sky's the limit. Just a few years ago...

"We want to be sure that all the evidence is preserved to show that Nick behaved appropriately and even admirably that evening, December 18, 2019 The New York Post has learned that the surveillance footage taken outside the cell of Jeffrey Epstein during his first alleged suicide attempt at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York has gone ...

"The officer exhibited fentanyl-related symptoms, including nausea and shortness of breath and was treated by emergency responders," December 15 An alleged narcotics dealer tossed a handful of deadly fentanyl powder at a cop investigating a Bronx drug packaging mill, authorities said Thursday. Members of the New York Organized Crime Drug Enforcemen...

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state lawmakers approved a law last year requiring the timely testing of rape kits, which contain physical evidence collected from the body and clothing of a victim in a possible sexual assault. December 13, 2019 ALBANY, N.Y. — More than half of New York's police agencies and prosecutors to report the number of untested sexual...

Charges come after DNA match in cold case December 13, 2019 Nearly 40 years after a 19-year-old mother was raped and killed in a Boston hotel room, the man authorities believe is responsible for her death has been charged, the Suffolk District Attorney's office announced Thursday. Steven Fike, a convicted rapist and murderer currently imprisoned in...

Lawyers involved in the case said they were "horrified" to see the amount of exculpatory evidence that was hidden from the defense team and jury. November 26, 2019 Three Baltimore men who spent 36 years in prison were released Monday after authorities say they were falsely convicted of a 1983 murder. Alfred Chestnut, Ransom Watkins and Andrew Stewa...

Butler explained he became addicted after taking prescribed Vicodin (opioid painkillers) for neck and back pain and blamed the doctors Enter Article DATE HERE Former Elizabeth Borough police Chief Timothy Butler will not serve any jail time after pleading guilty to emptying his department's evidence room of thousands of packets of heroin to fe...

Police said signed out more than 225 folds of heroin, more than 800 OxyContin pills and a few packets of cocaine from the department's evidence room on the pretext of needing to have the drugs tested. November 13, 2019 BRIDGEPORT — A former Fairfield police detective will be allowed to sue the town over his resignation, a judge has ruled. A Superio...

O'Neill said, cops will effectively have to turn over lab reports and other evidence to prosecutors within about seven or eight days of a person being charged. November 6, 2019 Changes in the law governing criminal evidence as part of a package of New York State crime reform bills are expected to cost the NYPD close to $100 million, outgoing Police...

The settlement covers money for each year the men served after sentencing, not their pretrial detention. November 2, 2019 The state of Maryland on Wednesday approved payments of about $9 million to five wrongly convicted men, including about $3 million — the state's largest-ever such settlement — to a man who spent 39 years in prison for a crime he...

Clippings from Brown's fingernails were kept on file — and OCME experts used their newly developed technique to see if she'd captured some of her attacker's DNA when they grappled. October 21, 2019 The city's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner on Tuesday will teach labs across the country about a groundbreaking forensics procedure that helped sol...

Local police departments who don't need to keep guns in their evidence room can turn them in to the district attorney's office. October 8, 2019 SCOTT TOWNSHIP, Pa. (KDKA) – About 700 guns from local law enforcement departments were collected by the Allegheny County District Attorney's office. The Allegheny County DA's Twitter account shared a photo...

Police said Coolen seized the Porsche Cayenne SUV on April 16 during a drug investigation that resulted in an arrest and placed it on a department property receipt,​ October 5, 2019 A 24-year veteran of the Philadelphia Police Department assigned to the Narcotics Field Unit was arrested Thursday and charged with using a 2018 Porsche he confiscated ...

Valley officials support the law, which is meant to remove weapons from the hands of domestic abusers, Enter Article DATE HERE More than 1,200 seized weapons may be in the hands of the Valley's five county sheriffs offices at any given time, according to department officials. That number has been rising so much since a new state law was enacte...

As genetic genealogy websites become more popular and individuals continue to voluntarily submit their DNA or enter their genetic profiles onto publically available genetic genealogy sites, the more biological information there is to compare with DNA samples from crime scenes. September 24, 2019 The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) this week releas...

Enter Headline here September 4, 2019 BEAVER — A county commissioner is questioning why the county has to hold firearms surrendered as part of final protection-from-abuse orders. Commissioner Sandie Egley questioned Sheriff Tony Guy, who has been working with Beaver County Public Works to expand the size of his evidence room, about the requirements...

Authorities say Butler became addicted to heroin after he was prescribed Vicodin for neck and back pain. Enter Article DATE HERE ELIZABETH, PA. (AP) — A Pennsylvania community's former police chief has admitted stealing thousands of small bags of heroin and fentanyl from his department's evidence room. Timothy Butler pleaded guilty Wednesday t...

CBP said it has trained more than 4,500 officers in how to recognize the signs of an overdose, deployed 3,300 dual-use Narcan kits in the field and outfitted its storage vaults with safety equipment such as gloves, masks and Tyvek suits. July 20, 2019 (NEW YORK) — U.S. Customs and Border Protection has stored enough fentanyl in the past year to kil...

A forensic scientist at the Rhode Island Department of Health determined on Wednesday that DNA from blood stains on the crotch of Christine's pants "was consistent" with the DNA profile of a man who was living above Saints Market when she stopped to buy milk on Jan. 6, 1988 July 18, 2019 PAWTUCKET, R.I. — A man who had lived above a market where a ...

Establishing formal procedures for the handling of kits by local law-enforcement officials could help ensure that cases are handled uniformly across the state, but the audit found more than half of local law-enforcement agencies lacked written policies in critical areas. July 12, 2019 New Jersey does not have a backlog for processing rape kits at s...

"The lack of policies and procedures, or the reliance on informal policies and procedures, can lead to inconsistent sexual assault investigations among various (law-enforcement agencies)," the report states. July 12, 2019 No backlog, but questions persist about why results of some exams were never processed at state forensic labs New Jersey does no...

The device, which cost $4,500, will be available to the 27 police departments on the West Side that belong to the association. June 20, 2019 KINGSTON TWP. — Police on the West Side of Luzerne County now have a new way to dispose of drugs and paraphernalia: burn them up in an incinerator. The Back Mountain Police Association on Wednesday unveiled th...

Federal officials made a massive cocaine bust in Philadelphia Tuesday, seizing an estimated 16.5 tons of the drug from a ship there June 20, 2019 Federal officials made a massive cocaine bust in Philadelphia Tuesday, seizing an estimated 16.5 tons of the drug from a ship there -- with a street value of over $1 billion, officials said. The historic ...

"For the last 35 years, he has been confined to a prison cell, without family, without friends for a crime he didn't commit," said Radha Natarajan, of The New England Innocence Project. May 31, 2019 MILFORD, Mass. — Lawyers for a Taunton man who has spent 35 years in prison for the murder of his great aunt are asking for a new trial to vacate his c...

Baker claimed at trial that he only intended to keep the stolen money temporarily, but prosecutors pointed out there was no way for him to return the cash once he took it. May 31, 2019 YORK COUNTY — A former Fairview Township Police officer serving time in federal prison for stealing cash while on duty had his felony theft convictions upheld by a f...