Wasn't it some people at the BCA that discovered the new info?
The Sheriff is county.
BCA is State. BCA is not located in the same county. It is quite a ways away from St. Joe.
From what I can tell, BCA does support work including Forensics. Stearns County maintains jurisdiction and all information would be relayed to the LE agency with jurisdiction which is apparently Stearns Co Sheriff Dept. The Stearns County Sheriff (Sanner) would be the only person with authority to disclose this sort of information.
I'm sure most of the stuff Sasquatch reports has been retained by Stearns County Sheriff Dept is kept in their evidence room. I wonder about six truckloads of dirt. There are rather strict rules about chain of evidence and if they are not followed, the dirt, or anything found in the dirt, would be inadmissible.
There is a lot of contention over the retention of "evidence" secured through a search. Since LE has a great deal of leeway over what they can retain, there is a tendency to "err on the side of caution" and keep anything that could conceivably be of value. Once there is a trial, evidence can be retained indefinitely in case of an appeal. If the Prosecutor or LE agency doesn't want to give something up, you have to go to court and may cost some money. Often, it just isn't worth it.
There are times when LE agencies have been accused of retaining 'evidence" as just a form of petty harassment.
My understanding is that the cedar chest and umbrella stand tested positive for blood but these were probably trace amounts and there was no way to identify whose blood it was. I guess they are hoping for improved technology to eventually id the blood. They probably are thinking along the same lines with the dirt.
Presumably the other stuff doesn't contain any smoking guns. If there was any clear evidence pertaining to involvement in Jacob's abduction or if there was child *advertiser censored* or anything else that was illegal, DR would have been charged. Any clippings or other information pertaining to the Case would be retained but it would mean very little. If the biggest crime to occur in our town happened on our driveway, how many of us would have retained a "record of it". Probably most of us.
Journals, hard drives, photos vcr's etc can be a sort of window to someone's inner life. It would be useful to have, particularly if DR eventually went to trial even if they contained no direct evidence of the crime.
There is the possibility that they may contain evidence that DR had "unsavory" interests but were not evidence that he broke the law. Anything that was at all pertinent to the investigation could be released to the media. I can not imagine anything that might suggest a sexual interest in children not being fully disclosed. Other "things" such as "non-traditional" sexual interest not involving children are a sort of grey area. A lot of things can be used against you at a trial that have nothing to do with the crime. Prosecutors love to show that kind of stuff to juries if the judge will allow it.
Of course, the real issue we are discussing is: "is there something in that collected "fruit" of the search that is suggestive that DR is guilty of Jacob's abduction but is insufficient to file charges, and if so, is there a compelling reason to not disclose the nature of this evidence to the public?"
