CA CA - Claire Hough, 14, La Jolla, 23 August 1984

[CheckYourProof]

kemo:

The donation of semen standards by employees has been a common practice. Sperm samples are donated for in vitro fertilization (IVF). Why the doubt that this was done? Go talk to anyone at your local crime lab, or preferably someone who has been there a while if you want info going back decades. If this is a common practice, why would the SDPD crime lab be any different?

I do not have any specific info on the practices regarding this at the SDPD crime lab, except for the reports in the news about this case, and also this is listed in the court filing. The police are free to lie, but do you think the attorneys are going to make this up? You could try to investigate this yourself. Ask someone at the SDPD lab. They may not be forthcoming but you could try. This is public info also in the sense that there could be testimony on record at the local courts. SDPD criminalists go to court and testify in trials and this could come up. You can find out who works at the lab and get emails or phone numbers. The head of the biology or DNA section is an Irishman.

As far as actually collecting the samples, some crime labs may be in buildings that are open or semi-open to the public. I doubt if that is the case for SDPD if the crime lab is in the same building as the police department. A criminalist donating a sample in a public restroom might get mistaken for a pervert. A common story in the news is someone gets arrested for that sort of thing. So it would of course be done elsewhere, like at home. And no test tube required, the sample can go on cloth to be dried. Again, to use the IVF example, why so skeptical?

Another issue would be the availability of commercial standards. Want to research that? This would of course cost if available, whereas employee samples are free. It might also require extra quality control. The lab would have to verify the DNA profile, whereas they have the employee profile.

What is the standard to prove innocence? Obviously if someone has an alibi that could be proven. If the president is in the White House on the opposite side of the country on the night of a murder, he is excluded from the suspect list. Brown has no alibi. He may have been at home that night in 1984. Maybe prove beyond a reasonable doubt? According to that standard, if there were 20 million people who could have gotten to the beach that night who have no alibi either, and there is no reason to suspect Brown or start an investigation, then according to that standard he has been proven innocent, and his rights were violated because he was subjected to illegal search and seizure. If there is no reason to single out Brown among 20 million people, then the odds are he is innocent.

Unless someone wants to get out and do real legwork like a private investigator to verify what the court filing says about the semen standard, you can either take their word for it or investigate yourself. Another angle for Rebecca's attorneys to pursue would be to get more info on DNA contamination in crime labs, something that many labs will keep records on but most do not want to advertise. In particular info on DNA contamination by lab employees of evidence containing semen would be helpful to their case.

kemo and I have both pointed out that police do not have to be truthful with a suspect. They can lie. An extreme example of this comes from San Jose, like San Diego also in California (1, 2), and shows how far police are willing to go in some cases.

In a rape case, a detective created a phony lab report in an effort to get a suspect to confess. The fake report showed that the suspect's semen was found on a blanket at the scene. The detective never got a chance to use the ruse in questioning of the suspect, but the detective "testified under oath that the report incriminating Kerkeles was true" the prosecutor did admit to knowingly using the bogus report to get a judge accept the charge. The suspect was framed. The prosecutor had a copy of the real lab report also. The real lab report was negative.

In an attempt to get Kerkeles to confess, San Jose Police Sgt. Matthew Christian concocted a phony crime report that claimed Kerkeles’ semen was found on a blanket at the scene of the crime.

The prosecutor was suspended for a month and has since left legal work behind. The detective remained on the San Jose police force. This is puzzling. The officer committed perjury.

"Kerkeles was forced to defend himself in court for six years despite being at work during the crime, and the prosecutor and investigating police officer knew that their evidence was pure fiction."

"Michael Kerkeles, charged in 2005 with raping his neighbor, and the San Jose City Council agreed to a $150,000 cash settlement in a case that upended the defendant’s life."

There is no report that the suspect was ever convicted in the case, so obviously the charges were dropped.

(1)
The Phantom DNA Analyst
http://jimfisher.edinboro.edu/forensics/fire/dna.html
Jim Fisher
The Official Web Site
Crime Laboratories and DNA Analysis
Santa Clara County Crime Laboratory:
The Phantom DNA Analyst

(2)
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/man-framed-rape-settles-article-1.1337451
San Jose, Calif., man framed in rape by police, prosecutor to settle with city
A policeman fabricated a crime report saying Michael Kerkeles’ semen was found at the crime scene. The agreement is for $150,000.
BY DAVID KNOWLES
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Tuesday, May 7, 2013

 

[CheckYourProof]

The attorney for criminalist Kevin Brown's widow Rebecca has filed a civil lawsuit in federal court suing the San Diego police department.

Here is some more on the San Jose case with the fabricated lab report (see previous post #61).

This case demonstrates how an investigation can take off like a runaway train, and how police can convince themselves of their own assumptions and lies.

A preliminary hearing was held the year following when the lab report was fabricated (1).

"Christian testified and related the false statement in the ruse report that semen had been found on the blanket".

Later the matter was investigated and:

QUOTES FROM REFERENCE

Christian apparently did not recollect the existence of the ruse report, and he claimed that when he testified on the basis of the report, be believed that it was genuine. After Kerkeles’s attorney threatened to seek dismissal based on perjury by Christian, falsification of the lab report, and Brady error, the district attorney dismissed the charges.

In his second cause of action, Kerkeles alleged that he suffered constitutional violations due to customs, policies, and practices of the City, including the teaching and encouraging of police officers to create counterfeit crime lab reports that contained false information, failing to adequately provide officers with sufficient training regarding the prohibition on fabricating evidence and providing perjured testimony, and failing to adequately provide officers with sufficient training regarding their obligation to produce exculpatory evidence.

The court agreed with the reasoning in Ricciuti v. New York City Transit Auth. (2d Cir. 1997) 124 F.3d 123, where the Second Circuit admonished that to hold that police officers, having lawfully arrested a suspect, are then free to fabricate false confessions at will, would make a mockery of the notion that Americans enjoy the protection of due process of the law and fundamental justice.

mercurynews.com also had a story (2):

QUOTES FROM REFERENCE

Not only was Kerkeles at work when the sexual assault of a developmentally disabled woman supposedly occurred, the lawyer said, but his wife also was in her home office, steps from where the alleged rape took place.

In hopes of extracting a confession, Christian created a "ruse" crime report indicating that Kerkeles' semen had been found on a blanket, while the actual report revealed no semen. Such a tactic is legal -- at that stage of a case.

There were several indications that the report was false. For one thing, the officer used a phony name for the crime lab analyst. It was also dated within a day of the evidence being seized -- contrary to normal DNA examinations, which take considerably longer to complete. Stringfield had in her file a real report that did not find semen on the bedspread.

(1)
http://www.therecorder.com/id=1202517839955/Kerkeles-v-City-of-San-Jose?slreturn=20150727201307
Kerkeles v. City of San Jose
The Recorder
October 4, 2011
C.A. 6th
H035333

(2)
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_23185207/san-jose-poised-settle-case-involving-phony-lab
San Jose poised to settle case involving cop and phony lab report
By Tracey [email protected]
POSTED: 05/06/2013 06:12:00 PM PDT
SAN JOSE -- A local man who was held over for trial on the basis of a phony lab report cooked up by a police officer and presented in court by a prosecutor is poised to win a legal settlement with the city for $150,000.

VOTE COUNT
Lilibet has withdrawn a vote of undecided, although the tentative opinion at this point meets the definition.

kemo now has a placeholder vote for innocent, provisionally based upon it being established that male criminalist Kevin Brown contributed semen standards to the crime lab.

If it can be established that there is very little doubt that Kevin Brown is innocent, then congratulations will be due to kemo for being only the 2nd websleuther to come to such a conclusion after all the months on this site.

kemo quote:
"If this [semen standards from male lab employees in the 1980's?] can be established, I would be satisfied that this is the most likely explanation and Brown is, in fact, innocent."

Vote count is now 2 C (Brown innocent) and 2 F (undecided).
see post #18 for explanation

There is another websleuths thread about an innocent man (Cameron Todd Willingham) who was accused of a crime and who ended up dying as a result. I recently did a post on it.

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?88714-TX-Cameron-Willingham-Wrongfully-Executed-2004&highlight=cameron

This man is obviously innocent. There is no shortage of people almost tripping over themselves to defend him. Hopefully their noble cause will be achieved - to achieve a pardon for him.

He would not plead guilty. If he had, then perhaps he could have tried to get a pardon without giving up his life.

I maintain that in the case of Kevin Brown, we also have an innocent man who ended up dying because of the investigation of him. I have had the privilege of being the first in this forum to step forward to defend this man in detail. That is because I could see almost instantly what few here could see, that the case against him lacks substance. This follows by applying the principles of Sherlock Holmes as told to us by his biographer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. As you have seen, I have the ability to research and argue the case. I put the likelihood of Kevin Brown's DNA being present due to being involved in any crime against the victim vs being due to DNA contamination in the crime lab in the ballpark of 1 in at about 10,000,000.

Remember that there is a crucial question (post # 58) that anyone who maintains that Kevin Brown should not be considered innocent will need to address:

If a DNA standard composed of DNA and cells from a crime lab employee is made of epithelial, blood, or semen cells, why should it not be considered contamination if the cells or DNA are found in or on evidence?

There will soon be another crucial question that will be posed here.

 

[kemo]

Check,
I have no means to verify the Semen Standard issue as it is unlikely that there is a lot of on line references to how it was obtained but I suspect that professional investigators have or can settle the issue by interviewing employees of forensic labs in the 1980's.

I am very familiar with the Willingham case. The situation is a little. The obvious explanation for the effort to "clear a dead man" is that it involves the death penalty.

The Kerkels case is very interesting and may have bearing on this case. Law Enforcement definitely is permitted to tell a defendant or his attorney that his DNA has been linked to the victim even if it isn't true. They can not, however, submit a fraudulent lab report to the court. That would be a criminal act. I'm not sure if providing a fraudulent lab report to a defendant is permissible. Sounds like the DA was pulling a bluff and it was called.

It is not clear that any fraudulent documentation was used in the Brown case. True, information was released that made Brown look bad that wasn't really relevant to the case against him.

Judges a have a great deal of leeway in granting search warrants. A particularly controversial area is granting a warrant based on statement a suspect made thar "are consistent with guilt or guilty knowledge that do not constitute an admission of guilt".

We don't all the facts but I suspect that if the investigation and interrogation were conducted in a legal manner, the probable innocence of the suspect would be irrelevant. If false information was provided to the judge who granted the warrant or if the judge acted improperly in granting it, that could be the basis of a wrongful death claim but it is notoriously hard to win a wrongful death case that involves suicide.

I suspect that the SDPD and the DA considered there to be good chance Brown was guilty and decided to do "full press Reid method" on him. They assumed that if he was guilty, he would break and confess but if he was innocent he would hang tough. They interpreted the suicide as an effective confession.

 

[CheckYourProof]

kemo:

The police can lie to a suspect. The police can create a fake crime lab report and show it to a suspect. It was a common practice in San Jose but was prohibited by the police department there after the 'Kerkeles Incident' (1). The police were warned about this practice by a judge before the 'Kerkeles Incident'. The police even had "boilerplate" forms for creating these.

The practice is apparently legal according to federal law and is done in multiple states. In Texas the technique was used to get a confession from Ronald Lee Wilson for murder (2). The sentence was overturned by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The basis for the appeal was that under state law in Texas, making up or modifying a crime lab report amounts to tampering with a public record. With the appeal the sentence was reduced from 28 to 18 years.

QUOTE FROM REFERENCE
"San Antonio police Detective Raymond Roberts committed felony tampering with a public record when he typed up a false crime lab report, Hancock alleged."

The fingerprints were supposedly from a clip from a gun (3).

QUOTE FROM REFERENCE
When he entered the interrogation room, Det. Roberts showed the fabricated document to appellant in the hope that appellant would rely on it and give him incriminating information. He began the interview at 10:02 p.m. by asking appellant if he had touched anything at the murder scene. Appellant repeatedly denied doing so. Det. Roberts then handed appellant the fake report at 10:13 p.m., and explained that his fingerprints were on the gun clip. Appellant studied the report for a moment, shaking his head in apparent disbelief. At 10:15 p.m., Det. Roberts again reminded appellant that “they had his fingerprints” and listed other incriminating evidence. At 10:17 p.m., appellant interrupted and said that he didn't know how his prints wound up on the clip. At 10:20 p.m., Det. Roberts again recounted all of the incriminating evidence, listing the fingerprint report first. At 10:24 p.m. Det. Roberts stated that he “can't get over the prints”:

Let me remind you, I've got that report. Those guys are experts. They're like DNA experts. They're like experts. What they say is the truth, and we got you.

It is certainly a criminal act to present evidence from a bogus report in court. That is perjury. The officer's defense was that he made a mistake. After the 'Kerkeles Incident' the seargent detective when back to being a traffic cop, which is probably where he came from.

There are many intelligent talented capable and competent police detectives in this country. Police rotate from patrol into detective units and some are just not qualified to investigate rape or homicide. It's not the right position for some of them.

But the 'Kerkeles Incident' also demonstrates that when ethics are pushed to the limit, it can become a habit and something is going to go wrong. If lies and incompetence by San Diego police can be demonstrated, it helps Rebecca Brown's case.

The police claim that Brown said something incriminating could be manufactured evidence. If police dig hard enough they will find something seemingly suspicious about anyone. 'Jailhouse snitch' types can come out of the woodwork. Some of the police claims can fit into this category.

If the warrant is based on false claims it seems like the search could be illegal. The attorneys claim that information was slanted against Brown. Exculpatory evidence was left out, such as the fact the Brown's DNA was found on only one swab, not multiple swabs. The false claim that DNA contamination is not possible went into the warrant. The starting point or inception of the case was based on this false statement and also the false claim that a lab director said it. If this goes to trial I would expect lab director Jennifer Shen will be called. Her testimony could amount to a 'smoking gun'.

This raises a crucial question:

Is an investigation bogus if it is based upon a false claim?

A wrongful death claim may be difficult to prove unless more 'smoking guns' are found. It may be easier to show that the search warrant was based on false information. San Diego should be concerned about what Jennifer Shen is going to say. San Diego police should be concerned about what experts in forensic science are going to say.

(1)
Fake lab reports were common
JUDGE WARNED COPS ABOUT USING RUSES
By Leslie GriffyMercury News
POSTED: 12/23/2007 01:35:24 AM PST# COMMENTS| UPDATED: 8 YEARS AGO
http://www.mercurynews.com/crime/ci_7792271?nclick_check=1
A Santa Clara County Superior Court judge says that he warned prosecutors and San Jose police years ago against using phony crime lab reports as a ruse during interrogations - long before the recent controversy that forced police to disavow the practice.

The warning from Judge Ray Cunningham, now the presiding judge of the county's criminal courts, is one indication uncovered this past week that the police use of the phony reports during questioning of sex crime suspects was more extensive than previously known. Cunningham said the case dated to the 1990s. In a separate 2002 case, detective Juan Serrano described the use of ruse crime lab reports as "standard procedure" at that time.
...
Police detectives also created a false report bearing the name of fictional analyst Rebecca Roberts when they convinced Marino Hernandez in 2002 to give a DNA sample that linked him to a series of sexual assaults, court records show.
Serrano's partner, Todd Trayer, testified that he had invented Roberts' name when he created the false report for questioning Hernandez. Trayer told the court that he entered information into a "boilerplate faux DNA sheet" that was used in the sexual assaults unit, printed the form out and took it to his interview with Hernandez.
...
Although police generally have the legal right to lie and deceive suspects during interrogations, the department restricted the practice of falsifying crime lab reports after the Kerkeles case came to light.

(2)
Detective's fake fingerprint report leads to new sentence
By Craig Kapitan Updated 10:33 pm, Friday, May 24, 2013

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/lo...e-fingerprint-report-leads-to-new-4547385.php

A San Antonio man who admitted a New Year's Day 2006 slaying after a homicide detective tricked him into thinking his fingerprints were found on the murder weapon was sentenced Friday — for the second time.

Ronald Lee Wilson, 28, took a plea accord in which he agreed to an 18-year sentence for felony murder instead of capital murder.

(3)
WILSON v. STATE
ResetAAFont sizerint
Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.
Ronald WILSON, Appellant v. The STATE of Texas.
No. PD-0307-09.
Decided: March 3, 2010
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/tx-court-of-criminal-appeals/1509726.html

In this case of first impression, we must decide whether article 38.23 of the Code of Criminal Procedure1 bars the admissibility of a confession if the interrogating officer fabricates documentary evidence in violation of Texas Penal Code section 37.092 and uses it to persuade a suspect to confess.3 We agree with the San Antonio Court of Appeals, which held that (1) the interrogating officer violated the law by fabricating a forensic report falsely stating that appellant's fingerprints were found on the magazine clip of the murder weapon;4 and (2) the trial judge erred in denying appellant's motion to suppress.5

 

[CheckYourProof]

In the matter of the 'Kevin Brown Betrayal':

DNA contamination can occur through a seemingly bizarre chain of events. Sometimes it will never be known exactly how it happened.

Here is an example of such a case where DNA contamination happened in Australia, where it is not even certain that a rape happened (1). In another (non-criminal) matter a sample had been collected in a hospital examination room 28 hours previously from a woman who had been intimate with Mr Jama. When evidence was collected from the alleged victim 28 hours later, it is suspected that a tiny particle containing incriminating DNA could have landed on a swab in a hospital examination room on the following day. The claim was made that safeguards in place were "rigorous" (2).

One of the articles is not very clear on this point, but it appears that samples were collected from 2 different women about 28 hours apart, and that this is where the suspected contamination happened, and that there was a separate sample collected from Jama, which would usually be a mouth swab (not semen).

"The DNA came from a semen sample as well as a mouth swab he agreed to give police." (2)

It appears that the "semen sample" from the alleged rape victim was found to be a match with the DNA from the "mouth swab" from Jama. If so, this means that semen from woman who was not a victim somehow got onto the evidence swab from the other woman on the following day. This really is a bizarre chain of events. But remember that while most will not win the lottery, someone will.

Note how this relates to the 'Kevin Brown Betrayal' (after Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Betrayal). Semen was able to invisibly travel from one sample or swab to another, resulting in a DNA match on a semen sample that led to investigation (Brown) or conviction (Jama). Jama was convicted and spent 16 months in prison. What the San Diego police say is "not possible" has actually happened.

This leads to a crucial question:

If this could happen in a hospital room with "rigorous"safeguards, could it happen in the SDPD crime lab in 1984?

There were no rigorous safeguards in place in the SDPD crime lab in 1984.

Retired Supreme Court judge Frank Vincent issued a scathing report on this matter involving Jama.

This also leads to another crucial question:

Where is the scathing report on the DNA contamination that happened in the SDPD crime lab, where Kevin Brown's DNA got into the evidence?

So far there is only one scathing report, written here by me. Usually there is some official somewhere who expresses concern about such matters. Why was there no hint of red-faced embarrassment by SDPD officials over DNA contamination? Did they find a scapegoat to avoid said embarrassment? Why are the local reporters such pushovers? Why were there no tough questions about DNA contamination, like you see anywhere else? Were SDPD officials duplicitous? Were they able to avoid embarrassment and scrutiny of their cold case investigations through deflection and obfuscation? Do San Diego police officials need a wake-up call?

QUOTES FROM REFERENCE #2

MARY GEARIN: Farah Jama had always maintained on the night in question he was at home with his ill father. It just so happens that 24 hours before that samples of his DNA were gathered in a completely separate and unrelated investigation in which he was not charged. The DNA came from a semen sample as well as a mouth swab he agreed to give police.
...
MARY GEARIN: There will be an investigation, but so far no-one can say how the woman's DNA sample was contaminated by Farah Jama's DNA gathered in the unrelated case. Prosecutors do say it happened at the point of collection, not the point of analysis.
...
KIMANI BODEN: Both samples came to the same medical officer within a span of 24 hours. I believe personally that the mix up may have happened there. But as to precisely when it occurred, we don't know.

MARY GEARIN: Farah Jama's case is the third in six years in Victoria involving DNA contamination.
...
SIMON OVERLAND, VICTORIA CHIEF POLICE COMMISSIONER: We have very rigorous procedures to guard against contamination, but there will be an independent review. I welcome that independent review to come and look and make sure that the problem is not with us. I'm confident it's not.
...
ANGELA VAN DAAL: I think the fact is that people in laboratories around the world are doing it without realising that that's what they're doing. As soon as they use very low levels of DNA, they are working in that range where there are potential problems in generating a true and accurate profile reflective of the person or persons that it came from.
...
JOHN SUTTON, AUST. DEFENCE LAWYERS ALLIANCE: DNA evidence is presented to juries, to members in the street as something that is infallible. It is not. It is a statistical argument.

(1)
http://netk.net.au/DNA/DNA160.asp
Networked Knowledge - Media Report
This version of the report has been prepared by: Dr Robert N Moles
On 6 May 2010 BigPond reported “Lawsuit looming in botched DNA rape case” [Victoria, Australia]

QUOTES FROM REFERENCE
It said: an innocent Victorian man falsely jailed for rape on botched DNA evidence is considering a lawsuit. An innocent man falsely jailed for rape on botched DNA evidence is considering a lawsuit after an inquiry found his case never should have gone to court. Somali-born Farah Jama served 15 months jail for a rape that never occurred after he was convicted solely on contaminated DNA evidence.

In a scathing report, retired Supreme Court judge Frank Vincent found forensic police and prosecutors had failed to pick up on the warning signs when all of the facts pointed to Mr Jama's innocence. In a finding that has implications for prosecutions in Victoria, Mr Vincent said too much credence was given to DNA being 'rock solid' evidence. 'The DNA evidence appears to have been viewed as possessing an almost mystical infallibility that enabled its surroundings to be disregarded,' he said in the report.

The conviction was quashed 15 months later when it emerged a sample collected from the woman had been contaminated with DNA taken in the same place by the same doctor 28 hours earlier from a woman who had been intimate with Mr Jama.

The report, tabled in state parliament on Thursday, found the contamination likely occurred in the examination room at Melbourne's Austin Hospital. It was 'almost incredible' that a minute particle that settled on a swab, slide or trolley surface sparked a chain of events that culminated in the conviction of an innocent man for a crime that never occurred, the report said. It found cleaning processes to guard against contamination were lax.

He also questioned why the case proceeded with no corroborating evidence. Mr Jama had an alibi supported by witnesses and there were no witnesses to the alleged assault, not even the complainant who was unconscious and uncertain she had been wronged.

'This case really is a wake-up call for everyone involved in the criminal justice system ... to ensure people are not blinded by the science and the so-called CSI effect' of DNA evidence,' he [Attorney-General Rob Hulls] said.

(2)
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2009/s2768310.htm
DNA bungle sends wrong man to prison
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 10/12/2009
Reporter: Mary Gearin
It's been a week to test the public's faith in the science of DNA and the procedures of police. A bungle that led to a wrongful conviction of a Melbourne teenager has led to a freeze on the use of DNA evidence.
Transcript
KERRY O'BRIEN, PRESENTER

 

[CheckYourProof]

The attorney for criminalist Kevin Brown's widow Rebecca has filed a civil lawsuit in federal court suing the San Diego police department.

In the matter of the 'Kevin Brown Betrayal':

There is some important information in another case known as the “Stocking Stranglings” that has been featured in two forums (1, 2) that applies to the San Diego case. Reference (2) contains articles from www.ledger-enquirer.com (3).

“Stocking Strangler” Carlton Gary was convicted in 3 cases of rape and or murder and was suspected in more cases in Georgia and New York. There were seven killings in 1977 to 1978. He was about to be executed in 2009 when the execution was delayed and DNA testing was later done on the cases by the Georgia Bureau Of Investigation (GBI). Gary's DNA was found in the evidence. Of more interest here is that DNA contamination also happened in the testing process, and how the contamination happened.

From REFERENCE #3:
_________________________________
Three times a GBI lab contaminated crime-scene evidence with a “quality-control sample,” which is a known DNA sample the lab used to confirm its equipment was working properly. The first instance was at a Savannah lab where a worker tainted evidence with a pair of scissors that had not been sterilized.

Twice more this happened at the GBI lab in Decatur, where “Stocking Stranglings” evidence was tested.

Stephanie Fowler, who manages Georgia’s DNA database, testified supervisors at the lab, which has employees or their husbands donate semen for quality-control samples, became alarmed last year when the same control sample twice tainted crime-scene evidence, once in a 2011 Atlanta case unrelated to the stranglings.

This discovery prompted the agency to add control samples to its DNA database of sex offenders and profiles from open investigations. That led to the conclusion the same control sample in 2010 had tainted evidence from the Oct. 25, 1977, rape and strangling of Martha Thurmond, 69, of 2614 Marion St., Columbus.

Thurmond was the fourth stranglings victim, and investigators collected a semen sample from her abdomen, which attorneys in 2010 deemed suitable for DNA testing.

The initial result showed a DNA profile that was not Gary’s, but no one knew whom it came from until the profile was included in Georgia’s DNA database, and was found to match the DNA from the 2011 Atlanta case. Last November, the GBI discovered this profile was the quality-control sample the Decatur lab had been using. It had tainted both the Atlanta case and the Thurmond test.

Senior Assistant District Attorney Don Kelly asked Fowler if this revelation was “alarming.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” she replied.
_________________________________

It appears that the GBI was not comparing profiles from DNA testing with an employee elimination database.

It appears that there may have been a step skipped en route to discovering this snafu. Instead of comparing the unknown DNA profiles from cases with the employee elimination database, a comparison was made with a "Georgia DNA database". It was discovered from the database search that the same unknown DNA profile appeared in two different cases. It was only then that the employee elimination database was compared and a match was found to the person (either a lab employee or a lab employee's husband) who contributed the crime lab “quality-control sample,” which was composed of semen.

I suspected that these examples of DNA contamination of evidence samples with semen from crime lab standards existed, and if they had been published, they had not been located and posted here yet. There are probably more that have not been published. This Georgia case is the smoking gun that proves it.

Note that this story also confirms that crime lab employees or their spouses contribute semen standards in today's crime labs. This practice goes back decades.

Note how the contamination is thought to have occurred in the Savannah lab, by scissors. This happened in a modern lab using modern clean techniques that weren't quite clean enough. This sort of thing could have easily happened in the San Diego crime lab in 1984. The techniques in 1984 were not sensitive enough to detect contamination even if the crime lab employees handled evidence with their bare hands, so they would have had no reason to worry about contamination with such tiny amounts of material.

Note that in Georgia contamination could happen involving an employee (Connie Pickens) who did not even handle the evidence on the case in question, or the crime lab semen standard. The San Diego police claimed that since Kevin Brown did not work on the Claire Hough's case and did not handle any of the evidence, DNA contamination was not possible. If they knew that this is not true then they are liars. If they did not know it then they are ignorant. It should finally becoming clear to all of the websleuths here that the San Diego police do not know what they are talking about when it comes to DNA and crime labs and forensic science. What do you think would have happened if a reporter had asked San Diego police captain Al Guaderrama what DNA stands for? Guaderrama is a captain with a small "c". Do not confuse SDPD captain Al Guaderrama with SDPD captain Manny Guaderrama. In 2013 Manny Guaderrama found himself no longer in the running for the position of Paso Robles police chief (in Central California wine country) after news came out about preferential treatment for his son in a drunken incident, one of many scandals at the SDPD (4).

Note that the contamination was not limited to one incident. It happened at two different labs and on two different cases, for a total of three times. Note that the crime lab was not quick to detect the contamination, and the procedures being used would not detect it quickly. In 1984 contamination could have been going on, and it is indeed extremely likely that contamination exactly like this happened. There were no procedures in place in 1984 to detect such contamination, and so it would not be detected until DNA testing was done on the evidence in 2012. But in San Diego in 2012, the SDPD crime lab and the SDPD police officials should have quickly been able to figure out that DNA contamination by a criminalist had occurred. In Georgia, they were alarmed. In San Diego, police were not alarmed. They were sanguine. After all, they had a scapegoat they could blame and thus avoid any criticism of their cold case investigations. There was just one problem. The criminalist would have to be sacrificed, castigated and looked on with horror everywhere he went if the news got out. And what did the neighbors think anyway, who saw a Seal Team sized crew of armed cops stage a raid on his house? His life may have been the equivalent of a prominent citizen suddenly being exiled from the Roman Empire. But, this is not the Roman Empire (a brutal place to live for many). This is the United States of America. What is this country coming to if this can happen? Soldiers and Marines are respected for their service. Kevin Brown didn't get any respect, not even from his own city police department.

There should have been someone who could stand up for Kevin Brown. They took Kevin Brown's computer away from him. His wife Rebecca got her computer back because she needed it for her lesson plans as a teacher. Did Kevin Brown know everything that has been posted here as research and references? Where were Kevin Brown's co-workers? There has been nothing but silence from them. Could they not research these matters and help him? Did his attorney Gretchen von Helms have all this information? If this case against Kevin Brown had been made public before he died, could there have been someone somewhere who could have helped him? Who could Kevin Brown turn to? He had no union. Even his own crime lab closed the door on him. Likely someone in the crime lab world would have stood up for him. Now it is up to the attorneys hired by his widow, and people like me, who do not automatically swoon when the San Diego police get up in front of news cameras and try to look like heroes who saved the people of the city from an evil criminal hiding among them. Note that this case has already made it into a book where the controversy is briefly discussed (5). This case may be one for the history books. Let it be written that the websleuths were not fooled. Who is with me?

I can tell you what would have happened on CSI. Nick Stokes (also known as George Eads) left Las Vegas and took the director's position at the San Diego Crime Lab. If one of Nick Stokes' people was in the position Kevin Brown was in, Nick would have stood up for him. For whatever reason (she may have been under orders and subject to being fired) SDPD crime lab director Jennifer Shen remained silent. That is something that she will have to live with. It may be that she was afraid to stand up for someone who was being painted as a pervert by her own police department.

Note that the nation's crime labs are not staffed solely by former choir or alter boys and girls. If so, then there might be only a skeleton crew on the job. Some former drug use is allowed. A person could even have a DUI in his/her background. A female criminalist could have worked at a shop selling sex toys in her youth. Even alter boys are not always angels (Adolf Hitler). The point is that going to a strip club is not illegal, or evidence of a crime. A person should still get the presumption of innocence. Remember the stigma that could be attached to rape victims, and how they could be attacked in court by a defense attorney.

Note further that in Georgia (2):

From REFERENCE #3:
_________________________________
Workers were sharing lab space and equipment, because they hadn’t enough room for private work areas. So even workers who were meticulous in cleaning their gear could have it tainted by someone else.

Connie Pickens was the GBI scientist who reported April 28, 2010, that her test on the Thurmond semen sample had yielded DNA that didn’t match Gary.

Pickens, who retired in April 2013 and recently died, had not even used the semen quality-control sample to test her results, and she was known to be conscientious about cleaning her work station. But the GBI learned another worker had employed the quality-control sample while using Pickens’ equipment the day before, and that apparently was how the test was contaminated.
_________________________________

A reference with court testimony from the 1995 O. J. Simpson case (6) has been located that describes how quality control was done with blood samples about 20 years ago. This shows that such quality control goes back at least 20 years. In fact it goes back further. There was a quality assurance committee with the California Association of Criminalists (CAC) that goes back to 1986. Quality control measures very likely go back further than that. CAC goes back to the fifties (6).

Mr Sims:
"I was also a member of the quality assurance committee for forensic serology, that is conventional serology , and that goes back now to 1986..."

Note that in Georgia, there was a known suspect with a criminal record with DNA and fingerprint matches in the crimes. Police did not investigate the donor of the semen standard for the crime. That would be ridiculous. Note that in San Diego there was a known suspect with a criminal record with a DNA match in the crime. Police DID investigate the donor of the semen standard for the crime. That IS ridiculous.

REFERENCES

(1)
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?216463-GA-NY-CARLTON-GARY-Stocking-Strangler-aka-Chattahoochee-Choker-Columbus-1970-s

(2)
http://www.cncpunishment.com/forums/showthread.php?2116-Carlton-Gary-Georgia-Death-Row/page3

(3)
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/news/local/article29322616.html
Gary hearing: GBI techs explain test errors that fouled DNA results
Semen tests conducted on “Stocking Stranglings” evidence in the 1970s showed the killer had type-O blood, a forensic serologist testified today in convicted strangler Carlton Gary’s hearing seeking a new trial.
BY TIM CHITWOOD - [email protected]
Local FEBRUARY 26, 2014

(4)
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/news-ticker/2013/jan/04/guaderrama-out-as-paso-robles-police-chief/#
Guaderrama out as Paso Robles police chief
Veteran San Diego police captain withdraws candidacy for $160,000 job in wake of son's preferential treatment controversy
By Matt Potter, January 4, 2013
Manny Guaderrama, the longtime San Diego police captain who was set to become police chief of the Central California wine country town of Paso Robles, has bowed out in the wake of controversy over alleged preferential treatment of his son in an alleged drunken incident here.

In October, 23-year-old Alex Guaderrama was charged with multiple counts of sexual battery and assault regarding an drunken incident at a Pacific Beach taco shop in which he allegedly grabbed a woman's breast and punched another.

Instead of being jailed, he was reportedly treated by police for minor injuries and ferried home to his mother in La Mesa.

(5)
Inside the Cell: The Dark Side of Forensic DNA
by Erin Murphy
$18.49
Chapter 5
Single Cell Samples:
Low Copy Number DNA

(6)
http://simpson.walraven.org/may16.html
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA; TUESDAY, MAY 16, 1995 9:03 A.M.
Department no. 103 Hon. Lance A. Ito, Judge
APPEARANCES: (Appearances as heretofore noted.)
(Janet M. Moxham, CSR no. 4855, official reporter.)
(Christine M. Olson, CSR no. 2378, official reporter.)

(The following proceedings were held in open court, out of the presence of the jury)
...
MR. SIMS: Okay. It was clear at this point that these were the two main samples we were going to initially focus on. When I say "the two," I mentioned item no. 6, which was the Rockingham drop, and then the other item we were interested in was item no. 48, a Bundy drop. And intervening there, as far as the cutting process, I--I next looked at what we call a quality control bloodstain. And in our laboratory, every time we do a set of extractions in this case, we would also run a bloodstain that is unknown as to the type to the analyst. So in other words, I'm going to take--I'm going to go to a bank of samples that are just coded by number, and I have no idea what those typing results are for those numbers. I take one of those. And in this case, it was QC, quality control sample no. 806. And that sample then gets processed in the same fashion.
...
MR. HARMON: Go ahead.
...
MR. SIMS
I--I next looked at what we call a quality control bloodstain.
...
The first one, as I mentioned earlier, is the California Association of Criminalists. ... it goes back into the fifties. ... I was a member of the board of examiners within the California Association of Criminalists ... I was also a member of the quality assurance committee for forensic serology, that is conventional serology, and that goes back now to 1986. ...

 

[killer Chaser]

Some more possibilities? http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...-Beach-13-August-1978&p=12016256#post12016256

Kevin Brown has ties to this area he was born in Sacramento.

 

[CheckYourProof]

This is the police version of 'friendly fire'. Or is it unfriendly fire? The police took down one of their own, a fellow city employee. At the time of the filing of Rebecca's lawsuit, SDPD had had many additional months to consider the issues. They still had not figured out that DNA contamination is possible. They are sticking to their guns according to SDPD police chief Shelley Zimmerman. They are obstinate. There is a problem with this approach. If this case goes to trial, they are going to be put on the stand and asked questions. If they have not figured out by then that DNA contamination is possible then they are willfully ignorant. Imagine what a talented and experienced attorney like Eugene Iredale could do. If the police are put on the stand, they will be forced to admit that they were wrong and that they do not know what they are talking about. This could cause cold case detective Lambert and police chief Shelley Zimmerman to lose sleep, to say the least. While wrongful death in this case may be difficult to prove, you never know what a jury will do. The fact is that Kevin Brown was targeted as a scapegoat simply for doing his job, and if the jury thinks there is something very wrong with that, watch out.

There is at least one unsolved killing. Of the two cases, Nantais and Hough, Tatro could not have been involved in the Nantais case. The cases were similar enough that both police and the FBI thought they were related. Does the DNA match with Tatro show that he killed Hough? It is strong evidence, but it is virtually the only evidence against him in the case. The DNA match is not as strong because of the more primitive evidence handling in 1984. The contamination of the evidence with the DNA of Kevin Brown raises questions and weakens the case. Nonetheless it is still more likely than not that Tatro is the right suspect. That still leaves one unsolved similar killing. Tatro may have committed a similar crime by chance. He could have been familiar with the specifics of the earlier Nantais killing and he could have committed a copycat crime.

killer Chaser (post #67) is looking at other unsolved murders. Following the posted links, it is pointed out that Ted Bundy could have theoretically gotten to some of these locations and committed the crimes in the 1970's. Ted Bundy was taken into custody in 1978 and is not a suspect in the Claire Hough case. I have looked at these links but I do not have time to focus on all of these unsolved murders. It is probable there could be links between some of these cases, but with a body found with no evidence, the police do not have much to go on.

________________________________________________________________
I do not recall addressing a point brought up by kemo (post #26):

One report explains the small amount of Kevin's DNA to "low sperm count".

Kevin Brown's attorney Gretchen von Helms "contends the low amount of DNA points to cross-contamination, and not a low sperm count or trouble ejaculating, as police argue" (1). It would be very difficult to draw the conclusion of "low sperm count" in this case. This is another example of San Diego interpreting evidence in the worst light for Kevin Brown. They risk demonstrating their own incompetence and bias in their desire try to show that every piece of evidence can only be interpreted as evidence of Kevin Brown's guilt. But in this case, the evidence specifically shows that the low levels of sperm are very unlikely to be due to a low sperm count. The tests at the medical examiners office in 1984 showed that there was no semen present. If Claire Hough were raped by a rapist who had a low sperm count, and the rapist ejaculated, then there should be plenty of semen without sperm there. The semen would have given a positive acid phosphatase test. This is just one more example that demonstrates the police detectives going outside their area of expertise. These detectives give the impression that they were are selected from a pool of traffic cops. Oh, that's right, they actually were.

This is another example of everything being viewed through "one lens" by the San Diego police. The complaint was made by Rebecca Brown's attorney Eugene Iredale in the filing of the civil suit that the police exaggerate any evidence against Kevin Brown while leaving out exculpatory information.

post #50 by Snoopster:
"I see this thread dominated by one poster [CheckYourProof], who has only posted on this thread, who is posting comments that clearly only look through one lens."

So there is actually a counterbalance of opinion here. The San Diego police have taken one point of view, and I dispute it.

________________________________________________________________
Here is more on the Farah Jama case involving DNA contamination (post #65).

In one article the location where samples were collected from the two women was called a "hospital". In another article, the location is called a "laboratory" (2). Note that it is the mere possibility pf DNA contamination that resulted in the case being thrown out and prosecutors admitting a "miscarriage of justice". They did not continue to insist that the match is good and that DNA contamination is not possible, while trying to did up dirt on Mr. Jama.

Prosecutors said they could not rule out contamination of the DNA sample after it emerged the same forensic medical officer who used the rape kit had taken an earlier sample from Jama in an unrelated matter. They admitted a "serious miscarriage of justice".
...
He [University of Melbourne associate professor of law Jeremy Gans] says the first alarming aspect was that the DNA samples in the investigation were taken by the same forensic officer at the same laboratory just 24 hours apart.
...
Gans has a different view: he believes the buck stops with the police and their forensic laboratories. He says that there should be stricter protocols that make it compulsory for police to examine other evidence more closely if DNA makes up the main part of their case. This could include retesting forensic material -- especially if it is the sole proof -- to make sure no mistakes are made.

"It's like mixing up babies in a hospital, it cannot be allowed to happen," he says of mistakes involving DNA.

"In a proper system, everyone should be taking responsibility."

Here is some of what Mr Jama had to say (3).

Mr Jama said while he was confident the truth would prevail, he was angered by his treatment.

"I know that the truth always will come out one day, everybody will see that I am innocent,'' he told reporters.

He described what happened to him as "very, very bad''.

"I feel really depressed and cannot imagine it, what happened. I feel really angry and depressed.''
...
The same forensic officer who conducted the tests on the alleged rape victim had done another unrelated test the day before that involved Mr Jama's DNA.

No charges stemmed from the other test and it is unknown exactly how the contamination occurred.
The Court of Appeal was told it was possible the woman had not been raped at all.

REFERENCES
(1)
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2014/oct/31/warrant-brown-hough-murder-dna-photo/
Warrants reveal evidence in 1984 killing
Retired SDPD criminalist's sperm found on vaginal swab
By Kristina Davis | 7:27 p.m. Oct. 31, 2014

(2)
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/dna-in-the-dock/story-e6frg6z6-1225809214024
THE AUSTRALIAN
DNA in the dock
DECEMBER 11, 2009 12:00AM
Milanda Rout/Reporter/Sydney

(3)
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/ma...een-contaminated/story-e6frf7jo-1225807656413
Farah Jama, wrongly convicted of rape, walks free after prosecutors admit there may not have even been a crime
ELISSA HUNT HERALD SUN DECEMBER 07, 2009 11:16AM

 

[CheckYourProof]

The attorney for criminalist Kevin Brown's widow Rebecca has filed a civil lawsuit in federal court suing the San Diego police department.

In the matter of the 'Kevin Brown Betrayal':

IMPORTANT
This post contains a quote from a crime lab director that DNA contamination is possilbe.

I have posted information of numerous cases of DNA contamination. If this is not enough to refute the San Diego police claim that DNA contamination is not possible, then the cases of DNA contamination in post #66 will. There are 3 cases of DNA contamination in GBI crime labs (in Georgia) that show that sperm cells in a crime lab semen standard can contaminate evidence. This has happened in modern crime labs using clean techniques. Thus it is not just extremely likely, but virtually inevitable, that the same kind of contamination was happening in the SDPD crime lab in 1984. Rebecca Brown's attorneys maintain that Kevin Brown was one of the donors of crime lab semen standards. If this is true then this refutes the San Diego police claim that DNA contamination is not possible.

Even if Kevin Brown were not the donor of a semen standard, there is another possible way that contamination of evidence, even contamination of evidence that contains sperm cells, can occur. It is possible in cold cases for DNA (not from semen) from a crime lab employee to contaminate evidence that contains sperm with his own DNA. It is also possible for the DNA from the sperm cells not to show up even though the employee's DNA profile does show up. It is not just possible but this has happened.

A cold case was tested at the Illinois State Police crime laboratory (1). Anselm Holman had been in prison for 15 years for rape and murder.

QUOTES FROM REFERENCE #1
He was arrested in 1984 at the age of 17 and charged with the rape and murder of Mary Brackenridge, a 75-year-old woman killed in her apartment on the city's West Side. He was convicted the next year based on a statement he gave to detectives in which he allegedly admitted committing the crime.
...
According to a representative of the Cook County state's attorney's office, the state's test identified DNA from only two people--the victim and the analyst. The analyst's DNA was compared with the test result after officials excluded at least two other possible suspects in the case as the source of the semen, lawyers involved with the case said.

Note that the analyst's DNA got into the evidence, and the DNA from the owner of the semen did not show up. It is very unusual for the sperm owner's DNA not to show up in the sperm fraction. I have suspected that this is possible, and that there is a case out there somewhere that proves this, and now one has turned up that confirms this. There are more variables in cold cases. The evidence is older, the exact storage conditions may not be known. If the evidence is stored in a freezer there could be power outages or equipment failures.

The evidence in the case consisted of a microscope slide with a semen smear on it. It has been said that DNA evidence collected from semen is less likely to be contaminated than other DNA (2). This appears not to make sense initially. Of course DNA can always be added to a semen sample. It appears that what is meant here is that the sperm donor's DNA should show up preferentially over DNA from other sources, because it is separated from the sperm fraction.

QUOTES FROM REFERENCE #1
In the Holman case, a forensic scientist at the crime lab committed what forensic scientists call an extraordinary error: contaminating a semen smear on a microscope slide by somehow transferring his own DNA into the evidence. The situation has confounded experts, who note that one of the nation's premier crime labs, based in Connecticut, even tried and failed in an experiment to deliberately contaminate DNA evidence by sneezing into a sample and by putting hair, blood and skin cells into it.

It's unclear how the contamination in this case occurred, but Holman's lawyers say the scientist who performed the test told them he was not wearing gloves. That, according to experts, violates fundamental laboratory procedures for such testing.
...
Moses Schanfield, chief of a forensic genetics lab in Denver, said he had never heard of a case in which a DNA sample had been contaminated by the analyst's own DNA.

"This shouldn't happen," Schanfield said. "It should cast a good deal of questions about the people doing the profile as well as the laboratory."

Added John Gerdes, a Denver scientist who testified for the defense in the O.J. Simpson criminal trial: "I can't believe that he didn't wear gloves. And it's not only to protect yourself, but also to prevent contamination. That's absolutely standard. It's unbelievable."

Crime lab officials and Cook County prosecutors disclosed the contamination error to Holman's attorneys at a meeting two weeks ago.

"They were very embarrassed; they were ashen," Betten said. "It was a dark day."

Crime lab officials couldn't say how it happened, but the forensic scientist who performed the tests, Aaron Small, offered a possible explanation during that meeting, the lawyers said.

"I said to him, `How did your DNA get into this evidence?' " Ruebner said. "And he said, `I handled the slide without gloves. I may have touched my nose and then the slide.' He did not believe he was bleeding at any time when he handled the slide, but he thought perhaps he may have had a small cut that could not be seen or wasn't bleeding due to the roughness of the slide."

Small, 29, has worked for the state since 1992, according to state records. He declined comment Monday, referring questions to a supervisor.

Note that Crime lab officials and Cook County prosecutors were ashen and very embarrassed and it was a dark day. But in San Diego police officials were not red-faced. Instead, they had a happy thought. There was no contamination because their lab analyst was a criminal. They also had a devious thought. Nobody would complain about them making an accusation against one of their own criminalists if they portrayed him as a pervert. What would have happened if those reporters from Illinois who reported on this story had been present at the press conferences where the San Diego police played hero?

In San Diego, police claimed that a "lab manager", who it has since turned out to be SDPD crime lab director Jennifer Shen, said that DNA contamination is not possible. It seems unlikely that she said this, and Rebecca Brown's attorney Eugene Iredale has since refuted this in the court filing. Probably they spoke to Jennifer Shen herself to confirm this. They may have supboenaed her to give a deposition.

It seems likely that somewhere there is a quote from a crime lab director to the effect that DNA contamination is possible. Now such a quote has turned up (1).

QUOTES FROM REFERENCE #1
James Kearney, laboratory director for the Illinois State Police Forensic Science Center in Chicago, declined to talk about the specifics of the Holman case because it's still under appeal. But he said he does not believe this incident reflects on the lab's overall competence.

"We've worked dozens of cases, into the hundreds of cases, and not seen contamination," Kearney said. "Does that mean there might be a case out there where contamination might occur? Yes, I think that's possible."

Kearney said he doesn't know of any other case where contamination like this has occurred in the Illinois lab.

There is another cold case where the DNA from the donor of a sample and the only DNA that showed up was DNA that was added through contamination to the evidence in the crime lab (3, 4). This happened in Michigan and involves cross-contamination between cases. The evidence consisted of blood in this case. This was a murder case where the contaminating DNA was from a person who's DNA was in the lab in an unrelated case (he murdered his mother). This person (John Ruelas) was 4 years old at the time of the cold case murder. There was also a cold hit to Gary Leiterman, who's DNA was in the lab also in an unrelated manner. It has been claimed that the DNA of John Ruelas was in the crime lab on the same day as when the cold case was tested (3). Testing takes more than one day so this means there was an overlap of the days. Some sources also claim that Gary Leiterman's DNA was in the crime lab on the same day as when the cold case was tested. Gary Leiterman was convicted and he lost an appeal. This case also confounds detectives (5).

REFERENCES

(1)
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...ab-dna-testing-illinois-state-police-crimeDna Sample Error Puts Case On Line, Lab On Spot072799
July 27, 1999|By Ken Armstrong and Steve Mills, Tribune Staff Writers.

(2)
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/palm-beach/fl-1970s-boca-rape-case-update-20141231-story.html#
Self-described 'Superthief' from Deerfield to stand trial in 1970s Boca rapes
Because of new DNA evidence, John MacLean, 68, will go to court on May 11, 2015 for two Boca Raton rape cases from 1976 and 1977.
By Marc Freeman
Sun Sentinel

DNA evidence collected from semen is "less likely to be contaminated" than other DNA, such as from skin cells, Ryan said, adding, "Sometimes if the evidence is not stored properly you won't get a result at all."

To be sure, reports from the U.S. Department of Justice highlight concerns about tainted DNA evidence, and doubts that can be raised by defense attorneys.

"Evidence in older cases may have been collected in ways that lacked appropriate contamination or cross-contamination safeguards, which can make the DNA results less useful or even misleading," the National Institute of Justice wrote in a 2002 special report titled, "Using DNA to Solve Cold Cases."

(3)
http://murderpedia.org/male.L/l/leiterman-gary.htm
Gary Earl LEITERMAN
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics: Linked by DNA. The issue of contamination at the lab is key in the case
Number of victims: 1
Date of murder: March 20, 1969
Date of arrest: November 2004 (35 years after)
Date of birth: 1943
Victim profile: Jane L. Mixer, 23
Method of murder: Shooting (.22-caliber gun)
Location: Washtenaw County, Michigan, USA
Status: Sentenced to life imprisonment on August 30, 2005

The Elmer Fudd killer
By David J. Krajicek - NYDailyNews.com
Sunday, July 8th 2007
Jane Mixer always seemed like an orphan among the sad sisterhood of young women slain by a serial killer near Ann Arbor, Mich., in the late 1960s.

(4)
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...lled-Jane-Mixer-1969-suspect-in-other-murders

(5)
http://news.findlaw.com/court_tv/s/20050720/20jul2005153808.html
BLOOD SPOT FOUND 36 YEARS AGO STILL CONFOUNDS DETECTIVES IN 'SOLVED' COLD CASE
By Harriet Ryan, Court TV

 

[kemo]

Check,

I have learned that in the 1980's, it was standard practice to use a "standard" in many forensic test to verify that the test was accurate. This would presumably include sperm. There were probably bio supply companies that could furnish these but it would probably be a lot cheaper to get it from any male employee. It is not unreasonable that Brown served as a donner.

Back then no one anticipated DNA replication; nor even DNA. With replication, even minute amounts of biological material will yield identifiable DNA. Measures taken in the 1980's were not sufficient to prevent contamination. It is now standard practice to compare DNA results against lab employees or others involved in the investigation. Of course, this comparison would only apply to ordinary cell DNA. DNA from semen is quite different and you just wouldn't expect contamination from it but if semen standards were being obtained by lab employees, it could happen.

I believe Brown is most likely innocent and I wish his widow well in her lawsuit.

You have raised the issue of the problematic conviction of Gary Leiterman. I think he is a victim of a miscarriage of justice. If you find two suspicious DNA hits on a victim and one turns out to be a definite result of contamination, there is a reasonably good chance that second is also a result of contamination. (I will look into what efforts are being made to free him; also I will look into any Websleauth history on the case).

Now, if we apply the same logic to the Clair Hough case(that if one DNA hit is a result of contamination, the. Second one will likely be one as well), then Tatro may be innocent as well. But, does any really care about clearing the name of a known Rapist?

 

[marble]

CheckYourProof,
I've since also come around to thinking that there is a good possibility that the criminologist was hounded based on cross-contamination until he committed suicide, mainly because there's been no additional proof released that ties him to in any way at all to Tatro. When the announcement was made I figured the authorities were able to link the two men together somehow but------nope, silence on that part.

BTW, there was a recent very high profile case of cross-contamination here in NYC: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...to-problems-with-new-york-s-dna-database.html

Activists knew something extremely fishy was going on right away with the supposed "connection" and pushed for answers. The DNA should have been tested against all of the lab workers when the match turned up, but the DNA match (and therefore the eventual contamination) was leaked to the papers by the police before there was any investigation into it internally. The last thing Law Enforcement departments want is evidence that lab contamination is happening (and it obviously does at least once in a while) since it jeopardizes all cases that depend on DNA evidence.

btw my guess as to why the contamination happened between an old case and a recent event was that the prime suspect in the murder had recently returned to NYC for a book promotion trip- a "novel" based on the murder I might add, and the NYPD pulled the evidence in order to retest it while he was in the area. Now why they would DNA test evidence obtained from a non-violent disobedience action is a whole other question.

 

[kemo]

I have just set up, as a new topic on the Resolved Cold Case Board, the Jan Mixer/Gare Leiterman case.

 

[CheckYourProof]

In the matter of the 'Kevin Brown Betrayal':

From the very beginning, I recognized this as an extraordinary case. There is no other quite like it. It is like something out of "Alice In Wonderland". The police themselves do not recognize truth for what it is even when it is staring them in the face. In reference #2 in post #66, Moh posted important information from a story about DNA contamination in crime labs in Georgia. Moh uses an identifying icon of a MAD magazine issue with Moe of The Three Stooges on the cover. Do the San Diego police need help from The Three Stooges with their investigations?

In post #64 the crucial question was raised:
Is an investigation bogus if it is based upon a false claim [that DNA contamination is not possible]?

This leads to more questions:
Why did SDPD feel it was necessary to lie to justify an investigation of Kevin Brown?
If SDPD lied about this, then what else are they lying about?
Why has this lie not been corrected in all the time since it was placed in the search warrant for the search of Kevin Brown's house?
Is this obstinate denial of the truth an indication of incompetence and corruption on the part of San Diego police?

The statement by San Diego police chief Shelley Zimmerman demonstrates the chain of logic at the inception of the investigation of Kevin Brown, and also demonstrates that the police chief herself has not been able to figure out that DNA contamination is possible over two and half years after the start of the investigation:

"Upon discovering that a former lab employee was identified as a suspect in this case, we conducted a thorough examination of the lab case files and records pertaining to this case." (1)

It was assumed before even looking into things that Kevin Brown was a suspect and that the DNA match was not due to contamination. He was assumed to be a suspect before finding out if he worked on the case, before finding out if he worked in close proximity to the case, before finding out if he donated a semen standard to the lab. This indicates that SDPD police made up their minds early and never looked back. This is an indication of confirmation bias (2).

"Indeed, the confirmation bias can make police officers become fixated on a specific suspect. This, in turn, can make them not only look for and pursue evidence that incriminates the suspected person, but also give undue weight to information that confirms their former beliefs. Moreover, the confirmation bias can make police officers neglect, devalue, or explain away any information that disconfirms or puts doubts on their pre-existing beliefs (Burke, 2007; Nickerson, 1998)."

This case has been mentioned in a forensic publication (3). There is a comment on the story by 1PierreMontagne1:

"Clearly there needs to be law suit and this entire police file and cold case investigation strategy needs to see the light of day. In such a matter full disclosure is required. Full disclosure is what D.A.'s fear. Full disclosure if ever mandated would pre-empt bullied guilty pleas on crimes in which there is insufficient evidence to convict. Full disclosure would reduce conviction rates for D.A. career advancement."

The city of San Diego should be concerned about this case going to trial which will bring full disclosure. Detectives can be asked what did they know and when did they know it, when they discovered that they were saying things that were not true. Detectives can be asked potentially embarrassing questions such as:

Have you ever been in a strip club and if so does that make you a pervert or a criminal?
Have you ever taken a picture of a half naked girl at the beach?
If Picasso painted a nude do you think that makes him a pervert or a criminal?
What evidence can you produce that Kevin Brown was about to be arrested and charged?
Do you owe an apology to Kevin Brown's widow?

Rebecca Brown's attorney Eugene Iredale can surely come up with many more questions.

It is almost preordained that if police move in on a suspect and search his house and seize his computer, that if a suspect really is a criminal and pervert, some kind of evidence is found. Yet after the search of Kevin Brown's house, SDPD police could not point to a single iota of evidence. No shred of evidence has been put forth of any wrongdoing or criminal activity on the part of Kevin Brown, or that he ever associated with any criminal.

Some will maintain that the police have a 'right' to investigate. It is questionable whether an investigation should have even been started. Another question is when was this investigation going to end? No evidence was found, but Kevin Brown was going to be hounded by SDPD to the ends of the earth for the rest of his life.

VOTE COUNT
Vote count is now 3 C (Brown innocent) and 2 F (undecided).
see post #18 for explanation

marble posted a link to a case with DNA contamination from New York (Post #71). There is a case where an apology was issued after DNA contamination happened with a partial DNA profile of a lab scientist was found in a case (4). It took over a year to find this due to a "typographical error".

kemo had more comments on Gary Leiterman (post #70). To this day prosecutors refuse to acknowledge that DNA contamination (from a person who was 4 years old at the time of the crime) clearly happened in the case. Gary Leiterman's DNA match could have also been due to contamination. If you were on the jury why would you believe that Gary Leiterman's DNA match is good, when his DNA was in the lab, and it is claimed that DNA contamination in the case did not happen? The only other forensic evidence in the case was handwriting. Questioned document examiners cannot say with absolute certainty that a person wrote something, especially with such a small sample of writing as in that case, and when the original was thrown out and they only had a photocopy. The chances that Gary Leiterman will ever see the light of day are greatly reduced since he has already lost an appeal. A website devoted to freeing him is not coming up now, although it was active last year. It just goes to show that jurors may be eager to convict a pervert, even if they got him for the wrong crime. I think it is more likely than not that Gary Leiterman is innocent of the crime. Here is why. The chances that 2 suspect's DNA would be in the lab at the same time as the cold case DNA testing was being done about 35 years after the crime are astronomical. If the chances are 1 in 10,000 for one suspect, then it is 1/10,000 squared for two, or 1/100,000,000. The crime lab boss swore that the DNA match was good, and thus that DNA contamination did not happen. What is the lab boss, a cop in a lab coat?

"While the lab boss could not explain the Ruelas foulup, he swore to the validity of the Leiterman results on the sweat stains." (murderpedia.org)

(1)
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/...h-kevin-brown/
SDPD sued in teen’s 1985 murder probe
Detectives accused of driving former criminalist to suicide with investigation
By Kristina Davis | 10:59 a.m. July 17, 2015
QUOTE FROM SAN DIEGO POLICE CHIEF SHELLEY ZIMMERMAN

(2)
http://www.in-mind.org/blog/post/why-do-we-still-have-a-cognitive-bias-that-makes-us-send-innocent-people-to-jail
Why do we still have a cognitive bias that makes us send innocent people to jail? – Explanations of the confirmation bias
written by Marly van Oirschot
01.08.2015

(3)
http://www.forensicmag.com/articles...?et_cid=4684958&et_rid=454868607&location=top
Claire Hough, courtesy of the San Diego Crimestoppers.
The widow of a former San Diego Police forensics expert has sued the city and the police department, alleging that a cold-case investigation that linked her husband to a 1984 homicide drove him to kill himself.
Mon, 07/20/2015 - 2:04pm
by Seth Augenstein, Digital Reporter

(4)
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/mar/30/gareth-williams-death-dna-error
Scientists apologise to family of MI6 spy Gareth Williams for DNA error
'Typographical error' meant police working on mysterious death of GCHQ worker found in sports bag chased phantom suspect
Friday 30 March 2012 09.38 EDT Last modified on Tuesday 20 May 2014 19.31 EDT
Forensic scientists have apologised to the family of the GCHQ codebreaker Gareth Williams, whose body was found inside a holdall in the bath of his London flat, after it emerged a DNA error had dashed a key line of inquiry into his death.

 

[Indy Anna]

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...torrey-pines/403186/?utm_source=yahoo&ref=yfp

Here is an in-depth article from The Atlantic discussing the case. It is pretty objective in addressing evidence against the three men considered suspects in the case and the possibility of DNA contamination in the FBI lab.

I am convinced that Wheeler, the man who reported Claire's body to authorities, was innocent. Why would he have reported the crime if he had been the perpetrator? Wheeler's mental health deteriorated rapidly after reporting Claire's death. I'm sure the sight of Claire's mutilated body was greatly disturbing and contributed to his mental decline, but it's ironic that 3 men related to the case committed suicide. Were investigators too aggressive in their methods to seek justice for Claire?

I am convinced that Tatro committed suicide since his wallet, hat, and glasses were found inside the boat. I also think it's very possible he was the lone killer of Claire. He had previously used a knife while raping a woman and supposedly confessed some violent crimes to his ex-wife, including a murder.

A blood sample found on Hough’s clothing yielded a DNA match for Ronald Tatro.

[Tatro] had been convicted in 1975 of first-degree rape in Arkansas, after he kidnapped a woman, stuffed her in the trunk of his car, and drove her out to a remote country road, where he sexually assaulted her while holding a knife in her mouth.

“I have been expecting this to come up, but not in San Diego,” Villines-Tatro said. “Ron told me that he had raped a girl on his way home from Fort Lewis, Washington … He thought he had killed her and left her for dead.”

Noting that Tatro’s wallet, hat, and glasses had all been carefully placed inside the boat, a report compiled by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency suggests that Tatro didn’t tumble overboard by accident. “It appears Mr. Tatro prepared to go into the water,” the report states.

 

[Lilibet]

Thanks for posting this article. It was very well-written and convincing, as were many of the readers' comments. At this point, putting together the article with posts here, it does not appear that SDPD had a strong case against Brown, unless they could find a connection with Tatro. So the question is...What were they thinking?

As a quick google of "SDPD corruption" will show, widespread corruption in the police department was a hot topic in the time period just preceding the reopening of the cold case of Claire Hough. Was the tenacity of the investigation of Brown an attempt redeem SDPD's image, showing that SDPD would not whitewash possible involvement in her murder by one of their contract workers? Or was it just another example of corruption within the force? Or neither? Once they had started down that path with Brown, did they continue in order to save face? Or is there evidence we don't know about that they couldn't overlook? I don't think anyone has the answers except the investigators. I hope the lawsuit will bring those answers to light.
JMO

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...torrey-pines/403186/?utm_source=yahoo&ref=yfp

Here is an in-depth article from The Atlantic discussing the case. It is pretty objective in addressing evidence against the three men considered suspects in the case and the possibility of DNA contamination in the FBI lab.

I am convinced that Wheeler, the man who reported Claire's body to authorities, was innocent. Why would he have reported the crime if he had been the perpetrator? Wheeler's mental health deteriorated rapidly after reporting Claire's death. I'm sure the sight of Claire's mutilated body was greatly disturbing and contributed to his mental decline, but it's ironic that 3 men related to the case committed suicide. Were investigators too aggressive in their methods to seek justice for Claire?

I am convinced that Tatro committed suicide since his wallet, hat, and glasses were found inside the boat. I also think it's very possible he was the lone killer of Claire. He had previously used a knife while raping a woman and supposedly confessed some violent crimes to his ex-wife, including a murder.

 

[CheckYourProof]

In the matter of the 'Kevin Brown Betrayal':

The question has been raised in this forum, what happened here? Certainly a brutal crime was committed, which most are horrified to even contemplate. But there's more. Was an innocent man subjected to tenacious unyielding unjustified scrutiny, illegal search and seizure, demeaning treatment, and defamation and slander? If so, then there is a story here that goes beyond the original crime in 1984. And, like websleuthers here, reporters can also smell a story. One (James Vlahos) has recently made himself known with his article in The Atlantic (Post #74).

QUOTE FROM ARTICLE BY JAMES VLAHOS:
"The [Claire Hough] murder had generated a ripple effect of incriminations, which in turn seems to have triggered a bizarre series of additional deaths."

There is a term that has been used for forensic scientists who acted unethically, a Forensic Hall Of Shame. It is inhabited by the likes of Joyce Gilchrist, Annie Dookhan, and Fred Zain.

If Kevin Brown is innocent, then those involved in his persecution could be nominated for entry into a Homicide Detectives Hall Of Shame. That would include the SDPD homicide detectives, those who assisted them, and those in the chain of command above them.

Lieutenant Paul Rorrison, of the SDPD homicide unit, brusquely cut off the inquiries of reporter James Vlahos. It will not be so simple if this goes to trial. Rorrison and the others will have to answer the questions or take the fifth.

Some are named in the lawsuit, and some are Jane Does and John Does. A trial will bring full disclosure and shed light on who if anyone should be inducted into the Hall Of Shame. Potential inductees include SDPD detective Lori Adams and Sandra Oplinger. Photos (below) are available of some of the potential inductees.

Here is an update on the SDPD employees below. SDPD homicide detective Michael Lambert was working on cold cases. This story broke in October 2014. Soon, investigative reporters like James Vlahos were coming around and asking questions that SDPD officials either did not have answers to, or did not want to answer. Around this time (December 2014), detective Michael Lambert was swiftly transferred out of homicide (after 11 years and 2 months as a homicide detective) and into background investigations (1). This is not exactly a ringing endorsement of his recent work on the Claire Hough case. Note that Michael Lambert has attained the educational level of associates degree in criminal justice and political science from San Diego Miramar College (1). Note that high levels of education are not required to be a homicide detective. Crime lab staff will typically have a B.S. or M.S. or PhD. Perhaps SDPD recruited his replacement from the traffic squad. SDPD lieutenant Paul Rorrison is "the current head of the department’s cold-case unit", according to James Vlahos. In October 2014, then SDPD captain (now assistant chief) Al Guaderrama made statements to the press about the case.

"Prior to his promotion, Chief Guaderrama was the Commanding Officer over Investigations II, which includes Homicide, Robbery, Gangs and Economic Crimes." (3)

Shelley Zimmerman was sworn in as SDPD police chief on March 4, 2014. Kevin Brown went missing on October 20, 2014. That's 230 days, in which the new police chief allowed what many consider to be an obviously flawed, unjustified, ill-conceived, and out of control investigation to proceed. If Kevin Brown is innocent, then how much responsibility does Shelley Zimmerman share for his untimely death?

SDPD detective Michael Lambert (1).

SDPD lieutenant Paul Rorrison (2).

SDPD assistant chief Al Guaderrama (3).

SDPD police chief Shelley Zimmerman (4).

(1)
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/mike-lambert/6b/145/11b
Mike Lambert
Police Detective at San Diego Police Department

(2)
http://www.lajollalight.com/news/2011/aug/09/new-beach-lieutenant-living-the-dream/
Paul Rorrison
New beach lieutenant ‘living the dream’
By Dave Schwab
Aug. 9, 2011
Lt. Paul Rorrison has put his name on the surfboard signifying his new role.
Photo by Dave Schwab

(3)
http://www.sdpolicemuseum.com/Albert-Guaderrama.html
ASSISTANT CHIEF OF POLICE
ALBERT J. GUADERRAMA
Assistant Chief Al Guaderrama grew up in a law-enforcement family. His father Manuel is a former San Diego Police Assistant Chief, his brother Manny is a SDPD retired Captain and his wife Tracy is a current SDPD Detective.

Chief Guaderrama has been a member of the San Diego Police Department for nearly 28 years and has worked a variety of patrol, administrative and investigative assignments. Chief Guaderrama earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Criminal Justice from San Diego State University and his Masters Degree from the University of Phoenix in Organizational Management.

Chief Guaderrama was promoted to Assistant Chief in March, 2015, and oversees Neighborhood Policing. Prior to his promotion, Chief Guaderrama was the Commanding Officer over Investigations II, which includes Homicide, Robbery, Gangs and Economic Crimes.

(4)
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2015/mar/08/chief-police-shelley-zimmerman-first-year/
Police chief's 1st year: Polishing the badge
Taking over embattled department meant working to repair a “damaged brand.”
March 8, 2015
San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman waves to the crowd at the San Diego Pride Parade. — Charlie Neuman / UT San Diego
Even in good times, the job of a big city police chief is daunting.
But consider, when Shelley Zimmerman was sworn in as San Diego’s 34th police chief on March 4, 2014, she inherited:
• a string of officer misconduct cases and lawsuits

 

[CheckYourProof]

In the matter of the 'Kevin Brown Betrayal':

San Diego police have claimed that DNA contamination is not possible (a lie).
In Post #73 the question was raised, what else are the San Diego police lying about?

QUOTE FROM POST # 73
If SDPD lied about this, then what else are they lying about?

With new articles out with new information, there is now evidence of more lies. Or if not lies, are the police just confused or ignorant?

San Diego police detectives had placed in search warrant affidavits the claim that Kevin Brown had told a friend that he had photographed a girl who soon turned up dead.

QUOTE FROM sandiegouniontribune.com ARTICLE (Oct 31, 2014) (1):
A retired San Diego police criminalist connected through DNA to the 1984 murder of 14-year-old Claire Hough apparently told a friend earlier this year that he’d photographed the girl on Torrey Pines State Beach shortly before she turned up dead, according to search warrant affidavits unsealed Friday.

QUOTE FROM JAMES VLAHOS ARTICLE (October 2015 issue) (2):
The second statement in question is Brown’s seeming confession on the phone with Wick that a girl he’d photographed had ended up dead on the beach. That evidence alone might have sunk Brown. But Wick repeatedly insisted to me that Brown had never told him this. How could the police have gotten this vital fact wrong? Wick guesses that he speculated to the police about ways Brown might have met Hough—and that somehow, one of his pie-in-the-sky hypotheticals was rendered by the police as fact.

The police hear what they want to hear. When the evidence is not there to support the theory they have decided on, they come up with it seemingly out of thin air. If this is not manufacturing of evidence, what is? It appears to be a lie that police claim that they were told that Kevin Brown photographed a girl on the beach who soon turned up dead.

NEXT LIE

It has been reported here in previous posts that the medical examiner found no evidence of semen or sperm. This is reported again in a new article.

QUOTE FROM sandiegoreader ARTICLE Sept 16, 2015 (3):
The numbers of acid phosphatase, an enzyme found to be of much higher concentration in semen than in vaginal secretions, was low, indicating no presence of semen on the swabs.

In the same article, SDPD detective Lambert claims that he "interviewed San Diego County chief medical examiner Glen Wagner" (3).

MORE QUOTES FROM THE sandiegoreader ARTICLE (3); detective Lambert quoting Dr. Wagner:
“The Toxicology Report indicates the acid phosphatase present on the vaginal swab collected were 37m I.U. (International Units). Acid phosphatase is an enzyme present in seminal fluid and sperm and is also present in other fluid sources in both men and women. Dr. Wagner stated he was ‘reasonably certain’ that the acid phosphatase present was from a male individual. He also stated that acid phosphatase markers lower than 50m [International Units] is unreliable…. Dr. Wagner further stated there is nothing to dispute that the sex between Brown and Hough could have occurred at the time of Hough’s death and that, according to the totality of the case, Brown cannot be excluded as a suspect in Hough’s murder.”

It has already been established that the levels of acid phosphatase were consistent with no semen being present. Suddenly we see in the search warrant affidavit that detective Lambert claims that there was acid phosphatase present that came from a male individual. Which is it? We have once again entered the land of Alice In Wonderland! Since it has already been established that detective Lambert embedded two lies in the search warrant affidavit, this new claim is extremely suspect. It appears that detective Lambert was willing to make any claim in order to get the search warrant approved. Which are you going to believe? The medical examiner's report? Or detective Lambert's quotes of what the medical examiner said? Remember that Lambert is a cop with an associate's degree. When he takes the medical examiner's conclusions and restates them in his own words, something different comes out the other end. Even if San Diego homicide detectives are taught to use big words like contemporaneous, the end result is not impressive. It appears Rebecca Brown's attorneys will have a field day if they get detective Lambert on the stand.

Usually, detectives go by the facts of a case and formulate a theory of what happened that fits the facts. In the Claire Hough case, it appears detectives have done the opposite. They decide on a theory, and then try to find the facts to prove it. And if they don't find the facts they need, they make them up.

QUOTE FROM JAMES VLAHOS ARTICLE (October 2015) (2):
Who was responsible for Hough’s murder, Tatro or Brown? Both were, the detectives decided: The criminal and the crime-lab employee had somehow committed the act together. Despite their efforts, though, police have never been able to find any evidence connecting the two men.

Detectives decided which theory they liked. Not finding evidence to support the theory, they remain undeterred.

MORE QUOTES FROM THE sandiegoreader ARTICLE (3):
Lambert also believed Brown was following the case like the eponymous character on Showtime’s crime thriller Dexter.

No evidence has been produced to support what detective Lambert believed.

It has been stated in previous posts that San Diego police claimed that several items of evidence were found in the search of Kevin and Rebecca's house

QUOTE FROM Post #54; Reference #2:
The homicide captain [Al Guaderrama] wouldn’t discuss any other search warrants that were executed, but did say several pieces of evidence were found.

MORE QUOTES FROM THE sandiegoreader ARTICLE (3):
Detective Lambert told Brown that he planned to return the remaining items by April 2014. April passed. Brown’s mental health deteriorated.

If San Diego police found evidence in the search of the house in Chula Vista, why were they willing to return all of the items seized? Is it another lie, that they found several pieces of evidence? Police know that they can trip up suspects who lie, because it is difficult to keep track of all of their lies. Are SDPD detectives tripping themselves up?

Detective Lambert nonetheless reneged on his promise.

MORE QUOTES FROM THE sandiegoreader ARTICLE (3):
In August 2014, Lambert told Rebecca that the items would not be returned until after the investigation.

Here is a summary of the lies:
DNA contamination is not possible.
Police claim that Kevin Brown had told a friend that he had photographed a girl who soon turned up dead.
Levels of acid phosphatase from a male donor showed up in the evidence from Claire Hough.
Several items of evidence were found in the search of Kevin and Rebecca's house.

There appears to be at least one more lie.
With a weak and unsupportable case, it appears to be very unlikely that Kevin Brown was about to be arrested, as SDPD lieutenant Paul Rorrison claimed (6).
At the time of Brown’s death, “preparations were being made” for his arrest, Rorrison said.

The case against Kevin Brown is considered to be weak by not only his former co-worker Stam [the former supervising criminalist], but also a former San Diego County District Attorney (2):

QUOTE FROM JAMES VLAHOS ARTICLE (October 2015) (2):
Stam, along with former San Diego County District Attorney Paul Pfingst, is among those who believe that Brown might have been falsely incriminated.

With all of these lies, can any statements regarding Kevin Brown that originate with the SDPD homicide squad be believed without independent verification?

Some of you may still think that the San Diego police really might have a substantial case against Kevin Brown, that they have only released tidbits or snippets of incriminating information. You may also be someone who trusts the government. One would think that they would make some small effort to clear up these issues raised in the pages of the websleuths and in the excellent investigative reporting by James Vlahos. Instead they "brusquely" dismiss the questions and concerns of reporter James Vlahos (2). Inquiring minds want to know, what happened here? Do we have the first ever case of a real life Dexter (which is so uncommon it has never happened), or do we have a bunch of dumb cops (apparently common)? Aside from the DNA evidence, which is likely due to contamination, the SDPD case is based almost entirely on the fact that Kevin Brown is a "nerdy" "doofus" (3) who "liked to take pictures of pretty women" (2).

SDPD can try to deflect scrutiny onto Kevin Brown, but that can boomerang. Basically, SDPD is saying that DNA contamination by a crime lab employee can be assumed, unless the person is question happens to be a bit of an oddball. Take a look at the photos of Kevin Brown in all of the news stories. Then take a look at the photo of SDPD detective Michael Lambert in Post #76, and ask yourself, which one looks like a bit of an oddball? Many police agencies have, in their dress code, provisions concerning beards, hair length, tattoos that are not covered. These regulations can also extend to prohibiting the wearing of sunglasses indoors.

Some have little sympathy (expressed in earlier posts here) for Kevin Brown, and say that they would be strong, they would stand up to the police. Perhaps so, but look at what Jama (who was falsely accused based on evidence due to DNA contamination) said (Post #68, Reference #3):

"I feel really depressed and cannot imagine it, what happened. I feel really angry and depressed.''

Kevin Brown was not able to stand up to SDPD. Perhaps he could have, if he had more help from colleagues, unfortunately few of whom knew what was going on. Anyone who works at a crime lab will need to keep in mind that someday they could get that knock at the front door, and how they would handle it. Theoretically, if Kevin Brown had the courage, and with the knowledge recorded here, he could have run circles around the SDPD. They are making themselves look bad and could be subject to ridicule. It is left to his widow to seek justice. Rebecca is concerned not only about what happened to her husband, but that it could happen to someone else.

MORE QUOTES FROM THE sandiegoreader ARTICLE (3):
“However awful this murder was, and it was truly awful, I feel like I’ve been raped. Police came into my life and confiscated my belongings. They accused my husband of being some sexual deviant and child killer. They came and went as they pleased like it was some sort of game. Kevin was a normal person and they shoved him into the grave and made me a widow. I can’t let this same thing happen to anyone else. Detectives, just like the real murderer in this case, need to be held accountable. That’s all I ask for.”

Rebecca is to be commended for her courage in standing up to the bullies employed at SDPD.

SDPD lieutenant Paul Rorrison was at one time "living the dream" (Post #76; Reference #2) as a "beach lieutenant" for SDPD. His management of the SDPD homicide squad helped turn criminalist Kevin Brown's retirement into "the nightmare scenario".

QUOTE FROM JAMES VLAHOS ARTICLE (October 2015) (2):
What happened to Brown, Hampikian says, “is the nightmare scenario for any analyst.”

The Atlantic article in Reference #2 has also been listed at forensicmag.com (4).
Both Reference #2 and Reference #3 have been listed at voiceofsandiego.org (5).

REFERENCES
(1)
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2014/oct/31/warrant-brown-hough-murder-dna-photo/
Warrants reveal evidence in 1984 killing
Retired SDPD criminalist's sperm found on vaginal swab
By Kristina Davis | 7:27 p.m. Oct. 31, 2014

(2)
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/10/a-death-at-torrey-pines/403186/
Can DNA Evidence Solve a 30-Year-Old Crime?
San Diego police believe DNA evidence has finally enabled them to solve the case of a 14-year-old girl who was gruesomely murdered in 1984. But what if the evidence is wrong?
The Atlantic
JAMES VLAHOS OCTOBER 2015 ISSUE

(3)
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2015/sep/16/cover-kevin-was-sweet-nerdy-doofus/
Kevin was a sweet, nerdy doofus. Was he also a monster?
By Dorian Hargrove, Sept. 16, 2015

(4)
http://www.forensicmag.com/news/2015/09/can-dna-evidence-solve-30-year-old-crime

(5)
http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/news/morning-report-water-agencies-seek-independence/
Was Forensic Specialist a Killer?
Both The Atlantic, the national magazine, and the San Diego Reader chose this week to dig deeply into one of the most bizarre criminal investigations in recent local history.

(6)
http://fox5sandiego.com/2014/10/23/dead-ex-sdpd-lab-tech-suspected-of-girls-brutal-murder/
Ex-SDPD lab tech suspected of girl’s murder commits suicide
OCTOBER 23, 2014
BY FOX 5 DIGITAL TEAM AND CHRISTIAN DE LA ROSA
UPDATED AT 11:17AM, OCTOBER 24, 2014

 

[OkieGranny]

Just featured on 48 Hours:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-torrey-pines-beach-murders-blood-in-the-sand/

 

[LinasK]

Just watched the 48 Hours program and remembered there were thread(s) here for these cases. Interestingly enough I was in San Diego at the time of both of these murders, spent time at Torrey Pines, and never heard of either of these cases. They weren't widely publicized in the news...
I'm not buying the wife's denial, nor the co-workers claims of lab corruption- I think they're covering for Kevin Brown. DNA doesn't "fly" through the air like his lawyers are suggesting. His semen was inside her, he admitted to knowing a girl named Claire, and he took nude photos of women. (Same M.O. as William Richard Bradford) I think the other guy Tatro may have been an accomplice he met on the beach. Torrey Pines is very close to UCSD. I think both Brown and Tatro are guilty, at least in Claire's case.

And Power posting doesn't convince anyone.

 

[dotr]

48 Hours: Calif. beach cold case murders continue to haunt
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/48-hours-california-beach-cold-case-murders-continue-to-haunt/
Updated May 1 2016

As a female who frequents Torrey Pines for hikes with girlfriends at dusk after work, the park and beach have never felt threatening to me. But I saw the park in a different way when I first heard about the horrific 1978 murder of Barbara Nantais and the murder of Claire Hough six years later.

Our San Diego CBS affiliate KFMB had been following the haunting case for years. The cases intrigued me not just because Torrey Pines was a familiar and peaceful retreat for me but because I could identify with both of these young women.

WATCH: "48 Hours" Blood in the Sand

They seemed to come from families like mine, and Claire Hough was my age and grew up on the East Coast. They were truly innocent victims enjoying the beach when they were attacked and killed in their teens. Who had killed them and why?