Arkansas Crime Lab Delays Slowing Down Investigators
By Alexis Amorose
ABC24 Eyewitness News
January 5, 2007
Eyewitness News uncovers problems with the Arkansas State Crime Lab.
Investigators say it can take months to get evidence tested. In one
Crittenden County case, it took almost two years.
Investigators say they know why there's a hold-up. There's only one crime
lab in the entire state of Arkansas. Crittenden County investigator Tommy
Martin said, “There's a big backlog of cases at the crime lab. It
definitely does slow down your investigation.”
Case in point: a fatal fire in Earle, AR in December. A woman was shot in the head, then her trailer was set on fire to hide the body. Martin said, “There're samples taken from the fire scene to see what accelerants were used. There were items taken that are at the latent prints division trying to get fingerprints off of. We've got a bunch of evidence at the crime lab. We're waiting results on that at the present time.”
Martin said the hold-up is nothing new. In August 2004, 7 year-old Patricia Miles was kidnapped and killed. Her body was found dumped in an Arkansas field. Her parents expected murder charges as soon as her body was officially identified. Her father, Reginald Robertson, said, “When they did the DNA testing at the crime lab, we thought surely they would bring charges then.”
But it took another three months before the little girl's babysitter was charged with murder. Three months waiting for results from the Arkansas State Crime Lab. Martin said, “That was from August and that evidence didn't come back until November, so there's a definite backlog.”
Plus, Martin said both of these cases were marked as top priorities. He asked the crime lab to rush the results. Other cases can take even longer. He said, “If you haven't asked for it to be rushed, it could be upwards of close to a year. We've actually gotten results back from cases 16 and 18 months old before.”
Martin said the situation is getting better. The state has hired more crime lab technicians, and they are putting a video conference system in at the crime lab, so the techs don't have drive all over the state to testify in court. They can just go downstairs and testify through the TV.
As far as the Earle fire investigation goes, Martin said they haven't arrested anyone yet. They are still interviewing people in Earle about the case. At this point though, they do believe the murder is probably related to an arson at the City Hall Annex building just a few days earlier.