Saturday, March 20, 2010

CHICAGO: GUNS, DRUGS, RAPE KITS ROTTING IN CLOSED POLICE HQ

Evidence Found Rotting in Closed Ill. Police HQ
AP / March 20, 2010
Nearly 200 guns, narcotics and rape kits rotting in an unplugged refrigerator were left behind by a police department that shut down two years ago.


CHICAGO - A sheriff's department in suburban Chicago has been shocked to find a roomful of evidence left behind by a village police department that shut down two years ago -- including a moldy sexual assault kit that authorities said linked a man to the 2006 rape of a 13-year-old girl, nearly 200 guns and hundreds of bags of narcotics, officials said Friday.

In all, seven rape kits had been left rotting in an unplugged refrigerator in the former Ford Heights Police Department, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said. The guns had not been registered with the state as having been seized by police, and Dart's spokesman Steve Patterson said none of the DNA evidence found matches anyone in the state's database.

"You're not talking about ineptness, neglect, you're talking about outrageous conduct of a police department that didn't care about the residents out there," Dart said.

(snip)

That was when deputies opened the door to the evidence room.

Detectives were stunned by what they learned about the sexual assault of the girl -- and the apparent lack of any meaningful investigation of a case in which there was a great deal of evidence against one man.

"What happened to this girl is unconscionable," said Dart, whose office
arrested 27-year-old Marquis Deering this week. "She thought nothing was going to happen to him."

READ ABOUT NEGLECTED DNA EVIDENCE AGAINST MARQUIS DEERING...
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/03/20/evidence-rotting-closed-ill-police-hq/?test=latestnews

Friday, March 19, 2010

ARUBA: UNDERWATER PHOTO OF NATALEE HOLLOWAY DISAPPEARS!

Couple Believes They Have Underwater Photo of Natalee Holloway's Remains
FOXNews.com / Updated March 18, 2010

The photo taken by John and Patti Muldowney of Manheim last fall was turned over to the FBI, because John says he has a gut feeling it may be the missing Alabama honor student who disappeared in Aruba nearly five years ago.

A Pennsylvania couple believes an underwater snapshot they took off the coast of Aruba reveals human remains on the ocean floor that could be those of Natalee Holloway, Lancasteronline.com reported.

The photo taken by John and Patti Muldowney of Manheim last fall was turned over to the FBI, because John Muldowney says he has a gut feeling it's the missing Alabama honor student who disappeared in Aruba nearly five years ago.

"We did receive the photo, and it was sent to the lead agent down in Miami who handles that area in the Caribbean," Special Agent Frank Burton Jr., a spokesman for the FBI's field office in Philadelphia, told the newspaper.

However, it's a mystery as to what happened to the photo after that.

The Miami office and the FBI's legal attache in Barbados, which has control over the Aruba area, both told the newspaper they have no record of getting it.

WHY DID PHOTO OF NATALEE HOLLOWAY VANISH?
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/03/18/couple-believes-underwater-photo-natalee-holloway-remains/

SHANTINA AND AZRIEL: DID ALCOHOL CAUSE TRAGIC END?

Medical Examiner Confirms Body Is That Of Missing Boy
KIROTV.COM / March 18,2010

FOX ISLAND, Wash. -- The body of a boy that washed ashore on a Fox Island beach Thursday is that of a missing 8-year-old child who disappeared with his mother over the weekend, the medical examiner says.

The father of 8-year-old Azriel Carver has been told his son is dead, authorities told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News.

Azriel disappeared on Saturday with his mother, 29-year-old Shantina Smiley.
The child's body was discovered about 12 miles from an Olympia beach, where Smiley's van was found partially submerged on Sunday.

The discovery caused authorities to focus their search for Smiley near Fox Island, where a Coast Guard helicopter hovered overhead Thursday afternoon.

KIRO 7 Eyewitness News reporter Kevin McCarty said the body of the 8-year-old was first discovered on the beach by a child and then an adult, in a remote area near Paiute Trail at 11th Avenue on the southwestern corner of the island.

UNCUT: Beach Where Body Found

Police said there was a T-shirt around the boy's head.

Due to the remote location, a Tacoma police boat took officers to the scene. The body is being recovered by the Pierce County sheriff's boat Reliance, McCarty said.

On Saturday, Smiley had been driving with Azriel in a van from their home in Silverdale to visit relatives in Castle Rock, where she grew up, police said. Since then, they have been the subjects of an intense search.

READ TRAGIC ENDING OF SHANTINA SMILEY AND AZRIEL CARVER...
http://www.kirotv.com/news/22881089/detail.html