Police look to private labs for quicker results
Wednesday, May 31st, 2006
By Chris Fitzsimon
By Majsan Bostr
Staff Writer
Demetrial Harrison was 7 when she found her mother beaten and stabbed to death.
Recently - 24 years later - the 1982 Wilmington murder case was closed thanks to forensic testing done by a private lab.
That murder case is one example of why the Wilmington Police Department hopes to land a $36,000 grant to help pay for testing outside the backlogged State Bureau of Investigation Crime Lab in Raleigh.
Malcolm Phelps, grant manager for the police department, found the average turnaround time from the SBI lab to be 90 days by using October as a sample month. And of the 47 cases submitted to the lab that month, 23 cases still had not been returned May 12.
In the grant application, Phelps used Sgt. Mike Fey’s near-fatal shooting last summer as an example, noting that the offender was out on bond because the drugs relating to his case had yet to be tested at the SBI crime lab.
So, while detectives have to wait months for evidence to return in their cases tested at the SBI, the turnaround time at private labs is much shorter, Lt. James Varrone said.
"We sent the evidence in the 1982 case to the (private) lab on Feb. 9 and got it back Feb. 22," Phelps said.
A couple of months ago, the SBI gave detective Billy Young the runaround, saying they couldn’t test Barbara Harrison’s and the suspects’ blood collected in 1982, because it was too old and might not have been preserved well enough. (more…)
Last 5 posts in Daily News
- Miller clashed with Palin over science on global warming - October 6th, 2008
- Myrick gets calls from old Republican stars - October 6th, 2008
- Will oil companies invest in drilling off the coast of N.C.? - October 6th, 2008
- Hagan gains influence as a team player - October 6th, 2008
- Fact, falsehood -- or somewhere in between? - October 6th, 2008
Email This Post
Print This Post
