Fifteen year old Leah Freeman was murdered in 2000 in the state of Oregon, but the body lay undiscovered for more than a month. Her eighteen year old boyfriend Nicholas McGuffin was convicted of manslaughter in 2011 on a 10-2 jury vote. There were no eyewitnesses to the crime and no forensic evidence against him. He was said to be talking fast and acting jumpy the night of her disappearance, but it is acknowledged that he used meth, which makes me wonder if his behavior was the result of using this drug. His conviction was just overturned on the strength of DNA evidence from a bloody shoe:
“We consulted with a DNA expert,” [Janis] Puracal said. “She reviewed the charts, graphs, and raw data from the DNA testing in 2000. She was the one who saw that there was unidentified male DNA on both of the victim’s shoes that had not been reported by the state lab. There was unidentified male DNA in the victim’s [spilled] blood and it was never reported.”
Several things stood out for me in the investigations: Police then reexamined McGuffin's Mustang, even though it had already been sprayed with a chemical called luminal to test for the presence of blood during the initial investigation in 2000. One is luminol.
"'There was nothing in there,' said police chief Mark Dannels. 'It had been cleaned. It had been wiped.' Did Dannels see streak marks? This sounds like the absence of evidence being claimed to be evidence. Besides this car, an old Mustang, there was also a Kia that Mr. McGuffin had borrowed, and that car had been cleaned, but it is unclear when or by whom.
There is also the question of a paint chip found on the victim's clothing. "Microtrace found several hairs and a gray paint chip on Freeman's shirt. The paint chip did not match paint on either McGuffin's Mustang or his parents' Thunderbird." Based on this, the defense cast suspicion on other people.
A third thing that I noticed was that two of the witnesses seem to have altered their descriptions of events. One initially said she had seen a car pull up next to Ms. Freeman, but some details did not match.
EDT
This case was mentioned here in an old thread. The Charles Smith forensic blog has a recent entry.
“We consulted with a DNA expert,” [Janis] Puracal said. “She reviewed the charts, graphs, and raw data from the DNA testing in 2000. She was the one who saw that there was unidentified male DNA on both of the victim’s shoes that had not been reported by the state lab. There was unidentified male DNA in the victim’s [spilled] blood and it was never reported.”
Several things stood out for me in the investigations: Police then reexamined McGuffin's Mustang, even though it had already been sprayed with a chemical called luminal to test for the presence of blood during the initial investigation in 2000. One is luminol.
"'There was nothing in there,' said police chief Mark Dannels. 'It had been cleaned. It had been wiped.' Did Dannels see streak marks? This sounds like the absence of evidence being claimed to be evidence. Besides this car, an old Mustang, there was also a Kia that Mr. McGuffin had borrowed, and that car had been cleaned, but it is unclear when or by whom.
There is also the question of a paint chip found on the victim's clothing. "Microtrace found several hairs and a gray paint chip on Freeman's shirt. The paint chip did not match paint on either McGuffin's Mustang or his parents' Thunderbird." Based on this, the defense cast suspicion on other people.
A third thing that I noticed was that two of the witnesses seem to have altered their descriptions of events. One initially said she had seen a car pull up next to Ms. Freeman, but some details did not match.
EDT
This case was mentioned here in an old thread. The Charles Smith forensic blog has a recent entry.
via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/2P6M1rK
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