Nut44x4
10-04-2009, 06:40 PM
With DNA test done, police begin search for Misty Copsey’s killer
crime: Police work to submit sample from jeans to FBI database
SEAN ROBINSON; The News Tribune
Last updated: October 4th, 2009 10:56 AM (PDT)
A long-delayed DNA test is finally complete, but Puyallup police have more hurdles to clear in their rebooted investigation of the 1992 disappearance of Misty Copsey.
http://media.thenewstribune.com/smedia/2009/10/04/00/nws1004_misty_p1.highlight.prod_affiliate.5.jpg
The last photo ever taken of Misty Copsey is showing the wear and tear of time. She disappeared in 1992
Copsey, 14, disappeared after a visit to the Puyallup Fair on Sept. 17, 1992. Police are officially treating the case as a homicide.
The DNA sample, recovered in 1993 from a pair of jeans identified as Misty’s, offers a potential forensic link that could lead police to answers. On the other hand, it could lead nowhere.
Police can’t be sure until state crime lab technicians enter the sample into a federal database controlled by the FBI: The CODIS database. As of Friday, that step had not been taken due to the strict federal standards governing evidence submissions. Police say they’ve spent much of the summer trying to meet the requirements.
“We are very darn close,” Puyallup police Lt. Scott Engle said recently. “Everything is now in the hands of the crime lab.”
A News Tribune series, “The Stolen Child,” published in May, recounted the history of the Copsey investigation. It noted missteps by Puyallup police and their contentious dealings with Diana Smith, Misty’s mother, who felt the investigation was botched.
Since the series appeared, police have reconstructed the investigation from the ground up in an effort to correct past oversights.
It’s a process of elimination, police say – making sure obvious lines of inquiry are addressed and definitively ruled out or in.
One example: Gary Ridgway, the Green River killer, was active and free at the time of Misty’s disappearance. Puyallup’s records of the case suggested that Ridgway was an unlikely suspect. Police now say they have ruled him out.
“We’re trying to avoid rabbit holes,” assistant police chief Bryan Jeter said. “The important thing is to bring Misty home.”
Police have assigned a detective to work the case full time and a sergeant and lieutenant to supervise the inquiry. They have enlisted help from other law enforcement agencies, though they are cagey about the details.
Police have re-interviewed many parties associated with the case, including witnesses and retired detectives familiar with the original investigation – but some of the heaviest labor revolves around two time-consuming clerical tasks: Reorganizing the case file and gathering all forensic evidence linked to the disappearance.
The case file represents the collected works of multiple detectives assembled over almost two decades. When The News Tribune reviewed the file in 2008, the records sprawled through cardboard boxes in no apparent order. Police reports, handwritten notes, transcripts and correspondence were crammed together without identifying labels or a detailed chronology.
Until recently, most of the forensic evidence was held by the King County Sheriff’s Office. The jeans and a pair of socks and panties – discovered near Enumclaw on Feb. 7, 1993 – stayed in King County custody for years. Two witnesses, Smith and a friend of Misty’s, identified the clothing as belonging to the missing girl.
Following lengthy negotiations with King County, Puyallup recently obtained the jeans and all other evidence associated with the discovery – a development that allows Puyallup to pursue lines of inquiry directly. The collected forensic material also includes microscopic pieces of evidence that were thought to be lost.
“It allows us to be in control of that physical evidence and send it to where we want it to go,” Engle said.
Evidence recovered from the jeans included hair samples suitable for DNA analysis. Until The News Tribune series was published, police did not seek such a test.
In May, state crime lab technicians said the analysis would take a week or two. Puyallup police have since learned that the process isn’t so simple.
Ideally, crime-scene evidence goes directly from where it was found to the lab. In Misty’s case, it didn’t work that way.
As evidence, the jeans are a headache: Found by civilian volunteers, fished from a ditch by a Boy Scout’s stick, flipped to the ground, bagged by a cop, waved under a search dog’s nose a day later and finally sent to the state crime lab – not the ideal chain of custody.
The circumstances added a bureaucratic hurdle that has delayed entry into the Combined DNA Index System.
“It’s federal guidelines,” said Terry McAdam, who manages the Tacoma branch of the crime lab. “We have certain criteria that have to be fulfilled. You can’t just say hey, run that sample into CODIS.”
Meeting the criteria meant reaching out to parties who were present when the jeans were discovered and establishing that no one tampered with them. Police have obtained those assurances from Smith and Jaremy Brown, the one-time Boy Scout who was the first to spot the jeans in the ditch years ago.
Other witnesses posed greater difficulties.
Jim Doyon, the King County detective who responded to the scene and took custody of the jeans, died in 2003. Cory Bober, a Tacoma resident and amateur researcher who led civilians to the site of the discovery, recently refused a request to provide a DNA sample that could be used for comparison purposes.
Bober has rebuffed questions from The News Tribune since the newspaper’s series was published, though he provided numerous records and private notes beforehand, outlining his theory of the case, which he has developed for years.
Historically, he has always denied touching the jeans, or doing anything other than looking at them the day they were discovered. His prediction that evidence would be found at the site was based on known discoveries of Kim Delange and Anna Chebetnoy, two Puyallup girls abducted and slain in 1988 and 1990. Their remains were found in the same area as the jeans. Their killer remains unknown.
For years after the discovery, Puyallup police doubted the legitimacy of the jeans discovery. They accused Bober and Smith of collaborating to plant the jeans in a misguided scheme to force deeper investigation of Misty’s disappearance.
Bober and Smith repeatedly denied involvement. The allegation, never proved, became a chief source of Smith’s bitterness toward police.
Mending the relationship with Smith was another priority for police. The two sides met in August for a discussion intended to salve old wounds.
“They told me the whole purpose of the meeting was to extend an olive branch and reassure me that they are working on Misty’s case,” Smith said.
Police apologized for past oversights, Smith said, and told her they are treating the case as a homicide – a symbolic disclosure. For years, Puyallup police characterized Misty as a runaway, despite Smith’s protestations.
On Sept. 17, the 17th anniversary of Misty’s disappearance, police called Smith to offer condolences, and again assured her that they are making progress.
Though years of lost time still rankle, Smith welcomed the gesture.
“That was nice,” she said. “I appreciated that they did that.”
http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/v-printerfriendly/story/904026.html
crime: Police work to submit sample from jeans to FBI database
SEAN ROBINSON; The News Tribune
Last updated: October 4th, 2009 10:56 AM (PDT)
A long-delayed DNA test is finally complete, but Puyallup police have more hurdles to clear in their rebooted investigation of the 1992 disappearance of Misty Copsey.
http://media.thenewstribune.com/smedia/2009/10/04/00/nws1004_misty_p1.highlight.prod_affiliate.5.jpg
The last photo ever taken of Misty Copsey is showing the wear and tear of time. She disappeared in 1992
Copsey, 14, disappeared after a visit to the Puyallup Fair on Sept. 17, 1992. Police are officially treating the case as a homicide.
The DNA sample, recovered in 1993 from a pair of jeans identified as Misty’s, offers a potential forensic link that could lead police to answers. On the other hand, it could lead nowhere.
Police can’t be sure until state crime lab technicians enter the sample into a federal database controlled by the FBI: The CODIS database. As of Friday, that step had not been taken due to the strict federal standards governing evidence submissions. Police say they’ve spent much of the summer trying to meet the requirements.
“We are very darn close,” Puyallup police Lt. Scott Engle said recently. “Everything is now in the hands of the crime lab.”
A News Tribune series, “The Stolen Child,” published in May, recounted the history of the Copsey investigation. It noted missteps by Puyallup police and their contentious dealings with Diana Smith, Misty’s mother, who felt the investigation was botched.
Since the series appeared, police have reconstructed the investigation from the ground up in an effort to correct past oversights.
It’s a process of elimination, police say – making sure obvious lines of inquiry are addressed and definitively ruled out or in.
One example: Gary Ridgway, the Green River killer, was active and free at the time of Misty’s disappearance. Puyallup’s records of the case suggested that Ridgway was an unlikely suspect. Police now say they have ruled him out.
“We’re trying to avoid rabbit holes,” assistant police chief Bryan Jeter said. “The important thing is to bring Misty home.”
Police have assigned a detective to work the case full time and a sergeant and lieutenant to supervise the inquiry. They have enlisted help from other law enforcement agencies, though they are cagey about the details.
Police have re-interviewed many parties associated with the case, including witnesses and retired detectives familiar with the original investigation – but some of the heaviest labor revolves around two time-consuming clerical tasks: Reorganizing the case file and gathering all forensic evidence linked to the disappearance.
The case file represents the collected works of multiple detectives assembled over almost two decades. When The News Tribune reviewed the file in 2008, the records sprawled through cardboard boxes in no apparent order. Police reports, handwritten notes, transcripts and correspondence were crammed together without identifying labels or a detailed chronology.
Until recently, most of the forensic evidence was held by the King County Sheriff’s Office. The jeans and a pair of socks and panties – discovered near Enumclaw on Feb. 7, 1993 – stayed in King County custody for years. Two witnesses, Smith and a friend of Misty’s, identified the clothing as belonging to the missing girl.
Following lengthy negotiations with King County, Puyallup recently obtained the jeans and all other evidence associated with the discovery – a development that allows Puyallup to pursue lines of inquiry directly. The collected forensic material also includes microscopic pieces of evidence that were thought to be lost.
“It allows us to be in control of that physical evidence and send it to where we want it to go,” Engle said.
Evidence recovered from the jeans included hair samples suitable for DNA analysis. Until The News Tribune series was published, police did not seek such a test.
In May, state crime lab technicians said the analysis would take a week or two. Puyallup police have since learned that the process isn’t so simple.
Ideally, crime-scene evidence goes directly from where it was found to the lab. In Misty’s case, it didn’t work that way.
As evidence, the jeans are a headache: Found by civilian volunteers, fished from a ditch by a Boy Scout’s stick, flipped to the ground, bagged by a cop, waved under a search dog’s nose a day later and finally sent to the state crime lab – not the ideal chain of custody.
The circumstances added a bureaucratic hurdle that has delayed entry into the Combined DNA Index System.
“It’s federal guidelines,” said Terry McAdam, who manages the Tacoma branch of the crime lab. “We have certain criteria that have to be fulfilled. You can’t just say hey, run that sample into CODIS.”
Meeting the criteria meant reaching out to parties who were present when the jeans were discovered and establishing that no one tampered with them. Police have obtained those assurances from Smith and Jaremy Brown, the one-time Boy Scout who was the first to spot the jeans in the ditch years ago.
Other witnesses posed greater difficulties.
Jim Doyon, the King County detective who responded to the scene and took custody of the jeans, died in 2003. Cory Bober, a Tacoma resident and amateur researcher who led civilians to the site of the discovery, recently refused a request to provide a DNA sample that could be used for comparison purposes.
Bober has rebuffed questions from The News Tribune since the newspaper’s series was published, though he provided numerous records and private notes beforehand, outlining his theory of the case, which he has developed for years.
Historically, he has always denied touching the jeans, or doing anything other than looking at them the day they were discovered. His prediction that evidence would be found at the site was based on known discoveries of Kim Delange and Anna Chebetnoy, two Puyallup girls abducted and slain in 1988 and 1990. Their remains were found in the same area as the jeans. Their killer remains unknown.
For years after the discovery, Puyallup police doubted the legitimacy of the jeans discovery. They accused Bober and Smith of collaborating to plant the jeans in a misguided scheme to force deeper investigation of Misty’s disappearance.
Bober and Smith repeatedly denied involvement. The allegation, never proved, became a chief source of Smith’s bitterness toward police.
Mending the relationship with Smith was another priority for police. The two sides met in August for a discussion intended to salve old wounds.
“They told me the whole purpose of the meeting was to extend an olive branch and reassure me that they are working on Misty’s case,” Smith said.
Police apologized for past oversights, Smith said, and told her they are treating the case as a homicide – a symbolic disclosure. For years, Puyallup police characterized Misty as a runaway, despite Smith’s protestations.
On Sept. 17, the 17th anniversary of Misty’s disappearance, police called Smith to offer condolences, and again assured her that they are making progress.
Though years of lost time still rankle, Smith welcomed the gesture.
“That was nice,” she said. “I appreciated that they did that.”
http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/v-printerfriendly/story/904026.html