UPDATE: What to do when the DNA evidence collected in 1971 vanishes?

 For some some time now I have been curious about the possibility of taking whatever DNA was provided by the accused attacker and re-testing it with modern technology but that hope appears to have been lost for now, short of finding enough proof to convince a judge to exhume a few bodies.

Armed with knowing that on April 15, 1971 at 11:25 AM that Arkansas State Medical Examiners officer signed and received the evidence collected by the Fayetteville Police Department, I sent an email the the directors of the 2022 Arkansas State Crime Lab with a list of questions.

The response was cases this old any evidence would be returned to the original investigating agency. 

I thought great, the one agency which when I filed an FOIA in the very beginning of my search for answers I was told by the person over the F.O.I.A. requests that my FOIA request would remain opened but it appears after an exhaustive search including one of an off site storage facility that the case files have either been misplaced or lost,

It was at this time, I must have caused a stir at the department because an author who wrote a story in 2020 about Pauline Storment’s murder was contacted by a Lieutenant Franklin with questions about where did the author receive their information. 

The response was historical newspaper articles.

I eventually reached out to Lt. Franklin who stated he had read the case files about Pauline and was interested in helping to close the case. Then when I asked about DNA evidence he stated they didn’t have any. 

 So, I am left with the question of NOW WHAT?

Some Cold Cases are Icebergs: Can a 51yr old Cold Case be solved when DNA evidence nolonger exists?

When I began my journey to learn as much about my twice removed first cousin Pauline Storment’s tragic April 12, 1971 murder, I have submitted more F.O.I.A. requests that I ever imagined I would. What I learned was a 51yr old case and it’s files have in that amount of time have apparently grown legs and is either hiding from record keepers or the files jumped in a retired detective’s bag in a question to solve the case, or maybe, and most likely the case, they were accidentally destroyed.

Since I learned the Pauline Storment case files were misplaced/lost, I chose to introduce myself to a Lieutenant with the Fayetteville Police Department. He seems to be knowledgeable of the case and in fact the last time he looked at the case files was in 2011. That said, when I questioned the possibility of using modern DNA tools to build out a family tree of the suspect and catch the murderer that way I was met with the “We have no evidence related to the case for DNA testing.”

This struck me odd, because via Newspaper articles it was clearly stated a bloody jacket, shirt and pants were collected from the suspect, not to mention the clothing Pauline was wearing which was sent in 1971 for analysis and came back indicating the suspect and Pauline Storment shared the same blood type.

My question what happened to this evidence? 

    Was there not enough collected in 1971, to facilitate for further testing? 

    Was it thrown in an improper storage container, or was it also misplaced, whereabouts unknown to            those in the Fayetteville Police Department.

 

 

What now, when record keeping FAILS.

Earlier this month I submitted a F.O.I.A request to the Fayetteville, Arkansas Police Department 

Seeking as much case information as possible, sadly after 51yrs the case file had been misplaced/lost.

I still have F.O.I.A requests out for the Washington County Sherrif’s Office and the Arkansas State Police, hopefully one of the other two agencies which worked on the case will come through with better record keeping.