Blood Spatter Work Suspended at NC SBI

More shake-ups at the North Carolina State Crime Lab. Not only has the direc­tor been replaced, but blood­stain pat­tern recog­ni­tion test­ing has been suspended.

The out­side inves­ti­ga­tion of the state crime lab has led North Carolina’s attor­ney gen­eral to sus­pend the six-agent unit that ana­lyzes blood­stain patterns.

Attorney General Roy Cooper said Friday that he asked the two for­mer assis­tant direc­tors with the Federal Bureau of Investigation who are inves­ti­gat­ing the lab to review cases involv­ing blood­stain pat­tern analy­sis. They agreed that the unit’s work should be sus­pended tem­porar­ily until all issues have been reviewed, Cooper said.

“The mer­its of blood spat­ter have been debated in a num­ber of court cases, and I think it’s essen­tial that the SBI pur­sue all avail­able train­ing and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for that type of inves­ti­ga­tion,” Cooper said in an inter­view Friday.

Was there a pol­icy to delib­er­ately mis­lead the pub­lic, as to the results of tests…

Cooper sought the out­side inves­ti­ga­tion by Mike Wolf and Chris Swecker after an SBI agent tes­ti­fied at a ground­break­ing inno­cence hear­ing that the SBI didn’t always pro­vide reports of all blood tests to the courts.

Agent Duane Deaver tes­ti­fied at the hear­ing in February for Greg Taylor that the SBI had a pol­icy of writ­ing on lab reports that a test showed “chem­i­cal indi­ca­tions for the pres­ence of blood” even when a follow-up test didn’t con­firm that result.

…or did the report ALSO state con­fir­ma­tory tests failed to prove blood was present?

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