The article states that the new administration of the revamped crime lab reported this discrepancy and have safeguards in place regarding eliminating this type of error.
Houston crime lab gets more bad press: misplaced evidence
This entry was posted in forensic science reform protecting the innocent and tagged Forensic science. Bookmark the permalink.
This is bad press stemming from the OLD HPD lab. The current HFSC has its act together. This story is out there because the HFSC discovered and promptly reported the deviation.
It seems highly unlikely that biological evidence could sit in an (empty?) office for 12 years without anyone noticing. Was there no casefile for the evidence nearby? What about a lab report or chain-of-custody paperwork? The story is light on information, but the questions remain – do they have a database for the location of all the evidence stored at the lab, why was this evidence undiscovered for so long, who was the supervisor responsible, and is there other evidence unaccounted for in some other irregular locations?