This is a fascinating article about the level of work that went into arresting Bryan Kohberger for the vicious murder of four University of Idaho students.
DNA from a knife sheath left at the scene did not match match any past criminal offenders, so the Idaho State Police contracted with Othram, Inc., “which had a lab able to produce a more extensive DNA profile from the knife sheath than the state lab was set up to examine.”
I have been screaming this into the wind for more than a few years. DO NOT tell me how many times your state lab has tested the evidence in the OCCK case. This goes for cases like the murder of JonBenet Ramsey, too. Face it, state labs are not as sophisticated as some of these private labs. And their “retesting” just extinguishes evidence while it yields no answers.
Of course all of this presupposes that a law enforcement agency takes its obligation to a murder victim seriously enough to carefully store, catalog and keep track of all of the evidence. Like maybe in 1999 when Michigan agencies were on notice about DNA evidence when they dug up David Norberg to compare his DNA to ONE hair in this case. They could have cleaned up their act then. But why bother in this case, right?
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We all know the evidence and technology exist to solve this case. Why it hasn’t been done is a whole other story. Apparently protecting reputations and institutions is more important than solving and decades old case…
Exactly. There has never been transparency in this case, just varying degrees of gaslighting. We need a full and complete accounting of the evidence; what was tested, what was retested, what was extinguished during testing, what has not been tested, why are they unwilling to use a lab like Othram? Is the evidence all too degraded? How was it stored? How will you ensure that this bullshit NEVER happens again. The public is entitled to these answers and can deal with and may even be sympathetic to whatever excuses get tossed out–well, it was a different time back then . . . we didn’t store things properly, we didn’t keep track . . . If you know why the evidence is not amenable to further testing, EXPLAIN IT TO THE PUBLIC. And don’t give me the “open case” bullshit. You will never arrest anyone, never bring a real grand jury to address the corruption in this investigation.
I’ve been following your website for years now waiting for an update and can’t believe nothing has happened!.The families have been waiting since the year I was born 1976.This is so incredible if it wasn’t documented publicly nobody would believe it.
Matt
The case was smothered because cops killed Chris Busch. Although any number of people would have lined up to administer the death penalty to that POS, the men who did it didn’t want to go to prison for their little “solution,” and I don’t blame them. However, Busch was probably killed not because of a sense of outrage that the legal system would fail to bring this POS to justice because of his big GM daddy, but because the cops HAD HIM in late January 1977 and let him go. Then my brother Tim wound up dead. That kept these fuckers silent all these years. Oakland County will never stop festering. They betrayed my brother and then covered their asses for almost 50 years. Almost all of the old guard is dead–there are a few who are still lingering. Even in death they get to keep their reputations intact.
Hi Cathy!
I know it may not mean anything and you may have already been sent this, but I came across this when I was scouring the internet for more of anything I might be able to find.
It’s a link to a piece of Art that was in John’s Gallery and it has been up for sale since August 15, 2021.
Just thought I’d share in case it could mean something to someone that I don’t realize…
https://folk-art-painting.com/2021/09/rare-folk-outsider-art-michigan-birmingham-gallery-1978-murder-john-mckinney/
Thanks, CCN. “Murder art.” What a selling point. It may mean something to somebody–thanks.