Long after the headlines are forgotten and memories fade, the evidence used to help solve Red Deer’s crimes will stand.
In some cases, the evidence is preserved indefinitely.
Take for example a widely publicized case where a Red Deer woman was reported missing in January 1989. It was alleged that her husband killed and dismembered her in their bathtub before removing her body in a duffle bag. Blood and hair were recovered in the drain.
The body was never found and the husband has since died.
However, the smashed shower doors and other items from the apartment are wrapped and secured in the exhibit hall in the basement of the downtown Red Deer RCMP station.
“Every time I think I have seen it all, something else comes in,” said Bonnie Brown.
Brown is one of two exhibits custodians who are responsible for cataloguing, tracking and overseeing the evidence in the police storage system in Red Deer. Her colleague did not want her name used to protect her privacy.
The shower doors are likely the oldest exhibits among the diverse array of items collected over the decades.
Police may have seized the 12,000 exhibits dating back to the 1980s during homicide cases, drug busts, traffic stops and other crimes. Hundreds of larger items, such as trucks, cars and bicycles, are stored off-site. Hazardous goods, including paint thinners and gasoline, are also stored on the police compound.
In some circumstances, the items were recovered from domestic violence situations where weapons were found in the homes.
Row after row of exhibits brim with a large number of found property, including cameras, cellphones, tools, jewelry, skateboards, phone chargers and umbrellas.
Then there’s the arsenal of weapons, including swords, sawed-off shotguns, replica firearms, bats, modified firearms, bow and arrows, potato guns and much more.
There’s not much to see in the drug room — rather it is the smell that gives away the contents. Everything from marijuana, heroin and crystal meth to cocaine is stored in boxes on the shelves. Large quantities of drugs seized in grow ops are stored at off-site locations.
Everything that comes into the hall via a police officer is meticulously tracked through strict procedures and protocols. Neither the police officers nor the public are allowed to enter where the exhibits are kept. When officers need to access an exhibit, for a court case for example, they must sign it out through the custodians.
Red Deer RCMP Sgt. Rob Marsollier said continuity of all the processes is very important to protect the integrity of the evidence.
“How do you know that O.J. Simpson did not touch this glove?” said Marsollier. “Because it went from here to here to here.”
The custodians have the only two keys to the exhibits hall, including the drug room, main exhibits, DNA dryers and the main area.
In the unlikelihood that they have to testify in court, they have to be able to say no one touched or tampered with the evidence.
Brown, who has worked in exhibits since 2007, has not been called to testify but there is always the possibility.
“The officers are responsible for their exhibits because they are the ones who have to testify in court,” said Brown. “They will take their stuff out and bag it into the evidence bags.”
Bloody or wet clothing recovered from homicides or assaults, and other serious crimes, are dried in one of two drying rooms in the exhibits hall before being bagged and filed with the other exhibits.
Red Deer is one of the few detachments in Central Alberta that has DNA dryers. Brown said it is not unusual for other police agencies to use them. The police officer dries the evidence and retains the key to the room while it is drying and before it is properly bagged and stored. The items from the victim and the accused are dried separately to avoid cross contamination.
Officers may also use the rooms to collect hair or DNA samples from bedding or other materials.
A few years ago, Innisfail RCMP used the dryers to dry evidence from a homicide at the Bowden Institution.
“Clothing was just sopping wet with blood,” said Brown.
In one file alone, there could be 150 exhibits. One time, the two custodians worked out of a trailer at a homicide scene because hundreds of exhibits had to be collected, logged and tracked. Investigators felt it would streamline the system to have them key the information into a laptop as the investigators collected and bagged the evidence.
Because Brown and her partner handle every file that comes into the exhibits, they have logged everything from the gruesome to the downright bizarre.
In a domestic abuse case that Brown calls “our own Fifty Shades of Grey in Red Deer,” police recovered an explicit signed sex contract between a husband and wife.
“It was very specific to what her daily duties would be for him,” said Brown. “It was very interesting. The accessories or toys for evidence were very interesting. That was one of the most bizarre things.”
A few years ago, $40,000 was found in a furnace in an unoccupied basement suite. The furnace stopped working so the woman who lived upstairs called the repairman, who discovered blocks of cash in a Blockbuster bag.
Brown said the repairman was honest and turned the money in and that led to a fairly big “proceeds of crime” file.
There are also items that hit close to home, like toys that accidently strangled a child and the crime scene photos from a gruesome murder or sexual assault.
But the women know they have a job to do and they try not to take their work home with them.
A good portion of the items are tested for verification and identification at labs in various parts of the country. Usually it’s the exhibits that will be used in a court case or unrecognizable drugs.
Clothing and other evidence from sexual assaults, homicides, national security issues and other severe crimes are always sent for testing.
Evidence in a case such as one involving drugs is sent to the lab when the accused enters a not-guilty plea, typically at his first appearance.
“It looks like marijuana, it smells like marijuana but you have to provide a scientific certificate basically confirming it is marijuana,” said Brown.
A firearm may be sent to the lab to verify it is a gun or for ballistic testing to ensure it was not used in another crime.
There are retention periods for the exhibits, based on severity of the crime.
Exhibits from unsolved sexual assaults are kept for 70 years. Exhibits from solved cases are retained for 20 years. The evidence is kept indefinitely for homicides, regardless if the case is solved or unsolved.
Drugs are stored for a minimum of six months and staff must get authorization from Health Canada to burn the drugs.
Firearms are always destroyed after they are no longer needed for court. The one exception is when police do not have an example of the firearm in their collection. Police can use the weapons as part of their investigations, pinpointing firearms from various eras or calibre type.
In some cases, items (other than drugs) are returned to the owner, depending on what the court orders. Cash is deposited with the Solicitor General’s office until the court decides on the matter. Some items may end up at police auctions.
Key evidence or that of a biological nature from homicides is held indefinitely. In some cases, there could be hundreds of exhibits from a homicide.
Police remain optimistic that one day the evidence that is stored for decades will be the key to solving historical crimes because of the advancements in technology.
“There’s a lot that will remain in here for long past our lifespan because you never know what the advancements in science are going to be in 10 years or 20 years from now,” said Marsollier.
Marsollier said DNA testing has led to convictions that might not have been possible if the evidence from 20 years ago was thrown away.
Several boxes from the unsolved “gentleman rapist” files from the early 1990s may just represent one of those crimes.
The accused was given the moniker because he had been “quite apologetic” about his actions. Eight cases remain unsolved.
crhyno@www.reddeeradvocate.com