By Elisabeth Strillacci

KANNAPOLIS — The 10-week Kannapolis Police Citizen’s Academy wrapped up its final class Thursday night with a description of how crime scenes are processed and a tour of the evidence room.

Sergeant Laura Smith and Investigator Tony Peeler were Thursday’s instructors and are the only two in the department with keys to access the inside of the evidence room.

If anyone has watched police shows on television, they’ll be aware that chain of custody is essential in collection and processing of evidence so when it is brought to court, there is no doubt that no one has had access to evidence, either to alter it or to call into question its validity.

But it is also essential that the evidence is preserved and protected while it is stored and the case is pending, and it’s the responsibility of the police agency to provide that protection.

Inside the evidence storage area are an incredibly wide variety of items. Guns, drugs, money, jewelry and cell phones all might be expected, but in truth, anything collected and tagged has to be stored.

“What should happen is when the case is resolved, I should get a letter from the judge instructing me what to do with any evidence,” said Smith. But that doesn’t always happen. In addition, if an officer has collected evidence, for instance from a drug overdose, and has filed it in the evidence room, but then the officer, for whatever reason, leaves the department, that evidence is left behind. And eventually Smith will catch up with it, but it takes time, so the space can fill up.

Larger items like vehicles are stored off site, “and as you can imagine, it doesn’t take many cars to fill up a space, so we try to be very particular about seizing cars,” said Peeler.

There are two full-time crime scene investigators along with Smith, who is in charge of evidence management, and they are responsible for processing serious crime scenes such as homicide and rape.

And there is a very specific process, including restricting who is allowed on the scene, said Peeler, who explained that investigators want to get inside a scene and see what they can find, but the scene must be processed first to avoid contamination.

“We need to keep everyone out that is not absolutely necessary so we can document, visually and in writing, the scene exactly as we find it,” he said. “Even the chief isn’t allowed in the scene unless absolutely necessary.” Video and photos of the scene and each piece of evidence collected are taken, to show how the scene was found and how each item was when it was found, and where it was located.

Then investigators will perform a full search of the scene, covering every inch of space in a specific design, be it grid or spiral or line by line.

“And no one should ever be offended if another investigator searches behind them,” Peeler said, describing one case when he and another investigator had searched an entire room, finding nothing, but a third investigator came in with fresh eyes and found a piece of evidence in the space between drawers in furniture, somewhere that hadn’t been thought of.

Investigators try to photograph all evidence in its original location, but if an investigator picks it up, with gloves on, before a photo is taken, then they take it back to the police department to photograph it.

“We don’t put it back and try to say ‘well that’s where it was before we touched it,'” he said. “We’ll document where it was found in the report, but we don’t try to recreate any photos.”

The class took a turn at collecting fingerprints off a plastic cup, learning that it’s a challenge to get even prints that are clear. The tape can have air bubbles, and dusting can quickly go from lifting a print to over-processing and smudging. A soft, long-bristled brush is dipped lightly into black fingerprint dust, the excess tapped off, then the brush is swept or swirled over the surface to try to get the powder to attach to the oils from fingers that creates fingerprints. And fingerprints and toe prints are all unique, said Peeler, as are dog noses.

Fingerprinting, prior to DNA evidence, was the gold standard because it was the best they had, but with the introduction of DNA, that has become the leading evidence in most cases.

And DNA isn’t just found from body fluids, but from skin and hair — essentially anywhere a body touches will leave DNA behind. Investigators can use cotton swabs to collect DNA both from a small area of a scene and from a person for comparison. The television shows that portray officers swabbing the inside of someone’s cheek are accurate, that is how it is collected for comparison. And the idea that evidence collected and properly preserved from a cold case that happened before DNA was a thing can still provide DNA evidence is also correct.

“We don’t yet have an idea of how long DNA can survive,” said Peeler, “but we have been able to go back and find it from cold case evidence.”

In addition, cold cases that have DNA profiles on file will have that DNA resubmitted to the state for comparison from time to time on an ongoing basis to see if, with new additions of DNA profiles, a match might be found.

Kannapolis, like most smaller departments, relies on the state laboratories for evidence processing — drug testing and DNA profile searches, for example — and the state has three labs in North Carolina, a main lab in Raleigh, and two regional labs in Edneyville (western region) and Greensboro (Triad region). Kannapolis primarily uses the one in Greensboro, but because those labs are short staffed and often under-funded, it can take several weeks to several months to get results, and there are limits to how many items can be submitted at once. For example, in a homicide, there may be 75 pieces of evidence collected, but the department is only allowed to submit 10 items in the initial submission, and five for each subsequent submission on the case. So solving cases takes time.

But proper and complete evidence collection is essential in making sure a suspect is convicted, because unless there is a confession, it is the proof required by the legal system to then hold someone accountable for breaking the law.

The students will officially graduate in a brief ceremony June 23 at the start of the Kannapolis City Council meeting at 6 p.m.