Well, the case I discussed in my last report thankfully came in 9-3 for acquittal today! I guess I did a decent job — having gotten into the case on September 21, 2009….
Last time I told you I’d discuss what the police knew and didn’t do anything about. Here are some tidbits.
A guy named Raul Chanel is noted as a person of interest. He has an identical statistical description (height, weight, etc) to the Defendant, but they do next to nothing to try to find the guy or explain why he’s a person of interest in the case.
Another guy is busted for DUI, having driven his car off the freeway. The CHP finds the murder weapon right near his vehicle while inspecting the scene, but because he adamantly denies it’s his, they discount the possibility that maybe he tossed it from his vehicle after the crash and don’t investigate him as a suspect. Now, in the meantime, I’ve found some intriguing stuff about a guy matching this name (33 years later of course) and I’m following up (more later).
They know that the Defendant at the time of the murder lives up in Sanger (they have his address). They send a notice to the Sanger PD but nobody bothers to follow up. They don’t go into his place of work to even check his time card or interview anybody to see if he was or wasn’t at work on the day of the murder!
There were latent prints lifted from the passenger side of the vehicle, the side the shooter would have been on if you believe the story of their star witness (who admits he drove the car). They didn’t match the Defendant and seems that nobody’s bothered to follow up on those prints since the crime. Maybe, just maybe, the person who left them has been fingerprinted for some reason in the past 33 years….ya think???
