HAS THE EVIDENCE BEEN TAINTED?
Was evidence recovered from underwater and the detectives/officers failed to process it properly?
Most detectives and officers are under the belief that once evidence has been submerged, fingerprints and trace evidence is lost.
If treated properly at the scene and kept in water, fingerprints and trace evidence can be recovered when the item is processed.
If this is not done, then law enforcement is depriving your client the right to challenge the evidence the prosecution is presenting.
Should this evidence be allowed?
In the contrary, if handled properly, law enforcement may have fingerprints and trace evidence to tie your client to the crime.
IS YOUR CLIENT BEING CHARGED DUE TO THE NEGLIGENCE OF LAWENFORCEMENT AND MEDICAL PERSONNEL?
If the victim of a crime ends up in water, was that persons death related to the criminal act or the negligence of the personnel on scene to rescue the person?
If a drunk driver has an accident and their car ends up in the water
trapping a passenger, or a person fights with another and the other person falls into a river, should the individual automatically be charged with the person's death?
Most emergency rescue personnel will not want to attempt to revive a person that has been in the water for more than a few minutes.
But the fact is, a person can survive in cold water (under 70 degrees) for over an hour without brain damage.
This is a documented fact.
If law enforcement personnel delay a search for the person or law enforcement/rescue personnel fail to try to revive the person, they are the ones actually responsible for the death.
If revived at the scene, did the hospital properly treat the person by heating them internally or did they make the assumption the person is dead and
not make the proper attempts at saving the individual?
As an example, I recovered the driver of a car accident 28 minutes after he went into the water.
The ambulance EMTs refused to work on the individual. A diver who also happened to be an EMT started CPR. The other EMTs were now forced to take action. When they hooked up their EKG, they found the individual had a heart rhythm and transported him to the hospital.
WHAT I CAN DO FOR YOU
I can help prepare your defense case by looking to see what mistakes were made that deprived your client of an adequate defense.
As a Private Investigator, I am able to help you search for evidence in civil and criminal cases that may have been hidden or lost in water ways, as well as search for missing property and victims.
Depending on the water conditions, I can document the evidence as it rests underwater and document its location for civil/criminal purposes.
Documentation can be by way of still photography, video and hand drawn sketches as well as measurements.
Additionally, with my fingerprinting equipment using Small Particle Reagent, I can lift fingerprints from items removed from the water while still at the scene and still wet.
ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND
As a member of the Drowning Accident Rescue Team (DART) (an all volunteer rescue team) I responded on 687 missions for the State of California Office of Emergency Services.
These missions included automobile accidents where the vehicles ended up in the water, drownings, boating accidents, aircraft crashes into water, recovery of homicide victims and evidence searches.
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UNDERWATER EXAMPLES
Below is a picture of me using a Fisher underwater metal detector in zero visibility water.
We were able to locate a pistol as well as other evidence linking 2 individuals to a homicide.
The following photographs were taken under the "H" Street Bridge in Sacramento.
Evidence has been disposed of from the bridge relating to a double homicide in Vallejo.
The evidence was photographed underwater before recovery and then the evidence was turned over to the Department of Justice where trace evidence was recovered documenting the evidence was used in the homicides.
Both individuals involved were convicted of the homicides.
The following photographs are from Sutter County.
The first photograph is of me pulling myself back up the search line to the boat with the pistol in the second photograph.
The pistol had been used in a homicide.
There was zero visibility in the water and the bottom was cluttered with tree limbs and other debris.
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