The outside investigation of the state crime lab has led N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper to suspend the six-agent unit that analyzes bloodstain patterns.
Cooper said yesterday that he asked the two former assistant directors with the FBI who are investigating the lab -- Mike Wolf and Chris Swecker -- to review cases involving bloodstain-pattern analysis. They agreed that the unit's work should be suspended temporarily until all issues have been reviewed, Cooper said.
"The merits of blood spatter have been debated in a number of court cases, and I think it's essential that the SBI pursue all available training and certification for that type of investigation," Cooper said.
Cooper declined to say what cases had prompted his concern, saying he wanted to wait until the outside investigators report on their findings. Their contract runs through the end of the year. He did say he was not aware of any other crime-lab units whose work might warrant suspension.
The effect of the suspension on cases wasn't immediately clear. Cooper said the analysis isn't used that frequently.
In Winston-Salem, Police Chief Scott Cunningham said he doesn't expect the suspension to affect any cases.
"We have skilled and trained blood-spatter personnel," Cunningham said in an e-mail. "This will not impact our abilities to process scenes and serve the citizens."
Officials with the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office said they don't know what the effects of the suspension might be.
"The sheriff's office hates to have some analysis or investigative unit within the SBI that is not going to be available to us," Maj. Brad Stanley said.
The sheriff's office hasn't had a chance to review the reasons why the pattern-analysis unit was suspended, Stanley said.
"We want to ensure that any reports or findings from that unit or any laboratory analysis meet standards," he said.
The lab is part of the State Bureau of Investigation, where Cooper named a new director Thursday. He replaced Robin Pendergraft, who has defended the SBI and the lab over the outside investigation, with Greg McLeod.
McLeod, Cooper's legislative liaison, will take over next week. Cooper said it will be up to McLeod and the outside investigators to decide when the lab will begin bloodstain analysis again.
Cooper sought the outside investigation by Wolf and Swecker after an SBI agent testified at a groundbreaking innocence hearing that the SBI didn't always provide reports of all blood tests to the courts.
Agent Duane Deaver testified at the hearing in February for Greg Taylor that the SBI had a policy of writing on lab reports that a test showed "chemical indications for the presence of blood" even when a follow-up test didn't confirm that result.
The Associated Press later confirmed Deaver's testimony in memos acquired through a request under the Freedom of Information Act.
And Pendergraft also confirmed that the policy on the wording of lab reports had existed before she took over the SBI in 2001.
Identifying a substance as blood is separate from bloodstain-pattern analysis, where investigators try to determine factors such as where an assailant stood during an attack.
Deaver, however, is among the six agents the SBI listed yesterday as being certified to conduct bloodstain-pattern analysis. Noelle Talley, a spokeswoman for the SBI, had said earlier this year that Deaver no longer worked as an SBI blood-spatter expert and had the title of criminal specialist in the investigation and training support division.
Talley said yesterday that she couldn't answer whether Deaver's work as a criminal investigative analyst involved bloodstain-pattern analysis or training those who do such work.
Journal reporter Michael Hewlett contributed to this article.
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