TAINTED EVIDENCE IN MURDER CASE #4? ANOTHER KOFOED CSI MYSTERY IN COURT

David Kofoed (Photo: Bill Kelly)

Here we are again.

Another seemingly slam-dunk murder conviction. 

Another claim the crime scene investigator planted evidence.

The common denominator is Dave Kofoed.

Kofoed, once the respected leader of the Douglas County Sheriff’s crime lab, landed in jail for planting evidence in a notorious double-homicide investigation in a neighboring county. In the wake of that debacle three other convicted murderers have gone to court claiming their cases may have been tainted by Kofoed as well.

(The case was the subject of the NET documentary “CSI On Trial.” Watch it here.)

Today the Nebraska Supreme Court heard convicted murderer Richard K. Cook request evidence presented at trial by Kofoed get a second look.

Fifteen years ago Amy Stahlecker’s body was found on the banks of the Elkhorn River on the western edge of Douglas County. She’d been shot repeatedly. Her blood was found on the bridge nearby and inside Cook’s truck. 

A few days later Mike Horbacher went to police claiming his friend Cook admitted he’d killed the girl. In the following weeks there were complicated, conflicting stories about what led up to the murder. Cook’s version implicated his friend who went to the police.

What the jury believed was this: in the middle of the night Amy Stahlecker got a flat tire driving home to Fremont. Richard Cook had pulled over nearby. He had sex with the victim. There had been a struggle. Cook “unloaded” his 9mm pistol into the woman and dragged the body to the edge of the river.

Richard Cook (NDCS)

Five years later the crime scene investigator who handled Cook’s case was also in jail.

A district court judge in Douglas County ruled there wasn’t sufficient reason for Cook to get a hearing to review evidence in the case. The Nebraska Supreme Court has been asked to overturn the ruling. Oral arguments were heard today.

Cook’s attorney, long time Kofoed nemesis Jerry Soucie argued that Cook’s previous attorneys had been ineffective in that they did not present the suspicions that Kofoed could have fabricated some of the evidence in the investigation.

Soucie says because there had been no effort by the Nebraska Attorney General or the Douglas County Attorney to review the body of Kofoed’s work after it was clear he…in Soucie’s words…was a “dirty cop” it was left to the defense attorneys in each individual case to return to court to seek a fresh hearing on the integrity of the former CSI’s work.

Two pieces of evidence raise red flags for Soucie. Blood smears matching Stahlecker were found inside Cook’s truck on the door and the floor mat. Soucie raises questions about how the victim’s blood could have gotten inside the truck when the shooting occurred on the bridge away from the vehicle. In court filings Soucie points out Kofoed was convicted for planting evidence inside the car of two innocent men. In a third murder investigation under scrutiny, Kofoed is accused of similarly planting blood evidence in the convicted killer’s car.

At the Stahlecker crime scene, Kofoed also located a bloody shoe print, size 10 ½, on the outside of Cook's truck. Soucie claims there was never evidence his client owned that type of shoe that matched the print but Kofoed himself had purchased a pair.

Soucie says he is not asking the court to reverse the guilty verdict but only to grant a hearing where the integrity of the evidence can be reviewed.

Arguing for the State of Nebraska, Assistant Attorney General Erin Tageman challenged every aspect of Cook’s demand for a new hearing. She told the justices even if there had been indications Kofoed had fabricated the blood smear and foot print Cook’s attorney “would not be able to show his case was tainted.”

In documents filed by the state noted the nature of the evidence and the methods used by Kofoed “were not similar to his unlawful conduct in the two other investigations.” Tageman added in court that primary responsibility for this homicide were with the Nebraska State Patrol and Kofoed’s role was “very small.”

For the justices there may be a broader issue than whether the questioned evidence would have altered the verdict in Cook’s trial. Justice Lindsey Miller-Lerman made reference to “a more global view” where courts should be obliged to re-examine the integrity of evidence brought into court by law enforcement agencies entrusted by the public with that responsibility.

Kofoed has repeatedly denied planting evidence in any of the cases.

It will be several weeks before the Supreme Court will decide if Cook’s request has any merit in the law.

In the next few weeks expect to hear more about two other cases in which Kofoed is accused of planting evidence.

Edwards

Christopher Edwards. He’s in prison for killing his girlfriend, Jessica O’Grady. Her body has never been found. At his trial in 2006 there was overwhelming evidence Edwards murdered her in his bedroom using a ceremonial sword, however questions arose about blood evidence in the trunk of his car collected by Kofoed. A district court judge in Douglas County is expected to decide soon if a new hearing on the evidence is warranted.

Henk

Ivan Henk. After shouting out in the Cass County Courthouse that he had killed his son because he was the antichrist, Henk was sentenced to life in prison for murdering four-year old Brendon Gonzalez in Plattsmouth. During Kofoed’s trial for planting evidence in another case, a judge ruled there was reason to believe Kofoed tampered with evidence in Henk’s investigation as well.  The CSI claimed to have found blood in the dumpster months after Henk disposed of the child’s body in the trash. A new evidentiary hearing for Henk is scheduled in February.

Did a Lawyer's Defense of a "Dirty CSI" Taint his Defense of a Killer?Attorney says "No."

"These were two different cases.  It never crossed my mind there would be a connection."--Defense Attorney Steve Lefler

When attorney Steve Lefler stop representing an accused murderer and start representing one of the crime scene investigators who helped put his client in jail?  Did the lawyer under cut one client in the service of another?  

Attorney Steve Lefler (right) talks to
reporters outside the courtroom

Convicted murderer Chris Edwards and his father think so.  On the witness stand Lefler, at times emotional, said "absolutely not. It did not have any impact in how I defended Chris Edwards."

Whether Lefler had a conflict of interest as two different homicide cases overlapped is one essential question as Edwards maneuvers to get a new trial.  He was convicted in 2009 of murdering Jessica O'Grady in his bedroom.  Her body has never been found.  A jury had no problem believing she had been murdered and Edwards was responsible. In the collective mind of the jury the quality of the criminal forensics work left room for no other conclusion. All appeals have been rejected.

  

Months later David Kofoed, the CSI who lead the evidence collection, was indicted by federal and state authorities for planting evidence in an unrelated double homicide in Murdock, Neb. In that case two innocent men were, for a time, accused of a murder they did not commit. It was Kofoed's bogus blood smear evidence was partly responsible for their indictment.  Lefler took Kofoed as a client to defend him; work which overlapped with filing appeals for Edwards. Kofoed was guilty and sent to prison.

At a March 13 hearing in Omaha Edwards' defense team laid out the justification for a new trial.  Known as an evidentiary hearing, it gives someone convicted of a crime an opportunity to raise new evidence not introduced at the original trial. The judge will decide if there is reason to re-try the case.

Edwards lead into court.

Seven years after presiding over the first trial Judge Russell Derr again heard testimony.  Two things were strikingly different. Edwards had a clean cut and preppy look in 2007. He walked into court this time in shackles, dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit with wavy brown hair flowing over his shoulders.

Even more startling was seeing Edwards' former defense attorney, Steve Lefler, on the witness stand.  He all but conceded the man he once defended was a murderer.  The evidence, Lefler testified, "was overwhelming." It was a much different picture than the vigorous defense Lefler previously brought to court.

The defense team in place now, Jerry Soucie and Brian Munnelly, raised a two-pronged attack. First, they have suspicions Kofoed planted blood evidence in the truck of Edwards' car and on other items found in the garage.  Those theories are summarized earlier in a legal brief offered the judge.  (Read NET News coverage of their case)

Most of the first day of the hearing focused on the second claim:  Lefler had a conflict of interest while preparing Edwards appeal when the attorney took on Kofoed as a client.

  

Soucie quoted pre-trial depositions in which Lefler questions Kofoed and refers to him as "a friend" and complimented his CSI skills. On the witness stand Lefler said the references were more reflective of a professional relationship than social friendship and a tactic he often used with many law enforcement officials to get them to feel comfortable and volunteer information helpful to his clients.

Questioned later by a Douglas County prosecutor, Lefler was asked if his strategy at for Edwards was influenced by any friendship. Lefler answered: "Of course not."

"If I thought Dave was dirty, if I thought he planted evidence, I would kill him in the courtroom," he added.

  

Apparently the convicted killer's father, Bob Edwards had suspicions about the attorney's loyalty and communicated it directly to Lefler. Lefler claimed the father said "becaue I was friends with Dave Kofoed... you screwed my son over."

Lefler claimed he was fully committed to his client and the Edwards family while preparing the case. "If I had a loyalty to anyone it was to Bob Edwards.  I promised myself I would leave no stone unturned" in preparing for the trial.

  

As for Kofoed's alleged discovery of blood in the trunk of Edwards' car, Soucie argued its a key element in convincing a jury that a homicide took place.  Prosecutors emphasized the suspected role of the Edwards car at the original trial, giving the jury the way to understand how the body was removed from the home and later dumped somewhere.

Edwards new defense team argues there are suspicious similarities in the impressive discoveries Kofoed made in the Edwards invetigation and days earlier at the scene of the Murdock killings. If one was a fake. Perhaps there was another.

  

Lefler took heated exception to Soucie's version.  "I will professionally disagree," Lefler said, leaning forward.  "The most damning piece of evidence was that mattress in the basement." A full size photo of the mattress, stained and deeply saturated with blood identified as O'Grady's blood, sat on an easel in the line of sight of the jury through much of the trial.

Late in the afternoon David Kofoed took the witness stand.  Court was adjourned after some scene setting questions, setting the stage for more direct questions on Friday.

WATCH THE NET NEWS DOCUMENTARY ON THE KOFOED TRIAL 

A "Perfect" CSI-based Murder Conviction Questioned. Sword Murder Case Back in Court.

Blood smears in the trunk of a car, on a pair of hedge clippers, and a shovel helped put Christopher Edwards in prison for a gruesome murder.  Seven years later questions about that same evidence may get the convicted murderer a new trial.

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In 2007 NET News covered the Edwards homicide investigation as part of our documentary Murder House.  Watch the program and learn more about the caseby clicking HERE.

(UPDATE:  Click here to read about the opening of the evidentiary hearing) 

Christopher Edwards is scheduled to return to Douglas County District Court this week. He will ask Judge Russell Derr to set aside his conviction. 

Jerry Soucie, one of the attorneys working for Edwards, told NET News “no one should be tried on a charge as serious as murder with evidence that is not reliable and more importantly that might have been developed as a result of misconduct on the part of law enforcement.”

In 2007 Edwards was convicted of murdering his teenaged girlfriend, Jessica O’Grady.  Her body has never been found.  Prosecutors successfully used a wide array of forensic science to indicate O’Grady had been hacked to death in Edwards’ bedroom with an ornamental sword.  Authorities speculated he used his car to move the body to another location.

Since the original guilty verdict, David Kofoed, the lead crime scene investigator, was convicted of tampering with evidence collected in another homicide investigation. 

In their motion to Judge Derr, Edwards’s attorneys argue the original verdict needs to be set aside since Kofoed was “in a position to fabricate evidence under his own name” as well as being able to “set up” other crime scene investigators “to ’find’ evidence that didn’t exist until after Kofoed planted blood on the item in the bio-hazard or property room.”   The court papers claim Kofoed, as commander of the CSI unit, could alter evidence “without any direct trail of evidence” linking him to “a miraculous discovery” benefiting the case.

Soucie told NET News, “We have concerns, given the way that evidence was handled, whether the blood reportedly found on a number of items actually existed on those items before they went to the Douglas County CSI office.”

The Edwards crime scene (Douglas Co. Sheriff)

Edwards requests “post-conviction relief” on the grounds the jury in the original trial “was not given the opportunity to assess whether the forensic evidence was fabricated.  (Read the motion filed in District Court here.) 
His appeal found new life in 2010 after a Cass County District Court convicted and jailed Kofoed for planting evidence in an unrelated homicide case in Murdock, Neb.  Wayne and Sharmon Stock were killed with a shotgun during a botched robbery of their home.

Investigators from Cass County and the Nebraska State Patrol succeeded in getting Matt Livers, a distant relative of the Stocks, to falsely confess and implicate a second man, Nick Sampson.  It was later determined the confession was coerced and the lie detector test had been improperly done.

The Douglas County CSI unit processed the crime scene at the request of Cass County officials.  With Livers and Sampson in jail, Kofoed claimed to have found a small trace of blood in a vehicle owned by Sampson’s brother.  The case fell apart when other evidence lead to the arrest and conviction of the real killers, a pair of teenagers from Wisconsin.

Later, a special prosecutor investigated how the victim’s blood ended up in a car unrelated to the case, leading to Kofoed’s conviction for evidence tampering.  He has since served his jail time and was released on probation.

Edwards’ legal team will argue in court revelations arising from the unrelated Murdock case must be considered when reviewing the evidence in the O’Grady murders.   The Murdock and Edwards investigations were going on simultaneously in 2006.

“If any member of the defense team employed by the government takes action which taints a trial with false or manufactured evidence it taints the whole trial,” Soucie said.  “The jury hasn’t gotten to hear the whole story.”

Small amounts of blood claimed to have been discovered in the trunk of Edwards’ car raise the most vexing questions, according the court filings. 

Days into the investigation, Kofoed ordered a second inspection of the Honda’s trunk and a second round of chemical tests for human blood on items removed from the Honda.

Sheriff's Dept. evidence photo showing Kofoed in the trunk of Edwards' car. (Douglas Co. Sheriff)

An evidence photo presented at the original murder trial shows Kofoed lying on his back in the trunk taking the photos. During an interview for an NET News documentary in 2007, he recalled locating the blood. While examining a rubber gasket along the edge of the trunk he claims he spotted “a darker stain.  It could have been grease.  We didn’t know what it was, we did a field test and it came back presumptive for blood.”  Kofoed also ordered second tests on a shovel and hedge clippers and previously undiscovered blood was found on those items as well.  The items were hand delivered by Kofoed to the University of Nebraska Medical Center DNA laboratory.   It was a perfect match to O’Grady’s DNA.

The evidence was essential to the prosecution theory that the teenager’s body had been removed from the scene in Edwards’ car.

(Read the original crime scene report filed by the Douglas County Sheriffs' CSI Team)

To Edwards’ legal team, discovery of another blood smear in a difficult-to-reach spot in a vehicle seems suspiciously similar to the tainted Murdock investigation. 

“Our allegation is that there are facts that point to a similar pattern, a similar type of conduct, that calls into question the reliability of certain evidence that was discovered,” Soucie said.

In a 2011 interview with NET News following his conviction, Kofoed specifically denied planting any evidence and specifically the blood in the trunk.  He said he welcomed a new court hearing where he could “lay this stuff out.” 

Edwards also argues his legal counsel in the original murder trial, Steve Lefler, had a conflict of interest because of the attorney’s personal friendship with Kofoed.  Lefler became the CSI’s defense attorney in the Murdock evidence tampering case while still representing Edwards in his appeal process. 

Soucie said “the arrangement was really unusual.  I’d say that’s an understatement.”

The motion filed on Edwards’ behalf claims Lefler’s questioning of the CSI personnel during the original murder trial “was noteworthy in failing to challenge ANY of the procedures regarding the collection and testing of blood from the Honda automobile, the hedge shears, shovel” and other evidence collected. (Emphasis from original document).

The original poster seeking clues in O'Grady's disappearance. (NET News)

Both the Douglas County Attorney and Nebraska’s Office of the Attorney General challenged Edwards’ accusations before the Nebraska Supreme Court when attempting to block Edwards’ motion for a new hearing.  They argued nothing about the points raised by Edwards justify rejecting the original verdict of second-degree murder.  Neither office would comment directly when asked about the allegations raised in the latest court filings.

Privately, law enforcement officials express frustration Edwards might get a new trial based on Kofoed’s misconduct in an unrelated case, since so much evidence seemed to point to O’Grady’s violent death in Edwards' bedroom.

The evidentiary hearing scheduled in March will not directly address the question of whether Edwards is guilty or innocent of murder.
“It’s based on a violation of the United States Constitution,” said Brian Munnelly, another member of Edwards’ defense team.  “The statute allows you to raise an allegation that a person’s constitutional rights have been violated.”