"DOUGLAS COUNTY’S DIRECTOR OF CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATIONS WALKED OUT OF A FEDERAL COURTHOUSE THURSDAY SMILING AND RELIEVED AT BEING FOUND NOT GUILTY OF FOUR CRIMINAL CHARGES. COME MONDAY, DAVID KOFOED WILL BE BACK IN COURT BATTLING ANOTHER CRIMINAL CHARGE FILED IN CONNECTION WITH HIS INVESTIGATION OF A DOUBLE SLAYING. HE IS SCHEDULED FOR ARRAIGNMENT IN CASS COUNTY DISTRICT COURT, WHERE HE IS CHARGED WITH TAMPERING WITH PHYSICAL EVIDENCE, AN ALLEGATION THAT WASN’T ADDRESSED DURING THE FEDERAL TRIAL."
REPORTER JOHN FERAK: OMAHA WORLD-HERALD. (Wikipedia informs us that "The Omaha World-Herald, based in Omaha, Nebraska, is the primary daily newspaper of Nebraska, as well as portions of southwest Iowa.")
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BACKGROUND: (David) Kofoed's work came into question after his 2006 investigation into the slaying of a rural Cass County couple, Wayne and Sharmon Stock. Detectives zeroed in on the couple's nephew and his cousin, but found no physical evidence tying the two to the killings. They managed to get a confession from the nephew, but he retracted it the next day. A day later, Kofoed said he found a drop of one of the victims' blood in a car linked to the suspects that had already been combed over by another forensic investigator. The suspects were charged with murder and jailed for several months before being released because prosecutors determined the confession was unreliable and didn't fit the facts of the case. A man and woman from Wisconsin eventually pleaded guilty to murdering the couple and are serving life prison terms. The FBI began investigating Kofoed after the slain couple's nephew filed a lawsuit alleging civil rights violations. The agency's findings led authorities to charge Kofoed with evidence tampering in April. During his trial, Kofoed blamed the speck of blood found in the car on accidental contamination. But Cass County District Judge Randall Rehmeier said he didn't buy it, and that the evidence showed Kofoed intentionally planted the blood in the car...Kofoed has not been charged in any other investigation. He remains free on bond, but is due back in court in May for sentencing. He faces up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Kofoed has not responded to a request for comment made to his attorney, Steve Lefler, who said Kofoed may appeal...Before issuing his verdict, Rehmeier said there were similarities between that investigation and one in which a man, Ivan Henk, was convicted of murdering his young son, whose body was never found. In both cases, there were confessions by the suspects and a lack of physical evidence to corroborate them until Kofoed found a speck of blood that had previously been overlooked, the judge said. (Associated Press);
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"Douglas County’s director of crime scene investigations walked out of a federal courthouse Thursday smiling and relieved at being found not guilty of four criminal charges," Omaha World-Herald story by reporter John Ferak, published on September 12, 2009, began, under the heading, "Kofoed goes back to court Monday."
"Come Monday, David Kofoed will be back in court battling another criminal charge filed in connection with his investigation of a double slaying," the story continued.
"He is scheduled for arraignment in Cass County District Court, where he is charged with tampering with physical evidence, an allegation that wasn’t addressed during the federal trial.
Special prosecutor Clarence Mock said he will frame his case much differently than how the U.S. Attorney’s Office tried the federal case.
Mock said he will weave together circumstantial evidence to show that Kofoed planted or manufactured the blood evidence he collected from a car that later was determined to have no connection to the slayings.
Before Kofoed’s trial in federal court, U.S. Attorney Joe Stecher agreed to a defense stipulation that the prosecution not argue that Kofoed planted or manufactured evidence.
Based on the single drop of blood that Kofoed said he found, the Cass County Attorney kept two cousins, Matthew Livers and Nicholas Sampson, locked up for months on murder charges, even after DNA evidence linked the killings to a pair of Wisconsin teenagers.
Trying Kofoed could cost Cass County in excess of $100,000 and take up to a month, partly because the testimony of expert witnesses could be necessary, Mock said.
The cost could have an impact on whether Mock decides to take the case to trial, he said. He plans to meet with representatives of the FBI, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Cass County Attorney’s Office in coming weeks to make sure they still are committed to the case.
Federal prosecutors focused exclusively on a series of reports and evidence logs that Kofoed admitted misdating.
“There is no doubt that Mr. Kofoed falsified his reports; the question is why,” Mock said Friday. “I believe it’s highly likely that it was an intentional plant. Or the second thought is he made a series of horrible sophomoric mistakes, so he has to protect his own ego and make sure that his public reputation in law enforcement would be protected.”
Mock took copious notes during Kofoed’s federal jury trial and said he wants to disprove Kofoed’s testimony that the blood he collected from the car was the result of accidental contamination.
In July, Mock produced testimony from an FBI special agent during a hearing in Cass County that Kofoed had opened a sealed bag containing Wayne Stock’s bloody shirt. Kofoed wrote his initials on the package but didn’t indicate when or why he opened it. Kofoed also didn’t write a report about opening the package, which would have been standard procedure.
Kofoed later told the FBI that he might have opened the package in the presence of Cass County Attorney Nathan Cox in July 2006. But Cox, in a separate interview, told the FBI that he did not recall seeing Kofoed open the package, the FBI agent testified.
The FBI agent said her probe into the Murdock case found that no other packages of evidence in the Stocks’ slayings had been opened and resealed without specific reasons.
“Again, there is no report from Dave Kofoed, and he doesn’t date the shirt,” Mock said. “There is no explanation why he’s even going in that bag.”
Unlike federal prosecutors’ strategy, Mock plans to focus on the early days and events of the homicide investigation and actions by Kofoed and other law enforcement personnel. That was the time period before investigators uncovered evidence that the Stocks were killed during a random farmhouse burglary by two Wisconsin teenagers driving through Nebraska. The two — Gregory Fester and Jessica Reid — eventually pleaded guilty and are serving life sentences.
Mock said the events of those early days will help show that Kofoed had motive and intent to falsify blood evidence for use against Livers and Sampson.
Mock said key dates in 2006 are:
April 17: The Stocks’ bodies are found in their bloody farmhouse.
April 19: Kofoed oversees a six-hour inspection of a suspected getaway car at his agency’s impound lot. About 45 pieces of evidence are gathered for forensics testing. However, no blood, DNA or other evidence from that search links the car to the slayings.
April 25: Toward the end of an 11-hour interrogation, Livers implicates himself and Sampson, saying they used the impounded car to make their getaway. Still, no evidence links the car to the case, puzzling investigators.
“The crime scene had been saturated with blood,” Mock said. “All of them became very frustrated. It couldn’t seem possible when they did not find any DNA evidence in the car.”
April 26: A tearful Livers recants his confession. Investigators tell him they don’t believe him.
April 27: Kofoed asks a CSI technician to return to the impound lot to photograph the back seat of the car for signs of gunshot residue or evidence that a shotgun was thrown into the back seat after the slayings.
Kofoed goes with his partner and says he’s conducting filter paper tests under the dashboard. Kofoed shows his colleague a piece of filter paper that contained a chemical reaction for blood.
Back at the crime lab, Kofoed doesn’t log the bloody filter paper into evidence, which would have been routine.
May 8: Kofoed writes reports indicating that he found the blood in the car that day. The report fails to mention anyone else being present during the search.
May 9: Kofoed sends the blood and two other pieces of evidence to the University of Nebraska Medical Center DNA lab, where a test confirms that the blood contained Wayne Stock’s DNA.
“Keep in mind, Kofoed is in control of all the blood evidence, which is why these kinds of cases are so fraught with peril to innocent people,” Mock said.
Mock said Kofoed’s conduct in the Murdock case seems to mirror how he collected blood evidence used to convict Ivan Henk. Kofoed has denied any wrongdoing in that case.
In May, a lawyer for convicted killer Henk petitioned the court alleging that Kofoed planted blood evidence to corroborate a statement that Henk had given investigators earlier the same day.
Kofoed reported finding small amounts of Brendan Gonzalez’s blood inside a trash bin at a Bellevue apartment complex five months after Henk’s 4-year-old son disappeared.
The boy’s body was never found. Henk is serving a life sentence for his murder.
“The Ivan Henk case is highly suspicious,” Mock said. “I am still looking at that, obviously.”"
Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;
