Post by Any of N on Jun 18, 2017 19:21:26 GMT
I've finally been getting around to listening to the Casefile podcasts. The interview with Paul Holes addresses the paint chip evidence. Holes is not impressed. Here are two key passages (Casefiles Poscast, Case 53, Bonus Interview #2), with emphasis added by me.
Holes addresses the blue paint chip evidence which was found in vacuum sweepings "in one of the rooms" of one of the attack homes. Using "crude qualitative methodologies," the forensics lab determined it was architectural paint. Starting around the 2:25 mark, Holes says this.
Around the 5:12 mark, addressing all of the paint evidence in the case, Holes adds...
He couldn't be more blunt, could he? To use a current expression, the blue paint fleck evidence is and has always been a big nothing burger. We shouldn't waste another moment on it. I know I'll try to avoid it.
Holes addresses the blue paint chip evidence which was found in vacuum sweepings "in one of the rooms" of one of the attack homes. Using "crude qualitative methodologies," the forensics lab determined it was architectural paint. Starting around the 2:25 mark, Holes says this.
Part of the problem with that evidence is where [the offender] is most intimately in contact with the environment and with the victim during the sexual assault, they're not finding those blue paint chips. And you would think that if he had those on his person they would be there in greater preponderance than someplace else where he's just wandering around the house.
This is part of the theory of dealing with trace evidence. The tendency to recognize is that the house that he was in where that attack occurred was brand new. It had just been built, and all the houses on that court were under construction. They were just wood studs. This is an active construction site. I can tell you having been somebody who has done vacuum sweepings, done trace analysis in the lab, that evidence has no weight whatsoever. You cannot attribute that evidence to the offender.
This is part of the theory of dealing with trace evidence. The tendency to recognize is that the house that he was in where that attack occurred was brand new. It had just been built, and all the houses on that court were under construction. They were just wood studs. This is an active construction site. I can tell you having been somebody who has done vacuum sweepings, done trace analysis in the lab, that evidence has no weight whatsoever. You cannot attribute that evidence to the offender.
Around the 5:12 mark, addressing all of the paint evidence in the case, Holes adds...
Almost 40 years have passed. That trace evidence, whatever he had that possibly could have been the source of that [the paint] is long gone. We will never be able to answer, use it, for anything. I don't look at that at all. Forensically, there's no relevance to it. Investigatively, it doesn't help me at all.