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Tags dna evidence , Leah Freeman , murder cases , Nicholas McGuffin , Oregon cases

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Old 3rd December 2019, 09:05 AM   #1
Chris_Halkides
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Leah Freeman/Nicholas McGuffin murder case

Fifteen year old Leah Freeman was murdered in 2000 in the state of Oregon, but the body lay undiscovered for more than a month. Her eighteen year old boyfriend Nicholas McGuffin was convicted of manslaughter in 2011 on a 10-2 jury vote. There were no eyewitnesses to the crime, and there no forensic evidence against him. It was unclear to me what the motive was. He was said to be talking fast and acting jumpy the night of her disappearance, but it is acknowledged that he used meth, which makes me wonder if his behavior was the result of using this drug. His conviction was just overturned on the strength of DNA evidence from a bloody shoe:

“We consulted with a DNA expert,” [Janis] Puracal said. “She reviewed the charts, graphs, and raw data from the DNA testing in 2000. She was the one who saw that there was unidentified male DNA on both of the victim’s shoes that had not been reported by the state lab. There was unidentified male DNA in the victim’s [spilled] blood and it was never reported.”

Several things stood out for me in the investigations. One is luminol.

"Police then reexamined McGuffin's Mustang, even though it had already been sprayed with a chemical called luminal to test for the presence of blood during the initial investigation in 2000. 'There was nothing in there,' said police chief Mark Dannels. 'It had been cleaned. It had been wiped.'"

Did Dannels see streak marks or anything else that indicated a clean-up had occurred? If not, then this sounds like the absence of evidence being claimed to be evidence. Besides this car, an old Mustang, there was also a Kia that Mr. McGuffin had borrowed, and that car had been cleaned, but it is unclear when or by whom.

There is also the question of a paint chip found on the victim's clothing. "Microtrace found several hairs and a gray paint chip on Freeman's shirt. The paint chip did not match paint on either McGuffin's Mustang or his parents' Thunderbird." Based on this, the defense cast suspicion on other people.

A third thing that I noticed was that two of the witnesses seem to have altered their descriptions of events. One initially said she had seen a car pull up next to Ms. Freeman, but some details did not match. I do not have an opinion yet on the witnesses.
EDT
This case was mentioned here in an old thread. The Charles Smith forensic blog has a recent entry. My initial impression is that this was a weak case in 2011 that is weaker in 2019; however, I don't really have a strong opinion on his factual innocence or guilt yet.
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Last edited by Chris_Halkides; 3rd December 2019 at 10:53 AM.
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Old 3rd December 2019, 09:37 AM   #2
Matthew Best
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I don't have anything to add, I just love the fact that his name is McGuffin.
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Old 6th December 2019, 11:34 AM   #3
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Was this another case of the forensic lab that withheld DNA evidence being too closely aligned with the police/prosecution? The blog seemed to imply that.
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Old 6th December 2019, 01:59 PM   #4
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more data would help

It is a little bit difficult to tell without more information. The articles that I have read implied that the peak heights in the electropherogram (which has a complex relationship to the concentration of DNA in the sample) were small and that the lab had discretion about whether or not to report the information. It would be interesting to find out what this lab did with potentially inculpatory DNA evidence having the same peak heights. If they provided inculpatory but not exculpatory information, one could be confident that there was a problem.
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Old 18th December 2019, 01:27 PM   #5
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It takes a village

Mr. McGuffin has been released and will not be retried. "Lawyer Janis Puracal championed the case from the very beginning. She told FOX 12 that she examined the case and the timeline of events and McGuffin’s whereabouts the night of Leah’s death raised red flags for her...Puracal estimates that at least 20 people have worked on the case."
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