reporter: adkin s defense attorney neil mcelroy couldn t agree more. my first instinct when i got the case was, it s a 1982 case, there must ve been a dna hit. something has been discovered, some dna match. and of course, there was nothing. reporter: a point he emphasized in his opening argument at russell adkins trial. law enforcement lost or destroyed several pieces of evidence. reporter: neil mcelroy and his partner, ronnie wingate, drilled into the prosecution witnesses, challenging their 30-year-old memories. but you didn t remember where it was found? no, i couldn t tell you the exact spot. i don t remember. i mean it was 30-some years ago. reporter: as for the original detective, bob bratton? the defense got him to concede just how much evidence was missing. as it relates to the clothes, the pool cue, any photos, the map of the scene that was made that night, all that information
reporter: brittany stork picked her way through the ice and snow into the courthouse where russell adkins, the man accused of killing her mother, was on trial. she had vowed to sit through every moment. so too had russell adkins friends. they took turns packing the courtroom benches behind the bouncer. everybody got together and said, we got to go in there and show these people that russell would never do that. reporter: months before, the same friends had thrown a benefit to help raise money for the bouncer s legal fund. people just brought in food. there were probably five different people that got up and sang and played music, and just so many people that really have nothing. but they all pulled together, and whatever they had to offer, they did. reporter: vera wondered if her former lover was being targeted because he was a biker. but she says even that doesn t matter. whether he s a nice man or whether he s a jerk, the bottom line is there was not enough evidence to
whose husband left the front door unlocked of all the things that could happen, guys. he left the front door unlocked and that s how they entered the home and that s when she was pistol whipped, shot three times and frankly executed by the depraved human being. you know, they got rid of the electric chair in indiana in 19 the 985, idp 1995 and they should bring it back for the three animals that killed amanda blackburn. we talk about surveillance cameras catching people. i imagine neighborhood surveillance cameras on this one. the d.n.a., the same one that caught the dc mansion murder the d.n.a. on the murder. this was the d.n.a. hit. absolutely. that is one of the things and i heard the authorities out there talking about it. d.n.a. data bank is essential. you get locked up for a crime. felony, specifically. get your d.n.a. it s on file it s always beneficial and helpful. those videos were helpful when they went to that bank
left, they sent it to the state police lab. they got a dna hit, at least one of the escapees in that home yesterday. and then this morning, in a field somewhere nearby they found more physical evidence. they won t tell us exactly what. but this led them to really close in on an area where they believe the two were and they always believed they re together. they have no evidence that they split up. close in on this area that led to that 3:45 encounter that ended with a man they believe to be richard matt dead. steve? john what do you know about this reports here of a second round of gunfire? so two different episodes of gunfire? maybe what do we know about this second round? essentially all we know is that law enforcement officials are telling us they re that a second round has been heard. we don t know what it is. we are saying that it is part of their continuing search for david sweat. they believe he s there.
who i have enormous respect for the debate with scalia about the meaning of the want requirement and whether he s inventing that or others have invented that overtime. let me get to the reasonableness argument. i personally am not particularly thrilled by the idea that the state has everybody s dna in this day and age. let me give you a perspective. i have been involved in this dna database implementation from the beginning. when they were sequencing the genomes about the ethical and social implications and what you may or may not do. i watched the statutes being implemented on the commissioner. think about this. our statute like statutes all across the country said all you can do with the dna hit is look at some crime and the sample and