have killed the ryens. he was a convicted murderer. he had strangled to death a young woman and thrown her body into a canal. but san bernardino police waited 11 months before questioning lee furrow. and when they did, they never asked him about his missing ax. they also seemed to accept furrow s word that he didn t own any overalls. tom parker thinks he knows why. the coveralls in fact had been destroyed. a deputy had taken them and thrown them in a dumpster behind the sheriff s department to get rid of them because it was unfounded that they had been connected to the case. of course there had never been any blood testing or whatever to come to that conclusion. hile now raised this destruction of evidence with judge huff. in a criminal prosecution, the prosecution is required to turn over to the defense any evidence that might be considered exonerating. it s a rule. if the prosecution doesn t do it, then they have committed
later on, when they found the ryen station wagon in look beach, the first time it was inspected there were no cigarette butts. the second time, they suddenly found two cigarette butts. clearly, they had been taken from the hideout house. and there was the blood evidence connecting cooper to the murders. this small speck labeled a-41. a-41 was examined by sheriff s department criminalist daniel gregonis. gregonis was a rookie at the time. proper procedure is to do blind testing. you test something and you don t know what the other person s blood is, and you re trying to see whether it s that person or not. but gregonis waited until he had kevin cooper s blood type. gregonis originally found a-41 did not match kevin cooper, but then he changed notes to show that it did. so, in fact, the testing actually showed that the blood drop was not from somebody with kevin s blood type. other evidence prosecutors claim linked cooper to the murders was a bloody footprint on the ryens bed
for district attorney kottmeier, the motive behind the murders was now clear. cooper s motive was to get the hell out of chino hills. if he had to kill people to cover his escape, then he would. the killer seemed to be within reach. but then the trail went cold. on july 30th, 1983, almost two months after the brutal murders, the u.s. coast guard responded to a distress call near santa barbara. they arrived at a sailboat moored in a small marina, the scene of an alleged rape. when we got in the sheriff s station, the victim of the rape was walking by the wanted posters and saw cooper s wanted
san bernardino sheriff floyd tidwell took to the air waves. we have evidence in our possession that places kevin cooper at the crime scene. and we have other evidence that gives us cause to believe that kevin cooper was responsible for the murders. police patrolled on both sides of the california/mexico border today, seeking the escaped convict kevin cooper. tidwell launched one of the largest man hunts in state history, circulating photoing of cooper and the ryens stolen station wagon. there is growing fear in the california community of chino. i want to know what the state officials are going to do. as pressure mounted to apprehend cooper, police caught a break. we recovered the ryens station wagon from a church parking lot in long beach. cooper had used that car to escape.
case. when you re conducting an investigation, especially one as complex as this one, you essentially collect the evidence and let the evidence lead you to a suspect. what they did in this case was exactly the opposite. as word of the murders got out, the sheriff s department learned that kevin cooper had escaped, and that started what we refer to in law enforcement as tunnel vision. sheriff tidwell held a big press conference. they started with a suspect. and they didn t start collecting evidence to prove their theory. but if kevin cooper wasn t the killer, why did the hatchet sheath and the prison-issued tobacco found at larry lease s home link him to the murders? a couple of deputies went over to the lease house, walked through it, and really didn t