The Audit Is F’d Up – Part OneRecapWritten by Brandi AbbottLast week’s episode left off with us learning that the audit of the SBI Crime Lab revealed 230 mishandled cases. This week F’d Up will delve into the audit, but first… an important content warning for sexual abuse and child abuse.First in the audit, they took a sample of cases from 1989 to 1991 and found 30 cases consistent with the scenario in Greg Taylor’s case. Then they reviewed all 15,419 files from 1987 to 2003, looking specifically for cases that had similar language to Greg’s case such as “indications of blood” or “chemical indications for the presence of blood”. Out of that search criteria, they pulled 932 files. Each of those files were thoroughly reviewed and 230 of them contained at least one instance of “where the lab notes reflected that a positive presumptive test for the presence of blood was followed by a confirmatory test of which results were negative, inconclusive or no result.” None of these had the negative test results recorded anywhere except in the analyst’s lab notes. In 40 of these cases, law enforcement was either not able to identify a suspect or the suspect wasn’t charged so they did not result in wrongful convictions, and in 20 additional cases there was either a dismissal or the suspect was found not guilty.The next phase of the audit concentrated on confusing language and they found 105 cases similar to Greg’s. Nine of the cases resulted in dismissals or not guilty verdicts and in the remaining cases, the defendants had served their time or been released.The next phase was “misleading reports.” There were 36 cases that contained reports that said no other tests were conducted but they had been with negative or inconclusive results. Three of these cases had defendants who were still in prison at that time. The final phase of the audit was “misrepresented final reports” which involves cases where the actual results of the confirmatory tests were not reflective of the results contained in the lab results. There were five cases in this category and… they were all handled by Duane Deaver.According to the audit report, not all of these cases resulted in a wrongful conviction but a number of cases warranted a reinvestigation. The recommendation was that if anyone wanted to look into these cases it was up to the defendant, their attorney, or the prosecution to determine whether or not the case was worth reopening. Attorney General Roy Cooper received the report, distributed it to DAs across the state, and then released it to the public.One of the names on that list was a man named Derrick Allen who lived with his girlfriend and her two year-old daughter in 1998. On February 9th, 1998 his girlfriend went to work, leaving him at home with her daughter and a woman who was staying with them named Kia Ward. Around half an hour after his girlfriend left, Derrick called 911 because the baby had passed out. When the EMTs arrived, the baby had no pulse and was dead. The EMTs found what seemed to be blood inside the left leg of the baby’s onesie. She had complained about pain in her leg and passed out after being taking out of a bath. The autopsy revealed abrasions or lacerations to her vaginal orifice. Shortly after, Derrick was arrested and in winter of 1998, he was indicted with first degree sex offense, felony child abuse, and first degree murder.***When the audit was released people were rightfully angry. Many of the DAs, defense attorneys, and other people in the justice system publicly spoke out against the SBI Crime Lab. AG Roy Cooper said, “The lab can not accept attitudes that are not open to the possibility that a mistake has been made. It can not ignore criticisms and suggestions from the outside.” Spoiler alert: it did. Some lab employees completely ignored the report. Also, Duane Deaver was not the only analyst who tested the spot on Greg Tayler’s truck. Deaver’s superior, Jed Taub, assisted with the analysis. Duane Deaver is talked about most because of “The Staircase” which had that video of him doing his “science”, but Jess says no one ever talks about the woman in the video. Suzi Barker had seven cases mentioned in the audit. Jed Taub retired in 2004 after being with the SBI for 30 years, and was working with the Pitt County Sheriff’s Office as a forensic investigator when the audit was happening in 2010. Taub claimed that they didn’t report the negative result of a confirmatory test because it’s misleading, and that the tests didn’t matter because they couldn’t be sure it wasn’t blood. He said everyone was making a big deal over nothing. He only reported negative tests if the first test was negative. Taub had nine cases mentioned in the audit but basically blamed any “misunderstandings” on attorneys. SBI Special Agent Jennifer Elwell who has been mentioned on previous episodes shared Taub’s viewpoint and said the audit was just “one...
