Evidence Collection Protocol

I’m using a document I downloaded from the Texas Attorney General’s website. It’s dated 1998, and I think the fact it’s still available means that it’s still the good word. It basically lays out the procedures and protocols for collecting evidence from a sexual assault or molestation victim. The link is at the end.


As far as I can figure out, this is the timeline we’re looking at:
Supposed incident was Sept 1^st.

Next day:

Police were notified

Some time afterwards:

Officer David Milligan shows up at house to investigate

Sept 7^th:

Ruiz interviews mother and child.

Sept 10^th:

Interview at the CAC with child, Father, and Aunt.

So your kid comes home and tells you she’s been molested. What do you do? Well, apparently you call the authorities to begin an investigation and then you don’t do shit; just sit back and wait for the police to start their paper trail. What, that’s not what you would do?

I don't know if Mom rushed the child to the hospital after she said she was molested, but going off the limited information that's publicly available it doesn't appear that she did. Let’s say she calls the police and leaves it at that. Did they wait till the end of the three day weekend to start doing their fucking jobs? I don’t have a date for this but eventually an officer named David Milligan shows up, apparently at the house, speaks to Mom, but discovers that the child is not there.

So he makes his report without ever speaking to the child, which then wends it’s way through HPD . Finally, Mom and the child are called in to speak to Officer Ruiz. This happened the 7^th. They’ve allowed 6 days to pass. How the fuck is anybody supposed to find any kind of physical evidence after a week? Although I don’t see any mention of this at the trial, we know from the appeal that Ruiz actually interviewed the little girl that day. I’ve been told (but can’t verify) that this interview WAS recorded but somehow, magically, the audio malfunctioned. It just decided not to work that day, and was not discovered until it was too late to try again. Supposedly the mother also gave a written statement, but the police decided that it was illegible. Now, Ruiz testified that everything the child said at the second interview was consistent with what she had said at the first, but how the fuck can we know?

[Prosecutor]: Okay. And from what [the complainant] told Fiona [Stevenson], was that consistent with what she had told you just three days before?

[Defense Counsel]: Objection, Your Honor, hearsay.

[The Court]: Overruled. You may answer that question? [sic]

[Officer Ruiz]: It was absolutely consistent with everything that [the complainant] told me.

Apparently everything from that day was scrapped and they were sent home for three days before taking another crack at it on the 10^th. That's 9 days after the supposed incident. Why did it take so long? Texas’ own Evidence Collection Protocol states that:

Evidence from the offender and the crime scene often may be found on the body and clothing of the patient. When immediate medical attention is received, the chances increase that some type of injury or physical evidence may be found. Conversely, the chances of finding injury or physical evidence decrease in direct proportion to the length of time which elapses between the assault and the examination.

If they really, truly believed an assault had taken place, they should have had that child at the CAC Sept 2. They could have done a kit on her, one on her clothes, snatched the bed sheets from Coy’s house and built their case on that! But they chose not to. They chose to wait. And wait. And wait. Why?

I don't generally quote Myspace pages, but this has been around for quite awhile and is supposedly written by a friend of the Coy family. Take it with a grain of salt:

...Anyway, Maribel, after 10 days had passed, took
her daughter to CPS.. but they told her that because it had been over a
week since this alledgedly happened, and without any physical evidence,
that there wasn't much they could do. So she told the CPS investigator,
that Carlos had fathered a child with a 14 yr old, when he was 22...

Emphasis is mine. So according to the internet, the CAC wasn't even going to pursue this case until they found out about Coy's child with Odom. Is it true? Who knows. Is it believable? Hell fucking yeah it is.

It looks like Mom didn’t show up for this interview at CAC; instead it was the child’s Father and Aunt. We know that attending the interview were Szczgielski, the child’s therapist, Fiona Stephenson, the interviewer, and Officer Heidi Ruiz. The Investigating Officer. This is her second interview with the child. Texas Evidence Protocol clearly states:

As few persons as possible should be present during the medical interview/evaluation or examination/evidence collection process. Attending personnel should consist of the examining medical personnel and an authorized support person. Those persons involved in the investigation, such as law enforcement or child protective agency representatives, should not be in attendance during these procedures.

That bold type is in the document, I did not add that. They are very clear that investigative personnel SHOULD NOT be present for the interview. It may seem to contradict itself here, where it says:

Ideally, the interview should be conducted by the team approach. Law enforcement and a Children's Protective Services representative may do the interview together, so that the trauma of multiple interviews is curtailed.

But Law Enforcement already had their interview, three days earlier. Statements were made; why was Ruiz’ presence required again? Was she afraid that the kid couldn’t hold up the story without her? WHAT THE FUCK?

Now, according to the DA’s office, there is no physical evidence available for testing; we got that from last week’s letter. Even though TECP states that

Evidence from the offender and the crime scene often may be found on the body and clothing of the patient. When immediate medical attention is received, the chances increase that some type of injury or physical evidence may be found. Conversely, the chances of finding injury or physical evidence decrease in direct proportion to the length of time which elapses between the assault and the examination.

My question is, why? If they really believed this child had been abused, why did they choose to delay the interviews and examinations? Did any of them believe that they would use any actual evidence in the case? Or did they know that they could get a conviction just as easily using nothing but words?

http://www.scribd.com/doc/33106215/Coy-Trial-Habeas-Corpus

http://law.justia.com/cases/texas/first-court-of-appeals/2003/79743.html

https://www.oag.state.tx.us/AG_Publications/pdfs/evidence_collection.pdf

http://www.myspace.com/spmofficalfanclub/blog/472085400