Henk loses appeal

Ivan Henk, confessed killer of his 4-year-old son, lost another round in court Thursday.

A judge rejected Henk's appeal, which alleged that Douglas County's chief crime scene investigator planted blood evidence against him. Despite his guilty plea, Henk contended that the alleged actions of that investigator affected the outcome of his case.

Sarpy County District Judge Max Kelch, in a five-page ruling, said Henk's 2005 guilty plea trumped his recent attempt to argue for post-conviction relief in the 2003 slaying of Brendan Gonzalez of Plattsmouth.

"Even if the conclusions alleged by (Henk) were deemed factual," Kelch wrote, "the allegations do not sustain (Henk's) burden to allege specific facts which would entitle defendant to the relief sought."

Douglas County CSI director, David Kofoed, reported finding a perfect DNA profile of Brendan on garbage pulled out of a trash bin in Bellevue some five months after the boy disappeared. Kofoed's discovery corroborated a day-old confession by Henk, already jailed in the slaying. When Brendan's blood was found in the trash, Kofoed and his team already had recovered the boy's blood from a Plattsmouth house and Henk's car.

Henk later pleaded guilty to killing his son and in 2005 received a life prison sentence. Henk's attorney, Jerry Soucie, had asked the court to throw out the conviction, arguing that Kofoed planted evidence to bolster the state's case -- a claim Kofoed denies.

Kofoed stands accused by the state of mishandling blood evidence in an unrelated case, the the April 2006 shotgun slayings of Wayne and Sharmon Stock of rural Murdock, Neb.

The CSI director was acquitted in September of four federal charges stemming from that case: two felonies, falsifying records and mail fraud; and two misdemeanor counts of depriving someone of civil rights.

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