Questions surround Kofoed case

For much of the last decade, law enforcement authorities from Red Oak, Iowa, to Chadron, Neb., called on one man when they needed help with a major investigation.

They wanted David Kofoed and his Douglas County Crime Scene Investigation Unit.

Kofoed's work shored up two convictions in the slaying of a Ruby Tuesday restaurant employee in Omaha. He secured convictions in the slayings of five people inside a Norfolk bank.

In April 2006, Kofoed found the only piece of physical evidence that linked the slayings of a Murdock farm couple to two men being held in the Cass County Jail.

But that evidence — a tiny stain of blood found in what turned out not to be the getaway car — has put the investigator in a different role: defendant.

On Monday, Kofoed, 53, goes on trial in Cass County District Court in Plattsmouth, facing a charge of evidence tampering. Kofoed, who was found not guilty in an earlier federal court trial, denies any wrongdoing.

Questions and answers about the case:

Q: From what case does this trial stem?

A: The April 17, 2006, shotgun slayings of Wayne and Sharmon Stock and the subsequent jailing of two cousins, Matthew Livers and Nicholas Sampson, who were held for several months before being exonerated.

Q: What's the charge?

A: Kofoed faces one felony count of tampering with physical evidence. Special prosecutor Clarence Mock alleges that Kofoed planted blood in the car believed to have been used by the two men.

Q: Why the special prosecutor?

A: Cass County Attorney Nathan Cox asked that a special prosecutor be appointed. Cox prosecuted the original case, and Cass County is a defendant in the two cleared men's civil lawsuits. The judge appointed Mock, of Oakland, Neb., who has served as a special prosecutor in other cases.

Q: How was the original case built? Didn't one man confess?

A: The case was based in part on what turned out to be a false confession from Livers, the victims' nephew, and in part on the blood Kofoed said he found in the suspected getaway vehicle.

Q: How were the innocent men freed?

A: Evidence found at the scene of the slayings — a marijuana pipe and an engraved gold ring — excluded the men's DNA. But there was a match to a pair of Wisconsin teenagers who'd never met Livers or Sampson. Those teens, Greg Fester and Jessica Reid, pleaded guilty to the slayings and received life sentences. They said they killed the farm couple during a series of burglaries on a long road trip.

Q: Where are the innocent men now?

A: Sampson, 26, returned to Murdock, his hometown, got married and works construction in Lincoln. He filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Cass County Sheriff's Office, the Nebraska State Patrol, Kofoed and Douglas County. It is pending.

Livers, 32, moved to Texas with his parents, got married and works as a service technician for a Houston auto dealer. He also has filed a federal lawsuit.

Q: Hasn't Kofoed already been cleared?

A: The federal case and the state case are different. In federal court, Kofoed was found not guilty of mail fraud, falsification of records and civil rights violations. The U.S. attorney had accused Kofoed of intentionally misdating CSI investigative reports regarding his handling of the blood evidence.

Q: What is behind the state case?

A: The allegation is that Kofoed planted blood evidence on crime lab filter paper and said he found the blood in the suspected getaway car, owned by Nicholas Sampson's brother. Kofoed has said it would be absolutely ridiculous to plant a single speck of blood and then be the one to find it.

Q: The car didn't belong to either suspect. Why was it significant?

A: William Sampson's tan 1998 Ford Contour matched a general description of a car seen parked by a cemetery near the Stock farm. Sampson, who had the only keys and denied lending the car to anyone, had taken the car to a Lincoln auto detailing shop hours after the killings for a vacuuming and shampoo. Investigators wondered if that was to wash away blood evidence. No debris collected from the detail shop contained blood, DNA or other evidence. And at least one letter that witnesses reported seeing on a license plate was not on Sampson's license plate.

Q: How was the blood evidence obtained?

A: Two days after the slayings, Kofoed supervised a six-hour search of the car. No blood, DNA or other evidence was found. About a week later, Livers recanted his confession. The next day, Kofoed searched the car again. He produced a piece of filter paper that showed a positive reaction for blood, saying he found a sample under the dashboard. Kofoed's colleague, CSI investigator C.L. Retelsdorf, retested the same area but found no blood.

Q: What does Kofoed say?

A: Kofoed testified at his federal trial that cross-contamination of evidence likely led to crime scene blood being on the filter paper. Kofoed testified that the blood could have been transferred to the next filter paper in the box and that investigators wouldn't have known it.

Q: He worked for Douglas County. Why was Kofoed in Cass County?

A: About 20 other agencies regularly call on the Douglas County crime lab. Cases come most frequently from Sarpy County, the Omaha Fire Department, the Dodge County Sheriff's Office and the Bellevue, Papillion and La Vista Police Departments.

Q: Why does the prosecutor plan to bring up an unrelated case, the Plattsmouth murder of 4-year-old Brendan Gonzalez?

A: In that case, Kofoed said he scraped the bottom of a Bellevue trash bin with filter paper and found a perfect DNA profile of Brendan. This was five months after the time Ivan Henk is accused of dumping his son into the bin. Mock questions the discovery, saying the bin had been emptied at least 40 times in the prior five months, was exposed to the elements and contained an inch of water when Kofoed and another investigator processed the debris.

Q: What is Kofoed doing now?

A: Douglas County Sheriff Tim Dunning suspended Kofoed with pay after a federal grand jury indicted him April 22, 2009. Dunning has said he wants to reinstate Kofoed but won't decide until the Cass County case is resolved.

Q: What's happened to the CSI unit?

A: William Kaufhold, a 30-year Douglas County CSI veteran, has served as acting director. About a dozen other CSI technicians work in the unit, which continues to process cases from other agencies.

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