PLATTSMOUTH, Neb. — There was no reason for anyone to find Cass County murder victim Wayne Stock's blood inside a car owned by a Lincoln man.
That includes David Kofoed, the head of the Douglas County Crime Scene Investigation Unit who is on trial this week in Cass County District Court on a charge of tampering with physical evidence.
William Sampson's 1998 Ford Contour was never at the crime scene, some 30 miles away, near Murdock, Neb. The blood Kofoed reported finding in the brown, four-door Ford Contour defied logic after the 2006 slaying — just as it does four years later, a witness for the prosecution argued Tuesday.
That blood was the only physical evidence linking the killings of Stock and his wife, Sharmon, to a pair of Nebraska cousins jailed wrongly for months.
On Tuesday, Kofoed listened to the car's owner give detailed testimony about why it was illogical, if not impossible, for one of the two murder victims' blood to be found inside his car.
Will Sampson testified that he and his future wife spent Easter evening, April 16, inside their Lincoln apartment complex. No visitors that day. No one called. No friends, siblings or family relatives ever inquired about borrowing the car.
In fact, they never lent the car to anyone. That included his brother, Nicholas Sampson, and his cousin, Matthew Livers. Neither Livers nor Nicholas Sampson had ever driven in his car, he testified. The victims had never been inside his car, either.
Before he went to bed that night, Will Sampson had parked his car in his normal spot in the apartment complex parking lot. Hours later, the Stocks were found slain.
Almost from the beginning, Cass County Sheriff's Investigator Earl Schenck Jr. theorized that Sampson's Ford served as the getaway vehicle. Sampson had dropped his car off at Lincoln Auto Detail hours after the killings.
But there was never any evidence anyone borrowed the car to commit the murders, Sampson testified. His wife testified Tuesday that he was asleep the entire night. She went to bed about 1 a.m. He got up about 4:30 a.m.
He found his car in the same stall, his seat and rear-view mirror unadjusted. He did not notice any shotgun shells. No weapons. No evidence of blood.
“Did you find any evidence that the car was mysteriously taken in the middle of the night?” co-special prosecutor Adam Sipple asked.
“No,” Sampson testified.
Another prosecution witness, Matt Hale, testified Tuesday that the cleaning had been in the works for at least a month. Hale's brother offered it as a favor to Sampson, who gave him daily rides to work. Hale testified that he found no evidence that the car had been used in the murder. Spent shotgun shells? Ammunition? Guns? Blood?
Hale saw none, he testified. He later gave the vacuum bag to police investigators, who also found nothing.
Sampson and his wife signed a form to let authorities seize his car for forensics testing. Soon after, Nebraska State Patrol Investigator Bill Lambert called. Sampson learned that a presumptive chemcial test administered by Kofoed's unit had given off a positive reaction. Lambert didn't offer details about the test.
Sampson didn't ask more questions. He agreed to let Douglas County CSI keep his car for more tests.
“(Lambert) asked if they could cut out samples of the carpet for testing,” he testified. “I agreed.”
Contact the writer:
444-1056, john.ferak@owh.com
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