Trial ends without testimony

PLATTSMOUTH, Neb. The trial of Douglas County's top crime scene investigator came to a sudden end Friday when David Kofoed's attorney decided not to allow him to testify in his own defense against allegations that he tampered with evidence in a murder case.

“This case reached a point where I was worried about (Kofoed's) emotional state,” said attorney Steve Lefler. “Not that he's crazy, I'm not trying to say that. Dave is stressed. I don't think Dave has slept two hours in the last week.”

Lefler blazed through about 12 witnesses Friday in less than four hours, bringing the trial to an end after one week, two weeks earlier than expected.

Cass County District Judge Randall Rehmeier said he will announce his verdict Tuesday.

During Friday's closing arguments, special prosecutor Clarence Mock told the judge that Kofoed ran the Douglas County crime lab under his own system of justice: making sure “the guilty stay guilty.”

Mock outlined what may have motivated Kofoed to plant or manufacture blood evidence in the 2006 shotgun slayings of a Murdock, Neb., farm couple and an unrelated case, the 2003 slaying of 4-year-old Brendan Gonzalez, which the prosecution raised to suggest a pattern of behavior:

An unsympathetic defendant. A brutal killing. A confession or incriminating statement. Assurance from detectives that they had identified the logical suspect or suspects.

Murder cases with just one problem: no physical evidence.

Kofoed was known to work alone late into the night at the crime lab that he ran.

A speck of farmer Wayne Stock's blood was found on a piece of Kofoed's filter paper that he allegedly used to swab a car that authorities claimed was used by two cousins following the slayings of Stock and his wife. The speck of blood was the only evidence among 420 items that linked the cousins to the Stocks' deaths.

Both men, Nicholas Sampson and Matthew Livers, had been jailed after Livers confessed and implicated Sampson as his accomplice. They were later freed. The real killers, Jessica Reid and Greg Fester of Wisconsin, both pleaded guilty and are serving life sentences.

During his closing remarks, defense attorney Lefler argued that special prosecutor Mock failed to meet the court's threshold of proving the case beyond a reasonable doubt. The prosecution's case was circumstantial, he said. No eyewitness testified to observing Kofoed planting or manufacturing any blood evidence.

Lefler urged the judge to acquit Kofoed.

“Can you put a black mark of a convicted felon or a black mark of a dirty cop?” upon this man, Lefler asked the judge. “We're all human, we all make mistakes. If you err, err on the side of mercy. Give the defendant the benefit of the doubt, like you are supposed to. All they have is a theory that Mr. Kofoed is a bad cop.”

Lefler offered several explanations of how Wayne Stock's blood got into a car that later proved to have no connection to the slayings in Murdock.

Lefler told the court cross-contamination is possible at every crime scene and happens all the time, including at bloody murder scenes such as the Murdock slayings. Lefler even offered another theory: “It is more than likely that Matthew Livers and Nicholas Sampson were somehow responsible” for the killings and used the car where Kofoed found the blood.

Lefler also suggested that the lead investigators who obtained the false confession from Livers had more motivation to plant the blood than Kofoed. He argued that Darnell Kush, a Douglas County CSI employee who contacted the FBI with allegations that Kofoed planted fingerprint evidence in other cases, also had motive.

“Is it possible that Darnell Kush set up her boss and put a little dot of blood on there?” Lefler asked.

“We are not really disputing the facts, it's the inferences drawn. It is just unfair he has had to go through this, your honor.

“Mr. Kofoed, unfortunately, is ruined by what the federal government has done to him,” Lefler argued. “We've taken a good man and knocked his legs out from under him.”

During his closing statements, the special prosecutor argued that Kofoed's desire to produce a phony piece of blood evidence is the only logical, reasonable explanation for how Wayne Stock's blood ended up inside a Lincoln man's tan1998 Ford Contour.

“That car was clean as a whistle when it got to Douglas County CSI,” Mock told the judge. “There was never any blood in that Ford Contour.”

Mock reminded the judge that Kofoed's partner, C.L. Retelsdorf, testified that he never saw Kofoed testing the car even thought that's what Kofoed told a grand jury last year.

Kofoed has said he re-examined the car one week after an initial six-hour search that he supervised came up empty.

“Cross-contamination is not like a mist or a vapor that permeates around a crime scene,” Mock said. “That is not the way the world works.

“This case is not about whether the defendant has done some good things. It is undeniable he does some good things, but this defendant has a penchant. He is going to be someone to add to the evidence to make sure that the guilty stay guilty.”

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