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I always get more information when reading. If there is anyone else like me here, (I shutter
), I have dictated the golakechelan interview with Sheriff Mike Harum. It appears to have posted at GLC website on March 30th, (unknown exactly when interview was recorded).
{My comments in blue}
I also attempted to italicize words that seemed to be stressed
Sheriff: {starting right in - the audio doesn't include the question} Well, they're continuing to due diligence on investigating that. A lot of new leads but nothing that has come to the conclusion of identifying a suspect and making an arrest. But the detectives work on it 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. And we are continuing to get some leads from the public through a lot of different avenues, obviously by phone and in person and as well as through the internet.
Reporter: I wanna ask about the internet in just a moment and social networking and the like. But in an investigation like this your always told, or {clinging coffee cup??} the community is told, "Gee we're awaiting lab work and da, da, dada." Lab work seems to take forever, how come?
Sheriff: Well, a lot of the lab work takes forever because of the complexity of the tests that they do. Now, we have had recently some great success with getting DNA returned to us in a speedy fashion because of the advances in technology there. Blood tests still take quite some time because they have to do certain tests to get that as well. What we do have to deal with at the state lab here in Washington is the backlog. Although this case is a priority, it still is in a list of other priorities throughout the state so we have to wait some times for our turn up to get the analysis done. We did get some evidence analyzed and returned to us. It didn't help us a whole lot. It does fit into the investigation to some degree, but as far as identifying a person that actually did this, it didn't do that yet. We are still waiting on some additional lab work that we are hoping to get back here in the next couple of weeks which may help us or may not help us... {reporter steps on last word(s)}
Reporter: In some instances deputies and/or folks from the Wenatchee Police Department who have been the lead, at least from a public relations standpoint on this, have been actually taking things, physically delivering things, trying to pick things up, speed the process up. It's going a long time.
Sheriff: Yes it has. It is frustrating but it is the process that we have to deal with. We have sent evidence over same day that we receive it and then go and pick it up when it's completed because that obviously speeds up the return for us. But a lot of things. Its a very complex investigation. We have 4 different agencies that are involved in it, that's why I created the task force to begin with when we originally got the call that she was hur.. she was missing. Umm so, and then of course finding her body in Douglas County is another issue in relationship to creating a multi-jurisdictional task force that helps us in hopefully concluding to an arrest. But these are very complex cases to investigate, especially when we don't have a witnesses. Obviously our only witness is MacKenzie Cowell who is dead. But as we look into these things, evidence that we look at is our witness to some degree. So, I think they've interviewed over 600 people now that may have something, or know something through this process. We are not prepared to identify anybody of interest yet or a suspect, but that's just part of these investigations. Again frustrating, as I'm sure it's very frustrating for the community to not have some resolution to this by now. But as I'm sure you are aware, as many in the public are aware, that some of these investigations go on for years before we are able to obtain enough to make an arrest.
Reporter: Its expensive.
Sheriff: It is very expensive. But, you know, that is what we are here to do. I do my best to try and reduce the cost as much as possible but we don't want to reduce the cost and jeopardize anything to do with the investigation. So we are doing our best to keep under those costs as well as making sure... {Reporter cutting him off}
Reporter: In some... in some instances investigations like this and homicide prosecution and on and on... have, I won't say bankrupt a county, but they've certainly not helped the bottom-line.
Sheriff: But there's some provisions at the state level that, you know if in fact we do get an arrest, the state will help us in assisting in covering the cost of the investigation as well as the prosecution. So, there is a fund available at the state level for capital crimes. So we have that to look forward to if in fact we do make an arrest.
Reporter: You mentioned social network, you mentioned the internet, social networking sites have obviously abound, they're prolific, people can post about whatever they want, certainly opinions, ideas, what... everybody... you know, 'there's as many out there as there are noses or more'. Is it a tool?
Sheriff: You know, it is a tool. You know, it's one of those advances that we've had in our society that actually we can utilize. Before this, before we had network, computers, and internet, we depended on the public to come forward with their tips and information in person or by phone. Now we have this other tool. I think that it does help. I know that the detectives are following many of these blogs and social networking programs and what not and looking at that. And we did receive some information from some of the assumption or predictions that were done on the internet. The other thing too is that as we look into these investigations, not this one so far, but a lot of times the suspect will be also on that social network as well. So it is beneficial. I think it's good for the public to have that ability to go in and, I guess, play detective if that's what they desire, but also to help us through the process of the investigation.
Reporter: It means that your people have to come up to speed on using all the tools.
Sheriff: {chuckling} Yeah.
Reporter: Which there was I think a little lag time for a period of time. I'm not saying with this situation but I think there was a lag time for awhile. And then you have other people saying "Gee whiz, the cops are sitting there on the computer playing games all day." Hmmm, bbfftt!
Sheriff: You know, you're right. I went to a computer forensic school here, boy it was about... 12 years ago now, obviously there has been tremendous advances since then, but you're right. There's a little bit of learning curve for our detectives as well as our deputies out there to learn what this is all about. You know, the facebooks, and the tweeters, and the myspace, and all these different things. There is... there is a lot of complexity there, as well as there is a lot of information and tools the can use in that respect. Our hope is that we continue to train our people to get to that expert level to do these investigations.
Reporter: From a prosecuturial standpoint, it's gotta be, you know, 'what is' and 'what isn't' admissible. That's a whole area that I've got no idea.
Sheriff: You know, that is a difficult part of the internet and whether or not we are able to utilize certain evidence that we get off the internet. I'll tell you a for instance, in this case we, we went after phone records and we had to get search warrants and subpoenas to get certain phone records. And again, they were very complex in that to determine whether or not MacKenzie Cowell's phone was used at a particular part of town, ummm... we were able to obtain that. And that was through some of the technology advances as well as some of the knowledge of those technology advances by a couple of the detectives that we have on the task force. Again, it's a great tool, but I think as far as the admissibility in court, so long as we follow the process accordingly we can use a lot of that evidence.
Reporter: I was lead to believe that some of the phone records that had been wanted were no longer around for one reason or the other. Not retrievable.
Sheriff: Well, that's some of the frustration that we had with one of the phone carriers here. We had sent what we call a preservation letter and a subpoena for the records. Preservation letter was to inform the carrier that we needed to preserve that evidence and that we did not want them to destroy it. They do that on a regular basis where they purge there records every 30 days, I believe it is, in some cases every 5 days. They neglected to do that so we lost some of this data that we hoping to get to determine where certain people were and when they used their phones, especially MacKenzie's phone. Some of the data was dumped, or purged, that we were certainly asking for. So we have some frustrations there with that particular carrier and I'll be taking that forward with the US Attorney as well as other jurisdictions, to make sure that that doesn't happen in the future. But we did lose some pretty critical evidence through that process.
), I have dictated the golakechelan interview with Sheriff Mike Harum. It appears to have posted at GLC website on March 30th, (unknown exactly when interview was recorded).{My comments in blue}
I also attempted to italicize words that seemed to be stressed
Sheriff: {starting right in - the audio doesn't include the question} Well, they're continuing to due diligence on investigating that. A lot of new leads but nothing that has come to the conclusion of identifying a suspect and making an arrest. But the detectives work on it 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. And we are continuing to get some leads from the public through a lot of different avenues, obviously by phone and in person and as well as through the internet.
Reporter: I wanna ask about the internet in just a moment and social networking and the like. But in an investigation like this your always told, or {clinging coffee cup??} the community is told, "Gee we're awaiting lab work and da, da, dada." Lab work seems to take forever, how come?
Sheriff: Well, a lot of the lab work takes forever because of the complexity of the tests that they do. Now, we have had recently some great success with getting DNA returned to us in a speedy fashion because of the advances in technology there. Blood tests still take quite some time because they have to do certain tests to get that as well. What we do have to deal with at the state lab here in Washington is the backlog. Although this case is a priority, it still is in a list of other priorities throughout the state so we have to wait some times for our turn up to get the analysis done. We did get some evidence analyzed and returned to us. It didn't help us a whole lot. It does fit into the investigation to some degree, but as far as identifying a person that actually did this, it didn't do that yet. We are still waiting on some additional lab work that we are hoping to get back here in the next couple of weeks which may help us or may not help us... {reporter steps on last word(s)}
Reporter: In some instances deputies and/or folks from the Wenatchee Police Department who have been the lead, at least from a public relations standpoint on this, have been actually taking things, physically delivering things, trying to pick things up, speed the process up. It's going a long time.
Sheriff: Yes it has. It is frustrating but it is the process that we have to deal with. We have sent evidence over same day that we receive it and then go and pick it up when it's completed because that obviously speeds up the return for us. But a lot of things. Its a very complex investigation. We have 4 different agencies that are involved in it, that's why I created the task force to begin with when we originally got the call that she was hur.. she was missing. Umm so, and then of course finding her body in Douglas County is another issue in relationship to creating a multi-jurisdictional task force that helps us in hopefully concluding to an arrest. But these are very complex cases to investigate, especially when we don't have a witnesses. Obviously our only witness is MacKenzie Cowell who is dead. But as we look into these things, evidence that we look at is our witness to some degree. So, I think they've interviewed over 600 people now that may have something, or know something through this process. We are not prepared to identify anybody of interest yet or a suspect, but that's just part of these investigations. Again frustrating, as I'm sure it's very frustrating for the community to not have some resolution to this by now. But as I'm sure you are aware, as many in the public are aware, that some of these investigations go on for years before we are able to obtain enough to make an arrest.
Reporter: Its expensive.
Sheriff: It is very expensive. But, you know, that is what we are here to do. I do my best to try and reduce the cost as much as possible but we don't want to reduce the cost and jeopardize anything to do with the investigation. So we are doing our best to keep under those costs as well as making sure... {Reporter cutting him off}
Reporter: In some... in some instances investigations like this and homicide prosecution and on and on... have, I won't say bankrupt a county, but they've certainly not helped the bottom-line.
Sheriff: But there's some provisions at the state level that, you know if in fact we do get an arrest, the state will help us in assisting in covering the cost of the investigation as well as the prosecution. So, there is a fund available at the state level for capital crimes. So we have that to look forward to if in fact we do make an arrest.
Reporter: You mentioned social network, you mentioned the internet, social networking sites have obviously abound, they're prolific, people can post about whatever they want, certainly opinions, ideas, what... everybody... you know, 'there's as many out there as there are noses or more'. Is it a tool?
Sheriff: You know, it is a tool. You know, it's one of those advances that we've had in our society that actually we can utilize. Before this, before we had network, computers, and internet, we depended on the public to come forward with their tips and information in person or by phone. Now we have this other tool. I think that it does help. I know that the detectives are following many of these blogs and social networking programs and what not and looking at that. And we did receive some information from some of the assumption or predictions that were done on the internet. The other thing too is that as we look into these investigations, not this one so far, but a lot of times the suspect will be also on that social network as well. So it is beneficial. I think it's good for the public to have that ability to go in and, I guess, play detective if that's what they desire, but also to help us through the process of the investigation.
Reporter: It means that your people have to come up to speed on using all the tools.
Sheriff: {chuckling} Yeah.
Reporter: Which there was I think a little lag time for a period of time. I'm not saying with this situation but I think there was a lag time for awhile. And then you have other people saying "Gee whiz, the cops are sitting there on the computer playing games all day." Hmmm, bbfftt!
Sheriff: You know, you're right. I went to a computer forensic school here, boy it was about... 12 years ago now, obviously there has been tremendous advances since then, but you're right. There's a little bit of learning curve for our detectives as well as our deputies out there to learn what this is all about. You know, the facebooks, and the tweeters, and the myspace, and all these different things. There is... there is a lot of complexity there, as well as there is a lot of information and tools the can use in that respect. Our hope is that we continue to train our people to get to that expert level to do these investigations.
Reporter: From a prosecuturial standpoint, it's gotta be, you know, 'what is' and 'what isn't' admissible. That's a whole area that I've got no idea.
Sheriff: You know, that is a difficult part of the internet and whether or not we are able to utilize certain evidence that we get off the internet. I'll tell you a for instance, in this case we, we went after phone records and we had to get search warrants and subpoenas to get certain phone records. And again, they were very complex in that to determine whether or not MacKenzie Cowell's phone was used at a particular part of town, ummm... we were able to obtain that. And that was through some of the technology advances as well as some of the knowledge of those technology advances by a couple of the detectives that we have on the task force. Again, it's a great tool, but I think as far as the admissibility in court, so long as we follow the process accordingly we can use a lot of that evidence.
Reporter: I was lead to believe that some of the phone records that had been wanted were no longer around for one reason or the other. Not retrievable.
Sheriff: Well, that's some of the frustration that we had with one of the phone carriers here. We had sent what we call a preservation letter and a subpoena for the records. Preservation letter was to inform the carrier that we needed to preserve that evidence and that we did not want them to destroy it. They do that on a regular basis where they purge there records every 30 days, I believe it is, in some cases every 5 days. They neglected to do that so we lost some of this data that we hoping to get to determine where certain people were and when they used their phones, especially MacKenzie's phone. Some of the data was dumped, or purged, that we were certainly asking for. So we have some frustrations there with that particular carrier and I'll be taking that forward with the US Attorney as well as other jurisdictions, to make sure that that doesn't happen in the future. But we did lose some pretty critical evidence through that process.
