Police work around the clock on Powell case
As the family and friends of Susan Powell pray for her safe return, police officers and lab technicians are pressing for clues about where she may be.
Detectives at the West Valley City Police Department have been putting in hundreds of hours to figure out what happened to the 28-year-old mother of two who has been missing since Dec. 7.
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The department has its own crime lab that can do some of the trace analysis needed to process a crime scene, but the
West Valley City lab has been hindered by absences. The lab has five forensic technicians, but two of those people are assisting the U.S. government in Iraq and one person recently resigned to take another job, McLachlan said.
So, much of the analysis falls to the state crime lab.
Jay Henry, laboratory director for the Utah Bureau of Forensic Services, says his lab has been pretty busy since mid-October, and the holiday season just seems to be getting busier. But high-profile cases don't add more to the workload than any other case.
"Sometimes depending on the urgency of a situation, we'll adjust our schedules and move our other cases around," he said.
The average turnaround time to get results on blood work and stain identification is two weeks, and for DNA analysis, it's another 30 to 45 days, he said
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