Evidence room error destroys property and raises questions

The evidence room at the Iredell County Sheriff’s Office has problems.

Less than two years ago, Sheriff Phil Redmond told the Statesville Record & Landmark that “the smallest scrap of paper and a vehicle merit the same detailed accounting process” in the evidence room. "We have multiple checks and balances to make sure everything is done properly," he told the newspaper.

But at some point between November 2007 and March 2010, the sheriff’s office, in violation of state law, destroyed personal property belonging to Statesville resident Robert Goforth.

Over the course of five different incidents since 2003, Goforth has had thousands of dollars worth of items stolen from buildings on his East Iredell property, from antique, solid-oak furniture and other household items to engines, farming equipment and tools.

Some of the property has been recovered and returned to Goforth. Some of it was logged in as evidence at the sheriff’s office pending resolution of the cases. And some of the people who were convicted for the break-ins have been ordered to pay restitution to Goforth, although he said he has not received a penny of the restitution to date.

And now, Goforth is expecting a restitution payment – up to $3,715 – from the Iredell County Sheriff’s Office itself, after it destroyed, without a court order, items that had been seized in connection with the break-ins and were supposed to be stored for safe-keeping as evidence until the court cases were resolved.

Those items (from two different break-ins, one in 2003 and the other in 2005) include what Goforth calls “odd-ball antiques and collectibles” – all family heirlooms – including tools, a Surge Milker, a cream separator and a Weeden No. 32 Eureka steam engine, which Goforth said was a metal engine made before World War I.

But perhaps the biggest personal loss to Goforth was a plastic, battery-powered M14 rifle that he received for Christmas from his grandparents when he was a boy.

Goforth remembers being enamored at the time with the black-and-white television series “Combat!” about “World War II dogfaces in Germany,” Goforth said. Being the craze at the time, toy companies manufactured children’s toys after the series, including play sets, coloring books and games.

Goforth remembers the Combat! M14 rifle being among the most coveted of the Combat! toys. Being from a poor family, Goforth recalls wanting the toy rifle when he was in the first grade, but he didn’t expect to receive it when he asked for it for Christmas that year. But to his surprise and delight, his grandparents bought it for him. “It was one of the biggest prizes,” Goforth said, becoming emotional.

“I took good care of it all those years,” he said. “When you’re poor, you take good care of things. We learned that if you can’t take care of what you’ve got, you won’t get anything else.”

Goforth said he was ecstatic when he learned that the sheriff’s office had recovered the stolen toy rifle from one of the initial break-ins and had it safely stored in the evidence room. “I was so thankful that was found and identified. I was really longing for the day to get that back.”

But Goforth would never see the toy again.

In November, Goforth visited the sheriff’s office to pick up items from the fifth and most recent break-in. While there, he said he asked Property and Evidence Staff Sgt. Darlene Wells about items that deputies had retrieved from prior break-ins and had stored in the evidence room. Goforth told the Report this week that he had asked the sheriff's office to notify him when the cases were resolved so he could retrieve his personal property, but he never received such notification.

On March 2, the District Attorney’s office drafted a letter, which Goforth took to the sheriff’s office, saying any property belonging to Goforth and still in the possession of the sheriff’s office could be released. The letter, signed by Assistant District Attorney Mikko Red Arrow, stated that the property “was no longer needed by the District Attorney’s Office and may be returned to the lawful owner(s).”

Upon being provided the letter from the DA’s office, Wells looked for Goforth’s property in the evidence room, Goforth said. He said she found the “paper trail” for the property, but could not find the property itself.

At that time, Goforth said he approached Donna Swicegood with the Statesville Record & Landmark, which had previously written the story about the security systems governing the evidence room, asking the newspaper to look into the matter. An article was never written.

Meanwhile, Goforth was contacted by Lt. Andy Poteat, who had apparently been assigned to the case of the missing evidence. Poteat broke the news to Goforth that the sheriff’s office had destroyed his property.

In a recent telephone conversation between Goforth and Poteat, a recording of which can be accessed via the link on this page, Poteat said he had “talked with the folks [at the sheriff’s office] about it, and the lady confirmed, ‘Yeah, my signature’s on it. It was destroyed.’

“So that’s all I’ve had to go on,” Poteat told Goforth. “They didn’t say anything about a court order. They said it was destroyed. That’s why they signed off on it.”

Poteat acknowledged that the sheriff’s office destroyed the evidence without a court order. Said Goforth: “They did not follow procedures of law.”

Referencing the toy rifle in his conversation with Poteat, Goforth said: “For that to be foolishly destroyed, especially without a court order, is really a grievous thing for me.” He added that the steam engine “was something that was given to me by my father who’s no longer living.”

Poteat said that he was ordered by Chief Deputy Rick Dowdle to find out from Goforth the value of the items that were destroyed so the sheriff’s office could make restitution.

Goforth said the monetary value of the items is secondary to the sentimental value that the items held. And no amount of money can make up for that, he told the Report.

Goforth told the sheriff’s office his destroyed property was worth $3,715. Goforth compiled a list of the items, along with their value, and had it notarized before submitting it to the sheriff’s office earlier this week. He is currently awaiting his restitution payment. As of today, he has not received it.

Goforth, in his conversation with Poteat, asked from what type of fund the restitution would be paid.

“You’re asking questions that I don’t know the answer to,” Poteat said. “That’s not my territory. Matter of fact, this is the first time I’ve ever dealt with anything like this. And the only reason that I got involved was they asked me to look into it to see what was going on, if I could figure it out, and I did the best I could to come up with what I can, but I wasn’t part of the cases. I didn’t turn the stuff in way-back-when, with the exception of the three nut drivers. Well actually I just handed those to another detective that did. That’s neither here nor there.”

Poteat is referencing the initial break-in at Goforth’s. Poteat himself signed the paperwork on the evidence logged by the sheriff’s office from that 2003 break-in – three Craftsman nut drivers. Those tools were among Goforth’s destroyed property; all the other property that the sheriff’s office destroyed was from a break-in two years later, in 2005.

When Goforth provided the combined total of $3,715 in losses to Poteat in the telephone conversation last week, Poteat said: “I will pass this figure on to Chief Dowdle. And I guess I’ll call you back. Or better yet, I’ll ask him to call you back, maybe. Whichever way he wants to do it. He might tell … well anyway, I’ll wait and see what he tells me and I’ll be back in touch with you.”

Poteat assured Goforth that “whatever happened” to the property, “it wasn’t the detectives. It happened in the evidence room, and that’s where the mistake is, and I sincerely hope the folks are gonna fix this.

“Actually,” Poteat added, “it has already been fixed because none of them are working there anymore. But still, that’s neither here nor there and I hope my bosses do what they can to correct any problems there, prevent any future issues. But, I think they will actually.”

Goforth told the Report that he is disheartened by the actions of the sheriff’s office. “They are in charge of taking care of people,” he said.

Goforth shared with Poteat his suspicion that “someone [at the sheriff’s office] had helped themselves to my stuff.” Said Goforth: “I would rather have my stuff back, and – I don’t know – I’ve just got a bad feeling. I think somebody just helped themselves to my stuff, actually, more than it being destroyed. But that’s just my opinion, but I don’t know.”

Replied Poteat: “Well, like I said, I’m just going by what I can find, and everything I can find – the paperwork – it says it was destroyed. I’m just going by the computer so that’s where I stand on that one.”

Poteat added to Goforth: “Actually, I was hoping I would find your stuff too. I was hoping somebody made just a typo and it was in a corner somewhere. But in no accounts can I find anything.”

In August 2008, the Town of Mooresville Police Department was embroiled in controversy over a deposit slip with a handwritten note showing that the police department – then under Chief John Crone – had deposited “loose change” from the evidence room into the department’s Cops for Kids account.

At that time, the Statesville Record & Landmark published an article that addressed the “multiple layers of safeguards” in place at the sheriff’s office and the Statesville Police Department.

Redmond cited the “multiple checks and balances” in the evidence room. Interestingly, however, he said that those “checks and balances” are exactly what “helped uncover improper procedures in (the) handling of some surrendered weapons.”

A date for that incident was not provided in the article, but it states that “the weapons were handed over by their owner to a deputy, who didn't follow the right procedures in submitting those weapons to the evidence room.” Redmond said the guns “were not evidence in any case.” However, he told the newspaper, “those procedures still needed to be followed.”

The referenced deputy was not named in the article; however, Redmond told the newspaper that the deputy “got in trouble because it wasn’t handled properly.”

According to the Record & Landmark article, Redmond said “it was the tight set of regulations for handling evidence that brought” that particular situation to light. “And changes were made,” the newspaper reported.

Those changes didn’t help prevent the improper (and probably illegal) destruction of Robert Goforth’s property. And that raises a number of questions: what procedures are in place at the sheriff’s evidence room? Why and how did they break down in this case? And how much other property, if any, has been wrongly destroyed or otherwise disappeared from the sheriff’s evidence room?