Yearly Archives: «2005»

• Sep 10, 2005
• The Wichita Eagle
• -
• by Ron Sylvester

Judge Greg Waller will allow Roger Valadez’s lawyers, but for now not Valadez, to find out why BTK investigators raided Valadez’s home and took his DNA last December. The Sedgwick County district judge wants the lawyers representing Valadez in civil and criminal cases to get with a prosecutor to review the affidavits for search warrants executed last December.

Waller ordered Friday that the lawyers should see if they can agree what information needs to be removed to protect the identity of the police informant who apparently connected Valadez to the infamous BTK strangler. Wichita police said they were acting on a tip relating to the BTK case when they and KBI agents burst into Valadez’s home, took a sample of Valadez’s DNA, booked him into custody and then searched his house. But authorities have never publicly acknowledged Valadez was a BTK suspect.

Two months later, police arrested Dennis Rader, who confessed to being BTK, pleaded guilty to killing 10 people and was sentenced to life in prison. For the past nine months, Valadez has tried to see the sworn affidavits that persuaded Waller to sign the warrants.

Assistant Sedgwick County District Attorney Kevin O’Connor stressed to Waller that the person who tipped off police should remain anonymous. “It is the public policy of this state to protect police informants,” O’Connor said. O’Connor also told the court that the affidavits contain information, “that, frankly, I don’t think Mr. Valadez wants to see.”

That suggestion irked Dan Monnat, Valadez’s lawyer. “To Roger, saying ‘you don’t want to know the truth’ sounds an awful lot like ‘we don’t want you to know the truth,’ ” Monnat said afterward.

Kansas is one of the only states in America where arrest and search warrant affidavits remain sealed after they are executed. Other states cross out identities of police informants and details of other confidential investigative procedures, then release the documents.

Waller allowed Monnat, O’Connor and Craig Shultz, who represents Valadez in an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against one Wichita television station, to see the documents. They are to try to agree on what information to take out regarding the tipster.

All content © 2005 THE WICHITA EAGLE and may not be republished without permission.

The Wichita Eagle – By Ron Sylvester

• Mar 16, 2005
• The Wichita Eagle
• -
• by Hurst Laviana

DNA swabs have been collected from only about 1,300 people in the BTK serial murder investigation, Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston said Tuesday — less than one-third the number she reported in an earlier news conference about the case. Foulston said the 4,000 figure she used in January actually referred to the number of tips that were cleared by the 1,300 samples. In many cases, Wichita police asked a person for a sample after receiving multiple tips about him. Foulston said the discrepancy in the numbers surfaced during a meeting about the case Tuesday morning.

During an afternoon news conference, she said the DNA “elimination samples” were compared only to evidence collected in the BTK investigation. She said the samples would not be put into any criminal DNA database. Police started collecting DNA samples from potential suspects in March 2004 after BTK sent a letter to The Eagle that claimed responsibility for a 1986 murder that had not previously been linked to him.

Ten other packages have since turned up that reportedly were connected to the killer. One contained a computer disk that reportedly led police to the arrest last month of Dennis L. Rader. Rader is awaiting a preliminary hearing on 10 counts of first-degree murder.

During the news conference, Foulston apologized for the mix-up in the numbers and said she did not blame it on the Wichita Police Department, which oversaw the collection of the samples. “It was my fault, not their fault,” she said. “I don’t know why no one corrected me…before today.” The 4,000 figure had been widely reported in the past two months.

Foulston said the DNA samples probably will be held in the crime labs that processed them — one at the Sedgwick County Forensic Science Center and one at Kansas Bureau of Investigation headquarters in Topeka. Although some have questioned plans to hold onto the evidence from people who have been cleared, Foulston said state law requires evidence in criminal cases to be kept as long as the case remains open. If and when the BTK investigation is closed, she said, it will be up to a judge to decide what to do with the evidence. She said a judge could decide to simply destroy it.

In the meantime, Foulston said, law enforcement officials will make no attempts to solve other crimes with the samples. “This evidence will not, shall not and cannot be placed in any database at all,” she said. The evidence is not subject to the Kansas Open Records Act, she said. “These records are not available to anyone in the media,” she said. “These records are not available to anyone on the street. These records are protected. “We are the guardians of this evidence, and evidence is being protected.”

One Wichita defense lawyer with an interest in the topic is Dan Monnat, who represents a man who was forced through a court order to submit a DNA sample to police. The man, Roger Valadez, went to court last week in an effort to get the sample back.

“Negotiations are ongoing with the state of Kansas in that case, and we are hopeful that the matter will be resolved by agreement,” Monnat said.

Foulston declined to comment on the Valadez case.

All content © 2005 THE WICHITA EAGLE and may not be republished without permission.

The Wichita Eagle – By Hurst Laviana

• Mar 09, 2005
• The Wichita Eagle
• -
• by Tim Potter and Stan Finger

Roger Valadez wants his DNA back and wants to know why Wichita police once considered him a BTK suspect. His lawyer filed a motion Tuesday in Sedgwick County District Court seeking the return of a DNA sample and personal items seized from Valadez’s home after his Dec. 1 arrest. The motion also asks that Valadez’s DNA profile be returned and that the information be purged from any data bank or database.

The court filing raises a broader question: What will happen to the DNA samples taken from more than 4,000 other men in the BTK serial murder investigation, now that Dennis L. Rader has been charged with the homicides?

Dan Monnat, the Wichita lawyer who filed the motion for the 64-year-old Valadez, said his client’s situation is different from most because although many of the others consented to giving swabs, police had a search warrant for Valadez’s DNA and collected the sample while he was in handcuffs. He was excluded as a BTK suspect shortly after, police said.

The motion also seeks disclosure of documents and oral testimony used to justify the search warrants served on Valadez. That information was sealed by District Court Judge Greg Waller “to protect informants, tipsters and the privacy interests of any individuals that may fall under suspicion.” The court filing touches on an issue of growing significance, a pair of Harvard University professors said Tuesday.

The question of what happens to DNA samples collected in this case “is huge,” said David Lazer, associate professor of public policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. A colleague agreed. “I certainly believe there are serious privacy concerns relating to DNA dragnets and DNA sweeps, involving what’s going to happen to the sample and what’s going to happen to the sample and the profile once a case has been solved,” said Frederick Bieber, associate professor of pathology at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

The ethical questions raised by what to do with DNA samples collected by sweeps are being actively debated in policy circles, Bieber said. “What is the balance between freedom and liberty and privacy and the obvious natural instinctive interest in having safe streets and safe communities?” Bieber asked. “There’s got to be some balance. This is something that society will need to continue to wrestle with. “No one would argue with the value of arresting the perpetrator of a heinous crime. The question is, at what cost?”

Wichita police spokeswoman Janet Johnson declined to comment on the motion. Asked for comment on Valadez’s DNA and the samples taken from others, the district attorney’s spokeswoman Georgia Cole referred to a Jan. 14 media release. It said that “much of the BTK investigation has involved the collection of DNA samples by legal consent from individuals.”

“Thousands of citizens have willingly submitted their DNA samples to law enforcement.”

“While speculation may suggest otherwise, samples collected during this investigation are not entered into any DNA database.”

But such assurances mean little, Bieber said. Although Wichita police may not have reported the DNA information to state or federal criminal databases, “there’s nothing to stop them from putting that in an Excel file and having it in their laptop,” Bieber said. Valadez’s DNA was tested by the KBI. Spokesman Kyle Smith wouldn’t comment on Valadez’s situation but said the only DNA information kept in a KBI database is from convicted felons.

Monnat said he doesn’t know where Valadez’s DNA or DNA information may be now. “We’ve been given no direct assurances about it,” he said. “There is no reason to have that information unnecessarily in the hands of the government.”

A judge could hear the motion March 18.

All content © 2005 THE WICHITA EAGLE and may not be republished without permission.

The Wichita Eagle – By Tim Potter and Stan Finger

• Jan 12, 2005
• The Wichita Eagle
• -
• by Tim Potter and Ron Sylvester

Wichita police looking for the BTK serial killer illegally searched a man’s home last month, one of the man’s lawyers contends. Police didn’t have to rush into Roger Valadez’s home with guns drawn to get a DNA swab from him, lawyer Dan Monnat said Tuesday. “I don’t think you can lawfully kick down a citizen’s door to execute a warrant for a mouth swab for DNA the day you get the warrant,” Monnat said. “There’s no emergency. The DNA is not going to disappear.”

Valadez should never have been considered a suspect in the serial killings, he and his lawyers say. Three days after his Dec. 1 arrest on misdemeanor housing code and trespassing charges – which were dismissed or resolved Tuesday — police said they had excluded him from the BTK investigation. Monnat has said that DNA testing cleared Valadez.

Told of the lawyers’ comments, Police Chief Norman Williams said: “If a person feels their Fourth Amendment right has been violated, they have the court venue.”This is a very complex, intense investigation,” Williams said of renewed efforts to catch BTK, who has eluded capture since 1974. Still, Williams said, “we do not allow ourselves to get caught up in an investigation to the point that we are not mindful of what is expected….which is to work within that Constitution.”

Police arrested Valadez, 64, and took him to jail on misdemeanor warrants brought as a “pretext” to search his house, Monnat said. He said police did not show Valadez a search warrant that night.

Craig Shultz, another lawyer representing Valadez, said his client is exploring possible legal action against the city. Monnat said police acted with unnecessary haste.”There is no doubt that if they had waited,” he said, Valadez would have answered his door and police could have executed the warrant for his DNA “without all the endangerment that occurred by kicking in his door at night.”

Officers rushed into Valadez’s home about 7 p.m. According to copies of search warrants, Monnat said, the warrant for Valadez’s DNA was issued at 2:47 p.m. the day of his arrest. The warrant to search his house was issued at 10:34 p.m., about three hours after police took control of the home.

Kim Parker, chief deputy district attorney for Sedgwick County, said police do not have to show a citizen a search warrant before conducting a search but have to leave a copy on the premises.

Because the probable-cause affidavit has been put under court seal, Monnat said, he and Valadez haven’t been able to learn why police searched Valadez’s home and took his DNA. Police have said they were following up on a tip to their BTK hotline when they went to the home. Monnat said he and Valadez would like to see the document “because neither of us believe there was a sufficient factual basis to justify the degree of home invasion and media frenzy that occurred.”

On Monday, Valadez sued the parent companies of three media organizations, alleging they invaded his privacy and defamed him. In an interview Monday, Valadez said he wanted The Eagle to identify him so he could clear his name. Parker said probable-cause affidavits remain closed because of public safety issues. “Everything in the legal system is a balancing act,” she said. “We balance the public greater interests in safety….against an individual’s constitutional right.”

Meanwhile, a municipal judge Tuesday granted Monnat’s motion to dismiss the misdemeanor trespassing warrant against Valadez. Monnat contended that police executed the misdemeanor warrants in an unreasonable or untimely way.

To resolve a housing code charge, Monnat said, Valadez agreed to paint the eaves on a rental house and pay a $10 fine.

All content © 2005 THE WICHITA EAGLE and may not be republished without permission.

The Wichita Eagle – By Tim Potter and Ron Sylvester