With the help of DNA evidence, Seymour police recently solved a five-year-old attempted burglary case — but one police commissioner wasn’t quite satisfied.
Commissioner Frank Conroy Thursday called out the detective bureau for waiting 16 months to send a pair of discarded gloves from the crime scene to the state forensic lab.
The gloves provided DNA samples that led to the arrest of Anthony Moore, 51, of Deleware, last month.
Police said Moore tried to rob the Dunkin’ Donuts on Roosevelt Drive in December 2005.
This past May, the state lab notified the department that DNA samples from the gloves had been matched to Moore’s DNA, according to Lt. Paul Satkowski.
Moore was charged June 25 on a warrant with criminal attempt to commit first degree robbery, a class B felony.
State Lab Backlog
Detective Sergeant Ron Goodmaster defended the investigation, saying police officers don’t always send evidence to the state lab first because of long delays at the lab.
Goodmaster said as a result, officers try to solve the crime through other avenues before sending samples into the lab, which has wait times that stretch for months or years.
“We try to investigate the case, we look for leads,” Goodmaster said. “It is normal for us to not send every piece of evidence up to the lab right away.”
Conroy said he wasn’t trying to “chastise” the detectives, but rather help the department be more efficient.
“Evidence, you know Ron as well as I do, does solve the case,” Conroy said.
Too Much Information
Goodmaster questioned why Conroy would bring up the details about the investigation during a commission meeting, when those details deal with police work and not department policy.
“Are we supposed to run our investigations based on what the commission tells us?” Goodmaster asked Chief Michael Metzler during the exchange.
Metzler responded by saying the detective division report, from which Conroy based his complaint, contained too much information.
“I think what you’re looking for is numbers, not details,” Metzler said. “One must not miss the point: The case was solved.”
More Detectives Needed
The conversation touched upon Goodmaster’s call for more detectives in the department, a request the commission is currently reviewing.
Goodmaster made the request to the commission in February, saying the department should add one or two more detectives to help with a heavy case load.
Goodmaster has also been vocal about what he says are problems in the departed, for which he says he was targeted recently.
Conroy was one of three commissioners who voted to suspend Goodmaster in May, a suspension that was later overturned.
Thursday, Conroy asked for an updated list of the cases that are still unresolved.
“If you have a workload that is so severe that you need an extra detective, prove it to us,” Conroy said.