All information and documents in this article were obtained through a FOIA request made by Beaufort Insider to the City of Beaufort. Sources with close ties to the Beaufort Police Department were able to point Beaufort Insider to specific information to include in the FOIA request, and all the information those sources shared in reference to this article was proven to be accurate.
In South Carolina no statutes of limitation exist, which means crimes can be prosecuted as new evidence comes to light. In respect to a 2006 City of Beaufort rape case, this is exactly what occurred. We mentioned this case in this August 1 article.
According to the case file, the investigators at the time did their due diligence. Nevertheless, in 2006 no perpetrator was positively identified.
In 2008 the rape kit was processed and The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) returned it back to the Beaufort Police Department for safe keeping. Although no positive DNA identification occurred at the time, SLED entered the profile in the national CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) database. CODIS would ensure that if the perpetrator’s DNA ever entered the database in the future, it would match up with the DNA from the 2006 rape and justice for the victim would be that much closer.
In February 2023, a CODIS DNA hit occurred in the 2006 rape case. With a likely perpetrator identified, Beaufort Police Department could now pick up where the 2006 investigators left off to seek justice for the victim. One of Beaufort Police Investigator Josh Dowling’s first moves in 2023 was to gather the evidence and files from the 2006 case. But, the evidence could not be found. There was no rape kit in the evidence room! In fact, after an extensive search of storage as well as physical and electronic files, no evidence from the 2006 rape could be found nor was there any record of where the evidence had gone. Read the full supplement that Investigator Dowling added to the report in 2023 here.
Investigator Dowling emailed the Lead SVU Prosecutor at the 14th Circuit, Hunter Swanson explaining that none of the evidence could be located. Swanson responded, “I don’t see how you get around the missing rape kit.” Dowling responded, “I concur with your assessment regarding the missing rape kit from our evidence room, it would seem almost impossible to make a case at this juncture.”
After the evidence for the 2006 rape could not be located, an internal audit was ordered. The Beaufort Police Department evidence custodian, Investigator Anthony Re, returned a report on May 20, 2023 identifying, not just the 2006 rape case with missing evidence, but 423 cases from which the evidence could not be located. Re found no documentation to account for the whereabouts of any of this evidence, to include the 2006 rape case that uncovered the concern. Investigator Re’s report stated, “Case 06-[redacted] has not been located and no documentation has been found to provide any information about where the item[s] may be.” Re’s report pointed the finger at the former evidence custodian Carissa Garnes. Re implies that Garnes’ efforts to organize and declutter in 2018 resulted in a large amount of evidence, such as the 2006 rape kit, being disposed of without proper documentation.
As part of the renewed investigation, Investigator Dowling also contacted the victim. She was told about the DNA identification but was not sure if she wanted to pursue the case and asked for some time to think about it. When Dowling tried to reach out to her again, he was not able to reach her. According to all documentation received, the victim was not told that the evidence for her case was missing.
Ultimately, the case was closed on June 14, 2023 under the heading “VICTIM UNCOOPERATIVE”. By classifying the case closure in this way, the Beaufort Police Department never had to publicly reveal that the rape kit evidence was disposed of.
In response to Re’s internal audit, then Police Chief McDorman hired the former evidence custodian, Carissa Garnes, as a consultant to look into the allegations of missing evidence resulting from Garnes’ own 2018 disposal of a large amount of evidence. In a report dated June 5, 2023, Ms. Garnes exonerated the police department and thereby herself of any fault related to the missing evidence and blamed the situation on the internal migration of evidence from one tracking software to another. Ms. Garnes also confirmed that much of the evidence was legally allowed to be disposed of by herself back in 2018. Included in this blanket justification for 423 cases worth of missing evidence was the 2006 rape evidence and rape kit.
Like Investigators Re and Dowling, Ms. Garnes was unable to find any of the physical evidence nor any documentation as to what occurred in respect to the evidence disposal for any of the 423 cases, including the 2006 rape kit. Garnes used phrases such as “it can be assumed”, “it remains unclear”, “this indicates to me”, “could have been”, and “I feel confident that” to conclude that she had done nothing wrong in 2017-2018 even though the majority of documentation was never located. Garnes’ report, though detailed and thorough, bases its conclusions on a great deal of assumptions. An external auditor was never asked to investigate the lack of documentation and missing evidence. And, any explanation for why evidence in an unsolved rape case was disposed in the first place was not given.
Also on June 5, 2023, Deputy Chief Stephenie Price summarizes Investigator Re and Carissa Garnes’ reports for Chief McDorman relating that the 2006 rape case is the only one with unaccounted evidence, but never mentions the other 422 cases where proper documentation was never located. Price also states that Ms. Garnes concluded that all “disposals were lawful and proper”. Price likewise blamed the software system migration for the confusion. Price recommended no further action.
On June 5, 2023 in a memo to Beaufort City Manager Scott Marshall, Chief McDorman asserted as fact the conclusions in Ms. Garnes’ report: “These cases were disposed of properly and in accordance with the law and department policy.” McDorman concludes, “Based on the investigations, I am confident that we are not “missing”, any evidence and no possible prosecutions have been jeopardized by the disposal of any evidence.” Of particular note, McDorman does not mention the 2006 rape case, the prosecution of which was in fact jeopardized by the evidence disposal, nor the fact that the documentation for the disposals he asserts were lawful was never located.
On June 5, 2023, Police Chief McDorman also sent all documents related to the 423 cases worth of missing evidence to SLED. On June 15, 2023, Captain Ryan Neill of the SLED Investigative Division returned a letter stating that the situation was not criminal, but rather a “clerical error”. On June 15, 2023 McDorman forwarded Neill’s letter to City Manager Scott Marshall and both agreed that “no further concerns” exist.
In an August 13, 2024 conversation with the Beaufort Insider, both Scott Marshall and Chief Stephenie Price agreed that the missing evidence issue had been “put to bed.” In fact, Marshall said, “That was put to bed a year ago, do we need to open up everything that’s ever been put to bed just to satisfy you?” He also shared that another local news source had looked into the issue in 2023 and Marshall asserted that they never published a story because, “It wasn’t an issue.”
It is also worth noting that our August 1 article reported threats of polygraphs made by then Deputy Chief Price for any officer suspected of speaking to the press about the reports of missing evidence or the newly opened rape case in mid-2023. During Beaufort Insider’s August 13 conversation with Chief Price, she adamantly denied ever making threats to use a polygraph on police officers that she supervises. This is in contradiction to multiple officers who have told Beaufort Insider that not only did she make the threat reported in the August 1 article, but that threats of putting officers “on the box” have been the norm at the Beaufort Police Department even before Chief Price joined the department. Several of our sources fear reprisals and were not willing to sign a statement even under promises of anonymity. But, one source was willing to sign this affidavit.
According to the FOIA documents linked in this article as well as others, the city and the police department made every effort to conceal the evidence problems, and specifically the missing 2006 rape kit, from the public. According to emails, another local news source made attempts to get to the bottom of the issue over a year ago, but when they were met with a fee for the city to produce documentation, it is unclear whether they continued to pursue the story. When I spoke to city officials on August 13, including Chief Price and Scott Marshall, I was met with attempts at intimidation and avoidance about these issues.
The victim of the 2006 rape case might not have been so quick to conclude that there are “no further concerns”, or that “it wasn’t an issue”, or that “no further action” was needed, had she decided to pursue the case. Are there other victims who won’t be able to pursue justice because of this “clerical error”?
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