By Vanessa Miller
Daily Camera
BOULDER, Colo. — The Boulder Police Department has changed the way it records leads on criminal investigations after detectives failed to follow up on a 2001 tip that suggested “Diego Ivan Olmos Alcalad” as a suspect in the 1997 Susannah Chase homicide.
Although the name in the tip was misspelled, Diego Olmos Alcalde, 39, was arrested last year on suspicion of raping and fatally beating the University of Colorado student with a baseball bat. The tip was discovered only after Alcalde’s DNA -- entered into a federal database because of an unrelated kidnapping conviction -- matched crime-scene evidence.
Police officials questioned why no one followed up on the tip, which had the subject line “girl that was killed with baseball bat,” and they made changes to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen again, Boulder police Chief Mark Beckner said Monday.
“We knew we had to find a better way to track tips to major cases, and this prompted us to do it sooner than later,” Beckner said.
Within the past year, Beckner said, the department developed an automated database to help detectives record and track tips. Next to each, Beckner said, officers now attach a notation or “conclusion” to help them keep track of where the leads end up.
“We get hundreds and hundreds of tips, and it’s difficult to catalogue those,” he said.
Alcalde’s defense attorneys have asked a judge to impose sanctions on the prosecution for failing to act on the anonymous 2001 tip. Defense attorney Mary Claire Mulligan argued Monday that because so much time passed, Alcalde is handicapped in mounting an effective defense. For instance, she said, alternate suspects and witnesses have died.
“Anything that impairs a defendant’s ability to defend himself, that is prejudice,” Mulligan said.
Prosecutor Ryan Brackley, though, said there’s no evidence police would have been able to find and arrest Alcalde in connection with Chase’s killing, even if they had seen the tip. He added that the District Attorney’s Office had done nothing wrong.
“It’s a very big deal, but if there should be sanctions and punishment, that should be done at the police department,” Brackley said.
Beckner said no one will be punished because the oversight was not intentional, and changes have been made.
Copyright 2009 Daily Camera