Yard searched in bones case
By Pamela Martineau -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Thursday, June 12, 2003 Davis police and FBI officials on Wednesday served a search warrant and dug up part of a yard at a residence in a trailer park in Davis where a bin of human remains was discovered last week next to a Dumpster.
Authorities said they questioned the man who lived in the home they searched and he remains a "person of interest" in their investigation. They declined to release the man's name.
No additional human remains were found at the residence, but some items were seized and will be analyzed, officials added. Officials with the Yolo County Coroner's and the District Attorney's offices assisted with the search.
"We're still working with more questions than answers," Davis Police Lt. Jim Harritt said. "We need to now take a look at what we seized, evaluate it and see where the latest information takes us."
Harritt added that the man they are investigating has been questioned several times and has been cooperative. He declined to say how the resident came to be singled out by investigators but said Wednesday that the man was not identified as a suspect.
Last week, another resident of Slatter's Court, a small enclave of trailers and cabins off Olive Drive, found a bin of human remains as he was hauling away garbage that had been stacked next to the Dumpster. Police and coroner's officials said the remains were upper and lower extremities of possibly four people -- male and female -- in various stages of decomposition.
Officials theorize that the remains could have been from a homicide, a grave robbery or a theft from a medical facility. The remains have been analyzed by the Yolo County Coroner's Office and were sent Wednesday to a forensic anthropologist in Chico.
Mary Koompin-Williams, supervising deputy coroner for Yolo County, said her office is working to extract DNA from the remains so a match can be attempted with the state's DNA database. She said the process could take weeks.
Defense attorneys for Scott Peterson also have questioned investigators about the case. Their client is charged with killing his pregnant wife, Laci Peterson, and dumping her body in San Francisco Bay.
Several published reports have stated that Laci Peterson's corpse was missing body parts.
Koompin-Williams said her staff is cataloguing the Davis remains and studying them to try to determine where they have been stored and for how long.
A fingerprint was successfully lifted from the detached finger found.....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FROM AMBER FREY'S DAD:
Doing the right thing gets wrong results
Doing the right thing gets wrong results
Published: June 12, 2003, 06:20:18 AM PDT
I am writing this letter to express my feelings and concerns about two important people in my life. In December, police in Modesto asked for help in finding missing mother-to-be Laci Peterson. My daughter, Amber Frey, courageously came forward to reveal her relationship with Scott Peterson.
This year, my son Jason stepped up when our president called. He is presently in Baghdad, Iraq, proud to serve as a captain in the U.S. Army.
They both deserve thanks and respect. Instead, when I watch TV shows, I see Amber being attacked and made to look like a bad person. So-called experts on these shows -- who have never been lucky enough to meet her and who know nothing about her -- feel free to blacken her character.
For her bravery in coming forward and helping police, she has been rewarded by being exploited for other people's gains, not hers.
I know this cannot be a good example for our children. If you stand up and be honest, your credibility is going to be attacked and some people will try to ruin your life.
I also see TV shows on which other "experts" question President Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq. Now, with our soldiers and Marines still risking their lives to fight terrorism, is not the time to second-guess him.
My son is a seasoned military man and will do his duty just fine. But our young soldiers don't need to have their morale lowered by "armchair experts" questioning their dangerous role.