Yesterday "The Oklahoman" writer Tim Willert painted an ugly picture of the Bethany Police Department's investigation into the gruesome murder of Carina Saunders. Citing multiple anonymous sources, Willert writes the Bethany P.D.'s probable cause affidavits " contained conflicting witness statements that did not support evidence in the case." One of the sources was quoted as saying, "Their information wasn't corroborated. They are trying to make it sound like they have enough probable cause to arrest" (Ruiz and Massey, the two men who had been accused in the case.)
In the end all of this really shouldn't be surprising. The town of Bethany basically has a police department so it can supplement the municipal income with funds received from traffic violations and every now and then bust a keg party thrown by high school kids. In all honesty expecting them to solve this tragedy was on a par with asking Andy and Barney to figure out who Jack the Ripper was. The expertise, experience, forensic resources and man power just weren't there. In retrospect they should have handed the whole thing over to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation as soon as that duffel bag containing Saunders' remains was found in the overgrown field behind the supermarket.
Willert quotes Scott Adams, an attorney who had represented one of the witnesses as saying, "She certainly said she saw a video." (That would be the infamous video of the actual crime) then Adams went on to say, "But the problem with that is I never saw any proof of that and neither did police." Yes, but it made for a large and chilling headline and everyone in the media leapt at it. The very idea that such a tribute to evil existed drove us from a brutal murder that was luridly sensational in its own right straight into the darkest realms usually found only in the most twisted horror stories and movies. Suddenly visions of Norman Bates with a butcher knife in one hand and a cell phone camera in the other ran wild in the imaginations of those reading about the crime, reporting it, and ultimately investigating it.
Unfortunately everyone up to and including District Attorney David Prater bought into it and the flawed notion the Bethany cops actually knew what they were doing. Willert dryly writes, "To date, no video of the killing has surfaced."
Indeed. And now it has been nearly seventeen months since the dismembered body of Carina Saunders was found. The gaggle of witnesses listed in the affidavits have proven to be either unreliable, or to be more charitable, incorrect. If they are still around the city at all it is doubtful they will be of any use to the OSBI. In fact right now, given the immensity of the Bethany P.D.'s fuck up, it will take some sort of miracle to track down the killer, or killers, ever.
The terrible truth is that young Ms. Saunders was hanging with a dangerously iffy crowd. It is a crowd that the police should have known doesn't put a very high premium on honesty. In the end the Bethany cops made the most fatal of all mistakes during their investigation. They thought clearing the case off their books was the same thing as finding out who actually did it. They simply didn't see the difference between getting a couple of convictions and finding justice.
Now, because of the way they handled the affair, chances are the OSBI won't get either of those.
Neither will Carina Saunders, or her family.
Neither will the State of Oklahoma.
3-4-13
MORONS!!!!!!!!!
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