Rhode Island Crime Laboratory Director Dennis Hilliard sits before the commission that monitors what happens at his lab on Oct. 23, 2024. (Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current)
Two Rhode Island State Crime Lab employees who conducted a specific type of forensic testing on evidence in gun cases no longer work at the lab while another has been “permanently suspended,” the lab’s director confirmed to Rhode Island Current Wednesday.
But the staffing shortage should be temporary, Crime Lab Director Dennis Hilliard said. The nationally accredited lab has outsourced toolmark testing to two former New York City police examiners for the next six months, Hilliard explained in an interview after a meeting of the five-member State Crime Laboratory Commission at the Rhode Island Attorney General’s Cranston office.
The commission met to review the findings of an independent report commissioned after officials discovered a discrepancy with the identification of a gun allegedly used in a Pawtucket murder case in 2021 and paused all toolmark testing on Aug. 20. The pause in toolmark testing at the lab in Fogarty Hall on the University of Rhode Island’s Kingston campus was made public on Sept. 3 by the AG’s office.
The report by California-based consultant Ronald Nichols, who formerly worked for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, found there was a lack of diligence and confirmation bias on the part of all three forensic examiners who performed toolmark analysis — the method forensic examiners use to determine if a cartridge or shell is fired from a specific gun.
“If the examinations and verifications were as critically performed as each examiner indicated in their interviews, this error should have not occurred,” Nichols wrote.
In 15 gun cases re-examined by Nichols, no other misidentifications by the three examiners were found. However, Nichols disagreed with the findings of two cases the lab marked as inconclusive — which included the gun in a 2021 Pawtucket case that was first flagged because it matched cartridge casings fired from a Glock pistol in possession of the Boston Police Department.
In the Pawtucket case, Karel Martinez-Scarlet has been charged with the murder of Keshaudas Spence, who was a running back at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, between 2011 and 2014. The case is pending in Providence Superior Court, where a trial is tentatively scheduled to begin April 28, 2025. The discrepancy with evidence testing was caught during a routine entry into the National Integrated Ballistic Identification Network (NIBIN) — the digital database that captures and compares images of ballistic evidence for police departments to find out whether there are connections between incidents.
The cases Nichols reviewed were not among 22 gun cases tested at the lab and pending trial that were sent out to state crime labs for toolmark retesting in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. At least four re-examinations have been completed and all reaffirmed the initial Rhode Island crime lab findings, AG spokesperson Timothy Rondeau said in an emailed statement Wednesday.
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Nichols interviewed all three examiners involved in toolmark testing, but did not list their names in his report. Hilliard also declined to disclose them. The report identifies the employees as Examiner 1, Examiner 2 and Examiner 3. The report notes that Examiners 1 and 3 have since left the lab and recommends Examiner 2 be “removed from comparative analysis casework.”
In the Pawtucket case, Nichols’ report states all three toolmark examiners made an error by attributing 13 fired cartridge casings to a Glock pistol that could not have actually fired them.
Nichols found there was no critical inspection of the marks created by powder igniting when the cartridge was fired, commonly referred to as “breech face marks.”
“Based on the case notes, it appears that the 13 cartridge cases were intercompared first and a correct identification was made among those cartridge cases,” he wrote. “If a critical examination of the shear and at least one of the two other marks (firing pin impression or breech face marks) was performed when comparing the evidence cartridge cases to test fires from the submitted Glock, then the false identification should have never occurred.”
As for confirmation bias — the principle that if you know what you’re looking for, you’re more likely to find it — Nichols faulted Examiner 2. Examiner 1 told Nichols that the verification was not truly blind as Examiner 2 “had innocently shared during a conversation that this case was an identification.”
“Simply put, in the mind of the examiners, it must have been a false lead,” Nichols wrote.
Fogarty Hall on the University of Rhode Island campus in Kingston is home to the Rhode Island State Crime Lab. (Michael Salerno/Rhode Island Current)
Who’s in charge?
Nichols wrote that aforementioned issues could have been avoided had there been a designated lead examiner who could mentor others and truly provide oversight.
Hilliard told commissioners on Wednesday “for the most part, there was a lead.”
But that was not enough for Rhode Island State Police Col. Darnell Weaver, a commission member.
“It may have on paper, but not in practice in this situation,” Weaver replied. “There was no one person in charge of the other examiners.”
Hilliard said the lab will be posting a job opening for a “lead toolmark examiner” and a second examiner by early November. He told commissioners that Nichols, who was not present at the meeting, has offered to vet applicants.
“We hope by early next year to find quality people,” Hilliard said.
One of the lab’s firearms technicians is being trained to take on toolmark examinations as well, though Hilliard said that could take up to 18 months.
In the meantime, the lab has contracted with Stria Consulting Group of Brooklyn, to handle toolmark testing for Rhode Island gun cases for six months at a cost of $175,500, Hilliard said. Stria’s expertise relies on a team of consultants and training coordinators who are former members of the NYPD Crime Laboratory.
The Rhode Island State Crime Laboratory’s accreditation with the ANSI National Accreditation Board remains active through July 31, 2027. Hilliard, who started working in the lab in 1977 as a graduate student and has been directing the lab since 1992, told the commission he has asked ANSI for a full lab review for early 2025.
“It’s been a very trying situation — both emotionally and physically,” Hilliard told the commission near the end of the meeting. “It’s been my life’s work here.”
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