Bullet casings under examination at the state crime lab in 2023. (Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current)
A national firearms database used by Rhode Island State Crime Lab last month flagged a cartridge authorities believe is involved in the 2021 Pawtucket shooting death of a former college football player as being linked instead to another criminal case.
Roughly 50 active criminal cases involving firearms have been on hold since Aug. 20 as a result of the discovery.
“It’s unfortunate this happened,” Crime Lab Director Dennis Hilliard said in an interview Wednesday. “It’s caused a real ripple effect.”
The issue reported at the lab stems from ballistic testing tied to the arrest of Karel Martinez-Scarlet in 2021 over the death of Keshaudas Spence in Pawtucket, Attorney General Peter Neronha’s office confirmed Wednesday.
Spence, 29, of Brockton, Massachusetts, was a running back at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, between 2011 and 2014. He finished as the team’s rushing leader with 3,745 career yards.
Pawtucket Police found Spence in the passenger seat of a car parked on the George Bennett Industrial Highway suffering from a gunshot wound in the early morning of June 26, 2021. He was later pronounced dead at Rhode Island Hospital.
Martinez-Scarlet’s case is pending in Rhode Island Superior Court, where a trial is tentatively scheduled to begin April 28, 2025. Gary Pelletier, Martinez-Scarlet’s attorney, did not respond to an immediate request for comment.
On any given day, a team of 12 people analyze fingerprints, arson cases, trace evidence, and gunshot residue at the crime lab located inside Fogarty Hall at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston.
Only three employees work solely on firearms forensics, Hilliard said — all of whom have been removed from casework as the pause in firearms examinations continues.
“I’ve basically assigned them to other administrative duties for now,” Hilliard said Wednesday.
The three-member firearms and toolmarks unit is responsible for testing firearms and making microscopic comparisons of ammunition and gun components including cartridges in order to determine what weapon they were fired from.
No two weapons will have the exact same markings, Hilliard previously explained to Rhode Island Current. He said that’s because the machines used to make guns leave tiny imperfections on their components, which leave unique marks on ammunition when fired.
Q&A: R.I. State Crime Lab Director Dennis Hilliard
Hilliard declined to state how the evidence from the Martinez-Scarlet case could have been linked to a separate case or if it was mishandled. He only said that the discrepancy 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.
“What this means is that certain evidence, specifically related to the microscopic toolmark analysis of firearms projectiles and shell casings, used in criminal cases may need to be re-examined,” Attorney General Peter Neronha said in a statement.
In addition to the halt on toolmarks examination, the AG’s office said the crime lab will arrange and pay for examination or re-examination of the evidence by an outside lab, and retain an outside accredited agency to conduct a comprehensive assessment over the matter.
“This Office is working expeditiously to identify all cases where a firearms examination involving toolmarks analysis was performed so that we can determine whether retesting of evidence by an outside, independent, accredited laboratory is necessary and understand the full scope of any impact, or whether this was an isolated incident,” Neronha said.
Interviews with prospective consultants were being held Wednesday, Hilliard told Rhode Island Current.
Entries into the NIBIN database and casework that does not involve firearms will continue as normal, Hilliard wrote in a letter to the state’s law enforcement agencies.
The crime lab was last accredited for forensic testing by the American National Standards Institute May 10, 2023. Accreditation is valid through July 31, 2027.
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