An assistant Orange County public defender Thursday spotlighted an embarrassing breach in the chain of custody of evidence in the Golden State Killer case that will be detailed in an HBO documentary series.
Scott Sanders touched on the Golden State Killer case in his motion to seek more evidence in an attempt to overturn the conviction of Lynn Dean Johnson, who was convicted 12 years ago for the 1985 rape-murder of 19-year-old Bridget Lamon.
A jury decided against recommending the death penalty for Johnson, who is serving a life without parole term.
Sanders, who uncovered the evidence booking and confidential informant scandals, alleged that sheriff’s officials have a double standard when it comes to releasing evidence in the Golden State Killer case and his defense of Johnson, a 64-year-old convicted sex offender.
Joseph James DeAngelo, the suspected Golden State Killer, is expected to plead guilty to 13 murders on Monday, touching off weeks of court hearings in which victims will make statements on how the notorious string of murders and rapes.
In January 2016 some sheriff’s officials allowed author Michelle McNamara to walk off with 37 boxes of Golden State Killer evidence three months before she died from an accidental overdose of multiple prescription medications, Sanders said.
The evidence remained in a playroom she used in her home with husband comedian Patton Oswalt.
McNamara was writing “I’ll be Gone in the Dark,” which was posthumously published in 2018. The clandestine removal of the evidence is expected to be dramatized in the six-part HBO documentary series premiering Sunday based on the book, Sanders said.
“Instead of taking everything back (after McNamara died) they let it stay with another guy till the end of the year,” who helped finish the book, Sanders told City News Service.
“So nobody wants this case (against DeAngelo) to settle more than the sheriff’s department, nobody,” Sanders said. “This is a nightmare for them and they hoped it would all go away.”
Sanders has been tussling with sheriff’s officials since 2017 to get evidence in Johnson’s case and been repeatedly stonewalled.
McNamara “gets anything she wants, beyond anyone’s wildest imagination, and they fight me and keep me from getting a single document in court, including documents a year ago that were in the playroom of Patton Oswalt,” Sanders said.
Sanders alleged that Orange County Crime Lab Director Bruce Houlihan filed a sworn affidavit in the Johnson case saying it would be too difficult to hand search about 3,500 boxes containing between 70,000 and 140,000 files that he said Sanders was requesting.
Sanders said Mary Hong, a former Orange County Crime Lab criminalist, who testified in the Johnson case, was a main source in McNamara’s book.
Sanders also alleged she “flip-flopped” on the reliability of the DNA science utilized in his case compared with another nearly identical case a year later.
At issue in both cases is the science used to determine when DNA evidence was left on the victims in both homicide cases, Sanders said.
Sanders said that while Johnson had a sexual encounter with his victim he did not kill her, and that evidence of the vacillating testimony would be helpful in seeking a new trial and in the defense of his client in another trial.
In the other similar trial, Hong’s testimony bolstered testimony from another criminalist, Daniel Gammie in 1985, “and she embraced the same science she and Gammie repudiated as invalid just one year earlier,” in the other trial, Sanders said in his motion.
“Her opinion exculpated a third party, who may have other been responsible, clearing the way for” the other defendant’s conviction, Sanders alleged.
Sanders said it appeared Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes was the undersheriff who allowed McNamara to take the boxes of evidence, but Carrie Braun, the director of the department’s Public Affairs and Community Engagement Division, said Barnes did not take over as undersheriff until March 2016 before his election as sheriff two years later.
However, Barnes was the “understudy” to the previous undersheriff as he prepared for his retirement, Braun said.
“We trust the (judge) will make a determination on the merits of this case, not a sensationalized motion,” Braun said regarding Johnson’s motion.