Case Explained: Inside the SLED’s forensic lab where evidence can make or break a case – Legal Perspective

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WCSC) — Evidence that could solve murders, convict drug dealers and close cold cases first has to make it through South Carolina’s forensic laboratory.

South Carolina Law Enforcement’s Forensic Services Laboratory in Columbia moved to a new laboratory in 2023. It houses evidence collected at crime scenes statewide.

The size of three football fields stacked on top of each other, SLED’s laboratory handles 20,000 to 25,000 cases each year.

Maj. Todd Hughey, SLED’s lab director, walked Live 5 Investigates through the entire facility and explained how evidence is handled from start to finish.

“I guess it’s hard to communicate to someone outside of the forensic world just what goes into actually working a case,” Hughey said. “It’s much different than what can be portrayed on TV in a 20 or 30-minute TV segment.”

“To support the criminal justice system, we have to maintain the integrity of that evidence as well as the custody. We have to be able to track and know where that evidence is the whole time it’s in this laboratory,” he said.

Evidence processing and testing procedures

Twelve different labs test everything from drugs, firearms and physical evidence left at crime scenes to evidence invisible to the naked eye, like DNA, toxicology, fingerprints and trace evidence.

“We also do tool mark comparisons, bolt cutters on chains,” Suzann Cromer, who works with SLED’s Firearm and Tool Mark Department, said. “We can compare those unknowns to unknowns left at a crime scene.”

The firearms department also analyzes projectiles found at crime scenes and can determine what weapon produced that projectile.

“Trace (evidence department) does a lot of things from everything from gunshot residue from firearms, they do arson analysis,” Hughey said. “We have a lot of fires started in South Carolina that sometimes are intentional, so they can go through the process of determining what accelerants are present.”

SLED responds to 300 crime scenes a year, typically when local law enforcement agencies need more help.

“We do major crimes; these aren’t like going in dusting just for a break into a car, these are typically homicides, violent crimes. We go and work those,” Hughey said.

And each lab plays a different part in how evidence is processed. For example, the toxicology department samples anything from blood and urine to entire human organs.

“We get pretty much everything,” Hughey said. “Once it gets into the laboratory, we screen it to see what type of compounds are present, what classes of drugs.”

Years ago, when screening toxicology samples, lab instruments could only screen around 20 classes of compounds. Now, Hughey said 350 compounds can easily be developed.

Improved processing times

All drugs collected by law enforcement agencies travel to Columbia. Last year, SLED’s team analyzed over 50,000 items.

“They will test that in its raw state, weigh it, and that’s typically how the charges are made based on the weight, whether it’s simple possession, possession with intent to distribute or trafficking,” Hughey said.

As South Carolina grows, more drugs need testing and SLED picks up that burden.

Public records show it took SLED an average of 435 days to process drug evidence in 2023. The new forensic lab cut that time in half; last year’s average turnaround was 201 days.

“There’s a lot of variables that have contributed to that. Obviously, having dedicated instrument labs, work areas to process all of this evidence has helped,” Hughey said. “We’ve also changed some of our procedures, testing parameters.”

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“We have had to pick up some things like quantifying THC because that’s the only way you can distinguish hemp from marijuana. That has added to our process and complexity of the testing we do,” he said.

In the Lowcountry, instead of agencies having to send DNA evidence up to Columbia for testing, a Tri-County Biological Science Center is opening soon.

The new facility hopes to reduce SLED backlogs and speed up testing for law enforcement agencies across Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties.

“It will be transformative for crime victims who have evidence that needs to be tested in a timely manner so they can get justice,” North Charleston City Council Member Joe Boykin said.

DNA analysis

But even with the new facility, SLED’s lab will stay busy handling the state’s major cases.

Lt. Donna Money, SLED’s DNA supervisor, said her department sometimes receives 300 pieces of evidence from just one crime scene.

“The work that is done, it is highly sensitive. We don’t need a lot of it in order to detect or develop a DNA profile,” Money said. “It does take time to process evidence, it does take time to interpret the information that we are generating. It’s not something that can be quickly turned around on a regular basis.”

Once technicians pull a DNA profile from evidence, the harder step begins: identifying who it belongs to.

“We do have a lot of cases that we’ve worked on that we’ve developed a DNA signature for, but we don’t know who it belongs to,” Hughey said.

“A mixture is the presence of DNA from more than one individual; that could be two, three, four, five, six, especially if we’re getting samples from very heavily handled items like the door handle of the supermarket versus somebody’s personal home where you may not expect as many people coming through,” Money said.

Identifying DNA evidence can help solve cases without any leads. Recently, in a 39-year-old cold case in Goose Creek, police now say they have a suspect in the murder of Josephino “Joe the Barber” Bugarin.

“The pants have been tested by both the FBI and SLED but we didn’t receive any DNA profiles back from either of those. But this new technology, being able to direct it towards the pockets, where we know the suspects went into the pockets because Joe didn’t give up the money easily,” Goose Creek Police Capt. Tom Hill said.

Even with new developments and faster testing procedures, Hughey said SLED’s forensic lab will stay busy. They are hiring more technicians, adopting new technologies and planning to support more rural counties.

“We’ll continue to communicate and work together to make each lab as effective and beneficial as it can be,” Hughey said. “We want them to be successful because that will help everyone in everybody, it helps the citizens of South Carolina and that’s the team we’re playing for.”

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