HOUSTON – There are new developments in the story involving destroyed evidence from the Harris County Precinct 4 Constable's Office property room.
The District Attorney's Office has said more than 100 cases had to be thrown out because of it.
The DA'S office released a specific list involved all the current, pending cases that will be dropped and what exactly was destroyed from the property room.
There are at least 100 criminal cases that have been dismissed as a result of this. The majority of them are drug cases, but there is also a burglary case, a forgery case, a weapons possession case and a criminal mischief case.
The DA'S office also released a list of the evidence that was destroyed from January 2016 until April 2016.
File: List of destroyed Precinct 4 evidence
Some of the items include:
- Glass meth pipe
- 165 grams of methampethamines
- Syringe filled with methampethamines
- Xanax
- Marijuana
- Baggie of cocaine
- Mushrooms
- 4 10mg hydrocodone pills
- Magazine and 6 rounds
- Woman's purse
- Sunglasses
- Two baby bottles
- Two diapers
Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman attributed the tossed evidence to former Deputy Cpl. Chris Hess, a 15-year veteran of the department.
Herman confirmed he fired the Hess in April. He also says that an investigation by his office found that Hess improperly destroyed 7,761 pieces of evidence and that, of those, 861 were connected to 470 open cases.
Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson said that her office is reviewing 21,500 pieces of evidence that were destroyed by Precinct 4 since 2007. So far, the destruction of evidence has prompted her office to dismiss 142 drug cases. She said 1,072 more cases are pending.