Man arrested in connection after teen found dead in Las Vegas sewer drain - FOX5 Las Vegas

Man arrested in connection after teen found dead in Las Vegas sewer drain - FOX5 Las Vegas
Embroiled in investigation, Kremmling police chief takes polygraph to prove truthfulness; DA brushes off results - Summit Daily News
Polygraph’s revival may be about truth rather than lies - The Guardian
After long silence amid calls for her ouster, DeSoto councilwoman says she will not step down - The Dallas Morning News

Posted: 22 Jan 2020 09:18 AM PST

LAS VEGAS (FOX5) -- A man was arrested in connection with the death of a 17-year-old whose body was found in a sewer over the weekend.

Jayshawn Bailey, 22, was booked on a murder charge in connection with a body found in a sewer drain Jan. 19 in the 2100 block of Fred Brown Drive near Martin L. King and Lake Mead boulevards.

"Police said she was angry and a runaway," said sister Kendra Ward. "She was not [kicked out of the house]. She's old enough to make her own choices but she was not kicked out."

According to an arrest report, Bailey called police Jan. 19 around 12:30 p.m. to report a body in a sewer under a manhole near his home. Bailey told police he saw two suspicious people "messing" with the manhole sometime between Dec. 25 and Jan. 1.

Two weeks later, Bailey said he went into the manhole and found the body. The report said Bailey went in the manhole and touched the body before going back to his home.

Bailey said he felt guilt about finding the body and decided to call police "despite possibly being labeled as a snitch," the report said. The arrest report said Bailey agreed to a polygraph test and DNA sampling.

During the homicide investigation, police were made aware of a missing persons report in the same area. Tamyah Trotter, 17, was last seen Dec. 12 at a McDonald's at MLK and Lake Mead boulevards. A description of Trotter's physical appearance and clothing closely matched the black female found in the drain.

Teen girl reported missing in Las Vegas, last seen mid-December

Police picked up Bailey Jan. 21 and took him to LVMPD headquarters for a polygraph test. The arrest report doesn't detail the results of Bailey's polygraph test, but said when Bailey was confronted with the results, he cried and told police "that he would be honest about what occurred."

Bailey said he met Trotter at McDonalds Dec. 12. According to the report, Trotter was upset that she was kicked out of her house. Bailey said he offered to let Trotter stay at his house in the area and made up a bed for her on his floor.

Bailey said he was high on Xanax and was drinking wine when Trotter came to his house. The report said Trotter started drinking wine and became aggressive, but it wasn't known if she was on any other drugs.

Trotter had a Taser and began to activate it while facing Bailey, according to the report. Bailey placed Trotter in a headlock and he said she became limp after about 10 seconds.

Bailey told police he performed CPR on Trotter for about two hours but that she wasn't breathing, the report said. Bailey didn't call police because he was afraid of going to jail, according to the report.

The arrest report said Bailey hid Trotter's body inside his bedroom until late Dec. 13 or early Dec. 14. Bailey said he put Trotter inside a trashcan with wheels and dumped her in a sewer drain.

"There's no reason for someone to do this to her. She's only 17," Ward said.

Bailey said the guilt of knowing the body was in the drain led to him calling 911, according to the report. Bailey said he took Trotter's shoes, backpack, cellphone and Taser to the Pearson Community Center, the report said.

The Clark County Coroner's Office confirmed Tamyah Trotters death Thursday afternoon. Her cause and manner of death were still pending.

Bailey's first court appearance was set for Wednesday morning.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Embroiled in investigation, Kremmling police chief takes polygraph to prove truthfulness; DA brushes off results - Summit Daily News

Posted: 23 Jan 2020 09:35 AM PST

**It could be weeks before a decision is made regarding the future of Kremmling Police Chief Jamie Lucas, who was put on paid administrative leave on Dec. 20.**
*Eli Pace / epace@skyhinews.com*

The attorney for Kremmling Police Chief Jamie Lucas is alleging a conflict of interest regarding the investigation into the chief and requesting the case be referred to a special prosecutor, but the 14th Judicial District Attorney's Office says the attorney's statements are misleading.

In an email to the DA's office, Lucas' attorney Jeffery Eidsness says his client filed an ethics complaint against the DA's office shortly before the investigation into the chief began in November, as Eidsness argues a special prosecutor would be "the best outcome for both sides."

The investigation stems from allegations Lucas mishandled an animal abuse case, in which three juveniles are alleged to have tortured, shot and killed a cat on a property outside Kremmling town limits in October.

The alleged abuse was reportedly caught on a video that made rounds at West Grand High School before a tipster alerted authorities on Nov. 4. It is unclear what happened to the video.

Lucas previously confirmed he charged the juveniles with disturbing the peace and fined them $500 through Kremmling's municipal court system.

Out of concern the juveniles were being cited for inappropriate charges in a court that didn't have jurisdiction over the case, the Grand County Sheriff's Office requested the DA's office look into Lucas' actions.

District Attorney Matt Karzen then referred the investigation to the Fraser Winter Park Police Department, which completed its investigation in December. Details have not yet been revealed.

"I believe this investigation should have been delegated outside the 14th Judicial District," Eidsness, Lucas' attorney, said on Thursday.

**Kremmling Police Chief Jamie Lucas reacts during a special town council meeting at Kremmling Town Hall in December.**
*Eli Pace / epace@skyhinews.com*
*Getty Images / iStockphoto | iStockphoto*

A public response from the DA's office rebutted many of the attorney's claims, including the potential conflict of interest Eidsness cited in his email.

According to the DA's office, Eidsness is referring to an incident that happened last fall when a former Kremmling police officer accused Lucas of wrongdoing.

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation looked into the accusations. The DA's office reviewed the CBI investigation and determined there was insufficient evidence to prosecute any of the claims against Lucas, but the DA's office was still critical of Lucas' conduct.

Obtained by the Sky-Hi News, a copy of the DA's decision to decline to prosecute Lucas after the CBI investigation details three situations of alleged misconduct on the chief's part, including one in which Lucas allegedly used excessive force on a suspect and another in which he allegedly suggested officers falsify evidence.

"The statements (Lucas made) are at best unprofessional and at worst they demonstrate a character unsuitable for a position of such trust as the chief of a law enforcement agency," Assistant District Attorney Matt Tjosvold wrote in the declination of the case.

According to the response from the DA's office, Lucas then "accused members of the DA's office of ethical violations." It's unclear what ethical violations Lucas levied at the DA's office, but the statement says no attorneys in the DA's office have been notified of a formal complaint and the office maintains the accusations were false.

Other than the CBI investigation, the DA's response describes another incident in which Lucas' behavior was called "extremely concerning." In July, Kremmling police responded to a stabbing in town, but the preservation and processing of the crime scene, as well as attempts to gather evidence, raised questions.

When the CBI was needed to assist on the case, which the DA's office asserts is standard for serious violent crimes, Lucas reportedly took issue with the CBI being referred to as the "lead agency."

"Chief Lucas appeared more interested in being perceived as in charge than in the integrity and quality of the investigation," Karzen wrote in the response.

Aside from requesting a special prosecutor, Eidsness' email also addresses the DA's decision to Brady list Lucas — or the DA's decision to no longer prosecute cases that he investigates — with the results of a polygraph test Lucas recently took to prove his truthfulness.

Now, Eidsness is saying Grand County Sheriff Brett Schroetlin should take a polygraph test as well. Lucas and Eidsness have both contended Lucas was targeted by the sheriff's and DA's offices. They say Schroetlin authorized the chief to investigate the animal abuse case, and Lucas was never informed he had limited authority to prosecute the case.

"My client has maintained that the charging decision that was made was with the conferral of the sheriff and … I believe the sheriff has walked back from that position and now it's essentially become a he said, he said," Eidsness said. "We suggested he take a polygraph because these are issues of accusing law enforcement officers of dishonesty."

In response to Lucas' polygraph results, the DA noted the questions Lucas answered during the test were irrelevant to the investigation. The DA also asserted the facts of the investigation do not support Lucas' claims he is being targeted.

Lucas is currently on paid administrative leave. The DA has not yet made any determination as to the outcome of the investigation into Lucas.

Polygraph’s revival may be about truth rather than lies - The Guardian

Posted: 21 Jan 2020 07:42 AM PST

Telling lies is stressful. That's the basic logic of a polygraph test: that the stress of deceiving others will manifest itself through fleeting physical responses that may be imperceptible to another person but can be measured by a machine. Typically, a polygraph records blood pressure, galvanic skin response (a proxy for sweat), breathing and pulse rate.

There is a fairly standard protocol for the lie detector examination. The examiner will mix specific questions relevant to a case – "Did you commit a robbery on 29 March?" – with a series of control questions. Crucially, the control questions are also designed to be anxiety-inducing – for instance: "Have you ever stolen from a friend?" Along the way, the subject will be reminded that the machine can distinguish truth from lies and that they must respond truthfully.

In theory the control questions, designed to be difficult to answer with absolute honesty, will generate some baseline level of stress. For an innocent subject, the assumption is that these questions will be more stressful than the relevant ones, where a straightforward denial can be given. For a guilty party, the relevant questions are expected to be more stressful to answer.

So a liar is expected to have higher physiological responses to relevant questions than to control questions, and someone telling the truth will show the reverse pattern. A similar response to each set is judged inconclusive.

Many experts question whether this works with any reliability in practice. "Polygraphs work very well as physiological measures – scientific measures of changes in your body as you experience different emotions," said Prof Sophie Scott, a neuroscientist at University College London. "However, they are not scientifically validated as reliable measures that someone is lying.

"Indeed, there are no reliable measures of lying, full stop, which is why the police use cognitive measures such as asking people to describe events backwards, to spot inconsistencies as liars start to get things wrong."

Prof Chris Chambers, a psychologist at Cardiff University, put it more bluntly: "Polygraphs are bullshit. They have always been bullshit and they will always be bullshit."

An exhaustive review of the scientific evidence by the US National Research Council in 2003 indicated that although the polygraph performs above chance, studies had found wildly differing accuracy rates. Some gave accuracies of 85% when evaluating genuinely guilty people, which proponents of the polygraph say underlines its utility.

However, the review also highlighted the potential for high false positive rates ( some studies found almost half of innocent people were identified as liars), and it pointed out that people can train themselves to beat a polygraph. It concluded that the US government should not rely on polygraph examinations for screening prospective employees or to identify spies or other national security risks, because the test results were simply too inaccurate. Another analysis published last year reached broadly the same conclusions.

Prof Albert Vrij, a psychologist at the University of Portsmouth whose research focuses on deception and lie detection, said overconfidence of examiners in the accuracy of lie detectors was a common theme. "Although they often acknowledge that the test is not always accurate, they often seem to think that other examiners make incorrect judgments rather than they themselves. You never hear stories from polygraph examiners where they got it wrong."

Despite their notable shortcomings, lie detectors have had something of a renaissance in the UK in the past decade. Last year the Ministry of Justice launched a three-year pilot of mandatory polygraph tests on convicted domestic abuse offenders released on licence. Tests have also been given to serious sex offenders on parole in England and Wales since 2007, and since 2014 mandatory tests have been added to some offenders' release conditions.

Vrij said the reliability of lie detectors in these latest applications was even more unclear. Polygraphs were designed to test someone's involvement in a known crime that occurred in the past. In some cases, sex offender testing could involve open questions about future intentions.

"To use sex offender testing as a justification to use it in terrorist cases is odd," said Vrij. "Of course, it gets further away from its original design as the 'crime in question' is no longer a crime committed in the past. To simply introduce the test in an entirely different setting is too far stretched."

So the science is shaky. But in the real world, the question of whether lie-detector tests work has another component: irrespective of their accuracy, do they make people tell the truth? There is evidence to support this, including a 2007 study by scientists at the University of Kent which showed that sex offenders who were attached to a fake polygraph admitted to far more thoughts that would place them at risk of future offending than in a standard interview.

Perhaps these observations, rather than a disregard for scientific evidence, are the basis of the latest polygraph rollout.

Prof Thomas Ormerod, a polygraph expert at the University of Sussex, said: "The use of lie detector tests in this context will, at best, be a waste of police resources, and at worst will exacerbate problems associated with terrorism. Their use will give the public false confidence that they are being protected, while for terrorists who take and pass the tests, it gives them a free pass out of the legal system and cover to carry out attacks unimpeded. Moreover, for genuinely reformed offenders or innocent people implicated in terrorist activity, use of a technique that cannot be used in UK courts as admissible evidence will likely appear discriminatory."

"It seems a missed opportunity that the UK government is failing to use the research results it has contributed to funding, preferring instead to rely on techniques that seem to offer a magic technology but in fact are deeply flawed and potentially dangerous."

After long silence amid calls for her ouster, DeSoto councilwoman says she will not step down - The Dallas Morning News

Posted: 23 Jan 2020 02:07 PM PST

For more than five months, DeSoto councilwoman Candice Quarles kept silent during raucous public meetings as residents demanded answers, apologies - and most of all, her resignation - after disclosures that she benefited from her husband's theft of thousands of taxpayer dollars and kept it secret.

On Thursday she finally spoke.

In a brief press conference at her lawyer's Dallas office, she said she will not be stepping down.

"Our work is not done,'' the two-term council member said while listing some of her accomplishments since she was elected in 2016, such as winning the approval of a family-leave program for city employees.

"It's fair for the community to be concerned," Quarles said, reading from a written statement. "We've put our faith in local officials to use those funds appropriately. … I am committed to just that. I'm hoping we can now move forward.''

Quarles, who profited from her husband Jeremiah Quarles' theft of $9,000 in city funds when he headed the Dallas suburb's economic development office several years ago, refused to answer reporters' questions after she gave her statement. Many residents had anticipated that she was going to announce her resignation and were concerned she once again did not go into specifics regarding her husband's fraud case.

She said she took a polygraph test administered by a private examiner last August that cleared her of any involvement in or knowledge of the fraud.

Neither she nor her lawyer Anthony Lyons provided a copy of the exam's results to reporters after Lyons said he would do so earlier in the 20-minute briefing. But polygraph examinations are not considered scientifically reliable and generally are not admissible in courts.

Quarles also did not address residents' persistent questions, such as why her husband, who pleaded guilty last year, told police she knew about one illegal transaction when she said she had no knowledge, or why she kept her benefits from the theft secret for more than two years.

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Lyons said he advised her to stay quiet in recent months until the completion of a forensic audit commissioned by the city. But that audit still has not been released to the public and many questions linger about whether the investigators focused on her. She noted that the auditors have said they found no emails between her and her husband "regarding the fraud allegations.''

She did not mention that the auditors raised concerns that her husband paid thousands of dollars in city funds to the Urban League of Greater Dallas Young Professionals, a group she had headed for years. The Dallas Morning News reported in October that the councilwoman's tweets placed her in close proximity to her husband during events or outings funded by his questionable payments, including an Urban League leadership conference and a trip to Disney World.

At the press conference, the Rev. Freddie Haynes of Friendship-West Baptist Church, defended Quarles, portraying her as the subject of mean-spirited attacks. "She's guilty of being good,'' he said.

Several Desoto residents said her refusal to step down or answer questions baffles them.

"It's unbelievable,'' said Dorothy Ann Dauenhauer, who is part of a group organizing a recall effort. "She should have apologized a long time ago and assured DeSoto residents with proof she had nothing to do with her husband's embezzlement. She's making a laughingstock out of DeSoto.''

Robert Ashley, an analyst of southern Dallas County politics and news director of radio station KHVN Heaven 97, said Quarles' continued lack of candor does not bode well for her political future.

"It looks bad,'' he said. "The lack of transparency is appalling to the citizens of DeSoto. Our elected leaders are supposed to be above reproach, above the appearance of corruption. You could be standing next to the pope, but if you're not being transparent, it only feeds the perception.''

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