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329 CHAPTER NINETEEN Forensics: Murder in a Soccer Field, National Accreditation, and New Laboratories In July 1998, the KBI formed a small squad of agents to help address the dramatic increase in computer crimes that Kansas law enforcement was experiencing. The squad’s charter members were Dave Schroeder, Richard Marchewka, John McElroy, and Richard Vick, under the command of Special Agent in Charge Kevan Pfeifer. Schroeder and Marchewka, each blessed with special computer expertise, had already been assisting local authorities for more than a year with all types of computer crimes, ranging from complex fraud cases to child pornography. The two agents, however, were swamped with calls for their computer expertise. We hoped the special squad’s creation would significantly bolster the KBI’s support of local law enforcement in such critical matters. As with the KBI Cold Case Squad’s creation, the formation of the KBI’s High Technology Crime Unit (HTCU) was made possible only by the redirection of the former KBI Gaming Unit’s resources and membership. We soon lost Kevan Pfeifer and his wife, Melanie , our agency’s general counsel, to a new life in Montana. Special Agent in Charge Rick Sabel took over the squad and Agents Marchewka and McElroy retired in 2000 and Vick in 2002. Agents John Kite and Steve Elsen were added as replacements. HTCU was basically the brainchild of Senior Special Agent Dave Schroeder , and he remained the heart and soul of the KBI’s response to cybercrime . Early on, he led the bureau’s involvement in an international investigation by the U.S. Customs Service that, in turn, led to numerous arrests of child pornographers using the Internet. We were learning, however, that there was more to cybercrime than Internet fraud and child pornography. As Schroeder told the Lawrence Journal-World in a story about the HTCU on October 21, 2002, “Any type of crime you can think of, there has probably been a case that involved a computer.”1 Schroeder did not exaggerate. A woman in southwestern Kansas shot and killed her husband. Minutes before law enforcement arrived at their home, the new widow had e-mailed a confession to her parents in another state. We were also finding that drug traffickers were increasingly using their computers to record and maintain the names, addresses, and contact numbers of customers, associates, and 330 Chapter Nineteen suppliers, as well as their inventories of product. Accordingly, KBI search warrants authorizing the seizures of drugs were often accompanied by KBI search warrants authorizing the seizures of computers on those premises. There were, of course, other varieties of cybercrime to occupy our investigators , including identity theft, extortion, investment scams, threatening e-mails, an Internet-fueled array of sexual perversion and exploitation, and other lewd and lascivious behavior, too often involving children. Despite the expertise and dedication of our cybercrime investigators, we were never able to adequately address the unending requests from Kansas law enforcement for KBI assistance in computer-related crimes. The KBI, Kansas law enforcement, and the state greatly benefitted from the FBI’s creation of the Heart of America Regional Computer Forensic Laboratory (HARCFL) in Kansas City in 2003 in the fight against cybercrime . The decision early on to assign KBI Agents Cindy Smith and Angie Wilson to HARCFL and to the companion FBI Cybercrime Task Force, respectively, proved to be a wise one. The emphasis in that two-pronged FBI effort was child exploitation and pornography in Kansas and western Missouri . Smith and Wilson were commended by the FBI, the Kansas attorney general, and the KBI director for their contributions to those two important KBI allies, HARCFL and its supportive task force. In addition, Smith and Schroeder were each named Certified Forensic Computer Examiners in 2004 by the International Association of Computer Investigative Specialists, a coveted distinction in law enforcement investigation of cybercrime. They were not geeks with guns, but solid investigators. Neither the KBI’s HTCU nor the FBI’s HARCFL could stay abreast of the Internet crimes referred to them. Backlogs persisted and requests for help soared. The BTK serial murder investigation was not the first time that the KBI’s Sindey Schueler assisted the Wichita Police Department with her DNA expertise in a major multiple-homicides case. On December 5, 2000, Reginald Carr was inadvertently released from jail in Dodge City because of an error in paperwork. He and his younger brother, Jonathan, both in their early twenties, made their way to Wichita and launched a brutal nine...

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