MISSOURI CITY, Texas (KTRK) -- A criminal investigation into the Missouri City Police Department is underway after county officials learned evidence was thrown away without a court order.
A Fort Bend County District Attorney's office spokesman said there was a water leak in a room where Missouri City PD stored evidence in October. Evidence related to an estimated 100 cases was damaged and grew mold. Someone in the department threw the affected evidence away.
According to the spokesmen, the DA's office did not learn about what happened until January and immediately launched an investigation.
Missouri City PD is believed to have documented what happened internally but did not communicate it to the DA's office.
"It certainly should have been a decision where law enforcement spoke to the district attorney's office and said, 'Let's go piece of evidence by piece of evidence, what do you want us to do with it?' instead of a mass throw out," legal analyst Steve Shellist explained.
In addition to a criminal investigation to determine if someone knowingly tampered with evidence, the DA's office will also work to determine the scope of the cases affected.
At this point, the spokesmen said Missouri City PD cases that are pending and those that were disposed in between the time the evidence was thrown away and when the DA's office learned about it could be impacted.
"If you have a piece of clothing that may not seem important, a defense attorney is still going to scream, 'Hold on a minute. That piece of evidence could have exonerated my client. Maybe it had a third party's DNA on it, and you threw it out, and now we've been saying all along that there was a third person involved,'" Shellist said. "So it's hard to say without looking at a particular case, but it is a real windfall for all of the defendants on all of these cases."
The Missouri City Police Department declined to comment, but the DA's office said they are cooperating in the investigation.
For more on this story, follow Mycah Hatfield on Facebook, X and Instagram.