PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Prosecutors say they’ve found no reason to press criminal charges in the mishandling of evidence in a Polk County triple killing case from 1998.
Philip Scott Cannon served a decade in prison for the slayings and was released because scientists discredited a test used to show that bullets at the crime scene matched those in his garage.
When prosecutors moved to retry Cannon, evidence from the original trial was missing, and the charges were dismissed.
Later the evidence turned up in the attorney general’s office in a little-used storage cabinet.