Madison Co. deputies burn truckloads of evidence
MADISON COUNTY, Tenn. — Deputies destroyed evidence Wednesday morning from hundreds of cases. The sheriff says it should have been done years ago.
Deputies dumped evidence in a pit in Madison County as part of the department’s effort to clean out their evidence closet. Everything from marijuana to weapons was destroyed.
“The law says it has to be done,” Madison County Sheriff John Mehr said.
Sheriff Mehr says they’ve gotten rid of several trucks full of evidence dating back to the ’70s and ’80s. He says it should have been done years ago.
“You’ve got to research every case, make sure that it’s ready to be destroyed,” Mehr said. “We’ve got to get the judges to sign off on it.”
Mehr says the old evidence once filled eight rooms from top to bottom.
The sheriff’s office says now that they’ve gotten rid of all this evidence, they’ve been able to turn those rooms into office space.
Mehr says they also destroyed or sold more than 1,000 weapons. The sheriff says they fired every single gun and turned the ballistics information over to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
Other weapons go back to their original owners.
“We were actually able to find lawful owners that had had their homes burglarized years ago,” Sheriff Mehr said.
The sheriff says they save evidence from current and first-degree murder cases and cases that could come back up for appeal.
The sheriff says they now also have an inventory of all the evidence.
