Samantha Harer Case: CSI Work Faces Serious Scrutiny

CHANNAHON, IL — So far, Channahon Police's upper administration has drawn the most criticism for directing last year's investigation into the death of 23-year-old WESCOM emergency dispatcher Samantha Harer. But that may change soon. One Illinois State Police sergeant and two Will County Sheriff's CSI employees are just as likely to become household names by the time the case is over, Joliet Patch's review of the case determined.

Illinois State Police Sgt. Cary Morin, Will County Sheriff's Office crime scene photographer Maurice Horn, Will County Sheriff's Crime Scene Investigations Sgt. Jeremy Zdzinicki and Shorewood Deputy Police Chief of Investigations Jason Barten all worked closely with Channahon's lead detective to steer the investigation toward a finding of suicide, rather than a homicide, hundreds of police reports reflect.

Nowadays, the police officials who worked the Harer case are under scrutiny, thanks to New York civil rights lawyer Jennifer Bonjean.

She is pursuing a police cover-up lawsuit in Chicago's federal court system. At the time of Harer's death, Channahon put Andrew McClellan in charge of the investigation. Phil Flores, the now-former Crest Hill Police officer, is accused in the federal lawsuit of fatally shooting his estranged lover, around 8 a.m. Tuesday morning, Feb. 13, 2018.

In the weeks after Channahon announced Harer's death was being ruled a gunshot suicide, Joliet Patch uncovered a number of scientific laboratory tests buried in Channahon's case files that showed Officer Flores had primer gunshot residue on his right hand as well as several places on his black sweatshirt. He also had numerous tiny blood stains on his sweatshirt.

Post-mortem tests on Harer's hands found no primer gunshot residue. Also, Harer was nude at the time of the shooting in the corner of her apartment bedroom. Flores was fully dressed and wearing white socks, but no shoes, at the time he made the 911 call around 8:15 a.m.

That morning, neighbors in one of the adjacent apartments told some of the assisting police officers from Joliet and Bolingbrook they had heard Harer yelling "Let me go" several times. Then, all of a sudden, the loud racket from her apartment stopped.

As the Channahon police misconduct lawsuit moves forward, the written police reports submitted by Will County's Horn and the State Police's Morin are likely to undergo rigorous examination. Their reports appear to raise questions on whether the two men were being coached or directed by others to bolster Channahon's insistence that Harer killed herself with her Smith & Wesson gun.

Both Horn and Morin emphasize in their written reports how they were working closely with McClellan, the same inexperienced detective now suspected by the civil rights lawyer in New York of being at the center of the suspected police cover up.

In Horn's case, Patch discovered that CSI Horn chose to wait more than 10 months to write a three-page narrative summary.

Horn's report was entered Dec. 22, 2018, which is just days before Channahon's chief, deputy chief and Will County Sgt. Zdzinicki met with Harer's parents to close the case as a suicide.

Horn's report is speculative on multiple instances. He even appears to blame the Channahon Fire Protection District for a series of suspicious blood transfer stains left by someone on the inside wooden door of Harer's bedroom. In doing so, the Will County Sheriff's CSI helped deflect suspicion away from Officer Flores, Patch learned.

"I could see a bloodstain transfer going across the mid-section of the door on the exterior side," Maurice Horn's 10-month-old police report revealed. "This transfer was probably from EMS removing the door in order to work on the decedent."

Patch reviewed the Channahon Fire Protection District's reports from the case.

All four firefighters and ambulance paramedics responding to the 911 call wore gloves to guard against contamination. And besides, Channahon's paramedics would know not to wipe fresh blood at a potential murder scene across the walls or the doors of the victim's property.

Doing so is highly unprofessional and would constitute cross-contamination.

Horn's report makes no mention of any conversations he had with Channahon's Fire Department to reach his conclusion that Channahon's ambulance crew was tainting the scene by smearing blood on the door and walls of Harer's apartment.

"I inspected the detached bedroom door and observe (sic) more blood stains to be on the door, however, these stains appeared to be more of a transfer pattern and not from the initial incident," the Will County Sheriff's CSI photographer noted.

"It should be noted that throughout the preliminary survey, I had the assistance of Officer A. McClellan from the Channahon Police Department ... I began to photograph the residence in its entirety to include the blood stains and spatter located on the walls where the decedent was found. While photographing, Illinois State Police Officer Sergeant Cary J. Morin CSI arrived on scene."

Logs from the scene indicate Horn entered Harer's studio apartment from 10:03 a.m. until 10:37 a.m., he returned for just three minutes with his boss from 12:32 p.m. to 12:35 p.m., then he remained inside from 2:10 p.m. until 7:14 p.m. on Feb. 13, 2018.

When Horn produced his written summary of the case, 10 months and nine days later, the Will County CSI photographer opined that Harer killed herself.

"With the blood patterns on the wall and floor we could approximate how the decedent came to rest on the floor. The blood spatter evidence was consistent with this being a self-inflicted wound to the head made by a right-handed person," Horn wrote.

"This interpretation was based on voids being present where they would be if one person was present during the incident; and also ruled out a second person being present. If a second person would have been present during the incident, the blood spatter impact on the walls would have been significantly different than what was found on scene."

Horn's report omits mention that numerous blood stains were found on the sleeves and black sweatshirt of Flores and that primer gunshot residue was recovered from the Crest Hill officer's clothes and right hand, his shooting hand.

Besides Horn, Illinois State Police Sgt. Cary Morin is likely to be held under the microscope as the federal lawsuit moves ahead in the Chicago courtroom. Interestingly, Morin was not called to the scene immediately. Channahon's Police Department summoned him 3-and-a-half hours later. He stated in his report that he arrived at 1:40 p.m.

Yet the logs from the scene indicate Morin did not enter Harer's apartment until 3:05 p.m.

Morin's report reveals he was briefed by Detective McClellan that "the victim was reportedly involved in a verbal altercation with her boyfriend when she reportedly locked herself in the bedroom. (Flores) reported hearing the slide of the pistol followed by a gunshot. (Flores) then reportedly found Harer on the floor behind the bedroom door with a gunshot wound to the head. (Flores) also reportedly attempted to provide aide (sic) to the victim at the scene."

Morin had the distinction of being the lone member of the Illinois State Police summoned to the Channahon apartment building on Bridge Street.

Morin's report makes no mention of his training, expertise or how many bloody crime scenes he has investigated as a blood-stain analyst. Morin's report indicates he works out of the Illinois State Police Crime Scene Services Command in Joliet's downtown.

Morin completed his written reports and blood-stain analysis in two months.

"The victim, while standing in the offset area of the bedroom near the door, facing east, suffered a perforating contact gunshot wound to the right side of the head," Morin's April 10, 2018 summary noted. "The bedroom door was closed, either completely or mostly, evident by the bloodstain patterns located on the bedroom side of the door. The size of the offset area, along with the bloodstain patterns present and bullet trajectory suggest that the victim was standing alone in the bedroom offset area at the time of the incident."

Morin's report also reveals that he sent a copy of his analysis to the Will County Sheriff's Office and the Channahon Police Department.

One of Morin's reports conceded there were numerous bloodstains recovered from the black sweatshirt of Flores that "consisted of approximately 25 individual stains. The stains were primarily circular or elliptical in shape and ranged in size from approximately 1-8 millimeter in diameter."

Even though the 911 call makes it clear that Flores refused to perform CPR on his dying girlfriend, Sgt. Morin wrote in his report that Officer Flores "reportedly attempted to provide aid at the scene and was in contact with the victim during moments after sustaining her injury. Due to the dynamics of the incident and the variability involving blood saturation into clothing, the manner in which the blood was deposited onto the sweatshirt cannot be determined."

The work of Horn and Morin, however, is now at odds with the laboratory findings of nationally accredited forensic scientist III, Mary Wong of the Illinois State Police Crime Laboratory in Chicago.

In regard to Flores' sweatshirt: "The results of Exhibit 7A indicate that the samples areas contacted a PGSR (primer gunshot residue) related item or were in the environment of a discharged firearm," Wong determined.

As for gunshot residue testing upon Exhibit 2, Wong's analysis made the following observations in regard to the sample taken from Flores' right hand: "Exhibit 2A contains a minimum of three tri-component and additional consistent gunshot residue (PGSR) particles."

In spite of Wong's forensic analysis implicating Flores as the shooter, Detective McClellan remained steadfast in his belief that Officer Flores was not to be considered a murder suspect.

As it stands, 10 months after McClellan closed down the investigation, the federal court case is heating up. McClellan's job performance, as well as the work of the Will County Sheriff's Office CSIs and the Joliet-based Illinois State Police blood-stain analyst, are expected to face intense scrutiny over the next several months.

Eventually, a federal judge and jury will likely have to decide: Did the Channahon Police Department death investigation get it right, after all?

Or, did Channahon intentionally mess up the Samantha Harer's death investigation to protect the reputation of another local police department, Crest Hill?

If so, what police officials should bear the most significant financial burden?

For now, the federal lawsuit in Chicago's Northern U.S. District Court names Channahon, Chief Casey, Deputy Chief Bogart and Detective McClellan as co-defendants. Phil Flores, plus his former employer, Crest Hill, are also defendants.