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Sheriff's Deputy, Roy Pond Sheriff's Deputy, Ray Pond, was charged with following up leads regarding the man or 'shooter' that Diane, Christie and Danny had described. It was his job to investigate any information that would corroborate what had been told by the family. But as will be shown, Deputy Pond was either devious in this duty or very incompetent. Many reports were made by Pond as a result of members of the public volunteering information that would support Diane's story. Yet he chose to ignore the greater part of this evidence because like others on the investigation, he had made up his mind that Diane was guilty, even though no charges at that time had been brought against her. In an effort to gain access to Pond's reports, Defense attorney Jagger was forced to subpoena the Deputy as a defense witness. This was part of the pre-trial motion although Prosecutor Hugi strongly argued against the endeavour being made by the Defense attorney. Nevertheless, the following exchange took place between Deputy Pond and Defense attorney Jagger when the officer took the stand at pre-trial regarding his investigative assignment: Defense Attorney Jagger, "Do you know approximately how many persons you contacted with respect to that?" Deputy Pond, "I can only guess. A hundred, hundred and fifty, I don't know" Jagger, "Did you write reports or reduce into writing your contacts with all those persons?" Pond, "Not all of the persons, no" Jagger, "Approximately how many of those did you reduce to writing?" Pond, "Probably in the neighborhood of thirty to fifty" Jagger, "Were those made off of other notes you had taken at the time of your interviews with people?" Pond, "Yes" Jagger, "Are those still retained?" Pond, "I believe those were discarded" Surprised by this admission, Jagger asked, "By you" Pond, "Well, when I left in July, the investigation continued, and there was a lot of miscellaneous things that were thrown away". That didn't answer the question so Jagger put it bluntly. Jagger, "Okay I guess the question is, did you throw it away yourself, or you left them?" Pond, "Right, I threw some of the notes away and others have been discarded since". Pond was in agreement with Jagger that sightings of a man described by Diane had been seen in the vicinity of the shootings and around the same time. And similarly for the yellow car she had described. Pond however in choosing not to follow some of the leads or simply ignoring them caused some witnesses, in their frustration, to contact the Defense attorney himself. When Jagger put some of these (witness) names to Pond, he became very belligerent and evasive and his memory all of a sudden began to fail him. One witness was a Mr Hilliard who had described to Pond a man walking up the road and bearing the description of Diane's shag haired stranger. Mr Hilliard stated that he'd seen this man on the road in the vicinity of the shootings. Pond tried to make light of Jagger's questions about this testimony even though he agreed that he was aware of this sighting by Mr Hilliard. When a further five similar accounts by witnesses were put to Pond, his memory once again, failed him. Jagger asked for the report details regarding a similar sighting given to him by a woman. But once again Pond's bad memory couldn't give an answer. It was clear that the Deputy was not going to reveal any report details that would be of benefit to the Defense. But when similar questions were put to him by Prosecutor Hugi, Pond claimed that he had eliminated all these people from the enquiry!. Although the Deputy was clearly being very evasive to all those who listened to him in the courtroom. Attorney Jagger nevertheless returned to Mr Hilliard's sighting of a man near the vicinity of the crime. Jagger asked Pond if he had eliminated this man. "Well, I never contacted him" he replied. And when Jagger asked, "why", Pond said, "well, based on all the evidence I've seen, I would go with what we have right now, as far as the State's case". No doubt the Prosecutor was as much shocked at hearing this from Pond as the Defense attorney was, although for different reasons obviously. Jagger supressed his astonishment and pressed on: Jagger, "When you said you'd eliminated these persons as suspects, what you're saying is that you know kind of generally what other evidence is available and so you've drawn your own conclusion as to who's guilty haven't you?". Pond, "Yes". (more astonishment). Jagger, "But that's a conclusion that you've drawn in addition to other people you work with, isn't that correct"?. Pond, "Yes" This clearly showed that Pond along with other police officers looked upon Diane Downs as guilty, even before she had been arrested. And not only that, they were rejecting or simply not investigating other avenues or witness accounts that may have revealed evidence contrary to their own prejudices. Pond went on to admit to the Defense attorney that he eliminated other suspects purely on the grounds of his own personal belief that Diane Downs was guilty.
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