Ng Evidence Destroyed in Error

San Francisco police have inadvertently destroyed crucial evidence--including bullets and blood samples--in the case of Charles Ng, who is charged with mass murder and faces trial in Orange County, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Saturday.

Defense attorneys say the mix-up is a major blow to the case against Ng, who will be tried for the 1984 killing of San Francisco taxi driver Donald Guiletti.

Police records show that the evidence was destroyed in September 1994 because police logs mistakenly listed the case as closed.

“From what I understand, the bullets were a crucial part of the San Francisco case, and the disposal of the evidence was a matter of pure negligence,” San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Brown said.

He said the destruction of the evidence also may hamper prosecutors who will try Ng on 12 other counts of murder next year in Orange County.

Prosecutors in Orange County wanted to use the San Francisco case to help persuade jurors to give Ng the death penalty if he is convicted.

In 1985, Ng and Leonard Lake were linked to a string of tortures and murders on Lake’s Calaveras County property in the Sierra foothills. Lake subsequently committed suicide.

Ng, the only son of a Hong Kong traveling camera salesman, fled the country and later was arrested in Canada when he was caught shoplifting at a department store.

For six years, Ng fought extradition before being returned to the United States in 1991. He is scheduled to go on trial next year for his alleged role in the Calaveras County slayings.

He also faces charges in connection with the July 11, 1984, shooting death of Guiletti, who allowed a stranger to enter his home near the city’s Castro District, police said. Officers said the killer had responded to an ad in a gay newspaper offering “oral sex for straight men.”

According to documents obtained by the Chronicle, the destruction of the evidence in the Guiletti case occurred Sept. 13, 1994. Memos on the incident state that the case had been handled by a retired homicide inspector and an officer who was on disability leave.

Citing overcrowding in its storage space, the department’s property unit asked the homicide unit to identify which of its old case records could be tossed out.

Another memo says then-Lt. Gary Pisciotto, the officer heading the unit at the time, issued the order to either hold or destroy evidence in 216 cases, including Ng’s. Those cases spanned a time period from 1970 to 1989. Pisciotto, now commander of the Police Department’s airport unit, was on vacation Friday and unavailable for comment.

San Francisco Police Chief Fred Lau said the evidence mishap involved “a policy failure” that prompted the department to institute new safeguards designed to make sure such an incident does not occur again.

Lau said the loss of the physical evidence involved only “one aspect” of the San Francisco case and that “the loss of the evidence in no way impacts the Orange County case.”

But Ng’s lawyer, Orange County Deputy Public Defender William G. Kelley, said that because San Francisco police destroyed evidence in the 1984 San Francisco case, he will file a motion asking that any mention of that case in the Santa Ana trial be thrown out.

“By losing the evidence, they have precluded the defense from examining it and doing any ballistics tests that could have eliminated the bullets as being linked to Ng and the Guiletti homicide,” the deputy public defender said.

Calaveras County Dist. Atty. Peter Smith, who is prosecuting Ng, could not be reached for comment.