Inmate Allegedly Raids Evidence in Baxter County

 An Arkansas inmate who had been on work release is facing new charges after investigators say he repeatedly raided an evidence closet.

 David Hall is charged with stealing confiscated drugs from the Baxter County Sheriff's Department.

 Deputies completed an inventory of their evidence room yesterday.

 They have determined that methamphetamine, marijuana, and other narcotics are missing from dozens of cases.

 Investigators say hall cut a hole in a back wall of the evidence room, then used a long pole to drag items out from the storage area.

• There were evidentiary items from 624 criminal cases that had been stored in the evidence room. These were from criminal cases from 2006 to 2012. These included evidence from both misdemeanor cases in District Court and from felony cases in Circuit Court. Each case is assigned a particular incident number.

• Evidentiary items from 47 of these 624 criminal cases were found to have been removed from the evidence room through the hole that had been cut in the wall. These evidentiary items were methamphetamine, marijuana, other narcotics, prescription pills, and paraphernalia. Evidence from 16 of these 47 cases was recovered from the DARE trailer that is parked behind the Sheriff's Office. David Hall had hidden these items inside the trailer after he managed to remove them from the hole in the wall of the evidence room. The items that were recovered were still sealed, however some other evidentiary items connected with the same cases were missing. In particular, the missing items from the same cases included point two two eight gr ams (.228 grams) marijuana, 3.98 grams of methamphetamine, 4 mirtazapine pills, and 3 alprazolam pills. The evidence from the remaining 31 criminal cases has not been found. These included an additional 11.2 grams of methamphetamine, 145.1 grams of marijuana, point one five eight grams (.158 grams) of cocaine, point zero nine nine grams (.099 grams) of heroin, prescription pills (74 identified by individual pill count,16.45 grams by weight), and various paraphernalia.

• All of the evidentiary items from these 47 cases are believed to have been in small packages that had been placed into a white postal service tote box and then set on the floor of the evidence room. They were moved here to make room on the storage shelves for incoming evidence from new cases.  David Hall used a pole to drag the tote box to the hole he had cut, then remove those individual items from the tote box. No other containers, shelves, or articles appeared to have been moved or tampered with.

• All evidentiary items from all criminal cases currently pending in both District Court and Circuit Court have been located and their integrity verified in their original seal. They are still in the evidence room in their sealed condition and location.

• All firearms being held in evidence have been inventoried and fully accounted for.