News

Officials break ground on new crime lab

The Western Regional Crime Laboratory is shown in a rendering. It is expected to open in Edneyville in 2017.

By Bill Moss, Published: September 8, 2015

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper says investigators will be able to solve crime quicker and better thanks to a new $15 million Western Regional Crime Laboratory at the Larry T. Justus Western Justice Academy in Edneyville.

“The new crime lab in Western North Carolina will make everybody safer,” Cooper said in a interview. “It’s critically important that we have more scientists that are closer to courts where they testify and closer to law enforcement agencies they serve and this lab will help us do that. Technology in the lab helps us to convict the guilty and exonerate the innocent and I believe justice will come quicker and better with this new crime lab.”

State Crime Laboratory Director John Byrd and Western Regional Crime Laboratory Manager Joe Reavis joined Cooper in the groundbreaking ceremony on Monday.
Double the size of the lab it replaces in Asheville, the Edneyville facility will be able to perform blood-alcohol tests and an array of DNA tests that currently are done only at the state lab in Raleigh. The time and distance creates a long backlog on what Cooper described as “the avalanche of evidence coming from law enforcement agencies in Western North Carolina.”
In addition to the new toxicology unit temporarily housed at the existing Western Crime Laboratory in Asheville, the new laboratory will add DNA and firearms to the kinds of evidence analyzed. Analysis of drug chemistry and latent evidence will continue at the new facility.
The new lab will also help the state meet a new requirement, based on a Supreme Court case, that analysts testify in court, Cooper said. The requirement had meant long travel times and days out of the office for lab scientists.
“The most important issue we still have remaining is salaries for scientists, which need to be significantly improved,” he said. North Carolina hires and certifies lab scientists; once they achieve certification they’re often hired away by other states or private companies at higher salaries, he said.
The crime lab had the support of state Sen. Tom Apodaca, who shepherded money through the state budget in 2013 for a study and last year for construction.
“We’re appreciative for Sen. Apodaca and everyone who pushed so hard for this — the sheriffs and police chiefs and Mothers Against Druk Driving and crime victims groups," Cooper said.