Opinion ID: 2600593
Heading Depth: 6
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: First contacts with defendant

Text: The police first contacted defendant at 2:35 a.m. on Saturday, April 24. Defendant answered the door and invited Detectives Franey and Griego inside. They informed defendant they were conducting an investigation concerning a missing child, and Griego asked him the general questions the police had been asking all the tenants. Defendant stated that he had not seen Tahisha and that he did not recognize her photograph. They soon were interrupted by a third officer who called away Griego. Detective Franey then assumed charge of the interview. Because Franey believed that defendant had been seen earlier at the apartment complex but had not answered his door, Franey asked defendant about his whereabouts earlier that evening. [3] Defendant responded that he had returned home at approximately 4:00 or 4:30 that afternoon from Fort Irwin, where he worked for DynCorp, supervising the maintenance of firing ranges, and had been in and out all evening. At this point in the interview, Franey was called away. Griego completed the interview and briefly searched defendant's apartment for Tahisha. The officers' initial contact with defendant was approximately seven minutes in duration, from the time they entered his apartment until they departed. Franey and Griego returned to question defendant on Saturday, April 24, because of a discrepancy in the account he had provided earlier that morningdefendant had informed Franey that he had been in and out of the apartment all evening, but had told Griego that he had been at home from the time he returned from work. Also, Griego had learned that defendant had been seen leaving his apartment at approximately 9:30 Friday evening. [4] Shortly before noon on Saturday, Griego spotted defendant in the apartment complex's laundry room. As Griego and Franey followed him back to his apartment, they noticed he was carrying a laundry basket that appeared to contain bedding. When Franey and Griego described to defendant the discrepancy in the information he had provided, defendant explained that he had been in and out of his apartment, going back and forth to his car and his garage, but had not left the apartment complex all evening. Defendant also stated that someone had telephoned him Friday evening and asked him whether there was a little girl playing in his apartment, and he had told them there was not. [5] The officers asked whether they could search defendant's vehicles and apartment, and he agreed, also giving them access to locked areas of his garage. That was the final contact the police had with defendant on Saturday, April 24.