The head of the Douglas County Crime Lab is on paid administrative leave while the lab, Nebraska State Patrol and Cass County Sheriff's Department are being sued in connection with how a murder investigation was handled two years ago.

It stems from a double murder case in Cass County. The initial scrutiny centered on Nebraska State Patrol and Cass County investigators and includes the crime lab because the two initial suspects spent several months in jail only to be released because they weren't involved in the murder after all.

"I'm innocent, I had absolutely nothing to do with this," said Matthew Livers in December of 2006. When Livers left the Cass County Jail a free man in December 2006 he had lost seven months of his life.

Livers had confessed in April 2006 to the murders of his aunt and uncle, Sharmon and Wayne Stoke, shot to death in their Murdock home. Nine days later, Livers was picked up at his home by the state patrol and Cass County sheriff and, according to the wrongful arrest lawsuit, for the next 11 hours he was interrogated.

He told investigators 102 times that he had nothing to do with his aunt and uncle's deaths. Livers, who was 28 at the time, has the IQ of a young child. His lawyers say the 103rd time he was asked about the murders he said he did it along with a friend, Nicholas Sampson. At the time, Livers' attorney said he felt threatened by the death penalty.

"Matt perceived the officers and the interrogation as a threat to his life and as a consequence he made up the story,” attorney Julie Bear said in December 2006.

Now two years later, the Nebraska State Patrol and Cass County Sheriff's Department are under the subpoena microscope and a civil suit and so is the Douglas County Crime Lab. The man in charge of the lab, David Kofoed, is on paid administrative leave pending an internal investigation.

CSI examined the car Livers and Sampson had used and found no blood in it. Later on, the crime lab was asked by the state patrol to go through it again. Kofoed found a trace amount of blood under the dashboard consistent with one of the victim's blood.

Livers' attorneys want to know how the blood got there. It's one of many questions a judge will examine sometime next year.
Douglas County Sheriff Tim Dunning says he's proud of the crime lab and that this action was taken for the sole purpose of maintaining its integrity.

A Wisconsin couple with no apparent connection to Livers and Sampson are serving life sentences for the Murdock murders.