A former employe of the Marion County Jail in Indianapolis is accused of placing witnesses to two separate slayings in the same cellblocks as the suspects they were prepared to testify against, reports the Indianapolis Star. Investigators want to know why La’Shawana Collins, who was fired yesterday, disobeyed court orders in the cases. “These witnesses were taken to jail with the expectation that they would be safe,” said County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi, “and the system put into place to protect them was deliberately overridden.”
Collins’s actions scuttled a trial earlier this month, Brizzi said, and nearly derailed a second murder trial this week. The latest case came to light when a letter submitted to the court had signatures from the witness and suspect, who had both been in custody, on the same page.
Link: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060817/NEWS01/608170468