door-to-door interviews in the neighborhood until after the preliminary hearing, which was on January 16. (Judge Kaney's low opinion of the state's case, as manifested in the paltry $40,000 bail figure, must have been a shock to the system.)

This is not just a failure to observe formalities.  Don Frye appears to have been completely satisfied with the reliability of Edward Williams and Felton Thomas, but the fact is that their accounts were mostly uncorroborated.  The guests in the motel's north wing were in a unique position to confirm or deny the veracity of two witnesses without whom a guilty verdict, even an indictment, would never have been possible.

Eagan did send a letter to the registered guests, asking their help.  The only concrete product of that mailing was the Jellison interview, which the prosecution apparently ignored.  Eagan's request was dated April 12,  1976: three and a half months after the murders.  Furthermore, letters and even telephone interviews are no substitute for face-to-face questioning. The time for that was Christmas Eve, when memories were freshest and potential witnesses were still available, just a brief stroll away from the crime scene.

Sheriff's deputies should have knocked on doors at the motel immediately.  That they did not do so—that Frye and ranking OCSO officers on the scene did not order them to do so—is inexcusable.  It represents the loss of unique testimony that could have settled the case, one way or the other.

 In fact, it is such a stunning oversight that we must wonder whether someone did not actually interview north wing guests on Christmas Eve and come back with damaging information that investigators decided to disregard. Ordinarily we would accept the word of the police on this matter. But in this case the question cannot be so easily dismissed, given the Jellison tape and how the prosecution handled it.

Ÿ       The OCSO investigators chose to bring Felton Thomas into the furniture store when they questioned him during the early hours of Christmas morning, at a time when evidence technicians had just begun collecting their specimens.  (James Jenkins questioned Thomas, with Frye present.) There was no reason for Thomas to be in the building; he could add nothing  to the investigation there.

But good reason did exist for Thomas to be kept out.  One of the axioms of forensics is that any visitor potentially alters a crime scene either by removing traces of evidence or leaving some behind—hair, fabric fibers, dirt, fingerprints, footprints—or by disturbing the arrangement of what is already there.  Strict procedure dictates that the scene should have been off limits to all but those whose job required them to be there.

Thomas, in particular, should have been kept far from the scene. His claim that he had never gone into the store with Mays was one of the key points of his