Evidence missing from NLV police vault

A transitional audit of the North Las Vegas Police Department's evidence vault has lead to the discovery that several items are missing or misplaced.

The nature of the missing items has not been released.

Police say that they are not making any assumptions as to whether the problem is procedural, a computer error or theft.

The Nevada Division of Investigations has been asked to handle a complete investigation of the evidence vault to determine what happened to the missing items.

If it is found that there is criminal activity, the case will be submitted for prosecution, Lt. Mike Blackwell said.

Metro and University police have reported missing evidence from their vaults in the past five years, but this is the first report of a problem with the North Las Vegas Police vault in that time period.

Metro Sgt. Michael McKim killed himself in 1993 after he was suspended from his job as supervisor of the evidence vault. Investigators later found more than $250,000 missing from the vault.

Former UNLV Officer Lonnie Barrett was prosecuted in 1994 by the district attorney's office after pilfering more than $4,500 from the university evidence vault to feed a gambling addiction. Barrett was convicted and fined $600.

In 1996 more than $25,000 was taken from the Metro evidence vault by a Metro employee. That money was later recovered when an attorney returned all of the money for a client that remained anonymous.

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