A look inside Spokane Properties Facility | Crime

Where does evidence go when it leaves the scene of a crime? It’s processed into a property facility in east Spokane where local law enforcement store over 150,000 items of evidence. One hallway is dedicated to boxes of evidence from homicides.

Police evidence supervisor Shannon Hallam says they have exactly 1,000 boxes of evidence for 610 cases, a mixture of active or unsolved cases. Even if a case is closed, they have to keep the boxes 100 years following the closure of a case or until the defendant (if there is one) passes away.

The smaller boxes kept on the higher shelves are dedicated to 30-40 year-old homicides. Hallam says they didn’t take as many evidence items because the technology did not exist to analyze them closely. The oldest box of evidence is tied to a 1959 homicide.

They keep the boxes of evidence just in case new technology comes around that allows them to analyze evidence in new ways. Cold cases will remain at the property facility indefinitely.