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COVER·UP PHASE I: THE POLICE
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the Foster Care Review Board, the information that I hand
delivered to him, he never went back to interview Loretta
Smith. In one of my telephone conversations with Investigator
Carmean, I remember telling him that this girl was now
reporting homicides, and he said, yes, I need to get out there
and re-interview this girl. ...
[O]ne of my concerns Senator is the conduct of the Omaha
Police Department. I don't know what's going on up there,
I'm not familiar with the players in the Omaha Police Department,
but I know that I hand delivered material to an investigator.
... Investigator Carmean and Investigator Hoch left
my office and they seemed sincere, they seemed that they
were going to investigate these allegations and later it was
as if air had been let out of a balloon, that all of a sudden
they had no interest in even re-interviewing a girl who was
saying that she had witnessed homicides and I just don't
understand it. ...
FCRB Executive Director Carol Stitt testified:
I would like to add something that was highly unusual in
this case. Loretta's psychiatrist contacted the police in
Omaha and asked them to come, Loretta's personal care
worker, Ken Stoner, contacted the police, [Richard Young
employee] Kirstin Hallberg contacted the police, as well as
Adrienne Hart, who is Kirstin's supervisor. All those people
had made contact and nothing was being done....
Not long after after his interview with Loretta, Officer
Carmean was transferred out of investigations altogether, into
a section called Research and Planning. At the same Executive
Board meeting, Senator Ernie Chambers recounted a phone
conversation with Carmean:
When I called [the sexual assault unit], they said he's no
longer here and that's when they told me that he was with
Research and Planning .... I finally ... got him and I mentioned
his enthusiasm at the outset, and that from what I
had developed in terms of creditable information being given
to me, I felt he'd been transferred because he was getting
too close to something and his superiors did not want him
to continue. So there was a silence, then he kind of chuckled,
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