Gilchrist notified, papers show

By Steve Lackmeyer and Diana Baldwin

Published: June 5, 2002

Newly released documents show an Oklahoma County prosecutor notified fired police chemist Joyce Gilchrist in 1990 of an appellate court opinion that criticized her work in the conviction of Jeff Pierce.

The opinion, which upheld Pierce's conviction in a 1985 sexual assault, determined Gilchrist failed to obey a court order to send all the forensic evidence to an independent lab.

The letter from Assistant District Attorney Martha McMurry reminds Gilchrist she had been provided with a written copy of the opinion during a visit with former First Assistant District Attorney Pat Morgan.

"However," McMurry said, "I wanted you to know that I had not forgotten what a good job you did in this case in spite of all the difficulties which confronted you."

The Feb. 7, 1990, letter was distributed Tuesday to the Oklahoma City Council as proof by Gilchrist's attorney, Melvin Hall, that the chemist's work was highly regarded by police and prosecutors.

Assistant Municipal Counselor Richard Smith said the letter is proof county officials notified the chemist - not city officials - of the court's criticism of her work.

Smith said the "however" used by McMurry indicates someone saw the bad implications in the court opinion.

"The opinion also talks about how everyone assumed her forensics report was accurate. We now know it was not," Smith said.

Former Police Chief Dave McBride, in a 2001 statement to the police review board, criticizes police Capt. Byron Boshell for blaming Gilchrist for all the laboratory's deficiencies over the past 15 years. McBride referred to an internal memo by Boshell, obtained last year by The Oklahoman , which the former chief called a "scathing indictment of all police commanders... six police chiefs ... and six city managers."

The Jan. 16, 2001, memo by Gilchrist's former supervisor called her an incompetent, poorly trained manager of the Oklahoma City police forensics laboratory who lost, destroyed and mishandled key physical evidence and called for her ouster.

"This memo was not about correcting problems, it was about placing blame with all the blame resting on Joyce Gilchrist," McBride wrote.