CHICAGO (AP) – Chicago’s inspector general says police department detectives conducted an “incompetent and incomplete” investigation into the suspicious death of an officer.
Sgt. Donald Markham was found fatally shot in his bedroom in September 2015. Inspector General Joseph Ferguson’s office reported Wednesday that detectives improperly removed Markham’s body, discarded a bloody mattress, failed to test his wife, Dina, for gunshot residue and didn’t bother to interview key witnesses or canvass the neighborhood.
A forensic pathologist hired by the FBI determined Markham’s death was a homicide and the scene staged so that his death would appear to be a suicide.
Ferguson’s office recommended disciplinary action against the officers who conducted the probe. But Lt. Denis Walsh, who supervised the investigation, resigned in 2016 as the department sought to fire him for his actions in another police probe.
Markham widow was found dead in a bathtub in 2017, ending the investigation into her husband’s death.
