The detective John Berdin was in charge of Elliott Smith’s case in 2003, and it seems it was not the only case the detective had mishandled. I stumbled on a page about a sordid affair: http://kaiserpapers.org/mydad.html
To summarize it briefly, on September 11 2000, Kaiser Permanente Staff euthanized Adam Wesley Arnold, at the age of 70, against his and his family’s wishes. The Department of Health Services did find Kaiser Health Plan to have been negligent in their lack of medical care and after a lot of delays and tribulations the case went to the LAPD which conducted an investigation.
And this is when Detective Berdin comes into action. It is reported that “they used the cover of their friend Homicide Detective John Berdin to stop an autopsy that the family did request.” Then, still talking about Berdin, the person continues by saying he “had us running all over the country side obtaining information for him. For one year he strung us along and did nothing. In the end he said that he felt sorry for me and that there had never been an investigation.” Later on in the writing of this story, it is again reported that “they set everything up for an autopsy and LAPD’s Berdin again stopped it.”
When the LAPD was again contacted and a new homicide detective was put in charge (since Berdin had retired), the new detective asked to have all of the material put together for him “as there was not a trace that there ever had been a previous investigation.”
Berdin is retired now and another detective is in charge of Elliott Smith’s case. Back in 2004, Berdin said to LAWeekly: “Detectives believe it is a suicide, the wounds that took his life, the evidence, strongly suggest it is self-inflicted. I will look at it objectively because everyone deserves it. I may or may not come to the same conclusion.”
By then the coroner’s report had been released and it was clearly written on it that the mode of death ‘could not be determined’. This is an extract from the report: “ The mode of death is undetermined at this time. While his history of depression is compatible with suicide, and the location and direction of the stab wounds are consistent with self-infliction, several aspects of the circumstances (as are know at this time) are atypical of suicide and raise the possibility of homicide. These include the absence of hesitation wounds, stabbing through clothing, and the presence of small incised wounds on the right arm and left hand (possible defensive wounds).”
Dr Scheinin also told me personally she “would not want to assign the mode of homicide without reasonable cause to do so.” And that “in this case, there was truly no clear cut way to assign the mode of death.”
So what is this belief Berdin is talking about? What are the evidence is he talking about?
Berdin also said detectives believe they have examined all possible theories of the case. “All of the little flags along the way we were looking for that suggest that someone else was responsible never presented itself.”
But the actions of the police when they arrived on the scene on October 21st are really not clear. Once Elliott was rushed to the hospital, the police arrived to question Jennifer Chiba, but what did they do exactly? Did they take pictures of the scene? Did they examine the bloodstain pattern? Was any proper forensic investigation ever done? Nothing in the report says so. Under evidence, it is just mentioned they took a t-shirt, a nail and hair kit. They also took the knife and the supposed suicide note. So there were no little flags to begin with.