Attorneys for exonerated Lynwood police officer Brian Dorian have said he was the victim of a botched investigation by Will County detectives and prosecutors.
However, even after Dorian was freed and the murder charge against him dismissed,
Will County law enforcement officials said that many signs pointed to Dorian prior to his arrest, and that he waited until days later to provide a credible alibi.
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According to Lake County Police Chief Marco Kuyachich, a Lake County detective and Schererville police officer stopped Dorian within an hour of the Lowell shooting because his truck matched the description of the vehicle -- a white or silver Chevrolet pickup truck -- mentioned in an all-points bulletin.
Dorian identified himself as a police officer and was released because police did not have enough information to hold him, Kuyachich said.
Lake County officials have not confirmed the exact time or location of the stop.
Kaupas, in the interview, connected the dots between that stop and Dorian's arrest.
"At one point,
a Schererville policeman saw the second sketch and said, 'Hey, that's the guy I stopped right after the shootings,' " Kaupas said.
The Schererville officer called Lake County investigators, who contacted Will County detectives, who pulled Dorian's driver's license photo from an Illinois secretary of state's website.
"We put it in a six-pack, a lineup of six people, and took it to the victim witness (the third worker at the construction site), and we asked him,
'Does anybody on there look familiar?' and he said, 'Yes,' and we said, 'Who?' and he pointed to (Dorian's) photograph but stated, 'He looks older now,' " Kaupas said.
Kaupas said investigators checked the date on the driver's license and discovered the photo was 8 years old.
Throughout the rest of the interview, Kaupas revealed many more details, including the following:
-- Illinois secretary of state records showed Dorian was driving a light blue Chevrolet truck.
"That was No. 2 flag," Kaupas said.
-- While watching Dorian's home, detectives questioned a "lady friend" after she left the house.
"She told us that he did, in fact, have said vehicle that we were looking for and at the present time it was at a shop in Lynwood having new tires put on," Kaupas said. "We knew that day that Lake County had shown some kind of a news reel about them trying to take imprints of the tire tracks out at their shooting scene."
-- She also told police Dorian was "rehabbing his house at the time," Kaupas said. "He had drywall lying around and that kind of stuff and that was the comment that was at the Beecher incident." A relative of Garza's told The Times the gunman asked about scrap wood at the construction site before opening fire.
-- Kaupas said witnesses said the gunman's truck had a loud muffler. Dorian's truck has a custom muffler that resembles a vintage model, Kaupas said.
The Will County state's attorney's office thought there was enough evidence to issue a warrant for his arrest, Kaupas said.
Initially, Dorian could not account for his whereabouts from 10 a.m. to 11:40 a.m. on the morning of the shootings, Kaupas said.
Barry, Will County sheriff's spokesman, told The Associated Press that Dorian didn't provide specifics about what he was doing the morning of the shootings until Tuesday, four days after his arrest.
"You have all this circumstantial stuff -- and he won't tell you ... what he's doing," Barry said. "All Dorian would say is that he was watching TV -- and no further explanation."
During questioning, Dorian initially said he left his home about 11:15 a.m. and previously was on his computer and watched some television, Kaupas said. Comcast couldn't provide details of what channels he watched.
Dorian allegedly said he'd been in Indiana, and records from his phone and cell phone towers showed he was near Cedar Lake at one time, Kaupas said.
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A Will County officer drove the route Dorian said he took with lights and sirens on at 85 mph as part of the investigation and had the officer calling in on his cell phone at every mile to check connections with cell phone towers.
Meanwhile, investigators took Dorian's computer and showed the activity on the hard drive stopped at 10:10 a.m. on the morning of the shootings.
Once Dorian revealed he had been on the Internet the morning of the shootings, authorities examined his computer and were able to clear him, Barry said.
Kaupas said that further investigation showed someone was using the computer at 10:25 a.m. on sites that require passwords. The first shooting, at a work site in Illinois, happened at 10:30 a.m. Ballistics from the gun in both shootings matched, meaning Dorian could not have been involved in the later one, authorities have said.
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