COCAINE MISSING; MISTRIAL DECLARED

Shawnee County District Court officials are trying to figure out what
happened to a small amount of cocaine that disappeared between the end
of testimony Monday and resumption of the trial on Tuesday.

As a result of the disappearance of the drug evidence, the trial of
defendant Joyce Ann Ikiwoho was declared a mistrial Tuesday.

"It's serious, but there's nothing willful," Shawnee County District
Judge Marla Luckert said Thursday.

It has been speculated that the cocaine evidence was mislaid,
inadvertently removed from the courtroom or knocked onto the floor
then picked up as trash, said Luckert, who is hearing the trial. Trial
participants also think the drug evidence may have become sandwiched
between the pages of reports being examined during the trial then
carried out of the courtroom when the reports were closed.

Ikiwoho was charged in July 1999 with possession of narcotics,
possession of drug paraphernalia and no seat belt. Her trial started
Monday and several witnesses had testified by the time court shut down
for the day.

A Kansas Bureau of Investigation chemist Monday had opened a small
manila evidence envelope containing the plastic bag which contained
the cocaine, and one or two police officers had looked at it, all
during their testimony in the case, Luckert said.

According to testimony, Ikiwoho had been the passenger in a car driven
by a relative when it was stopped by Topeka police after the motorist
failed to signal a turn and a lane change. Neither wore a seat belt,
according to testimony. The cocaine was found after the vehicle was
stopped.

However Tuesday, the court reporter, who records the word-for-word
proceedings of a hearing or trial, couldn't find the cocaine evidence
when the trial resumed, said Donna Asher, assistant public defender
who was representing Ikiwoho.

The cocaine, a "rock" weighing one-half gram with a street value of
$20, was stored in a plastic bag measuring less than a square inch,
Luckert said. Police had described the rock cocaine as being smaller
than an eraser on a pencil. An ounce equals 28 grams. Luckert, Asher
and Assistant District Attorney Tony Rues, who was prosecuting the
case, met in a conference, where it was decided a mistrial should be
declared.

At the time it disappeared, the evidence had been admitted into
evidence and was in the custody of the court reporter, Luckert said.

District Attorney Joan Hamilton said Thursday that the drug evidence
in the Ikiwoho case already had been tested by the KBI and said the
disappearance wasn't a matter of drug evidence either being altered or
tainted.