Santa Barbara and Mammoth Lake, Calif., authorities will not file charges against UCSD student Peter Butcher, who was arrested earlier this month in connection with three syringe attacks, due to overwhelming evidence indicating he was not in the area of the attacks when they occurred.
On April 12, principle investigators from the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department and District Attorney’s office met with Butcher’s attorneys, who turned over all available evidence placing their client in San Diego at the time of the Jan. 11 and April 5 attacks, both of which occurred in the Santa Barbara area.
Butcher’s attorneys convinced the investigators to delay filing charges until the evidence had been properly considered.
Included in the evidence prepared by Butcher’s legal defense was a list of 17 witnesses who would vouch that Butcher was in San Diego at the time of both attacks. Documentation confirming his presence in San Diego on the dates of the assaults was released to investigators, including a Jan. 11 credit card receipt from a La Jolla pharmacy.
For the next week, Santa Barbara police conducted polygraph examinations of witness testimony and confirmed the time-stamped documents to ensure the validity of the alibi.
On April 18, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department cleared Butcher of the Santa Barbara attacks and apologized to Butcher and his family “”for the hardship and distress caused”” by the arrest. A similar statement was made by Mammoth authorities a day later.
Butcher’s attorneys, Richard Hirsch and Vicki Podberesky, took the unconventional step of turning over the defense’s entire lot of evidence in an attempt to prevent the case from going to trial and causing an even bigger stir in the public eye for what they said were wrongful accusations.
Within a day of Butcher’s April 6 arrest, stories about the case had appeared in news publications ranging from The Boston Globe to a news Web site based in France. Hirsch said that presenting investigators with the evidence before the trial was Butcher’s best chance of being exonerated before what could have become a highly public, possibly lengthy trial.
Although allegations against Butcher had made international news, the faith of his friends went undeterred.
Colin Casper, Butcher’s teammate on the UCSD snowboard team, was one of the people interviewed by investigators. Casper said he never believed the allegations made against his fellow teammate.
“”I was utterly surprised when I first heard about his arrest,”” Casper said in defense of his close friend of four years. “”I knew it wasn’t him. Peter is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. He’s very friendly and generous; there’s no way he would ever do anything like that.””
Hirsch said he wanted to avoid the type of press coverage of his client’s case that had been applied to the FBI investigation of Richard Jewel, the suspected bomber at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Ga., who sued major networks after being assumed the culprit in several newscasts.
“”People are accused through the media all the time of crimes they didn’t commit,”” Hirsch said. “”We have to be very careful before we accuse people of committing crimes until investigations are complete and thorough.””
ERRATA
The April 18 Guardian article titled “”Accused student can’t return,”” written by Daily Nexus staff writer Cameron Balakhanpour, erroneously reported that the Santa Barbara Superior Court ruled that Peter Butcher could not return to school in San Diego. The ruling actually stated that he could return to school immediately but had to return for the May 9 arraignment. We regret the error.