Disciplined Deputy: I Thought Blood Was from Nosebleed

The deputy who was for failing to report blood in a vacant unit at the apartment complex said he thought the drops came from someone who had a nosebleed.

Several days later, Jorelys Rivera’s body was found in a Dumpster at the apartment complex. According to an internal affairs report released today, the allegation of Incompetence CSO Policy No. 01-03-02 (f) (10) (d) regarding Deputy Mathew McMullen was sustained.

McMullen lost his place in the agency’s field training program and the incentive pay that accompanied it.

The allegation of incompetence against a trainee who was assigned to McMullen, Deputy Trent Kuykendall, was not sustained, and he was not disciplined.

Jorelys, a  first-grader, was .  was discovered three days after she went missing.

An autopsy found that she likely died 60 to 90 minutes after she disappeared. Jorelys had been , GBI Director Vernon Keenan said during a Dec. 6 press conference.

, 20, a maintenance worker at the apartment complex, was arrested and charged with Jorelys’ murder.

According to the report, McMullen told Lt. Thomas Pinyon that he thought the drops of blood had come from a nosebleed, something Timothy Carr, a member of the search-and-rescue team, also said. The blood was found in a bedroom with an attached bathroom.

“I asked why he never told anyone about the blood,” the report stated. “He said that he thought the girl was hiding or hanging out with friends. He said it appeared that someone was sleeping in the apartment without permission.”

Carr said during the internal investigation that his mission was to find a missing girl.

“He said it never occurred to him that anyone had done harm to her,” the report stated.

Carr said he heard the two deputies talking about a nosebleed and that a Canton firefighter saw blood in the apartment earlier that day.

Sgt. Wess Dixon said there was no “span of control” at the command post, and he couldn’t tell “who was doing what.”

He and his partner, Kendra Chapman, were assigned to search Building 1000. While Dixon started knocking on doors to talk to residents, Chapman found an unlocked door down the hall. In the master bathroom, Dixon saw what he thought to be feces all over the floor and toilet.

“Sgt. Dixon said I should take it easy on the deputies who did not report the blood evidence,” the report stated. “He stated that it did not appear to be ‘that bad’ because he thought the blood was feces.”

McMullen’s supervisor, Sgt. Charlie Brown, said during the investigation that McMullen and Kuykendall had not mentioned anything they had seen in the apartment.

“Sgt. Brown said he did not know that anyone found blood in an apartment,” the report stated.

Brown worked with both deputies the following day, and neither mentioned the blood.

Lt. B. Sims with the Internal Affairs Office said during the investigation that he made sure deputies were dispatched to the right people to assist in the search.

“Lt. Sims said that no one mentioned anything about finding blood in an apartment,” the report stated. “He said he directed officers to the search team to get their assignments. He had no idea blood was found.”

McMullen said he understood his job to be knocking on doors, asking residents if they had any information about the missing girl. He later was assigned to help search vacant apartments.

“D/S McMullen said he never received a briefing on the mission,” the report stated. “He thought they were going to look for the girl hiding in an empty apartment or someone else in a vacant room.”

The building had 25 vacant apartments, and Kuykendall joined in after only a few had been searched.

McMullen said residents had told him that people moving out left trash and other items in the apartment where the blood was found. In that apartment, deputies discovered a king-size mattress with some sort of “sticks on top” and an old leather couch.

McMullen “walked to a bedroom with a bathroom and saw ‘a little blood,’ ” the report stated. “He explained that his thought process was that there was no one in the apartment, and the door was locked by a dead bolt. He didn’t see how anyone could have entered the room and left it locked without a key … and he did not think it was part of a crime. He did not think it looked like something that needed to be reported. He speculated that it was a ‘nose bleed’ or someone cut themselves when they were moving out of the apartment.”

McMullen said he was sorry for not reporting the blood.

“He told me, ‘I guess we came up with our own conclusion there, and we just left because we did not find the girl,’ ” the report stated.

When asked what a deputy should do upon finding such a room, McMullen said, “Probably report it to a supervisor.”

The officer conducting the internal investigation told McMullen he couldn’t understand why he didn’t report the scene.

“I don’t know. We were in and out clearing 20, 25 rooms, and we were looking in stuff and looking for a person,” the report quoted McMullen as saying.

When Kuykendall, the trainee, was interviewed, he said he assumed the scene had been reported. After taking over a post at the front of the apartment complex, Kuykendall said he was told to go with McMullen, Carr and a maintenance man and that when they reached the apartment in question, McMullen said, “There is blood back here.”

When he went back to the command post, Kuykendall said he took a break to wait for his next assignment.

“He thought that the information was reported to the command post by D/S McMullen or the search and rescue member,” the report stated. “He said, ‘I thought it was reported. … I kind of jumped in after they had already started. I just figured they had already established who was documenting what rooms we were going into, what was located where.’ He told me he did not remember seeing that much blood but thought that ‘any blood is blood’ so he assumed it was documented and later reported.”