FortBendNow.com

A federal judge in Victoria has refused to dismiss a Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Deputy and bloodhound trainer from a civil lawsuit involving a 2006 murder investigation.

The Feb. 27 order by U.S. District Judge John Rainey, denying a motion by Keith Pickett to be dismissed from the suit, is a blow not only to Pickett but to Fort Bend County, who has been providing his defense in the civil case, through the county attorney’s office.

The suit stems from the death of Sally Blackwell, a 53-year-old Texas Child Protective Services worker who was abducted from her Victoria home and murdered on March 15, 2006.

A 25-year-old Victoria man, Jeffrey Grinsinger, pleaded guilty to kidnapping and killing the woman.

But before Grinsinger’s confession, former Victoria County Sheriff’s Capt. Michael Buchanek was one of at least two people named in local news reports as a “person of interest” in the case.

In June 2008, Victoria attorney Rex Easley Jr. filed a federal lawsuit saying Buchanek’s constitutional rights had been violated.

Easley said in the suit that “improbable cause and factual assertions” in a search warrant were used by Victoria County law enforcement officers, who then “began a course of harassment, distress and terror” upon Buchanek.

Seeking unspecified damages, the suit names as defendants the Victoria County Sheriff’s Department, Sheriff Michael O’Connor, the City of Victoria and several individual law enforcement officials, including Pikett.

Easley contended last summer that Pikett acted with Victoria law enforcement officers to “lead” his bloodhounds from where Blackwell’s body was found to a neighborhood near Buchanek’s house, over a winding 5.5-mile route.

In a second complaint filed in the case, Easley wrote that “scent pads” and documents used to provide Buchanek’s scent to Pickett’s bloodhounds were mishandled and touched by people besides Buchanek. Using “contrived and unreliable methods,” the second compalint alleges, Pickett and Victoria law enforcement officials contrived “to create ‘evidence’ pointing to Plaintiff as the murderer of Sally Blackwell.”

In rejecting arguments by Pikett’s attorney that the dog handler should be dismissed from the case, Judge Rainey said “Buchanek’s operative complaint paints a clear picture of a group of officers intentionally manipulating an early stage investigation in order to set up a suspect. The complaint, in appropriate detail, places Pikett at the front of this effort.”

Pikett couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on Monday. But last summer he defended his work in the Victoria murder investigation.

During the trailing, “the dogs did what the dogs did,” he said, adding, “The reason the dogs have a lot of credibility is because I don’t listen to anybody. We’re not ever going to make something come out the way you want it to come out.”

Fort Bend County Attorney Roy Cordes Jr. said on Monday he believes his office will continue to provide Pikett’s defense in the case, as the deputy was providing law enforcement services in an official capacity, as part of a reciprical agreement with Victoria County.