A stash of cocaine worth $25,000 has mysteriously disappeared from the locked vault of a Windsor police station, but the cops say they're pretty sure it was "destroyed."The Windsor Police Service discovered the missing evidence during a drug trial held at the Superior Court earlier this month, according to the Windsor Star.The judge in the case still found the accused, 30-year-old Miles Patrick Meraw, guilty of possession of cocaine for the purposes of trafficking, even though police could not produce the nine ounces of cocaine they seized as evidence. Meraw was arrested in August 2013 and it was learned during Meraw's preliminary hearing in 2014 that police couldn't find the coke.The judge said that the police losing nine ounces of the illicit substance was "troublesome indeed."Read More: The Police Who Sell the Drugs They SeizeWindsor Police Chief Al Frederick says it's probable that the coke was accidentally destroyed, rather than there being any police malpractice at play. He says police discovered the coke had gone missing during an audit of the drug vault on October 30, 2013."September 11 was a scheduled purge," Frederick told the Windsor Star. He said that when a trial concludes, the drugs are no longer needed and are then destroyed."I have full confidence that this was inadvertently destroyed," Frederick said."I trust my officers."Meraw's defence lawyer Ken Marley told the Windsor Star that the missing evidence should have resulted in an acquittal for the case against his client. Marley said the event brings up issues of police accountability, telling the Star it's "suspicious that nine ounces of cocaine would go missing."Lead photo via The Canadian Press.Follow Ankanaa Chowdhury on Twitter.
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