The latest local news, weather and high school sports from the Heartland

KIRKSVILLE, MO. -- Adair County Prosecutor Matt Wilson said the Missouri State Highway Patrol's crime lab is hurting his ability to prosecute cases.

According to Wilson, lawmakers have created legislation that increases the number of illegal drugs, forcing more items to be sent to the crime lab.

Wilson said lawmakers have also allowed for budget cuts to the crime lab, which in effect reduces their staffing and ability to hand over lab results in a timely manner.

"You have now increased your illegal class of drugs and that's what happened, " said Adair County Prosecutor Matt Wilson.  "We're also continuing to see more drugs out there and people continue to use drugs. When we're making punishments for driving while intoxicated harsher. We can't afford them to say there's more testing that's going to have to be done and either maintain or reduce the amount of funding."

Wilson said his request to lawmakers is, "if they're going to increase criminality, then increase the funding to enforce criminality."

On June 5, Edina native Tyler Treece, was released on his own recognizance after his trial was delayed. Wilson said the trial had to be delayed because the crime lab took nearly seven months to hand over ballistics results on the gun Treece is accused of using to shoot the 14-year-old victim in the case.

"The delay, which was no fault of our office, of his attorney, both of us were ready to go," said Matt Wilson.  "We just needed one last piece of the puzzle. The Kirksville Police Department, worked very hard, making sure everything was done. Everything was done except that one piece. We can't ignore that correlation between the delay and his release and the lack of report from the lab."

According to Wilson, testing synthetic drugs and bath salts is very time consuming, and therefore backs up other tests the crime lab has to conduct such as: ballistics, and DNA sampling.

Wilson estimates that, on-average, it takes four to eight months for the crime lab to hand over test results to his office. He said this is not only a problem for Adair County, but also several other rural counties across the state. Wilson said the crime lab's test results are critical to his ability to prosecute cases because the results help him solidify or eliminate suspects.