The purse contained a couple shredded two dollar bills, various credit cards owned by both Emogene and her son Michael Thompson, a gold colored pulsar watch and many other miscellaneous items.
Michael Chapel, a Gwinnett County Police Officer, was convicted of the murder of Emogene Thompson in 1995 and is serving 2 life sentences for that crime. The prosecution in the case alleged the blood found in his police car came from the purse when Mr. Chapel brought it back to his vehicle after shooting her twice in the head with a .38 revolver.
The Crime Scene Unit report states the purse was tested for blood yet the results came back negative. No latent fingerprints were found on either the purse or it's contents according to the Crime Scene Unit Supplemental report.
The chief investigator for the NPDF, Boris Korczak, commented, 'This is odd that a trained police officer would return to the home of the woman he just murdered, go behind her house and bury her purse for anyone to stumble on.'
The GCPD had also recovered a gun fitting the description of the murder weapon but after wiping the gun off they deemed it necessary to destroy the gun months before the trial began. It was never proven the gun found was actually the murder weapon.