The May 11 editorial titled "The Death of Jaleeza Lobdell" was highly critical of an ongoing Yakima County Sheriff's Office investigation. I believe the editorial board expressed that opinion without the benefit of having all the facts.

Homicide investigators end up following many lines of inquiry. In this investigation, just one of those many lines of inquiry has been identifying, contacting and interviewing the persons last seen with Lobdell. The investigation has stalled in respect to this particular line of inquiry. Unfortunately, that sometimes happens.

I made some comments when interviewed by the Yakima Herald-Republic in connection with that specific line of inquiry. The editorial board has seized on those comments to criticize the investigation as a whole. However, there are other lines of inquiry that remain open that have not been disclosed or discussed with the media. There are many reasons for this and I believe the public is sensitive to that reality.

The editorial board opined that the "case merits more than casual attention and such nonchalant dismissal." I agree.

Please consider the following information:

* Given the limited resources of the Yakima Sheriff's Office, the usual practice in any homicide investigation is to allow the lead investigator to focus on the homicide for a week, possibly two, without any other assignments. In this incident, the lead detective, Chris Gray, was allowed to work on this investigation almost exclusively for more than four months.

* Detective Gray contacted and interviewed more than 50 people locally in an attempt to identify the victim. Detective Gray received, and followed up on, countless leads from all over Washington state as well as Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana, Arkansas, Utah, Iowa, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Colorado, Michigan, Texas and Missouri.

* Detective Gray was in continuous contact with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children as well as the Washington State Patrol Missing and Unidentified Persons Unit. He worked with the Center for Human Identification at the University of North Texas on DNA testing, as well as DNA Print Genomics, a private company that performed DNA testing to establish an ethnic identification. He has consulted forensic pathologists, odontologists and toxicologists.

* During the process of confirming Lobdell's identity, Detective Gray maintained extensive contact with investigators from agencies in western Washington. These included police departments from Seattle, Federal Way, Tukwila, Puyallup and Tacoma as well as King and Pierce County. He has traveled to the area repeatedly.

* As a result of those efforts, information was received that Lobdell had died of a cocaine overdose and her body was transported to Yakima and burned. Forensic test results tended to confirm that scenario.

A forensic scientist with the WSP Toxicology lab stated that the cocaine level in the victim's blood was consistent with the literature concerning persons who had died as a result of ingesting cocaine. The carbon monoxide levels in the blood indicated that the victim was dead before the body was burned and that the victim had not been strangled or suffocated. The forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsy has concluded that the death was due to homicidal violence, but also said nothing found in the autopsy rules out the possibility that she died of an overdose.

* The editorial decried an investigation characterized by "casual attention" and "nonchalant dismissal." That characterization is not only inaccurate, but also fails to give due credit to the continuing efforts of Detective Gray and other members of the Yakima Sheriff's Office detective division. Those efforts have been, and continue to be, aimed at identifying and prosecuting those persons involved in the death of Jaleeza Lobdell.

* Stew Graham is chief of detectives for the Yakima County Sheriff's Office.