Officer Sean Drenth Death: Phoenix Police Department to Release "Massive Amount of Information" in Coming Days

Officer Sean Drenth

​The Phoenix Police Department is holding a press conference this afternoon to give some context to the "massive amount of information" they plan to release in the next few days regarding the death of Officer Sean Drenth.

According to the department, "There are no new case developments at this point, and the investigation is still titled a 'Death Unknown,'" but they want to provide a summary of the case to this point.

Drenth's body was found shot to death near the State Capitol -- next to his police cruiser -- on October 18. He was on-duty at the time, but was out of contact with his precinct for about 45 minutes before the shooting.

The Phoenix P.D. has been fairly tight-lipped about the investigation, and the medical examiner hasn't said whether it was a murder or a suicide.

There has been speculation that Drenth's death was somehow tied to a time-theft investigation that led up to the indictment of four Phoenix police officers -- Drenth, the PPD has noted, probably would have been indicted himself if he were still alive.

In November, court orders for DNA samples of more than two dozen Phoenix police officers were served in relation to Drenth's death. The officers ordered to turn over their DNA are the same cops investigated in the time-theft scam.

There's speculation that one -- or several -- of the officers investigated may have wanted to off Drenth if he had been cooperating with the investigation.

In December, the department announced that the DNA samples it had analyzed up to that point had turned up no leads.

"As far as DNA evidence goes, at this point in the investigation, there has been no link made between known DNA standards collected and evidence processed to date," Phoenix police Sergeant Trent Crump said at the time. "The overall processing of the evidence and comparative analysis is not complete and is expected to take several months."

It's unclear what the department plans to release that would warrant a press conference, but we'll be there. Check back later to see how it goes.