As 2024 winds down and 2025 approaches, there are several pending crime stories in the Santa Clarita Valley likely to continue to develop.  From a local chiropractor who was accused of filming patients to a year-old stabbing to an unsolved murder, here are some of the stories expected to be in the pages of The Signal in the coming months:  The last murder of 2023  Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station deputies responding to reports of shots fired in a quiet residential neighborhood next to a Valencia golf course came upon a man who bled to death on Vista Fairways the morning of Dec. 31.  He was taken out of his vehicle by deputies and treated for his injuries where his truck was parked in the middle of Vista Fairways Drive.  The case demonstrates how and why the wheels of justice can grind quite slowly these days due to a shortage of departmental resources.   An investigator with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department’s Homicide Bureau confirmed officials have been waiting for more than eight months for forensic testing in connection with their look into the murder of 37-year-old Devin Marshall.   Vincent Williams, a 43-year-old Santa Clarita man, was arrested the afternoon of the murder and briefly held in lieu of $2 million bail before he was released in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day 2024. He has not been charged.  No one else has been arrested in connection with the LASD investigation, which is still awaiting the evidence and part of an active investigation, according to homicide officials.  Missing witness  The family of another murder victim is awaiting justice while the Sheriff’s Department and District Attorney’s Office work to shore up a witness list.  SCV Sheriff’s Station deputies arrested Steven Castro, a Canyon Country mechanic, on suspicion of murder at 6:20 a.m. March 12, 2023, less than 24 hours after an altercation outside of Dooly’s Liquor.   While homicide detectives said a murder case was presented to prosecutors, prosecutors charged Castro on March 14 with assault with a deadly weapon, not a firearm.  Castro’s case then went through more than a dozen continuances last year, from April to October, when ultimately a motion to dismiss the case was granted by Judge Pamela Usher in Department G of San Fernando Superior Court, citing Section 1382 of the Penal Code, which guarantees a defendant the right to a speedy trial.  No other arrests have been made in connection with the death.  Evidence in question   A prosecutor said the video evidence against a Valencia chiropractor arrested on suspicion he filmed his patients using the restroom wasn’t strong enough for a jury, in a charge-evaluation worksheet obtained by The Signal.   Detectives with the SCV Sheriff’s Station said they were still actively working on the investigation into Nicholas Vanderhyde, a 41-year-old arrested in June after an employee who found a camera in the bathroom contacted law enforcement.  A detective reported recognizing a man he almost immediately identified as Vanderhyde after looking at the staff listing on the practice’s website.  No other suspects have been arrested and the DA’s office did not have any further information regarding charges at this time.  “The (investigating officer) conducted an extensive investigation, which included a search warrant executed at suspect’s residence, where several electronic devices (phones, computers, hard drives, tablets) were collected as evidence for forensic analysis,” the narrative continues,  “suspect was identified as the possible perpetrator, due to partial capture of a male individual’s face on a few of the recordings, appearing to adjust the camera recording device; the face of this individual resembles the suspect.”   The charge sheet notes a phone conversation in which Deputy District Attorney Jeffrey Greenberg advised the detective that he did not think the footage was good enough. The detective indicated that other avenues of the investigation are ongoing, including analyses of digital devices seized during the service of a search warrant in June.   Vanderhyde also was accused in several pending lawsuits of being the person who planted the camera.  The post Loose ends: Crime stories to continue developing in 2025  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.